editor’s note: We have written about Our Place before and I am not a big fan but this is post by someone who used to work there.
They’re there at just about every go-go on Soi Cowboy, some more visible than others. The doormen are usually the last thing one sees before disappearing into the murky depths of the go-go by passing through the curtain. As a regular of Our Place, a bar at the very end of Cowboy, opposite Baccara, I got to meet just about every member of the staff in the club, from the slightly larger, not as beautiful women sitting out front brandishing the ‘draft beer 70 baht all night’ placards to the most beautiful dancers and everyone in between (as mentioned in previous articles about 7/8 on the beauty scale). The final 2 people I met over the course of a month or so, were some of the funniest people I’ve ever met… the doormen – Lek and Ko. Last week, forsaking my usual beer or two inside chatting with the service staff and dancers I decided to go outside and sit with those guys. After chatting all the way up to 2:30am when the club had to close, I offered to help pack up the table and chairs outside, it was in the process of helping out when I was asked by Lek “would you like to try being a doorman with us?”, I replied “life’s short, why not?”
The next day came and I was asked to turn up around 9:30pm when the owner wouldn’t be hanging around (Ko explained to me that the owner was a bit of a tosser in Thai). I was sat down at the door and given a briefing by the boys and the mamasan. The briefing only really consisted of a ‘don’t start anything and if you get into trouble call out and the other doormen from the other clubs will come help’ and the handing over of a Thai amulet on a necklace (necessary accessory I’m led to believe), followed by an instruction from the mamasan that I had to have a drink in my vicinity at all times in case the owner turned up, that way I’d look like a customer. You wouldn’t think it, but being a doorman is actually a very entertaining job, getting to watch all the people coming and going, getting to flirt with the Baccara girls every now and again and getting to laugh and joke with the other doormen and the girls as they come out to get customers (they treat you very differently when you’re ‘working’ there, but it’s in a good way, you get a sense that they’re being more genuine as they’re not trying to charm a drink or barfine out of you).
After only a few nights of doing this, I ended up having the numbers to a few of the Baccara girls, without actually having to go inside or pay for any drinks, and I now have all the street stall vendors and the girls from the clubs in the immediate vicinity knowing my name (including the rather weird but funny khatoey).
Some of my observations from a few nights of being a doorman (remember these are observations about Soi Cowboy, I can’t generalise for other areas):
- A huge majority of the girls in the clubs have Thai boyfriends that also work in Cowboy (not really a revelation for some, I know)
- The amount of Japanese is definitely increasing, every second or third customer wandering through the gauntlet seemed to be a group of Japanese (I studied Japanese a few years ago and was asked by the mamasan to teach some to the girls – that shows how their presence is getting more significant.) I leave it up to your own opinion whether an increase in Japanese will be good or bad in the long run.
- You wouldn’t think it, but the gogos actually have a dress policy – I was forced to stop a drunken farang from entering because he wasn’t wearing shoes. He took offence, but then I whispered that there were more beautiful girls closer to Sukhumvit road, which pleased him and he took off. Needless to say, no other clubs would let him in.
- If you’ve ever been to Cowboy, you’ve most likely come across two small children (one boy, one girl) selling flowers, they seem very sweet, and that’s how I thought of them, until I watched them in action. Ko explained to me that they are banned from hanging around in the front of the bar as they tend to say really terrible things and can turn violent. The little boy punched me in the stomach when I told him that 100 baht for his dead rose was too expensive.
- There are probably a few out there reading this, and I take my hat off to you – I’m talking about the guys that have perfected the 5 second analysis of a bar. I swear these guys open the curtain and then leave again in under 5 seconds – it’s not just Our Place bar, but I’ve seen them do it in Baccara, Shark Bar, Midnite, and other bars in the area.
- This seems counterintuitive, but some of the horniest girls tend to be the some of the girls returning from a short time (must be all the cash and having the job started but not finished by their probably drunk ‘partner’). I had so many girls run over to introduce themselves, hug me, kiss me and try to pull me to their respective bars.
- There are more farang women in cowboy than I ever thought. I only found this out because Lek joked with me about me finding him a farang woman for him to sleep with. Every farang girl that walked past I’d grab Lek and say ‘chawp mai?’ Who knows why they’re there or why their farang boyfriends have taken them.
- There’s a Thai guy that sells pirated CDs next to the ‘@corner’ bar, that guy is a real character and is hilarious. You’ll often see him taking the piss out of the khatoey mentioned earlier.
- It’s impossible to convince a chang (elephant) wandering up and down the Soi to come inside a bar. I know… I tried, and I’m not just talking about the farang girlfriends (see above)
- This may come as a bit of a surprise to some people, but some of the girls actually cry when the customers leave, from a combination of sadness that some money has just gone walking out the door and also because they really like the customer. I was on the ‘hug the girl and tell her everything will be alright, that customer will come back or a better one will come’ duty a few times.
- There is actually a rule for how long a punter is allowed to stay in a club without ordering a drink. I was forced to evict a group of people after 30 minutes of not ordering a drink after finishing their first round. I was told by Lek that they are more lenient on individuals and small groups that take a little bit of time between drinks, but groups bigger than 3 people take up too much valuable space, and if they’re not bringing in money for the bar, they have to go.
- While sometimes it doesn’t seem it, the dancers are actually pretty selective about who they approach. Before you start feeling too chuffed boys, it depends on the girl’s mood. Sitting with the dancers, when they come out the front to try to flag down passers-by I observed the kind of people they were targeting. Depending on their mood, they’ll exclusively target either a) Japanese b) young farang or c) older farang with a bit of coin, it’s never a mixture of the 3. Sometimes it will evolve over the night, the closer to 2am the lower the standards. If you get aggressively hounded all through the gauntlet, and I mean girls grabbing you, standing in front of you, pulling you or any other method of impeding your progress, you can pick and choose tonight my friend.
- Our Place is understaffed. Anyone interested in working as a dancer or service staff? Drop your resume in ASAP
On my final night as a bouncer I met the owner of Our Place – “the Arab”. I’d already met with him once, and I’d told him that the way to fix his money problems was to spend less on lighting and to spend more on girls salaries (the girls get paid between 7500 and 12000 baht depending on what their job is, etc which is pretty low compared to other clubs – note: this salary doesn’t include the money from the mandatory lady drinks and barfines). I also suggested that he should develop the club further so that it was unique from all his other bars (midnite, etc). I was told to come back ‘when I owned my own bar and had experience’; this was the start of the now infamous shows…
In my meeting with the owner on my last night I told him about the low quality of the shows and the trashing the club was getting in many articles in many different forms of media. Once again I was dismissed and told that income had risen since the starting of the shows, I was again dismissed when I raised the possibility that this increase probably came from people checking it out to see if it has improved and leaving disappointed. Unless the owner gets less arrogant, Our Place is gonna become No One’s Place, which for most punters, including myself, admittedly, would be welcome news if new and better management could be found and quite a few of the staff were allowed to stay on.
I don’t mind the money so much but I hate wasting time in a bar if there’s nothing I like. Hence walk up open the curtain. Sometimes a Once round but usally just turn around and walk out. Got it down to about 2-3 seconds. My friends hate it when I do this. They would never do it. But I have a mission to complete and it won’t get done sitting in a bar of mingers for 20 mins fat-necking a vodka coke. Made worse by mingers trying it on with you and asking for drinks. I don’t like saying no to the girls.
99% have Thai boy friends.
When I first came to Thailand my friend who had been here about 5 years told me you don’t choose the girls they choose you. Took me a long time to believe this one. I tend to turn down the first one no matter how fit because. I’m not that easy.
View all comments by Young Royal
Few of my Rainbow friends i’m in contact with have moved to Soi Cowboy as there not liking the scene as much as they use to. They said the fun is going out of it.
View all comments by Young Royal
This is the most interesting post I’ve read in a while. Thanks for having the idea in the first place, then actually doing the job, and writing it up! I salute you for “committing an act of journalism,” and that’s a compliment.
IMHO there is no more accurate picture of any scene than being part of the “scenery” (a worker) and being in the same situation night-after-night, where the variables are the people, and their behavior. We who tend to flit about (and oh yeah I’ve done the 5-second-check-it-out more times than I can remember) don’t see the bigger picture.
Many interesting things about your post, but what strikes me is the humanity of the working gals. They’ve got boyfriends, they get horny after a short-time where their own satisfaction wasn’t part of the bargain, and they get sad when a customer they like toddles off without them. I’m not saying these same girls wouldn’t find some starry-eyed newbie, clean out his wallet, see him tearfully to the airport and put him on a 30K monthly “reverse-retainer” for their sick-water-buffalo or “hairdressing lessons.” But, their humanity shines through…along with the street’s characters and general ambience. And, great line to the barefoot farang, good thinking!
It strikes me that there’s a cottage-industry teaching Japanese to bargirls…the problem is figuring out how to teach them just enough to seem “kawaii” and clueless without frightening the Japanese punters. A Nihongo-for-TGs course, fees negotiable of course!
Thanks again.
JtB
View all comments by Jack B
Very nice article. Good to see a different angle, and it sounds like a very interesting few days.
I’ve also done the five-second sweep. You can tell very quickly if there are any stunners, and don’t need to sit there with a drink assessing the situation for 10 minutes while fending off thirsty girls.
On the doorwomen, I hate it when one of them catches your eye because she looks good, and even if you can actually persuade her to come inside and sit with you she soon has to return to her post. Excuse me. I’ve chosen the girl I want, I’m buying her drinks. What’s the deal here?
View all comments by Bangkok Barry
Most door girls I know have worked inside before and are now working outside because they have a boyfriend that doesn’t want them working inside. They already know the people in the biz so it’s easy for them to get the job. Similarly are the service girls. With both service and door girls, even one’s with boyfriends, as you probably know already they also go with customers from time to time. It’s just a bit more selective for them.
The exception to his being Jase of course, although it sounds like he is available as well. To the girls in the neighborhood that is.
View all comments by pmmp
Since you “worked” with ‘em, get any idea (approximately) how much the dancers who get pulled regularly (i.e., the good looking, youngish, not fat ones) actually make on a monthly basis (TOTAL income==>salary, drinks, share of bar fine and ST/LT payments)?
Additionally, what’s the “record”, while you were there, for the same girl going short-time in one night?
View all comments by Jack Dawson
great article
@ JD i got chatting to a girl who works/worked in big dogs in nana (she only ‘worked’ at the bar a few days of the month as she was always getting snapped up within a few hours for 2 weeks stays) and she told me most months she pulls in 100k baht plus - she plans to work for another year and head back north and stay weith her family
as regards to record for guys, i got stuck chatting to some pleb on the flight over who bent my ear off for the whole 11hours and he said he knew a girl in pattaya and her record was 13 in a day
obviously BKK isnt as crazy as Pattaya but gives an indication as to the hammering these poor girls take
View all comments by myspace.com/penfold_xxx
Nice insiders look at the biz. Thanks for the research and share more experiences.
~h
View all comments by ~h
Cheers guys
@JD the record number I saw was 5 in one night, but that was at the time I was there, and this is between 6pm and 2am. I have no idea what the total income over a month is, but for the girls of Our Place, who aren’t as hot as in other bars, I don’t see it being anywhere near as high as 100k a month. In saying that though, most of the girls have foreign ’sponsors’ overseas, so the combination of income from the 2 might well be up there.
@Jack D: the humanity was something that did strike me somewhat, especially in the industry that they’re in. If the girls really are pulling in that much in monthly income, I’m sure we could get a very profitable Japanese tutoring service going
View all comments by Jase
Great plan on the tutoring, I can see it now: Nihongo Juku for Tai Gyaru…let’s challenge Japanese language!
We’d need a classroom of course, and some phrasebooks. Also a voice coach to make their voices go up an octave on cue. Picking out Japanese names for the ladies would be a piece of cake, but it’d be cute to make some Thai/Japanese mashups (”kombanwa, genki…Daengko-chan?”).
There would have to be some crash-courses in how to deal with the REALLY shy ones (the momma’s boys). And given that a certain percentage of these guys have tsukebe-tendencies, an optional lesson in kink for gals who might want to explore this niche market. If you’ve ever checked out a BDSM mag in Tokyo you know what those guys pay for those services.
We’ll know we’ve succeeded when Daengko and Mikilek can pop their voice an octave and gush “sugoi shacho!” in unison! Graduation time…we’ll have to figure out some appropriate ceremonies
JtB
View all comments by Jack B
Did you think about what will happen to the two doormen and the mamasan WHEN the owner of Our Place reads this?
- “Ko explained to me that the owner was a bit of a tosser in Thai”
- “followed by an instruction from the mamasan that I had to have a drink in my vicinity at all times in case the owner turned up, that way I’d look like a customer”
This is really irresponsible.
View all comments by burt
@Burt: firstly, the owner of Our Place has never read this site and probably never will - this is evidenced by the fact that he doesn’t believe me when I tell him the sort of opinions that exist towards Our Place actually do exist. Secondly, I forgot to mention, Lek and Ko were both fully supportive of me writing this piece but Ko asked me to put a different name for him, sorry I forgot to mention this. There are more than 2 thai doorman that work at Our Place, including interchanges with the other bars in Cowboy, so it would be impossible for him to know who it was. Thirdly, the owner found out and agreed with your 2nd statement, because he didn’t want alot of farang turning up demanding to do the same.
View all comments by Jase
There’s another thing about Our Place that gives me the hump. Jase didn’t mention that the barfine is eight hundred baht up until nine o’clock then drops to six hundred baht. I bottle of Heineken is one hundred baht for you but if you buy a Heineken for one of the girls it’s one hundred and seventy baht a pop. This kind of thing gets a newbie like me voting with his feet.
View all comments by Union Hill
what a great thread. Jase - thanks for the post and for chiming in on the comments. Makes for a great combo.
burt - I totally disagree. The one thing the owner could do is read such sites like this and learn about his customers. He might learn why most of his bars suck and why after he buys them they are doing worse than when he touched them. He may actually learn a thing or two and turn his bars around. I think jase covered it well.
UH - amen. our place is doomed. The funny thing is the other owners on coyboy are reveling in how this dude is buying places and ruining them thus making the established players with better bars even busier.
View all comments by smitty
As far as I know about Shark bar. If a girl is barfined and comes back to the bar she is not allowed to dance again. She has to hold the boards outside. This is the mamasans rule to be fairer to the girls who haven’t been barfined yet. I discovered this waiting for a girl to come in so I asked her friend to get her and she explained it to me. I would love to work there for a month would be a great insight.
View all comments by Young Royal
yr: If you want to intern for free at the Mango maybe we can work something out ;). Weird policy by Shark but if anybody can get away with it they can. They have such a strong lineup. Their C team is many a GoGo’s A team.
Just fyi, if a girl gets barfined here they can come back to work. Up to them. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, in the spirit of Apocalypse Now: There’s nothing like the smell of a girl coming back from a shorttime.
View all comments by pmmp
I’ll give it some thought, cheers pmmp. One of the Hotties at Shark has just had a boob job. Can’t remember her number but looks stunning now but she’s shy about it. So funny.
View all comments by Young Royal
Nice post, Jase. Great undercover work.
I was touched to hear the girls sometimes cry when a customer they like gets away. I’ve always seen them as human, but had no idea they were THAT human.
Keep up the good work!
View all comments by Mr Lucky