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Deleted Member
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Hi hooomyy,
Regarding "Private Dancer" by Stephen Leather
The core of the book is autobiographical and outlines Stephen Leather's personal experience with a dancer he met in the Voodoo in Nana Plaza. Most of the book is from his real life relationship up to the point where Pete sticks the BarGirl with the cost of the party (after he finds out she is married etc).
Now I would say all the sensationalist stuff in the rest of the book has happened to someone at some time in Bangkok but just not all of it happened in one relationship to one guy. So Stephen Leather being an writer who at the end of the day is writing something that people will want to keep turning the pages used his personal experience as the outline but towards the end the story pulls in every off the wall story that you have ever heard about relationships with bar girls.
Regarding Patpong Sisters by Cleo Odzer.
Absolutely hilarious; this women is probably the most naÔve ego centric anthropologist that ever faked her way into a PhD program. It is such a laugh to read about a PhD candidate being taken and played by a fool by every Thai she meets in the book from beginning to end. Even when she documents the other farang & foreigners' being played she never realises she is in the net with them.
From the BarGirls to the Thai Hustler/Pimp she falls in love with everyone slices and dices her like the pros that they are. I personally can't believe she got a PhD for documenting her incredible naivety and total lack of common sense. The funniest thing about the whole deal is she never ever figures out she is the puppet on a string. Read the last page and she is as although she knows the jargon she has learned nothing about human nature or her self and is clueless as a newbie could be.
It is one sweet con when the mark never figures out she has been played like a trout the whole way and even goes home and publishes "How stupid I am compared to illiterate Bar girls and Thai pimps" by Cleo Odzer.
Read it, real life comedy at its finest.
Cheers, Tunnel Rat
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 11:03 am on Sep. 30, 2002
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MrJoe
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There.
TR said what I wouldn't. He's spot on.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 11:07 am on Sep. 30, 2002
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hooomyy
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Tunnel Rat, your sardonic description of not only the author of Patpong Sisters but also her equally-clueless, invory tower residing PhD.-bestowers, brought to my face one of those massive grins that appears when one encounters what his own experience has continually proven to be true but has never heard coalesced as a thought so succinctly. I have a good bit of reading ahead, and I shall start with Dr. Odzer's book, now irresistible from your sanguine review, for I do so enjoy informative irony.
I'm glad that the autobiographical events of Mr. Leather did not include the vindictive birthday bash. He must have the "good heart" attributed to him, and I wish him well. I think that his girlfriend, and definitely her sister (Sunan in the book), would be qualified for teaching psychology in any Western university. As for thinking on their feet, they were, and I assume are, amazing!
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 2:30 pm on Sep. 30, 2002
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Chompoo
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Private Dancer is completely implausible as a novel, but it is still entertaining for anyone who is interested in the topic of BGs. All of the things in the book could have happened, and almost certainly have happened to someone at some time, but put all together it is hard to suspend disbelief.
The one thing I really liked about the book is how it shows the perspective from the other side. What seems like completely idiotic and irrational behavior, almost seems logical when explained from her point of view. Obviously it is taken to the extreme, but it can make anyone who deals with BGs think twice about what is (or isn't) going on in their heads.
It's biggest flaw is that it is very hard to identify and sympathize with any of the characters. At times you can say "wow, that could happen to me and I don't know if I would have done the 'right' thing", but at a certain point, after so many warnings and second chances, you have to conclude that both main characters are beyond salvation and at that point I lost all emotional attachment to the story.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 3:01 pm on Sep. 30, 2002
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hooomyy
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I felt the same at the end of the story, Chompoo. The "damaged goods" factor was so high on both sides that death for either one would be a catharsis. What I valued most from the story was the bar girl perspectives, as they were totally foreign to me. The author was generous to post his work for all to read freely.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 3:22 pm on Sep. 30, 2002
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Deleted Member
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Hi Hooomyy,
Hooomyy quote: "I'm glad that the autobiographical events of Mr. Leather did not include the vindictive birthday bash."
Actually maybe I wasn't clear in the first post. My information is from a guy that knew the manager of the Voodoo at the time. The relationship with Stephan Leather and the Voodoo GoGo dancer includes the vindictive birthday bash and that was the real life end of the relationship. The manager did say that S. Leathers fictional description of what actually happened was one sided and Stephan Leather in his relationship with the Voodoo girl did not behave as well as "Pete" does in the book. However please take the whole thing with a grain of salt because I have no direct personal knowledge of what actually happened.
Also, the Voodoo manager did confirm that it was Stephan Leathers ability to understand Thai that tipped him off the Voodoo girl's true feelings same way as "Pete" found out in the book. I have a good Swiss friend in Singapore who I meet up with in Thailand and he speaks quite passable Thai. The stuff he tells me Thai Girls are saying to each other about the farang boyfriend whose lap they are sitting on is sobering to say the least.
If "Private Dancer" has any message for me it is that when you enter the illusion of BK nightlife the motive should be physical gratification and not emotional. Enjoy the fantasy but don't lose track of the smoke and mirrors. Really if you are going to the Thai farang nightlife to search for emotional fulfilment it really will all end in tears.
I do find it weird that farang men are unable to understand that they are simply not part of a Thai bar girls world. "Private Dance" is at least a good fictional description of that phenomenon. While "Patpong Sisters" is a good real life illustration of how a Phd student feminist is as vulnerable to "the sickness" as a fictional character like "Pete".
Some time ago I met a Thai woman here in the UAE who worked in management consulting in Dubai. She had her own questions and confusion over the whole Farang nightlife scene as only can an educated Thai woman who has never been on a Go-Go bar in her life can ask. Basically her description of bar girls was like in the US there is "trailer trash" here in Thailand there is "Thai trash". Honestly as a regular middle class Thai woman she just couldn't understand what any Western man could get emotionally involved with an uneducated insect bitten (her description) & eating Isan rice field girl in a bikini holding onto a brass pole. She could understand Farang men that just want to have sex with them but farang men that also end up falling in love with them not a chance.
At the time of this conversation Ms Middle Class Thai Lady and moi were watching CNN and while I thought about this brass pole image (getting a hard one imagining her rather than Ms Isan on the brass pole) on the TV came the news that Rupert Murdock (70 +) had married some thirty year old Hong Kong Chinese babe with a MBA who spoke five languages. My Thai woman friend pointed at the TV and said being a lonely rich old man and making a fool of himself and falling in love with her (the Chinese trophy wife) I can understand but not Thai Trash from Isan.
Between that conversation and all the stuff I have had translated in bars after we left by my Thai speaker Swiss friend I don't ever expect to end up staring as "Pete" in my own real life version of "Private Dancer".
Knock on wood, of course.
In the end I suspect there are a 100 winners like the lonely planet guy smoker that find a regular Thai women to the single lone winner with makes it work with a bar girl. I can live with that, skipping looking for Miss Right and instead looking for Miss Right Now in the Bangkok nightlife scene is not that bad a fate.
Cheers Tunnel Rat
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 6:06 am on Oct. 1, 2002
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chateaujade
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TR, you are simply engaging in overgeneralization and passing on trite bourgeois Thai prejudice against Isan people, surely uou can do better than that from your distant vantage in UAE or Dubai?
It is not likely that a farang would ever find a stable succesful relationship with a girl he meets in a bar.
But it is NOT impossible. Just unlikely. I know of a few succesful ones, that have stood the test of time, my own included. And I have observed many disasters.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 6:45 am on Oct. 1, 2002
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Groundpounder
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Here in Taiwan, the lowest echelon of the construction industry is staffed mainly by Thai labourers. They are highly regarded as hard workers, and are considered far more reliable than their blue collar Taiwanese counterparts.
Last April, I was flying to BKK surrounded by a bunch of these guys flying home for song kran. Seeing them close up, it occurred to me what a rough bunch they really were. Many couldn't even write, and had to pass their customs forms to the "scribe" among them to have them filled in. I could see I had very little in common with them even if l had been fluent in Thai or they in English.
Then it suddenly dawned on me that it was these guys' female relatives with whom I'd probably be carousing with at NEP and Patpong in a few short hours' time. If I had so little in common with my fellow passengers on this flight, why should I have anything more in common with their sisters and cousins?
Please don't misunderstand me - I have a lot of admiration for individuals who will leave their home country to work hard for small salaries in often harsh conditions in order to improve their lot. But we're talking about finding lifetime marriage partners among these guys' relatives.
In that context, the views of TR's educated Thai friend make perfect sense, and it's little wonder that so many farang-BG's marriages fail.
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Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 8:11 am on Oct. 1, 2002
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MrJoe
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I don't wish to get into another dispute, and the issue is so complex, I'm not going to comment on the reason's why I object a bit to TRs post.
On the other hand I think GP makes a very cogent observation with his insightful post:
"Seeing them close up, it occurred to me what a rough bunch they really were. .. I could see I had very little in common with them even if l had been fluent in Thai or they in English... it suddenly dawned on me that it was these guys' female relatives with whom I'd probably be carousing with at NEP and Patpong in a few short hours' time. If I had so little in common with my fellow passengers on this flight, why should I have anything more in common with their sisters and cousins?
There is much truth in that. MUCH.
I just don't agree that it is corollary to the veiw stated inTRs post and I don't completely agree with the final conclusion.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 8:21 am on Oct. 1, 2002
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hooomyy
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Thank you for correcting my assumption that Mr. Leather had not carried out his birthday party revenge, Tunnel Rat. Perhaps it was my hope as a reader that the event was fictitious that confused my initial reading of your post.
Your description of sobering 'boyfriend' descriptions overheard from bar girls disturbs me, but it should not, for the prime freedom they assumedly enjoy is that of undecipherable conversation with their peers. I have to admit that if I was working as a stud for months and years on end, I might start to joke about some of my customers, even vitriolically, with my workmates. What alarmed me in Mr. Leather's book was the purported reference to him as an "it", which he heard on his message machine from background conversation of calls originating from the birthday party which he did not attend. I speak German to a limited extent, and I once noticed when a German person referred to my eating as "fressen" - a verb reserved for describing an animal eating (contrasted to "essen" for humans). I immediately asked them what they meant, and they were surprised that I had understood what they had said and attempted to laugh it away as a joke. I let the subject drop, curious as to the cause for the comment considering that I was calmly eating a candy bar at the time.
I agree with, and appreciate, your comment regarding expectations when entering into the Bangkok nightlife. I would never expect a female who is selling her body for sex to fall in love with me because I have given her a large sum of money. There is a chance that something more could develop from such initial interactions, but I expect it to be the rare exception to the norm. Chateaujade appears to have found a very precious pearl amidst an expansive seabed of empty oyster shells.
What a great opportunity for cross-cultural learning you had in meeting and speaking with the "middle-lcass" Thai lady in Dubai - given the subject matter. She, like a great many women, seemed not to understand that most males don't consider social status to a great degree when we find a female desirable. Beauty, sense of humor, understanding, generosity - these have little to do with one's "class" and more to do with one's inner self. "The Prince and the Pauper" - this story explains the class vs. character scenario satisfactorily for me.
Cheers!
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 6:17 pm on Oct. 1, 2002
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