Hello My Big Big Honey!: Love Letters To Bangkok Bar Girls And Their Interviews

by Dave Walker, Richard S. Ehrlich

Veteran reporter Richard Ehrlich and Dave Walker unfold a tale of love and lust in Bangkok's notorious red-light district. These interviews and correspondence with prostitutes and their patrons draw an intimate and touching portrait amidst the blaring lights and pounding music of Bangkok.

Genres: Nonfiction

First published December 31, 1998

Reviews

[Tim Denton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started reading this book several weeks ago but I frequently found myself unable to read more than a few of the letters at a time. The introductory materials provided a relatively clear and non-judgmental discussion of the collection of letters from foreign tourists professing love and proposing marriage to Thai prostitutes. While the introductions, the epilogue and a number of the interviews were very interesting and informative, particularly to someone with little or no familiarity with the situation, the letters themselves were fairly depressing. The underlying tone of desperation in so many of the letters, and the loneliness of the men who wrote them, while generating a certain sympathy for these men obscured the deeper story of the women who received them. Women turn to prostitution out of economic desperation and poverty, or, as the result of being forced into the sex trade by the men in their lives. Many prostitutes are in reality slaves forced to become sex workers. It is clear in the interviews in the book with some of the "bar girls", and even more so with the interviews with the bar owners, that the women who received these letters had few options or other opportunities available. The "customers" who wrote these letters were themselves involved in the perpetuation of the difficult circumstances these women found themselves in. I think this book makes a significant contribution to understanding how each of the three groups, the bar owners, the bar girls and the customers, see themselves and how each defines their role and relationship. It is ultimately a sad story but one worth reading.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

A somewhat dated (letters!), somewhat limited, and loosely sociological look into the relationships of western men and Thai bargirls. The interviews are more interesting than the letters, though the letters form the majority of the book.

[Richard S. Ehrlich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
43 of 46 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars roving insight from marc richard and loreen neville February 1, 2003
By marc richard and loreen neville
Format:Paperback
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".
As Richard points out though, "the odds" are really stacked "against" it [love]. "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.

[Olcaytug Sahin · Rating 1 out of 5]

kinda boring.

[Jessica King · Rating 1 out of 5]

I rated this "do not like it" NOT because it's a bad book. The authors put a ton of what had to be hard, complicated, heartbreaking work into putting this together. They deserve an award.

But I couldn't say I "liked" it. It's the limited rating wording.

Honestly, after reading half the book, it just broke me up so bad I had to put it down. Perhaps I'll finish it when I'm safely in a relationship myself. Reading this single? Don't do it.

These ladies are tour guides with happy endings. Though most often, because of the differences in culture, they are not so happy endings. It raises so many unanswered questions. Normally I love that in a book - but this subject just breaks my heart.

[Chelsea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only gave this book a two because of the comedic factor. I'm not sure it was meant to be funny, and mostly it is sad and pathetic. Lonely men with issues going to Thai prostitutes for real love?! Can they be that ignorant? Apparently so, and this book documents it for everyone to read. Basically, the men are predators and the women are, too. The men think they can purchase love, and the women are desperate enough to pretend to love these men if it means escaping the hell they currently live in. Sad. Can you tell this book annoyed me?

[Петър Стойков · Rating 2 out of 5]

Книга за проституцията в Тайланд, където първата една трета е безсмислени предговори, а по-голямата част от останалото е писма на клиенти, които са се влюбили в момичетата и им пишат любовни писма от родните си страни. По-скучно е, отколкото изглежда като го обяснявам.

Единственото интересно нещо са двете интервюта със западняци, собственици на барове с момичета, които обясняват за бизнеса, но това е доста малка част от книгата.

[Anthony Irven · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dated book about the trials and tribulations of being a poor female in Thailand in the 1990s.
Ending on an optimistic note, that there is good in all of us.
Looking at it through a Marxist perspective, it shows how we are oppressed by the rich and wealthy. Nothing new there.
A quaint sociological look at Patpong in the 90s.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

The letters become numbingly repetitive after a while and I found myself skipping ahead to the next interview with an active or former bar girl. Even so, it's a reasonably interesting expose of the Patpong sex industry.

[Alle Bücher müssen gelesen werden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read loveletters all day. It was a good day.