A Snapshot of a Night of Freedom

Connecting with Bee and Na at the first Christmas Party. The choice to keep their faces from sight is intentional.

Her name is Na. She is 39 years old and despite the things she has witnessed and experienced throughout her 15 years in Bangkok, she looks no older than me. Her dark olive skin is tight, her high cheekbones readily lift to a smile and her eyes, like so many of the women I’ve met, are quick to shine when they are not at work. We connect right away.

Na speaks English well and carries herself with the same feminine grace that each of the other 136 girls in this room do. She is quick to extend her hand to me, which is tattooed with tiny, black flowers. When I trace the delicate weave of ink with my finger, she explains that the tattoo “has no meaning” but “hurt a lot” to get. She is from a place north of Bangkok and when I ask her if that place is called Isaan, she shakes her head yes, and with a look of shock, asks me how I knew. I only tell her that I’ve been reading a lot about Thailand. The truth is that what I’ve read reveals that a great number of Thai prostitutes are estimated to have come from this very same region.

Na works at a bar in Soi Cowboy called “After School,” which is one of a dozen or more bars and go-go clubs in this red light district. It is the one located nearest to the party, and tonight, all of the girls present walked to the ballroom from their respective jobs after our team went to pay their bar fine (aka-their freedom) for the night. Na has been working in Soi Cowboy for three years, and before that, she worked in the red light district closest to Beginnings, called Nana Plaza. She tells me quickly that she only works behind the bar now. I do not have the courage to ask if she still “goes with men,” as many on staff at these sort of bars do after hours to make extra cash.

And it seems Na needs the extra cash. With an 11-year-old daughter living back in her desperately poor home village, she is not only paying for the girl’s rare and coveted education, she is also sending money home every month to feed her entire family.

“I get to see her in May,” Na tells me when I asked how often she sees her daughter. “I see her maybe once or twice a year. But I call her everyday.”

Though her job is a high-paying one for a Thai woman with little education, like the vast majority of the women at the party, Na finds little joy in her what she does.

“No one here likes their job,” she says, gesturing to her six co-workers at our table. “But where I come from, you do not have a choice.”

It is hard for Americans to fathom not having a choice. If we don’t like our jobs, we often look for another route, a promotion or a hobby we enjoy. But Na, along with every other girl at the party tonight, has only two days off per month, leaving little time for hobbies. Her job behind the bar is perhaps a step up in terms of how a woman is treated when contrasted to those who dance on-stage, but the money behind the bar is never as good as it is for those who wear little but numbers, so the trade-off for those supporting a whole family seems minimal. And many are supporting large families.

In Thailand, money flows from the daughters to the parents and siblings, not the other way around like in America. Females are seen as the workhorses and money makers, while males are revered as those worth educating. This viewpoint leads many a young Thai girl to be tricked, forced or sold by her own parents (sometimes for as little as $50) to traffickers at a very young age. After all, the younger you look here, the more valuable you are to men. Virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder, which often amounts to just $500 U.S. dollars. The computer I’m typing on right now is worth quadruple that amount.

A girl encourages her friend during limbo.

The most surprising thing about Na, and all of the girls here tonight, is their ability to see their job as a job. The moment they are “free,” they become like little girls, playing musical chairs and limbo as if this Christmas Party were a trip to Disneyland. Americans would laugh at such an offering at an adult party, but these girls play with reckless abandon– screaming, belly laughing and hugging the whole time. It’s as though, for a brief moment, they have recaptured some of their stolen childhood…and their modesty.

Even while playing limbo, each girl covered their chest with their hands as they lean back and even fall gracefully, legs together, when the bar gets just a little too low to the ground. What’s more, they eat like ladies with napkins in laps, daintily lifting their forks to their full lips. Tonight grants them brief but full permission to be the beautiful, valued women they were created to be.

Raising for a musical chair!

As the message is presented by a lively Thai speaker and comedian, and the women are introduced to Jesus through slide show presentation in Thai, each watches with rapt attention, the way Americans would watch an action-packed movie. As the prayer in said, more than a dozen raise their hands to accept Christ, including two at my table. Na is not among them, but I’m just glad that she came, that she had fun and that she listened.

As the girls get up to leave, Na and I bow slightly at each other, hands together in the traditional showing of Thai respect. Then we both break out in big smiles and envelope each other in bear hugs. I tell her that I will be visiting Soi Cowboy on Friday night and that I will come find her. Though separated by a decade in age, thousands of miles in origin and jobs that are beyond compare, Na and I know that tonight we connected on a level that can only be described as divine. Her face, her smile and her indestructible spirit will never leave my mind.