Stephen Leather's Private Dancer

[collin_23]

In under 1 roof what moses lim did everytime he 'buay song' was right by going out of the hse for a kopi.

Another more extreme case I read b4 was Tony leung and Liu jia ling. Everytime they if quarrel tony will shut himself in his room or anywhere and refuse to come out till liu jia ling cool down liao. Can even sleep inside toilet sia...keke...abit extreme but still works lor.

Words during heated exchanges r hurtful and we usually do not mean it so if u angry take a deep breathe count from 1 - 20 kenot than til 50 or 100 lor...when both cool down liao than talk is always best.

This is my favourite Thread, so I am share my current story and hope you bros can give me some advise.

I meet my current TG in March. Since then I visit her when I am in BKK for work or Leisure. She works in a KTV and I knows she doesn't sleep around. She knows I am married and she doesn't mind at all.
We talk on the phone almost everyday and see each other at least once a month. When I visit, She would not go to work spend the whole trip with me. She never ask me for money but I always give her around 5-6K. She doesn't like to talk about money, as she know it will spoil the relationship. She would even call me if I don't call her in two days.

My feeling for her is getting deeper and deeper. I don't even dare to visit MP even she say she is OK with it.

I try hard to find reason to break up with her but she is just to good to me. She always tell me to take care of my family and never get angry when my wife called when I am with her.

What do you think this will end?

[GiddlyGook]

Originally Posted by merfolk

She works in a KTV and I knows she doesn't sleep around.

I'm sorry to tell you this - if she works in a KTV, unless she is a mamasan, she has to sleep with customers. The KTV makes money this way and almost all KTVs mandate a minimum number of times the girl must be booked out e.g. a minimum 10x a month.

An average take-home for a KTV girl is 40-50k a month.

I'm not saying she doesn't like you but understand what her job entails. She may not tell you because she doesn't want to hurt you etc.

[siamcutey]

Originally Posted by merfolk

This is my favourite Thread, so I am share my current story and hope you bros can give me some advise.

I meet my current TG in March. Since then I visit her when I am in BKK for work or Leisure. She works in a KTV and I knows she doesn't sleep around. She knows I am married and she doesn't mind at all.
We talk on the phone almost everyday and see each other at least once a month. When I visit, She would not go to work spend the whole trip with me. She never ask me for money but I always give her around 5-6K. She doesn't like to talk about money, as she know it will spoil the relationship. She would even call me if I don't call her in two days.

My feeling for her is getting deeper and deeper. I don't even dare to visit MP even she say she is OK with it.

I try hard to find reason to break up with her but she is just to good to me. She always tell me to take care of my family and never get angry when my wife called when I am with her.

What do you think this will end?

This will end up nothing.

C'mon, you are married. You cannot marry her. You cannot give her status. You are not even considered her husband. Even if you are considered her bf, so? The bottomline is you are MARRIED. You and her have no future. She knows the answer. She is with you not because of obligation, because she is not your WIFE. She is with you probably she needs a companion. Someone whom she can talk to. ( I didn't say someone whom can understand her).

If you really really love the girl, you should know when to let her go. The answer is "WHEN"

PS: Even MAMASANS sleep around, though not for the sake of money at times. We just have to learn to open 1 eye and close 1 eye when we are dealing with such matters.


SC

[OceanEleven]

Originally Posted by merfolk

This is my favourite Thread, so I am share my current story and hope you bros can give me some advise.
What do you think this will end?

This is not how will this end but more how do you want it to end? Ask yourself what do you want and how far do you want to go? Do the both of you just wanna treasure the moment now or want a future together? Better spent some time to discuss this together.

[griffinthanos]

Originally Posted by merfolk

This is my favourite Thread, so I am share my current story and hope you bros can give me some advise.

I meet my current TG in March. Since then I visit her when I am in BKK for work or Leisure. She works in a KTV and I knows she doesn't sleep around. She knows I am married and she doesn't mind at all.
We talk on the phone almost everyday and see each other at least once a month. When I visit, She would not go to work spend the whole trip with me. She never ask me for money but I always give her around 5-6K. She doesn't like to talk about money, as she know it will spoil the relationship. She would even call me if I don't call her in two days.

My feeling for her is getting deeper and deeper. I don't even dare to visit MP even she say she is OK with it.

I try hard to find reason to break up with her but she is just to good to me. She always tell me to take care of my family and never get angry when my wife called when I am with her.

What do you think this will end?

As most bros have said here, unless you're ready to give her status in life, just enjoy the moment and times that you have... but always know which one is the one more impt to you. Your wife or her. Cos one day that decision will have to come up, in the mean time. enjoy the moment.

Chok dee bro.

Originally Posted by griffinthanos

As most bros have said here, unless you're ready to give her status in life, just enjoy the moment and times that you have... but always know which one is the one more impt to you. Your wife or her. Cos one day that decision will have to come up, in the mean time. enjoy the moment.

Chok dee bro.

Thanks for the advise. Yes, my problem is when. I know I sound stupid, but I know she doesn't sleep around. In another way to look at this, I don't care.
I have no right to be question her life as I am not exclusive to her. I always tell her to go and find a good boyfriend.
She has a lot of other offers during all this time. One of them is Singaporean. But she turn them down. Part of the reason is that she came out of a very bad relationship before she met me. She just wants a companionship but not a long term relationship.

I am totally honest with her. I even bought her to my house before. Sorry, can't share the detail.

[Five Stone]

Originally Posted by merfolk

I am totally honest with her. I even bought her to my house before. Sorry, can't share the detail.

Then you better just sit back and enjoy the moments you have now since both of you knowa what is going on, no point to ponder on anymore for you will never have a answer. I believe towards your wife is more like responsibility for after all these years spent together, things she done for you etc but for the Thai girl is more like a loving feeling, for she is some accomodating and understanding, not as demanding but more caring, pretty much unlike your wife. Deep in your heart you wanna carry on but you also know you wife is then the right path to go ethically. Only time will tell.

[siamcutey]

Finished watching "The Good Woman Of Bangkok" again after 2 years since I last watched it after a friend passed the VCD to me

Thought provoking though movie wasn't quite well done.

Will do a summary these few days.
You guys can do a search on the GOOGLE AND YAHOO engines.

I am thinking what will happen if I actually show the contents to a Thai Lady...................

SC

Hi Guys,

After reading through most of this thread I thought I better contribute something.

Just came back from Pattaya a few days ago and have since read Private Dancer. In my opinion its probably mostly true and I can see how a guy could fall into this trap. (Sad that its not all available on line any more)

Even down to the standard things the girls tell you and the description of the places its all exact.

I spent 4 LT with one bar girl and had 6 others in 12 days. None have asked me for money but I still get e-mail from the 1 LT bar girl. I guess the good (or bad) thing is that she doesn't speak English and I don't speak Thai. Pretty hard to give a sob story right

I have to say though that the level of service (at least from that one) was the best I've ever had. Complete with washing me in the bath, feeding me, doing my nails, getting me drinks and being extremely protective about other women. This is all in 4 days She never asked for money although I gave her a fair bit.....well average TB2000 per night (sometimes for 24hrs). She got to swim in the hotel pool and I got her food exp but with shopping she always bought her own stuff. She also bought me a necklace with the Thai kings picture on the pendant. I figure she gets face by having another "rich and not ugly" farang around.

You never know but she might be a good one. I'm safe since I can't just trip there like you guys in Sing can. But I really liked the atmosphere of the bar she worked in so might go back just for that.

I'm in Singapore next month on business and I'm taking 2 weeks off to trip around again. Might go back to Thailand but at the moment I'm thinking Bali for at least 1 week. Then maybe Thailand again but probably not.

Something that "Private Dancer" fails to say is that the place has massive air pollution and the beaches that I saw were really bad. There is really no other reason to go except for the girls. Girls are everywhere but maybe not as good.

Hope this report adds to the discussion.

[siamcutey]

Do a brief summary first on the Good Woman Of Bangkok.

The movie starts off with the director Dennis Rourke going to the issan province interviewing an old thai lady. The old lady relates the different "social classes" in the province itself in relation to big houses, new cars, etc. Of course the breadwinners are none other than the WLs themselves.

After that the movie moves on to the different P4P places in Bangkok. Bars, Pubs, A-go-gos. In between, it consists of conversations of Aoi (the so-called lead) and her friends.

Let me extract the film review here
http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudi...-bangkok-fuchs
Watching Dennis O'Rourke's _The Good Woman of Bangkok_
is a disturbing experiencce. Both frustrated and smug, the film
appears to be about a Thai prostitute named Aoi, specifically her
harsh existence and subsequent anger. On top of this, the movie
constructs a clever meta-text concerning the imperialistic
intersections of the sex industry and filmmaking. While such an
idea is hardly news, _Woman_ offers it up as a weighty
cultural insight, a painful exposure of the way it "really is.''

The route to such insight is (of course) circuitous. The
final credits reveal that this is a "documentary fiction,''
announcing O'Rourke's disdain for the more traditional mode of
what he terms elsewhere, "truth in a box.'' Here the use of
documentary conventions, like talking heads and handheld camera
excursions through Thai bars at night, is framed by an
elaborately styled empathy for Aoi, apparently cool and
ambiguous, but most often emerging as a kind of lumpy moralizing.

An early title in the film informs us that O'Rourke (in the
third person) went to Thailand following his divorce at age 43,
"trying to understand how love could be so banal and also so
profound.'' In other words, he went there to check out Bangkok's
notorious traffic in women. Once there, he met Aoi, made her the
subject of his movie in exchange for a rice farm, left after nine
months, and has recently been on the interview circuit claiming
that he "willed'' himself to fall in love with her so that they
would be equivalent "victims.'' (He says, in at least one
conversation, that at the time he eschewed condoms in order to
"share'' her risk of AIDS.)

O'Rourke's seriously self-serving logic suggests his film's
moral parameters: to be a victim is "good'' and to exploit is
"bad.'' _Woman_ straddles this flimsy ethical fence by
extending a cursory analysis of the economic and gendered power
structures of prostitution. This includes repeated shots of dark
and smoky bars, stages where naked women put various objects in
their vaginas for cheering and hard-drinking customers, even
backstage dressing rooms where the women complain to one another.

Such conventional raucus night-life images are intercut with
still camera shots of the soft-spoken Aoi, showing her private
self, different from her otherwise highly performative existence.
In the apartment she shared with O'Rourke for the duration of the
shoot, Aoi speaks to her mirror reflection or to the lens
directly, worried about hiding the fact of her glass eye, or
applying makeup for an evening's work.

While these shots and her unhappy observations appear to
highlight the parallels between filmmaking and prostitution
(exhibition, exploitation, prevarication), it's important to
remember that Aoi's performance in this particular context is
never unmediated. In this way, even her self-presentation as a
victim of male oppression is layered with another, aestheticized
victimization. If O'Rourke's voice only occasionally intrudes, to
ask a question from offscreen, the probing camera eye is
constant. The film seems to "act out'' a creepily self-conscious
voyeurism: Aoi covers herself with a sheet as the camera pans her
body on a bed.

This constant looking shapes the film's version of her sad
story (her father abused her, her husband abandoned her when she
was two months pregnant, now she's supporting an old mother and
infant son). When she declares her hatred for "all men'' because
they are "old, ugly, filthy, obscene,'' her tears appear genuine.
But what does "genuine'' mean now, in front of a camera, talking
to a man who has promised her land in exchange for her services?

These frankly excruciating interviews with Aoi (her
hopelessness is horrific and articulate) underline the ignorance
of various clients. If the large percentage of Asian customers
likely refused to be photographed, not so the brazen white men:
interviewees are Dutch, Australian, and U.S. citizens with no
face to lose. (While the film focuses specifically on bars where
Caucasian men hang out, it manages to avoid mention of the
industry's widespread racism.) A young American ponders the class
issue in a bar as topless women dance behind him: "This is all
they can really get because they haven't got any education.'' So
what he and his buddies do, they reason, is "help them.''

Aoi's own concern with wanting to be a "good'' woman is
framed by a familiar dichotomy, between the good village where
her family lives (including a talkative elderly aunt), and the
evil city where Aoi lives and works. This moralized opposition is
reinforced by very old ideas about sexual difference, along with
the titillation of interracial sex. In this fiction O'Rourke is
the would-have-been hero. The melodramatic link between
prostitution and love (O'Rourke might have saved her if only Aoi
hadn't been so previously broken by other men) seems to overwhelm
another story: that such romance is perpetuated by male customers
- men like O'Rourke.

In an effort to display her (or was it to "understand''
love?), he appropriates her virtuous vulnerability (he did have
sex without a rubber, right?). But according to this movie,
virtue for men (and filmmakers) is complex, always predicated on
power that must be voluntarily abdicated or, barring that radical
act, exposed. At one point the film includes footage that indicts
his own parasitical activity. "I'm eating now,'' she says while
slurping noodles. "It's nothing to do with your film.'' He keeps
filming. She hisses at the camera.

The last story is the strangest. Looking like one more
object of an anthropological gaze, she is, after all, also a
willful user who will continue to whore after the good artist has
left town because, an end title says, "It is my fate.'' Fate? But
the unseen coda of this film's fiction is this: O'Rourke says in
an interview that as far as he knows, she is no longer a
prostitute. Just whose fiction is at stake here anyway.?

SC

[siamcutey]

It is MY FATE, And I have no CHOICE. I have to Accept It

The exact words which one thai girl said to me.

Why do I go back watching the GOOD WOMAN OF BANGKOK?

I wanted to see Aoi's reaction when she said this sentence and also the reaction of the thai girl when she said to me.

Verdict: IT IS THE SAME REACTION.

When someone says this to you, it sends a chill down your heart. To be frank, I feel disturbed. Not feeling sad. Just that does Fate really determines one's future without giving him/her a choice?

SC

[ciakpachineng]

Originally Posted by siamcutey

It is MY FATE, And I have no CHOICE. I have to Accept It

The exact words which one thai girl said to me.

Why do I go back watching the GOOD WOMAN OF BANGKOK?

I wanted to see Aoi's reaction when she said this sentence and also the reaction of the thai girl when she said to me.

Verdict: IT IS THE SAME REACTION.

When someone says this to you, it sends a chill down your heart. To be frank, I feel disturbed. Not feeling sad. Just that does Fate really determines one's future without giving him/her a choice?

SC

Hmm... have not heard of Dennis O'Rourke..heard of Mickey Rourke (the controversial boxer/actor who fcuked his gf Carrie Otis live on the set of their movie "Wild Orchid")

anyway..interesting to see a diff perspective ...a review of a social documentary movie, wow. Dennis O'Rouke may do for BKK what Hou Siao Hsien did ofr Taipei/Taiwan

Anyway, back to the theme of Fate and choice... there are generally 2 schools of tot.
The so called orthodox old school would let fate determine their lives so their choices are dictated by Fate.
The 2nd school is the more dynamic liberal view of self-deterministic... in other words you can change fate to some extent (not all cases 'cos someone could be handicapped so their choices are limited but then again there are handicapped who beat the odds like Stephen Hawking) and widen your choices.
Just my 2 cts worth on this interesting topic of fate and choice.

[ciakpachineng]

Originally Posted by waslee

I can tell you honestly fate does not decide anyone's life. True, the girl may be born poor and has to support the family, but that does not equal she has to become a pros rite? Y do you see so many young people selling food or doing other things on the streets? These people are poor yet they do not sell themselves. To these WLs, fate plays a part in making them poor but they themselves could not resist the temptation of making big bucks overnight when they see their frens around doing the same, esp if they are born with good looks. Sad to say once they are in it, its almost never possible to get out.

And regarding this book wrote by Stephen, i think it is very well written and when i read it i almost felt i am Pete, only difference being him being a farang while i am not. I have had my fair share of disastrous relatns with Thai WLs and i can verify that the content of the book is almost 100% true for all Thai WLs. Maybe someone can suggest making it into a movie, juz like the good woman of BKK

for the record, movies abt WL are never big box-office hits
Probably the biggest WL hit is "Pretty Woman" Julia Roberts and before that maybe "Taxi Driver" with Jodie Foster as WL
Even "true reality WL" movies (i.e. porn movies) are least succesful movies, hehe

[siamcutey]

Originally Posted by waslee

I can tell you honestly fate does not decide anyone's life. True, the girl may be born poor and has to support the family, but that does not equal she has to become a pros rite? Y do you see so many young people selling food or doing other things on the streets? These people are poor yet they do not sell themselves. To these WLs, fate plays a part in making them poor but they themselves could not resist the temptation of making big bucks overnight when they see their frens around doing the same, esp if they are born with good looks. Sad to say once they are in it, its almost never possible to get out.

Fate plays a part in making them poor and fate also played a part in making them pretty.
Fate makes fun of people........

SC