Mongering And Morality
I’ve read with interest the subjects of morality and mongering. What in the hell is mongering anyway? Robert Louis Stevenson is quoted as saying “all these militant mongerings of moral half truths”
I gather it relates to being a sex addict or someone who loves to have sex with whores. There are people who love to admit and brag they go to Pattaya or where ever just for sex. That’s ok but most of them are proud of it and aren’t ashamed to be part of it.
Every time I go through customs at Suvarnabbumi I’m embarrassed because they might think I’m a sex tourist. I never put Pattaya as my destination and very rarely it is. Once I was doing a visa run at Mae Sot and the lady officer after going through my passport said there are a lot of visits to Thailand why? I simply explained I live in Phitsanulok and I’m an Ajarn (I teach Aviation) and also have a business here she was happy with that.
What can I say about Pattaya, “you can only swim in a toilet bowl for so long, it is not as simple as we would like to think. It is a modern day Sodom and Gomorra; they even have hotels dedicated to swingers.
I’ve always taken an interest in human behavior and human nature, and I would love to talk to a Psychologist who specializes in Asian (Thai) culture as they are without a doubt very different to thinking to most westerners.
I’m inclined to agree with Stick, Rahiri and Caveman and other points but I don’t think it is as simple as that, before we go into Thai personalities lets have a basic look at morals.
Conscience, Conscience is inherited in man, it is an inward realization or sense of right or wrong that excuses or accuses one. Hence conscience judges. It can also be trained by the thoughts and acts, convictions and rules that are implanted in a person's mind, by learning and experience. Based on these things it makes a comparison with the course of action being taken or contemplated. Then it sounds a warning when the rules and the course conflict, note when the rules and course conflict, UNLESS the conscience is “seared”, made unfeeling by continued violations of its warnings.
Conscience can be a moral safety device, in that it implants pleasure and inflicts pain for one's own good and bad conduct.
We are born with a conscience, many laws of the nations are developed from our conscience, it is not influenced by Christianity, Buddhism or what ever but is ingrained in our mind from birth. Conscience must be enlightened, if not it can deceive; it is an unsafe guide if it hasn’t been trained in the right standards. Its development can be wrongly influenced by local environments, customs, worship and habits. It might judge matters as right or wrong by incorrect standards or values. A good example of this is the atrocities caused by man in the name of religion or political freedom, wars etc.
I’m not going to offend any particular country because we are ALL capable of it. A good book to read is “The Lucifer Effect” by Philip Zimbardo, how good people turn evil, a very good book and very disturbing.
Has any body seen the Escher’s illusion of angles and devils you look at the illustration and what do you see Angles or demons or both????
I’m not being sanctimonious but I have many friends who would say Michael is a nice person, If I am, I’m lucky because I’ve had a very good up bringing and parents and environment with good values, but would I be the same person if I was born say in Germany in the 30’s or Ireland or Thailand? Probably not.
Let's try and relate all this to a young Thai girl or boy, let's be honest most come from poor families and have a low education and let's use young 15 year old Noi as a sample, she comes from a village up north, nice simple life and simple parents and suffers from puppy love or the Cinderella syndrome quite normal and loves family and Buddha etc etc, she is a good girl loves her mum and dad and does the right thing in every day living.
One day her dad dies unexpectedly and the family fall on bad times and she stays awake at night hearing her mum worry about the family’s plight, she is told about a place called Pattaya where she can make good money and she talks to her mum who already knows about Pattaya, her mum suggests she should go and make some money even if it is only for a short time until things pick up, who knows she might even find a nice caring Thai man who will rescue her or yuk may be a farang like the man who lives up the road a ways and he has a nice house a happy life, but he is a bit old
A few months later she meets Somchai who just came in to the village to help with the rice harvest, regardless of her family problems she felt so lucky she has just found her new libido with Somchai and he loves her, he told her so
Months go by she is so happy Somchai is helping her and life is great but the unexpected happens. She has missed her “mens” after many months. Somchai leaves because the rice has finished and he promises to be back to help her but he doesn’t return.
Now little Noi really feels guilty and her conscience is playing up. She let a man spoil her. She has put extra pressure on her mum and financial problems. Her mum is more then worried who will have little Noi now she has a baby. She will never find a b/f.
Basically she is a victim of her environment her governments lack of altruistic policies and lack of education, her mother although a nice person is also a victim, she too is uneducated not real bright and can't really think out of the square (a small square) like most in her country they rely on so called good luck and have nothing but bad luck they aren’t really deep analytic thinkers even the educated ones, in my opinion they are a little child like. So her mum does the only thing possible she sends Noi off to Pattaya, yes she cares and is worried about Noi.
Do they really care? Are they like the mothers who ride on there motor bikes with there 2 young children without helmets or protection. You see it all the time, I really think they don’t think about the consequences, they don’t want to think, it’s too hard. Have you wondered why there are 17000 deaths in Thailand a year? (That is another subject I want to write about).
Big step for Noi she starts off sweet and innocent. I’m like Stick. I’m an observer. I sit back and look and talk to them. In fact I’m probably the only farang who has been in Pattaya for 5 days and had no sex. I’m probably the only farang who had a new girl brought to my room and I sent her away and she was so happy because prior to that she was so nervous and I gave her 500 baht and said go home and she said “what no sex” and I thought how sad was that, but 6 months later she was a hardened bar girl. She changed and her conscience changed to suit the environment the rewards outweigh the cost and she does have other girls who she can relate and talk to.
Another girl I meet and became friends with (and no sex) (, I already had a “good girl? in Bkk) with and she used to cry upon my shoulder and tell me she has to get drunk every night to do what she has to do. So sad.
My opinion is they are/were good girls doing a bad job and they change to suit the environment and long term it does destroy lives, they all genuinely want to find someone to save them. The 18 year old girls in Phitsanulok are different to the ones in Pattaya. I could imagine for the first time a fat smelly grotesque farang was to bonk them; it makes me sick to write about it, the girls here wouldn’t do it. What does that tell you? There are not too many girls here who pay me attention but in Bkk or Pattaya I could get laid every day if I wanted.
The girls do become ruthless only because they are making the best of a bad situation, conversely there are bad girls out there doing what they do and they do it well,.
My youngest son had a bar girl for a g/f and she promised him sincerely that she was back in the village. He sent her money every week even when he didn’t have it and she was working in Pattaya all that time except when he went to visit. I meet her mother once and between them they wouldn’t have a brain as big as a rat let alone have a conscience or morals.
Another friend of mine meet a girl (in Nana), fell in love the second day and in 12 months gave her 1 mill baht and I’ll give you 1 guess where she was working in that 12 months, in both cases and there would be many more like it where is the morals and conscience if they wanted to do the right thing they wouldn’t lie and be home.
Yes those girls will have problems for sure and have nothing to show for it. Remember the Linda Lovelace book in the 70’s, she not only made a lot of money from porn but also from her book. But years later she went through a guilt trip and blamed her b/f and everybody else for her self inflicted spree. She had justified her conscience in the beginning when she was young and adaptable but her libido and fame justified her conscience when the rules and course conflicted.
Look at the emotional damage to the Vietnam vets in there later years of life but in the beginning they were young and done things in that war that they wouldn’t have dreamed of a couple of years previous when they were adolescents..
An old man once said to me “Michael, it is easy to be nice when every body is nice to you, but when someone puts pressure on you it's interesting to see how nice you will be then” and so true. I have never forgotten that.
I think the Noi’s and Somchai’s are nice and moral when it suits them but this is my opinion, Thais don’t have a great strength of character (except when they are angry) and they will compromise to the very end. They will lie to save face and gain as much as they can. The country and the people will never change because it's there make up. Have you ever wondered why a lot of the Japanese weren’t charged with war crimes? Because enough was enough and to save them face, and Thais are no different.
Whether bar girls or professional business people (I’m not saying all) they are all the same. If you want to talk about conscience and morals forget the bar girls. As I said they are good (in the beginning) girls doing a bad job. What about the many so called professional/good Thai girls (with Thai husbands, Thai b/fs or farang) who are on the dating sites? Why? Just for sex, to experience a farang, what about her conscience, she is bonking around behind her husband's back and lying about it. What about her conscience, how do I know? That is for another story, but I have done some tests and they had a 100% fail rate, even if you increase the numbers and it ends up at 80%, it is still a lot.
In summary, yes I like Thailand and after 6 years I think I have found a nice girl, but Thais in general are nice and sincere as long as every thing goes their way and there is no pressure. As one friend of mine said the whole country is a lie and they will do anything that’s immoral and deny in their minds it doesn’t happen. Immorality is part of their culture and the problem will never go away, not in our life time anyway.
What is a good person anyway? Because you are involved in mongering it doesn’t make you a bad person, or have a drinking problem or take drugs it doesn’t make you a bad person, if you are a minister on religion or a policeman, politician it doesn’t make you a good person. There are many issues involved.
I have a saying “love what is good and hate what is bad”.
For me I just stay away from any part that is illegal or immoral. (In my eyes).
