macaroni21

It's very typical in Thailand for big decisions to be made not so much from first principles, but conditioned by existing realities or tactical imperatives. Indeed, in many other cities a project like this would, at the drawing board stage, adopt a more holistic perspective. In this case, the project was given to the State Railway of Thailand (SRT). Once that decision was made, it collapsed a lot of other decisions. The SRT did not have a lot of land in the central areas of Bangkok, and I suppose acquiring land was way beyond its means, beyond what was absolutely needed for its viaducts and Phaya Thai station. The only large area that SRT had outside of Hua Lamphong Station and yet within the city was the old siding yard at Makkasan. Being close to Petchburi MRT Station must have been the clincher. I don't think anyone seriously evaluated or modelled other possibilities. Yet, from what I can see, despite its proximity to Petchaburi Station, the SRT put Makkasan Station on the opposite site of the existing ground-level railway tracks. I do not see any plans to provide smooth pedestrian connectivity, with shelter from sun and rain, between Makkasan and Petchaburi.

You might begin by looking up the wikipedia entry for the Empress Dowager Cixi. It may be totally irrelevant to Thailand, but I think it is always helpful to look at other Asian examples of political contestation and transition. Here was an Empress Dowager who took control of an imperial household and country (through a coup d'

Barbeiry? I liked Superlex too. Not-pushy waiters, nice, preppy-looking boys. But the distance from table to stage tended to be a bit far, unless one was lucky enough to get one of the three front tables.

Lonelywombat's description of Twilight was spot on. Like him, I remember the place with great fondness, as Fountainhall and, I am sure, many others do too. The interesting question is why do we hold it with such fondness? I'm unable to answer it, even for myself. Was it simply because of the novelty factor in its time, now augmented through rosy memory? If an identical bar opened today, would we shrug "been there, done that" and not give it a second look? Was it because we were younger, with more libido and less jaded? Was it because the crowd-feel was different from today's crowds? Something tells me that what I miss most is the intimacy where the boys come up to you uninvited and lets you have a feel -- no obligation to buy him a drink -- or where the boy dances near the pillar barely an arm's length away from one's stool. I do think that the days of the "spectacle"-type shows are nearing an end, i.e. the idea of a big central stage, with customers sitting quietly a distance away. It's too detached. The Wow factor made up for it, but it's wearing off fast. That said, two years after they end, others will reminisce achingly about the glory days of the shows and diss whatever will have replaced them. ---- I ask myself, if I were to launch a new bar, how would I do it, bearing in mind the economic trends? Etrend 1: Boys expect to earn more as cost of living rises. Etrend 2: Good-looking, good attitude boys may be scarcer, so trying to stock a bar with 100 boys (like Dream Boy today) would be unrealistic. Perhaps 30 - 40 boys would be max. Etrend 3: The "arms-race" of doing ever more elaborate shows that need to be re-engineered frequently to keep them fresh costs an arm and a leg. Etrend 4: Audience numbers will be flat until the great wave from China materialises. . . Etrend 5: Even then, the Chinese may never be all that keen to off (reasons explained in the other thread Holiday Sunday Numbers Seem Down), but will likely be prepared to pay a small premium for small shows and nude dancing, something they don't get in their home country. --- How will I address these issues? Perhaps I would hypothetically build a bar with a layout like this: The operational model will be rather different from current, in response to each of the 5 economic trends mentioned above. But first, I'll walk you (as customer) through the bar: 1. No women, no Thais under 20 years old, allowed. 2. No smoking inside the bar. 3. You enter and receive a number tag from the cashier (like in a sauna). All purchases made inside the bar will be charged to that number; you settle the account on departure. Perhaps a cover charge (200 baht?) can be paid on entry if the competitive environment allows it. That prepaid cover charge can be consummable, i.e. it is set off as a credit against purchases of drinks. 4. In the main salon, you will see several boys dancing in their briefs on the stage behind the bar. You are free to just sit at the bar, but you are obliged to order your first drink. 5. You may call a boy over, buy him a drink (or not) and sit with him in the sofas, and if the brief conversation works out, you off him. 6. Every hour on the hour, the captain announces "Showtime now. Anybody interested?" 7. Let's say 13 customers are interested. There are two more who are here to off a boy and aren't interested in the show; they continue to sit in the main salon, where boys continue to do their rotations on the stage -- in other words the show should not inconvenience these customers. 8. The captain opens two private rooms and splits the 13 customers into two groups, putting six in one room, seven in the other. The charge for the show is 200 or 250 baht per customer, which includes a second drink. 9. The show thus takes place in a more intimate setting -- a room no larger than a small bedroom -- where the boys dance a mere arm's length from the seated customers. 10. The boys either dance nude or dance in a manner that strips to nude. The etiquette is NO TOUCHING unless the boys invite you to lay your hands on them briefly. Naturally, the boys are encouraged as part of their routine to invite the customers by turn to do so from time to time, in order to up the thrill quotient. 12. The show is mostly done on a small, low podium/stage that is 2 metres by 2 metres (the size of a king-sized bed, enough space to allow for acts of sodomy if that's what the show requires). 13. In each room, the show involves about 6 boys (or maybe 8 boys if the cost structure allows it). In the first half, each boy does a 5-minute dance solo, either (i) coyote-style, (ii) Manila macho-dancer bar style, or (iii) Chiangmai style. In the second half, the 6 (or boys are paired or trio'ed for their routines. 14. From the customer's perspective, he is in a really intimate setting with boys hardly more than a metre away, making frequent eye contact and with seductive smiles. He is also invited by the dancing boys to touch and caress them now and then. The show has a degree of personal attention that a bigger showspace cannot provide. Although the customer had been asked to stump up an extra 200 or 250 baht for the show (on top of the first drink), he is getting value for it. 15. The economics is that the six or seven customers in a private room will have put up 1500 or 1750 baht for the show. Involving 6 (or boys, the labour cost for each room's show will be 600 (or 800) baht with each boy getting 100 baht for an hour's work (serious dancing, not shuffling) 16. The duration of the show is about 45 - 50 minutes, comprising 9 - 11 acts. At the end, the rooms have to be vacated for cleaning in preparation for the next round of shows. If a customer wants to see a subsequent show, it's another 200 or 250 baht, though for most people, 45 - 50 minutes will have been enough! The economics of such a bar has the following characteristics: The typical customer will be buying two drinks: the first drink on entry and the second drink either because he wants to sit with a boy prior to an off, or because he wants to see a show. Two drinks per customer is a significant improvement on the present one-drink average in most bars. The important thing though is that the customer must feel he gets value from paying for a second drink, and that is where an intimate, hands-on show comes in. Staffing characteristics: The bar doesn't need a lot of boys. Assuming on average at each hour, only two rooms are opened for shows, the bar needs only 12 boys (6 boys per room), plus another 10 - 12 doing the rotation in the main salon. If there's a surge of customers and all four private rooms need to be used, the same 12 dancing boys can cover all four rooms by having each dancing team of six boys to stagger their routines between two adjacent rooms. Double the work, yes, but double the earnings. Competitive advantage: Because there's a show every hour on the hour, customers can come any time that is convenient for them. The bar is able to attract customers at those hours where other bars aren't doing shows. Bars with "blockbuster" type shows can't afford to put up more than one-and-a-half of them per night, so they can't have a show going on through the entire evening. This little bar can. --- The business model responds to the economic trends thus: Response to Etrend 1: Currently, gogo boys are mostly wasting time, doing little and earning nothing unless/until they get an off which is "jackpot money". In the new business model, the boys are working for pay for many of the seven or eight hours they are in the bar. For each set of dancing in a private room (each boy does an average of two 5-minute items per 45-minute set) a boy earns 100 baht. Assuming a typical boy gets to do three sets a night, he earns 300 baht. Multipled by 25 days a month, he has base earnings of 7500 baht before tips. Response to Etrend 2: As boys become scarcer, the bar runs on fewer boys, but these boys work harder to deliver satisfying shows. Running on fewer boys also means the bar owner can get a little picky about which boys to hire, thereby keeping the "good looks" factor, boosting the rate of offs. Response to Etrend 3: No more elaborate staging for shows and the costs associated with that. Response to Etrend 4: In an era of flat tourist numbers, such a bar will rarely look empty. That's because it is divided into small spaces, and you only open such spaces as are needed (also save on airconditioning). A small salon or private dance room with 6 customers in it looks a lot better than a bar that can seat 100, but has only six people; the atmosphere is more encouraging. Response to Etrend 5: The bar and its boys draw revenue not by relying on high rate of offs -- in a new era of Chinese tourists this may not be realistic -- but by getting customers to pay for a second drink in order to get a satisfying show. Of course, any offs that the bar/boys get will be good too. Operational imperatives for success: A bar that requires boys to actually work through a seven-hour shift (rather than sit about or shuffle about as at present) requires boys with a good work ethic. This especially as every boy must be able to perform on stage, equipped with a handful of routines, executed reasonably well (i.e. with artistry, with good eye contact and seductive appeal to customers). This means training, training, training. I also think it is imperative to address the problem of service quality after being off'd, but that's a separate issue I have written about before.

Economics is already irrational enough ("irrational exuberance" remember?) to be accurately predictable, politics is even worse! Khor Tose has sketched the possibility that the royalist forces, in their determination to stay in power, will go to any length to do so, including a Myanmar-like situation, a state of affairs that would bring about a seriously dampening effect on economic health. In my view such an extreme scenario is remote. My reasons for thinking so are as follows: The royalist forces are not monolithic; even now they are a coalition of convenience. Among the chief components of this current coalition, observers have identified: The palace, the army, the business and Bangkok-centred middle class. There's also the Yellow Shirt movement which may turn out to be a joker or wildcard in the pack. The palace may feel that for them it's an all-or-nothing game, but the army and certainly the business middle-class will not think so. The army is primarily an avaricious organisation, interested in safeguarding its opportunities for profiteering (see the second post in this thread on Gay Ting Tong: LINK), and avarice can be safeguarded by making deals with opponents who look like they might win. In any case, the army itself is not united; there are some who believe in a more professional army. Then there are on the periphery the Navy, Air Force and Police who may not see their interests as identical to the Army's. As for the business class, they will not tolerate a regime that sacrifices economic health for political control. Hence, this coalition of convenience may splinter should the palace demand a Myanmar-type solution. The business middle-class, if forced to choose between living under a Burmese-like junta or under a neo-Thaksin government, will choose the latter. Yet so long as this coalition holds together and their handmaiden, the Abhisit government, manages to hold back the Thaksin tide by dangling the same populist carrots as Thai Rak Thai did, the democratic forces (which as Fountainhall has said, aren't all that united either) cannot win decisively either. This is why I think a stalemate-like situation will last for some time until mortality carries away a Dowager, after which it's too hard to predict. Too many variables will by then be at play. What if the Red Shirts really manage to seize power? It depends on how that is done. If it is done through a peaceful, electoral process and the royalist coalition crumbles rather than resists -- notwithstanding the fact that I still see crumbling as unlikely -- then the economic trends (and their effect on the sex industry) will be as I sketched earlier. Politics will not alter its course by much. But if the Red Shirts seize power by more revolutionary means and quickly acquire the hubris of conquerors, then I can imagine a new scenario: One where the new politics will work to suppress the sex industry. Conquerors have a tendency to want to remake the world. If the new regime sees the sex industry as symptomatic of the ancien regime and its feudalistic patronage culture, and the exploitation ("especially of our precious Isaan youth"), moral degradation and corruption that characterised it, a puritanical streak may surface. ---- A small digression, which readers may or may not think is relevant: Towards the end of Imperial China's Qing Dynasty, the chief power in the palace was not the emperor. There were a series of weak men who were formally the emperors, but real power was in the hands of the Empress Dowager - one of the concubines of a previous emperor. While she was alive, she managed to stay in power despite having to make accommdations with one of the two forces of modernity -- the mercantilistic Western powers intruding into China. She was savage towards the other force of modernity -- the republican movement. This movement had its base of support not in the capital Peking, but in the regions, particularly Southern China. Its leader was exiled but was still effective. Back home, the republican movement raised its own army. Soon after mortality carried the Empress Dowager away, the republican revolution succeeded.

Your wish is my command SUMMARY I think economic trends will keep driving up the price of sex. Political trends will bias towards the existing model of doing business and penalise innovation, thus reinforcing the trend of price-rises. Demographic trends will keep driving up the price of sex. The Soi Twilight type of gogo bar has a bleak long-term future. What will survive for longer (but perhaps still not forever) is the Chiang Mai model. ECONOMIC TRENDS The price of sex like any commodity is determined by supply and demand, but also impacted by income gap. Economically, Thailand is doing OK, with steady growth, healthy investment and in the wake of these two trends, increasing job opportunities for its people. Sex is something that people sell when they have no other realistic work. Even work that pays relatively poorly is preferred by most to selling their bodies. As a new generation of Thais have at least 8 - 10 years' schooling and is able to do some factory work, and as investment into Thailand takes the form of low-to-medium skill manufacturing, there should be a good match between jobs created and available labour. The pool of people with no hope of getting work in the formal sector is likely to stagnate or shrink. Thus supply of new sex workers will stagnate or shrink (see also the section below on demographics). Meanwhile like in so many Asian countries, the income gap is widening. This means the rich can afford to bid more and more for sex. As the domestic price for sex rises, so will the tourist or expat price. POLITICAL TRENDS The current crisis in Thailand, which a recently launched book explained is part of a continuing conflict that began in 1932, is one that pits royalist forces against democratic ones. I do not see either side winning a clear victory anytime soon. While I will give the democratic forces a small but significant chance of eventual success, I give zero chance to the royalist forces. They will eventually be defeated or overtaken by history and other trends, the only question is how long they can hold out. However, the most likely prospect over the next 10 years is a continuation of the current stalemate. This then means the current (corrupt) model of doing business will remain in place, with a privileged class primarily interested in extracting rent by means fair and (mostly) foul. With greed as the driving factor, there is a constant push to increase the price of sex as middlemen of all sorts (from mamasans to Boys in Brown) demand a bigger and bigger cut of the proceeds. Any bar or massage parlour that wants to innovate by changing the service offering, the business model or pricing scheme will be seen as a threat to the existing cosy arrangement. In a polity where there is transparency and rule of law, a businessman can calculate his expected costs should he evolve a new business model. Tax rates, cost inputs, permissible licenses, etc are knowable in advance, while security from the underworld can be assumed. In a scenario like Thailand, these are not knowable in advance, because they are never formalised. The rule of law is grey, the meaning of licences is vague, the cost factors are not quoted in advance as much as they are the outcome of veiled threats made after you have launched your new business model. Such an environment discourages innovation, because you can never pre-calculate whether your innovation results in cost savings or cost/licence/security catastrophe. Hence there is a strong bias for the existing business model (and oligopolistic practices) to continue, with its ingrained indulgence towards greed. It means an inability to respond to external trends such as the rise of the Asian spender, as we have discussed earlier, or to complaints that the bars have lost their fun factor and feel very stale. DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS In the 1960s, Thailand's annual population growth was about 3 per cent; the average woman had 5 - 6 children. This produced a bumper crop of young men and women in the 1980s and 1990s. Farmwork for all was unrealistic. There was a significant drift to the cities. By the early 1990s, Thailand's first phase of industrialisation was producing a new urban middle class with the wherewithal to buy sex. The low profile domestic sex industry that had existed for eons, grew till it rivalled the high-profile sex industry that served the US forces during the Vietnam War but was winding down after the war ended. Bars like Tawan, Twilight and Barbeiry opened, at first aimed at the domestic market with its new purchasing power, and sourcing from an expanding supply of farmboys from the large families of the 1960s. The Asian Financial Crisis of 1996/7 wiped out a good chunk of the middle class, but currency devaluation made Thailand very competitive. The tourism boom quickly replaced the disappearing domestic market in Tawan, Twilight, Barbeiry and others. Today however, annual population growth in Thailand is 1 percent or less. "Thailand's highly successful government-sponsored family planning program has resulted in a dramatic decline in population growth from 3.1% in 1960 to less than 1% today." -- Source: State Department and Indexmundi The Total Fertility Rate slipped under 2 births per woman more than 10 years ago and is now 1.65 -- source: Indexmundi. If a TFR is 2.1, it means a population just barely replaces itself from one generation to the next. Under 2.1, a population will age and shrink over the long term. That process has now begun for Thailand. The supply of young men and women is shrinking rapidly. Moreover, economic growth and better education means that what supply there is will have more jobs to look forward too than those born in the 1960s and 1970s. By the laws of supply and demand, this indicates that the price of sex will rise. SCALING DOWN THE SEX BUSINESS As the supply of young men shrinks, any business that depends on scale becomes vulnerable. By this, I am referring to bars that mount relatively massive shows like Dream Boy. For example, their Big Cock Segment has currently some 18 guys showing off their assets. What if the day comes when you can't even find 18 boys to staff the entire bar? Also, as the cost of labour rises, businesses will try to find ways to save on other costs, and ripe for the knife will be the production costs of these elaborate shows. One model that will seem attractive is the Chiang Mai model where the show consists of solo performers (occasional duo) doing five minutes each, with little by way of costumes or fancy props. Interestingly, it is also the Manila model, and I note that in both Manila and Chiang Mai, the bars aim at the domestic market, which is less volatile and more soundly based than the tourist market. For this reason, I suspect that over the long term, the Dream Boy model will disappear and the Chiang Mai model will predominate. Smaller bars will become the norm.

Think: The Cafe Royale Piano Bar - same problem. I don't think it will work, because of cost and because this is culturally farang, not Thai. For a business to succeed, it must appeal to Thais, otherwise it becomes overly dependent on expats or tourists, and as we know, gay farang tourist traffic is flat or declining, and gay expat numbers alone are never going to be enough. A classy joint (unlike Telephone bar with its fair quotient of sleaze) means a high-rent location, spaciousness (more rent per customer served) costly furnishing and operations (live music). It will need the support of hi-so Thais who are (1) out of the closet, (2) want a romantic atmosphere, and (3) have westernised taste in beverage and music. I suspect they are very few in number.

I agree with fountainhall's response to this. I myself had what might have been a near miss. Years ago, I picked up a guy from a park. As we walked towards the main street to hail a taxi, we stopped to get a drink from a vendor. The very sweet, smiling guy in the park changed before my eyes. His words to the vendor sounded brusque and coarse, almost barking our orders. A little further on, while we were sipping our drinks amidst a crowded street (we were near a bus stop and metro entrance) someone brushed him on the shoulder as he walked past, causing him to spill his drink slightly on his jacket. Instead of a quick "sorry" like any normal person would say, putting the matter out of his mind, he turned around and hurled abuse at the passer-by. I decided there and then it would be a bad idea to have this guy in my room, and amazed myself with the quickest of thinking. A bus was just then coming to a halt at the bus stop beside me, and while his guy was hurling abuse at the stranger (and was facing away from me) I hopped onto the bus and escaped! The AYOR warnings I had seen were completely validated in my mind.

Another drag show. Another nail in the gay industry coffin.

Freelance options in China, especially those picked up in parks/streets can be dangerous to life and limb.

Medical drugs and health supplements. The mark-ups to cover marketing costs are jaw-dropping.

Nor have I. In Shanghai and Beijing, my impression is that rates are higher than Thailand, but not by much. In smaller cities, could be lower than Thailand. Service quality everywhere too is not a lot different either (more like 'indifferent'). But my experience is limited to no more than 4 occasions, so I won't pretend to speak with any authority. Bars owners may own the business but lease the building. Could be. It might even explain how a bar like Hotmale or X-boys survived the last 12 months, averaging 3 - 5 customers in the low season and now maybe 15 - 20 customers in the high season. My back of the envelope calculations suggested that couldn't even pay salaries and show costs.

Taking this discussion off on a different tangent, a big reason why I am not expecting the majority of Soi Twlight bars to take the initiative to change with the times is that they are not run as businesses in the usual sense. While I don't have proof, I have a sense (do others have the same view?) that except for farang-owned Dream Boy/Boys Bangkok and maybe Classic, the owners of the rest, including Jupiter 2002, are ultimately senior police officers. Many of these bars have women as their "bosses" or "owner" as the boys call them, but occasionally I've heard the boys whisper that they're the wife of some Police colonel. If that's the case, then it is very unlikely they are there to create/run a business in the normal sense of creating value, ensuring customer satisfaction, innovating, etc. They are in this business to extract monetary value from their high positions (positions which they might have purchased). They use their position to get a bar licence and exemption from laws against prostitution, public nudity, etc, while denying the same to others, and they treat the bar as a kind of cash cow. They fit into the classic Thai rentier class; i.e. they use their positions to collect "rent" from others, through their privileged ownership of assets (in this case the power to issue/police licences). They ride along benefitting from the market value (of those assets) created by others (in this case Dream Boy) by charging similar prices and copying similar activities (shows, etc) but it never occurs to them that they should be innovating and creating new value themselves. Some wives are savvier businesswomen than others. Perhaps the Jupiter woman is savvy in her own right and is able to make something out of her family bar. Pattayaland bars are likely different in that they are owned mostly by ordinary Thais. That they are subject to crackdowns on nudity suggests that their relationship with the powers-that-be are not as close as the Soi Twilight bars. But hopefully, it also suggests that at least some of them think like businessmen, and are capable of reinvention?

From a branding point of view, this is very confusing and inept. Calling it a "temple fair" conjures sights and sounds of crowds and noise (as does its promo pic) the exact opposite of what massage should be about. But the idea of doing a sexy show at 8 p.m. at least makes it innovative.

Thank you for a fascinating discussion, though I fear we may have lost nearly everybody else along the way I think we are both largely agreed as to long term trends, but trying also to understand the specific dynamics of different markets. Your discussion about HIV attitudes and the effect of domestic closettedness is certainly interesting, and these considerations must surely be valid - the only question is the degree of impact. I hope to be watching this gogo business for several years yet, if only to satisfy my own curiosity how it will evolve/die. Perhaps it frustrates you as much as it frustrates me that whilst trends are not that difficult to foresee, the bars remain stuck in their complacent ways, seemingly blind to the sunset ahead and oblivious to the opportunities neighbouring markets present. Meanwhile the money-grubbing ways continue. Just read this post at Cruising for sex - http://web.cruisingforsex.com/bb/thailand/336952-gogo-bars-7.html#post681276 - and its follow-ups. And still, no one cares about delivering quality service. Read this post at Cruising for sex - http://web.cruisingforsex.com/bb/thailand/337279-how-about-bangkok-now-17.html#post681210

I too am one of those who have been pointing out for a while now that the tourism dynamics are changing, but I also find that I am reminding myself not to assume that Asian tourists will replace Western tourists in similar ways. Even as their numbers increase, their behaviour may be different, and from the bars' point of view, this may or may not mean a lifeline for a slowing industry. But first, just a small digression: In today's news, I saw a report that Macao's gambling revenues in 2010 totalled US$23.5 billion, four times that of Las Vegas. Yes, FOUR TIMES! As we know, Chinese tourists dominate the Macao casino scene. That tells us not only do they have the human numbers, but boy! do they have the money! We can be nearly certain that their presence in Soi Twilight will increase, the only question is really the gradient of the slope. However, I suspect it will be a very long time before they off boys to the same degree as farang tourists in the soi's hey day. The Asians will pay for a drink to see the shows, but will prove a lot more reluctant to off boys. Let me explain why I'm slowly coming to this conclusion: Value for money: Just because the Chinese will soon have money, doesn't mean they're going to throw it around mindlessly. The same calculations that z909 made (it will cost 900 baht to take a boy out the door and that's before the tip for god-knows-what-level-of-service), the Chinese will be making too. If we aren't seeing Koreans, Taiwanese Singaporeans offing boys like there's no tomorrow despite the current strength of their currencies, I don't think we're going to see the Chinese do likewise -- in any case, it will be a long time yet before even coastal China gets as rich as, say, Hong Kong, Japan or Singapore. This value-for-money problem that the bars got themselves into by raising prices regularly without ever attending to the question of service quality, will not go away just because the skin colour of the tourists has changed. Domestic prostitution: Compounding the value-for-money problem is the fact that China has a vast domestic prostitution scene. Unlike Western tourists whose domestic rentboys cost much more than Thai rentboys (even at 1,500 baht a pop), Chinese rentboys are a lot more competitively priced. So all the more, Soi Twilight's bar fines and tips will not look as attractive to the new breed of Chinese tourists as it once looked to farang tourists 10 - 20 years ago. It's only the show: That leaves only the show. Indeed, that is almost unique to Thailand. I can therefore imagine hordes of Chinese coming to take in the shows, at 250 - 300 baht a drink, which they will nurse to the end of the show and then go back to bed. But this begs a new question: How long can shows stay unchanged without boring even this new cohort of tourists to death? Bottom line: It's probably a lot more complex than a simple replacement of farang tourists with Asian tourists. And even as Asian numbers increase, their spending patterns may be different and may not prove as much a saviour to Soi Twilight as may be hoped. ==== This is where I have also argued that Pattaya's bars (outside of Sunee which is too far gone in their farang-centric, skinny-queeny-boys-only ways) have an opportunity: Keep prices reasonable, address the money-for-value question, reinvent shows (but don't go overboard) to Asian tastes (no more drag queens singing English-language songs please! Masculine dancers dancing to the latest Mandarin chart-toppers instead), ensure Chinese and Korean-speaking staff, translate all menus into various Asian languages . . in order to aggressively target the Asian tourist.

You are probably right that gogo bar traffic is down significantly from previous high seasons, and I too agree that the unchanging show formula and music is perhaps part of the reason. However, with specific reference to the lack of boys on stage, I think I know the reason. This is what I heard from boys in Dream Boy in December: They were told by the German boss that they had to work 7 days a week through December because he was expecting/hoping for a surge of patrons through the holiday season. The boys' weekly day off would be postponed till January when they can take them. I do not know if X-size implemented a similar policy, but perhaps they did and now that January's here, the boys are claiming their accumulated days off. I was in X-size in December and estimated that there were some 25-26 boys available just prior to show time. So, in normal times, they should have rather more than the 12 you saw. An alternative explanation could be that by the time you went into X-size, an unusually large percentage of boys had been off'd leaving just the 12 you saw, but I'm sure you'll agree with me, since you were at Dicks watching the foot traffic in and out of the soi, that unless punters after offing boys flew away by helicopter beyond your line of sight, that is not a likely explanation.

The thing to remember is this: Even if a sauna has far greater number of Thais to farangs (say, 10 Thais to 1 farang), very likely the Thais are not interested in hooking up with farang. Most Thais are only interested in other Thais. If Sansuk manages to attract lots of Thais at all times it can only mean that Thais know it as a place where they hook up with other Thais. The ratio of Thais interested in farangs remains 1:10.

Well said, Hedda.

I may be wrong about Boys Bangkok, but I know for sure that it was 500 baht at Dream Boy on my last visit (February this year). This was what was quoted to me at the door and I absolutely refused to go in. It was memorable because of precisely this incident. I just assumed that Boys Bangkok would charge similarly since it has the same owner as Dream Boy and one can migrate from one bar to the other. Not having entered or enquired, I don't know about Dream Boy's off fee but I won't be surprised if it is all 500 baht. . Having said that, the drink charge at Dream has varied considerably from one visit to the next (that's why I have learnt to ask), and they have special nights or different prices for weekends. So I could have been there at the "wrong" night.

On Soi Pratuchai (a.k.a. Soi Twilight) 300 baht for a drink would be the cheap end. At Boys Bangkok and Dream Boys it is 500 baht. I no longer go as often as I used to, and the price inflation is the reason for that. I now go only for two reasons: Because I want to say hello to a boy I've gotten to know before but couldn't reach on the phone (because they keep changing their numbers), or because I'm horny as hell and need to off someone for the night. If it's the former, then I make sure the one I'm looking for is in the bar before I even sit down. Naturally, I call him over and buy him a drink, and tip him for his time. I chase away any mamasan who comes within a half kilometre of me. Obviously I have no need for her services. If it's the latter, then I don't call any boy over until I'm fairly sure, though eye contact, etc, that he's the one I'd wish to off for the night. In that case, I do buy the boy a drink, but do not tip him for the time since I am offing him. Once again, the mamasan has no role to play (no role means no tip) except in rare situations where I need someone to translate for me. This means I could vote for either the first option or the second option in the poll. I voted for the first.

I am truly amazed that you were able to interpret Heygay's post.

The ethnic Chinese population in Thailand is now into its third or fourth generation. Virtually everyone that I have met and asked do not speak any Chinese at all. The few that could say a couple of phrases said it in variant - I think they call it Tay-Cho - that is incomprehensible to Mandarin speakers (kind of like Minhua one finds in Taiwan) . I think the Chinese who migrated to Thailand came from a specific part of China carrying with them a local language, not Putonghua (Mandarin) that is now the lingua franca of China. I believe the Chinese minority in Thailand have never had a history of speaking Mandarin. That said, all forms of Chinese, like Thai, are tonal, and it shouldn't be too difficult for Thais (not just Sino-Thais) to pick up Chinese, provided there is interest. z909, do you have a historical comparison for the euro and US$ too?

Oh, I didn't know this. This is interesting. I would however add that tipping is not part of Singaporean culture either, but you can find hordes of Singaporeans in gogo bars and massage parlours. They do fine. I think it's got to do with someone in charge explaining clearly to the buyer. This is where my suggestion on Gay Ting Tong comes in: I said that if venue owners/managers can't speak Japanese/Chinese/Korean, they should at least provide an FAQ sheet in various Asian languages. Gently ask customers to read them so no misunderstanding will arise.

From my occasional visits to China, I get the sense that while the callboy industry exists, it tends to be pricey and risky relative to other services. There are also a lot of closetted gay men who might not want to expose themselves to risk by buying sex in China, but would be all too eager to do so once outside their own country. Certainly there are no gogo bars in all of China, which is why they love the shows in the Soi Twilight bars when most of us have grown tired of them. In any case, among the first things people want to do when they reach middle class is to travel. Gay Thailand can exploit these factors to its benefit. The problem is Thai (and farang) businessmen in Thailand are virtually clueless as to how to engage and sell to the Chinese market. If you think their command of English is laughable, their command of Chinese is non-existent! As for farang owners, as mentioned before, in all likelihood most are not interested in a future where the market is not farang-oriented. If the farang is not the centre of the gay Thailand universe, then what's the use of it? Who cares then whether gay Thailand survives or dies? How many farang owners can see themselves serving Asians? The reversal of the unspoken race hierarchy would be intolerable. So I may be barking up the wrong tree and everything I say about reorienting businesses to Asian markets may be irrelevant. Perhaps we should be clear: The discussion on this and similar online boards is not whether gay Thailand will survive, but where a farang-centred gay Thailand will survive.