by Dr. Iain
Corness
Many of the readers of this newspaper will have met Joy
(not her real name). Joy has been swinging around the chrome poles of many
of the go-go bars for almost 20 years, following a career path that has
been presented to her as a mixture of circumstances and customs. She feels
that she will probably die in service, and that prediction is probably a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
Joy was born in the north-east of Thailand in a very
traditional village in the province of Buriram. She was the third child
out of eight born to a rice farmer and his wife. Her elder sister died
young, but she does not know why, so she became the one to help her mother
look after her two younger brothers and three sisters.
Even though there was a local school, it soon became
the norm for Joy to spend the mornings getting her brothers and sisters
ready for school, and afterwards she would then go to help her father and
elder brothers in the rice paddies. The schooling she had was rudimentary,
though she was proud of the fact that she could read and write, her next
sister down helping her at night. This was certainly a self-help family.
However, they were all fed and clothed, and at that time, Joy did not
question it.
When she was 15 years old her life changed. She found
that she was pregnant to a local boy in the village. This was a
catastrophe in many ways. “Mama was not happy with me and Papa very
angry. I run away.”
She did not run far, to another small village in
Buriram, where an uncle kept a small store. She stayed there, helping out
in the shop until she had the baby, but after the birth she had to leave.
A crying new-born was not welcome in a small store.
All she could do now was to return to her parents’
home, complete with the baby. Fortunately, her youngest sister was not
that much older than her baby, and Joy’s mother took the child under her
wing, while Joy fell back into the family routine of getting younger
children off to school and then working in the rice fields herself. “It
was very hard. I was ashamed all the time. My father looked down on me.
The people in the village looked down on me. I used to cry at night when
no one could see me.”
When she was 18, life started to look a little
brighter. A young man began to call on her from the next village, and
since her elder brother had brought his wife to live in her parents’
home, which was now full to overflowing, Joy and the young man moved in
together with his parents.
Unfortunately this was not much different than before.
Life consisted of hard work. Her husband’s parents were also farmers,
and it seemed as if she had just exchanged one set of rice paddies for
another. That was until she fell pregnant again.
However, by the time she was five months pregnant, her
husband went to Bangkok to earn better money. A few thousand baht came
back to the village for only a couple of months. “He find new lady in
Bangkok and forget about me. He not send money any more.” She was alone
and not capable of work.
It was deja vu. Once more she had given birth in a
strange household, and no male support. There was no other choice but to
return to her parents, bringing with her another child. Another mouth to
feed. Her mother took her in, but told her that she would have to find
some way of financially supporting this baby. It could be looked after,
but this would take more money than she could earn planting rice.
A ‘cousin’ was in Bangkok and used to send money
back to the village, so Joy decided that she would go to the capital and
try her hand there as well. It soon became obvious that her cousin was
working as a bar girl, and was able to make more money than Joy had ever
seen. She was easily sending 5,000 baht a month to her mother. Joy had a
job as a cleaner in the bar, and was making less than 3,000 baht a month
salary. With demands from her home, with two children left there, the
decision was not difficult. She became a bar girl. “In the first month I
make almost 10,000 baht. I send money to Mama and I buy some shoes and
cosmetics for me. I cannot believe it is so easy. I think why I not do
this before. If you want to work in the rice fields you are stupid.”
She spent a few years in Bangkok, but finally had to
leave the capital. She had begun to take drugs and the mama-sans all knew.
“I take ya-ba because sometimes you work all night. Dancing, dancing,
dancing and then have to go with customer. Get up early and go to bank to
send money to Mama, then maybe go to movie with girlfriend. Then go to bar
and dancing, dancing again. Cannot do without ya-ba. Get too tired.”
So she came to Pattaya. The resort that had many bars
and would take a new pretty face and ask no questions. “I still need
ya-ba and taxi motorcycle boy can get for me. He also look after me and I
go stay with him.”
It is easy to regard this as a pimp and prostitute
situation, but it is more than that. Joy said, “Thai boyfriend there for
me. Cannot ring Mama or my little sister. They know what I do but not want
to say. Bad for me in village, so I not go. I stay Pattaya and just send
money to Mama. Sometimes she want more, so I go work harder. Have to send
money if Mama ask, this is custom. This good, but sometimes Thai boyfriend
not so happy, as he need money for new motorbike. I think I will always
have to work hard.”
Joy is on a merry-go-round with her chrome pole. It is
unlikely that she will get off.
