Heat rash

The mother of an 11 year-old Thai student, Waen, is worried that this farang may be carrying something.

'What is the inflammation on your skin?' asked my student, innocently. 'Mum is worried.'

How nice of your mother, I thought, to ask me directly. She was sitting in the next room watching television.

Most weeks, when I come to teach my young lad and his sister, Mum is in the sitting room, watching television, or downstairs in the office with her husband, working.

'It's an allergy which I have had since birth, and which flares up in hot weather. You can't catch it,' I said.

It runs in my family, and is passed on through the genes, I explained.

'Here...you won't get it.'

I rubbed a patch of inflamed skin, and pretended to reach out for the boy's bare arm. He looked shocked, but did not recoil.

'Just joking. I would not do anything to make you pick up my skin ailment. Please tell your mother that I am quite safe,' I assured him.

'Okay,' Waen said, passing me a bottle of milk.

He invited me to take a slurp.

After starting the new school term, both children came down with a cold, which they caught from their classmates. Thankfully, I was spared that particular infection.

I declined his kind offer that I share his drink. You never know what a foreigner might be carrying after all.

New kids on the block (2, final)

Motorcycle mayhem

Kom Chad Leuk newspaper spoke to a dek skoi, called 'Fa'.

She is 16, and started mixing with motorcycle racers when she was 13.

She has been selling her body at Sanam Luang for the last seven months, earning B2,000 a night. She sees only three customers in that time.

She charges B600 to B1,000 a time, though she will price herself according to how much competition she faces from other girls in a night, and how many customers turn up. She normally starts work at 8pm. Any earlier, there are fewer dek skoi around, so she can charge more: B800.

Later in the evening, as the other girls arrive, she cuts her price. On a quiet night, when few customers are around, she can drop her price to B400. That doesn't include the B250-B400 tariff for a hotel. She normally takes customers to a hotel behind the Ministry of Defence, or in Thon Buri.

Most dek skoi come out from midnight to 2am, when up to 50-60 girls may be selling themselves.

If she sold herself every night of the month, she could make B60,000. But Fa normally comes out only twice a month, on the 15th day of the month, and at the end of the month, when Thais get paid. More customers are likely to turn up when they are flush with pay.

The money goes on rent, food, going out, and - most importantly - doing up her boyfriend's motorbike.

The life of a dek skoi sounds nasty. Some girls sell themselves to buy drugs. Teen motorcyclists also gamble on who will win races, and their girls sleep around. A girl who is brave enough to offer herself as a stake in a bet - a trophy, for whichever boy wins a race - is viewed favourably.

The arrival of dek skoi and their pushy motorcyclist boyfriends at Sanam Luang - a traditional haunt for women and gays who want to sell themselves - has forced the established trade to move elsewhere, to Thong Lor.

Kom Chad Leuk newspaper spoke to Yay, a prostitute who used to work at Sanam Luang, but found she could not compete with the youth and beauty of dek skoi.

Yay, 38, says she cut her price to B300 to stay in the trade. But in the end, she and her friends were forced to move, after the new arrivals took over the territory. They threatened to lay a complaint with police, chase her out, or even use physical force.

The teens liked to tease, calling her 'Aunty Yay', even though she was just 38.

Police despair of making a difference. Even if they can catch dek waen and their girlfriends, the fine is only B1000. A dek skoi on the game can make twice that in one night.

Senator Montri Sintawichai, head of the Child Protection Foundation, says Thai society has reached a sorry state when Thai males will let their girlfriends sell themselves for the sake of doing up a motorcycle. What happened to the age of chivalry, when boys would want to keep their girlfriends for themselves?

He says most dek waen are not vagrants, but have families, who buy motorbikes for them.

He is also disappointed in the girls: 'At first, I thought they wouldn't be game to sell themselves, but the lure of money is too great. In agreeing to their boyfriends' demands, they become their victims. And when they see the money rolling in, they get used to it.'

Message to parents: Don't let your children grow too distant. And don't let them get carried away with money, either.

New kids on the block (1)

Dek waen on the prowl

...and after police have caught them

What does a teenage motorcyclist do when he runs out of money to do up his motorbike? He asks his girlfriend to sell her body.

In a long article charting the rise of a new Thai social ill, Kom Chad Leuk newspaper says teenage motorcyclists (เด็กแว้น, or dek waen) move into Sanam Luang every night with their girlfriends, aged 14 to 17.

Dek waen are a social phenomenon in their own right. They modify their motorcycle engines to make them noisier, and race up and down streets at night.

They acquire the name dek waen from the sound of a motorcycle engine revving - waen! waen!

Their girlfriends - who sit behind - have their own name. They are called dek skoi, (สาวสก๊อย, เด็กสก๊อย) and are often spotted wearing extremely short cut-off jeans. The name, according from my dictionary of newly-coined Thai words popular among the young, comes from the name of an animal in a Japanese cartoon.

It's not a flattering-sounding name, but nor is the image which these young women earn if they hang around teenage male motorcyclists. The dictionary comes with an example, appropriate in this context: 'I just ride on the back of a man's motorcycle - I don't sell my body!'

Some do, however, sell themselves for sex. They are taking over the Sanam Luang grounds, close to Pin Khlao, and can also be spotted by the Pin Khlao bridge, Thammasat University, and close to Wat Pra Kaew.

Their boyfriends start arriving with their girls in the early evening. It is not unusual to see a group of 30 motorcycles or more, parked in a row.

The boys perform the role of pimps. Some station themselves at strategic points of the route around the park, to signal the others should they see police approaching. After their girlfriends have found a customer, the boyfriend will accompany them to a hotel.

The customer usually takes the girl in his car, and the boyfriend follows on his motorbike. He waits outside the hotel until she has finished, to take her back so she can sell her body again - and to stand by as 'protection' in the event the customer tries to get out of paying.

Postscript: Here are two news video clips of motorcycle teen racers. In the first [link harvested- it died], police attempt to round up dek waen racers around Phra Ram 2 motorway in Bangkok. Some get away, and are seen speeding off down a darkened motorway. One hits the back of pick-up truck. The boy following him can't see either, and also hits the truck, or maybe swerves to avoid his friend. He, or maybe his friend, dies. You can hear the sound of the collision. Later, cameras capture loved ones at the scene, crying over the their loss.

In the second (link harvested - it died) video, police have rounded up about 150 motorcycle racers in Bang Yai, Nonthaburi, to the applause of passing motorists. According to the television hosts, dek waen often ride Harley-style bikes, wear flip-flops (one colour each foot), and dirty jeans.

now, see part 2

Winds of change (4, final)

Traders adapt, or they die.

As business at her shop tails off, Mum and her husband, who run it, have found new ways to supplement their income.

Both gamble on football games. They write down in notebooks details of what they have lost and won.

They wager with customers who are also good friends. When they turn up, the first item of business is to settle debts from the previous night’s game.

I see B1,000 bills change hands...sometimes several of them.

Mum’s husband, Pa, is on the phone to his bookie virtually every time I see him.

These days, I go only two nights a week, and do not stay long. I don't like the way gambling dominates activity there.

I teach English to two children in the area, so have to go anyway. After I finish, I drink at Mum’s shop, but I usually leave by 10pm.

The other night, Mum tried to talk to me, the first time we had spoken in several weeks.

‘I sent her back...she was lying and stealing...we had to pay the bus fare...’

Mum was talking about a relative, who comes from the provinces but stayed in Bangkok during the school break. A teenage girl, she is a handful. One day, Mum told her to go home.

I listened, but I didn’t take it in. Once, I would have asked questions, and shown an interest. Now I can’t be bothered, so I sat there and said nothing.

Performing arts student Jay was drinking next to me, but I hardly talked to him, either.

Later in the night, Chin, a fan of Japanese comics, joined us.

He sat down and started reading, with barely a word of conversation. He did not want to be disturbed, so I let him get on with it.

Either we have become so close that we don’t need to talk any more, or we are apathetic.

‘Mr Fatty...don’t you wan’t to talk to me? In that case, I will pretend I never met you, either.’

Tearaway Thai boy Kew – part-time security guard, part-time ageing bar boy in Pattaya, who I met one night close to Mum's shop, many years ago now – sent me that text message a few days ago.

He had called me one day when I was busy. I talked to him briefly, then hung up.

I haven’t replied to his message. No doubt, if we meet again, we’ll still be friends. I feel the same way about the young people at Mum’s shop.

Winds of change (3)

Big eateries have drawn away night-time custom from Mum’s shop.

Young Thais like to drink and eat in large, busy places with atmosphere.

One new eatery, built on a large plot of land next to the Chao Phraya River, offers a riverfront view, undercover dining with an evening breeze, parking space for patron's motorbikes, a live band, modern toilets...

I don’t eat in such places, but then I don’t go out with groups the way Thais do.

Mum’s place, a hole-in-the-wall shop, fronts an intersection leading into a soi. 

A couple of years ago, a 7-11 also went up opposite Mum’s shop. Given the competition, I am amazed her business survives.

Only solitary souls still visit – a few performing arts students (most have now gone), and middle-aged men who want to get away from their wives.

The middle-aged crowd drink, gamble, watch football. I have little in common with them, so we rarely talk. We have seen each other’s faces too often to be interested any more.

Yet the area is packed with young people. They buzz up and down the street on their motorbikes. They come out to look at stalls when festivals are held on the street once or twice a year.

The moo-grata eatery by the river – a serve-yourself grill which also sells alcohol – can keep patrons entertained most of the night. 

Some of those customers might drop into Mum’s shop on the way home for an after-hours drink, but few do.

In a flagging economy such as ours, no one has the money. They come for tiny B5 bags of cigarettes instead.

now, see part 4