When your friend becomes a bar girl...

[Fidel]

I'll try to keep this as short as possible whilst giving as much of the picture as possible.

 

When I first came to Thailand I fell in with a crowd of ex-pats both male and female and of all ages and nationalities.

 

One of them was a really young guy who was living here and who was seeing a girl we'll call 'Fon'.

 

Fon was / is a lovely girl. When I first met her I had no idea she used to work in a bar, she had a good job and could speak English very well. She had a sense of humour very close to the Western sense of humour and was a pleasure to be with.

 

Fon really was a genuine girl, very much in love with her boyfriend. Whenever the other guys were having problems with their girlfriends they would say.. 'why can't my girlfriend be like Fon'. Fon, it seemed, carried none of the baggage of many other former bargirls... gambling, insane jealousy etc.

The couple were very happy together.

 

Fon's boyfriend tried his best to get her a visa for his home country but ran into problems as she was poorly educated and had no savings and no land. After two attempts they gave up. He moved back home and started working, intending to come back in a few months.

 

After a few months Fon ran into financial trouble as her BF stopped sending her the meager two or three thousand baht to pay the rent on their house. After another while he stopped calling her. Then the e-mails stopped.

 

In the meantime she went to work as a cashier in a non 'girlie bar' bar owned by a friend. Soon the BF sent her the 'Dear Fon' e-mail... telling her things wouldn't work out.

 

This was a girl who stayed with her man even though she knew he wasn't rich... and even though other girls told her she was stupid and should find an older guy with cash.... but she loved him so she didn't.

 

Now she's totally devastated. She has very little income, she's single and she's wasted years on this guy.

 

She's trying not to fall back into the P4P scene to make ends meet but it's really difficult and we're all trying to watch out for her.

 

I hope she doesn't have to go back to that way of life but I fear that she may feel that she has no other choice. For me it's like watching a good friend teetering on the brink of hell.

 

Next, theres 'Ja'. 'Ja' was a good friend of mine for over a year. She was really sweet and fun to be with. We kind of had something going but it never got off the ground. She worked in a guesthouse as a cook.. and she was a great cook.

 

Anyway, her friend was accused of stealing from the guesthouse so she walked out in solidarity with her.

 

She opened her own restaurant... a little stall kind of affair outside a shop but didn't make enough to pay the bills.

 

I hadn't seen her for a while and then... there she was all of a sudden running out of a bar, all tarted up trying to drag me inside for a chat and a drink. She had turned to the bar scene to make her living. I didn't know what to think. I was shocked and wasn't sure what to say to her.

 

What do you say? 'Oh, I see you're hustling Farang guys for cash now.... making a living horizontally..'

 

I'm not sure what she's doing now, I haven't seen her in a while but I do think her situation is sad.

 

As much as I may enjoy the bar scene and the night life, though I don't go with the girls, I do find it very sad to see a friend become a 'prostitute'.

 

I think it's natural for many people to look at bar girls and think of them as having always been bargirls... but it's different when someone you know well becomes one.

 

Sorry about the long winded posting but I've never seen a discussion on friends becoming bar girls on this board.

[gobbledonk]

I think it's natural for many people to look at bar girls and think of them as having always been bargirls

 

Fidel,

 

I am surprised to hear this sympathetic tone from someone who I consider fairly hard-boiled, at least when responding to the occasional terminally lovestruck Farang member. Just goes to show - we cant really know one another from a few posts on a forum somewhere in cyberspace ...

 

As for your quote, I personally don't see them in that light at all. They are someone's daughter, someone's sister and, often, someone's mother. The problem with internalising the pain of the rest of the world, particularly the developing countries, is that it doesnt help anyone, least of all oneself. I feel sympathy for every exploited human being on the planet - dont even get me started on the Nike/Gap thing - but I know that there is very little I can do beyond treating everyone as a human being and avoiding behaviour which demeans others. TukTuk drivers aside, I think I do a pretty fair job in Asia.

 

You've obviously spent a lot more time in Asia than I have, and I have no doubt that you've seen a lot more of the misery that everyone in the industry endures, but they are still a lot better off, at least in the short term, than their sisters in the sweatshops. Indentured prostitution is another matter, and I know how quickly KS will descend upon us if we go down that road, but the majority of the girls in the Farang scene have some choices.

 

The majority of the female board members, interestingly, seem to view the girls less sympathetically then we males do, often arguing that everyone in Thailand has a choice, and that the bar is simply the easy option. Personally, I'd prefer to spend 8 hours a night in a bar chatting up fat chicks (I'm struggling for the equivalent ..) than 12 hours a day in a factory somewhere on the outskirts of BKK. Over time, my choice may kill me, but at least I'd have a few laughs along the way.

[JJsushi]

Says Fidel:

---

I think it's natural for many people to look at bar girls and think of them as having always been bargirls... but it's different when someone you know well becomes one.

 

---

 

I have never met a girl to my knowledge who was a initially a non-prostitute but then became one after my meeting her. Yet when you talk to the girls who are prostitutes and they tell you about their lives prior to prostitution you get that insight that says that they are really no different than any other woman you may know in your home country except for whatever circumstances that drove them into prostitution.

 

I guess it is easy to villify a woman if you don't know her story and fall into the non-sensical school of thought that prostitutes are immoral people with bad character and no hope of redemption but in your case you know the women and their characters and it makes that much more of a personal tragedy for you.

 

I hope your friends can eventually leave the world of prostitution and live "normalized" lives in Thai society. Their problems sound purely financial so there may yet be a way out for them(accumulated savings or sponsor) before they get caught up in the seedier stuff that traps them in the game.

[Guest]

Personally, I'd prefer to spend 8 hours a night in a bar chatting up fat chicks (I'm struggling for the equivalent ..) than 12 hours a day in a factory somewhere on the outskirts of BKK. Over time, my choice may kill me, but at least I'd have a few laughs along the way.

---

 

*******

 

You sure? I think it must be one of the hardest things in life to smile and talk for hours on end at the Biergarten to people you don't really like but need to be nice to because they have the money... Can't imagine anything worse frankly.--and if you get to know some of the BGs personally, they'll be quick to tell you the same....

 

Nich

[gobbledonk]

Hmm - being nice to people you secretly despise simply because they have MONEY ? That sounds like lot like the job description for anyone in a sales/hospitatlity/retail role. Kinda explains why I wokr in IT .....

 

Obviously, people in the above industries don't usually have sex with their clientele (to the best of my knowledge), but I have little doubt that many a female salesperson has sat around at an interminable business lunch laughing at some fat guy's jokes and stoking his, er, ego. They both know that the facade ends when the contracts are signed : I couldnt do it, but I dont have a BMW and an apartment overlooking Central Park to support.

 

 

[Fidel]

Says artiew:

---

I am surprised to hear this sympathetic tone from someone who I consider fairly hard-boiled, at least when responding to the occasional terminally lovestruck Farang member.

---

 

Art, don't believe a word the Bush administration says about me, I'm not that bad a guy, just ask that 1990s 'C' movie star, Kevin Costner!

 

I have been hard on some of the guys here but I hate to see people walk into things with their eyes wide shut.

 

 

[Pescator]

Hi Nicholas

 

You sure? I think it must be one of the hardest things in life to smile and talk for hours on end at the Biergarten to people you don't really like but need to be nice to because they have the money

---

 

Try substitute the word Biergarten with shoe shop assistent/bartender etc. anywhere in Europe or the US. That would fit into this description too. ::

 

Cheers

Hua Nguu

 

[SiLeakHunt]

"When your friend becomes a bar girl"

 

If you've ever met Kipster, Spirit of Town Hall, Carew, Rusty, Ckrisg etc you'd understand that the best thing to do was advise them to seek out another caeer, either that or get them learn to survive on a meagre diet.

 

Cheers

[ABCinBK]

Artiew,

 

I'm a pretty cynical guy when it comes to the bargirls' intentions with anything involving a "real" relationship. However, while it's true that most are economically better off in the short term working in the bars, I would look hard before thinking whether most of them are better off in the long run (i.e. when the whole of their lives is the determining factor as to whether working as a prostitute did them any good economically or more importantly in the whole of their lives).

 

Beyond the social problems that can arise from such a choice, let's look at how many end up.

 

As an example, my TG had 5 friends. I'll call them A, B, C, D, and E.

 

A is now mentally insane, having taken too much yaba, ganja, E, cocaine, and anything else she could get her hands on. Mind you, she mixed them, and drank and smoke as well.

 

B is now mentally vacuos, doesn't know where she is most of the time. A yaba addict.

 

C got married.

 

D got married.

 

E got married.

 

No one knows if C, D, and E will stay that way.

 

So are most better off? I guess if A, B, C, D, and E represent what happens to most, it depends on where the "lucky" three end up in a few years and farther down the road.

 

But there is definitely a price. By the way, E has got medical issues from yaha too. So it's not like getting married and getting out of the scene makes all the problems just disappear.

 

ABC

[Tiger Moth]

Two very touching stories.

 

This certainly gives one further incentive to be considerate and caring with all who work in the industry. As artiew stated earlier, "They are someone's daughter, someone's sister and, often, someone's mother.".