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Wanted, men with good hearts
There is a view that Australia is the lucky country, but it could equally be Thailand such is the exceptionally good fortune of many of the young women who live here. Where else in the world could stunningly attractive, petite young things form liaisons with particularly undesireable types of Western men? The big oxen-like ones with ample bellys hanging out from of the fronts of beer-brand tee shirts, the best of them with shaved heads and grossly tattooed skulls and spider-webbed elbows the withered old decrepit ones wearing roman sandals with socks pulled up over skinny white legs which have snuck out from under hideous, short shorts, the lecherous men of our age who should know better than to have ponytails and gold chains around their necks and then there are the plain old larrikins out to have a good old time. We watch them, these lucky girls, as they look bored rigid while some self-important nonentity tells them the generally unlucky but detailed story of their life in a language the women can barely understand. How lucky can they be to be towed around all day after these men?
Where else but in Thailand could such eye-catching women have their backsides slapped and be groped in bars, be leered at and have these men dribble over them in public displays of lust -as if to show the world that, even though they cannot attract a woman at home, they are kings here and spoiled for choice? The exceptionally lucky of these women can even display love bites as temporary souvenirs of just how much these men like and care for them. Truly they are blessed.
But not all Thai women are so fortunate. We have been given the task of finding nice husbands for the owner and four of the staff at the Kiwi bar we call our own. Only Pons and Saw are not on the lookout, they currently have boyfriends, but it seems the criteria for the others is quite simple. They want men with good hearts who will be kind and look after them. For most, the money doesn’t really matter, but even so it may be a tall order.
Two are over forty and so they think not even the geriatric tourist are interested in them, although the twice-previously-married owner, Tiggy, has currently got an Australian with a mad keen crush on her. He texts her incessantly with proposals of a life together but she tells us, for all she knows, he could be an axe murderer, and she’s not having that. She wants someone over the age of forty-five, and definitely not one of these young ones who just want sex all the time!
It was an interesting discussion, another of the women has been previously reported on this blog as in a lesbian relationship with the Australian woman we met, and we raised this as a slight but potential complication to securing a husband. Not so, we were assured that Thai women are 10 percent lesbian or 10 percent of them are lesbian, we are not quite sure which, but in any case, the Australian woman has gone home and our Thai friend revealed that she would prefer a husband if at all possible.
Many of these youngish women (the youngest at our bar is twenty-eight) come from the country and from poor backgrounds, and most have children being looked after by others. Tiggy’s two boys live in Bangkok with their father, Na has two boys somewhere, Ione two sons and Pons two daughters who live with their respective parents and Kid has one who lives with hers. Theirs is a tough life, they open the bar each day at 10.00 am and close when the last customer goes or when they are so bored they can’t hang on a moment longer. The town is so quiet at the moment that almost no-one drinks at their end of town, but the women still get only one day off each a month. All proudly show us photos of their children, Ione says she sees hers (aged four and two) only about twice a year and she cries at missing them so much.
Now a seasoned agony aunt, Kaelene lent a sympathetic air to Kid, one of the original staff from our earlier visit. She and two others crashed their motorbike (yes, three to a bike is legal here) into a tuk tuk, injuring them quite badly and causing 6000 Baht worth of damage. At less than $300 New Zealand, that may not seem a lot of money, but for a Thai in the hospitality industry it is the better part of a month’s wages. Kaelene’s young friend has been recuperating with family near Chang Mai, but is now back and almost ready again for work. Saw, our other friend who was in the accident has a rich boyfriend at the moment and so she has been away holidaying; aside from one brief appearance, we’ve not seen sight of her.
As for us, it may be that a life of indolence is drawing to an end. Instead of boogieing on Bangla Street, Marty spent Sunday night editing photos and uploading them onto the internet site of a top-draw London publisher; phot-editing may be the beginning of a new career but just in case it is not, it is to Kuala Lumpur on Friday and then on to Perth for our first look at Western Australia.