December 2018
How sexist was your Xmas?
Feeling obliged to be in the spirit of something called Xmas on December 24th, I told a friend I would join her for a live music evening in one of the Chiang Mai bars, which shall remain nameless.
She hadn’t yet arrived when I rolled up on my bike but someone I vaguely knew caught my eye and I sat down with him and pretended to feel comfortable. I must give credit to three things before I continue. The Thai woman who runs the bar is a treasure and welcomes everyone warmly, making them feel right at home. She runs a tight ship and the customers are under surveillance for any untoward behaviour. Secondly she cooks up a mean western beef and vegetable stew, fragrant with wine and herbs, every Xmas Eve and you are invited to help yourself to the free, piping hot food all night long. Third, the live music, provided by the customers themselves, is usually excellent. Musical instruments are available to all those who can strum and blow and even the less musical have rattles and bells to shake in time to the beat.
So far so good.
It is a tiny bar and therefore exudes an air of intimacy. Most of the regulars are men of a certain age who live in Chiang Mai and are married (or not) to young Thai women. And what sweet, elfin women they are next to the grizzled, ugly old souls who could be their grandfathers. However, let’s not be judgmental. I have lived in Thailand long enough to know that these “relationships” can be mutually beneficial and that Thai women often feel safer with a farang man than with one of their own nationality. Thai men can be lazy, drunken, unfaithful and violent. Western men have money and are often better partners. Besides, if they are much older, all the better. They will die when you are still in your prime and you will inherit the dosh. Meanwhile your family is taken care of; houses are built, grandma has her operation and a new buffalo is purchased when the old one dies.
For the farang man, his ego is all aflame. The little eye candy girl hangs onto his arm and spoon-feeds him the food she has cooked and cut up just for him. She does his washing, keeps him clean and tidy and sees to his every need. As Louis Theroux noted in a recent documentary on Thai Brides, Thai woman never have a headache! They can be poked and piston-ed and not a murmur of dissent! How convenient that 70% of Thai woman don’t know what an orgasm is!* They watch western films and learn how to fake it. I have heard them through the walls! It’s a great performance and the man wouldn’t have clue whether it’s genuine or not. He is all ego and testicles.
The music was excellent. Two men strummed guitars and sang in harmony. I sang along. I ordered a glass of wine from one of the cute Thai waitresses, all dressed up in scanty father Xmas clothes, little hats and red and white attire. I already felt uncomfortable.
My female friend arrived and I thought things would improve. However three things happened over the course of the evening. My friend introduced me to “two cool dudes”, one of whom was called Randy. “Pleased to meet you, he says, shaking my hand. “I’m Randy and I’m really randy.” I’m randy too”, says Lenny, the other “cool dude”, as he shakes my hand. “And so am I”, says the voice of another guy behind me. All three were Americans in their late 60’s to early 70’s.
Oh.
Later I heard the English man behind me tell a “really hilarious” joke to the supposedly “randy” guy who hadn’t shaken my hand. Did he know it? It was the best joke ever told by the “brilliant” comedian Billy Connolly. A man kills his wife and buries her with her bum sticking out “so he can park his bike in it”. The “randy” guy starts to wonder how rotten her bum would get stuck out there in the air. Horrified and sick, I switch off and listen to the guitarists instead. I have been swaying along to a lovely melody. I tune into the words. “I shot my baby down by the river” over and over again, as the crowd tapped their feet and hummed along, smiles on their faces, beer and wine in hand. What a jolly Xmas Eve!
I finished my drink and left.
*Durex Global Sex Survey 2008
Billy Conolly’s “wife joke” told on the Parkinson show in 1975, made him famous. He went on to receive a knighthood from the Queen at Buckingham Palace in 2017 “for his services to entertainment and charity”.
The Crime of Femicide:
USA
*On average, 2.5 women are murdered by an intimate partner each day in the United States. (2015 statistics)
UK
The Femicide Census, conducted by Women’s Aid and the campaigner Karen Ingala Smith found that of the 139 women known to have been killed by men in the UK last year (2017) 105 (76%) knew their killer. Thirty women were killed by strangers, with 21 of the 30 killed in terrorist attacks.
Spain
On International Women’s Day, March 8th 2017, millions of women marched in cities across Spain, demanding an end to gender violence
Louis Theroux’s documentary, “Thai Brides”:
Thai Brides – Louis Theroux
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