For Sale

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In a place where shopping is the common pastime and everything is for sale, including people, I suppose one cannot help but be eyed as another item in the vendor shop, or cart, as the case might be. Such has been my experience living in Thailand as a young woman of Southeast Asian descent, and to many, someone that looks “same same” as a Thai.

In DC, I tried not to dress overly feminine or overly revealing because I was concerned that I would not be taken seriously as a professional. In Bangkok, I find myself doing the same so that I am not misperceived as another type of “working girl”.

A Thai American friend of mine told me that a White American male friend of hers that she was out with was approached by another male farang and asked, “How much did she cost you?” in reference to my friend.

With many farang friends of all colors visiting me, I naturally am out and about with them. I had heard about the glares and the stares that one might get for being presumed to be a purchased companion. That sort of humiliation is enough to bear but also something I am accustomed to as a person of mixed descent that travels to various countries around the world. People often look at me in wonder about what my ethnicity is. So if people stare at me because they think I’m a prostitute, I am, or at least pretend to be, none the wiser.

What is worse, I have found, is the experience of being completely ignored. Entering restaurants or checking in at hotels, hostesses have greeted my White male companion while virtually ignoring my presence. “Hello, Sir,” they would say, without so much as a glance my way. Once, my co-worker and I were checking into a hotel, and he was presented with all the check-in paperwork, while I was ignored. Only after a concerted effort to get their attention was I able to tell them that a separate room was reserved under my name.

Is the experience of the average woman in Thailand? Or just women who are presumed to be prostitutes? Whatever the case may be, it’s a sign that despite much of what you see, women have a long way to go in Thai society.

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Comments

[mataho]

Narrow-minded folks...
In many cultures, especially the Thai culture, beauty is one avenue to power. This power takes many forms...unfortunately, in BKK, it is the power to make decent money for otherwise poorly educated, unskilled poor women (often from the TH countryside). Women who are not 'suai mak' end up in massage shops, factories, home working on the farm, etc., for very poor wages. The fact that many women in BKK are considered to be 'working' if they are with a male farang is just an example of the narrow-mindedness of Thais, and just as often, their tourist counterparts as well. But, realistically, it is a very big city and many people just go about their lives, personal or public, without paying that much attention to what the other folks are doing. I am sure you attract attention because you are part-Asian, 'suai mak mak,' and don't generally behave like your average beautiful Thai woman (and that's a discussion in itself). I am an American farang in BKK and I have a Thai girlfriend. Our lives are fairly normal. What other people think does not matter. If someone ever insulted her I would remind them to be polite, with "jai yen' of course. The only thing that's been hard to get used is how nice my GF is to me. And this is something that is learned through centuries of being submissive to Thai men (another long discussion item). Once again, thank you for a thoughtful blog entry.