From: godfrey@vxdesy.desy.de
Subject: Re: "The Good Woman of Bangkok"
Organization: (DESY, Hamburg, Germany)
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 02:00:54 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.134449.22915@netcom.com>, messina@netcom.com (Tony Porczyk) writes:
> 
> I am going to be unpopular after this post, but what the
> heck, here we go...  (BTW, it is by *no means* meant as a 
> flame for Mr. cooney@gw.wmich.edu)
> 
> 
> Mr. cooneys@gw.wmich.edu writes:
> 
>> Did anyone see the documentary called "The Good Woman of 
>> Bangkok"? It was on Canadian television last night. It's an 
>> hour-long piece about a Bangkok prostitute, mainly 
>> [...]
>> But she seemed committed to the life she has chosen. The 
>> film maker said he bought her a rice farm after making the 
>> film, but when he returned a year later, she was back 
>> working in "a sleazy massage parlor." She said it was her 
>> fate.
> 
> Fate, my foot.  This conclusion and a lot of the arguments and
> proposed solutions in the thread about prostitution that was
> here months ago I would call 'bureaucratic-transcendental-bs'.
> It seems that a simple concept of economy is something that 
> is non-graspable to do-gooders.  What was the work/income ratio
> from that farm?  What was the absolute income figure from the
> farm?  Only after these two are examined can we talk about
> more esoteric reasons.  You may wish to spend years talking about
> a problem, educating, meditating, but until those numbers don't
> come out right, the whole exercise is just that - exercise.
> I had a personal experience similar to the one above - i met 
> someone who would well fit the description above.  After she 
> mentioned that this was the only thing she could do, I called a
> few of my friends in Bangkok and within an hour she had a job
> behind a desk, paperwork, clean and nice, paying average wage.
> Couple of days later I saw her shopping happily at Robinson's.
> She admitted she was back on Soi Cowboi.  2500 Baht a month
> working in a office?  She was making TEN TIMES as much in a club.
> So much for esoteric reasoning.  Did you know there are Russian
> girls now working in clubs in mainland China?  Why, did Chinese
> men suddenly become so attractive that Russian girls just cannot
> stop dreaming about them?  No, the Russian economy got that bad.
> It is economy, and it is also nature.  Notice that many women are
> naturally attracted to men who are either wealthy or hold other
> attributes of power.  Look at animals - that's exactly the same
> way everywhere.  It applies equally to societies as units.  Poor
> societies export their women first.  Cringe as much as you wish
> over that statement, but that's the way it is.  I've seen that
> happen in *many* countries, including european ones.  How come 
> there is not an influx of German girls trying to find attractive
> Thai men?  Not enough attractive Thai men?  Au contraire, but it
> doesn't matter.  How come girls from California don't flood
> Philippines?  Certainly has nothing to do with Philippino men.
> Solution?  As the economy becomes stronger the problem will
> solve itself.  Thailand is certainly on her way to becoming a
> serious economic force.  Other countries will fill in the void.
> In fact, if you look at who works at many of the clubs in Bangkok,
> it is already happenning.  There are fewer and fewer girls from
> Thailand and more and more from Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam.
> 
> Flame if you wish, I prefer honesty to double-talk.
> 
> t.


No flames from me - you got it right.
I did see the GWoB - a documentary made for English TV by an English
jouranlist - a rather naive one at that.  The girl was a normal Soi
Cowboy bargirl, or perhaps it was Patpong, feeding him the usual lines.
The jouranlist in question got rather taken in - actually I recall
now that he was a cameraman working in journalism.

Sorry to hear about your experience - I can't imagine
why you would have expected her to work for 2,500 baht anyway - it's 
a rather poor salary for Bangkok in any case, and certainly not enough
to live properly.  In my experience the girls on SC and in Patpong are
way to far gone to help them - some outside the city are less hardened.

regards Laurence