Ken

Ken, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

Up and down the Patpong soi called Boy’s Town, muscular young Thai guys dance in their underwear, do push-ups, pull-ups and sit-ups to pulsating disco tracks.  Plenty of gay guys from all over Asia, especially Taiwan and Singapore.  Western guys too, from Germany, Sydney and San Francisco.  Sometimes one of them gets drunk and crazy and jumps on stage to dance.

Kate

Kate, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

Slender, stylish, often dressed in silk, her mini-mobile is always pressed to one ear, as her whispered Thai words flow across Bangkok’s many-layered spectrum as she weaves her multiple webs.  Her father, a Bangkok police captain, has a gun strapped to his ankle.  When she was a teenage girl, he used to take her on nighttime tours of Chinatown to teach her the nature of Men.  Before she reaches forty, she will be a dollar millionaire with an upscale Bangkok condo, a house in Sydney and a villa in Chiang Mai.  

CM-2 Girl

CM-2 Girl, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

The girls at CM2 are a cut above, freelancers beholden to no one except themselves. Some are university students, others work at hotels, banks and department stores. The men they hunt are often high-income guys on business in Bangkok for a week.  There’s no upper limit.  If they are stylish, clever and speak enough English, they can end up in London, Beverly Hills or Sydney, living in a big house and driving a Mercedes. Or they can end up no where, too old, with too much mileage, unloved, their dreams of a better life bitter and unfulfilled.

Blue Dancer

Blue Dancer, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

During the day, she works in the Duty Free shop at Bangkok Airport.  At night she works in Doll House bar on Soi Cowboy.  Her mother, sister and sister’s two kids live in Sukothai, a place full of Buddha statues and temples a thousand years old.  She makes 30,000 Baht a month, sending half to her mother and sister. She tries to go with customers she likes, who know how to smile.  An Australian guy her to fly to Sydney for a week but she said no.  She doesn’t want to give up her daytime job.  It’s what keeps her life intact.

Australian Guy

Australian Guy, water color on paper, 18x24 inch

 He’s been living in Thailand for ten years, owns a few beer bars in Pattaya and a Bangkok condo.  Some weekends, he heads over to Saigon, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong or Phnom Penh.   Once every year, he goes back to Sydney for a month, sees his Mum and a few old mates, shaking his head, how can they live such routine lives?  Twenty year wedding anniversaries, a little house with a yard, a mortgage, promotion, maybe a raise.  Only the kids seem worth it

Battle-Scarred Expat

Battle-scarred Expat, water color on paper, 5x7 inch

In Asia for thirty years, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Singapore, Shanghai, Saigon and Bangkok. The grown-up children from his first marriage back in Sydney, his first wife, their mother, a distant memory.  No matter how much beer or how bald, he’s still a player and will be until the day he dies.  Worldly and cosmopolitan, he has already led so many lives, he’s lost count.