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"The Rounds" March 6, 2002
Mekhong Kurt * * * * * * * * * * The hullabaloo surrounding the report in an issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review appears headed for a resolution, of sorts; both The Bangkok Post and The Nation, the Kingdom's 2 main English-language newspapers, are reporting that the venerable and respected Hongkong-based magazine will issue a formal letter of apology for any unintentional offence against His Majesty in its report of the King's birthday speech in December, 2001. However, the local media are still attacking the government's actions in the case, and the attack is likely to go on, especially since it is now being reported that the *current* edition of an equally respected magazine, the British The Economist, won't be distributed in Thailand; the story reported is that Thai authorities objected to the magazine's editors, who decided not to distribute the issue to avoid a F.E.E.R-type confrontation. The article in The Economist is much more problematic than the one in the Far Eastern Economic Review, in that it has a section specifically discussing His Majesty and the role of the Monarchy in Thailand, and it offers an ideal future of the relationship between the Monarchy and the law -- with the monarch of the day subject to the law. Whatever the motives of leaders and officials in taking umbrage at the article, that there are at least some *implied* criticisms -- NOT of His Majesty King Bhumibol, but of Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn and of the role of the Monarchy in Thailand in general -- lends some sympathetic weight, at the very least, to local objections to the piece. For my part, I have to say there is at the some validity to the Thai argument, a validity dependent, to a degree, on how a reader interprets the passages. [The furor over the over the Far Eastern Economic Review article between the magazine and the Thai government has apparently been resolved, as it is now reported the respected weekly has offered a formal apology and the police have announced they will take no further action. Local reports indicate continued coverage in foreign media, however.] * * * * * * * * * * Police Captain Chalerm and 2 of his sons have announced they are launching a weekly newspaper. Apparently the paper is to carry items the Chalerms feel are of interest to all but not covered (or not covered enough, or covered unfairly) in other media outlets. It will be interesting to see how the new news organ fares. * * * * * * * * * * Hard to read the night entertainment venues. Some bars packed, other entirely without customers except for me. Strolled through Asoke Corner last night, and noticed that only those bars directly adjacent to Sukhumvit Soi 23 had any customers to speak of, a situation which appears over the past few months to have become the norm. Asoke Plaza was plain quiet, with only a small handful of patrons in *all* the places combined. Yet Tilac on Soi Cowboy -- to take one example -- was bordering on packed Tuesday night, while nearby outlets were not. Walked and rode part-way up Soi Thonglor in the earlier part of the evening, and looking through windows showed a wide variation in the amount of activity in the various bars, restaurants, etc. along there. Ditto Sukhumvit Soi 33. Most inexplicable is when I go someplace with, say, a series of virtually identical beer bars only to see some doing respectable to excellently while their neighbors languish with nary a soul. On the other hand, friends who visited Nana Entertainment Plaza and Clinton Plaza reported both were visibly busier than they had been in recent weeks. * * * * * * * * A notice for Americans residing in Thailand was issued by the American Citizen Services Unit of the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok regarding the issuance of passports, a notice all American citizens should know about. Below is the text of the e-mail message I received earlier this week from the American Citizen Services Unit: "The Department of State in Washington has released the following information regarding upcoming changes in the processing of U.S. passports overseas. The Embassy will publicize further details of this program as they are announced. "Effective April 8, 2002, American citizens residing or traveling abroad who require issuance of a U.S. passport will be issued the latest, state-of-the-art passport incorporating a photo-digitized image and other enhanced security features. U.S. Embassies and Consulates will achieve this goal by transferring the passport issuance function to a domestic U.S. passport facility. This will increase processing times at some U.S. Embassies and Consulates, but the Department of State is committed to ensuring that American citizens receive secure documents in a timely manner. American citizens are encouraged to apply early for renewal of expiring passports. "U.S. Embassies and Consulates will continue to issue passports in emergency cases. Such passports will be limited in validity, and cannot be extended. Bearers will be required, however, to exchange their limited validity passports for a full-validity photo-digitized passport upon completion of their emergency travel, either through passport facilities in the U.S. or U.S. Embassies and Consulates abroad." I presume the above-detailed steps are in continued reaction to events of September 11th. If readers of nationalities who are aware of changes for citizens of their countries and will let me know about those, I will include that information in future "The Rounds" columns. * * * * * * * * Wonder how the new regulation banning unescorted ladies from entering night entertainment venues is going? I've yet to witness any lady being denied entrance by anyone -- but, then, I seldom see such ladies. * * * * * * * * Have heard an interesting variant of the argument that men who engage the services of ladies in the sex industry: Western males are responsible for all the "exploitation" of Asian sex workers. An old friend of mine, a lady from Hongkong, is here for a visit, her first to Bangkok. (Her first visit to Thailand, down in Phuket, hardly counts, as she was shielded from that aspect of life on that trip.) A fairly strong feminist (but NOT what our colleague Dean Barrett calls a "feminazi"), she and I were talking about the bars, a-go-go's, etc. and the ladies who staff them. The discussion turned to just why a lady would enter such a profession in the first place. My friend said she felt -- please notice the past tense -- Western males sexually exploited the ladies of the night. A Western male myself, I took some particular umbrage at her statement, though I like to think I would have done so even were I not a Westerner. I explained at some length the history and details of the development of the sex industry in Thailand, as far as I know and understand it. Central to my rebuttal was that in my years here, I've never even once heard of Westerners, as a group, "exploiting" the ladies. Of *course* I have heard of individual cases of men in some way cheating, physically abusing, or otherwise mistreating a lady -- but those men were not *only* Western ones, instead hailing from all over the map. Alongside that central fact is the logical error to which so many of us are prone: generalizing too quickly, or, put more plainly, unfairly tarring *every* member of any particular group with the same brush used on an *individual* member of that group. [Whether or not the tarring of the individual member is fair or not is another argument.] I then asked her a loaded pair of questions: "Do you think prostitution will vanish if, somehow, all Western males (and other men who may participate in this sort of activity) vanish this instant from Thailand? And even were all such men to vanish into thin air simultaneously, where would that leave the ladies of the night and all those others who derive their livelihoods from the thriving sex industry here?" I also pointed out that if the news media etc. are to be believed, instances of out-and-out sexual slavery are the responsibility of locals, not foreigners of any stripe or nationality. My friend herself, to give her credit, brought up that her *own* culture -- the Chinese culture -- embraced prostitution, concubinage, etc. LONG before most areas commonly thought of today as being in the "West" were even organized much above the tribal level, if organized even that much. At that point she conceded the argument -- happily, she is fair, intelligent, and logical. Too bad some of the more extreme feminists won't concede; those ladies and gentlemen -- yes, the male "feminazis," who exist aplenty -- demonstrate a fine disregard for fairness AND logic. They reflect that old humorous adage "My mind's made up -- don't confuse me with the facts." There are other pointed questions one can ask, such as what of Western men who are homosexual and engage the services of a male prostitute? Are such men not also exploiting the prostitute? And does *anyone* think no Thai men retain the services of prostitutes? (If anyone *does* believe that, he or she needs to have a thorough head examination -- of the psychiatric kind!) Of course, one victory with one very fine lady won't stop the feminazis . . . sigh . . . * * * * * * * * A friend who has spent the last 3 months in Phuket arrived in Bangkok Tuesday and reported the Southern Resort is either overflowing with tourists or he's getting more sensitive as he gets older; I hope the former is true, for the sake of all those there who depend upon tourism to earn a living. * * * * * * * * Tourists I meet often ask me how anyone could possibly think tourism is down in Thailand when the planes on which they arrived were packed. What they're overlooking is the reductions in the numbers of flights many airlines are dispatching to The Big Mango. Having myself once flown from Tokyo to San Francisco in a 747 that had either 8 passengers and 9 flight attendants or the other way around -- 16 years on, I can't remember. But it sure was eerie to have such a large aircraft at the disposal of so few people. I doubt the *airline* thought about any eerie aspect of the flight, instead focusing on the HUGE costs involved in transporting so few passengers so far. I asked an air hostess about that, and she said the plane HAD to be back in the U.S. mainland and would have gone completely empty, if need be. * * * * * * * * As for Queen's Park Plaza entertainment area on Sukhumvit Soi 22, on which I've reported extensively, all I'll say this go-around is that the situation remains pretty much the same as it was during my last few columns. * * * * * * * * Until next time -- Mekhong Kurt Return to the Table of Contents.
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