Market Scene : At Hong Kong’s War Games Club, Training Is Basic : * Toy guns and gelatin ammunition are the stuff of military fantasies at an ex-FBI agent’s private battlefield.

Bright rays of sunlight filter through the cracks in the walls, painting the gutted building with soft colors. In a crowded room sits Leo Wan, a 32-year-old hairstylist who has been trained to wash, cut and dry 25 heads of hair a week.

By the weekend, Wan is looking for a little excitement in his life, and he is not afraid to break one of his immaculately manicured fingernails in the process.

So on a recent Saturday, Wan was one of 18 young men dressed in camouflage fatigues sitting attentively before a steel table covered with an assortment of combat weapons. Behind the table stood brawny Fred Yau, a 39-year-old Chinese-American and a former FBI agent.

In this city of wealth and opportunity, Yau has turned in his badge and is doing what comes naturally. He has opened his own business. And his business is war games.

Yau divided Wan and the other young men into two opposing teams with missions: The “cops” are to ambush a notorious criminal gang hiding in an abandoned fortress while the “robbers” defend their hide-out. Their weapons are toy air guns called Splatmasters, loaded with colored gelatin pellets for identifying different teams. Yau surveys the private battlefield at his War Games Club as Hong Kong’s first recreational war games begin.

“In the States, people have the opportunity to join the military service. But in Hong Kong, no such national service exists,” Yau said.

Ricky Tam, 39, is an engineer who has always dreamed of becoming a soldier. “When I was a kid, I wished for a chance to learn military skills. Now I have the opportunity to fulfill my childhood fantasy,” Tam said.

Yau left Hong Kong 21 years ago to become a student in San Francisco. He has a long history of military training to add to the credibility of his new war games venture. Besides being an FBI agent, he was also a U.S. Marine instructor and a member of a San Francisco area Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team.

He returned to Hong Kong in 1988, he said, as an undercover agent in an operation that led to busting some of the biggest drug smuggling rings operating on both sides of the Pacific.

His club has already attracted more than 600 people from all walks of life to play grown-up “cops and robbers” games on a 42,000-square-foot site. Yau hopes to increase his rolls to 2,000 members.

A lifetime membership will vary in cost from $1,300 for individuals to $2,000 for families and $4,700 for groups. The fee entitles each member to use club facilities and to attend basic infantry training.

Yau’s $780,000 venture is already becoming a fraternity.

“Eighty percent of my applicants are males who will probably come to the club alone, leaving spouses and children behind instead of including them in the fun,” he said.

Yau is trying to broaden his membership base and attract family members by offering a clubhouse, swimming pool and snack bar, which are expected to be completed by the end of this year.

The club will offer a variety of scenarios to be staged by the players, such as hostage-takings, hijackings, search-and-destroy missions and ambush raids.

To play the games, members will be divided into groups of four, called fire teams. Three teams will make a squad and two squads will make a class, or game.

Yau said the games are not only a physical challenge but also a mental challenge, which will encourage confidence, team spirit and leadership. Advanced courses in leadership skills will be offered to members who successfully complete the basic training program given by Yau and two former British military personnel.

Yau has ordered about $260,000 in games equipment and gear, mostly from the United States. Depending on the demand, he anticipates ordering at least a few thousand Splatmasters and over half a million brightly colored pellets.

U.S. Army camouflage uniforms are not mandatory, but Yau is doing all he can to make them available to his members.

“U.S. Army surplus suppliers in the States are having difficulty filling my order of mostly small sizes. Even I wear a small and I’m pretty big compared to most Hong Kong Chinese,” he said.

Yau is using his U.S. business connections to win distributorships for all of Asia. He represents Splatmasters, manufactured by National Survival Games in New Hampshire, and plans to sell his war games venture to Japan, Taiwan and eventually to most of Asia’s developed countries.

He will market his product to the general public and look for corporate clients. “I have always had this idea in the back of my mind to combine management training courses with a little fun and games to make it more interesting,” said Yau, who plans to attract corporations to the club during the week while leaving it open to the public on the weekends.

Market research on the venture began in 1990, a year after Yau left the FBI.

“Our market research shows that there are more than 2,000 people in Hong Kong at the moment playing their own version of war games,” Yau explained.

These war games enthusiasts are a mixed bunch who meet on the weekends to act out ambushes using BB-guns in the hills near the Hong Kong-China border.

Rebecca Po, 24, hopes her boyfriend will turn in his BB-gun for a Splatmaster. “My boyfriend didn’t tell me he played war games with BB-guns on the weekends. I only knew that he had a lot of round welts on his arm,” Po said.

Hong Kong’s assistant secretary to the Security Bureau, Patrick Chan, said, “The new War Games Club may provide a legitimate outlet for these weekend players, who will be wearing protective clothing and will be instructed under careful supervision.”

Wan couldn’t agree more. “I have organized a group of about 40 people to play war games with BB-guns every weekend. We play just for fun, but a fight always breaks out because there are no defined rules or basic training,” Wan said.

“I want to learn how to use a weapon like ‘Rambo,’ and Fred (Yau) will give me that chance,” he added, carefully brushing the Splatmaster gelatin from his stylish haircut.