Expats and Thailand

Fred On Everything:

"A lot of westerners marry in Thailand and live contented lives. Others have been that route and aren’t about to do it again. Others are just happier unattached. Do you want to eat in the same restaurant the rest of your life, they ask? You see the latter two groups in the bars.

The men who patronize these places are easily described as a bunch of drunks guzzling their pensions. Many call them pathetic, hopeless, shiftless, and contemptible. This misses much that is essential. Most I think are not drunks, though they drink. There are men and men. Each has a story to tell. Usually the expats have more stories than the respectable people back in the world. Some are veterans of Vietnam, some worked the oil rigs, or for the big international contractors. Others bailed out after a nasty divorce, or got sick of the tightening laws back home. The older among them often carry Viagra in their pockets. You can call this absurd. I’m not sure it is.

In judging them, if you regard yourself as competent to do so, it helps to ponder their stage of life. Young expats may have businesses or jobs, but many really are in Bangkok to die. They might not put it that way, but after sixty-five that’s the way to bet. You die young, or you get old and then die. Those are the available options. You have to do it somewhere. Bangkok is somewhere.

Their choice was to age in some boring suburb back home, perhaps with a wife who has grown boring through too-long exposure (though one never, ever says so); or to age in the bars in the company of lovely lasses with cameo skin and glossy black hair and a certain carnal availability, while drinking with their buddies and telling war stories. The decision for many is a no-brainer. Crump we do and crump we will. Might as well do it in a place you enjoy.

It is a mistake to think that such men necessarily lack intelligence, education, or culture. Dean certainly doesn’t. They have simply made another choice.

...Depending on your point of view, the expats are exploiting the girls, or the girls are exploiting the expats, or the gals are just providing a service, but it isn’t an unfriendly thing. Sometimes it is like the British pub. You have your favorite bars where you know the mama-san and the girls.

I’m not idealizing it... The girls age and have to move on, not always having anywhere to move on to. They have a kid, maybe were working in a fruit-juice stall and decided that they would make more in a bar. It is not always pretty, but then neither are lots of things. The hookers too are people, and they too have their stories...

It all comes down to the age-old bargain: Women exchange sex for whatever they want. Men exchange whatever they have for sex. Call it prostitution, or call it marriage, which is just prostitution with compulsory brand-loyalty. It’s how God made us, probably in a moment of ill humor. Some things just are."