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Bread. 6 June 2009 From the dating frontlines
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A twenty-something guy, a little too well-fed, came to the table with a welcoming smile. His name was Jom. We discussed what might be the quickest thing to order. Fried udon it was. "Would you like a drink?" he asked. While I contemplated the choice between iced tea and a coke, a group of lunch patrons came past my table on the way out. Jom turned to them, expressing the restaurant's grateful thanks for their custom, and his hope that there would be an opportunity to serve them again soon -- in fluent Japanese, with the obligatory bow.
"This restaurant have many Japanese customer," he said, indicating that he got a lot of practice. "Tourists or people who live here in Chiangmai?" "Both, but more business people. They have business here," he said, indicating the group that had just left. "Did you learn Japanese after you started working here?" "No, I learnt it before I got this job." "You must have gotten the job because you could speak Japanese," I hazarded a guess. "I think so." "Did you work in another Japanese restaurant before?" "No, this my first job. Before, long time, I no job." "So what made you learn Japanese?" I was curious. "I like Japanese girls. I want to talk to them." "And I suppose there are many single Japanese girls on holiday here in Chiangmai, right?" I gave him a knowing smile. "But now I working here, no have time," Romeo said ruefully. * * * * * The business logic is that by attracting a large number of females, an equal or larger of males would follow, either as boyfriends or as singles in search of a date, or perhaps a one-night stand. The males have to pay full price for their drinks, though. Apparently this kind of thing works, judging by how long it has been a feature of Singapore's bar scene. Our Romeos don't mind being suckered. But times are hard. The angle of the news story was that the bars were now limiting the number of free drinks per female, and the women were not happy. One bar told the reporter that the entitlement is now five drinks. Five, and they're not happy. These females are heavy drinkers, aren't they? But apparently the girls share their drinks with the boys, so that the boys can avoid paying too. Which leaves the bar management unhappy, and their waiters and security staff go around checking that male lips do not touch the differently-marked female glasses. Nowhere in the feature story was the question of gender discrimination raised. Apparently Singaporeans don't see any problem whatsoever with the practice, not even the males. In over twenty years, I have not heard of AWARE -- that feminist organisation that seeks to promote equality between the sexes -- speaking up against this kind of discrimination either. * * * * * Times are hard for human trafficking businesses too. "At least one marriage agency is charging half-price to matchmake Singapore men with Vietnamese brides," reported the Straits Times last October. [1] One of them took out advertisements in Chinese-language newspapers "offering the discount on the grounds that his business has been hit by the global financial crisis," reported the English daily. "Three Vietnamese women have been at his Orchard Plaza office in the last two months, waiting for prospective husbands." As most Singaporeans know, "matchmaking" is a euphemism for what is really wife-buying. There's no romance, let alone love; it's just a transaction. For goodness sake, there were three women sitting in his office, like so much merchandise sitting in a display case. You pay a fee, a "date" is arranged for you to take a closer look at the goods and then a wedding is fixed. In Singapore a man can buy a bride, and the state blesses the union, calling it marriage. Two men, or women, in love for decades cannot marry each other. Some Singaporeans cite Leviticus and call the latter an abomination. Oh, and since we're on that subject, there is this passage:
I guess Singaporeans buying Vietnamese women is alright, then. Like Ladies Nights, Singaporeans don't seem to have any problems with the practice. Not the government, which considers it legal. Not most people. There is no sense of outrage, only the hypocrisy that if it is solemnised at the Registry of Marriages, then all must be correct and well. Or maybe there were some who did demur. Picking up the story, the Vietnamese Thanhnien News reported some Straits Times readers saying that "by not criticizing the practice of overseas matchmaking, which many see as akin to human trafficking, the article had in fact condoned it." [2] Ton Nu Thi Ninh, former deputy head of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee in Hanoi, said she was stunned to see such a respected newspaper running a very insensitive story on a very sensitive topic. The practice "sold" women into marriage, Thanhnien reported her saying. Then there was the issue of the Straits Times publishing a photo of the three women in the shop, without their faces blurred. Thanhnien contacted Theresa Tan, the Straits Times reporter who wrote the story, about that. Tan said that the paper was under no obligation to change the names or blur the faces of the girls involved as they had all agreed to the article. Maybe so, but when agreement was sought,
was the boss standing right there in the shop? Did the girls have the
freedom to refuse? © Yawning Bread
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Footnotes
Addenda None
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Hungry and in a great hurry, I popped into the first restaurant on Loi
Kroh Road I could find. Fortunately, it was already past two o'clock in
the afternoon and there were more free tables than customers.
