Single entendre

Yes, I plan to blog about ALA Annual in New Orleans. No, this isn’t that post–or the first of those posts. Other stuff to catch up with first. But I couldn’t resist…

On the back page of the Datebook section (entertainment, editorials, columns, reviews) in today’s San Francisco Chronicle is an article from Hong Kong: “Plan for Bruce Lee museum stalls again.” The caption on a picture:

Now an hourly motel, the former Hong Kong home of Bruce Lee won’t be turned into a tribute to the star.

“Hourly motel”? First I thought “hot-sheets motel.” But I thought I might be jumping to conclusions–after all, some Asian airports and cities have these places with larger-than-coffin-size cubicles you can rent to get a few hours of sleep. Maybe it’s perfectly innocent…

So then I read the story, and the relevant sentence:

Their hopes appeared to be answered two years ago when the Hong Kong government and the owner of Lee’s former home reached an agreement to convert the property–a two-story house currently used as an hourly love motel–into a museum.

Love motel?

So I was right the first time around–except that “love motel” strikes me as an extreme euphemism, at least for what I suspect is a majority of the use to which a property like this is put. (OK, I’m sure there are times when “get a room!” translates into actual love-making in hot-sheets motels, not just sex. But I’d guess that’s not true most of the time.)

I wonder what Bruce Lee would think of all this?

 

One Response to “Single entendre”

  1. ash966 says:

    Well Betty Ting Pei claimed to be his mistress and he died in her apartment . . .

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072745/

    I only know of love hotels from anime and manga, didn’t know they had migrated to Hong Kong:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_hotel