Recently I have been reading a fair bit about the early penetration of South East Asia by Europeans and amongst the items is the journal of an employee of The Dutch East India Co. who visited Siam in 1655 and made the following observations about his colleagues who were permanently based in Ayuthia.

"they lived very luxuriously here,most of them keeping concubines or mistresses [other indications are that they were deemed married by the local population] in order (as they say) to avoid common whores. They pay them maintenance for all their needs, and buy or build them a house, each according to his capacity"

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Reference is also made to a notorious local bar run by "a certain Thomas the Frenchman, a free burgher who lives not far from the lodge [the Dutch trading house]. He makes his living by tapping beer, arrack, and punch for the sailors and others in the area. At some point in time he came with a ship from Batavia and was accidentally stranded here, and being a free man he stayed and settled".

It would appear that nothing changes!

Actually, nothing essential has changed since the the first primordial entities learned to split into two - what's on your mind?