ATT: NEWBIES..... "Private Dancer"

[Guest]

Dan, I second the above comments by POC.

I too was a "sad fuck" until I got proof that my ex was trying to scam me financially.

Since then, little Miss Sweetness has conned a Swede, a German and as of 3 days ago, a Jap.... All this since April! When the German finds out he's been given up for the Jap guy, I think the shit will hit the fan, he's due back on the 18th July

The ex woke me this morning (by phone) to tell me abt the Jap guy she met 3 days ago.

"He very rich, more than German BF!"

[Guest]

well...what can i say to that? BTW, referring to the main protagonist, Pete, as a 'sad fuck' was not my personal opinion of his character but was what his beer buddies had described him as throughout the book. To me he was simply an intelligent kind of a guy who should have known better but was oblivious to the reality as an effect of Joy's seductive charm and his own displacement and vulnerability in his current life.

But, yes I also agree that this type of scenario sadly repeats itself in reality in Bangkok and around Thailand (and god knows where else). And I know for a fact that these girls partake in such scams on a regualar basis mercilessly! Many people may be in the same vulnerable position as Pete; disillusioned with western women, attitudes, recently divorced etc. But, dare I ask are there that many people out there who just aren't discerning enough to see it coming?

I know that many people probably aren't, and given that they come from a different culture and set of values to that of the conniving TBG scam-artist it really seems unfair to judge their discerning abiltities...

But, having said that it brings me back to my original argument that we (farang) are too self-righteous about our own way of thinking that we tend to expect others (Thais) to think and expect the same from a relationship as we do. Let's also not forget the fact that the girl BG(and her associates) are generally from the lowest socio-economic groundings and are basically the underdogs in this equation. They are probably going to have some kind of resentment towards those of a higher status from the onset. After all, why should they be where they are when we are not? To them the reasoning is simple. They will get us back for their shitty life, and it's not blood they want, only money (though they probably cannot see, or care to see the emotional impact it has). Mind you, I am trying not generalise here. There is good amongst the bad. But the fact is these girls (some of them) are perfectly capable of behaving in this way, and it's up to us to understand where they are from and then try and discern where they are at. Many people will overlook this and just see beauty and smiles and think that shit smells sweet.

None of this is to say that all the Petes out there deserve what they get, but just that they should enter such a relationship tentatively and carefully whilst expecting some warning signs of distrust etc..

I don't know, perhaps this is all easier said than done. Simply though, if fish smells rotten you don't eat it. Maybe these girls are SO cold that it's impossible to see it coming! Frozen fish has no smell does it does it?

cheers,

back to you....

[ July 07, 2001: Message edited by: Dan ]

[ July 07, 2001: Message edited by: Dan ]

[Guest]

dan,

i think you have a few twisted and paranoid ideas about thais. there is a thailand outside the bars...

but, before i am getting into a heavy discussion with you, may i ask you how long have you been living here? how well do you speak thai?

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply Flyonzewall,

"A few twisted and paranoid ideas about thais"..

But can you be a bit more specific as to exactly what ideas you are referring to? Perhaps then I could review my ideas and thinking behind this. I must mention also that this discussion has never left the 'bars' as we are discussing the merits of a particular class of bar-girl. I am in no way refering to Thais in general.

Secondly, to answer your question, I have lived in Thailand for a period of under 3 years but have had a longer association with the place. Having studied the language here and abroad, on top of it being one of my many interests for being here, I speak reasonable Thai. Make of that as you will, but I will venture to add that I am proficient in reading and writing the language also.

I will be happy to discuss any ideas about Thais in general (in and out of the bars). I find them a fascinating people.

cheers,

back to you....

[Big Kev]

Just finished Private Dancer and enjoyed it quite a bit.

I definitely agree with those who say it is not for total newbie. At the very least, some knowledge of the NEP layout and how the bars work helps.

At several points, reading about the stupid sap who is focus of book, I thought to myself that the guy could have saved himself a lot of grief if he just visited the "relationships" and "nightlife" forums at nanaplaza.com a couple of times!!

Anyone read the book Killing Smile by C.G. Moore? I put it on my amazon wish-list and may order soon.

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dan:

Thais are at times more ethnocentric than us whitey. We try and understand Thais. They don't try (nor want to) understand us. It's this closed-barrier attitude and stubborness that makes it really hard to form a trusting relationship with them. Let's face it. They don't understand us, they are WARY of us and because of this they can't TRUST us. It's as black and white for them as this, I believe.

The book portrayed this attitude well I think. To the thais we were just the 'dumb buffalo that could easily be led down the dirt road. We were the sub-species to the thais just like the 'primitives' were the gullible and ignorant sub-species to our missionaries.

---

dan,

that was the quote that troubled me. that is an attitude which i have encountered too many times in bars, but i do not see that standing up to reality.

thais are...westerners are...

thai people are as multifold as every other people, and that applies to bargirls as well as the huge part of the population who has nothing to do with the nightlife.

in case of the book i see this attitude of "thais are all out to take advantage of westerners, because they think we are subhuman" repeated in every single thai character. which is fair enough with some bargirls and their pimp/boyfriends. but i think is is completely misapplied when describing normal thai villagers.

where is the man who is heartbroken because his wife left him to work in the bars?

these men exist, i know loads of them in my wife's village.

where are the parents of a bargirl who come down to her bar begging her to come back?

i have seen this scenario many times in real bangkok bar life.

stephen leather uses as thai characters only the most despicable people, which serves his novel very well, but it does not do justice to the reality of thai people.

in my own life i very often depend on the help of thais and their trust. in my profession i would be lost with out thais guiding me around their world (and underworld). no renumeration asked for. i try to repay their trust by helping them out when i can, which is less often than i would like to. i am regularly tusted with information which could do these friends of mine serious harm if i would misuse that information.

my wife has never been in the barlife, but comes from the same village background as most bargirls. i do not see myself being taken advantage of, neither here in bangkok, nor by her immediate family in the village. i am not blue eyed, there are more distant relatives who would like to take advantage of me and my wife, but that is life.

the longer i life here the less differences i see between individual human relations here and in the west. given, there are some cultural differences like the very extreme hirarchal structures in thai society which make frienships more difficult, but they are not laws which one cannot overcome.

you mentioned ethnocentricity. how many westerners do you know who have been living here for much longer than you and do not speak a single word of thai?

i do not know about your home country, but in mine almost all thais i have met, from all different social classes including barpeople, do make serious efforts to speak my language.

stephen leathers book has ventured out of the bars, he portrayed normal village people, and he completely misrepresented them in my opinion. i think his book would improve a lot, if he would spend some time in village thailand.

you are right, they are fascinating people, but then, also we westerners can be fascinating people.

[Guest]

Flyonzewall,

Okay...... thanks again for your reply. I have taken note of a few of your points.

I will firstly add that you have taken a section of my original post and shown it out of context. But probably my fault. I was actually referring to a particular class of thais, ie. the thai bar girl, and I concede that I was probably not treading as lightly as I would have liked in using the generic term 'Thais'. But in line, I do believe that the majority of thais (now generally speaking), uneducated that they are, are not as understanding of our culture as we are of theirs. We have the benefit of a good education and tend to have a more global outlook than they do as a result of us being not from such insular countries. Don't misunderstand me here. I am referring to the fact that the majority of poor thais do not have access to the outside world, eg. internet, cable tv, international news etc. Nor would the intellectual aspects of anthropology be relevent to them when they have more important priorities to attend, such as feeding their families and generally fighting the oppression of the oppressors (there is a whole other discussion here, let's not go there for now).

Also, more often that not the only knowledge these thais do have of western life are the images they see from Hollywood. And the answers are no, we don't all drive red sports cars and nor do we live in big white houses. But you can't really blame them for assuming this. Hollywood is clever at misrepresenting real life.

 

Anyway, where were we..?

Yes, you said "Thai people are as multifold as every other people." This I never denied and would gladly sit on your side of the fence on that one. I would go further to say that the Individual is multifold in itself. We are who we are, we each have our own perception of life but not forgetting that this perception is based on our socialisation into this world.

Back to the book where we started...

You said, concerning Stephen Leather's characters, that they are all of the "let's take advantage of westerners" type. Perhaps you didn't notice the total absense of 'normal thai villagers' in the book. I don't believe that he set out to portray the 'normal' thai or thai villager (quite frankly that is no crime in my eyes - it's not his obligation, he simply wrote a story about deciet and misplaced love that was set within the lives of the devious ways of certain thai bar girls.

If you look carefully there was Joy, her bargirl friends, a thai drug dealer, some hard-assed Patpong bouncers, a dodgy P.I. (as only a P.I. could be), Joy's immediate family, who mind you were not "men who were heartbroken because their wifes left them to work in the bars" and they also were not "parents of a bargirl who came down to her bar begging her to come home". They were her conspirators.

You said "Stephen Leathers' book has ventured out of the bars" and that he portrayed "normal village people and completely misrepresented them" and you also said (in contradiction mind you) that he "only depicted the most despicable of thai characters." True, he used only the most despicable of thai characters, and I also agree it does no justice to the reality of thai people (generally speaking) ..... Because they don't exist in his book!

Admitedly, some of the characters in his book, namely the 'Big Ron' character and 'Damien' the Zombie bar manager expressed a lot of short-sighted views on thais in general, but these are probably the same guys with the attitudes that, as you mentioned, you have met in the bars too many times yourself. Writing-in these characters has a somewhat rhetorical effect in that it allows us to see the stupidity and consequences of narrow views. Basically these guys were losers and it didn't take much to see that.

Perhaps, on some personal and defensive level you are equating your 'thai world' to the 'thai world' of the characters of this book. I don't know. But I do understand and empathise with your sentiment. This should now lend no room for misinterpretating Leather's view of 'thai village life'.

And Finally you said "you mentioned ethnocentricity", yes I did. "How many westerners do you know who have been living here for much longer than you and do not speak a single word of thai?" You have misconstrued me here. That was exactly my point. We are the guiltiest party and have been throughout history.

 

Cheers,

Dan

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[Guest]

dan,

that cleared up most of the discussion. one little thing though. the point of misrepresentation of normal villagers and their portrayal of being despicable people.

i may have been not clear enough, i'm not a native english speaker. my point is, that prostitution invaded village life to a huge extend, and to show this in a book like stephen leathers one has to include the full range of characters, there are so many villagers who do not like the fact that so many young women go into prostitution, and loads who do not like stupid guys being ripped off by their fellow villagers. leather venured out into the village in his book, but it just does not represent the village. it represents a very narrow view of the village. if leather would have used the main western character as the story teller throughout his book, that would not have been a problem, but by using the first person in the thai characters also, he went on a icy path, and slipped.

thais are not so singleminded and simpleminded in reality.

the great novels give a reader the whole complexity of real life, the whole drama. i believe there is enough topics for a great drama in the thai/western nightlife, but it has not been written yet. much closer to what stephen leather did came the book set in the fifties, i think it was called "the woman of bangkok".

in this book the author did not pretend to understand the motivations of thais involved in the scene and somehow connected to the scene as far i can remember (it has been a long time since i read it). i don't think understanding peolpe here is an impossible task, but it takes more research and maybe a longer exposure. and stephen leather failed in that point.

[Guest]

Again......boy this is tiring!

But we are at least seeing eye to eye somewhere now. Or are you showing me your third eye? hehehe

Yes, personally I didn't like the format of the book. I too would've been happier to read it from the perspective of the main character; a western man, as the author is himself. So, I agree that Leather was somewhat treading on thin-ice by writing the thai perspectives in the first person which is in reality the perspective of a western writer. That is simply arrogance. Who can challenge artistic freedom though?

None the less, I still enjoyed the book for the yarn it spun. After all, it's not a manual on 'how to conduct yourself with thais', nor is it propaganda designed to change or challenge your attitude towards thais. It's simply a novel (literary art). Take it for what it is. The rest is up to you to decide.

And I will still insist that it's not Leathers' obligation to include those 'other' characters that you think should've been portrayed. Perhaps that should be left for someone else to write.. I know I'd read it.

 

Cheers and beers,

Dan

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[zanemay]

Well fellows...

I think there are other things to look at.

Thais have an "us against the world" attitude. They are a unique and isolated people, proud that their's is the only Asian culture never to have been colonized. It was not colonized because Thai rulers resisted colonization, not because it was overlooked. Thais see other Thais as brothers and sisters. They are bonded, not individualized like Westerners.

I think Thai BG's understand Westerners pretty well. The vast majority of us come to town, throw around a lot of money, fuck everything that moves, and go away. What's to understand or want to understand besides get all the money possible from these guys while they are here?

It was suggested that Thai's see our culture in terms of Hollywood. I don't know about that, but I know we see ourselves in terms of Hollywood. Especially in terms of romantic relationships - movies and romantic literature before them has set our ideas of what it is to be loved. I call our view of love, "Love on the Western Plan." In that view, saying the words "I love you" is of monumental importance. That words would be important to subsistence villagers (TBG and her TBF) is absurd. Don't look for love on the western plan in Thailand. When you give love on the western plan there, don't expect it to be received gratefully. TGF wants you to give support and be there. Marriage implies (falsely) that the support will be permanent. Life can be cruel. TBG wants protection from the harshness.

Zane