el rey

i saw the king of thailand the other day. sort of. i was walking to the skytrain, from a wot (temple) with good views of the city. suddenly, i walked upon groups of people, tons of police, and no traffic. odd. as i aproached the four way nontrafficked intersection a cop put his hand up to stop me from walking further. after ten minutes of standing in wait for the king to pass i sat down on the curb. the policeman walked over to me and gestured, indicating that i must stand for his heighness. did they really have to stop traffic for 10 minutes in advance of the king's passage? about 10 minutes after my attempted sit down twenty or so red bmw and mercedes cars passed with military personnel inside. then a gold car passed. it was a royal looking limosinelikebutnot car. did i mention that it was gold?! the king and the person i pressume to be the queen sat inside. no waving no acknowledgement. one guy standing near me bowed. then the 30 or so red bmw and mercedes cars, following the gold vehicle, passed with more military guys inside. five minutes after all german cars had passed the cops let us cross the street.

the king is serious business in thailand so i will keep my comments to a minimum, as i would like to return to this fine kingdom. apparently utube has been banned here (tho i haven't checked) because someone said some inflamatory something about the king on it. everyone also says that the king is well loved here. it is also illegal to say negative things about the king. it is also illegal to deface money because all dinero shows the king as a young man. on monday i noticed a preponderance of yellow polo shirts being worn all over the city. the yellow shirts say "thaiand" and "long live the king." i asked myra (will mention her later) why everyone was wearing such shirts. apparently it's obligatory at many companies and government agencies to honor the king in this way every monday. i was told that a swiss guy once drew a mustache on a poster of the king in bangkok. he was jailed for 4 months. no joke. no comment. it's an effective way to shut people up, no?

now onto other things. on my second day in bangkok i was lost, and i stopped a woman on the street to find my way back to the hostel on soi 11. she walked me back to the hostel. during our walk myra told me (i didn't ask) that she was not a prostitute, even though that is what many people assume when she is walking in my hostel's hood(sukhumvit). she said that she is filipino, has been here for about five months, and is a maid for expats. myra has 7 siblings and was raised in a small village. she worked her way through undrgrad, and hopes to complete her degree. she had intended to return to the philippines after months of work here, but she likes bankgkok too much to leave. myra and i went out to dinner twice (once on my birthday). she's a really cool woman, and has taught me a lot about thailand. she is twenty five and moved to bangkok to work for a diplomat from italy. even though her visa was tied to her employment with this woman, she quit because of her poor treatment. apparenly the diplomat distrusted thais (ironic and sad) and that is why she hired myra. the diplomat had been in thailand for 10 years but does not speak thai because she claims that it is not an important language to know. she also regularly scolded myra and her other domestic help. myra gave her two months notice, and when it came time for myra to leave the diplomat said to her out the door "fucking bitch." now myra works for a belgian family that is pretty good. the wife works for an oil commpany. when myra told her employer that i was looking for work, the woman asked what type of degree i had since perhaps there would be an opening at the company. i indicated that my degree was not appropriate for such work. but really that work is not appropriate for me.

so one side effect of the booming and open sex industry in bangkok is that all asian women are assumed to be open to prostitution by men who are here for such things, or at least appropriate objects of men's oggling and inappropriate affection. i've been in lots of areas in lots of countries where sex sells openly but i've never found it as nasty as i do here. and i'm not sure why that is. maybe because i have been living in india. myra told me stories about the many times she has been approached by men (usually fat old white dudes) for sex. not only is this attention annoying and innapropriate and unwanted, but it also makes myra, and i am sure many other women in this city, feel unsafe at times. she says that she often takes alternate routes home so that she can avoid certain streets where she is most often approached by men. her experience is in contrast with mine. i have not felt safer at night in another city. maybe it's because i've been living in india and can cover myself head to toe in cloth and still get the staredown from men. in bangkok i feel i could walk around in a bikini and heels and noone would notice. for one thing expats are all over the place here, but it also has to do with who and what the nonThais are here for. in any case, the sex industry in bangkok has many side effects for women who choose to participate, choose not to participate, and are forced to participate in it.