The expatriate banking community in Asia is exceptionally close, with huge overlap between professional and personal relationships. Most of my good friends work in finance and are colleagues, competitors, or clients.
When one of the more notorious hedge fund managers announces that he’s getting married, it’s a big deal. The wedding party is a competition and demonstration of influence. I remember our boss saying, “Hey, Smithers, I hear your counterpart at Deutsche Bank is one of the groomsmen. Where the fuck are you?” That’s a fairly aggressive way of insinuating that our client must be giving a lot more business to one of our main competitors.
With the Warden, I was never allowed to go to bachelor parties, missing out on trips to Taiwan, Vegas, Bangkok, Jakarta, and a few other “golf weekends.” I did manage to sneak in a Macau stag party under the umbrella of a FBT.
The weekend is a big deal. Bankers and hedge fund managers are flying in from Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, London, and New York. Our home base for the weekend is the Shangri-La hotel in Makati City, an area of metro Manila and the main financial hub of the Philippines. Why would someone want to have a bachelor party in a landlocked swamp turned financial district outside of downtown Manila? The place is crawling with love monkeys.
It’s my first time there. I have a colleague who usually calls dibs on the Manila business trips. Given his infatuation with love monkeys and the fact that he still lives with his parents, I don’t object.
The weekend festivities kick off in local style—a private jitney from the hotel to the Hobbit House. Not to be confused with the Hampton Jitney, a Manila jitney is a semi-open-air hybrid between a taxi and a bus, constructed from old World War II vehicles that the US government abandoned in the Philippines at the end of the war, complete with long bench seating. They have become a ubiquitous symbol of the local culture and tend to be ornately painted and operated by colorful street entrepreneurs. Typically, they are used to haul lower-class people long distances to their soul-crushing jobs, while crammed into an aluminum cattle car and forced to endure sweltering heat, shocking pollution, and agonizing traffic. Tonight, the jitney is like a Disney ride tour of the Valley of Ashes for a dozen investment bankers, most of whom clear seven-figure bonuses.
When our driver pulls into the Shangri-La and sees our group standing there, his eyes light up. He knows he’s in for a night of abuse and torture, but he’ll come away with more than an extra month’s salary in his pocket. After a quick inspection, the first thing we do is send him back out with a handful of pesos to pick up a large cooler, bags of ice, and as many cases of beer as he can carry.
The Hobbit House is a mediocre steak house and bar with live music and performances. Started by a former Peace Corps volunteer, its mission is to provide dignified employment for “little people,” while at the same time creating an homage to and celebrating its founder’s love of J. R. R. Tolkien. There’s been a bit of revisionist history applied to the actual benevolence factor following some local protests and calls for it to be closed down for exploiting and demeaning its employees. Their intentions may be good now—giving dwarfs a place to work and meet other little people in a country where they would otherwise be ostracized—but it hasn’t always been the case, and it doesn’t mean that their customers’ intentions are equally noble.
According to our supposedly well-informed organizer and team leader, this is the place where midgets wear drink trays on their heads and drunken after-hours midget tossing is a nightly occurrence. When our waitress is not amused by our comments about midgets giving blow jobs while standing up, we begin to question his due diligence, as well as our expectations for the evening ahead of us.
As she is taking our drink orders, we test the waters once again. “Check out that pen in her hand. Wow. Let me see that,” a guy shouts while grabbing at her. “No, not the pen. Give me your hand.” He then proceeds to hold it up. “Wow, do you know how ginormous this would make my cock look?” Check please!
Apparently, the Hobbit House isn’t what it once might have been, or perhaps never was. It’s quite possible that we have mistaken it for the Ringside Bar in Makati, home (to this day) of midget wrestling, boxing, tossing and all-around belittling.
Having been abruptly asked to leave, it’s time to jitney over to Burgos Street, the reddest street in the red-light district that is Manila. This is primarily the reason we’re staying in Makati—Burgos Street is a strip of provocative neon lights and poorly lit bars for expats who seek the company of exotic Filipina girls, while watching dance shows and consuming cheap booze. That sounds terrible, and it’s actually much worse than that. Walking around, it’s impossible not to be accosted by door girls, mama-sans, freelance “masseuses,” and other purveyors of the dark arts of Asia. I don’t need to be told how handsome I am every twenty feet; I just want to drink. There is also considerable ladyboy risk—the Philippines is no different from Thailand or much of Southeast Asia in that there are so few opportunities for many destitute people in the rural districts that they send their kids (boys or girls) into the cities to serve as prostitutes.
Parading down Burgos with our group presents a hilarious education for a few of the guys who, having flown in from distant lands, are still somewhat unfamiliar with Asia. They certainly hadn’t expected to be led around by a few Burgos Street celebrities. “Hey-lo, Henry, where you been?” “Bobby, you back so soon. Your favorite girl inside tonight.” That’s like going from New York to a strip club in Tampa and being so memorable that they recognize you six months later.
However, with names like High Heels, Rascals, or Ivory’s Jungle Room, any further education for our newbies is no longer required. I have no recollection of which particular bar we ended up choosing, other than that it was one that came highly recommended by our fearless ringleaders.
The place is heaving with disgusting, degenerate white men ranging in age from backpacking teenagers to Liverpudlian pensioners who’ve chosen to wind down their mediocre existence on this planet living in nihilistic self-indulgence and relative comfort, instead of in some miserable British council estate. Of course, it’s also swarming with love monkeys, all 9s and 10s by Makati standards.
Relying on his experience and expertise, this is where Varun, the head of syndicate at 
, takes over. “How much will it cost for you to kick out every single customer?”
The mama-san thinks for just a few seconds; she’s clearly better at understanding risk (and math) than all of us. “You give me seven thousand US dollar, okay?” In another life, she’d probably make a good bond trader.
“Done. Do you take Amex?” He then turns to the groom. “Congratulations, buddy. This is my wedding present to you.”
They shoo out all the riffraff, without allowing any “takeout,” and then lock the doors so that it’s just the twelve of us and thirty or forty girls. It’s an open bar, with clothing optional and the “dibs” rule in effect.
My first move is to send one of the girls out to buy some plastic cups and Ping-Pong balls, which are unsurprisingly easy to find in Makati. I make sure she knows to invite our jitney driver back with her to come in and help himself. The Philippines is 98.5% Catholic, but he doesn’t seem to require much convincing.
After Beer Pong slowly descends into stakes that are too punitive and sordid to recount, we move on to Liar’s Dice. But we play that every weekend in Hong Kong, and it’s too hard to stop the girls from signaling to each other. I don’t blame them for cheating. After Beer Pong, they’re petrified of the consequences of losing.
Next up is Love Monkey Bowling, which doesn’t require much explanation, other than to say that we slick down the bar with a layer of cooking oil, and then take turns sliding the naked girls down it, aiming them at impromptu bowling pins in the form of ketchup bottles.
As the “dibs” start to kick into effect, it becomes harder for us to maintain the focus of the group, and therefore impossible to complete any more games without teammates or competitors sneaking off to dark corners for their own game of Doctors Without Borders.
This is where I take charge of a small group, mostly the out-of-towners, who seem less disposed to channel their inner Colonel Kurtz. They haven’t been off the plane for five hours yet and this is how day one has started.
I’m going to dial things back a notch or two and take them to the Casino Royale. “Yes, of course it’s just like the James Bond movie.” As we are leaving the bar, we each grab a love monkey to take with us for good luck. Might as well—they’re already paid for, and altruistically speaking, they’ll be safer with us.
By the exit, we see Varun, having not bothered to search for a dark corner, with a wide grin on his face. He’s got a drink in each hand, a girl under each arm, and another on his lap. “T.I.A., baby. T.I.A.” The acronym from the movie Blood Diamond—“This Is Africa”—had long since been appropriated as “This Is Asia.”
As I knew it would be, the casino is disgusting. “Sorry, chaps. It’s not Monte Carlo, but tonight, it’ll have to do.” I can tell that they don’t really want to be there, but I just want to gamble. We start off together at the baccarat table and then gradually jump around in search of blackjack, more drinks, and better luck.
One by one, my compatriots pull the Fenwick Exit and slink away unnoticed. The Fenwick Exit is like the Irish Exit but with a love monkey clinging to your arm.
I end up hitting it big, relatively speaking, considering that I started with about US$1,000 in peso equivalent. Here I am walking away with US$10,000. My only problem at this point is that the payout is all in pesos; it’s such a shitty casino that the government-issued gaming license stipulates that they must operate entirely in local currency. My problem is exacerbated by the fact that the highest-denomination banknote is only ₱1,000, or approximately US$20, leaving me with stacks of tired, dirty, well-circulated bills.
Pockets bulging, I head back to the hotel with my lucky charm in tow. Given my success at the tables, calling her a love monkey at this point would almost be degrading. Almost.
I have no concept of time (I had gambled until nearly 8 a.m.), so walking back into the hotel, I run into a few of our group already convening for breakfast and Bloody Marys in the lobby bar.
Feeling charitable once again, I drop my lucky charm off upstairs in my room so that she can at least enjoy the amenities. She’s absolutely shocked that I have no interest in fucking her but is quickly distracted by the Frette bathrobe and the rain shower. With that, I lock my valuables in the safe (rookie move—I should have done it when I first checked in) and then head back downstairs, pockets still bulging. After all, I’ll need the bricks of cash as props to explain my early disappearance the previous night.
We spend an hour or so drinking in the lobby bar, waiting for the full group to emerge in time for our scheduled brunch. A few wake-up calls, a few more Bloody Marys, and a trip to the bathroom for a quick bump, and we are off through an interconnected series of walkways and office building atriums to the nearby Greenbelt, Manila’s version of an upscale shopping mall.
Brunch is remarkably civilized, complete with pitchers of mimosas and bottles of good wine. Relief washes over the newbies; this weekend isn’t going to be a complete descent into Hell.
Three hours and one crazy game of credit card roulette later, we are walking back through the mall contemplating our next move. Standing on the top floor overlooking the expansive atrium below, we stop and admire the hordes of locals schlepping across the ground level. We openly compare this view to that of the throngs of admirable and selflessly hardworking Filipina helpers who crowd the sidewalks of Hong Kong every Sunday, sitting in their cardboard box forts while playing cards and giving each other manicures on their only day off. In the context of this fleeting, drunken, yet philosophical discussion about income inequality, I am reminded of the fact that I have roughly five hundred ₱1,000 notes casually weighing my cargo shorts halfway down my ass.
I decide to unbundle one of the stacks and nonchalantly drop a bill over the edge of the third-level railing, against which we are all leaning. The bill flutters around magnificently as it makes its way slowly down, catching the invisible currents that push it ever so gently one way or the other. No one notices until it’s about twenty feet off the ground, at which point it catches the attention of just one guy. He watches very hesitantly, clearly discounting the likelihood of this falling object being anything other than a worthless piece of paper, but also hedging his bets by tracking its final movements such that it comes to rest at his feet.
“Well, that was too subtle.” This time, I take three banknotes and discreetly let them slip out of my hand. Once again, the slow and unpredictable flutter is a joy to watch. The first guy spots them right away. Unfortunately for him, he’s unable to mask his excitement, and a couple of other people immediately stop to see what he is staring up at. He continues with determination, stumbling around, tracking the erratic movement of the falling bills, trying to decide which one he should home in on.
Now, we’re getting somewhere. The three lucky recipients thus far, still somewhat confused and unable to ascertain the money’s source, are now fixated on the heavens above. This time, I decide to drop five banknotes, once again discreetly enough as to not provide any proof of my existence.
At this point, I’ve only managed to get the attention of about a dozen people, all of whom have their eyes glued to the sky as real money inexplicably continues to rain down. With them entranced by the fluttering movement of the bills and battling the blinding sun that is shooting through the atrium’s glass roof, I drop a few more bills. And then a few more. Finally, I have managed to get the undivided attention of a meaningfully sized crowd, all while remaining undetected.
There are whistles, claps, and cheers. People in all directions, having attempted to figure out what the hell is going on, are beginning to descend and gather below us. Money continues to rain down with a slow but increasing frequency. The security guard working the door at the Adidas shop abandons his post and sprints across, making a leaping grab over the outstretched arms of a meek woman. A few of the retail employees, at the risk of losing what is by their standards a great job, come charging out of their respective stores and join the growing fray.
I respond to the crowd, now more than fifty strong, this time with a cluster bomb of bills in short bursts. Things are starting to get crazy. Hands and eyes to the sky, people are running around chaotically as the breeze pushes the money back and forth, up and down, in all directions. Angst and frustration grow as they contend with the overwhelming task of choosing where to place their focus, not to mention the agony of repeatedly coming up just short. The stakes are high. One rather large, overzealous woman fails to see a bench that takes her out at the knees, sending her tumbling headfirst onto the unforgiving granite floor. “Fuck. I wish I had a camera” rings out from the Wall Street peanut gallery. A young girl, no older than six or seven, having spotted an outlier, patiently tracks the lone bill as it drifts away from the crowd. We’re rooting for her; it’s now within mere feet of her small hands. Boom! A huge brute broadsides her at full speed with a hit that would cost him fifteen yards in the NFL. Instead, he’s rewarded with a day’s pay.
To me, this is a social experiment or maybe some kind of performance art. But I can’t help it if a dozen drunk white guys in polo shirts, khakis, and Havaiana flip-flops are laughing their asses off. A few of them have now decided to join in on the action. I hand out bills by the handful; it’s like we’re feeding pigeons in the park, and I’m the only kid who brought birdseed.
All discretion and subtlety on our part is now gone; we’re laughing, pointing, and gesticulating wildly in full view of the crowd below. The crowd goes wild; there are now well over a hundred people who have gathered below us. I decide to cap things off with a bang, throwing out thirty or forty ₱1,000 bills at once—a finale of Fourth of July proportions.
Perfect timing to wrap it up. In my periphery, I can see three cops and two security guards running toward us. Were they coming direct to the source for a handout? No. They were coming to arrest us for “inciting a riot.”
After a short conversation, we’re able to help them understand how and why arresting any of us is just not an option. So they “decide,” with our help, that the best course of action is for them to escort us back to our hotel “for our own safety.” It makes sense now that a large crowd of people has made its way up to our level, and my pockets are still visibly full.
No sweat; my plan had been to do some more hotel drinking and then take a nap or hit the spa ahead of yet another big night. We return to the hotel lobby with a police escort.
After a few more hours of drinking within the safe confines of our hotel, it’s my bedtime. “I’m calling it. It’s three p.m. right now; I’ll see you back here in four hours.”
, the head of sales at 
, flags down the head concierge and waves him over. “Excuse me, good sir. I’d like to go up to my room to lie down, but I believe there might still be a love monkey in my bed. Is there any way you could have security check for me and remove her as required? Room 1408.”
“But of course, sir. That is not a problem.”
“The lone Yank on the trip is amazed. “What? They do that? That’s fucking genius.”
Never to be outdone, Varun pipes, “Room 1202 also, please. But you might want to bring some help. There were two of them, and they were pretty feisty.”
This completed the “Day One: Steak Dinner” portion of our itinerary.
Most of us are totally unfazed by the antics thus far; it had long since become our reality. Even the first-timers who had, just hours prior, been terrified at the prospect of the Burgos Street love monkey lock-in, are now leading the charge. “Come on, boys. Naps are for pussies.”
I’m not sure if we had lost our equilibrium, or found it. But I did know that resistance was futile.
Fuck the nap.
Up next: “Day Two: Dancing Girls.”
These are a few of my stories. All bankers have stories just like them, with some variation of degree. Although I am happy to have retired from banking and am now focused on my family, I certainly enjoyed the years I spent on Wall Street, and remain unapologetic for all that I saw and did. I enjoyed the fuck out of it.
Most of the people mentioned in this book have moved on to more senior positions at the biggest and most prestigious firms in the world. They’re held in high esteem by a society that values wealth and success. They’re wielding influence in Washington. They’re sitting on the boards of Fortune 500 companies. They’re taking Communion. They’re leading philanthropic initiatives. They’re married to your daughters.
I will certainly concede that the industry has changed in the time since many of these stories took place. Balance sheets are smaller. Risk appetite is diminished. Compensation and incentive structures have changed. That has undoubtedly impacted the culture. Many of the colorful, big swinging dick characters have left the trading floor for the buy side, entrepreneurial initiatives, or just the beach.
But I know that if I’m on a plane to Hell, the first-class cabin will be full.
John LeFevre has enjoyed a distinguished career in international finance. He joined Salomon Brothers immediately out of college and worked in New York, London, and Hong Kong. In 2010 he was hired by Goldman Sachs to be head of debt syndicate in Asia, a position that he eventually did not take due to a contractual issue. He is a regular contributor to Business Insider and has been interviewed by the New York Times, CNN, the Financial Times, and other outlets.
