⦠not like the working girls in London who really are on the skids.â
âHow do you tell the difference?â asked Ben.
âI pass through Kings Cross on my way back to Hackney and you see real despair ⦠drug dependency and that. The girls here just want to make a fast buck. They even look like theyâre enjoying it.â
âYeah, the English hookers are as miserable as hell, arenât they,â said Ben, shooting himself in the foot. âWho wouldnât want the Thai girls!â Emma glowered at him.
âTrust you to lower the tone,â she said, angrily pulling out a packet of cigarettes and lighting up. Ben looked away and grinned at Chuck.
There was a brief pause, but Maca had not yet finished sparring with Samantha.
âGeneralisations are dangerous, Sam. Most of the sex workers you see in the farang bars are from Isaan ⦠thatâs the rice farming region in the North East which is dry and very poor. Thousands of men and women from there leave home and come to the cities to make a bit of cash.â
âBut they donât have to be prostitutes do they,â broke in Samantha sharply.
âNo, though they may have little choice. Some are sold into prostitution when theyâre very young. Or the job agency gives the parents a cash advance which the girl can only pay off by selling herself. And thereâs kids to feed.â
âBut I bet itâs not always like that,â said Samantha, cradling her bottle in her hands.
âNo, maybe some of them just want to get on in life. But donât forget, theyâre not all Thais. The illegal immigrants from Burma, Lao and Cambodia are the most at risk. If theyâre run across the border and tricked into prostitution here, it seems hard to condemn them as sluts.â
âExactly,â said Emma. âDonât stigmatise the women, blame the men who buy them. Whyâs it a disgrace to be a prostitute but macho for a man to shagâem?â
âYes, Sam, donât be so judgmental. Itâs all because of poverty,â said Nadia, nervously speaking up for the first time.
The surprised silence that followed was broken by Clarissa.
âNadiaâs right. Can you imagine poverty and what youâd do to escape it. Iâve just given up my job because Iâve done okay, but think what itâd be like for a Thai peasant to have steady money. Some of them are so poor. You shouldâve seen the hotel porterâs smile when I gave him a twenty baht note.â
âDinkie die,â said Maca. âWhen I think about sitting here on my Aussie arse drinking all day, I nearly die of guilt.â
âHave another beer to deaden the pain then,â said Ben.
âWell Iâm as dry as a dead dingoâs donger, so I donât mind if I do. But seriously, Ben⦠Thailandâs rich compared to Laos or Cambodia. And in rural Thailand the familyâs still everything, even if people do have to leave home to find work.â
âSo youâre saying rural poverty hereâs not so bad then?â
âNot really ⦠in Thailand thereâs still a poverty of opportunity. Back home you can get up and go, but here thereâs so much under-employment and wasted talent. Even if youâve got enough to eat, what sort of a life is it selling noodles from a roadside stall when in the West you could be a teacher or doctor.â
âLike weâre all going to be when we go back home,â interjected Ben flippantly.
âAnd take America where our Chuck comes from. Anyone can start an internet company aged twenty five and bugger off and tan their ass in Thailand for a year or two before getting back on the merry-go-round.â Chuck ignored him and said nothing.
âAll this breast-beatingâs making me hungry,â said Clarissa. âI could eat a horse.â
She called for menus and they all ordered red and green curries, noodles and