Day #5: Another Layer Off.

Friday, 2016, 8 January.

The day started off with a two hour long interview with the president of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), and through this interview, we have gained various new insights from his affirmative disposition towards tourism in Thailand. Instead of focusing all the attention on criticizing the negative behaviors of the Chinese tourists, the president highlighted how collaboration between various authorities greatly facilitates the handling of the situation of the influx of Chinese tourists and the unintentional misbehavior that follow. He emphasized that it goes both ways, that both parties – the locals and the tourists – have a part to play in maintaining a healthy relationship between both host and receiving countries. What he said was really applicable as I find that the media’s extensive reports on crude behaviors of China tourists only serve to fuel greater resentment against them which does nothing to alleviate the problem.

In the afternoon, very unwillingly, we had to bid farewell to Yok. On top of possessing an affable personality which made interacting with her effortless, she also had been a tremendous help to us throughout the trip and a marvelous guide too, bringing us to places we would never have known without the expertise of a local. All good things will ultimately come to an end but our friendship will definitely not end here as we look forward to the next reunion.

At night, we visited a Cabaret show, which is a unique experience because of the location (a corner in the night market) and the hyped-up atmosphere. However, seeing the forced smiles on some of the lady-boys’ faces tell me that they do not really want to be there. Most of them were probably forced into such business, because they were left with no other choice. It is definitely not an easy trade as the people are usually subjected to belittlement and harsh judgements, with slurs on their ambiguous gender identities. Once the glittering masks and makeup are removed, a haggard face full of fatigue and sorrow reveals itself.