Farang Mongers: The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Thailand
By KorskiThe Henry Rothchild High School 25th Reunion was held on June 25, 2007, in the Emily and Nolan Pace Auditorium in Brooklyn, New York. The school was one of the largest in Brooklyn, and almost since its founding in 1924 it had been notable for producing many of the state’s, and the nation’s, most distinguished lawyers, doctors, bankers, politicians and businessmen. An unusually high percentage of the high school students went on to do their undergraduate and graduate degrees at Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Colombia, Duke, and the University of California at Berkeley. Thus it was no small occasion when each year a class celebrated its 25th high school reunion and somewhere between 2,100 and 2,500 former students, and friends, wives and children attended the memorable event.
As had been the tradition for thirty-seven years, one prominent and successful member of the high school class was singled out and asked to give a speech at the end of the evening’s activities. The speech could be on any topic chosen by the person so honored. Often, speakers chose topics dealing with the state of the economy, emerging health issues such as AIDS, America’s underprivileged class, and even such topics as gay rights and the feminist revolution. The speeches invariably had a strong liberal bias.
The 2007 address was to be given by a distinguished New York City surgeon by the name of Marcus Gold, a man who had devoted the last seven years of his professional life to working without pay for three months every year in one of Bangkok, Thailand’s most notorious slums. He did not make much use of his skills as a surgeon on these missions, but rather spent his time meeting with sick slum dwellers and consulting with Thai doctors on setting priorities for those who needed operations and obviously could not afford them. Marcus God in short order established a reputation for his work and his remarkable sensitivity to the poor, especially since he had taught himself Thai and was able, after his second visit, to carry on as if he were one of the downtrodden. Of late he was being mentioned for several big awards, including a Medal for Distinguished Service to Humanity, an award presented annually by the President of the United States to a citizen from any country in the Americas.
On the program for the reunion, the title of Dr. Gold’s post-dinner speech was: Whose Aid Really Matters in Thailand? It was widely assumed that he would describe his work in Thailand and suggest a model for others who wanted to give freely of their time to help the world’s poor and needy. A rumor had it that Marcus Gold would set his speech within the context of Jeffrey Sach’s remarkable book, The End of Poverty. The speech, by the liberal and quite successful middle-aged attendees, was widely anticipated, and it was assumed that the press would be well represented at the evening’s final event.
No one could have foreseen what in fact would transpire, and when the evening was over the speech that was given created such a stir that the following morning it made the front page of The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and numerous other newspapers around the country.
To appreciate what happened, it is necessary to say a few words about Alan Randal, the person who, by clever and mischievous design, found himself at the podium on the night of June 25, 2007 delivering his own answer to the question posed by Marcus Gold. Alan was forty-three years old, twice divorced, with two children, and a man who at a very young age made an enormous amount of money speculating and trading on the commodities market. Before he had reached the age of thirty-three, his net worth was close to twenty-seven million dollars. But within the short course of three years, by the time he turned thirty-six, his assets had been reduced to a little over nine million dollars. The major reason for this dramatic drop in his net worth was not due to poor trading decisions, but rather to court awards given to two wives in divorce settlements.
Although by every measure, Alan was still very rich after his wives were taken care of by the courts, his emotional life had become, so his friends judged on the basis of meager evidence, a pathetic mess. He precipitously quit the investment firm where he had worked since graduation from Yale. He invested virtually his entire wealth in low risk stocks, bonds and mutual funds. And he sold his home and left the country with the aim of living abroad, perhaps in France or Switzerland. He traveled for several months in Europe, in the Middle East, and then in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Finally, two months after his thirty-seventh birthday, and having visited five countries in Asia in the brief span of three weeks, he fell in love with Bangkok, Thailand. He quickly bought a spacious condominium.
Because Alan Randal had always had a healthy sexual appetite, one that neither of his wives could satisfy and in good part accounted for his divorces, he soon found himself enjoying the pleasures of Thailand’s huge and seemingly limitless bounty of prostitutes. Alan moved about freely. He’d spend a week or two in Pattaya, another couple of weeks or a month in Chiang Mai or Phuket, and then he would return to Bangkok and his large condominium that he had stocked with DVDs, books on a variety of topics, and the best Danish modern furniture he could find. He did not have any interest in marriage or even want anything like a permanent or semi-permanent relationship. He was more than satisfied to enjoy a prostitute for a day or two and then move on to another one. Alan Randal was wildly promiscuous, what in Asia is often described as the irrepressible butterfly. In his own country, he would have been characterized in much less flattering terms: as a sex addict in need of serious medical help.
From the time Alan Randal was a freshman at Henry Rothchild High School, he was a playful and inventive sort. He collected ribald jokes and limericks and told them to anyone who would listen. And he delighted in discovering an angle to a problem or an issue that others missed. It was this latter trait that accounted for so much of his success in the commodities market.
Alan could not, when interviewed in his jail cell the day after his arrest, identify precisely when the idea came to him. He believed that it just suddenly popped into his head one night after he had sex with a twenty-five year old girl that he met at Tilac on Soi Cowboy in Bangkok. He had, as was his custom, given her 1,000 baht more than she asked for, money never being an issue with him. After he did so, he asked the young woman, whose name was Sa, what she intended to do with the money he had given her for spending the night with him. She said that half to three quarters of everything she earned she sent to her poor parents who had a rice farm, in that large and poor region of Thailand known as Isaan. The area is notable for supplying somewhere between eighty and ninety percent of Thai prostitutes who offer their services to men from the West.
And so the idea was born from the apparently honest words of Sa, and it played itself out in Alan’s mind for nearly three weeks after receiving the invitation to attend his high school’s twenty-fifth reunion. The plan, as he devised it, was simple enough. When he saw that Marcus Gold would be the evening’s speaker, he remembered how the two of them had played together on the high school baseball and football teams, and then had kept in touch through the years, even occasionally having lunch together at one of New York’s many exclusive restaurants.
Alan contacted Marco, as Marcus Gold was know to close friends, and told him that he would be in Brooklyn three days before the reunion. He wondered if there was any chance for Marco, the old high school teammate and friend in later years, to have lunch with him on the day of the high school reunion. There were a few complications with Marco’s busy schedule, but Marco told Alan that they could indeed lunch at a well known restaurant on Fifth Avenue. He would love to reminisce about old times without all the distractions of the reunion when all you could do with most people was shake a hand and ask a few perfunctory questions. Alan said he would meet him at Marco’s Park Avenue apartment and they could go to the restaurant from there.
Alan showed up at Marco’s apartment forty-five minutes before they were to take a taxi to lunch. He got what he wanted without asking--an invitation to have a drink in the apartment before leaving. Everything proceeded smoothly from that point on, and not least because Marco was separated from his wife. Alan had had no problem getting hold of a drug that he could put in Marco’s drink, one that would keep him in a deep sleep for somewhere between twenty-four and thirty-six hours. Such a drug was widely available in Thailand, in fact just about everywhere in Southeast Asia. And so when they sat down in Marco’s study where he kept all of his records and photos on his well known work in Thailand, Alan found an opportunity to put the tasteless drug in Marco’s drink. Marco, the great surgeon and man of considerable skills, was out before he knew what was happening. And with Alan’s help he was fast asleep in his own bed before they were to have gotten a taxi to the restaurant.
The night of the reunion, several people expressed concern about Marcus Gold’s absence at the early reunion events. But Alan had anticipated that this would happen, and after he had Marco asleep he sent a message to the chair of the reunion committee, posing as Marcus Gold. The message said that due to some unexpected health problems with one of his three children, he—Marcus Gold--might well miss the evening’s early activities and even the banquet, but that he would, most certainly, be there for the important speech he was to give.
The high school class’s valedictorian, “Foxy”--as she was known since her high school days--Thornbill, was to introduce Marcus Gold at the podium. She was now a large and matronly woman who, after her graduation from Antioch and the earliest years of motherhood—she had two children—devoted herself to advancing women’s issues, in particular finding ways to help them break through the often talked about “glass ceiling.” Foxy was liberal, she was bright, and she had a consuming hatred for men, especially those who like her husband had views on sex generously described as unusual and ultra-liberal. Foxy’s husband took the position that if it felt good, or might feel good, or could possibly feel good, then do it. Foxy found this whole idea repulsive, and the idea--the mere idea--that her husband might practice what he so freely preached by his second martini made her decide that he was not fit for sex or expressions of love. Her husband’s only release came from his hand.
Now with two minutes to go before Marcus Gold was to speak and no sight of him, Foxy was anxious, and her prejudices rose to the surface. Men! she thought. Primitive of mind and behavior and never on time. What good are they beyond being a reservoir of sperm!
Alan had come to the reunion dressed unconventionally. He was wearing worn running shoes and faded blue jeans and a black and orange silk shirt that he’d bought on the Sukhumvit around the corner from the infamous Nana Plaza, a multi-story collection of go-go bars loaded with prostitutes. Though Alan had a good head of hair, he had shaved his head two years ago and kept the look. His rationale had been that it is easier to take care of if there’s nothing there, and it’s the only way to go in the constantly hot and humid temperatures found in Thailand. On this night, Alan had a three-day growth of whiskers on his face, and some of them were white. He hardly looked like a one-time commodities speculator who made millions.
Those at the table where Alan had dinner, and far to one side of the podium that was centered on nearly 2,000 people at their tables, hardly remembered him from high school. Or they didn’t want to recognize him. Almost everyone had come to the event dressed in fairly formal evening attire, or at least slacks and a suit for the men and a pants suit or a tasteful dress for the women. Who is this dirty street bum? people who saw Alan wondered.
Just as Foxy was about to go to the podium and announce that everyone should be patient for another five or ten minutes because, she coolly reasoned, Dr. Gold had probably been caught in heavy traffic and would undoubtedly soon make an appearance, Alan, with his speech notes on folded sheets of paper in a rear pocket, stood up and jogged up to the stage and nudged Foxy to one side. And he said, like a man free and loose in every joint, Thanks, Darling! I’m Alan Randal and I’m here on Dr. Gold’s behalf to address the aid issues in Thailand. I’m here with his blessing.
Foxy huffed and shook her head and backed away, and Alan got behind the podium and leaned forward and stared at the huge audience. He had a large grin on his face. He relished the moment. It would not be long before the audience began to wonder if Alan, this middle-aged classmate hardly anyone could remember, was sane. And if not insane then what possible drug he could have taken to get him to say what he did in what followed.
&
As many of you may or may not remember, he began, I am Alan Randal. I graduated twenty-five years ago from Rothchild High, just as so many of you here tonight did. I have come before you this evening to fill in for Dr. Marcus Gold, or Marco as I so affectionately know him. Unfortunately, he had a pressing emergency and could not attend. At any rate, he has kindly asked me to talk in his place, and in being true to my good and dear friend, I will speak directly to the very topic that he said he would address this evening: Whose Aid Really Matters in Thailand?
For the past several years, I have been using my considerable fortune, one that I made in the commodities market, to help the poor people of Thailand. If you don’t mind me saying so, I have come to think of myself as a foreign aid worker. And one, I dare say in all modesty, in the same category as my great and dear friend Marco.
Ladies and Gentlemen and former classmates of long ago, I am a member in good standing of a large group of men who are among the most distinguished and honorable ambassadors of good will to ever set foot in Thailand. And by that what I mean to say quite specifically is that I and those like me collectively through the years represent the best thing to have ever happened to Thailand. Let me repeat that last sentence. I and those like me are the best and greatest thing to have ever happened to Thailand! And the reason for this bold claim is that collectively all of have dramatically improved conditions in the poorest region of this marvelous Southeast Asian country, a region known as Isaan.
We have done more for poor Thailand than have all national and international aid agencies in history. Whether we have done so by conscious design or as a byproduct of our behavior is another matter, and I won’t let this small technical concern detain us at this point. To not put too fine a point on it, we all must remember that we are judged not by our intentions but what we in fact do, and whether or not what we do matters. Design and intent, need I remind you, are less important than result.
Permit me now to briefly explain in a bit more detail my considerable claim before you today. As many of you know who have worked with or in conjunction with the Agency for International Development and the World Bank and the United Nations, or with a myriad of non-government agencies that have the best of intentions, one of the most difficult tasks in helping the poor in the Third World is getting the money and aid to those who need it. It is no secret that in the whole of Southeast Asia, corruption is widespread. You simply cannot get anything done without--to use a common phrase--greasing palms, and often several times and with a good deal of grease.
It is also well known, a fact bordering on a universal truth, that of all the aid money that reaches a country, only a small fraction of it gets to those for whom it is intended. The great bulk of aid sent to poor countries, and Thailand is by no means among the poorest but still has the same problem, is pocketed by those at the top: politicians, the military, and that huge web of greedy sycophants glued to these very people. What this translates to, you know as well as I do ladies and gentlemen and former classmates, is that for every dollar we give to help the poor in these Asian countries--and here I am in particular thinking of Thailand since it is where Marco has done all of his notable work--maybe twenty or thirty percent at most gets to those for whom it was meant.
But for those who belong to this great and select and quite special group of men of which I am a proud member, the amount of foreign aid we give to the poor of Thailand, principally the rice farmers in that poor region of Thailand known as Isaan, to jog your memories, is not subject to the kinds of corruption with which we have all heard so much about. By my best estimate--and I and a close friend who goes by the pen name of Korski have studied the matter at some length and in detail--in the range of fifty to sixty-five percent of the money we give for a service to which I will turn shortly gets to those who need it most. So, I think you can now appreciate that however admirable the international agencies around the world that attempt to deal with the two and a half billion people who are genuinely poor, such efforts are no more than half as cost effective as that mission so assiduously carried out by that great and select and quite special group of men to which I have been alluding. This group, I should note at this point, goes by the acronym FMOT, an acronym not well known until now but one I assure you that will begin to get the kind of attention and press in the future that it deserves.
Alan paused and scratched his whiskers around his chin and then reached down with one hand behind the podium and scratched his balls and thought: I need to start pacing myself more and cut back to five or six a week.
You are no doubt asking yourself: Who or what is FMOT? Yes, who or what, ladies and gentlemen and former classmates, is FMOT?
He looked around at the dozens of tables and he was sure that he saw seven or eight men pursing their lips and shaking their heads as if to say, I just figured it out and I cannot believe this bastard is going to say what he is going to say and ruin my whole fucking life!
FMOT, distinguished ladies and gentlemen and former high school classmates, stands for Farang Mongers of Thailand! He smiled and laughed lightly, and he pointedly looked over at Foxy sitting at a nearby table. She made a face at him, then looked like she had just swallowed her tongue.
Now for those of you whose vocabulary is a little rusty, farang is a Thai term generally used to refer to foreigners. Sometimes, but not always, it is used disparagingly. Mongers, to continue, are men who are addicted to whores. Or to use a more polite and endearing term—hookers. Mongers are, to put it bluntly, as addicted to sex as are hookers who genuinely enjoy what they are doing.
There were several low grumbles at the tables near the dais. Alan could see that some women had lowered their heads or brought hands to their faces and were covering their eyes. While he had been speaking, Foxy had gotten up from her chair at the nearby table with glasses of water on it and put a small piece on paper on the edge of the podium. On it were two large printed words: SICK PERVERT!
Alan read the note and turned to Foxy and smiled sweetly. Then he turned back to his audience. We are men of many ages and backgrounds. Some are in the early twenties, some are well into their sixties. Most are in between. We’re handsome. We’re ugly. We’re bald. We have a forest of hair. We’re fat. We’re thin. But we all pretty much have one thing in common. We love sex, and we have no problems or sleepless nights paying for the privilege of sleeping with these lovely and quite accommodating Thai prostitutes, girls that I prefer as I noted to call hookers, and not without reason as I will allude to later. Most of them, I should note, do quite a good job of meeting our needs. Needs, I dare say, that were not met for most of us in the marriages and other arrangements that we had in the West.
A thin and tall woman with a chalky face and Dolly Parton breasts near the rear of the auditorium stood and pointed a threatening finger at Alan and shouted: You and those you speak about are nothing but sickos who need medical help and a strong twelve point program!
Alan scratched his balls again and thought, Jesus, would I love to go Russian between those big honey-filled tits.
Now that many of you are no doubt in a state of mild shock over what I have claimed this evening, let me give you a few personal figures that will make my case more concrete. For roughly the past six years I have been living exclusively in Thailand. During this time, I have been averaging around 120 different hookers a year. Actually, my contribution to Thailand’s problems with poverty and development in Isaan, the rice-growing region I previously brought to your attention, has been somewhat greater than these numbers would indicate. On a fair number of occasions I have taken the same girl more than once, and of course paid each time for her services.
Now if you figure that for the girls I have been with, and with extras included, I have been spending at least $150 for ten or twelve hours for their company and sexual pleasures, this means that I am contributing roughly $10,000 to $15,000 of foreign aid each year to Isaan. And this does not take into account another $8,000 to $10,000 or so for the girl to spend on herself as she sees fit. And then too there are all the other expenses that I incur that add to the Thai economy via multiplier effects, a portion of which—albeit small--trickles down to the people of Isaan.
Okay, I confess that my living here all year round, and with an appetite that ever among mongers is perhaps a little extreme, does not make me exactly representative of this very large class of farang mongers in Thailand. But when you consider that there are literally tens of thousands of men from the West who come here and become mongers in a never ending stream, if only for brief periods of time, I think you can see that even if each man from the West is only spending a couple of thousand dollars once or twice a year to have sex with a Thai hooker, the amount being sent by daughters to mom and dad and all their kin in Isaan is a very considerable sum.
Alan noticed that a man at a table near the front but to his right was waving his hand, like a frantic know-it-all student in class trying to get the teacher’s attention. He looked in the man’s direction and nodded. The man in dark blue suit and a red and white tie stood and said, Beside your appearance, which I am sure most of us find most inappropriate for the occasion, I would like to remind you that we have advanced to that point in the feminist movement where we only use the term girl for someone who has not yet reached puberty and would not yet know about the rights she will soon have as a woman. So, if you would in the future...if you don’t mind.
Thank you, Alan said. When I am on this side of the Pacific in the future, I’ll try to remember this feminist take on the great tampon divide.
Several people cupped their mouths with their hands and laughed nervously.
He turned back toward the audience at large and went on. You are surely thinking: Be more concrete, what kind of difference are we really talking about for all these young girls—excuse me, women—who have become hookers? Well, consider this one little fairly representative example. A relatively young girl of legal age leaves her poor family in Isaan and goes to Bangkok to make money to send home. She will be lucky to make two or three hundred dollars a month working fifty or so hours a week in a garment factory. She would hope to be able to send up to half of this money to help her family, but this is not easy in present-day Thailand where prices for many things are approaching what we pay in the West. At any rate, then one day, through a friend, and perhaps from the same Isaan village, the girl hears that she can easily make in less than week what she makes in a month if she sells her sexual favors to a Westerner. She would then have at least three or four times as much money to send home: for buying more land, or improving the family house, or getting dad a pickup truck. But even if the young woman only sends home a small portion of all this money she is getting from me and others like me, the parents are almost certainly much better off than when she was working in a Bangkok factory.
Someone shouted from the rear of the auditorium: To become a member of FMOT, are you required to pay a membership fee like when you join a golf country club?
Alan paused and brought a finger to his temple and said, That is an interesting theoretical question that deserves a longer answer than I can give at this time. If you meet me in Bangkok, I will provide you with a satisfying answer.
I could go on about the economics of all this, he began again, but I think it is more important to say a few words about a widely held myth that I have no doubt many of you entertain. It is the idea that when men go with prostitutes they are exploiting them. Believe me, ladies and gentlemen and former classmates, Thai prostitutes are anything but exploited by Western men. In fact, I am quite certain that it is the other way around. It is Thai women in their role as wily hookers who quite effectively prey on and exploit Western men. They not only work on their emotions, but they also are quite good at emptying their bank accounts.
On another small piece of paper that would presently find its way to the corner of the podium, Foxy wrote: Myth, myth, myth, you pig!
Before the note met Alan’s eyes, he said, Yet another point I want to make with you is this. We here in the West have what I and dues paying members of TMOT would describe as a very unhealthy attitude toward sex. I dare say that the Thais, a predominantly Buddhist society, have a very different attitude. It is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much, to say that the great majority of these Thai hookers do not see sex as much more than something akin to eating or defecating. Of course, there are some notable exceptions to what I am saying here. But again, I regret that in the time I have available, it is the general rule that I hope you will take away from this modest little idea I am placing before you this evening.
As Alan’s eyes met the myth note from Foxy, another one was placed on the podium by her. It read: Asinine dirty old man!
On reading this note, Alan peered out at the audience and said, Would you excuse one brief moment. He took the second note and turned it over and wrote on it: Get fucked, if you can. He drew a heart after the last word, then took two small steps and slowly and methodically placed the note in front of Foxy.
Upon reading the note, Foxy got to her feet and wildly waved her hands in the air and shouted, This is enough of an insult to our intelligence and moral sensibilities! I will have no more! We will have no more of this nonsense! This is not what we expected and we certainly did not want it. Without sitting down, Foxy took her cell phone out of a small pouch lodged between a role of hip and belly fat, and less than a minute later two men appeared and went to the podium. One of them got between Alan and the podium while the other one grabbed the microphone and turned it off.
The audience became a buzz of words, and murmurs, and chairs being moved about. People shook their heads and clasped their hands and took in or let out a deep breath. Several in the audience went to their cell phones.
Alan went back to the table where he had been sitting before getting up to give the speech. There were two opened bottles of wine on the table, both about half full. He sat and poured some red wine into a glass, and as he did so the three women who had had their banquet dinners at the table with him tittered and shook their heads and with nary a glance at Alan got up and hurried toward the exit. Their husbands, not quite sure what to do, and suddenly eager to hear what else Alan had to say, were thinking of how they would go home and as soon as the wife was asleep google the words Thailand and whores and Bangkok.
Alan sat back at the lone person now at the table and felt fairly good about the message he’d gotten across, even if there were several more points he had wanted to make. He poured himself the rest of the one bottle of Merlot, and as he took a sip he saw two policemen coming toward him. One got on either side of him. He was commanded to stand and put his hands on the table and spread his legs. He was searched, and then told by one of the policemen that he was under arrest for breaking an 1896 law that forbade “indecent and immoral talk in a public forum.” He was handcuffed and taken to a waiting police car.
In spite of calling an old friend and attorney to get him out of jail as quickly as possible, Alan Randal was still in a holding cell the following morning when several reporters were at the front desk eager to interview him. The New York Times had already had discussions in its editorial offices about doing a feature length piece on Alan Randal, with principal attention on his sex addiction to Thai prostitutes. It was a story certain to sell.
This was the very same day, late in the afternoon, when Dr. Marcus Gold was discovered in his apartment. He was awake and in bed and still groggy from the drug that Alan had given him. When questioned by the police later in the day, and after being told what happened at the banquet, Marcus Gold said only that he had vague memories of a luncheon appointment with Alan Randal. As far as memory served, he had not seen him for nearly eight years. The last time was when they lunched together and Alan was still married to his second wife.
In the ensuing days, Alan now free on bail, Foxy Thornbill and several of her ardent supporters made calls to Marcus Gold and tried to convince him that what Alan Randal had done was unconscionable and he ought to be prosecuted for doing whatever he had done. Won’t you cooperate with us? the various women insisted. Marcus Gold insisted all right, but only that Alan Randal did nothing inappropriate and that he had absolutely no intention whatsoever of filing any charges against him. And in fact he was working with his own attorneys to get all charges against Alan dropped so he could return to his home in Bangkok.
What Marcus Gold told no one was that he had a Thai girlfriend, and he had met her in a Soi Cowboy go-go bar called the Dollhouse, less than a hundred yards from where Alan had picked up the hooker in Tilac that gave him the idea for his speech before the reunion class. Marcus would also tell no one now or at any time in the near future that the reason he and his wife had separated and that he would be seeking a divorce was that he wanted to marry his Thai girlfriend, who now had a nice apartment that Marcus was paying for, this in addition to international money orders from Marcus that were never less than $1,500 a month A one-time and still active hooker, the girlfriend, unbeknownst to Marcus, was occupying the apartment that he paid for with her Thai husband when Marcus was away and being the good surgeon, a person soon to be invited to the White House.
Stickman's thoughts:
Plenty of food for thought. If this is the reaction that Westerners have to tis issue now, how will they react in 10 years from now, or even 20? I can't imagine how repulsed a Western women indoctrinated in feminist bullshit will feel about it then.
The author can be contacted at korski1@cox.net.
The author of this website, NOT this article, can be contacted at: stickmanbangkok@gmail.com.
