Lonely this New Year? Hire a girlfriend
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Several new services are now available in Vietnam, including escorts.
Though first offered a year ago by Vinamost, a Hanoi company, it is only attaining popularity now.
The company provides an employee to play the role of a boyfriend or girlfriend but there are strict do’s and dont’s -- no kissing, no rude words, and definitely no hanky-panky.
However, holding hands like lovers is acceptable.
Pham Xuan Huy, deputy director of Vinamost, said several customers and employees have become sweethearts for real after using the escort service.
It costs VND800,000 (US$40) for three hours on ordinary days or more on Christmas and New Year depending on the cases.
“During Christmas this year, we had more than 30 customers,” Huy said.
Vinamost manages 450 employees, including 300 women, mostly college or university students who must meet strict requirements about height (1.6-1.9 meters) and level of education so as to be able to communicate clearly and speak a foreign language fluently if and when the circumstances demand.
Huy says the company guarantees the safety for both the customer and the employee.
Besides strict terms of compliance the customer has to abide by in the contract, Vinamost also secretly sends security guards to protect its employees, especially women, during a rendezvous.
Students working part time as 'girlfriends'
Buying food, cooking
If you need something more practical than just intellectual or emotional companionship, other services, such as buying grocery and cooking meals for your family, are also available for hire.
For busy working women, especially, the availability of domestic help by the hour is a godsend.
Thanh Hoa, who works for a real estate company in Hanoi from 8 am to 6 pm daily, had no time to even make food for her family.
"Sometimes my husband and I quarreled because of the delay in making food and the quality,” she said.
Then she found Thuan to cook for her. She knew about her through one of her friends and has been using her for nearly two years.
Initially, she was worried about the service quality but that soon changed to delight and Thuan now goes to the market to buy grocery and foodstuffs and cooks for her family.
She gets paid VND20,000 (US$1) a day -- and VND600,000 a month -- for an hour’s work. “This extra income together with my monthly salary [from another family] helps me cover my living costs here and my family’s back home,” she said.
Phuong, a university student, said her life has improved in the last two years after she started providing the service in Cau Giay District, Hanoi.
She gets VND40,000 and dinner for cooking for a family of four and cleaning the house from 5pm to 8 pm.
She gets an additional VND10,000-VND20,000 if there are guests.
She sometimes works for three families, cooking lunch for one and dinner for the others, getting VND15,000 and hour on average.
