Even without the high heels and the giant blue plumes of her feathered headdress, Jana is a very tall girl. In fact, she normally towers over most of the customers at the Moulin Rose (sic) cabaret club, where she performs lip-synch renditions of The Power of Love.
But tonight, she is slumped in a chair and feeling low.
For Jana is one of the hundreds of "lady-boys" on the red-light strip of Patong beach who survived the tsunami but are struggling to cope with its economic aftermath: The devastation of a large chunk of Thailand's tourist industry.
Like the prostitutes, masseurs, go-go dancers and kick-boxers who make a living in this hotbed of exoticism and sleaze, the transsexual population of Patong are struggling to make ends meet because the foreigners they rely on for business are being warned by their governments to stay away from the disaster zone.
They are too much of an embarrassment to the authorities to merit much support from the government, particularly at a time when the world's attention is focused on the search for foreign victims of the disaster.
But their plight -- and the knock-on effect on their families -- is as pitiful as the suffering of the thousands of diving instructors, tour guides and hotel operators who are also suddenly unable to make a living.
Jana is most concerned about her parents. Although her father beat her during childhood to try to make her more masculine, Jana sends home two-thirds of the 9,000 baht (NT7.333) that she earns each month from salary and tips. A personal worry is how she will pay for the 700 baht she says she needs each month to make her breasts bigger.
"These past two days, I had to go to hospital, I was so upset. I've just been crying and crying," says Jana. "How can I keep going? How can I look after my family?"
She estimates that Patong is second only to Bangkok as the transsexual capital of the world. But of the 500 ladyboys who used to work in the town, more than a fifth have already fled to other tourist destinations such as Ko Samui in search of work.
The story is similar across the 500m long strip. Two weeks ago, the three giant waves destroyed about a dozen bars, nightclubs and trinket shops closest to the beach, but it is only now that the survivors are starting to realize its economic impact.
At the Tiger Bar, skimpily clad young women hang listlessly on the poles where they used to writhe. DJs at the cavernous Crocodile disco pump techno music out across an empty dancefloor. Masseurs chat idly on the street and grab desperately at the hands of the few remaining tourists they see walking by.
"I haven't had a customer all week," says Phoy, a petite 25-year-old with a tiny, tight red miniskirt and pencilled eyebrows who works at the Tweety Bar. "Usually, I get Japanese customers, who pay good money -- 2,000 baht to 5,000 baht to take me back to their rooms -- but now, all the Japanese have gone. I worry how I will look after my five-year-old daughter."
As their business is on the edge of accepted social norms, this large community of thousands has received little international sympathy. As one foreign visitor noted: "If there really is a god, why did he allow Patong beach to remain standing while the tsunami destroyed so many other places?"
But Patong's red-light strip exists because many foreign tourists enjoyed its exotic atmosphere, just as many other holidaymakers liked the golden beaches and azure waters of this area, which is one of the world's most popular tourist resorts.
When he visited Thailand on Friday, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, toured Patong's beach, but understandably did not wander through its red-light district. Impressed by the rebuilding work, he said he would review the UK government's warning to tourists to stay away from the area.
That would be a giant step forward for the redevelopment of southern Thailand. Jana and Phoy are unlikely to ever be pin-ups for charity appeals, but they and tens of thousands of other tourist industry workers know that the best way to get this part of the world back on its feet is for foreigners to return here on holiday.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS