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Deviousness `anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
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Sta.sh
omg I love your landscape designs! They've got major character.
I think your view of Bangkok is a little bit at odds of the experience of living as a queer in this city, but that's just from my perspective. It's one thing to be a tourist, it's another to be a resident. I don't know if you can speak Thai fluently or not, but in the case you can't, I
Sure, there are nice little accepting groups here and there like in any big city, but that's like visiting RIS in its heydey and saying that the people of Thailand speak English very well.
There is truth to your views though- Bangkok is certainly a haven for foreign LGBT people. It's completely okay to be white and openly gay. That's 100% fine and no one will think you any less for it, because they're farang. It's like being an exchange student- I got in trouble for "backtalk" but exchange students don't- it's excusable because they're foreign and white.
Any way it goes, let's put it this way: I'm closeted, I'm going to STAY closeted, and when the time comes, I'm going to marry a man, no question about it. This is the situation for many of us, in the 'haven.'
I definitely see how Bangkok can appear that way to a tourist and foreigner, and in a time like this, it's not right for me to be saying anything that hurts our image.
Bangkok is very open and embraces diversity and tolerance in visitors, and is very progressive compared to China and Malaysia.
But again, Bangkok was just a reference point from an aesthetics point of view. On the front Tortuga is meant to be fun, bright, vivacious, which is what Bangkok is to an outsider that's never been there before. It has its clubs and its lights, but it's also a pirate port, which means there are shootouts and violent disagreements all the time. It's not just Bangkok I'm referencing, Las Vegas and other cities like that as well, but Bangkok is the only one I've been to so I associate more with it (also to a western/European audience Asia is much more exotic and "spicy" than, say, Las Vegas. Tortuga having an Asian edge immediately makes it more of a rarity in the Colonial Caribbean).
Thanks for the insight nonetheless. It's a shame to hear that this close-mindedness really does permeate around the globe, and that it has to affect so many people as a result.
Well, diversity and tolerance doesn't come to mind when I think of living in Bangkok. I definitely understand how it seems that way, and I also think that that is a view we encourage as our world image- "Doesn't matter who you are, come visit Thailand." It's a mask, and it works for us. But Bangkok is only the pinnacle of progressiveness when you compare it to Malaysia. We love our homogeneity. Everyone wants to fit in with their group, not break out alone. Media tells a lot about a society, and look at ours. A lot of music reviews in the US are about "refreshingly new style" or "groundbreaking, novel use of sound," or how the musician is doing something different from the rest. You don't really see that lauded here. We don't actually like people being totally different than the mainstream...
Plenty of people go to Bangkok often. They come here to let loose steam, to party hard and have fun- not to work, fit in, or have a family. They're outside of our society and not held by it. They dip in, experience our "exotic carefree culture," and then go back. Half my condo's filled with rich people from somewhere else who come here sometimes to have fun. Their experiences are a great deal different than ours- we work here, live here, have families here- our everything is here, and this is our society. They have nothing but praise for Thai people, saying we're so welcoming, generous, and friendly, (they clearly have not met my extended family,) and they'd love to go back next vacation. But we're not Danny Boyle's 'The Beach,' and we're not Murray Head's song "Night in Bangkok" or something.
You're right that Asia is a lot more conservative than the West, and beyond the the government, the society as whole, it's all quite conservative. I mean, imagine if They had tried half this stuff on America. There'd be bloody murder, but in Thailand? No, we figured that we don't really need our freedom of speech because fighting for it could get you into an uncomfortable situation. IE jail. Even my classmates didn't care beyond an academic argument here and there. You have to be careful what you say. And Thai people don't really like changing things... The status quo is nice and tidy, after all. I read in an etiquette book that if everyone else likes something, you'd better pretend to like it too. I can't say how true it is for here.
I'm really sorry for disagreeing with you. I like your art a lot and I think your characters are so vivid, lively, and hilarious. But Bangkok is my home and even if I'm not always proud of it, imagine if you were German, and someone describes your country as the birthplace of Harry Potter and known for its Vienna sausages and World War I. You are right that Bangkok is a great place for white LGBT tourists with strong currency. I think that Bangkok (not the tourist Bangkok- the one where Thai people live and work), as a reference point, might have a great deal more in common with the Commodore than the pirates.