Now for prostitution in Thailand. I think the best way to describe the difference is to tell you story that a girl told me. Let\u2019s just say her name is Lek (not her real name). Lek was 16 when her mother took her to Pattaya to look for a \u2018job\u2019. For those who don\u2019t know, Pattaya is a city known for prostitution.\u00a0 \u00a0Anyway, Lek was quite ignorant of the world and didn\u2019t know about Pattaya\u2019s reputation. Her parents had run into financial trouble and were about to lose their home (or whatever). So anyway, she just thought she was going to get a job as a waitress. I mean, being Thailand she wasn\u2019t exactly well educated, and she being Asian it\u2019s normal to respect and obey her parents without question. In the end she ended up working at a \u2018show\u2019 that demonstrates shooting ping pong balls across the room . . . amongst other things (you look it up, I\u2019m not explaining it). But she wasn\u2019t in the show, she was a cashier. She told me how over the two years she worked there that surprise police visits would force her to run out the back door to avoid getting caught. The legal age is 18 at these establishments, which she wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Despite those two years of \u2018bad influences\u2019, she didn\u2019t actually \u2018sell herself\u2019 (\u0e02\u0e32\u0e22\u0e15\u0e31\u0e27<\/strong>, kaai5 dtua1). It was afterwards when she found herself without a job and no money, and parents that couldn\u2019t support her, that she became desperate. She described the feeling as \u201cI was really hungry \u2013 I had no money to pay for food.\u201d Think about it. If you have zero job skills due to your upbringing, and your parents took you to work in Pattaya because they considered it acceptable, it\u2019s very hard to say \u201cI want to work for $1.25\/hour as a respectable waitress.\u201d I mean, when the other option is ~$33\/hour as a prostitute it can be quite tempting. Rent alone starts around ~$100\/month in the cities (for a dirty rundown place), so you do the waitress wage math.<\/p>\n language notes: A rude way to refer to a prostitute is \u2018saow5 haa5 gin1\u2019 \u0e2a\u0e32\u0e27\u0e2b\u0e32\u0e01\u0e34\u0e19, which means \u2018a girl looking for something to eat.\u2019 It\u2019s important to understand culture when learning a language, no?<\/p>\n to be continued . . .<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The following article on prostitution is presented as a means to convey the darker side of Thailand, an opportunity to learn vocabulary that wouldn\u2019t be taught in any formal\/proper educational setting. Such vocabulary, culture, and events can be found in Thai movies and daily conversation, giving it practical academic use.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[10208,3,10341],"tags":[94628,94629,94627,10177],"class_list":["post-1099","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-beginner","category-culture","category-intermediate","tag-hooker","tag-pattaya","tag-prostitute","tag-thai"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t