Simple Living

    I have an old girlfriend who moved from Bangkok to Pattaya a few months ago.  She’s been calling me and asking me to come visit her, so this weekend I did just that… I hopped the bus from Ekkamai Station in Bangkok to Pattaya (about 114 baht each way) and stayed with her on Saturday and Sunday nights, returning to Bangkok today.   The girl in question was a go go dancer before I met her, and she’s working as a beer bar girl now.  I thought I’d take a moment to write a description of how she lives now, along with a comment of how this compared to her previous living conditions as a go-go girl. 

In Pattaya she lives in a single-room apartment with a toilet (as do I).  That’s really where the similarity in our lifestyles ends.   Her room is on the top floor of a three storey walk up building.  The steps going up are narrow and uneven. 

The walls of her room are as thin as cardboard.  To give you an idea, she went out to 7-11 last night, and I knew when she was returning because I could hear the plastic of the bags rustling as she walked back to the room – I actually heard the plastic bags through the walls! 

Unusually, she lives alone.  She has no window on her room, and no air conditioning.  She has a ceiling fan and a floor fan to circulate air, but basically it makes her room into a convection oven instead of a standard oven. The only option for getting any air into the room is to leave the door open. 

The toilet is a traditional Thai ‘squat’ toilet.  Most Westerners have a hard time using them effectively, as you have to squat flat-footed, with your knees near your ears and do your business.  I find them impossible to use as designed.  You ‘flush’ the toilet by using water from a cistern in the bathroom that is refilled from a small tap. There is no hot water in the room, and no water source except the shower and the tap above the cistern. 

There is no bathtub or separate shower… the shower head is mounted on the wall above the toilet with a drain in the floor for the water to run away.  To be fair, this is a common design in Thailand, and my apartment has the same setup, albeit with a ‘Western’ toilet and a water heater. 

Her bed is a mattress on the floor.  She really wants to have a frame for her bed, but at the moment can’t afford to buy one. When I arrived, she didn’t have any sort of refrigerator in her room.  Imagine… the room is generally close to 100 degrees and no cool drinks!  I felt sorry for her (and myself!) so I took her shopping and bought her a small refrigerator, a rice cooker and an electric wok so she can cook for herself.  The total bill was a little less than 7,000 baht (about US $200).  Her birthday is this month, so I told her to consider it an early birthday present. 

She has no washing machine, no TV, no home phone or computer, no countertops, no chairs or tables… just a simple room with a small space to hang her clothes. I guess I don’t have to say that there is no security in the building. 

Yet even this is a big improvement over her living conditions when she was a go go dancer in Bangkok.   

Back then, she lived on the third floor, above the go go bar, in a common room with a dozen other girls.  They each slept on the floor with just a pillow – no mattress.  The toilet facilities were shared, and clothes were kept in portable cloth ‘wardrobes’.  She told me that the girls routinely stole clothes, shoes and jewelry from each other.  They were allowed to lock valuables like gold in the safe in the owner’s office. 

Of course, there was no air conditioning in that environment… just a fan or two that they all shared.  They shared a rice cooker and electric wok as well, but generally ate prepared food purchased from the street downstairs. 

Back in the family home in Isaan, most bar girls’ families grew up in wooden shacks, in a couple of large shared rooms and no indoor plumbing.  Because the daughter is working in Bangkok (or Pattaya) the families are usually able to buy or build a townhouse-like home, with a large open room with ceramic tile on the ground floor.  Typically this opens to the street with no door, to allow maximum air flow.  They will spend most of the day in this room, probably watching television, talking, or perhaps playing cards. 

The rooms where they sleep frequently are furnished very simply and may involve several people sleeping together on the floor in a single room, with only a fan for circulation.   In this respect, the way a bar girl typically lives generally isn’t far removed from the way she her family lives.    

Now, I’m not saying that every bar girl lives this way, but it’s pretty common.  Thais (or perhaps I should say Isaan farmers) have a different idea of what a ‘normal’ home is like with respect to comfort.  Air conditioning is seen as an expensive luxury.  I often have girls stay with me who – in spite of the a/c being available and on my paycheck – simply never use it, preferring to just open the door and run the fan. 

I have been to the homes of bar girls that were – frankly – nicer than my own.  They generally invest in a nice TV early on, and they will often decorate their home with lots and lots of plush dolls.  Thai girls in their 20s love plush dolls as much as most 6 year olds back home. 

Certainly many bar girls live very well. But my guess is that at least two thirds of bar girls live in conditions like my ex-girlfriend.  Usually they live two girls to an apartment… Thais generally hate being alone.  They always have makeup, shoes, bags and clothes, but typically what they buy is very inexpensive.  They share everything, and live a simple life, sending most of what they earn back to their parents in Isaan.   

Living in Thailand has help me appreciate the value of simplicity.  If you ever get the chance, ask a bar girl to show you where she lives in Bangkok (or Pattaya).  You may be surprised at what you find.