I did not witness any exploitation in the bars I went to. Girls are free to go as they please. I also did not see any child prostitutes. I'm not saying that they do not exist but I just didn't see them. I think men come to Thailand to live out their personal fantasies. Back home women ignore them. They can be fat, old, ugly, pockmarked, and just plain messed up, but in Thailand they are somebodies.

---

First of all, you are paying a girl to sleep with you. She is not being submissive, but completing a business deal. And being wild in bed is pretty much a myth too.

---

As an Asian person I could not help but think, does all this contribute to sexual stereotypes of Asian women? I think so. Just go to Yahoo search engine, search the words Asian women and half the stuff you get are either Asian women porn sites or mail order bride sites. Now some of you may think I'm just as guilty as any other man for contributing to Thailand's sex industry. To be honest, I was very conflicted about my activities in Thailand. I am a proud Korean American male and support my Asian sisters. But as a man, I succumbed to what I saw.

Most of these bargirls work in the industry for one to two years, but there are girls who have been working in the business for ten years or more. Some of them actually go to school and find a different job afterwards. A few of them will make enough to retire for life. And there are others who do marry customers. As for the girl I was involved with, I knew I couldn't marry her but I didn't want her to continue working as a prostitute. Disregarding what everyone was telling me, I sent money to her to help her gain independence from the bargirl life. Fortunately the girl I was involved with did try to go to school but she still works in the bar. I stopped sending money because I couldn't afford to and I knew she was not helping herself get out of the situation. I did care about her and a part of me thought I should marry her. But I think I would have married her more out of sympathy than love. The last time I visited her was in January 2002. Would I want to see her again? Not anytime soon. If you care about somebody, you do not want her to work in that type of industry. But, I am also sick of Thailand. It is just too much and too nauseating. I feel the country ignores a very big problem going on in everyone's backyard. It is up to the Thai people to change the situation. Maybe in the future when I am bit stronger, I will visit that country again. I have to see my friend and see if she is doing well.

How did all of this start? Well, during the Vietnam War there were close to half a million G.I.s stationed in South East Asia. The Thai government was looking for US dollars and set up a deal with Uncle Sam, letting soldiers come to Thailand for R&R. In reality R&R really stood for I&I (intoxication and intercourse). Go-go bars were set up not only in Thailand but also in the Philliipines to serve US soldiers. This is where I think the stereotype of the exotic Asian woman was born. After the United States pulled out of South East Asia, the German tourists took their places. Could the sex industry have started without the Vietnam War? Maybe. Thailand already had a sex industry that served Thai men. Even now, the biggest customers of Thai prostitutes are Thai men. Thai culture and morals are based upon Buddhism, which compared to Christianity or Islam, is not as black and white when it comes to the concept of sin. Thai culture is a mix of Malay, Chinese and other cultures, which is why they are welcoming to all people. It sounds very nice and this is one of the reasons many ex-pats retire there. I did not come across any blatant racism when I traveled to Thailand. This open-arms policy is one of the strongest reasons why Thai people seem to passively accept foreign men coming to their country for the only purpose of having sex with Thai women. I know if this happened in America, we would try to stop the problem with protests and activism. But Thai schools don't really teach their children about these social issues. The government itself does not even have study groups or think tanks devoted to examining the sex industry. I mean they know this is happening but are not really doing anything about it. But how can they when the second largest source of income for Thailand comes from tourism? About 60%-70% of the tourists who go to Thailand are men. I was talking to this one Thai man about his country and he summed it up this way: "In Thailand you sleep, fuck, shit and eat."