So I've Been Converted...

Do what you do Sean Kingston. (Ctrl + left click)

It's funny because I was pretty hesitant going into this weekend. Patthaya has a (deserved) reputation for appealing to a certain clientele, and I don't definitely do not fall into that category. I mean I'm pretty amused by the ridiculous redlight districts for like half an hour but after that I just get kind of grossed out. So going into it, I kept asking myself if I really wanted a whole weekend of this. Plus the Patthaya beach was supposed to be shit, so that killed half the reasons to go in the first place. Thankfully, all of my preconceived notions were destroyed, and the half that weren't I was kind of hoping were true anyway.

20 Nov. 2009

So the group consisted of myself, Meg, Kerry, Cassie, David, and Adam. This meant that, as I bro-ishly pointed out during the bus ride, I was "the only one interested in the vag." Both a blessing and a curse I suppose. In any case, we arrived in Patthaya around 10. We were staying in Jomtien, which is about a 10 min. drive from downtown and is actually really nice and chill. Really it's your standard upscale-ish beach town except that it's really cheap. Our hostel was the nicest I've stayed in thus far, probably because it was run by two sweet gay queens, whom Adam and I would run into later at Nab. The six of us dived into a few beers and left for Patthaya proper and the walking street. Patthaya's walking street is one of the seedier areas of the town and is, essentially, a string of go-go bars and brothels. It's one of small section of the country where you can safely say that every Thai woman on the street has her price. The highlight of the walking street involved one such woman and Adam.

Each bar had about 4 or 5 women standing outside trying to draw the tourists in (this is pretty much the case in a lot of Thailand). One such woman sprinted over to Adam and grappled him. Adam (it's pretty obvious that he's gay) informed her, "I'm gay." Her response: "I love Gay Men!" and she wrapped her leg around his waist Salsa-dancing style and proceeded to dry-hump the shit out of him.

After we got that out of the way, Adam and I left for club sector. There was a group of three clubs called Nab which featured a gay club, a lesbian club, and a straight club. The others had gone to bed at this point so it was just us; Adam really wanted to go to the gay club, and I wasn't really in the mood to prowl the straight club by myself, so I opted to just be his wingman in the gay club. Oddly enough, this ended up being the best decision I could have made.

I won't lie, even I was kind of uncomfortable for the first ten minutes or so. There were several Thai guys who would try to stick their thumbs up my butthole every time I walked by. Naturally, they were seated by the bathroom and I had been drinking heavily, so I was walking by a lot. Unfortunately, the bathroom was the proverbial frying pan. There were 3 guys in the bathroom who would aggressively attempt to give you back massages while you peed, and they would not go away how many times you said no. Probably during one of my fifty trips to the bathroom, Adam met up with Woody. Woody is a hair cutter who is the epitome of the Thai "bottom" (this is the gay terminology of Thailand according to Adam). He was obsessed with Adam, loved me too, and bought us both like 4 drinks. His sister/cousin/friend/I don't know (he kept referring to her as his "sister" but Thai's do that a lot when they're not related) was with him as well, and I can honestly say that she was the most attractive woman that I have ever seen in person. I can't emphasize this enough, the only women who are comparable to her are the ones on TV and in movies. So Adam hooked up with Woody kind of (he wasn't really into him) and I hooked up with Woody's sister. It was a good night for us.

21 Nov. 2009

Saturday we spent almost the entire day at the beach in Jomtien. While the beach was not the picturesque Thai beach with crystal blue waters, it was as nice as any beach you'll find in the States. In the afternoon Adam, Cassie, and I walked along for the beach several hours and passed both the gay beach and the main tourist beach. If you didn't know this, you should be aware that Russians have pissed on Patthaya and claimed it as their own. I'm not particularly upset about this, after all Americans and Brits have been doing this for years, but it does give the town an interesting flavor. The Russian beach is pretty ridiculous. Eastern Europeans have a strange fascination with speedos and I don't like to impose my own culture on others, but I have to say that they should really get over it. If nothing else, there's certainly no lack of self-confidence among the Russians. Are you overweight and hairy? Sure, go ahead and wear that yellow thong. The women were just as bad. There were many women that were topless and wearing thongs, but they weren't the ones you wanted to be topless and wearing a thong.

While walking through the Russian beach, we amused ourselves by categorizing the various ex-pats. There are sex-pats (any male with a Thai girlfriend, although the completely true stereotype is the old pervert with the young girl), the gay sex-pats (almost as common), and the reverse sex-pats (Western women with Thai men, not nearly as common). Conveniently, each of us had filled one of the categories.

The gay beach was probably the highlight of the day. It was everything I had hoped it would be and then some. Young Thai men running around in speedos and being lotioned up by old Russians, Americans, and English. Sometimes you just have to look at the trainwreck head on. When you do, you'll find that it can actually be pretty damn entertaining; that was the gay beach. Adam loved every second of it, because he was easily the most attractive westerner there and was gawked at like a celebrity (I enjoyed a similar distinction while walking by the Russian beach).

That night we went back to Walking Street and Nab. Woody was there, but his sister was not. On the plus side, no one tried to stick their thumb up my ass. The highlight of the night was the show. If Alan Ginsberg and Baz Luhrman co-wrote a drag show it may have looked like this. There were drag queens breaking out in song and dance routines. One of the centerpieces of the show was a dwarf lady-boy who glamorously removed her top and strutted about wearing only a thong. Remember what I said about the trainwreck?

22 Nov. 2009



So I had a lot of time to think on the trip back to Ayutthaya, and I drastically reassessed some of my original hangups about sex. Coming into Thailand, I decided that I didn't want to get with any Thai girls or have a Thai girlfriend. After all, that's what the creepy old men do, and I don't want to be associated with them. Truthfully, some of it was also an ego thing. I want to know that someone wants me for me, and not because I'm a phrang (foreigner) with money; it's sort of little boy-ish, but this is how fragile my vanity is. I've tried to further rationalize this mentality by arguing that it's misogynistic to take advantage of the socio-economic situation, but I've realized how wrong every one of my arguments were.

Every male phrang who has spent any significant time in Thailand has a Thai girlfriend. Up until recently, I had kind of turned my nose up to them. However, I now realize that they have it figured out. How invaluable is it to have someone who is able to help you with the language and sort out the everyday problems you run into (like finding a doctor's note for your work permit....goddammit)? It certainly doesn't hurt that she's also beautiful, sweet, and really loves you.

You see, originally I assumed that Thai women are interested in phrang only because we have money and can get them a greencard. This is partially true, but not completely true. Really, Thai's fucking love white people--it's like Fox News' wetdream (also like Fox News Thai's are also really rascist, but I'll get into that some other time. Suffice to say, they don't like black people). The hair, the eyes, the skin, the builds, everything about us is attractive to them because it is so different from what they have. Rob and I theorized that anyone of us can get with 70% of Thai women based solely on the fact that we're white. Our chances go up even further because we're not creepy old men (by the way Thai's love to define presence by absence: "no" literally translates to "not yes"), we're young, and, yes, relatively good-looking. Even more, we represent a culture that they find incredibly fascinating. It's like that line from The Foreigner, "Because I'm a foreigner, I don't even have to have a personality. Everybody just gives me one!" So yes, we probably have money and offer a chance at a greencard, but that's not the only reason they like us.

From our perspective, Thai women are actually better options than most American women (sorry). As Americans we love to complicate our relationships. Maybe it's the prospect of make-up sex or maybe it's because we aren't naturally pragmatic people, but we do this. A girl once told my friend that she didn't want to be with him because she was afraid that she might "like him too much," and I do not doubt her sincerity. However, even if you translated it perfectly, a Thai woman would not understand that statement at all. Their mentality is simple: you like her, she likes you, you are together.

I'm not trying to say that I'll never date another American woman and I apologize if it sounds like I'm bashing on American women. I'm really not. I'm just saying that in this particular context a westerner may not be the most desirable person. I know I shouldn't have to justify potentially dating a Thai girl, but I wanted to overrationalize the fact that I've been converted, sorry about that.

Anyway, I spent a grand total of about 2,000 Baht (66 American) on the weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I'm still working on multiple posts, one of which is on teaching--I'm hoping to have this one finished within a few days.