Land of 1,000 Smiles It was nearly midnight on a sticky July night two years ago when I set foot in the Pink Panther, a grotty nightclub in the Patpong district of Bangkok. A tinny version of The Eagles' "Hotel California" wafted down from the main room above the entranceway, and a dark, rundown flight of stairs pointed my way there. I caught a whiff of stale urine as I paused on the landing, wondering if this was really the kind of place I wanted to be. No, a smelly Bangkok sex club wasn't my venue of choice for most evenings. But this wasn't like most evenings. I was in the city's infamous red-light district, and the shows they performed at the Pink Panther and at most of the surrounding clubs had become a standard attraction for the backpacker set, the globetrotting community of low-budget adventure travelers that I considered myself a part of. In fact, on most tourists' itineraries, Patpong figured almost as prominently as the city's gilded Grand Palace, home to revered Thai relics and the sacred Emerald Buddha. Attending a nightly show in Asia's premier sex-tour destination was hardly a deliberate endorsement of sexploitation for the average foreigner. It was simply the thing to do, like taking a water taxi through the city's maze-like canals or shopping for trinkets on Khao San Road. It was my third time in Bangkok, yet I had never gotten around to checking out this neighborhood. Martin and Vanessa, two backpackers I had traveled with through Cambodia and into Thailand, were also Patpong virgins, and when they suggested we visit, I was easily persuaded to join. I had heard about the strange stunts the dancers performed on stage-renowned escapades involving all manner of props, from beer bottles to darts, and orifices-but rather than being appalled, I was curious. The sex industry is ubiquitous in Bangkok-in all of Thailand, really-so that after even a few days in-country, the lewd and crude seems remarkably banal. Cross-dressers parade down broad thoroughfares and no one gives them a second look. Sloe-eyed sylphs wink at passersby from suggestive billboards touting every conceivable bodily pleasure, wallpaper for a city steeped in the ways of seduction. Mismatched couples-he old and foreign, she young and Thai-smile nervously at each other as they sit entwined in divey cafes all across the city. None of this surprised me anymore, though I felt a vague sense of apprehension in the cab ride I shared with Martin and Vanessa that night. It wasn't until I saw the food vendors and the neon signs and the international crowd of dirty old men milling around the promenades of Patpong, a congested area of go-go bars, clubs and a night market set along two short streets in the city center, that I had my first real doubts. But what they amounted to was a nagging desire to get the night over with. The plan was to jet over to the district, drop into a club or two and then cab back to the backpackers' district of Banglamphu by midnight, when we were to join some other friends for drinks. It was Vanessa's last night before going home to London after two years of teaching English in Tokyo, and she was on a mission to party through the sunrise. Martin was along for the ride. He and I had shaved traveling costs by sharing a room for over a week in Cambodia. I knew he would be good for a laugh. He was 25 years old and this was his first big trip out of Sligo, Ireland, the small coastal town where he lived with his father and younger sister. He was halfway through a year-long around-the-world holiday, but during one of the many evenings we spent together, he confessed that he was only now beginning to enjoy himself. Before I met up with him, he'd spent nearly two months in China, where other Western travelers are scarce. All that alone-time in a country is difficult under any circumstances, but for Martin, acclimating to such a radically new culture proved even more so. His mom had died a year ago and the girlfriend he started the trip with had cheated on him while they were in Australia, leaving him to travel the rest of the way alone. I was happy to be a part of his good times. No doubt, he was a part of mine. With his litany of Irish slang, shiny bald head and goofy, gap-toothed grin, Martin was a refreshing travel companion. He made me laugh. And I knew that hearing his take on the Bangkok sex scene would be intriguing-this was to be his first strip show and I assumed that the shock of seeing naked women willing to insert anything into their nubile bodies would turn him into a drooling fool. "Your man needs to drive faster," he said as we neared Patpong. He was always calling other people "your man," even if they were women. "I can't wait! This is going to be the best shite ever." Vanessa rolled her eyes. The three of us had gotten on well up until that point, but I could envision this night changing things. For one, Vanessa was sporting an enormous chip on her shoulder after being turned down by all the Western guys she wanted to date in Japan-according to her tales, they only had eyes for the hipless, boobless Asian physique, which hardly described her own ample frame. She had a pretty face with round rosy cheeks, vivid blue eyes and thick, shiny brown hair. But where your average Japanese woman was lacking, Vanessa was definitely not. After almost two weeks of traveling from city to city with her, I had gotten used to her abrasive remarks and insensitive statements about other women. And while I was prepared for her barbs about "the sluts on stage" once we entered the club, her callousness made me uncomfortable. I didn't know how to react. Mostly, I tried to ignore her. We emerged from the air-conditioned cab around 11:15 p.m. to find ourselves next to a street vendor and her cache of spicy fried cockroaches. The sight made me squirm, so we rushed headlong into the giant street bazaar set up on the promenade where all the sex shows were taking place. We had assumed it would be easy to choose a spot-a representative Patpong watering hole-but the crowd obscured our view of the storefronts. Martin steered us toward a tiny space between two carts toting silver jewelry from the hill tribes of northern Thailand, and we discussed our prospects. "How does the Pink Panther sound?" he asked, looking up at a shabby façade bearing the outline of a nude woman decked out in a pinkish tophat. A Thai doorman stood in front, beckoning us to enter. "Do they do banana shows?" Vanessa asked. "Because if so, let's do it." We'd heard about the banana show and it seemed like the quintessential Patpong fest. Personally, I didn't care which club we went into. The Superstar, the Honey Bar, the Pleasure Palace-what did it matter? "All right, the Pink Panther it is," said Martin, taking charge. We ducked inside, climbed the staircase leading to the main bar and scoped the room for seats. We couldn't have looked more like tourists if we tried, with our gawking and new-to-this expressions. But it was too late for backing out now. An elevated runway-style stage took up the center, and the bar formed a rectangle around it. The rest of the room was a cavernous square with high ceilings and muted lighting. There were no windows. Instead, several C-shaped booths lined the room. We headed for one of these. As we slid into our seats, I struggled with where to direct my gaze. It naturally gravitated toward the stage, where a handful of women in various states of undress-some in white cotton undies, some in tattered, yellowing bras, still others in nothing at all-pumped their pelvises against metal poles with the kind of enthusiasm I usually reserve for the dentist. They stared into corners, up at the ceiling, at themselves, but rarely did they look out at the audience. This wasn't difficult because there wasn't much of an audience to meet their gaze. Three or four Western man-Thai woman couples sat in the booths, a few economy-class businessmen lounged on stools around the bar, and several dancers drooped on smaller chairs located in the corners. We sat down and were immediately greeted by a giggling, skimpily-dressed waitress balancing a round tray in one hand and slinging cocktail napkins from the other. The club was so far from being classy that this last flourish surprised me. She laid the napkins down gingerly and asked for our orders. There had been no cover charge to get into the club but a two-drink minimum was in effect and it was fairly steep compared to the backpacker haunts that I usually frequented: 80 Baht, or about $2.30, for mixed drinks or beer. I ordered a vodka tonic, Martin asked for a Singha, Thai beer with a bitter aftertaste, and Vanessa requested the same. The waitress turned away, affording me a profile view of her enormous Adam's apple. She was undeniably the most beautiful man I had ever seen. "Did
you check out that ladyboy?" Vanessa squealed as he
padded away. She nudged Martin in the ribs. "Did you
SEE that?" We silently brought our gaze back to the stage. About half a dozen dancers were still gyrating up there, although that's using the word loosely. I have never seen performers emanate so much ennui. These women looked positively asleep. I scrutinized their faces for signs of anger, sadness, joy-emotion of any kind-but I saw nothing, or at least nothing that gave anything away. Ladyboy
was back in an instant with our drinks, just as the music
changed tempo and all but one of the dancers ambled off
stage. We crawled out of the squishy booth and perched on three bar stools set up directly in front of center-stage. I sat in the middle, with Martin to my right and Vanessa to my left. A handful of patrons were spaced sporadically around the bar. Being in such an under-populated club made me very conscious of my central position in a trio already seated so centrally, almost as if I were the star performer in a floor routine we were going to execute. But I got over that quickly. Nobody's eyes were on me that night. Attention was unequivocally focused on the young nude woman walking in ellipses around the stage. She was striking, both in her smooth-skinned beauty and tall, slender build. She looked livelier than the rest, but not in her movements, which were languid and small. The liveliness was in her eyes. They had a coyish glint that made her seem charming, yet bored. Then there was that famous Thai smile: Lips curled gently at the corners, bearing nothing, not even teeth. It was as enigmatic as Mona Lisa's. The Thais are said to have a different smile for every emotion. From an early age, they learn to use their smiles reflexively, as a blanket reaction to convey politeness, kindness, forgiveness, agreement or self-confidence, but also to mask doubt, anger and embarrassment. In Thai culture, as in the rest of Asia, a smile can mean anything-was she loving it or hating it? There was no way to tell. "Look at those tits," offered Vanessa. "So bloody small and droopy." Martin didn't notice. He stared at the woman-was she 27 or 17?-as if he had invented her himself. He looked ready to bubble over with joy, he was gawking so gleefully. I focused on the girl's face. Its nothingness soothed me. As long as she seemed okay with what she was doing, I guessed I should be, too. In one fell swoop, she descended to the floor, leaned back on her palms and raised her pelvis as if she were about to do a backbend. Then, with one hand, she reached to her side and expertly coaxed a banana out of its peel. Faster than you can say Chiquita, she inserted it inside her vagina. We sat hushed in amazement. Seconds later, she jabbed her pelvis towards the ceiling and, with a whoosh, the banana arced its way out like a bullet falling to earth. The woman stood up. She turned and sauntered towards the curtain, where she stooped to pick up a handful of bananas before sauntering back. Vanessa and I looked at each other and lost it. We laughed out loud, we hooted, we joked about the geometric principles behind that perfect arc. We were embarrassed. Laughing was the only way to mask that, a trick we'd picked up from the Thais themselves. And it didn't seem as if anyone, least of all her, could hear us. At that point, it seemed as if we existed on our own parallel plane, just like the others in the room existed on theirs. When the woman returned, we shut up long enough to see her eject a few more bananas. She had talent-I had to give her that. But it only incited my laughter all over again. Her performance was a spectacle of such obscure and bewildering skill that for a few fleeting moments, I forgot the smell of urine; the elbow grooves on the bar; the ogles of horny men; the insouciant bartender with an expression that suggested she was somewhere far, far away; the cranky comments coming from Vanessa; and my own shame at watching a woman, in many ways so much like myself, make her living in a world of cigarette smoke and fluorescent lighting and the pervasive stench of pee. Laughing at her expense was the easy way out. It was also contagious. Vanessa was in convulsions. "Jesus, how does she do that?!" she managed in between snorts. "Look at her! She's loving it. This is the best she's ever going to get...". I stopped listening to her appraisals after a while. Her nastiness was chilling, but it prompted me to question my own feelings about this girl on stage. I was curious about her. Did she have children or parents to whom she lied about her profession? Was she from Bangkok, or had she arrived in the City of Angels (as the capital is known among Thais) on a third-class train from some remote village near the Burmese border? Did she offer lotus flowers and incense to the Buddha before coming in to work? Could she speak English? Was she bothered that we were watching her? Did she even notice us? When I looked back at the stage, she was staring at me. Still leaning back on her palms, she began moving-scampering, really-across the stage sideways, like a crab in the sand. She stopped directly in front of us. The bar separated us from her, but it was no better protection than a dried-up moat. "Oh
god, oh god, Vanessa, look!" I yelled, as it dawned
on me that she was aiming at Martin. If watching arcing
bananas was funny, seeing him get beaned in the head with
one was going to be out-of-control hilarious. Poor guy, I
thought. How gross. The sassy girl on stage sure had a poetic sense of retribution. The thing flopped to the floor, leaving a small chunk of my hair matted together. A laughing fit seized my body and prevented me from straightening up. I had been struck by a banana ejected out of a woman's vagina. How vulgar! How bizarre! And yet, how deserved. I felt a pang of regret for having laughed so indiscriminately at the girl. Had I prompted her with my taunting, if unintentional, giggles? "You were banana-ed," said Martin, eyes wide in disbelief. No shit, I thought. I looked around to see who else had seen me get mine but the oglers at the bar had gone back to their ogling. The incident was little more than a distraction to them. I remained glued to my seat for the duration of the show-five more minutes that imperceptibly passed me by. "Ohmigod!!!!" Vanessa chortled. "That was the funniest thing I've ever seen." Then, after a sobering pause, "But what a little cunt!" A large part of me-the humiliated part-wanted to agree. Did I really deserve to be smacked in the head with that? I pondered this all the way to the bathroom, where I sought respite from the scene as well as a faucet to wash my hands and wet my hair. The toilet, like most things in the Pink Panther, stank. I held my breath and ran my fingers under a trickle of tepid water. As I examined my image in the cracked mirror, I saw the reflection of the toilet area as it extended into another harshly-lit room that appeared to be a dressing area. I craned my neck to get a better view of the scene and just as I did so, the girl from the stage emerged, clad in a silky red bathrobe. Her eyes met mine in the mirror and for an eternal second, we floated in ambivalence, somewhere between the depths of hostility and the heights of reconciliation. I could feel my face flush with embarrassment so I grinned to let her know I knew that it was me who had provoked the banana bashing. Smiling, she strolled away. Contributor: Victoria Gomelsky Comment on this story on our Message Boards
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