Stickman Readers' Submissions May 25th, 2003

When Is A Bargirl Too Old?



This story is based on the opinion of one bar girl of which I have to admit makes me respect them all the more. If you look at the perspective that they are just in a business like any other and it is a career then you would be aghast as to the competition. I almost would compare it to a professional sports player who constantly has to look behind his back year after year as his team looks to see if he is slipping and therefore will be replaced. Except when he is forced to retire he is already financially set for life while our BG is usually flat broke!

I have been fortunate as to look and treat them no more than how I would like to be treated and try not to get to the emotional irrational would be having a relationship mode type situation. Having said this, I am turned on mostly by their personalities and knowledge of what makes them tick. And of course I would be lying if I didn't say beauty.

He Clinic Bangkok

Let's name her Shirley to protect her identity. She hails from Surin and we have become really good friends as she loves just spilling her guts out to me. Let's make up the bar in question and just call it the Tasty Lady in Patpong <That isn't a bad name for a bar!Stick>. Okay Shirley is an old 22 years and tells me about her depression of being an old lady. Yike's I am 42 so what does that make me?

She came to Bangkok at age 11 to be a housekeeper for a rich Thai / Chinese family for 1,000 baht per month. Her family back in Surin has a tiny patch of land and a thatched home if you could even call it that as they do not have electricity or water. At age 21 she told her parents to go back home to Bangkok and that she would find other work somehow that would pay a little more than what she is currently making as a housekeeper. So she decides to quit and run over to Patpong with 200 baht in her pocket and no place to live for the next day. She has not blossomed and looks almost like a boy so she was turned down for the BG position, she didn't know how to dance much less how to make herself pretty.

But she knew how to, get this, fight – as in Boxing. The idea clicked with one of the bars and the lady Thai boxing match was created! 300 baht a night is a far cry from 1,000 baht a month. She hit it big! Or so she thought! Another bar owner saw some beauty in her and offered her finally a regular BG dancing in the pole job. Next thing she knows some Japanese sad case offers to give her allowance to stop dancing. You know the usual stories. 20,000 baht per month was a figure she threw around and yes he OK's to the proposition. Everyone knows this does not last forever as he has a harem of these allowance girls from different countries. So she didn't stop when he left. (Do they ever?) The difference with Shirley from all the other stories I have been told is that she actually made good use of the money rather than spend it all on her friends and gambling and shopping! She sent it all home and managed to actually make 1 million baht in a little over a year and a half to build a nice home for her parents. They now have the nicest home in their area and actually have 2 toilets and 4 rooms. She even placed pretty well in the Nanapong contests where we met and she hustled me into taking her if she did not win the big 10,000 prize. I was not even given an option as I shook her hand on the proposition, no backing out now.

CBD bangkok

Now comes the reality! Her childhood friend (Let's call her Sandy!) like her who is 18 years old and I met her too is quite pretty. They live together and Shirley took care of her and showed her the ropes in the business. Shirley is a good businesswoman in which she gives out her cellphone number to customers for future repeat business without having to go through the bar fine routine and thus makes better money than most as her customers stay and just take her for the duration of their stay as she definitely TAKES CARE of them. Her trusted childhood chum Sandy sometimes takes her cell phone when she is with a client as they demand her full attention and she complies. Her clients pay more handsomely than the usual. Thus the reason for full attention given them. Smart girl as I would have done the same. She has regular Japanese men pay 50,000 baht a week plus gifts of watches and gold. A regular Norwegian guy who books her for a two week gallivanting trip in the country for 75,000 baht. Unfortunately, Sandy has got a hold of this particular way of doing business but instead of getting her own clients, started messing with Shirley's. I guess an 18 year old fresh face makes a difference from a 22 year old seasoned veteran. Thus a childhood friendship is destroyed! This has Shirley distraught as Sandy has been bringing in all her other 18 year old buddies! When I phoned Shirley to say hi, she would not stop at hi and asked right away where I was staying and that she would be right over! She said she would have had to sell her TV to pay rent and food if I had not called. Patpong is a ghost town for girls like her as a new shipment of Isaan girls has just arrived and all under 21. Coupled with the fact that it is low season and the SARS scare, she claims to have not had a customer in 2 months. Shirley in my opinion looks 16. But that is the Thais for you. Sandy looks 14.

Shirley has been in this business only for a year and a half. She is not burnt out from the business. It is the competition that has gotten the best of her!

Can one really be over the hill at 22?

Stickman says:

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Prostitution is a young lady's game. wander around the bars in Pattaya and it is all of the young ladies who get barfined first. Still, there is hope for Shirley. Down Pattaya way there are some women working into their early 50s, and they're not just serving drinks…

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