[MrsGoo]

With all due respect, the author seems to derive most his opinions based encounters with thai bar girls. I have a female thai penfriend who doesn't seem to portray such characteristics.

There are thousands of articles reporting about thai bar girls. Some describe them as angels, some brand them as sweet smiling liars.

I have only read few touching articles on WHY there are so many in that trade.

I quote one article i read . " when in poverty, how would you think you would react if someone told you there's a job that in a few hours allow you to earn an equivalent of toiling in the hot sun for the whole day?"

I believe no woman wants to work in such trade.

I think this is a very sensitive issue, but i would love to hear the view from our thai friends.

[occallExtet]

Excerpt from

THAILAND: LAND OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN
As with all Thai women, it is not simply the bargirls’ physical beauty which attracts, it is their sense of humor, spirit of life and, as foreign men point out, lack of “hang-ups.” The average Thai bargirl spends her evening clowning and joking with her friends, and, come what may, her attitude remains positive. If she is not in love with a man, she is certainly in love with life.

Nor does she see her dancing as a chore. In the corners of Bangkok’s bars, many of the girls can be seen gyrating to the music in the darkness. Such is their spirit of life and love of music, they dance even when it is not their turn, and after work often head for discos for still more dancing. And for most of these rice farmers’ daughters, sex between a man and a woman has always been regarded as so natural that it is almost impossible for them to act “sexy.” They may attempt to hold a sexy pose only to break up laughing as soon as a photograph is taken.

The total absence of self-pity displayed by Thai bargirls and the lack of sordidness in much of Thai nightlife says a great deal for the Thai character. The girls often seem surprisingly skilled at transforming traditional Thai wordplay into ribald humor and bawdy double entendres, a kind of social satire on their own situation. Once, when a friend and I were crossing Patpong Road, walking from one group of go-go bars to the next, he turned to me and said: “Do you want to try the big dipper or the little dipper?” It is a compliment to the Thai disposition that a bar area is comparable in atmosphere to a carnival or circus.

With a more puritanically minded regime running Vietnam, and with the demise of Taiwan’s famous Peitou area, the only comparison with Bangkok nightlife in Asia is Manila. And, indeed, some Western men prefer Manila to Bangkok. But this is often simply a question of language: Filipinas in Manila usually speak fluent English although many Thai women, even in Bangkok, speak very little English. But for those men who have spent the time necessary to learn Thai, the rewards are great.

Many men believe that Thai women must have discovered the fountain of youth. An American living in Chicago married to a Thai nurse reports on his situation: “Our marriage is wonderful. But my wife is 36, she looks about 26, and with her makeup off she looks like a teenager. Sometimes when we go to a restaurant in America, I get the feeling people are wondering if they should call the police or not. And she can’t get served in bars without I.D!” And, indeed, many of the women in this book are probably several years older than most Westerners would guess. Especially if they are not familiar with the youthful looks of Asian women.

Unfortunately, many Westerners pass judgement on Thai women based on their own cultural values. For example, Thai women are graceful, charming and polite and do not wish to lose face by raising their voices. This is seen by many Westerners as proof that Thai women are “submissive” and “obedient.” Nothing makes Western men married to Thai women laugh harder than someone ignorant of Thailand suggesting that such men married Thais so that they could be in control. Or that they were “afraid of smart women.” As one English friend married to a Thai woman puts it: “In America your women sit about prattling in the most shallow and superficial manner about ‘relationships, commitment, communication and empowerment’ and can’t think outside the box of American values, yet they want to change every other country in their image. They also have some kind of racist idea that Asian women are not as smart as they are and a patronizing attitude that Asian women need to be ‘saved’ by Western women. If that’s a ‘smart’ woman, thank you, anyway.”

Copyright Dean Barrett 2001. All rights reserved.

[xanonlinexan]

Well...certainly it appears to me too that the author derives most of it's knowledge from the bar scene....and it is surely no 'nice' job to work there but at least the author is highlighting the facts to at least some degree...that there is some kind of misunderstanding 'out there' concerning Thai women...and the 'press' sometimes just wanna get to the bad side of things...I think that nobody needs 'especially' the yellow press to judge over things...that's what I think the article is all about...but as I mentioned..controversial....