Mystery Shopping in Sangria Island Gay Club (4th May, 2012)

Last time when I had gone for mystery shopping to Blue Boy gay bar, there were no volunteers and hence my assessments were based on the general views on PTF, safe sex and things related to these lines. I was very excited for my trip this time to Sangria Island gay club since I had two friends with me- a Chinese girl called Sabrina Zhou and the new Korean intern Inhye Park. We had reached by 1am since we found it a little hard to get the taxi. Sadly, by the time we entered, we realised that the PTF volunteers were leaving. Nevertheless, we talked to so many people and found out so many things.

 On asking around about the volunteers, many of them replied “No, I don’t know what you are talking about” or “OMG! Do they do such things here in KL bars?” All three of us separated and went in different direction to ask around more questions and find out surprising opinions. We all managed to ask some more people, some of the common responses by the people who had seen the volunteers were “Oh ya, they just stand there and give out the condoms, never talk to us”, “We never bother to read what they write, such a waste of time reading so much. Wish they write just a few sentences”, “I think they need to be more friendly and look a lot more approachable”, “they should do more work inside the club and not stand outside most of the time”, “oh, they do surveys, I thought they just give condoms”, “they should find other places instead of clubs, we are here for having fun and not to fill surveys”. There were also some positive responses where people really appreciated the effort made by them and some of them wished to volunteer themselves.

On asking questions of improving the services from Pink Triangle volunteers, the responses I got are summarised in the following passage:

-          Personality matters when you want to approach people easily.

-          Please don’t put so much information; no one will bother to read. Not more than five to six lines.

-          Try and come inside the club to find more clients.

It was a great experience. We spent a total of 104 RM including entry for two people and cab charges.

Hope to visit more such clubs before I leave and train the future foreign interns to continue this tradition. I thank Raymond and Ivan for giving me such an amazing experience and opportunity.

Regards,

Prithvi Raj

Intern from India.