In the Kevin Kostner film a small, mixed race group of survivors eked out a meager post-apocalypse livelihood on a flotilla of old boats and buoyant garbage. When I walk the decks of our own little floating pueblo I can easily imagine such an existence.
To begin with, our band of unfortunates is just as colorful as those that Kostner encountered. The Captain is everything you would expect from an old-school Russian mariner. He prefers straight vodka in the evening and sports one of the most poorly healed broken noses I’ve ever seen. There are two other Kaliningrad sailors on board and neither of them stray very far from the stereotype.
The engineer in charge of repairing these two ships, which have been tied and anchored together off the coast for over a year is a Kiwi who after decades of repairing fishing vessels has come to hate fishing. I’m the only American and spend most of my time doing odd technical chores among the pumps and generators on the bottom plates or drinking rum and ginger ale with the only Jamaican.
The rest of the crew is a typical medley of a dozen Panamanians. Hard working young chisslers from the interior who make triple what they would back in the village and a gay cook who is quite fancy about it. We even have women on board and a cat!
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One of the most frequent questions Thai women ask foreigners is “Why do foreigners like dark-skinned Thai women.” The supposed proclivity for dark-skinned women is unfathomable, for the low-class folk, mostly laborers and migrant workers are dark skinned. Why would “rich foreigners” be so attracted to females that most Thai consider low-class?
Americans spend big money each year to tan their skin; Thais spend huge sums to whiten it. In the west, tan skin is a sign of health, fitness, and prosperity. If you have a tan, you must have the time and money to lie around by the pool or at the beach. For those afraid of skin cancer, spray-on tans are all the rage.
When was the last time you saw a Thai Airways flight attendant with dark skin? Rarely will you ever see a TV, or movie star with anything but Lilly white skin–even if airbrushed or whitened with bright lights. After showering, Thai women make it a point to put baby powder on their face and body, and regularly use whitening creams and other cosmetics purported to make their skin lighter and more beautiful. In some circles, white skin is even viewed as a sign of superior intelligence.
Dark-skinned Thais were ecstatic when Barrack Obama won the U.S. Presidential election, thinking it meant an end to discrimination, but it did nothing to sway Thailand’s former Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, who made no bones about his own partiality for fair skin, saying, “We will continue to prefer the whitest men and women in television, film, and bed.”
So just why are dark-skinned Thai women so appealing to foreigners?
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In many so called developing (read: underdeveloped and hopelessly corrupt) countries the police can be most unhelpful, lazy, dishonest and hostile. In tourist areas they sometimes have Tourist Police which was established with the sole purpose of protecting temporary visitors from being ripped off, swindled or assaulted.
These, while not very efficient, are much better than the regular police force as well as the whole judicial system there. To many of the local cops, a foreigner is either a nuisance or a cash cow and they are rarely, if ever, on your side. Unless, of course, you are a big shot exec or a high-ranking diplomat. Not if you are a Joe Expat living on a $1200 a month pension in a tropical “paradise”.
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Continued from: Knowing the Differences Between a Tourist and an Expat - Part 1
I tried to explain to Dick that his girl on he game, but he’d have none of it. He just couldn’t comprehend why she wouldn’t take his calls. Even when he went to see her, he still had a difficult time believing she only wanted his money.
“She was really into me,” he whined. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You weren’t there.”
He was right, I wasn’t there, and all I could do is hope he would learn from the experience.
With Dick out of the apartment and on his own, Charlie picked up the slack. He brought a couple of go-go dancers over unexpectedly and we had an impromptu party. Once again, Charlie got trashed. This time, he threw up, fortunately in the bathroom.
The next morning, over breakfast, I decided to have a chat with him about his drinking.
“Dude, you need to mellow out,” I said. “Your drinking is going to kill you! You don’t know this place very well, and you need to have your wits about you. Really!”
My comments fell on deaf ears.
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Despite its position as the capital of the world’s largest Muslim population, Jakarta has always been famed for its raucous nightlife. However, most expats, whether here long-term or short-term, rarely venture from the confines of Blok M or the hotel bars. But, fellow expat rockstars there is a much wilder scene to be explored in the maze of flashing neon and run-down side streets of North Jakarta.
The area around Mangga Besar may look dilapidated but it is the area of the old China Town and where many of Jakarta’s Chinese businessmen like to hold their business meetings or simply go and unwind.
The amount of signs hanging from hotels offering spas or karaoke lounges should give some clue as to what type of services are on offer up here, but that is only part of the story. If you want to see naked women dancing, and by that I mean good looking women and not the low-quality girls in D’s Place on the Blok, then you need to head up North on a weekend.
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One of my most memorable taxicab experiences occurred when one smiling fellow somehow got on the subject of his sex life with his wife. Seems she was unhappy with his performance and he was unable to determine what the problem was. In fact, she was so unhappy, he told me, that after having sex with him, she would slap him across the head.
“She’s always angry with me. I don’t know why. I think its fine but every time, she hits me. Then she doesn’t want to do it again for weeks.
When I asked what the problem was, it all boiled down to time–she didn’t get enough of him as he only last a few seconds.
“Well,” I said. How long do you nominally last?”
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