Notes on Thailand
We had a 5-week break in February which I used to go to Thailand with some fellow instructors. It was awesome and will remain one of the most memorable experiences of my life. As beautiful as it was it also made me a little sad. I couldn't help but feel us western tourists exploit the local people. I know a large part of the Thai economy is from tourism but still...
Going to Thailand challenged my perception of things more than going to China. For example prostitution. Go into any bar and almost any Thai guy or girl you may meet there is in the market. Why do they do it? Well most girls have one or two kids back in their home village and family is very important there. Rather than making squat working in a rice field girls leave to work in the vacation hotspots.
I met the first girl within three hours of landing in Bangkok and she approached me while we were at an after hours club. I must say I don't get approached by women much so it was very flattering. The next morning I asked her if I owed her anything but she said it wasn't about money, she just wanted to be with me. We ended up spending about ten days together and I took her with me to Krabie; the entire time we were together she didn't need to spend a cent. After our time together I was to go onto Phuket and decided to go alone, I find you can experience things differently if you aren't with anyone. Also to be fair she just wasn't right for me. We had a great time but I could see that in the end it was about money...just not cash up front. See a lot of these girls hope to find a foreigner who's nice to them and perhaps one day marry them and help out their family. I just couldn't be that person.
So after Bangkok and Krabie the next stop for me was Patong Beach in Phuket. It was nice though very busy with tons of European tourists. I was there for a week and ended up meeting a guy there, the owner of a gay club I was going to. So yeah, good time. I also discovered that it's perfectly ok to start drinking at one of the many outdoor bars at 10:30 in the morning.
Next up was a brief three days in Koh-Phangean where I met up with one of the teachers I started the trip out with. We hit up the Black Moon party which is basically a big rave on the beach. It was here that I stayed in the best hotel. It was this beautiful resort on a cliff overlooking the ocean.
After that I went onto Koh-Samui (Koh means island btw). It was there that I met the most awesome girl who pretty much changed a lot of misconceptions I had about things. If the first girl I met in Bangkok wasn't outright prostitution this certainly was. It started with me going into a place called Club 69, it was a pole dancing club. So I sit down planning to have a drink and just enjoy the show like the pig I am. The first question I'm asked by the waitress is what girl do I want. At first I just wanted the drink but there was this one girl who was dancing who kept smiling at me. Even after her set was over she still smiled at me from across the club. So I have the waitress call her over and I buy her a lady drink. Now a lady drink it a drink that costs me double, the girl gets a cut, the bar gets a cut, and I get the company of a lovely lady; everybody wins. There was just one problem...she only knew a few words of English (which is pretty rare for Thailand). One of her fellow dancers/friends says I can take her home for such and such a price or for less can just take her upstairs (or I could also take both of them upstairs). I chose to take her home.
Now at this point I'm sure anyone reading this is appalled at me, assuming I'm a pig who's supporting the sex trade and exploiting women. I really have no argument against that. What went through my mind though is here's a beautiful girl who wants to go home with me (for the money) and I'm someone who won't mistreat her. At least with me she'll be safer than she might be if she chose to go home with someone else. I originally planned to only be in Samui for a couple of nights but after meeting her I decided to stay a whole week. The second night there I went back to the club and talked to the owner saying I wanted to have her with me each night I was there. We worked out how much I would pay her and also how much I'd pay the bar; to take a girl out of a bar you must pay a bar fine which is another way the club makes money. When this girl discovered that I wanted her to be with me for a full week...well I've never seen anyone so happy. We didn't talk much because of the language barrier but I felt a lot for her, perhaps I even loved her. I cried one night because I was worried for her safety given the line of work that she's in. Our last night together we held each other and cried. No one has treated me as well as this girl, she even ran out and bought me medicine and fruit one night I was sick. We still keep in touch with email but I doubt I'll ever see her again.
I got to know some of her friends while I was there since every night would start with me picking her up at the bar and paying the bar fine. We'd sit at the club and drink, I'd buy her and her fellow dancers lady drinks so they made some money off of it. I went to the beach one day with her and a friend. The friend told me that when she first came to Samui she worked the graveyard shift at a 7 Eleven making around 8000 baut a month. Working in a bar as a dancer and going home with the occasional guy she makes 40,000 baut a month. When all they want to do is make money to send home to the family you can see why these girls do it.
Being with this girl in Samui I got a taste of what it's really like to be wanted. Looking at my own relationship history I see how I've always been the one to start things off, to perhaps waste my time perusing dead ends. After this experience though....no more. If someone wants to be with me they had better show it. Yes I know in the end this was probably all about money. But maybe, just maybe this girl really did care for me. Maybe love is defined differently in Asia. We have these grand romantic notions in the west but here it seems if a girl meets a guy she likes, and he's good to her and provides for her than it's enough.
Let me put this in contrast. Shortly before I left for China I met a girl who I really liked. We met at a friend's wedding but the irony is she lived only a block down from me the whole time I was living in North Van. It started out with coffee and getting together to watch a movie but the weekend before I left for China I spent the night (and then the whole weekend) with her. I didn't want to leave for China at that point but I had no choice. She has a six year old child but that didn't even bother me. When I got out here we kept in touch, we'd have these three hour conversations on MSN and got to know each other really well. I even told her I wanted to come back to Vancouver during my February break to get to know her better and see where things were going. Then one day she sends me an email saying she's uncomfortable with the direction our relationship is going. We haven't talked much since then even though I'd like to. Communication just sort of dried up. I don't blame her, I am in China after all. But if I was the same way with this girl in Thailand, if I had felt the same way, if I (God forbid) asked her to marry me... she would have said yes without a moment of hesitation. It wouldn't have been “oh, I'm not sure of my feelings” or “I'm not sure what I want with my life”. I'm not saying that one way of thinking is wrong or right but it is a pretty stark contrast.
Going to Thailand challenged my perception of things more than going to China. For example prostitution. Go into any bar and almost any Thai guy or girl you may meet there is in the market. Why do they do it? Well most girls have one or two kids back in their home village and family is very important there. Rather than making squat working in a rice field girls leave to work in the vacation hotspots.
I met the first girl within three hours of landing in Bangkok and she approached me while we were at an after hours club. I must say I don't get approached by women much so it was very flattering. The next morning I asked her if I owed her anything but she said it wasn't about money, she just wanted to be with me. We ended up spending about ten days together and I took her with me to Krabie; the entire time we were together she didn't need to spend a cent. After our time together I was to go onto Phuket and decided to go alone, I find you can experience things differently if you aren't with anyone. Also to be fair she just wasn't right for me. We had a great time but I could see that in the end it was about money...just not cash up front. See a lot of these girls hope to find a foreigner who's nice to them and perhaps one day marry them and help out their family. I just couldn't be that person.
So after Bangkok and Krabie the next stop for me was Patong Beach in Phuket. It was nice though very busy with tons of European tourists. I was there for a week and ended up meeting a guy there, the owner of a gay club I was going to. So yeah, good time. I also discovered that it's perfectly ok to start drinking at one of the many outdoor bars at 10:30 in the morning.
Next up was a brief three days in Koh-Phangean where I met up with one of the teachers I started the trip out with. We hit up the Black Moon party which is basically a big rave on the beach. It was here that I stayed in the best hotel. It was this beautiful resort on a cliff overlooking the ocean.
After that I went onto Koh-Samui (Koh means island btw). It was there that I met the most awesome girl who pretty much changed a lot of misconceptions I had about things. If the first girl I met in Bangkok wasn't outright prostitution this certainly was. It started with me going into a place called Club 69, it was a pole dancing club. So I sit down planning to have a drink and just enjoy the show like the pig I am. The first question I'm asked by the waitress is what girl do I want. At first I just wanted the drink but there was this one girl who was dancing who kept smiling at me. Even after her set was over she still smiled at me from across the club. So I have the waitress call her over and I buy her a lady drink. Now a lady drink it a drink that costs me double, the girl gets a cut, the bar gets a cut, and I get the company of a lovely lady; everybody wins. There was just one problem...she only knew a few words of English (which is pretty rare for Thailand). One of her fellow dancers/friends says I can take her home for such and such a price or for less can just take her upstairs (or I could also take both of them upstairs). I chose to take her home.
Now at this point I'm sure anyone reading this is appalled at me, assuming I'm a pig who's supporting the sex trade and exploiting women. I really have no argument against that. What went through my mind though is here's a beautiful girl who wants to go home with me (for the money) and I'm someone who won't mistreat her. At least with me she'll be safer than she might be if she chose to go home with someone else. I originally planned to only be in Samui for a couple of nights but after meeting her I decided to stay a whole week. The second night there I went back to the club and talked to the owner saying I wanted to have her with me each night I was there. We worked out how much I would pay her and also how much I'd pay the bar; to take a girl out of a bar you must pay a bar fine which is another way the club makes money. When this girl discovered that I wanted her to be with me for a full week...well I've never seen anyone so happy. We didn't talk much because of the language barrier but I felt a lot for her, perhaps I even loved her. I cried one night because I was worried for her safety given the line of work that she's in. Our last night together we held each other and cried. No one has treated me as well as this girl, she even ran out and bought me medicine and fruit one night I was sick. We still keep in touch with email but I doubt I'll ever see her again.
I got to know some of her friends while I was there since every night would start with me picking her up at the bar and paying the bar fine. We'd sit at the club and drink, I'd buy her and her fellow dancers lady drinks so they made some money off of it. I went to the beach one day with her and a friend. The friend told me that when she first came to Samui she worked the graveyard shift at a 7 Eleven making around 8000 baut a month. Working in a bar as a dancer and going home with the occasional guy she makes 40,000 baut a month. When all they want to do is make money to send home to the family you can see why these girls do it.
Being with this girl in Samui I got a taste of what it's really like to be wanted. Looking at my own relationship history I see how I've always been the one to start things off, to perhaps waste my time perusing dead ends. After this experience though....no more. If someone wants to be with me they had better show it. Yes I know in the end this was probably all about money. But maybe, just maybe this girl really did care for me. Maybe love is defined differently in Asia. We have these grand romantic notions in the west but here it seems if a girl meets a guy she likes, and he's good to her and provides for her than it's enough.
Let me put this in contrast. Shortly before I left for China I met a girl who I really liked. We met at a friend's wedding but the irony is she lived only a block down from me the whole time I was living in North Van. It started out with coffee and getting together to watch a movie but the weekend before I left for China I spent the night (and then the whole weekend) with her. I didn't want to leave for China at that point but I had no choice. She has a six year old child but that didn't even bother me. When I got out here we kept in touch, we'd have these three hour conversations on MSN and got to know each other really well. I even told her I wanted to come back to Vancouver during my February break to get to know her better and see where things were going. Then one day she sends me an email saying she's uncomfortable with the direction our relationship is going. We haven't talked much since then even though I'd like to. Communication just sort of dried up. I don't blame her, I am in China after all. But if I was the same way with this girl in Thailand, if I had felt the same way, if I (God forbid) asked her to marry me... she would have said yes without a moment of hesitation. It wouldn't have been “oh, I'm not sure of my feelings” or “I'm not sure what I want with my life”. I'm not saying that one way of thinking is wrong or right but it is a pretty stark contrast.