Hardened Old Bangkok Scribes Share Hot Bangkok Night

Are we such a desolate bunch, Bangkok’s foreign writers and correspondents? After all those hardening years in town? That’s at least the message I gather from this clichéd article celebrating the old desperado image of the long extinct, classic Bangkok correspondent still stuck in Nam.

As a rule of thumb I consider any farang suspicious who doesn’t fan out to Bangkok’s nightlife after freshly arriving to town. And I consider any farang suspicious who still fans out to Bangkok’s nightlife after many years in town.

Or maybe the disillusionment is not noticeable anymore after all those years over here. Somehow I respect those die-hard correspondents for still walking straight. Leading the life of newbies as oldies – what the hell is the fascination of this bleakness. It’d kill me.

By Eleanor Ainge Roy, Otago Daily Times

As evening falls in Bangkok the nightwalkers of Nana – the city’s sex district – take to the streets, and happy mongrel dogs splash through the deep puddles formed by the afternoon monsoon rains.

Hopeful transvestites pucker their fuschia mouths at a grimy mirror, and the Southeast Asian anthem, Hotel California, begins to play.

Dan – a Guardian photographer – throws back another beer, and toasts the Thai-Cambodia border dispute.

“Perhaps it will blow up and there will be work and good pictures,” he says dryly.

Tom, an Associated Press journalist, laughs his rumbling roar, swilling his whisky and coke he slaps his thighs with vigour – ready to move on, ready for more people and more drink – ready for a night out in Bangkok.

The two awkwardly navigate their way on to the Skytrain, distinct from the hordes of tourists in their total disregard for “doing it right.”

“The best ham steaks in Asia!” says Tom, gesturing excitedly at a forgettable-looking place on a dusty side street.

He is to mention those ham steaks three times tonight.

The two talk shop non-stop, being of the old and hardened variety, they are critical of almost everyone in the business.

They met in Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and Tom is heading back to cover the election.

He says it will be quiet, and really just an excuse for the old “Cambo” hands to get together, drink, and reminisce about the good times of journalism past (loosely – The Vietnam War).

The FCC (Foreign Correspondents Club) is in the centre of town, on the top floor of a dated skyscraper.

It shares the space with the BBC, Asia Works, ITV and the ABC.

It is an old-fashioned and unstylish bar – a bit of an embarrassment in the business – but comfortable and familiar for this old crew.

We are half an hour late meeting the Voice of America Bangkok bureau chief but she and her husband are unfazed, and drinks are bought for all.

A conversation begins about who got into Myanmar/Burma for Cyclone Nargis, who tried, and who was too scared.

Of course the best in the business had no option – they were blacklisted long ago.

For the Asia correspondents, the country has become a good test; get in, stay in, and you’re sure of a story.

The tight restrictions placed on foreign journalists (most enter illegally on tourist visas and work undercover) add spice to the assignment.

During the September monks’ uprising last year, dubbed “The Saffron Revolution,” the New York Times writer won the Pulitzer Prize for his dispatches, and a Japanese photo-journalist was killed.

The fast approaching Beijing Olympics begin on August 8th, the same date as the 20th anniversary of the 1988 uprising in Burma, in which 3,000 people were killed.

With 20,000 journalists accredited for the Olympics (and scores more not accredited) all eyes will be on China, an opportunity the Burmese Resistance are keen to exploit.

It is a loud party, everyone talking at once, and not at all politely.

The Voice of America chief complains about Bangkok’s First-World prices for Third-World facilities.

Dan, the Guardian photographer, shows his friend some photographs taken of him and his Thai girlfriend visiting her family in the North recently.

Tom drinks, and talks, and eats, and complains – where to next? He asks.

A taxi is hailed and Dan splutters our destination in bad Thai: Gullivers.

The monstrous building is white and glaring on the narrow Nana street, a three storied sparkling faux-Grecian construction with potted palm trees, western prices and a tame elephant out the front on a leash.

Dan and Tom begin to talk of a colleague, a conservative fellow who has been with the same woman for 30 years (and doesn’t cheat), and is a bad journalist – lazy. But don’t get me wrong, they both add convincingly, I like the guy.

It’s hot – 28 degrees and not cooling.

More drinks are ordered, thin Thai prostitutes saunter past, and old times are rehashed once more.

Via Otago Daily Times




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July 28, 2008 | Filed Under Being Farang, Nightlife & Entertainment, Truly Bangkok 

Comments

5 Responses to “Hardened Old Bangkok Scribes Share Hot Bangkok Night”

  1. Greg on July 30th, 2008 5.14 pm

    I find it depressing reading articles like this … just paints a very shallow picture of the place, despite the fact that I’m sure the writer didn’t make any of it up. She needs to write part II and hang with a younger crowd, me thinks.

  2. fouse, gary c on July 31st, 2008 11.47 pm

    To me, it brings back memories of the 1970s, when the American presence was starting to draw down and the Euros came flooding in-principally Germans. Who can forget the Condor flights from Frankfurt to Bangkok, loaded with German men? The Germans laughingly called those flights “Bumsbombers,” and the return flights to Germany were called the “Trippe Clippers.”

    The German guys were prevalent around Soi Nana and the Grace Hotel, which was the biggest meat market in town then. Around 1980, the Arabs starting flooding in. The last time I was at the Grace (on a DEA surveillance, of course) the coffee shop looked like a clan convention, all those Saudis in their white robes going up and down the elevators with their Thai “dates.”

    Soi Cowboy was starting up in the late 70s, a poor man’s Pat Pong then. But Pat Pong was King.

    Gary Fouse
    fousesquawk

  3. BangkokDan on August 1st, 2008 1.05 am

    Greg, not that convinced that the newer, younger crowd is less depressing.

    BangkokDan

  4. Greg on August 1st, 2008 7.39 am

    Indeed … they are a pretty cheerless bunch, although maybe it doesn’t hit me as much because they’re still young enough to “grow out” of the addiction to Nana. The older guys, well … I think it’s a bit too late for them.

  5. Philip Rowell on January 1st, 2009 9.35 am

    I think this speaks more about the writer than the subjects. The photographer she writes about is one of the world’s best, filing brilliant photography from all over the world. Painting him as some kind of washed-up Asian hand is simply laughable. And a female correspondent from a small town newspaper in the world’s most politically correct (and mind-numbingly boring) country is practically going to have her story about Bangkok written before she even lands at Suvarnabhumi. It’s just an exercise in prejudice confirmation for her. This one can be dismissed without too much angst, methinks.

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