Read on to find out more... i think this is an interesting experience...

OK friends, today's post is about my interesting encounter with the opposite sex, and this is during my first long marketing trip to the Northeast of Thailand, taking place in a province called Surin, which is famous for its elephants and top-grade Hom Mali jasmine rice. I need to cut the long story short, so it begins when we have reached the Friday of a long and tiring week and I told my sales staff P that I will buy him dinner, and we should find a good place to chill out. The dinner's not important, what's important is that P has a great interest in the opposite sex and soon got into an engaging conversation with one of the waitresses, who said that she was singing at a club later in the night. Soon, the lady's (who's 19) mom came and talked to us (she's 34!) and said that they were both singing at the club. It was Friday anyway, so P said we should go and I agreed. In the process, I said I wanted to take a picture and to my amazement P put his arms around her shoulder like she was his gf and she obliged happily, and so the picture goes:

I personally think she's quite pretty, but since I don't speak Thai, I couldn't communicate with her to find out more about her. My weird feeling started when she said that it was her birthday and P agreed to buy her a birthday cake. Before we went to the place they sang, she brought us to a bakery and chose a birthday cake she liked.

My heart dropped when we reached the bar they were singing in. It was open air, dark, smelly with a big stage in front. All the ladies were around 40 yrs old, made-up like wayang. They took turns to sing some ancient Thai country songs. But oh well, that's not the point of the story, but I really thought we were conned. It was not some decent pub with nice music and all.

Then this 19yr old young lady appeared as the only young female performer and wore a very skimpy outfit. She would probably never be able to see this, but I shall not publicise pictures of her skimpy dressing.

After an hour and a half of torment, I suggested to P we should just cut the cake and go. Then, the cake was taken out, all the old friends came, dressed skimpily as ever, sang the bday song and I took this picture (I think this picture shouldn't be offensive as she has covered herself sufficiently though u can get the point):

Ok then the drama begins. Barely a minute after being so happy, she started crying and fell into her mother's arms. The mother started crying too and girl looked inconsolable. I was later told by P that it was the first time in her 19 years that she had celebrated her bday with a cake and that she felt very sad as her father was not with her anymore. Apparently the dad got her mom pregnant when she was 15 then left.

All this did not seem fake at all. In fact, though I had been sceptical about everything and thought we had fallen into a trap to spend money at this run-down bar, I started to think about life in general.

A 34 yr old mother would encourage her daughter to join her, wear revealing outfits to sing and entertain men, in the same bar where she can see men taking advantage of her daughter in front of her very own eyes?

A 19 yr old who has not been given a birthday cake for celebrations before? This is probably unthinkable for pple brought up in Singapore or Malaysia. I have friends who get angry for not having a bday cake for 1 birthday, and suddenly a girl sitting in front of me gets emotional over receiving the first cake of her life? Trust me, it was an unbelievably simple cake, costing 5 times less than what you have to pay at Breadtalk.

Perhaps, some people are really having it much worse than us, much much worse, beyond what we can imagine.

Perhaps, some people enter this line because, they really have no choice.

Perhaps, we should really look at what we have, and be content, be satisfied that someone bothers to buy you a birthday cake/s every year, that your parents are still together, that u can call someone Dad, that u are not forced into a controversial industry etc.....

The night sure did not end the way it began.

I am not saying that P's behaviour should be tolerated (as he clearly tried to take advantage of the lady), nor am I saying it was right for me to put myself in such a situation in the first place.

If I am being more sceptical, I can think that this was a rehearsed act, and the young lady could be using the same trick every night to earn sympathy from customers, but is this important?

These ladies don't even have a chance to take a proper picture of themselves, so while we are lamenting over the low resolutions of our cameras, we should just be satisfied and content, because, right around you, there could be many who would die to be like you, but will never be like you, even if they die trying.