Bangkok Dangerous

I haven’t posted an update in awhile and I’ve been getting lots of emails about various things so I thought I would shoot off a quick one just to get everyone up to speed.

There was no coup here in Thailand. The courts disbanded the ruling party for buying votes and the PAD demonstrators left the two major Bangkok airports. Flights resumed a few days later with about 350,000 travelers being stranded in Thailand waiting for flights out.

Thailand’s economy is pretty much in the toilet for 2009. Not only is the tourism authority predicting half the number of tourists as last year but world wide global meltdown has eased demand so factories, electronics manufacturers, raw product producers (rubber, etc), etc are all laying people off. In one provence alone they predicted that 1 in 10 workers would lose their jobs before the end of 2008. Tourism related jobs are also going to take a hit with 1.2 million job cuts expected.

It’s so bad that despite being at the peak of high-season when you walk down the streets in the tourist parts of town it’s worse than during the low-season. I’ve walked into once popular watering holes and been the ONLY customer in the place.

Things have picked up a bit since the airports have reopened but nowhere near what they would expect for this time of year. The plus side is that if you’re not really into crowds or overcrowded nightclubs then it’s like heaven.

It’s unusually cold this year which means that temps are dipping into the bone-chilling 26 C (79 F) territory. . . at night! It’s quite a laugh because you see all these Thai girls bundled up in winter gear and you’re sitting there in a t-shirt and shorts and still sweating.

Someone asked me the other day about whether the Bangkok nightlife was anything like the movie Bangkok Dangerous. The scene in the beginning when Cage’s character meets Kong is 100% authentic. That street exists and is called Soi Cowboy. And yes, it is that wild and crazy. It’s basically one long street with go-go bars running up and down each side of it. The only exception I would take is the whole pick-pocketing thing. Yeah, I’m sure it happens from time to time but nowhere often enough where Cage’s character would randomly stumble upon it like that.

There’s one shot where Cage is taking a photo and he’s standing in front of a go-go called the Tilac bar. Hugh Grant was in the papers a few years back because he supposedly got mobbed by the dancers there and had to flee. I’ve heard from a couple of people who were there that night and they say that they saw Grant but none of the girls even recognized him and the story was probably a PR stunt to drum up some interest in the Bridgett Jones movie he was shooting there.

For those who don’t know a go-go bar is basically what we might call a strip club back in the US. Girls come out and dance, people watch, when the girls are done dancing they roam around the place looking for someone who will buy them heavily marked up drinks. It’s different from a strip club in the sense that there’s no lap dancing. Well, I guess if you got friendly enough with one she might sit on your lap but you wouldn’t pay her anything for it other than buying her drinks.

Outside of the go-go bars it’s a bit of a carnival atmosphere. You’ve messenger and delivery motorbikes racing up and down the pedestrian street, guys walking elephants (they want you to buy food from them to feed to the elephant), street vendors cooking up grasshoppers and cockroaches (the girls from the north-east area of Thailand love them), girls shouting “Hello! Welcome. Just one drink!” from every bar doorway, and gaggles of tourists and expats like the guys Kong rips off in the movie.

Some people might consider it seedy but it reminds me of Amsterdam’s red light district in a lot of ways. It’s generally safe (despite what you see Kong do in the movie) and often you see tourist couples sitting in the bars and chatting with the girls. And maybe that’s the thing. It’s only as seedy as you make it. A guy and his wife on vacation in Thailand probably don’t get to really sit down and spend time chatting with Thais who speak decent English so they plop themselves down at a bar in Soi Cowboy and the Thai girls will chat all day with them as long as the drinks keep flowing. And the Thai girls tend to be naturally fun and interesting to talk to so the tourists get to think they’ve met some real Thai people and had a meaningful and fun interaction with them and the girl gets a cut of every drink they buy for her so it’s win-win for everyone.

There are two other similar zones, Patpong and Nana. Patpong is really only a shadow of what it used to be. It’s been taken over by a night market and when I was there with a friend looking for some non-go-go bar where they had an Elvis impersonator (long story) I didn’t even recognize the place. It had been 5 or so years since I had last been around Patpong. Back then it was more like Soi Cowboy. Actually it was worse which is the reason business has died over there. The scams and such just got too egregious.

The other nightlife scenes are of a place called the Caribbean where Cage’s character sends Kong to pick up communications from a coyote dancer named Aom (I’ll explain coyotes in a minute – bear with me). First off, the club actually does exist and there are several more just like them. And yes, they have dance shows like that in these nightclubs which are called G-Clubs or Membership Clubs. Lastly, yes, Aom is a Thai actress by the name of Panward Hemmanee (she goes by the nickname of Pei – all Thais have nicknames. And based on how hard it is to pronounce some of their real names the nickname idea works just fine for me.).

So here’s the premise, G-Clubs are intended for Asian businessmen to entertain clients but they are not racist so any farang can join as long as you have the means to pay. You basically pay about 30,000 baht (slightly less than $1000 USD) for a 1 year membership. I know some people have fallen out of their chairs but you’re not really buying a membership. What you’re buying is 10 bottles of Chivas or Johnny Walker whiskey. You have one year in which to use up your 10 bottles or the membership expires. Likewise, when you use up your 10 bottles your membership automatically expires. So, you’re paying 3000 baht (slightly less than $100 USD) per bottle for 10 bottles. If you actually do the math on what you would end up paying per measured pour, it’s a bargain.

Membership also entitles you to discounted mixers for your whiskey as well as on other services (to be described).

So, you’re paying a premium price for your booze and you get to see all of these coyote dancers perform . . . meh, so what? Well, first off there are hostesses. If you desire a hostess you are led into a room of attractive and well dressed young ladies in cocktail dresses and you can pick one or as many as you choose. These girls really do look outstanding. They look like they’re ready to go out to the most upscale nightspot in LA or London. They have expensive hair-dos and wear top of the line cosmetics.

Once selected they will now come back to your table and basically they chat with you and try to make sure you have a good time. Unlike the go-go dancers on Soi Cowboy, Patpong, and Nana these girls typically are well educated and speak English (or Japanese or Chinese) very well so this being oriented towards entertaining business clients you can bring the girls back to your table, have some drinks with them, and make it into a social thing rather than a business thing which is the Asian way of doing business. You have to pay for a certain number of drinks per hour for the girls and the drinks run pretty expensive (500 baht – close to $18 USD).

Oh, and the coyote dancers . . . okay, these too are usually university educated or still in college. When they’re done dancing they’re free to roam around the place and hit up guys who want their company for drinks. In fact there is a scene in Bangkok Dangerous where Kong goes to meet Aom and she’s getting a little cozy with a customer. That happens too. Both the hostesses and the coyotes will get as cheeky and flirty as the customers want . . . within certain limits. They’re not prostitutes. They’ll put up with some drunken groping and such but there are boundaries. One hostess I spoke with told me that the Thais acted like an octopus and always had their hands all over them. She said the farangs tended to be pretty well behaved which is why she prefers farang customers. Then again, she’s paid to tell me what I want to hear so who the hell knows what the truth is? 🙂

The coyotes run a similar system of having to pay a certain number of drinks per hour (actually, it’s only 40 minutes but the math is easier by the hour) but they are more expensive than the hostesses. A hostess you are required to buy two drinks the first hour and then a drink every hour afterwards. Coyotes get three drinks the first hour and then a drink every hour.

Coyote dancers have become somewhat the rage in Thailand over the last few years. They are hired for all kinds of events from car shows to special nightclub openings. They know how to dance and they often have choreographed numbers that are like watching an MTV video. There was even some controversy awhile back when some government bigwig proposed banning coyote dancers at certain types of events because they posed a threat to morality or some sort of crap like that.

I have to say that in most G-Clubs (or at least the successful ones) the hostesses and coyotes are absolutely stunning. Many are actually models when they aren’t working at the club. The girl who plays Aom would be just a normal coyote in most G-Clubs. So all of this paying for the company of some dancers and hostesses is not like going to a strip club or a Bangkok go-go bar. They’re usually pretty intelligent, educated, have a great personality, and love the fact that you’re paying to get them boozed up. They’re not for sale (for sex) so you go with a few buddies, pay for some company to keep things lively, everyone has a great time.

You can also go as a non-member but notch up all the prices. Members get to whack 10% off of the price for extra services (hostess and coyote time spent with you) as well as mixers and non-members are charged a 10% non-member fee on top of their bill at the end of the evening.

And just in case you’re curious, no I have no been to the Caribbean. It’s a little out of the way for me. I have been to another G-Club called the St. Moritz which is a stone’s throw from my hotel. Similar sort of experience. I have some friends who are members at the Caribbean and the other G-Clubs and it’s pretty much the same business model in all of them with the only major differences being prices, music played, and ratio of girls to customers.

So that’s how the movie Bangkok Dangerous stacks up against real life. But that’s just the go-gos and G-Clubs. There’s tons of other stuff to do at night here.

What about the rest of the movie?

Well, I didn’t think it was especially strong. I’ve seen the original Thai version of this movie and I liked the original much better despite the lower production quality. In the original it was all Thai actors and the story was told from the perspective of a deaf-mute assassin. There are elements that are similar between the two like the main character’s love interest in the pharmacy clerk and the eventual realization that what he was doing was harming the Thai people but other than that the 2008 version is only loosely based on the 1999 original.

I just couldn’t buy the whole premise that Cage’s character would be so moved by an offhanded comment made by Kong that he screws up killing the PM. Okay, maybe if you lived in Thailand for awhile and you could connect with the people and understand the politics then maybe I get it. But some guy who only knows two people in all of Thailand it makes it a little hard to buy.

Some people have debated whether or not the politician Cage decides not to kill is Thaksin Shinawatra the former PM of Thailand who was ousted in 2006 in a bloodless military coup. He’s a bit of controversial figure here as, at the core, he’s the reason for the airport closures by the PAD. Thaksin is a hero to the poor people of Isaan who comprise most of the population of the country. Kong’s comment that he’s a good man and that he does many good things for the poor just strikes too close to what the people from Isaan say about Thaksin for me to totally dismiss the argument.

I say he was the core reason for the airport closures because the PAD was protesting that the then government was basically a puppet government for Thaksin living in exile. A hard argument to refute when your brother-in-law is the PM and most of the MP’s that were in your political party still call you the big boss.

An approved screenplay had to have been on the table when he was either in power or just after the coup so that phrase about being a good man and helping the poor just seems too coincidental. Especially when you consider all the attention to detail the directors paid in other parts of the film.

In truth the guy is as corrupt as they come. He and his faithful have made fortunes in bogus land deals and such. They simply realized that the vast majority of the population is poor and if you spend a little government cash to improve their lives they will love you and completely overlook the fact that you’re robbing the country blind.

Thaksin or coincidence? Not sure.

I also had problems with the scene where he kills the muggers because it just didn’t make sense. First, Thai on farang violent crime is very rare. Yeah, sure if you got drunk and passed out in the park your wallet, watch, and anything you had on you would be gone when you woke up but it would be very rare that a Thai would use violence in order to commit a crime against a farang. From time to time you hear about some farang getting murdered here and there or a jealous girlfriend who takes a knife to her farang boyfriend but the former are usually when the guy is messed up with the criminal underworld in some way and the later is a crime of passion.

And then for him to kill the muggers just lost me. If his big rule is to be invisible then shooting two muggers in the park with your girlfriend standing right there doesn’t seem like a very smart thing to do. Just give them the wallet and be done with it.

I did get a kick out of the little glimpses into Bangkok (Thai) lifestyle. The scene with the elephant is something you will see daily. Personally, I hate this practice and refuse to ever support it but in the movie Cage’s love interest, Fon (I don’t think they ever say her name in the film but she says that her name means rain which is “fon” in Thai and is a very common nickname), buys a sack of bananas and Cage feeds them to the elephant. Elephants aren’t meant to be marched up and down major city streets. They should be out in the jungles/forests where they belong. I would be more than happy to contribute to an elephant habitat but I refuse to encourage these people by buying the elephant food so they can use it to pay themselves for exploiting these animals.

In fact, I was reading in the paper the other day about some elephant that went on a rampage and destroyed several cars. The “owner” brought the elephant from the forests to Bangkok and then decided he needed to go visit his family and left the elephant without food for three days. The poor creature went crazy from hunger and started smashing stuff up. The police had to feed it to calm it down enough that they could take it into custody. These are the morons you’re supporting when you pay 20 baht for a bag full of bananas to feed to the elephants.

The first date between Cage’s character and Fon made me laugh. First dates with a conservative Thai woman are usually dinner at a family style restaurant. She orders for both and because it’s a Thai restaurant for Thais even the non-spicy dishes are very spicy for farang tastes. So yes, the farang spends the entire meal wiping sweat from his brow and reaching for the water glass every second. Meanwhile his Thai date is usually giggling the way Fon did at the obvious physical discomfort being caused by her meal choices.

One thing I have to give to the Pang brothers who directed both the original and remake is that they picked up on very subtle aspects of Thai culture like the fact that when the food arrives she serves him the tom yum goong before serving herself. That’s very Thai. In the way that a man might hold out a chair or open the door for a lady, this is a similar custom except on the part of the lady to show that she can be a good wife or girlfriend. I’ve even seen some women peel the skin off the prawns (shrimp) for their dates. That would have been an interesting thing to see in the movie.

There are other subtle things that are unique to Thailand that the directors picked up on too that are difficult to explain. There are scenes that seem absolutely authentic. Be it the hairstyles of various characters or things going on in the background of a scene that are simply Thailand (well, Bangkok to be specific).

And then there are things that just seemed to be funny commentary on Thai life. For instance, when Kong buys Aom the expensive earnings. The way I read that scene was that the fastest way to a coyote dancer’s heart is through your wallet. And if you’ve ever met any of these girls . . . it’s so dead on.

So all in all, I thought Bangkok Dangerous had a weak story but I got a kick out of stuff that people who have not been to Thailand might not really appreciate. I thought the original which was in Thai, with Thai actors, and was aimed at a Thai audience was a much better flick even if you had to do the subtitles to understand it.

Anyway, thanks to all who have been concerned and sent emails. Thanks to those who have asked me about Thailand or Bangkok. Things are starting to wind down here with only about 2 more weeks left to go on this holiday so I should be back in the swing of things after the new year.