Thailand At Work is a mini series that looks at the working life of three Thai women who are all striving to better their future in three very different industries within Thailand. The first of these stories looks at a lady who is trying to land a rich foreigner to secure a better future for herself and her three children.
Dawan’s Story
If you asked a large selection of bar girls in Pattaya how long they have worked there then you would quickly become accustomed to the answer of one week. The way the bar girl thinks is that every farang wants a girl who is untouched by the guiles of Pattaya and therefor has been manhandled by no other farang.
To them one week is a better bartering tool than five years, a higher price, a better restaurant meal and relief from the mundane life of the average Pattaya bar girl. Dawan has only worked in the Chonburi city resort for one week and I can only report what she told me.
Dawan’s English language skills were very basic but my basic instints told me that perhaps she’d done the rounds a little longer than the seven day cycle she relayed. The interview was assisted with some help by the bar owners Thai wife whose English was of a slightly higher pedigree.
The Shark Rider Bar is located on Soi Buakhao and is a same same innocuous bar that blends in with the many other businesses and bars that are currently struggling in this tourist hit sex city. If Pattaya’s streets are paved with gold then Soi Buakhao’s road is peeling and a nasty rash is starting to show.
The road from Ban Lad Ya in Kanchanaburi Province to Pattaya is one that Dawan may have helped to lay as a road worker on 200 baht ($5.50 US) a day until quitting a few months back as the lure of Pattaya overpowered the smell of hot tar.
Separated from her Thai husband and with three children to school and feed Dawan has swapped road work for sex jerk and entrance into the Theatre of Teens. At 41 years of age Dawan has to overcome and win the stiff competition from lithe and supple 18 and 19 year olds and the 20 something Pattaya diehard. Sympathy in Pattaya starts with S and ends in ucks.
Darwan’s work duties are bar cleaner and hostess, all for the princely salary of 2000 baht ($55) a month, tips may add a further 500 baht. Hardly enough to keep the wolf from an unlocked door that is waiting for a knock from a baht bearing farang.
Two days holiday a month will offer little time to visit her children who are now being looked after by her elderly parents in Ban Lad Ya. An ability to quickly grasp better basic English skills will help her dine with the sweet meat and dancing queens as well as funding the school teens and leave a liitle money over to pamper herself. As simple as ABC.
Dawan is a smoker who enjoys the occasional drink of lao khao, luxuries surely only affordable to a hard working road worker and not a bar girl working in one of Thailand’s more expensive cities on wages far below a countries apologetic average salary.
Dawan misses her two boys and daughter, she also freely admits to being a staunch yellow shirt supporter and would you believe, her dream is to marry an Englishman.
My basic instincts kicked in once more and I know that if my passport spouted German then Dawan would have mouthed Munich, Jurgen Klinsmann and climaxed over the thought of vacuuming Teutonic blond hairs off the back seats of a BMW. The Pattaya seven day cycle has some fast learning curves.
Beyond The Mango Juice wishes Dawan all the best in her quest for the perfect farang but somehow I think that on my next visit to Pattaya, for her the smell of the city soi sewers may have been replaced by the sweet smell of hot tar.
Next month Thailand At Work heads up to Isaan country and looks at an Udon Thani hotel worker in Ying’s Story.
Good luck Dawan.
© 2009 – 2011, Martyn. All rights reserved.
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‘Thailand At Work’ is an excellent idea. At first I thought you were reviewing an actual TV program, but the kudos are all yours!
With only 2000 baht coming in each month, I have to wonder just what Dawan is smoking.
Catherine’s last blog post..Interviewing Myke Hawke: Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast
Thanks Catherine, 2000 baht is the low end of the bar salaries but it’s about right for a small bar like the Shark Rider. Dawan has to find a tourist or two to up the bucks and the way Pattaya is right now I really do fear for her.
Martyn, sort of puts things in perspective doesn’t it?
Mike’s last blog post..Thai Visa Retirement Extension Application
Great topic for a series of blogs – and there’s plenty of subject matter. That’s at the lower end of salaries for Chiang Mai too, 3000 is more common, a little more in the top bars. Hopefully Dawan’s dream may not be in vain, although you have to think the odds are against her. In the Number One bar in CM, there were two girls in their early forties, and really looked it too. Not particularly physically attractive but really nice, warm-hearted, cuddly people. Both struck lucky last year, finding a couple of loving, if elderly farang husbands – so it’s not impossible. Perhaps Dawan should move away from Pattaya to Chiang Mai… or is her family down that way…
It’s a tough world. When ‘Thailand Girl’ made that comment over on my last blog that boiled down to, essentially, the claim that the girls turned down ‘proper’ jobs because they loved partying and having a good time, well, that’s hardly true – to put it politely. Many of these girls have barely been to school, what sort of employment does TG think they are going to get? Husbands can b*gger off with impunity, never pay a penny in maintenance. The state doesn’t help. A mother is going to try to do what’s best for her children, will want to earn money so that they can get an education and don’t end up like their mother, tarmacking roads, or in the bars. In a way it’s the ultimate in self-sacrifice.
Enjoyed that Martyn, one of your more wistful contributions, perhaps in line with the mood of the moment. Look forward to hearing about Ying.
Pete, frogblogger’s last blog post..Brash Bangkok, culture-hound Chiang Mai, pornographic Pattaya, innocent Isaan – which one is your Thailand?
Mike – It’s a tough world out there in Pattaya and I don’t think the girl has a chance, purely because of her age.
Pete – As with Chiang Mai there is always a chance that an older chap might come along but Pattaya is dead right now, Dawan would have been better sniffing the tarmac until November time. As far as Thailand Girl goes then it’s only the top real good lookers who take that attitude the rest are those working for their future’s and dreaming about life back in the village, they really hate Pattaya and all that it stands for. The mood at the moment is pretty low but I will Gloria Gaynor.
“I will” … never say goodbye? Reach out and be there? Walk on by? Do it myself?
Pete, frogblogger’s last blog post..Farang, fat and ugly, from England? An Isaan girl’s dream man
Great read Martyn. I can’t imagine how hard it is for some of these women who have children at home that they really don’t want to leave.
It isn’t easy for the have nots in Thailand and I’m sure there are thousands of similar stories in Pattaya.
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And now for an important announcement…
http://whatismatt.com/top100/
Beyond the Mango Juice is in the top twenty.
The Thai Pirate is close behind.
Congrats guys
Catherine’s last blog post..Baby Bird Watching in Bangkok
Talen there is undoubtedly even worse stories in Pattaya. Dawan came over as a decent women but you have to question the timing of her move to Pattaya.
Catherine – Thanks and congratulations on your continuing rise up the charts. Mine was aided by my page rank being recently upgraded to 3, I think I may slip down a bit next time. My aim was to one day make it into the top 20, I didn’t expect to do it anywhere near so soon.
It is very sad to see situations such as this, but congratulations on this Thailand At Work series, it is very interesting. Keep up the good work.
Thankyou very much, I have found this extremely nice!