Sons of Heaven
Japanese punters, solo or in groups of three or four who can sit in a bar for two hours and nurse one Singha. Service and mamasans will jump through hoops for them. Bringing girls, hanging around them AND all this without getting so much
as a cola.
Why is this?
The rich salary-man of twenty years ago is gone from most farang venues but what they have left is the myth that all Japanese are big spenders. Older mama-dragons, perhaps harkening to those packs of black-suited sarary-men of years ago
who used to straggle through Nana to get to their bar by the Woodstock, might remember these guys as the big spenders. Those days are long gone and the Japanese punters who've replaced them are just Japanese versions of your basic man
heading to Thailand for cheap sex. (The name of that bar escapes me, sorry)
Big-spending Japanese have always disliked rubbing elbows with the gaijin hoi paloi and in keeping with this they long ago established hundreds of their own clubs all round the city.
Yep, that's right, hundreds.
Like many of the standard "shake-the-money-tree" legends promulgated by village mama-aunties, bar-bags and current so-called mama-sans, this Japanese big spender myth is 95% BS.
Yes, you might see the occasional one on the slum these days but the vast majority of the black suits are gone.
Why? Because today's Japanese customer at Baccara, in Cowboy, the Rainbow joints and the Arab laundries is your basic third-rate sex-tourist. He's a factory worker, a student, a retiree; hell, he may even be unemployed. What
clearer indication of THIS is Baccara's current "two lady-drinks before you can bar fine" policy? If many of these guys had a choice they'd just sit on a Coke all night and ogle. Second to that, he'd just walk in,
buy a Coke, barfine the girl and walk out the door. This is NOT how big spenders behave.
He's here for two or three weeks in all his Son of Heaven glory in much the same way his American naughty boy brethren might head to Tijuana or Juarez.
And any deference to him, be it out of ignorance, greed or laziness is just plain dumb. Anyone, bargirl, western punter, or hump-matron who actually worships this guy as some kind of savvy, knowledgeable operator is even dumber.
The real reason he gets so much from staff, girls and lazy-greedy-ass mama-bags is because he is NOT savvy. He is NOT knowledgeable. And the inherent Asian brothel-savvy that some Westerers are all too ready to imbue him with is as much
of a myth these days as his assumed wealth.
The truth here? Why does he get this attention? Ready for this, funseekers?
It's because he's a hick.
It's because he's a rube.
It's because he rarely if ever speaks comprehensible English or Thai.
And, most important of all?
He usually does what he's told.
In a word he's sebeu…
And these are only the reasons on the Japanese side of the deal.
And here is the Thai side of why and more importantly how this guy gets attention from staff, girls and the lazy-greedy-ass mama-bags.
He's easy meat. He's VERY little effort. No negotiation. No argument. No challenges. No game whatsoever except that he's willing to do what he's told. Remember, it's an admittedly arguable point but THESE are
the guys who introduced "short time" to an entire population of friendly, willing, compatible rascally women who used to stay around to wash your socks if you wanted that sort of thing.
Here's how the mamasan on the Thai side works these poor doofuses:
The mae-lao approaches him, brings a girl by the wrist, rolls him a konichiwaa, dumps the girl on him. Or she brings him the numbered-girl he orders without uttering a single word of any language whatsoever outside of a couple of crude
hand gestures.
She then retreats a few meters and waits for her opportunity. If the girl she dumps on him clicks, she can come back and with more of those OBNOXIOUS RUDE hand gestures she can pull a second drink for the girl, a drink for herself, and
maybe drinks for a few others.
Then it's the bar-fine pitch and he's out the door for half an hour of fun.
All without struggling with a word of ANY foreign language.
All with hand gestures and with minimum effort, like some kind of witch-doctor she increases her influence over the punter and, more importantly her hens.
Seen this or something similar played out before?
Japanese guys get a lot of attention because with a minimum of skill, a minimum of language, a minimum of hustle they can be railroaded into accepting just about any performance level by lazy mamasans.
Many of US would not even respond to such a lazy-ass treatment. And the implication that this is really how things are done has seen me leave a bar on more than one occasion. Personally I see this M.O. as RUDE and exclusionary.
But the most important factor here is that it's way easier for the old bag to deal with this Japanese guy. She avoids using English. She avoids negotiation by just SHOWING him on a piece of paper what it's going to cost. (She
includes a cut for herself, of course) and in the case of many a profoundly gullible Gentleman From Japan she can / and often does show her appreciation for his patronage by padding his bill.
The mamasan trifecta, as it were.
Just watch the action next time you're in Baccara or kaizyhow or even a Rainbow joint. Many of us spend WAY more in these places than does the average Japanese guy. Farangs spend more but they are decidedly less susceptible to suggestion
and control. A gringo who can total his bill after six drinks is heavy lifting for larcenous staff.
So, Stick, in addition to the above, MY theory of why the Sons of Heaven factory worker, student sex tourist might be more popular is that there is less a risk of a customer pulling a tart from the stage on his OWN, communicating in English
and leaving the old mama-pimpette COMPLETELY OUT OF THE PLAY.
It's not restricted to mamasans. There's also the marauding freeloading waitstaff who can't make a lick of conversation unless it's a poke at farangs but wants a drink. If things click with a tart and some rude service
Tom tries to cadge a drink I ask "For what? Are you suggesting that you will be a source of anything other than insults to me and flirtatious with my tart? You're not here to sell drinks or to skim from this girl. And you'd
NEVER try this crap with a Thai customer. Your job is to bring the drinks. Get it ;-?"
Then after the Tom or intrusive service skank is gone I tell the girl that the money I spend in her bar is for my drinks, her drinks and HER.
This works as a great filter.
If they "get it", they love it.
They fxxxing love it.
Rude of me? Naw. I have no problem eliminating the greedy, annoying, advantage-seeking mamafaloes that are trying to establish it as their right and their duty to insinuate themselves into a transaction between me and my tart de la soirée.
Because these deals have terms and exit clauses, and this transaction involves money I believe this money in NO way has anything to do with anyone but the punter and the tart.
Believe me, the tarts get it.
The day they don't, (for example in Cowboy 2 where I am SURE that half that 4000 baht bar fine goes to the girl,) will be the start of a slippery slope.
I love it when greedy slob-women posing as care-takers are completely cut out.
But, in the end if these "facilitators" start to behaving themselves and respecting customers AND the girl's own initiative to hustle her own trade and NOT to use HER as intermediary…… I'll buy a drink.
She asks for a tip? We're back to "piss off".
And being a "mamasan" is all about IMPLYING that she has control over the services on offer.
In reality unless she's fronted the tart some boob-job money, she has NONE.
The good mamasans like Rainbow's Eed, Tilac's Jaeb and several others can all communicate and see NO side to the Japanese trade other than they are customers deserving of no more consideration than any other customer.
While many of us may not be stupid enough to believe that the mamasan is there to help anybody but herself, we Westerners are customers as well and some of us are damned good ones at that. Some of us actually OFFER drinks to girls we
like. Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?
We're just not going to stand for having our faces sold by some useless clapped-out hose-bag in an over-priced bar.
