Private Dancer

by Stephen Leather

  On my last three visits I ordered the same thing – gammon steak, chips, a fried egg, and mushy peas. A couple of coffees. No problem. Yesterday I went for lunch, sat down at the same table I’d been at before, and was served by the same waitress. I ordered the gammon steak and she smiled and said ‘Not boring?’ which I figured meant that by now I should be bored ordering the same thing. I said no, it was just what I wanted.

  So, I sit down and read the Bangkok Post. My food arrives. Gammon steak, fried egg, mushy peas. No chips. I asked the waitress where my chips were. ‘Coming,’ she said. Fine. I wait. No chips. I wait. The waitress is over at the bar, talking to the female manageress. No chips. Eventually I go over to the waitress and ask her where my chips were.

  ‘Coming,’ she says. So I ask her why the cook hadn’t put them on my plate. Blank looks. Didn’t the cook realise that something was missing? More blank looks.

  Then realisation dawns. The chips were being cooked. They’d been completely forgotten. So I asked the waitress why the cook had forgotten the chips. More blank looks and shrugs. I asked her again. ‘Maybe the cook thought you wanted mushy peas instead of chips,’ she said.

  So I ask her why the cook would think that. I’d had that meal three times previously, why today would the cook decide not to give me the chips? That’s when it all went surreal. At this point there were two waitresses and the manageress facing me. No smiles. Not a flicker. I was smiling and nodding and being as nice as pie, but the famous Thai smiles had evaporated like sweat off a camel’s hump.

  No one has ever ordered mushy peas with gammon steak before, says the waitress. This was the waitress who had served me the very same meal on at least two occasions. I told her that she’d served me exactly that meal four days earlier and she shook her head. I couldn’t believe it, I was being called a liar by a waitress.

  Then the manageress, her voice loaded with contempt, tells me that she’s been working there for years and that no one has ever ordered gammon steak and mushy peas before. It was my fault for ordering something that wasn’t on the menu.

  So, I stand my ground and insist that I ordered the same meal on the last three occasions at the pub. Lots of shaking of heads. Impossible, says the manageress. At this point the farang manager comes in and the manageress points at him and tells me to talk to the manager. It was clear from her tone that this wasn’t because she wanted the matter resolved. It was because she was Thai and I was a farang and she didn’t want to talk to me about the matter. I should talk to another farang about it. We were both below her, was what she meant. Go away and stop bothering me, was the subtext.

  Fine. I went over to the manager. I was still pretty laid back, all I wanted to know what I’d done differently that time so that in future I could get what I wanted without confusion. He’s a nice guy and wanted to make things right. I said there was nothing to make right, everything was cool, I was just surprised at being told that I’d never ordered my favourite meal there.

  The manager’s explanation was that his staff didn’t speak English very well, but that’s not true. And his other explanation was that we farangs all look the same to them. Also not true. We all know how good Thai memories can be – go back to a go-go a year after a single visit and they’ll probably remember your name and what you drink. Nah, it’s not a memory problem.

  I ran the situation by Jimmy. His explanation was even simpler – Thais are stupid. He might be right, but stupidity doesn’t explain the bad attitude. The hostility. The contempt.

  By the time I left the pub the Thai smiles were back in place, the polite nods, the ‘see you again’. But by then I knew that the smiles weren’t real. I’d seen their true faces, and they weren’t pretty.

  So what did I learn from this sorry episode?

  1) There is no point in tipping at the Sheep’s Head. In fact I’m re-evaluating my whole approach to tipping in Thailand. I’ll probably still leave a few coins, but the days of my leaving 50 or even 100 baht as a tip are over. There is no point. If I can be treated with such contempt by people I have been tipping handsomely for five years or so, then I’ve been throwing my money away.

  2) I shall treat the waitresses at the pub as if they’re stupid and tell them exactly what I expect to get on my plate. I’ve seen long-term expats do this and I’ve always thought them incredibly rude for treating staff as if they were idiots. But now I understand that the only way to get what you want in Thailand is to be precise about your requirements. You cannot assume that they will use their initiative. That is why quality control is such a big issue in Thailand. Thai workmanship in the main is crap and has to be inspected at every step. Anyone who has ever had a house built here will know exactly what I mean.

  3) I’ve always known that the Thai smile is a mask rather than a genuine expression of emotion, but this experience has reinforced that opinion. The true feeling of the staff was revealed as soon as I questioned them. The smiles went and the contempt showed. You want to see the true faces of Thais who work in the go-go bars? Take out a camera and point it at the stage. In main Thais are not really nice people. Sure they smile at you a lot, but as soon as they don’t get their own way the smile vanishes. The worst treatment I’ve ever received by airline staff was a check in guy at Thai Airways who pointed at me and screamed at me when I objected to being bumped off a flight to Hong Kong, despite arriving two hours before departure. The most objectionable driver in the world is a wealthy Thai at the wheel of a Mercedes. Try to get your car in front of his and see how friendly Thais are. Try to tell a Thai teenager that she shouldn’t be using a mobile phone in the cinema, and you’ll soon discover how contemptuous of us they are. Thailand is a great country so long as you accept it for what it is, and the people for what they are. So long as you don’t expect Western standards of workmanship, service, efficiency or courtesy you won’t be disappointed! And I guess that’s the big lesson I learned. There is no point in complaining. No point in making my feelings known. In future when my chips don’t arrive I’ll just shrug, smile and say ‘mai ben rai.’ But behind the smile, I’ll be thinking that Thailand will never change, never improve, because it’s not in the Thai nature to listen to criticism, to learn from mistakes. So screw ‘em.

  PETE

  Joy was so cute after I told her that I didn't want her to work any more. She came back to my room with the contents of her locker in a plastic carrier bag. ‘Now I not Number 81,’ she said, referring to her badge number. ‘I tell everybody you not want me work. Everyone say I very lucky, Pete.’ I asked her when she wanted to go to Surin and she said she'd catch the bus the following day. I went with her to the nearest ATM and withdrew ten thousand baht, her first month's 'salary' and gave it to her. She put it in her bag. She stayed with me that night and left early in the morning, saying that she wanted to go to the bus station to buy her ticket.

  I offered to go to the bus station with her but she said it was too crowded and hot and that she didn't want me to be uncomfortable. That was so typical of her, always thinking about me. She called me from the bus station and told me that she loved me, and that as soon as I wanted her to come back, I was to call her.

  I telephoned Joy every two or three days. I'd tell her in advance when I was calling, and usually she'd be by the phone, waiting. The phone box was about a kilometer from her house, she said, sometimes she walked, sometimes she drove her motorcycle. If I called at an unplanned time I'd ask whoever answered the phone if he or she knew Joy. If they said no, I was stymied, and I'd have to hang up. If they did know Joy I'd ask them to tell her that I'd called and that I'd call again in thirty minutes. Sometimes it was really frustrating, either the person who answered wouldn't understand my Thai, or they wouldn't pass on the message, but usually the system worked. She was always pleased to hear from me, asking how I was getting on with my book, when she could come and see me.

  For the first few weeks I was working flat out on the book, sending each chapter to Alistair in Hong Kong as I finished it. I ran i
nto a major problem almost as soon as Joy went back to Surin; the Thai photographer we'd commissioned to take photographs of Phuket turned in the shittiest set of negatives I've ever seen. Something had gone wrong during the developing and there were grains of some chemical all over them. Totally unusable. I had to find another photographer, a farang this time, and tell him what was needed.

  It was more than a month before I could tell Joy to come down and see me. She caught the bus and arrived in Bangkok late on Friday night. I took her back to the Dynasty Hotel and we spent the whole weekend together.

  On the Saturday night she wanted to go to see her friends in Zombie and we went together. She seemed proud that she wasn't working any more and bought drinks for her friends with money I'd given her. She seemed more relaxed and happier than when she'd been working and I began to think that maybe everything was going to work. I paid bar for three of her friends and we went to a restaurant I hadn't been to before. Joy ordered lots of Thai food including a great pork omelette that was so good that I got her to get the recipe from the chef. She loved to help me with my work and made a big show of writing it down in English in front of her friends.

  When I put her on the bus to Surin on Monday morning, with another ten thousand baht, she kissed me on the cheek. ‘I love you, Pete,’ she said. ‘I want come stay with you in Bangkok for ever.’

  From COOKING ACROSS SOUTH-EAST ASIA Edited by PETE RAYMOND

  STUFFED PORK OMELETTE

  2 tablespoons vegetable oil

  4 ounces fresh minced pork

  3 cloves of garlic, chopped

  1 tablespoon soy sauce

  8 black peppercorns, cracked

  4 eggs, beaten

  4 spring onions, chopped

  1 teaspoon fish sauce

  1 coriander plant, chopped

  2 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves

  Using a mortar and pestle, grind the garlic, peppercorns and coriander plant. Heat one tablespoon of vegetable oil in a wok, add the pork, soy sauce, and the garlic, peppercorns and coriander mixture. Cook, stirring occasionally, for five minutes.

  Mix the eggs and fish sauce in a bowl. Pour the rest of the vegetable oil into a frying pan, pour in the egg mixture and coat the bottom of the pan. Top with the pork, spring onions and coriander leaves and cook over a moderate heat until the eggs begin to set. Fold the sides over the filling to make a square package and continue cooking until the eggs are cooked in the centre, then slide on to a warmed plate.

  JIMMY

  I'm not sure if I'd be able to run a business in Thailand. What I've got suits me just fine, I've got three furniture showrooms around Liverpool and I keep in touch with my managers by phone and fax. Four times a year my accountant comes over and we go over the books together. Works a treat, I tell you. The time difference means I can spend the morning in bed, I have lunch, then hit the phone. Assuming there's no problems, an hour a day pretty much keeps the business ticking over. Then I have dinner, then hit the bars. Wouldn't have a lifestyle anywhere close to that if I had to run a business here.

  It's the Thais, you see. Impossible to deal with. They call it the Land of Smiles, but the smile isn't real. It's a protective measure, a disguise, or a way of avoiding trouble. Something goes wrong, they smile. They don't want to do what you ask, they smile. But behind the smile, they're nasty pieces of work.

  You want to know what a Thai is really like, underneath the practised politeness and the phoney smile, then put one behind the steering wheel of an expensive car. They never give way, they never allow anyone to pull in front of them, and half the time they don't even obey traffic lights. That's why Bangkok has such horrendous traffic jams. You can sometimes sit for an hour without moving, and some traffic lights take up to fifteen minutes to change. Most of the busy intersections don't have computer-controlled lights, they have cops switching them on and off, backed up with more cops on point duty. Seems like a waste of manpower, until you realise that the cops have to be there because Thais won't obey traffic lights. They don't just go through amber, they ignore red if they think they can get away with it. And the bigger and more expensive the car, the worse they are. The only thing that'll make them obey the law is the possibility that a cop will pull them over and fine them.

  I don't know how Big Ron manages to stay sane. I find it hard enough dealing with the Thais that run my condominium building. I'd hate to have to depend on them for my livelihood. But boy, the sex does make up for a lot of the bad stuff you have to put up with to live here.

  The big problem is that you get jaded after a while. When you first come to Bangkok, you walk around with your tongue hanging out, you can't believe that all these gorgeous girls are totally available to you for a few quid. You go a bit crazy, everybody does. Hell, in my first six months here I reckon I must have slept with more than two hundred women. Well, I assume they were all women, I was pretty naive back then and I suppose there could have been a few katoeys among them. Anyway, after a few months you start to hanker for something a little different. My mate Simon, he goes for older women, sometimes as old as fifty. Another mate, Nigel, he's in search of the perfect blow job. Hasn't had full sex for more than a year, he says. Reckons the best blow jobs are from katoeys, and I can't argue with him there. No one gives a better blow job than another guy, that's what I always say. Women do their best, but a guy knows what another guy wants.

  Recently I started experimenting with couples. Two girls at a time. To be honest, it's not always as good as you'd think. They talk, the girls, they talk in Thai or Khmer or whatever and you can't understand what they're saying. And when it is good, sometimes it's too good. Did you ever see that movie Saint Jack? The one with Ben Gazzara, set in Singapore. He fixes this guy up with two hookers, and when the guy goes upstairs, Gazzara waits for him with a smirk. He knows that it'll be all over in a couple of minutes. Some of the girls prefer to work in pairs, they know that most guys will shoot their load as soon as the girls start to do their stuff. I mean, you've got one kissing you and playing with your nipples, while the other's pounding up and down on your dick. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am, was it good for you?

  I had a right seeing to last week, from two deaf and dumb hookers. There's a few of them in Queen's Castle in Patpong. Geng and Hom. Cute as hell, really small but great bodies both of them. I paid bar fine and took them to a short-time hotel. Now, normally when you take two, they insist on the lights being off, I guess because they're shy. So when I get into the room, first thing I do is to turn off the lights while I go into the bathroom to shower. When I come out, they've only turned the lights back on. Then I see why. They're sitting on the bed, signing to each other. That's right, they can't communicate in the dark so the lights have to stay on. Brilliant. And the other thing was, there was no chattering while they did their stuff. Just the occasional grunt. A great time was had by all. Well, I had a great time, anyway.

  Extract from CROSS-CULTURAL COMPLICATIONS OF PROSTITUTION IN THAILAND by PROFESSOR BRUNO MAYER

  A notable change in attitude occurs in those expatriates who spend a considerable length of time in Thailand and who incur long-term exposure to the bars and the prostitutes who work there. During the initial phase of contact, farangs are attracted to the girls, and during the first few months may attempt to form friendships with them. Many farangs initially take the view that the girls are forced into the life of prostitution and that given the opportunity would prefer to have a regular boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. The girls often give the impression that this is the case, but there is an ambiguity inherent in the nature of the bargirl-customer relationship that the farang often fails to appreciate, namely that to the Thai bargirl, love and money are not separate aims. The girl believes that money is an expression of love, and that love is an emotion bestowed towards those who offer support, support being more often than not, financial. The girl sees nothing incongruous about linking money and love, but the farang, observing the relationship from a Western perspective, believes that the
two are mutually exclusive. One is loved for one's money, or for one's self.

  Newcomers to the bar scene tend to the belief that girls will in fact love them for themselves, and therefore try whenever they can to restrict the amount of money they give to the girl. No matter how much the girl is attracted to the man she will resent the reduction in financial support, seeing it as a lack of commitment. The girl might not express her disappointment verbally, but her actions will lead the man to realise that she is unhappy. He in turn will believe that she loves him only for his money, in which case he will try to test her by further reducing the amount of money he gives her. Such relationships always fall apart. After the farang has been through the cycle several times, he will begin to distrust all bargirls, labelling them as prostitutes who care only about money. They are unable to accept that the girls see nothing wrong in liking, or even loving, a man for himself and for his financial support, that to the girl such things are inextricably linked. The farang will stop searching out girls with whom he thinks he can build a loving relationship in keeping with his Western ideal, but instead makes do with individual sexual encounters, one-night stands if you like, with the sex paid for and no emotional attachment sought. Such farangs begin to see all women in Thailand as prostitutes, and eventually become resentful and scornful of Thais generally. Once they reach this stage, many farangs decide to leave the country, never to return.

  BRUCE

  Jimmy's a character all right. I don't think there's a drug he hasn't taken or a sexual perversion he hasn't tried. He staggers into Fatso's Bar, disappears upstairs to the toilet then comes down a few minutes later rubbing his nose with pupils as big as saucers. I'm not sure how well his business is doing back in the UK, but he sleeps most of the day and he's in the bars all night so I don't see that he can be getting much work done. You know what he used to do when he was a teenager to make money? He used to eat shit. I kid you not. He'd let it be known that on such and such a day at such and such a time he'd eat a turd. People used to come from miles around pay 50p a head to watch. And he'd do it, too. There was no faking, he'd really eat shit. He set up his first business, renovating old desks, when he was fifteen and he used his shit-eating money to do it. He cracks on he's worth well over a million now and he's only 35, but he's been out here for more than ten years and I can't see how he's managing to build a business the way he behaves.