pingpong

... [first part was this.]

and then the ping pong show high came to a screeching halt. we were in that establishment for no more than 15 minutes when the fat mama san mightily approached our table, shouted at us, in thai of course, violently banged on our table and demanded that we pay them 5,900 baht! showing a laminated piece of paper outlining the cost of watching the show, complete with well rehearsed hostility, she screamed in broken english, "no pay, no watch! pay! pay! pay!" we of course, know our stuff. we answered back that their aiza told us that it would only be 200 baht per head and that should come with a bottle of beer. after this, the pot-bellied mama san shouted, "ok, pay… pay!" since we know that no matter how much we argued with these people we won't win, we paid 200 baht per head and then left that im-perfect bar without even finishing half of our beers.

walking back to where we met aiza, i saw her immediately but upon seeing us, she instantly turned to avoid us and hid. we decided to walk a little bit away from that aisle but came back right away to see aiza back. we confronted her saying that she got us scammed and she actually led us to that trap in perfect bar. while this was happening, other touts have already surrounded us and as if practiced, aiza responded, "how much you pay? how much you pay?" end of discussion, as if saying to us that you already got what you paid for. final round to the perfect bar's mama san and knockout uppercut from aiza.

it was clear that what happened was an orchestrated trap to dupe unsuspecting tourists from whom these joint operators can extract unimaginable amount of baht. the deception started with the aizas and then the mama san will have to act violently to deceive customers into that ruse. while we may be the willing victims that time since we wanted to see what the infamous ping pong show could offer, such verbal violence was altogether appalling, especially as thailand prides itself as the land of smiles. we knew that we'd have to shell out some good sum of money, but getting shouted upon and threatened should not be part of it. anyhow, these kinds of acts are somewhat accepted in thai society. while i'm sure that some of them frown upon prostitution, the fact that these are tolerated and openly advertised, haggled and consumed, it's definitely one of bangkok's infamous come-ons.

in hindsight, anyone who ventures in these kind of adventures ought not to expect to be treated professionally. as seedy as it is, prostitution differs in form and having the money does not necessarily ensure that you'd have the upperhand or the power to demand what you can see. people involved in these kinds of acts have to resort to various forms of dupes since these actually put the balance of power in their favor. such empowerment means getting the biggest possible payout for a night's show… as they say, all in a day's work. people should venture at their own risk and anyone could really get more than, verbal abuse in foreign language included, what they bargained for. ping pong shows are definitely not your usual commercial transactions where you can stipulate exact visual SLAs and get your money's worth.

i just wonder how much do those ping pong girls make in a day. of course, you can easily sense that they're veterans of the skin trade, probably started out as typical bargirls and as they grew older, graduated to performing improbable acts that exhibit the harnessed power of vaginal linings and pelvic muscles. most, if not all, these girls may have been trafficked from thai provinces or from neighboring countries like cambodia, burma or laos, doomed to ply in a grimy industry. through them, a whole lot of people like the aizas, mama sans, waiters and even those zero energy bargirls get paid. sadly, by becoming willing victims of this tourist trap, we unintentionally contributed to human trafficking and slavery. while a part of me still believe that these women are also willing victims of their plight, they also deserve to have further choices in life other than using physical torture to earn a living and being totally at mercy of the fat mama sans.

curiosity snuffed out and egos bruised, we hopped on a taxi hoping to be transported to more familiar and wholesome treats. but as if the aizas and mama sans from bangkok heaven were conspiring against us, the taxi driver brought us to another girlie bar, tucked away in one of bangkok's seedy dark corners around phetchaburi road. we wanted to go to clean joints where you can have beer and chitchat without any touts hovering. as jan puts it, a bar where you can bring your family along, to which the taxi driver answered, "go back to your hotel and sleep!" we ended up in a deserted siam square and we decided that it's best to walk… cross rama road, go back to phaya thai road and on to ratchatewi bts station. jumbo singha beer at hand, we're glad that we're back to that good old clean fun… although we felt that we shouldn't have been charged 30 baht for ice. chalked up the ping pong show to experience, with manny pacquiao in the background saying, "now you know!", we called it a night… ping pong pat pong night. ping pong balls will never look the same again.