hollaback_
Sunday, June 19, 2005
hmm well just got back from thailand about an hour or so ago. a really short trip by any standards, but i enjoyed myself pretty much. though it could have been much longer.
well what can i say. the thais are really cute, in both the "aww so kewt!" and "omg i wanna fuck you" ways. what's been said of them is quite right, they are very sincere and polite. wonder why no one employs thai maids. you only hear of indon or filipino but never thai. hmm. someone's got to do something about that i guess. i think i shall rescue a thai kid from poverty next time. like adoption, or like to be my maid or something. that's assuming i actually strike it big next time. they're such nice people they deserve better. but their way of life is getting better.. they have the ability to make it to singaporean standards. it's really quaint.. that mixture of modernisation and traditional old ways.. of starbucks and roadside stalls outside them.
their language's really soft and sing-song. and most of their english is really lilting and spoken in a hesitant manner. i am guilty though, of falling into the trap of thinking that anyone with bad english is stupid, because i don't think they are. but prejudices remain, and ever so often i have to brush those biased feelings away. i think i had this "lost in translation" moment whilst i was exploring siam plaza on my own and wanted to ask what the name of the building was. by gesticulating and strategically choosing the right words i got my answer from a store keeper. yay for universality of comprehension amongst mankind!
anyway, the cabaret i watched on the first night was hilarious. they aren't really that good actually.. acting's not that good. they lip-synched and their dancing's not superb either. but well, really found the sleazy setting interesting. it's like a cinema playhouse thingie, and you have tables with dim lamps in front of you, on a lower step. but it's quite sad in the sense that their house music sounded suspiciously like one of those stupid compilation albums from 4-5 years ago. and the songs weren't very up-to-date either, the most recent one i think i can recall was ketchup song, which was still 2 years ago. this means they've been doing the same routines over and over again every night. which must be pretty boring. but they were very forthcoming in their sluttiness, so good for them. found the funniest one a really fat man/woman/trans/whichever it doesn't really matter. the announcer sounded like some sleazebag owner a la Harold Zidler in moulin rouge.
ok, i just feel really sad for them. near the end there was this little piece where they all split up and each cabaret member shook the hands of the people of the row they were assigned to. they appeared to be very thankful for each and every audience member's presence. i would be too, i guess. i know what performers feel like. but this is more real, something so degrading and for a livelihood too. but well, at least they have people they belong together with, a whole band of "sisters" to stick to. and i know now why gigolos are called "ya1", or duck in chinese. i mean after all these were mostly guys turned girls but still guys ultimately anyway. yeah. after the show they were all standing outside the entrance trying to solicit us for photographs. and with that singsong language warbled through half-removed adam's apples, they really sounded like a gaggle of ducks. and they're not all really pretty either. some looked like badly made-up men. and i mean. i dunno. i'm just curious about their lives. so what do they do earlier in the day? do they have love lives? what? and are they really happy with their choice? i don't think i'd be very glad with self-inflicted castration. worse still, when they grow old. what happens then.
anyway, on the second night i went to the night market at patpong, which is supposed to be their equivalent of geylang redlight or something. the wares there weren't very good, and i was hesitant to buy a lot of stuff. pirated, fake goods. i mean, although that is the point, it's always best to buy it without being obvious. fake things that aren't blatantly imitation wares. which is quite hard to achieve anyway. yeah so anyway it was just these few narrow roads where the roads were occupied with makeshift stalls, and both sides of the road were flanked with pubs and whore-houses. men outside holding out lists of services their girls could offer, which had really amusing names (they know alliteration too!) like ping pong pussy. i mean, what on earth is that!? naked girls playing table-tennis with their privates? oh well. anyway yeah, and the doors of all the bars were open, and less-than-perfectly-shaped girls wearing luminous bikinis were leering out amidst pole-dancing on bartops. all very amusing.
but that's life. you can either see it as a tragedy, which a lot of this is (a life of anonymous, lowclass whoring), or as a joke. much easier to take things that way. didn't really get anything for people. either couldn't find what they needed, or had no money to get them anyway. as it was, i didn't even have enough to get all the stuff i wanted. next time (whenever
that is) give me the money first. =)
nothing much else to say, except that i think they're really extreme people, in the looks department. they either look really good or really bad. and the guys in general have a better standard than the girls. and it's hard, because when you see an ugly girl in singapore you know she's an ugly girl. when you see one in thailand, you're not sure if it's a she or a shim.
ugh. and oh. a rant about SIA. don't take their flights if you're flying short distance. firstly, you can't really enjoy the inflight entertainment system anyway. there's not much time to use it. by the time you're up in the sky and finished your meal it's time to come down again. and the staff are ruder, the kebaya girls aren't that chio as those on flights to america or some other faraway country. guess the less-experienced and lower-ranked crew are relegated to nearby regional flights since they have less to screw up on and can't be trusted to take on long-distance flights. the flight to bangkok sucked. stupid woman was impatient with us, didn't acknowledge me everytime i thanked her for something. and the man supervisor was the worst, appearing out of nowhere to snatch our trays from us saying "sorry plane is coming down already need to collect ah". okay, understandably they had to since turbulent weather (which REALLY freaked me out as LOST scenes flitted through my mind) had delayed the serving of lunch. but there's a much nicer way of doing it. flight back was much better though. and to end of this post, the thing that tickled me most throughout this whole trip was an audiobook on the plane for george eliot's
silas marner.
think i'll post some photos later.
mike just took up your time at
11:53 pm
th time!