I think perhaps I took a bump on the head recently that I may have forgotten about. Evidence of this newfound madness can be seen in my initial excitement about Miss International Queen 2006, which soon turned into bemusement with regards to the whole affair, only to later become an outright denouncement of the evils of beauty pageants and all they stand for.

Whilst I do believe that a pageant such as Miss International Queen 2006 does little to promote gender issues in a positive sense, I think I could have perhaps been a little more tactful, especially as I was still fuming at being snubbed at the last minute to be on the judging panel.

I wrote about my frustrations for Guru and managed to anger my editor in the process. He had a few choice words to say and I think he’s made me see sense now. I told him I was sorry and would sort myself out. He then dropped another bombshell that I won’t go into here, but it appears that he may be on the up. What the future will hold for The Lost Boy is anybody’s guess.

Although I was wrong to lash out at the ladyboy pageant, the point remains that they acted a little deviously in quashing my big moment. I was so angry at the time that I told them I would write about the whole ordeal. How foolish a boy can be. I’m not really sure what I was thinking, but it certainly hasn’t got me anywhere.

On a more serious note, apparently my name has already been somewhat tarnished in select media circles. This is frustrating as it was the one thing I wanted to avoid doing when I began writing for Guru. I said as much as this in my blog on MySpace. Some people won’t hire for projects me on the basis of my column. It’s not because I can’t write, although my style is far from perfect, but because ‘Matt Crook’s’ name is not the shining beacon I would like it to be.

I am moving on to study my MA in journalism soon, but these things take time, and so for now I must settle for life in Bangkok, although the prospect of this is doing little to enthrall me at the moment.

Techno’ tags: Life, Bangkok, Thailand

Ladyboys intrigue me, I won’t lie about that. They are a kind of enigma. To be a part of a pageant of the magnitude of Miss International 2006 would have been highly interesting, not that the concept behind it really convinces me that it is at all worthwhile.

My problem with an event such as this comes with the pretense upon which it is founded:

“Striving to advance and support today’s transvestites/transgender, Miss International Queen offers great opportunities for transvestites/transgender from all over the world to present their individual beauty and intelligence in a friendly atmosphere,” reads the official homepage.

How does a beauty contest support transvestites and transgender individuals? In my mind it does nothing but perpetuate the image of superficial and characterless beauty that Thailand as a whole seems to admire. What message is being sent out to people with gender issues? Is it that they are not alone, that there are people to whom they can turn, or is it rather than the only way to be happy is to be uniquely beautiful?

The message is undeniable. It is also highly immoral and does nothing to make the lives of those who come to question their gender any better. Really it sums up just how materialistic Thai attitudes can be. So long as it’s on TV and everyone looks beautiful, everything must be OK for everyone else: is that what we are to believe?

I loathe beauty pageants as a whole, and I was stunned to see this year’s Miss Universe on the cover of The Nation in July just gone. The coverage that is given to events of this caliber is nothing short of farcical and only serves to highlight the nonsense that the media and advertising circles choose to thrust down peoples’ throats.

It is about more than just a beauty pageant, however, as in a country where the rural masses are already transfixed with a dream of material wealth, there are events such as these, watched by an estimated 25 million people, that do nothing to actually promote a positive message. Instead, the issues are packaged up and sugar coated so as to appeal to enough people to generate money.

Agence France-Presse quoted this year’s Miss International Queen 2006, Mexico’s Erica Andrews, as saying: “”I feel like I am at home. I feel so welcome here. It can’t get any better than this.”

This clearly emphasises an ideal that the only way to be happy as someone with gender issues is to strive to be beautiful. It is less about acceptance and more about conventional aesthetic appeal.

I did catch a little of the event on ITV before going out to sample the delights of Hua Hin’s nightlife, but I soon turned it off. Thailand is apparently praised for its tolerance of transsexuals, but I also see a strong divide between ladyboys and men and women here. There is an unmistakable stigma that goes with being a transsexual, and ladyboys are often the butt of jokes, be it in public or on television. Also, ladyboys are often not treated as equals when it comes to searching for a job.

What is needed are less foolish spectacles and more effort put into educating people about the value of acceptance. If you have ever worked in a Thai school then you will have seen the enormous divide between the regular boys and the katoey boys. Within this divide there is a certain animosity that highlights the problems associated with gender issues in Thailand relating back to education. If you were to ask one of the katoey boys what they would like to be when they grow up, the answer is always the same:

“I want to be a beautiful woman.”

Techno’ tags: Ladyboy, Pattaya, Bangkok, Thailand, Tiffany, Transsexual

This came in tonight from The Nation:

“Having fought a rearguard public-relations battle for more than a month, the leaders of the September coup and their interim government are planning a frontal attack this week in which they will announce that progress has been made.

“The highlight will be news of the much-anticipated probe into assets of key leaders of the overthrown administration.

“The Council for National Security (CNS) announced it would commence a campaign to tell the public what had been achieved.

“It would also reveal tough new legal measures against political conflicts of interest - the biggest alleged malaise of the Thaksin regime.”

I for one am troubled by the relentless focus on the previous administration. What Thailand needs is not to look further into the past but to look into the future at ways to make some sense of the current calamity. What we are to receive next week will be some sort of justification for the actions of September 19. It has been over a month now and we are all still in the dark.

There is a lot of talk about corruption allegations, primarily focused on Thaksin, but I feel the CNS will have to come up with more than talk of the former PM’s financial immorality to make some headway with the people of Thailand.

If the corruption of the state was, in fact, a central reason for the coup, then surely by now we should have seen some hard evidence of this corruption in the form of a string of legal cases, or at least some sort of information being relayed to the general public.

“In an interview with The Nation last week, Sonthi admitted that no solid evidence had been uncovered to link Thaksin Shinawatra to major corruption cases.”

The situation has really become quite farcical now. The CNS does not appear to be a sold group. I am not excessively compelled by the thought of the announcements that are to made in the coming week.

Techno’ tags: Politics, Government, Bangkok, Thailand, Coup, Constitution

It’s true, there’s a sucker out there just waiting to be matched to a young Thai princess. The Land of Smiles is officially the last resting place of the hopeless and the failed, and I would probably go so far as to include myself in that generalization in some shape or form.

A report, in the Associated Press no less, had this to say in reference to the apparent surge in popularity Thai dating services have received:

“When John Thompson’s second marriage plummeted into divorce, the 49-year-old Hawaiian graphic designer had doubts he would ever meet the right American woman.

“On an impulse, while vacationing in Thailand, he signed up with Sweet Singles, a company that promised unlimited introductions to eligible Thai women.

“A year later, he married a 23-year-old Thai factory worker who could barely speak English, which had forced him to bring along a dictionary on their dates.”

I don’t normally expect to see this kind of story from the Associated Press, and it isn’t anything new, but I thought it really did sum up something about Thailand and the multitude of odd couples that line the streets.

I just returned from Hua Hun. It’s a city where there are very few Thai people. It’s mostly washed up jellyfish, galloping horses, dead fish lining the seafront, fat white people and buxom bar girls. The beach is rather putrid and the city feels completely devoid of life.

There are plenty of bars though, and with bars there are bar girls, each hoping to meet a rich sucker.

Say all you want about Isaan girls and their neighbours, but they certainly are cunning. I don’t have a problem with them as such, but it does seem rather farcical that some lovers, as it were, put up this ‘coupley’ front as if to justify their actions amid a world of doubters.

“A 2005 research paper by Rattana Boonmathaya of Bangkok’s Mahidol University focused on a village in northeastern Thailand where one-third of the 330 women aged 20 to 59 had chosen to marry a foreigner. Ninety-six percent of them had Swiss husbands,” again from the Associated Press today.

What is it about Swiss guys? I must have missed something there.

“Tai insisted her decision to marry Thompson had nothing to do with improving her finances.”

She sounds like a sweetheart. I only hope I will be so lucky as to meet someone as good as her. Who doesn’t speak English. And uses an online dating service.

Techno’ tags: Dating, Love, Bangkok, Thailand, Life, Girls

After the initial excitement about being asked to judge Miss International Queen 2006, my feelings of joy were soon turned into feelings of resentment and bemusement. The short story is this: I didn’t get to go. The long story is not particularly exciting, but I guess I should tell it anyway.

It was the editor of Guru who first suggested that I may be able to do it through his friend’s PR company. He gave me a number which I called and an hour later I received an email and then a phone call formally inviting me to attend. I accepted and everything seemed to be in place. I asked if my girlfriend would be able to accompany me and was told everything would be arranged. I received the invite and some info about the show. I was quietly ecstatic, this was a once in a lifetime type of thing.

I didn’t realize it was to be on television, but when I did I enquired about what I should wear. The PR company initially told me wear “a nice shirt.” An hour later the lady told me to wear “a nice shirt with a necktie.” Then half an hour after that she told me to find a jacket. I explained that I didn’t have one but would find one.

A man named Courtney called me later that evening to confirm everything and told me where to go the following night to pick up my hotel reservation and tickets. He told me it was to be on live TV so I should get myself a suit. I said this was fine and I would see him tomorrow.”

I managed to find a jacket, cleaned my shoes (without any polish) and got everything in order. I was set to leave straight after work with my girlfriend the following day. All was well until out of the blue, the PR company called me and told me that I didn’t need to go anymore. The way I was told was as if they were doing me a favour by messing up by weekend. After all the fuss that had been made they fobbed me off with some excuses and told me that they would invite me to the Miss Tiffany pageant next May. I hung up abruptly in a state of shock.

One angry text message to Courtney later and I was again fobbed off with some more excuses. The problem was, apparently, that I had said I would have to find a jacket, which I did, late Thursday night. I told Courtney that his company was completely unprofessional and that he had ruined my weekend. I also sent a long email to the PR company.

After all that excitement I left work and caught the last van down to Hua Hin on Friday night and spent three days looking at dead fish and horses. It was all very “Thai” how my weekend (and my girlfriend’s) was turned upside down with a childlike carelessness. I’m not normally so bitter but I was genuinely pleased to have the chance to do something like this.

So that’s that. My big moment dashed and my story written off before I even left Bangkok. What I was most disappointed about was that I wouldn’t get to write about my adventure. I planned to write about it for several people and I told everyone with a sort of immature enthusiasm that I had been invited to Pattaya for this event. How sad, and how feeble my tales of this weekend’s activities will now look.