(What Seems Like A) Sexpat Has A Go At Some Holidaymakers

[F1fanatic]

Unfortunately some of them are sacrificing themselves for there children.

No matter where you come from, most mothers have this instinct within themselves.

Just a part of being human.

Yes, but few take up this line of work.

Most prefer to keep their children and take low paying job/s to stay with their children.

[whistleblower]

Unfortunately some of them are sacrificing themselves for there children.

No matter where you come from, most mothers have this instinct within themselves.

Just a part of being human.

Horseshit! how long you been here?

[manarak]

Unfortunately some of them are sacrificing themselves for there children.

This statement just doesn't hold up.

It's the classic line continually used by the "anti-sex tourism" lobby, who frankly (like the Western girls in the video) get suckered by it time after time..

What about the mothers "sacrificing" themselves breaking their backs working 12 hour shifts in factories, on farms, on building sites etc?

I don't think there should be a moral debate on this.

These girls have options and choose to do what they want/can/like.

Up to them!

While most Thai mothers prefer to keep their children and take low paying job/s to stay with their children, it is not the case of all mothers.

My current girlfriend has kids, but when I'm not in the country, she likes to stay in my condo anyway instead of spending the time with her children, because her mom is looking after them.

hmm...

Many Thais are more free about their (negative) attitude towards children than westerners who have "strong" values about children, bordering on brain-washing.

P.S. I am not advocating one life choice over the other, I'm just sharing my observations.

I am myself a father, a father that doesn't like to spend time with his kids.

The feeling of guilt is crushing.

Edited August 4, 2012 by manarak

[HeavyDrinker]

Indeed. My (and other's) point though is that this is simply not the only option for the girls. To suggest otherwise is just a nonsense.

I can't help but feel that had the cameras not been there, nor had the American gent stepped in and made them all blub, that lass would have probably walked away with a nice purseful of brass....

Whenever I get a sob story I tell the girls I have a friend who has a factory but only pays 9K a month but there is loads of overtime and 100% of the time their reaction is such that you'd think I'd done a <deleted> in her handbag while she wasn't looking, mashed it about a bit and then asked her for a light....

[thaibeachlovers]

Unfortunately some of them are sacrificing themselves for there children.

This statement just doesn't hold up.

It's the classic line continually used by the "anti-sex tourism" lobby, who frankly (like the Western girls in the video) get suckered by it time after time..

What about the mothers "sacrificing" themselves breaking their backs working 12 hour shifts in factories, on farms, on building sites etc?

I don't think there should be a moral debate on this.

These girls have options and choose to do what they want/can/like.

Up to them!

While most Thai mothers prefer to keep their children and take low paying job/s to stay with their children, it is not the case of all mothers.

My current girlfriend has kids, but when I'm not in the country, she likes to stay in my condo anyway instead of spending the time with her children, because her mom is looking after them.

hmm...

Many Thais are more free about their (negative) attitude towards children than westerners who have "strong" values about children, bordering on brain-washing.

P.S. I am not advocating one life choice over the other, I'm just sharing my observations.

I am myself a father, a father that doesn't like to spend time with his kids.

The feeling of guilt is crushing.

<bordering on brain-washing.>

From wanting children to not being heard and beating the crap out of them for the slightest infraction ( when I was a kid ), it seems that nowadays people think the sun shines out of the little beggars ( keeping it seemly ) backsides.

Brain washing indeed!

[Slip]

Hmmm, my experience has been a tad different. Perhaps we should ask a Thai woman...and not one that's in the business.

I have asked many Thai women this question about sex, the invariable reply is. I eat, I sleep, I go to the toilet and I have sex. One is as important as the other. I personally find their thoughts strange, but who am I to argue with them. It does explain to me their tendency to not be entirely monogamous.

No offence but I read at least one blatantly made up post on here every day and think this is today's!

I make no comment on this post's veracity but it did remind me of a Thai expression that I became aware of VERY quickly after I started talking to Thai people which contains only, and all the important words that the poster attributed to his Thai friends. <Thai language removed>

Edited August 6, 2012 by metisdead
: English is the only acceptable language, except within the Thai language forum, where of course using Thai is allowed.

[Slip]

Hmmm, my experience has been a tad different. Perhaps we should ask a Thai woman...and not one that's in the business.

I have asked many Thai women this question about sex, the invariable reply is. I eat, I sleep, I go to the toilet and I have sex. One is as important as the other. I personally find their thoughts strange, but who am I to argue with them. It does explain to me their tendency to not be entirely monogamous.

No offence but I read at least one blatantly made up post on here every day and think this is today's!

I make no comment on this post's veracity but it did remind me of a Thai expression that I became aware of VERY quickly after I started talking to Thai people which contains only, and all the important words that the poster attributed to his Thai friends. <Thai language removed>

OK fair enough and apologies...

The words were; eat (gin), defecate (kii), have sex with (pii), sleep (non). There are no other words in this Thai idiom.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

The only way you would possibly know that after watching the show is if you were already familiar with the situation. IE that bar workers get a base salary, then they negotiate their own price for sex and keep all the money and earn far more than their base salary is worth. The show is being deliberately misleading, and they are definitely trying to leave viewers with the impression that the bar girls make only 10k per month, and that the 10k per month is for having sex with clients. Coupled with previous sections about paying rent per day rather than per month (deliberately lying about the cost of living in Thailand) they are trying to leave viewers with the impression that these bar girls have to do this or they will starve to death, and even after they choose to work as a prostitute they are still only making 10k per month and barely able to survive. The show exploitative and is presenting an extremely misleading picture in order to boost their own ratings.

There were other things as well; one of the interviewed girls said she wasn't actually from the North East but from Lopburi, which is very much Central Thailand. They didn't translate that. And given how quickly the lady started crying, there is probably a LOT of footage that was cut out.

I have kids myself in a similar age to many bargirls, so quite often the topic of discussion in bars is raising children, showing pictures or their kids and mine and so on. Women don't just start crying as soon as kids are the topic; in fact more often than not they're quite proud, as they should, like any parent.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Let's not forget in all of this that the imperative in the eyes of the young lady are to help her family financially, that means helping to pay a series of banks loans, government loans and probably loan shark debts, not to mention upcomming school fee costs, supplies for the rice planting season, and so on and so on, in total she could easily be aware of 500,000 bahts worth of family debts. So yes, Ronald's house beckons but you can easily see her dilemma when she realises that she can only contribute say 1,000 or 2,000 baht a month, after she has paid her own living costs.

Also, couldn't agree more re. the 500 baht, but that problem along with its many relatives are well entrenched and will take much time to dislodge, in the meantime the Issan girls need to feed their familes.

Banks loan to people in poverty ?

Banks loan 500,000 ?

Sure they do, provided they have enough land to serve as collateral. Heck, just financing a pick-up truck (often essential for small farmers) can easily run 500K by itself.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

One way to look at the possible psychology of a bar girl is this..

She goes to work in the "scene" thinking to not do it for long, make good money, and send money back.

She gets there and the scene starts to eat at her.

One way to make herself feel better, is emotional spending

Hair, nails, make up, nice phone..etc.

..and these things obviously will make her look better, and thus can be justified in her mind as it gets her more attention/more customers.

but its a temporary fix..so more frivolous spending required.

Then she might even better if she has a few drinks..has a try of some drugs. She might be thinking, well, the other girls do it, and it makes them feel good and makes the job easier..so hell, why not?

Its easy to see how an initial plan could end up spiraling wayy out of the goal set.

Maybe im being naive, but i think this could be the case for girls in the bar scene.

How could anyone NOT become a bit hardened and bitter and thus compensate themselves by frivolous spending?

Would take a VERY strong resolve in a woman to not fall into this trap..i think.

How come I never run into you in bars.. You got this spot on, sounds like you're there every night!

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Anyway, there are lots of pages in this topic, but it seems my main impression wasn't even mentioned yet.

What saddens me, so much more than the obnoxious drunk sex tourist or the clueless screaming schoolgirl, is that this is a documentary effort produced by the BBC.

And that makes it doubly sad..

I also wonder if they realize that if they don't bother with a factual representation here, why would they be any better when the topic is Syria? Or the EU? Or China? Becuase we're by and large pretty familiar with Thailand we spot the mistakes and deliberate/misleading omissions easily. But I've never been to Syria, so in a documentary I'm relying on them telling an accurate story. But seeing this sort of stuff you can only wonder if ALL of their reporting is of this standard these days? It'd be fair to raise the question. They had a bit of a brand going in news and documentaries in the 1960, 70s, 80s even 90s, didn't they?. It's as puzzling as it is sad.

Rest In Peace

Edited August 6, 2012 by WinnieTheKhwai

[HardenedSoul]

Anyway, there are lots of pages in this topic, but it seems my main impression wasn't even mentioned yet.

What saddens me, so much more than the obnoxious drunk sex tourist or the clueless screaming schoolgirl, is that this is a documentary effort produced by the BBC.

And that makes it doubly sad..

I also wonder if they realize that if they don't bother with a factual representation here, why would they be any better when the topic is Syria? Or the EU? Or China? Becuase we're by and large pretty familiar with Thailand we spot the mistakes and deliberate/misleading omissions easily. But I've never been to Syria, so in a documentary I'm relying on them telling an accurate story. But seeing this sort of stuff you can only wonder if ALL of their reporting is of this standard these days? It'd be fair to raise the question. They had a bit of a brand going in news and documentaries in the 1960, 70s, 80s even 90s, didn't they?. It's as puzzling as it is sad.

Rest In Peace

Well the series of documentaries of which your clip was a 10 minute snip from an hour-long episode is actually focused on exposing how the cheap convenience and fast foods Westerners take for granted actually gets to their local supermarket or KFC. It looks at the lives of the poor folks all over SE Asia doing the back-breaking menial work for a pittance.

The hooker aspect that TV members are making such a meal of is incidental. While the BBC may not be the class act it once was, I would imagine that, in the event they did do a series of documentaries focusing on the sex workers of Bangkok/Pattaya, they'd probably do a bang up job.

The situation in Syria you allude to is rather more grave, wouldn't you say? I mean, last I heard, Western reporters weren't allowed into the country and had to rely on footage uploaded by the Free Syrian Army that couldn't be verified; a point the BBC was and still is always keen to emphasize. Now the country's fallen into civil war, BBC reporters are taking huge personal risks to enter the country and produce reports they can stake their reputation on with only the protection of militia standing between them and death.

With that in mind, it's probably better to save the bullshit lamentations of the Beeb's professional demise for topics that really matter, eh?

[DP25]

I also wonder if they realize that if they don't bother with a factual representation here, why would they be any better when the topic is Syria? Or the EU? Or China? Becuase we're by and large pretty familiar with Thailand we spot the mistakes and deliberate/misleading omissions easily. But I've never been to Syria, so in a documentary I'm relying on them telling an accurate story. But seeing this sort of stuff you can only wonder if ALL of their reporting is of this standard these days? It'd be fair to raise the question. They had a bit of a brand going in news and documentaries in the 1960, 70s, 80s even 90s, didn't they?. It's as puzzling as it is sad.

Indeed. Living in Thailand has made me much more skeptical about the media for exactly the reasons you state. It is quite clear to anyone familiar with Thailand how often they get stuff massively wrong, and not just the BBC and not just in this documentary. It makes me wonder if the journalism about places I don't know much about is just as inept as it is on Thailand. And I fear the answer is often going to be yes.

[DP25]

Well the series of documentaries of which your clip was a 10 minute snip from an hour-long episode is actually focused on exposing how the cheap convenience and fast foods Westerners take for granted actually gets to their local supermarket or KFC. It looks at the lives of the poor folks all over SE Asia doing the back-breaking menial work for a pittance.

The hooker aspect that TV members are making such a meal of is incidental. While the BBC may not be the class act it once was, I would imagine that, in the event they did do a series of documentaries focusing on the sex workers of Bangkok/Pattaya, they'd probably do a bang up job.

It wasn't just the hooker incident that had massive flaws, other aspects have been pointed out as well. The makers are either too ignorant of the subject to be making a documentary on it, or they are being deliberately misleading for higher ratings.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Well the series of documentaries of which your clip was a 10 minute snip from an hour-long episode is actually focused on exposing how the cheap convenience and fast foods Westerners take for granted actually gets to their local supermarket or KFC. It looks at the lives of the poor folks all over SE Asia doing the back-breaking menial work for a pittance.

Sure, so that would be the angle, a kind of classic 'trading places' plot device of placing people in a very different environment. In the end what the show is about is the locations and cultures shown; it's safe to presume that the audience back home doesn't want to look just at snotty kids. It's the same sort of level as Nat Geo (or History Channel?) sending US truckers to India and South America. In the end when doing that you have to take responsibility of the image of the country you portray (be it Thailand in this case or India in the other show), and make sure you don't intentionally mislead for the sake of cranking up the 'emotional impact'.

Edited August 6, 2012 by WinnieTheKhwai

[HardenedSoul]

My point is that there's no point slating the BBC for what you consider to be glaring omissions or a lack of gravitas vis a vis the hooker aspect of the "documentary" because it wasn't the focus of that episode in particular or the series in general.

[manarak]

Hmmm, my experience has been a tad different. Perhaps we should ask a Thai woman...and not one that's in the business.

I have asked many Thai women this question about sex, the invariable reply is. I eat, I sleep, I go to the toilet and I have sex. One is as important as the other. I personally find their thoughts strange, but who am I to argue with them. It does explain to me their tendency to not be entirely monogamous.

I make no comment on this post's veracity but it did remind me of a Thai expression that I became aware of VERY quickly after I started talking to Thai people which contains only, and all the important words that the poster attributed to his Thai friends. <Thai language removed>

OK fair enough and apologies...

The words were; eat (gin), defecate (kii), have sex with (pii), sleep (non). There are no other words in this Thai idiom.

I think it is very healthy to include sex in a description of a normal happy daily routine.

The girls say that if the four things are good, they are happy.

Easy enough, no?

If one of the things is not ok, then the person is not happy, and usually replacing that with golf, spiritual attainment, work or whatever does not work...