By George Tsai
The Red Rose at 46-22 Kissena Blvd. generated banner headlines in local media after a 33-year-old patron and a worker at the club were shot dead, and another woman was wounded in the wee hours of the morning July 30.One of the women shot was a public relations worker at the Red Rose, but her title has different meaning from what one would normally associate it with. The primary mission of public relations girls, or PR girls, falls into three categories – accompanying patrons in drinking, in singing and in chatting in a small room of sorts, according to the Ming Pao, a Chinese-language daily.The women apparently were not the targets. They were perhaps in the wrong place at the wrong time.The club is no stranger to brawls, and the night spot has changed hands several times in recent years, according to the Sing Tao daily, also a Chinese-language newspaper in New York.The Red Rose probably did beef up its security to a certain degree after a shooting in January. The two victims could have been alive today if stiffer measures had been put into practice at the club.Bouncers can deter some troublemakers but cannot read criminals' minds. The best way to boost security is to install a metal-detection device to make sure no one carries weapons. The tragedy has caused jitters among nightclub-goers and sent shock waves across the Asian community.The motives for the killings are still unknown, but some reports linked the shootings to business rivalry in a long-distance bus operation from New York to Ohio.In a basement with a small entrance door, the Red Rose is considered a popular club of its kind with more public relations girls than its competitors in town, reports said. Some of the women are in their 30s.In Queens, such clubs are mushrooming to meet the demand of the increasing number of lonely souls. Downtown Flushing alone has more than 100 of them, mostly catering to men.The rapid growth of this type of nightlife fixture is attributable to the swelling number of new immigrants; most of them came here as singles, leaving loved ones behind. To many of them, a family reunion in this part of the world is but a waking dream. This peculiar situation, of course, can be applied to new immigrants of all ethnicities.These people need relaxation after a long day of hard work, and nightclubs are where they can hobnob with those speaking the same language and dialects to ease their homesickness.To the majority of the new arrivals English is a foreign language. Therefore, despite Queens' proximity to Manhattan, only a small number of them seek diversions in the city's popular entertainment institutions such as Broadway theaters, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall or go to movies at local cinemas.Unable to enjoy mainstream entertainment, they have to choose nightclubs and bars their fellow ethnic folks operate. These clubs provide a wide spectrum of activities, including karaoke and dancing. Fun-seekers can even find mates for a romantic night.Of course, patrons have to pay for the girls' companionship. On the average, the paper said, a PR girl could make as much as $1,000 a day. It's a lot of dough, isn't it? Some even offer other services and earn extras, the daily added.Most of the city's PR girls converge on Flushing, a thriving metropolis that has gained notoriety for its nightlife among the Asian immigrants on the East coast. Flushing seems no longer the car-theft capital, a stigma that had dogged the new immigrants' paradise for years.Who are these young women? Surprisingly, some of them are students doing graduate work in the region's colleges and need to pay tuition, rent and other bills. Some are illegals wanting to make big bucks to pay off the snakeheads, or illegal immigrant smugglers, who helped them gain entry into the United States. Still others find the work too lucrative to ignore.On the negative side, however, quite a few have grown accustomed to such a lifestyle with lax morals. With attractive incomes, some have allegedly become addicted to drugs.It's also sad that easy money sometimes subjects them to taunts, harassment and physical harm, the paper said. Moreover, these women have to hide their glitzy nightlife from their families and friends. They have to live a double life until they call it quits.
