Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Haiku's: GoGo Bar Dancer, Sopheni

Haiku are supposed to be natured-season themed but I am not big on following rules when it comes to creativity, so am going my own way. I need to try to write some poetry-haiku that have a social documentary context, like my photographs. It is probably not really a haiku, but for arguments sake lets call it that.

These haiku is about something I saw in a GoGo bar when a sex tourist I have known for years took me on his nightly rounds to pick up a girl for shortime sex. This was back a couple of years around 2012. I of course had been in GoGo bars in Thai before that time but being with him that night and watching his eyes as he scanned the naked dancing girls, then looking on as he fondled them at the table really set my resolve. I wanted more than ever to tell the workers story. I can still see those women's faces, their eyes and their body language as they worked that night. Some were barely women,  they were like pieces of meat hanging in a butcher waiting to be bought, ugly shit.

One of the first Thai words I learned was the word "dyip" it came up when I spoke to the girls about their work back in 1999. The word means means pain-or to hurt. They told me how when they went with customers they would often "dyip". It is also something the sex tourist mentioned in the story above told me about once. He said the girls were as horny (his fantasy) to be with him as he was to be with them, but when they did sex all they said to him was "dyip, dyip, dyip! He was a 70 year old who bought 18 to 25 year old workers, mostly from the GoGo's. He had a working relationship with many of the mama sons at different bars, they would arrange for him to take the newest girls, the girls who had just entered the sex tourist bar world scene.

Here are 2 haiku I just finished writing about that long ago night:

Gogo Dancer

GoGo bar dancer
Eyes glossed, head turned
Body on display.

version #2

GoGo bar dancer
Hanging meat, buy, buy, buy
Come and get it boys.


Sopheni

Sopheni working
She lays down, he approaches
Start the pain

Note * "Sopheni" is the Thai word for prostitute.