PHUKET: A friend has just breezed in from Samui so we decided to enjoy a Rihanna evening on Phuket.
Being well-brought-up Thai women, we've never seen a vagina take the top off a bottle of soda. Perhaps, we figured, it's time we did.
Vaginas doing extraordinary things was not exactly something that ever crossed our minds until Rihanna tweeted about her Phuket experiences last weekend.
Without the pop star telling her squillions of followers in a series of lurid tweets, the whole sex show thing could have stayed Patong's dirty little secret.
Touts seemed to be everywhere, selling tickets, and the one we buttonholed outside the Jungceylon mall wanted 500 baht a piece.
''What about a discount for us being Thai,'' we said.
That saved us 100 baht. However, he did warn us that Thais are not supposed to be admitted to these shows, so we pretended to be Bahamans, or something like that, for the night.
Inside the theatre was an audience of about 30 people, a mixture of Westerners and Asians. On the stage was a topless woman.
The performers quickly went from being topless to bottomless.
When I lifted my mobile telephone to take a photograph, the staff quickly told me: ''No pictures! No pictures!''
What would happen if I did take a photo?
''You will be taken away by the police,'' one of the staff says, crossing her arms in the ''arrested'' sign. How strange, when we'd heard the police couldn't find the place.
Well Rihanna didn't get arrested and we weren't keen to be arrested either.
The show went for just over an hour and for the sake of decorum, I'll skip some of the details. But yes, it is possible to take the top off a bottle with a vagina.
There were no turtles or birds in the show we saw but one woman did drop an egg into a glass, then pause to crack the egg to show it was real.
She offered it to the audience to taste. There were no takers.
Ping pong balls and darts fired at balloons certainly enlivened the evening.
But when one of the performers shot a banana at a man in the audience who had been misbehaving, his girlfriend appeared to be not at all pleased.
Lighted candles were snuffed with another vagina, but the most alarming moment came when a woman produced from inside herself a series of razor blades, all connected on one string.
''No, no, no!'' came the anguished cries from the crowd as the blades emerged one by one. When her act was finished she used one blade to slice two white drinking straws into pieces, to prove it was real and sharp.
The show appeared to be continuous. When we figured we had seen a whole rotation, we left.
We are modern women, and unlikely to be scarred by the experience. But the show wasn't uplifting. As Thais, we found it not so much shocking as saddening.
Outside, the slow lorises and iguanas were still being handed about by photo touts in Soi Bangla.
A freak show involving women, cruelty to animals . . . our Rihanna night in Patong had no uplifting moments. Is this how Thai culture is perceived by tourists?
The night was all too much for my friend, who happens to be a tour guide in Samui.
''Thanks, but that was terrible,'' she told me with honesty, the way that good friends do.
''I am never coming back to Phuket again. Everybody here only seems to be concerned about money. Samui is much nicer.''
Her home is in Krabi and her parents had been trying to encourage her to find a new job in Phuket, to be closer to them.
''I'm going to bring my parents to Phuket to see this for themselves,'' she said. ''Then they will understand why I am staying in Samui.''
We tried to cheer ourselves up by going to a nightclub but there was a row between the staff and a couple of Russian customers. We decided that we'd had enough, and went home.
Being well-brought-up Thai women, we've never seen a vagina take the top off a bottle of soda. Perhaps, we figured, it's time we did.
Vaginas doing extraordinary things was not exactly something that ever crossed our minds until Rihanna tweeted about her Phuket experiences last weekend.
Without the pop star telling her squillions of followers in a series of lurid tweets, the whole sex show thing could have stayed Patong's dirty little secret.
Touts seemed to be everywhere, selling tickets, and the one we buttonholed outside the Jungceylon mall wanted 500 baht a piece.
''What about a discount for us being Thai,'' we said.
That saved us 100 baht. However, he did warn us that Thais are not supposed to be admitted to these shows, so we pretended to be Bahamans, or something like that, for the night.
Inside the theatre was an audience of about 30 people, a mixture of Westerners and Asians. On the stage was a topless woman.
The performers quickly went from being topless to bottomless.
When I lifted my mobile telephone to take a photograph, the staff quickly told me: ''No pictures! No pictures!''
What would happen if I did take a photo?
''You will be taken away by the police,'' one of the staff says, crossing her arms in the ''arrested'' sign. How strange, when we'd heard the police couldn't find the place.
Well Rihanna didn't get arrested and we weren't keen to be arrested either.
The show went for just over an hour and for the sake of decorum, I'll skip some of the details. But yes, it is possible to take the top off a bottle with a vagina.
There were no turtles or birds in the show we saw but one woman did drop an egg into a glass, then pause to crack the egg to show it was real.
She offered it to the audience to taste. There were no takers.
Ping pong balls and darts fired at balloons certainly enlivened the evening.
But when one of the performers shot a banana at a man in the audience who had been misbehaving, his girlfriend appeared to be not at all pleased.
Lighted candles were snuffed with another vagina, but the most alarming moment came when a woman produced from inside herself a series of razor blades, all connected on one string.
''No, no, no!'' came the anguished cries from the crowd as the blades emerged one by one. When her act was finished she used one blade to slice two white drinking straws into pieces, to prove it was real and sharp.
The show appeared to be continuous. When we figured we had seen a whole rotation, we left.
We are modern women, and unlikely to be scarred by the experience. But the show wasn't uplifting. As Thais, we found it not so much shocking as saddening.
Outside, the slow lorises and iguanas were still being handed about by photo touts in Soi Bangla.
A freak show involving women, cruelty to animals . . . our Rihanna night in Patong had no uplifting moments. Is this how Thai culture is perceived by tourists?
The night was all too much for my friend, who happens to be a tour guide in Samui.
''Thanks, but that was terrible,'' she told me with honesty, the way that good friends do.
''I am never coming back to Phuket again. Everybody here only seems to be concerned about money. Samui is much nicer.''
Her home is in Krabi and her parents had been trying to encourage her to find a new job in Phuket, to be closer to them.
''I'm going to bring my parents to Phuket to see this for themselves,'' she said. ''Then they will understand why I am staying in Samui.''
We tried to cheer ourselves up by going to a nightclub but there was a row between the staff and a couple of Russian customers. We decided that we'd had enough, and went home.
A very cleverly written article. Sums it all up in a nutshell.
I wonder if Rihanna was genuinely looking for a bit of artistic tasteful inspiration to spice up her show & got more than she bargained.
Until you have seen these shows once, you cannot begin to imagine what they are & how tatty.
I reckon on reflection that she was genuinely shocked, hence the tone of her tweets!
Posted by Logic on September 26, 2013 00:10