Reading about san francisco's first chinese sex worker, Ah Toy.
She arrived in 1849 from Guangzhou.
"She was unusually tall for a Chinese woman, with delicate, bound feet and a slender boding and laughing eyes. She was 'strangely alluring', as one admirer later put it."
"Her first place of business [..] was in an alley off Clay Street, between Dupont and Kearny Streets. The line of men often stretched down the block. After disembarking their steamboats from the interior, miners would often break into a run to claim a spot. The men paid Ah Toy with an ounce of gold dust, which she carefully weighted. In return, she gave men a chance to 'gaze on her coutenance'"
Her lover was John A. Clark, the leader of a special task force.. investigating prostitution in the city.
(From the book "Strangers In The Land")