Trapped in an industry that exploits young women, a teenage girl does anything she can to survive.
Amid the dancing lights and cigarette smoke wafting through the air, heads bob to the techno remixes of Thai and Mandarin classics.
Men in their late 30s huddle around leather-bound sofas, laughing and downing shots of Martell.
“Cheers!” says a girl who looks no older than 19, to a man old enough to be her father.
Inebriated, he puts his hand on her knee and wantonly slides it up her thigh, circling his fingers beneath her dress.
Holding in her disgust, she swats his calloused hands away and forces a smile.
“Kae, so shy for what? We both know you can’t say ‘no’ to me,” he grunts, ruffling the flowers on the garland draped over her neck.
“Flower not enough okay,” she sighs, tugging her gaudy gold-glitter dress.
“Later you buy me out? Then we can go somewhere more private.”
Without hesitation, he reaches for his American Express credit card and drunkenly passes it to her.
Beep. The transaction goes through and the man smiles at Kae.
“Khob-kun-Ka,” she thanks.
It is nearing the end of a typical night of drinking and entertaining in the siam diu, or Thai Disco club.
Kae is a Thai Disco hostess, colloquially known as a siam bu, who sings, dances and drinks to entertain customers.
In a bid to buy her time at their table, customers tip her with flower garlands ranging from $50 to $10,000, of which she takes a cut.
According to CNA, the cut ranges from 65 to 90 per cent of a garland sale. At one siam diu, a $180 sale would easily net a siam bu $150.
Some customers merely seek a casual night of entertainment but others harbour lewd desires.
Though not as common as gifting treasured flower garlands, customers who desire one-on-one time with the girls can buy them out of their shift for an exorbitant amount.
When a customer buys a siam bu out, she becomes his possession. What happens next is not the siam diu’s responsibility anymore.
While siam bus are not obligated to provide sexual services, many resort to offering them just to get by, as reported in an article by Kang.
Because of this, siam bus are often marked off as money-minded women who are easily exploited for quick and “dirty” money.
Kae knew the risks and ridicule she was bound to face upon entering the trade.
So why did a 19-year-old girl enter a seedy world where affection is traded for flower garlands?
Just a few years ago, Kae’s life led a different path.
She was sent to Singapore by her mother at the age of 15 to study early childhood education at the Institute of Technical Education.
She excelled in it, given her love for children.
But one and a half years into her course, her mother racked up a massive debt from gambling.
She could not just sit back and watch her family struggle.
She had to do something.
Kae took up an after-school job as a childcare teacher on campus, but she knew the money was not enough.
She eventually took up odd jobs — her highest pay being $30 per hour as a car roadshow promoter.
Having been made to wear mini skirts and high heels, she caught the eye of a young man.
From one look, she knew that he was a Thai Disco manager.
“Would you be interested in working for our company as an entertainer?” he asked.
Many women have been tricked into joining the sex trade with the promise of a better life, and Kae was afraid that she would be one of them.
“At first I die die also didn’t want, but bopian (no choice) my mother no money already. She still want to come Singapore be cleaner. Buey gam (cannot). I couldn’t let her do it.”
“So, I heard him out.”
That was Kae’s first glimpse into the siam diu scene.
From her first shift alone, she earned $900. Like many first-time hostesses, once she started, she was hooked.
As her pay increased, so did the money she sent back to her mother.
Kae’s situation is not unique.
Kang's article states that many foreign women, often in their 20s, are scouted by Singapore-based agents to work at siam dius.
They usually need to support their families in their home countries and given the astronomical earnings, this comes as the deal of a lifetime.
It was not long after that Kae dropped out of school to become a full-time siam bu.
Surviving jilted wives.
Playing the game right.
It was another night of work.
An angry wife stormed into the siam diu after finding out that her husband had been soliciting Kae’s services.
She took one look at Kae and knew she was the “vixen ruining her family”.
After a bout of hair-pulling and screaming between the two women, she used the scuffle to gain sympathy from the husband instead of succumbing to embarrassment.
“I told the customer, ‘See! My hair so pain!’ In the end, my flower come back three times the amount. Either way my hair already going to get pulled what, so I turn things my way,” she said.
“This kind of thing so common, I just learned to deal with it.”
Aggressive behaviour is not a rare sight at siam dius. Kae’s tussle was just another occurrence.
A recent report by TODAY showed that many siam diu customers have seen some violence or even found themselves in such situations.
Being an opportunist was Kae’s only weapon to survive.
This mentality goes beyond her workplace.
Kae sends most of the money she earns to her family, leaving just enough for her rent and utilities.
As for other everyday necessities, she has a way of getting help from her customers.
The plan is simple: when customers ask her where she wants to go for a date, she suggests the supermarket.
“The best way to buy without paying is to bring them to NTUC. They pay for me and carry for me some more. Got car some more.”
Groceries are not the only gifts. She also considers her long-term needs: insurance.
She once planned a date with a customer at a place near an insurance booth.
“(I asked him) you got or not? Singaporeans usually have one right? Then he say, ‘Ya, have, have! You don’t have meh?’”
He took the bait.
“Don’t have. Buy for me! Buy ah, buy ah.”
He bought the plan for her and still pays the monthly premiums to this day.
In the lonely business of “love”
Her life as a siam bu is not just one of favours and freebies.
It is also one of loneliness and solitude.
The daily need to flatter and flirt with her male customers has taken a toll on her.
Most of the men she speaks to are cut from the same two cloths — either middle-aged men trapped in a loveless marriage, or desperate national servicemen whom she thinks are terrible with women.
“Every day, same words (with) different people. They only want to stare at me or hear me compliment them."
Kae stands alone in the face of her family too.
Growing up in a conservative home, the perception of a siam bu is intertwined with an escort, a job that extends beyond the bar and into the bedroom.
When her mother found out about her “immoral” career, she stripped the family name from Kae’s name, determined to “cleanse the family”.
Yet, Kae is still the sole breadwinner at home.
Unaware that their sister is a siam bu and the family’s main source of income, Kae’s siblings see her as the “useless sister” who wastes her life by partying wildly every night.
Although she feels hurt by these misconceptions, Kae refuses to reveal the hard truth about her job and their debt-ridden mother to them.
“I don’t want them to look at our mother that way you know. I mean when I marry off, bye-bye already, but then their relationship with their mother is a very long term thing.”
Having no friends or family here in Singapore, Kae struggles to integrate into society.
When she first came to Singapore, her poor command of the English language, coupled with her natural Thai accent, subjected her to constant bullying.
Surrounded by local Chinese-speaking customers most of the time, she has learnt to pick up the local lingo.
She has since dropped her Thai accent, but the solitude remains.
Her only companion is her golden retriever — an unsolicited gift from a customer.
“Lonely? Of course will sad. But sad finish already time to go work also what,” she quipped.
Yet, Kae does not intend to leave the industry any time soon.
Given her current skill set, the money she makes as a siam bu is far more than any other job available to her.
Furthermore, schemes to facilitate the integration of women in similar situations as hers are limited, making a mid-career switch challenging according to a 2011 article by the Association of Women for Action and Research.
Life as a siam bu is not something she could just simply quit.
“The money is too good already. I got my dog, a roof over my head and I get to wear nice clothes. Plus, what more can I do?”
And so, beneath the glitzy costumes is a young girl, forced to grow up among gawking men in secluded nightclubs, trying her very best to survive.
Beep.
The transaction goes through and the man smiles at Kae.
That is her cue.
“Khob-kun-Ka,” she thanks. “You go wait at taxi stand, I go take my bag first then I come down.”
That was nothing but a lie.
She heads to the employee’s exit, hidden from view and bolts off, leaving the man waiting for a siam bu who would never come.
Authors
Amanda Ang Hui Ting
Ang Jin Hui
Ezra J. Jacobus
Gwen L. Sim
Low Yi Bin
Wee Hong Liang
Illustrations and Graphics
Gwen L. Sim
Wee Hong Liang
References
Board, J. & Mahmud, A. H. (2019, July 27). The Thai women working illegally to power the seedy underbelly of Singapore’s nightlife. CNA. Retrieved from: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/thai-women-working-illegal-singapore-clubs-discos-11748348
Kang, A. (2017, May 14). Singapore’s ‘flower joints’: Where men buy sashes, garlands in return for ‘love’. Yahoo Lifestyle Singapore. Retrieved from: https://sg.style.yahoo.com/singapores-flower-joints-men-buy-sashes-garlands-return-love-082402353.html
Lim, K. (2019, July 12). Thai discos: Cheap drinks, long opening hours and simmering aggression. TODAY. Retrieved from: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/thai-discos-cheap-drinks-hostesses-and-simmering-aggression
Helping sex workers, fighting sex trafficking. (2011, September 21). Association of Women for Action and Research. Retrieved from: https://www.aware.org.sg/2011/09/helping-sex-workers-fighting-sex-trafficking/
Images Used
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https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-3193807-disco-stage-dance-floor-colorful-vivid-lightshttps://whitelodge.edu.sg/preschools/east-coast/https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s-america-dream-car/
https://www.istockphoto.com/sg/vector/illustration-of-a-dance-floor-amongst-starry-open-space-vector-gm1155925578-314872211
https://www.anthonyboyd.graphics/mockups/floating-business-cards-mockup/
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