How Rich Thais View Poor

[Prakanong]

Kitty also made a point about the sales staff earning far less than the prostitute.

Kitty's annoyance aside I would disagree with you that its the "Normalisation" of the relationship that contributes to the notion that every Thai girl is for rent.

She dislikes the attempt on the part of the foreigner to make the very public display of this relationship "normal" when it is far from normal in Thai society. Also, she finds it bizarre that the foreigner appears to believe the prositute is his girlfriend.

That may be Kitty's view but it does not validate your point - it is not these "normalised" relationships that causes a lot of people who do not know better to think every Thai girl is available for rent

It is Thailands allowing a wholescale sex industry to go on and TAt even promoted it as one point I beleive. Not doing anything about becoming the brothel of SE Asia and plenty of hi so people making a lot of money about it is complicity in my book - not the guy with the girl in a shop

And if the clothes sold were so skanky it funny Kitty was picking up tog's for her mother who surely would be mutton dressed as lamb in them.

In fact the Thai woman who most looked like a street whore to me was a hi so in first class to London - That bouffant hair reminiscent of Little Richard, diamante sunglasses and a frigging leeopardskin catsuit - oh how the staff fawned over her and helped her with her 20 LV luggage bags - maybe it was Kitty's mother off to spend the family blood money at Harrods

[jumnien]

The point is you knew the lady looking like a street whore was a hi so. The street whore looking like a street whore is an entirely different animal and very rich fodder for humour, as is the hi so in her own right.

[GuestHouse]

Wake-Up Call

The blog (offensive as the language may be) is proof possitive of the change in attitudes among Thai society regarding Farangs and and their behaviour with Prostitutes.

All those guys here complaining about assumptions being made regarding their own wives / girlfriends can surely understand that the Blogger has very similar feelings regarding the image of Thai women in general.

So on the one hand the blog is confirming the sense of despair over the impact of the Thai sex industry on the image of Thai women.

On another front the blog is confirming the negative view of prostitution in Thai society - Go ahead, attack the blogger, attack her age, maturity, her family's political history - You are not getting past the fact that she is expressing a Thai view (because she is Thai).

Her view - all be it nastilly put, is a view that I have heard many many times from middle class Thais.

Stick your head in the sand if you wish but Thai society is changing and the views of Thais are changing

Remember Taxin's campaigns closing bars and restricting opening hours where hugely popular across all Thai society ESPECIALLY to the Urban Middle Class (a group hostile to Taxin in general).

Judgmental Thais You can't have Thai culture without accepting all of it - The good the bad and the ugly.

All this nonsense over 'How do you spot a prostitute?' etc.

P-Lease - give it a rest.

If I may remind you of two comments I have often made.

1. Just because you can't see the rules does not mean there aren't any rules

2. The biggest lies told by foreigners are the lies they tell themselves

Lie to yourself by all means, but please do not expect the rest of us to go along with it.

Edited September 22, 2007 by GuestHouse

[jumnien]

Very few TV posters ever complain that our wives are mistaken for prostitutes by Thais. The same cannot be said of a certain element of rather alcoholic farang men.

[fletchsmile]

We must remember that Kitty's article has nothing to do with a poor person; ...

So you reckon she was born rich and decided to beome a ho as you put it. lol..

Or are you saying that where people came from has no bearing on where they are now. And it has no bearing on how people like you and Kitty think they "should" behave.

Who knows? Perhaps she's never been given the opportunity to learn "your norms". Perhaps it was the girls way of getting back at society and people like you and Kitty. i.e you framed a society, where she ended up in the situation where she is now. This is her chance to throw it back in your face and get you to confront reality. Her way of offloading her emotional damage, and anger. Would it be her fault anyway if she didn't know any "better"?

Get real. Because she has made some money isn't going to turn her into what you would like to see in your shopping malls, and what you think is "normal". You're still measuring people by money.

For a lot of these girls, do you think the money really compensates for what they have probably been thru emotionally in their lives, before, during and after prostitution. Someone quoted "Private Dancer". Hardly a anthropological study. But the real question from that book is how did the girl end up that way? "Only 13 - The True Storyof Lon " gives a small. but better insight into one girls perspective of the impact the industry had on her life. There are plenty of books in that sort of field if you can't work it out for yourself.

Think we can all agree to disagree as you put it, once people stop taking cheap shots at people less fortunate in life and thinking calling them toilets is a great anaology.

Edited September 22, 2007 by fletchthai68

[GuestHouse]

Very few TV posters ever complain that our wives are mistaken for prostitutes by Thais. The same cannot be said of a certain element of rather alcoholic farang men.

You mean Alcohilic Farang Men are being mistaken for Prostitutes?

Curiouser and Curiouser

[FarangNoi21]

"Lie to yourself by all means, but please do not expect the rest of us to go along with it."

Guesthouse, who is it that you are talking to exactly? I haven't seen anyone in this thread express an opinion different than yours.

[WaiWai]

That may be Kitty's view but it does not validate your point - it is not these "normalised" relationships that causes a lot of people who do not know better to think every Thai girl is available for rent.

Not clear about what you are saying.

Some people like to see Thailand as a free-thinking place where they can act in uninhibited ways in public. Of course, it is not.

Kitty is sick of seeing these chaps trotting about the shopping centres with prostitutes because it begins to look like many Thais are willing to exchange sex for money. I think she has a point.

However, yes, obviously the fact that there is so much "commercial sex" in Thailand does not exactly help its reputation.

[Prakanong]

Wake-Up Call

The blog (offensive as the language may be) is proof possitive of the change in attitudes among Thai society regarding Farangs and and their behaviour with Prostitutes.

All those guys here complaining about assumptions being made regarding their own wives / girlfriends can surely understand that the Blogger has very similar feelings regarding the image of Thai women in general.

So on the one hand the blog is confirming the sense of despair over the impact of the Thai sex industry on the image of Thai women.

On another front the blog is confirming the negative view of prostitution in Thai society - Go ahead, attack the blogger, attack her age, maturity, her family's political history - You are not getting past the fact that she is expressing a Thai view (because she is Thai).

Her view - all be it nastilly put, is a view that I have heard many many times from middle class Thais.

Stick your head in the sand if you wish but Thai society is changing and the views of Thais are changing

Remember Taxin's campaigns closing bars and restricting opening hours where hugely popular across all Thai society ESPECIALLY to the Urban Middle Class (a group hostile to Taxin in general).

Judgmental Thais You can't have Thai culture without accepting all of it - The good the bad and the ugly.

All this nonsense over 'How do you spot a prostitute?' etc.

P-Lease - give it a rest.

If I may remind you of two comments I have often made.

1. Just because you can't see the rules does not mean there aren't any rules

2. The biggest lies told by foreigners are the lies they tell themselves

Lie to yourself by all means, but please do not expect the rest of us to go along with it.

So you think its a change in Thai attitudes - which Thai's have you been talking to all these years then?

Its nowt to do if the girl in Zara Emporium was a working girl or not - where is YOUR proof?? - she might have just been a girl who dressed the way she did but was from Isaan or somewhere Kitty discriminated againt.

It bloody snobbery from an ignorant cow

You always go on about evidence etc - where is yours or is this a lie you are telling yourself?

I think soneone retorted very well to you on LP when you were shouting about its an independent Thai woman having an opinion of her own and expressing it - its something new to you is it?

For someone who has harped on a bloody lot about discrimination due to race, nationality, against immigrants this is rather amusing - so its OK to discriminate against certain gruops and not others - how rational

[meemiathai]

Praka, I think that you are wasting your time. How can you argue with someone who uses stickman and Stephen Leather as sources to back up an argument? You should surely be aware that these are highly regarded factual sources.

Would I consider Private Dancer or stickman to be objective, well-documented research on the sex trade in Thailand? No. There are much better sources for that. But it provides an interesting view of how some of the male participants see their own experience, in their own words, as does this forum. As for the accuracy of Private Dancer, I make no comment on it, but I'll point out that it in pretty much any thread about relationships or potential relationships with bargirls, someone brings it up as suggested reading, so something in it seems to ring true for at least some people.

Frankly, I think you have nothing to say except for personal attacks. Again, -- high on insults, low on facts.

Stop reading bloody books! Go out and see things with your own eyes!

Meet them and with respect see what you get in return. And meet hello kitty and with respect and see what you get in return.

I am amazed that you would think that there are places prostitutes cannot go. Who are they hurting?

[WaiWai]

Calm down; Kitty just had a wee rant about a foreigner making a spectacle of himself with a prostitute in the shopping centre. It was the kind of scene we are all exposed to on a daily basis and presented from the point of view of an outspoken Thai. They are usually too polite to say much about it.

Edited September 22, 2007 by WaiWai

[Prakanong]

Calm down; Kitty just had a wee rant about a foreigner making a spectacle of himself with a prostitute in the shopping centre. It was the kind of scene we are all exposed to on a daily basis and presented from the point of view of an outspoken Thai. They are usually too polite to say much about it.

How do you know 100% it was a prostitute - on Kitty's say so because of the way she was dressed and that the guy with her was older?

The basic premise is not even prooved yet is it?

[fletchsmile]

Calm down; Kitty, just had a wee rant about (claiming to have seen) a foreigner making a spectacle of himself (in her eyes) with a (girl who she assumed to be) a prostitute in the shopping centre, as a result of her and many other Thais prejudiced assumptions that Thai girls with foreigners are prositutes. It was the kind of prejudice scene we are all exposed to on a daily basis and presented from the point of view of an outspoken Thai, who feels her priveleged position in society is under threat because the lower classes are finding a way to raise themselves from positions of being treated like toilets, by people like her, which is the norm in her circles. They are usually too polite to say much about it to your face, but will sometimes do if they think you can't understand Thai

I've taken the liberty of amending it a litte. Looks more accurate now

[WaiWai]

We don't know 100 % but I think most of us would rate it as 99.99 % probable.

The guy could not even communicate with the woman, remember. I'd trust Kitty's call on this.

If she - by some very remote chance, wasn't - it matters little to our discussion.

[meemiathai]

What has this got to do with prostitutes not allowing to go to the "Emporium"?

One thing that is unusual in the sex trade aimed at farangs in Thailand, compared to the same industry in the West, is that there is a lot more of a cross-over of prostitution into everyday life. It's almost unheard of for Western prostitutes and strippers to want to marry their customers, or to see them outside of a professional capacity. Similarly, few customers back home would dream of bringing a hooker to a normal social situation with one's friends, colleagues, or family.

So you think you know everything? How do you know Mary or Jane sitting next to you is not a prostitutes. Do you think prostitutes in the west stay at home all their lives and just order pizza hut when they are hungry? The reason it seems more obvious in Thailand is the fact that it is a thai/farang relationship. And also they are tourists to Thailand and will want to travel around. Is it that difficult to understand?

But in Thailand, because of economic and cultural factors, the line between "normal" relationships and relationships based on prostitution seems to be blurred. In some ways, that can be good -- as there are couples who meet in Thailand under what would be regarded as seedy or at least unusual circumstances back home -- who nonetheless have loving and happy relationships that work.

Blurred or whatever, what is the problem as long as everyone is just living their own lives?

However, if one is to believe the endless threads about getting ripped off by bargirls, finding out one's wife secretly has a Thai husband, sick buffaloes, the endless suggestions to read Private Dancer, about 3/4 of reader submissions to Stickman -- the list goes on -- there does seem to be a significant contingent of farang men in Thailand who are rather confused and often mistaken about the nature of their relationships. They mistake relationships motivated by money for relationships based on love. Did they not, after all, come to Thailand for the GFE? For exactly the feeling and the illusion that love is real and not just something that is paid for?

These things of course happen but we don't know the proportion to it. And of course there will always be bitter people complaining in relationships in which at the first place they did not treat their other halves as human beings. But again what has this got to do with prostitutes being allowed into any place?

So when we see them squiring prostitutes around town and trying to pass them off as "civilians" are we perhaps just seeing a bit of wishful thinking?

This of course is wishful thinking for there will always be bigots around and one just have to live with it.

As long as people treat others with respect, they should not be treated differently regardless of where they are.

If the prostitute came in just to enjoy her life and was not treating anyone nastily, and the farang even if old and bald is treating everyone with respect, who has the right to take away their rights of going anywhere they like?

If you think anyone here arguing with you are automatically those who pay for sex, you are terribly wrong! We are fighting for rights for every human being regardless of whatever background they are from. The same I will when I see a hi-so doing things maybe only the poor will do.

[meemiathai]

Why don't you get to know the "civilians" before you comment? No bit of reading is going to adequately explain unless you get to know people. Get your feet wet and talk to those you denigrate so quickly. However I suspect chatting with lowly toilets might be beneath you. Any rate I've gotten to know some really lovely people over the years, and that alone is worth its weight in gold.

Thank you.

[WaiWai]

Fletchthai, I dislike the snobbery and elitism as much as you do. I am an Aussie and it goes very much against the grain.

However, I think the story is mainly about the old foreign fool's antics in the shop, and Kitty's amazement that he was treating the relationship with a prostitute in this way by (a) bringing it into the public eye and ( treating a business relationship as a "girlfriend" one. I didn't like the use of the word "toilet" but I see the analogy she's trying to make.

I have seen similar scenes countless times and Thais dislike them on many levels and for many reasons. The snobbery is only one. I share their "cringe" in many ways.

[chuchok]

Ah, you can always tell when you've hit a nerve, because the trolls come out from under their rock.

and they start calling other people trolls.

[FarangNoi21]

do thai men also have a problem with the way farang act in thailand? or is it only the middle-high society women? i see this more as a female battle of territory and class than anything else, they don't like someone else jumping ahead in line. you guys keep insisting this about prostitution, even though kitty already told you that it isnt.

[meemiathai]

We must remember that Kitty's article has nothing to do with a poor person; it is about a relatively rich ho. Personally, I think that a number of prostitutes are wonderfully polite folks. This article was not about a wonderfully polite prostitute. It was about a ho who acted like a ho and dressed like a ho and was in a very public and very funny out of context situation and provided fodder for a nice little piece that did offend some of the more conservative readers. I don't think Miss Kitty is losing any sleep over the criticism and I don't think Miss Purple Notes is missing any sleep over the humorous critique either. They've gotten on with there lives, I'm sure. The fact is that Miss Purple Notes probably earns more in a week of short times than Miss Kitty does for her weekly columns. Little Miss Purple Notes is laughing all the way to the gold shop while Miss Kitty is stuck trying to turn left our of the Paragon. Can't we all just agree to disagree?

Sorry but what does a ho act like? What does a ho dress like? I guess if I am right I see plenty of hos in western countries. They are everywhere showing their cleavages. Are they hos?

It could be the case that this particular couple was acting in a disrespectful manner, but it does not seem to me that this hello kitty is just commenting on them only. She is merely trying to step down on people to further confirm the feeling of herself being a hi-ho. Sorry I mean hi-so.

[Prakanong]

We don't know 100 % but I think most of us would rate it as 99.99 % probable.

The guy could not even communicate with the woman, remember. I'd trust Kitty's call on this.

If she - by some very remote chance, wasn't - it matters little to our discussion.

Yes because Kitty would never exagerate - I am sure she is not the sort not to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Look at the ego and self centredness of the girl - a really reliable witness there M'Lord.

Its quite funny because some othe people on here defending her would probably been on the end of her remarks if they were in the shop too.

[meemiathai]

Kitty also made a point about the sales staff earning far less than the prostitute.

Kitty's annoyance aside I would disagree with you that its the "Normalisation" of the relationship that contributes to the notion that every Thai girl is for rent.

She dislikes the attempt on the part of the foreigner to make the very public display of this relationship "normal" when it is far from normal in Thai society. Also, she finds it bizarre that the foreigner appears to believe the prositute is his girlfriend.

Are you saying that everyone has to be or act normal in order to make this world look normal?

Sorry this is not the normal world I would want to see. And I would like the world to be a place where everyone can act in any way they like as long as they don't interfere with other peoples rights.

What is normal, btw?

[WaiWai]

I was hit later by a presence of this guy who was talking loudly at the top of his lungs to the staff about the pile of clothes that was in front of me. I looked, he was fat, old like wrinkly, and I was dead sure he could not have been younger than 50.

He was asking them in a Italian/Russian/Amazonian accent something about how he was gonna carry the pile out of the shop.

...

He was still figuring out how he wanted to get the stuff out of the store. He asked the staff who said they could leave them here and get someone to pick it up the other day. He went over to the obviously frustrated bitch who was dying to take those clothes back to her little cell. He was explaining to her the situation. She didn't get it. Mai kao chai mai kao chai. He had to get the staff to come and TRANSLATE to her what her DADDY was talking about.

He's old. She's 12. He's an accented farang with a girlfriend who doesn't even speak ENGLISH.

The world of bar girls and their "daddy" boyfriends is beyond me.

[siam-i-am]

Check out this post in the rich Thai girl blog "Oh! See what the Cat drags in!" This so-called "journalist" (she seems to write for BK Magazine, but can't even get the name of her own blog right) has a terrible encounter with the country's lower classes and survies to tell about it.

What's really interesting is that this girl is the direct descendant of Thailand's cruelest and most infamous military dictator (and that's saying something) -- Thanom Kittikachorn.

<link removed>

Out in Emporium buying expensive shoes for her mommy, she has a self-described "bitch moment" when confronted with a farang and a prostitute... who have the audacity to be shopping in the same store as her! She goes on to describe prostitutes as "toilets" and can't understand why anybody would want to be seen with such awful creatures.

When she gets a scolding in the comments the best she can come up with is a cruel "me no speaky English" bar-girl style mockery. Totally unable to address the issue.

Great from an anthropological perspective: we get to see how the country's elite, a child of the most vile, murdering rapist of the land, really thinks of the lower castes.

Kittikachorn but I don't care, Kittikachorn But I don't care

[meemiathai]

Kitty also made a point about the sales staff earning far less than the prostitute.

Kitty's annoyance aside I would disagree with you that its the "Normalisation" of the relationship that contributes to the notion that every Thai girl is for rent.

She dislikes the attempt on the part of the foreigner to make the very public display of this relationship "normal" when it is far from normal in Thai society. Also, she finds it bizarre that the foreigner appears to believe the prositute is his girlfriend.

That may be Kitty's view but it does not validate your point - it is not these "normalised" relationships that causes a lot of people who do not know better to think every Thai girl is available for rent

It is Thailands allowing a wholescale sex industry to go on and TAt even promoted it as one point I beleive. Not doing anything about becoming the brothel of SE Asia and plenty of hi so people making a lot of money about it is complicity in my book - not the guy with the girl in a shop

Exactly! These hi-so girls mostly are living at the expense of these so-called prostitutes. They want them to make money for them but want them to go underneath the carpet. If they have been less corrupted and have created a better environment for the average thais, would all this be happening? Shame on them!

And if the clothes sold were so skanky it funny Kitty was picking up tog's for her mother who surely would be mutton dressed as lamb in them.

In fact the Thai woman who most looked like a street whore to me was a hi so in first class to London - That bouffant hair reminiscent of Little Richard, diamante sunglasses and a frigging leeopardskin catsuit - oh how the staff fawned over her and helped her with her 20 LV luggage bags - maybe it was Kitty's mother off to spend the family blood money at Harrods

I can imagine what you are saying and yes she does. Also probably looked stupid too.

[mrtoad]

Ah, you can always tell when you've hit a nerve, because the trolls come out from under their rock.

and they start calling other people trolls.

I'm happily sat under my bridge as according to CG I am a troll, because I disagree with her blinkered views on society.

[meemiathai]

Wake-Up Call

The blog (offensive as the language may be) is proof possitive of the change in attitudes among Thai society regarding Farangs and and their behaviour with Prostitutes.

All those guys here complaining about assumptions being made regarding their own wives / girlfriends can surely understand that the Blogger has very similar feelings regarding the image of Thai women in general.

So on the one hand the blog is confirming the sense of despair over the impact of the Thai sex industry on the image of Thai women.

On another front the blog is confirming the negative view of prostitution in Thai society - Go ahead, attack the blogger, attack her age, maturity, her family's political history - You are not getting past the fact that she is expressing a Thai view (because she is Thai).So now I am representing the whole HK view just because I am from HK? It is her view, not a Thai view.

Her view - all be it nastilly put, is a view that I have heard many many times from middle class Thais.

Maybe you should try to educate them a bit? Or is it too difficult a task to speak for the poor?

Stick your head in the sand if you wish but Thai society is changing and the views of Thais are changing

Do you know how boring it is to brag about all the time how much you know about the Thai society? Sorry no offense.

Do you ever think that a person also from Asia could possibly understand the mentality of the Thais easier than people from the west do?

Remember Taxin's campaigns closing bars and restricting opening hours where hugely popular across all Thai society ESPECIALLY to the Urban Middle Class (a group hostile to Taxin in general).

Judgmental Thais You can't have Thai culture without accepting all of it - The good the bad and the ugly.

All this nonsense over 'How do you spot a prostitute?' etc.

P-Lease - give it a rest.

If I may remind you of two comments I have often made.

1. Just because you can't see the rules does not mean there aren't any rules

2. The biggest lies told by foreigners are the lies they tell themselves

Lie to yourself by all means, but please do not expect the rest of us to go along with it.

[WaiWai]

Meemiathai - "normalize" as in conforming to the norms of the culture.

...

I still think she was just reporting an over-the-top situation she witnessed. Sure, she may be exaggerating, but so what ? I have seen the same on numerous occasions. She's in part serious, in part satiric in tone and makes reference to her own snobbery, and hi-so's with big hair.

The elements of comedy are certainly present, as sunrise has noted.

...

Throughout the history of Western civilization, the idea of a very old man marrying a very young woman, usually 18 or younger, has been a constant source of comedy and the subject of many comic masterpieces. Most often these stories deal with the clever and manipulative ways in which the young wife is able to deceive her old husband.

The basic assumption of this type of story is that if an old man is fool enough to marry someone much younger, the old fool deserves to be fooled. Another characteristic of this standard plot is that the old husband is domineering and jealous and often locks up his young bride or keeps her under such close scrutiny that there is no chance of being deceived. Therefore, the delight of this type of story lies in the clever methods the wife uses to deceive the husband or, in some cases, the "poetic" justice involved in having a domineering husband brought to his knees.

Chaucer explores this theme in a couple of his Canterbury Tales: "The Miller's Tale" (Nicholas and Alison) and "The Merchant's Tale" (January and May).

...

"two stock characters of the stage are the senex iratus, an old man who irrationally objects to the love of the younger characters, and the senex amans, an old man foolishly in love with a woman too young for him."

... Edited September 22, 2007 by WaiWai

[meemiathai]

Very few TV posters ever complain that our wives are mistaken for prostitutes by Thais. The same cannot be said of a certain element of rather alcoholic farang men.

My wife easily get mistaken as a prostitute in Thailand by taxi drivers or street vendors, but these people mostly don't mean harm. It is just their perception as it is so common in Thailand. But we can live with that.

[meemiathai]

Calm down; Kitty just had a wee rant about a foreigner making a spectacle of himself with a prostitute in the shopping centre. It was the kind of scene we are all exposed to on a daily basis and presented from the point of view of an outspoken Thai. They are usually too polite to say much about it.

Outspoken?

Let's hang people with different skin colour! Am I being outspoken?