Naughty boys "go bamboo" in Thailand

TANAI KWAI says:

"Indeed, my own Asian fixation goes back decades."

For me it was that Japanese hottie in "Shogun," the James Clavell miniseries starring Richard Chamberlain as a heterosexual. I was also deeply affected by the Bond movie, "You Only Live Twice." This scene in particular:

SCENE: large magnificent Japanese bathroom with large baths. Four girls wait as Tanaka and James enter in bathrobes.

TANAKA: My friend, now you take your first civilized bath.

JAMES: Really? Well, I like the plumbing.

TANAKA: Place yourself entirely in their hands, my dear Bond-san. Rule number one... is never do anything for yourself when someone else can do it for you.

JAMES: And number two?

TANAKA: Rule number two: in Japan, men always come first. Women come second.

JAMES: I just might retire to here.

Both men are de-robed and led to the baths, where they are scrubbed.

TANAKA: Your English girls would never perform this simple service.

JAMES: I think I know one or two who might get round to it.

TANAKA: Miss Moneypenny, perhaps? *laughs* We have our sources, Bond-san, just like you.

The girls are fascinated by James.

* * * *

Of course, things have changed a lot since the 60's and such a scenario would never play out like that today... heh heh

Actually, I've got those formative memories for most kinds of women. "Sleeping Beauty" for hot, slender blondes. Yvonne Elliman in the movie version of "Jesus Christ Superstar" for black women. And so on.

seesaw says:

My asian persuasion is all down to Tintin from Thunderbirds and to a lesser extent, Aqua Marina out of Stingray.

yellow fever says:

I don't know why I have a strong Asian fetish. It may have come from the Korean girlfriend I had for a few years, but even after her I still was pretty into farang girls. It just seems like I woke up one day and only found Asian girls appealing, now it just seems to get stronger which each passing day to the point I might as well be gay around all other races.

Banjo says:

Oh yes indeedy - that cravate-wearing fiend Clavell is entirely to blame for my own 'yellow fever'. Mariko was the character's her name, and even my neighbours noted how unusual it was for an 11 year old to be transfixed in front of the TV as the noted nufty Chamberlain sweated all over 'Japan' 400 years ago. They thought it was the sword-fighting and Samurai stuff that intrigued me. I guess, in a slightly removed sense, it certainly was..er..weapon-based interest. I even learned Japanese for a couple of years afterwards, bless me.

Only ever managed an illicit fondle with a Japanese girl in Canterbury, a mecca for such behaviour, but am now blessed with a delightful Thai wife to keep me busy. Which is better. Isn't it.

B

moss says:

"Indeed, my own Asian fixation goes back decades."

This could be another thread entirely...

She was a Pan-Am stewardess flying the New York/Honnolulu route, and she was at the Rockefeller Center Plaza. We skated counterclockwise in circles for hrs, then to the crew hotel. She was four years older than me....thanks Lani!

bangkokram says:

Being the Father of a six week old baby daughter, who we've just started taking out into the world.

I can vouch that kids are a babe magnet. Walk round any Lotus Store and you'll be mobbed by a gang of Thai women eager to get their mits on the child.

"She so beautiful, like Father", That'll be right!

Unfortunately on the edge of the scrum stands the nearest and dearest, trying to put a pack Mamy Poka nappies and a litre of miltons in the trolley.

I have a Mate in the UK who regually takes his daughter to the local Health Club, feigns not having a clue about looking after his daughter and is swamped by loads of middle aged wide birds who are more than eager to help in more ways that one. What ever floats your boat!

Andy says:

I agree with TK about the early formative experience of Bond movies in shaping one's sexual peccadillos in later life...

F'rinstance; Donald Pleasance as the head of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. stroking that big pussy with leather gloves on as he's getting agitated with Bond, has got me into many a pickle before now.

Unfortunately, most of Bond's conquests usually end up dead, most notably covered in gold; in a reversal of the normal process here in LOS.

Connery's accent usually works though; "Sho, SHPECTRE shent sheveral shexy shpies to ashashinate me in my hotel shuite?"
"I'll shubdue you girls with my kara-teh shkills before shagging youshe in the jaccuzshi!"

Pieman says:

I'm sure that childhood events play a part in how we express our sexuality whether on a conscious level or not. But, just as Thai women desire white skin, are we not simply attracted to 'difference'?

Faatm says:

My Asian addiction only began 2 years ago with my first ever Asian experience , a beautiful Korean girl.
I have'nt looked back since , and in fact could'nt imagine wanting a LOWCH (lazy obese white chick ) ever again !! It would be akin to having sex with a bloke

Lyle says:

Bangkokram, congratulations on becoming a dad!

When my two young boys whine about their Thai lessons, I remind them that someday they will want to impress certain girls and then maybe win over those girls' families by being able to speak Thai. The four-year-old looks at me like, why would I want to impress a girl? The nearly-eight-year-old, however, stops whining and dives back into his Thai book.

We're not sure when we'll move away from the LOS, but if we do by the time the boys reach high school, I'm sure they'll never forgive us for leaving just when things start to get...how shall we say...erm, interesting for them.

Dicer says:

My ardent enthusiasm for technology is marred by the thought 8 year olds can surf the net just as one can. Can even figure out the proxy server and the access rules. Which reinforces the old adage that until the rise of post mod advertising, it never occurred to anyone anywhere in the world the kid was a captive in a hostile world of adults. Kids already pop into MS et al to plan their bkk trips. And once in grimeland, as dad humps her Laoness away what are the possibilities. While we melt in myth our kids ooze right along with us in the post mod oven and come out wayward and cantankerous, the little shits. Reminds me of an old Thai film where a crafty little bugger would walk around asking the women if they'd breast feed him as, he said, dewy eyed, "because my mother never did." As one might expect from a convoluted story the women who did it were quite a few. And he had several grins of satisfaction. Actually come to think of it there were two films. One is called Jan Dara and for some unexplained reason locals think it's a showcase thing for foreigners. The other is called some bollox or other.

TANAI KWAI says:

"One is called Jan Dara and for some unexplained reason locals think it's a showcase thing for foreigners."

I believe that is because they think it employs a Western-style movie narrative, which isn't entirely true.

They also think it's a deviant smut-fest, which isn't entirely false.

TK

thebamboorat says:

Oi Dicer, lay off the disparaging remarks about the Lao. I read your earlier explanantion about this merely being a reference to ethnic Lao in Thailand but you're smearing the "geographic" Lao by association.

I live there (when not working in the hellhole that is Vietnam) and yes some Lao girls share the same nasty traits as their Thai cousins but your average pu sao Lao is in a different galaxy to her cross border counterpart in terms of personality, charm and honesty.

The women in Isaan may be ethnic Lao but they are "socialised" Thai.

Dicer says:

I totally agree bamboorat. Have to say that of the lot of the Thai population the ethnic Lao and Khmers have more numbers than the central plains lot (ethnic Siamese). So the name Thailand itself is a misnomer. Years ago I used to tease the likable janitors at work of being Lao and they never liked it. "Socialised Thai" is the same as hive mentality....we are Thai Rao and you are not. The further east you go and cross the border the more benign the people are, more kinesthetic even and less wrapped up in the national facade. Also Issan people in general are relatively warmer and friendly compared to their Siamese cousins. A case in point are bkk taxi drivers. I used to spend hours in the bkk taxis and with the Issan chaps would get a free language lesson and always get a conversation going. Central taxi drivers were mostly arseholes. There are countless more examples along these lines in the Sukhumvit shops, offices etc.

chris says:

my obbesion with asian ladies started when i saw the girl in monkey magic!

stu says:

woohoo
look out chumps , here i come
ive got a 10 month old baby girl with my thai wife
i hope bubby really is a babe magnet coz i havent got half as much cash as i had before i got married , OOF !

aah, wont be long and ill be back again in LOS

Looper says:

Is it possible to hire babies as accessories for, say, a couple of hours or an afternoon?
I don't feel ready to have one of my own yet but I can see that a rich vein of coo-ing tottie remains untapped in the aisles of supermarkets and escalators of shopping centres all over Thailand.
In the possible event of a short term 'result' are there any short-time hotels with baby-check facility? Of course I would be careful not to lose my ticket to reclaim the bub - otherwise I presume I would run the risk of losing my deposit from the rental outlet.

Dicer says:

Bamboorat's missve above Lao vs Thai actually has more to it than just ethnic differences. I used to spend 3-4 hours per day in BKK traffic with Lao cab drivers. Every single one said Hey I am Lao. Never ever heard one say I am Thai Esan. Not one. I did have one student from Esan whose parents were teachers, she said Thai Esan. and some office janitors. That's it.

So what happens? New people is what happens. In from the airport and they chat with the cab driver...Thai or Thai Esan...how is a newcomber supposed to know about the details? Also, if you sit in the back, play it official, the driver says I am Thai...and if you keep asking, and he says Oh Thai Esan. This really is the same as, Mexicans in Texas are still Mexicans. They look Mexican, eat Mexican and speak Mexican and would never tell you they are gringos. If you seem like you are coming on in some official way, however, they might have a different answer. I always sit in the front with the driver and read the license, ah Ubon...and away we go. I suppose some people speaking in English might elicit a national answer. Why should they tell new people who they are?

In fact, In Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai it is the same. Farang here from 15-50 years who have no idea the people here are Muang. Ask these people Oh I am Thai...but are you muang/kon nua or Thai ...oh, yes. well which are you..Both. In Chiang Mai you will get a tilt toward Thai but not in the other provinces. If you hit Chiang Mai peope with, "so you like centrals," their radar goes up...well um er... they don't want to come out and say it..so you give them samples, at which point they say, well yes they are different...but none of these guys will really get into it until you are further north in like Phayao or Phrae where they will not let centrals enter the villages. Now they will tell you.."centrals are jai dam...we hate them," but again you have to poke around, they know what they know and no reason to analyse it. You have to learn to just watch faces.

This is not a country where people wear T-shirts saying "arabs suck" or like the Welsh do about the English openly grumble about the others. Everyone knows who dislikes who and it's muted, not expressed. So with Laos like Thais they can snap into the official party line or relax and let go...tone of voice, intent etc. People would say well you can never get the office workers and the students to talk...dead silence...but never in my experience....they were going at it right away and in fact I had no idea they would sit back and shut up...so some people project officialdom or ajarndom and others sense it, pick it up. Speaking of misnomers Laos should probably be called Hmongland as well as ethnic Laos do not even amount to 30% of the population. Identity is a always a tricky thing.

sniffer says:

Experience has taught me that puppies, (especially golden labrador, king charles spaniel and border collie types), have just as high a level of babe magnetism as, er...babies. Their great advantage is that they don't do the whole mewling, puking, turning into delinquent adolescents thing

thebamboorat says:

In the interests of building a society of well balanced men perhaps exposure to Asian women should be part of the standard curriculum for lads in kindergarten. Right up there with learning how to tie your shoelaces, sharing your toys and not picking your nose in public.

While it would be difficult to bus in a whole load of giggling Thai tarts for every class of young tackers the teacher could hold up photographs of suitably gorgeous Asiatic lovelies, say perhaps those in the Asian Babes list on this site. Combine this with some other pleasing neural stimuli such as soothing music and rewards of candy and bingo! A whole new generation with Bamboo programming.

To further reinforce this exposure to pictures of western slappers, combined with electric shocks and sleep deprivation should see these yougsters well on their way to a healthy Asian fixation.

bangkokram says:

Looper, The Beggars at the foot of Nana BTS would gladly rent out their poor kids for a bottle of Chang for the afternoon.

Looper says:

Nice one Bangkokram, and I guess if I absent-mindedly leave it on the skytrain and the beggars try taking me to court for compo most of them wouldnt have a leg to stand on.

logologo says:

referring to the difference between the central thais, lao issan und northern people.
before i finally settle down in bangkok i lived nearly one year up north.
wow really friendly people there, i would say there it come really from the heart and they care each other, even strangers dosn't matter of being foreigner or just from another village.
allway got the 'gin khao leo ruu yang' question. na kahs krab and kraphoms alot. (but okay they may have an attitude forward to the hilltribe people)
first few weeks in bangkok was a shock.
no more such kindness. at beginning i thought i do something wrong but then i realized okay people here are just different, lets blame it on the big city. but where these people acctually come from - issan . lao issan. hey they are not that friendly and the issan taxi driver are not that cool buddies as described. okay some of them are funny but allways dumb too. i allway ask them where they come if the refuse to give me a ride because of "to mut traffic" and then i just say " okay gap ban, kalsasin or roi et mai me rot tid, only buffalo".
but why they are like that, got they centralized? integrated in the "dschai dam' mentally of the central thais? i don't think so. i find real central people more friendly and more polite (doesn't matter of which social status) as the migrants from the north east. and also if you met some people from the north, they still show theier northern style and they don't hook up with a unkind behaivior and i find them still better then the 'centrals', so their look at the 'centrals' are maybe right. but a lazy, unwilling to understand and 'ehh what you want from me' behavior i get mostly from isaanis, which you get in contact with mostly in their (low grade low paid) service jobs.
if you go in a shopping center ask an sales assistant for a specific item and get a 'mai mee' answer because they are to lazy to look or think about it, ask them where they come from - isaan. waiters got you order wrong or forget the half, ask them where they come from - isaan.
recieved are suprising good servive, have a kindly and polite person deal with you, ask them where they come from - north or bangkok. if they are just decent and accurate them maybe thai muslim.
but okay the central people may have a high nose against the issan but i can understand a little bit why.
and for the nothern they are 'dschai dam' because they life in a more busy and hectic world, surrounded by issanis that imprints you a lot.
and okay its not so bad as it maybe sounded now. there are alot of friendly issan people too. and i get only sometimes disappointed.

and for getting an asian fix. for me it was an children photo book about peer children village life in vietnam or china. beautiful exotic life with rice fields, water buffalos and all that. nice black and white pictures that show a day in a life of a little happy girl, how she went to school, go swimming in the afternoon, play ball with all her friends and then good night. i think it was when i was 6 or 7, just learn to read. she was so cute and lovely with her bob hair.
right now when i recall this long time suppressed memory (just think about this today because of the artikel and other comments), the book is maybe also to blame for that mostly of my falang girlfriends have been small and came with black hair in a shorter cut. how your girls have been looking? or thats maybe only cause my big teenage crush from class 11b was tall and platin blond and unobtainable.
at this time, adolescent, it was also the song 'holiday in cambodia' from dead kennedys gave me the impulse to look in sea around.

Dicer says:

A tart magnet dog. It depends on your target. If you have a small nervous Chihuahua you'll end up with an equally nervous Jewish girl. Any dog at all will scare off Mexicans, Indians, Chinese, etc. A poodle with bows might attract a Paris Hilton. You don't want any of the weird China breeds like sharpei because most people don't know what they are and figure you have a mutant canine. Oh gee what's wrong with your dog? A St Bernard makes you look like a stable man but women who want 12 kids will chase you around. If you have a pit bull you'll attract druggies.

Many tarts would say a man with a tiny dog must be weak and "a butty man" as Borat might say so many tarts wont talk to you in the park.....a man with a big German Shepherd she will talk to.... in actual fact though Thai tarts might coo and get misty all over at the sight of a tiny dog dubbed with whitening and powder.

The biggest magnet of all is a man who has a calm assertive energy and is the pack leader of the dog or baby. If a tart is turned on by a man who is being manipulated by his own dog or baby, beware...She's probably lusting after that power vacuum.

TANAI KWAI says:

Dicer, with all due respect...

"This really is the same as, Mexicans in Texas are still Mexicans. They look Mexican, eat Mexican and speak Mexican and would never tell you they are gringos."

While I know it was a bit of a makeweight aside, "Mexicans" in Texas are an incredibly variegated group. Collectively, they don't really illuminate your contention that there are cultural groups in Thailand who (with only one or two anecdotal exceptions you have identified) maintain a basically unaltered and autonomous cultural identity.

By contrast, your so-called "Mexicans in Texas" are all over the cultural map. Since you suggest the possibility that this group Mexicans of whom you speak could at least potentially call themselves "Gringos" then the inescapable conclusion is that you are talking about people of Mexican descent who are actually American citizens (i.e., "Mexican-Americans"). This would make sense since your comparison is to Thai citizens of Lao descent, for example.

Of course there are a majority of Mexican-Americans in places like El Paso who would fit your description. But this Mexican elephant is not necessarily soft and mushy.

Even in a place like San Antonio, which has been majority Mexican-American for many years, there are a tremendous number of highly (some painstakingly) assimilated Mexican-Americans who prefer the Nixonian term, "Hispanic." (This is partly because it has an ethnically sanitizing ring to it. This is also because they want to make white people comfortable, since lots of white folks think calling anyone a "Mexican-American" or, worse yet, a "Mexican" is some kind of slur.)

There is even population, albeit shrinking, of self-hating Mexicans with obvious indigienous features who call themselves "Spanish" (also a term favored by some older whites trying to be polite and almost apologetic that someone has the misfortune to be a Mexican). Whenever I meet one of these "Spanish" Mexicans who pretend to an illustrious European heritage I generally ask, "If you're from Spain then why do you look like Geronimo?"

Now would the most assimilated Mexican (who still retains indigenous features despite massive intermingling of whites and Mexicans, for which your comparison also does not necessarily account) ever call himself a Gringo? Within Mexican-American families, humorously speaking, there are certainly the hyper-assimilated "Gringos" who have jettisoned all sense of Mexican identity. But the term "Gringo" is so closely associated with Caucasian racial characteristics that it wouldn't quite compute. (A bit like South Africans who call themselves "Africans," kinda sorta.)

So whether you "come at someone all official" or not is unlikely to influence many of these subgroups of Mexicans in Texas. I don't believe it's the same type of deal as your Lao's, etc.

Hope that's useful in your ongoing analysis.

(winque)

Dicer says:

TK, yes some good points re variation and dynamics. On the same theme another way of considering identity re American Mexicans and Laos is language. Issan is say 70% the same as Lao and although the French-Thai treaty of the 1890s led to huge popn displacement and a lot of centrals ended up settling in Issan the language changed further given Siam influences of past 100 years. When I drove across Texas years ago and stopped in the little towns, met the Mexicans, also in Colorado, the Texas Mexicans were considered different. In Colorado and New Mexico Mexicans speak 16th century stuff whereas California and Arizona and Texas are from 17-19th century which could be called more modern as modern Spanish starts 1600 to now. Carlos Fuentes went to LA to see what was going on and his report of the bunch there. It is interesting the slang goes back and forth on both sides of the border. Most of these guys of course are the uneducated. South of the border guys have new slang to pass on and north of the border incorporate English words...but clear as a bell to everyone... Mexicans have for years preferred Spanish and in fact outside Colo towns you will find 1 mile outside saxonland the 'spanish colony' which was the map name. Of course no one is more confused than Mexican Americans about who they are, unlike say the Issan who have a clear cut makeup and not as much mobility as the Mex lot. What makes the Mex stuff complex as you said is also the various groups. You will find groups of Basques who actually think they are Mexican, Galicians the same and of course 100% Indians, but language wise it is the same. Spanish unlike English didn't go through all the changes. In fact the Spanish spoken in N Africa is the same as in New Mexico Colorado and Andalucia. In reality the language for Mexico was from southern Spanish and is basically the same today as it was then. So one can suggest, if Mexicans can keep the show going for hundreds of years...back to 1560, the Laos can do equally well with only a hundred years to contend with.

If further probed though this last statement may show small fissures. Tejanos are not all over a cultural map. They just speak a bit more up to date version than the Colo bunch. The difference is not in grammar or pronounciation but in slang. The structure is the same. To wit, some people would tell you that Laos and Issan are 100% the same but in actual fact they are not. There are dialects and throw in the Thaification of Issan they've drifted apart. On the other hand the dynamics with Spanish has been towards more crystallisation and subtle regional variants. Btw my retort to "I'm Spanish," used to be a curt "but not a Spaniard right?"

Also just as the Mexicans get twitchy with different names like gringo so do the Issan when you say Kon Lao as that could mean Kon Pratheat Lao, the country, and they are equally sensitive enough not to usually use the Thai appellation. On the other hand if you ask office Issans "so Issan" they might just say Kon Thai as they think saying to a foreigner I'm Issan could be tantamount to belonging in that Issan hooker subcategory. This was what I was alluding to by bringing in the Mex example. Anyway yes the racial association of gringo inhibits the Mexicans from using it whereas Issan people can readily say I am Kon Thai when it suits them. So in that case the correct equivalent for Texas would be a Tejano saying I'm American which he readily does. Just as the word Thai has become interchangeable with citizens of the country even those who are not Thai, ditto American (although you wont find sub categories like Saxon-Americans)... or say to a lesser extent English has become interchangeable with British (much to the chagrin of the Welsh and Scots.) Issans however do not show that displeasure. Not openly anyway, until you poke around.

One Chinese new year in the office I went to one of the Issan staff and said to her happy new year and she said, nothing to do with me, I'm 100% Thai and not Chinese, so I asked, if you are 100% Thai, how many % Lao are you? She laughed until tears came down her cheeks..... So there you go, confusion all round....

Airbus says:

It was a television dancer called Wei Wei Wong who converted me to Chinese (and by extension) Asian women. She had hair all the way down her back. I vaguely remember her dancing on the Rolf Harris show - or was it Andy Williams. And I think she was for a short time the Golden Shot girl.....and yes in those days it was all in black and white! If only she knew what she has put me through over the last 40 years !

pj says:

I came to Thailand 4 years ago saying 'I don't really fancy Asian girls much'.
3 months later I was living with one, we're now married with 2 kids, some maids (to look after the kids!). Not sure I could ever go back! The wife would kill me anyway!

jamesbond says:

I have a 3 year old half thai daughter who is really cute. I'm seperated and take my kid everwhere in Thailand. All the Thai ladies love her so much and always want to take care her wherever I go. She's a real magnet, and I find I can go restaurants, bars, hotels etc and they always make a fuss of her. Works so well, once she even told one of them daddy wanted a girlfriend and guess what she came back with us!