[.ca] Hello, My Big Big Honey: Love Letters to Bangkok Bar ... (ISBN 0867194731)

roving insight from marc richard and loreen neville:
This was a book waiting to be written, but if you're looking for a raunchy sex tale about Bangkok's red-light districts, try the Internet -- it's full of sites with much more graphic descriptions, even streaming video. What Dave Walker and Richard S. Ehrlich have done is approach a social fact of life from a different angle, a very human angle. "Hello My Big Honey!" is a sociological study dealing with a section of society that can be found in just about every country in the world, their hopes, their fears, their dreams and above all, their interaction and deeper involvement with their clients, the farang (foreigner). As Dave Walker explains in his 10-page preface, the germ of an idea was born in the bars of Patpong Road in Bangkok...True, the days of the Vietnam War were over, but the reputation that Bangkok had gained as a "wide-open town" had spread near and far. Where there had been GIs, now it was oil workers and other professional expatriates hunting a living in Southeast Asia... The letters followed, more than a reliving of stolen moments of physical passion, these were letters of hopes, dreams and longings to return... To some it might seem the craziest of places to find love, a road full of hustling, neon lights, prowling transvestites and ear-shattering music. Lust yes, but real love surely no. Yet whether or not it's the wrong place to be looking for lasting commitment, there are those foreigners who have found their heart's desires in a love that's been reciprocated. This is something that Richard Ehrlich takes up in his 10-page introduction. It's "a surreal night-time world" in which the bar girls live, one in which "men's fantasies, desperation, emotions and hormones" all "collide" with the "sleaze, partying" and highly "intensive care", plus of course, "cash". Most times it's a purely physical interaction that lasts no longer than rising from the crumpled sheets, but sometimes... As Richard points out though, "the odds" are really stacked "against" it \olove\c. "Dancing on her tiny stage", a girl may try and shut out the leering faces while trying to pick out just one where there is a deeper feeling she believes she can read. Other girls may become outright exhibitionists playing to the crowd, but they too are searching for a soul mate. The "competition" is fierce, for the girls have only one thing on their mind -- grab a man. Their reasons differ, some so spaced out on heroin or amphetamines that their only worry is where they can find the money for their next fix, while the professional plasticine jobs with their fake smiles of enduring love are mentally counting baht as they move around weighing up the potential catch. With so many girls and so many bars, to make the right connection can be tough... No wonder the poor old farang is confused, for it destroys all his Western conceptions of "normal" life...It is easy to become deluded and believe that they are really in love, but what about the girl. Does she really love me? Does she really care that much about me? If she does, then why does she always want money? I know she has to live, but surely she can earn money in some other job. If it's a quandary he finds himself in while in Bangkok, at least the ministrations of his newfound love provide some temporary relief. It's when he's back home that the whole meaning of this relationship begins to gnaw on his mind... It is into this strange melting pot of fantasy and reality that Dave Walker and Richard S. Ehrlich have delved, fishing out a selection of 71 letters from foreign men all around the world, as well as interviewing a dozen bargirls and three bar owners, one English, one American and one Thai. It may seem a massive invasion of privacy to read someone else's letters, for there are only two places a person can never hide -- in bed and in their letters. Yet the only people able to tell the true story of life on Patpong Road are the bargirls themselves and it is story that merits being told. Be warned however, this is a journey that is not for the faint-hearted...The American serviceman on his way to Saudi Arabia prior to the Gulf War desperately trying to persuade his teenage Thai girlfriend that he really wants to settle down and marry her, is one letter that stands out not only for its length but also the intensity of feelings expressed. Then of course there are the girls, who provide another cross-section. There's the consummate professional, all business, who is busy saving to buy a house -- no time for romance in her life one suspects. Or the girl whose seen it all, from being a barmaid right down to being a mama-san today. Then there's the would-be suicide, who has tried once and hopes she can stave off the desperation to try again. Yet perhaps more typical is the girl who lives in cramped squalor with her son, mother, two younger children, her sister and her boyfriend and another girlfriend... "Hello My Big Honey!" doesn't delve into the morality of prostitution, nor was that its intention... There is even one Thai girl who has traveled the world as an anti-AIDS campaigner, but admits that if desperate for money she would quite willingly have unprotected sex.

Very interesting to say the least:
This book was very interesting and fascinating to really hear about the inside world of the bar girls in Thailand. It really opened my eyes more on how lovestruck farangs really are and how broken hearted and callous the girls can become. It is obviously a means to survive, quite frankly the ONLY reason they do what they do, so it is no surprise they share their "love" with the men that become their clients. Oh the flip side, it is understandable, but sad to see the farangs who have trouble finding intimacy and love at home to quickly "fall in love." I have a great desire to go to Thailand and for a 41yo single male, I find this book a revelation on how not to fall in love and why! Seriously, I would have ranked this 5 stars had it been more heavily weighted on the interviews of the girls and the bar owners rather a 50-50 on those and the love letters from the farangs. After reading a handful of the letters, it was the same old pathetic "I love you and miss you." Do not let this influence your decision in buying this book, it is a real eye-opener

The Focus is more on the Men than the Women:
Ever since Thailand became known as the newest and best sin city for foreign men to visit to have sex with impoverished yet attractive Thai women, a deluge of these men land daily at Thai airports expecting to find the romance and lust often denied them in their home lands. What these men usually discover is that any romance that develops is based on a pay as you go basis. In HELLO MY BIG HONEY, Dave Walker and Richard Ehrlich try to explain why. The authors see the Bangkok sex scene as the natural outcropping of a degraded culture that has only its women to peddle. In such a lurid, transient environment, the focus of money for sex must be limited to the here and now. Any foreign man with even a minimum of sense and dollars can surely score in any of dozens of sleazy clip joints. In a series of interviews with bargirls, hookers, and transsexuals, Walker and Ehrlich clarify to the next deluge of incoming men that these are working girls, all of whom count the success of a relationship in the minutes spent to earn those western dollars. It is hardly the fault of these Thai women if they soon realize that calling their newest boyfriend 'Big Honey' and other such of similar ilk can only gratify him into spending more money on her (and her family)or--and this is what each Thai lady dreams of--finding a western man thinking that he will 'deliver' her from a life of vice by taking her back to his country for marriage. In this latter case, the man will certainly send money to her on a regular basis, with her promising all the while that she will be loyal in return. The letters that these men write back and forth reveal a breathtaking lack of brains that they, with all their degrees, find out later that these women were always one step ahead. In defense of the men who are surrounded by willing, attractive Thai ladies who offer themselves at what to these men seem like bargain prices, it is not difficult to overlook the more obvious and higher bill that is sure to be presented later.

Prositutes and the Men Who Love Them:
Most books are bound with the hooves of crushed horses. This book is bound with the dreams of crushed men.

Misleading:
Had very high hopes for this book. Started out to be a very informative and interesting. Once you get past the first 3 letters they are basically the same. Didn't feel there was any feelings or passion to this book. Think the idea was great but just not enough detail.