Every night in Patpong, there are 4000+ women/teens/men/ladyboys who work in the bars. Then there are the vendors and workers who run the night market, the bar owners and staff, etc.
Then there are the children.
Some of the vendors bring their kids, because it might be safer for them to be in that environment than to be at home alone. Or maybe because it doesn’t seem like there’s anything wrong with it. There are the children of the bar staff and the dancers. And then there are the children who are vendors themselves… and we suspect are also sold along with their products.
“Little Pong” started in October 2011, when several of my teammates were prayer walking, sat a garden bar, and saw children. Night after night after that, they could be found coloring, playing… having fun… letting the kids be kids. They bought them Cokes so we could “rent” the tables, which seemed insane to everyone around …. because Coke is more expensive than beer.
Why waste it on the children?
People began to know us and throughout the years, knew there would be a place for the kids at that same garden bar each night while we were there. Touts (men and women with sex menus for the shows on the upper floors) would bring children to us so we could play with them. They knew it was a safe place, that we were there because we loved the children.
Tuesday night in Patpong, Connie sent two of my teammates and I on a prayer walk through the market until we found the garden bar our teams always used for children’s ministry. While walking and greeting the vendors who have become friends over the past few trips, I kept my eyes out for kids.
There were none.
Then, a female tout we’d looked for for the past two nights came into view. We hugged and greeted each other, then she took my arm and led us to the garden bar that was our destination. Within minutes, a young girl came walked nearby. Then something distracted my attention, and when I looked back, she was gone. But my teammate spotted her walking away and pointed her out.
I called her over and she came quickly, carrying her bouquet of roses. They were in bunches and wrapped in plastic. She was a little girl with short hair and light in her eyes. I asked her what her name was, and she leaned forward to yell in my ear above the music, as if she had a secret.
Her name, while different than the young woman I told you about in part one, also literally translated, meant “Beauty.”
“What a beautiful name!” I exclaimed. “How much are your roses?”
Again, she leaned forward, her little girl fairy dust as sweet as her breath on my ear: “100 baht” (a little over $3).
My impulse was to buy all of the flowers (maybe 5 sets- $15) so that she could sit with us all night. But an earlier team had done that with different child vendors and found that soon their bosses would show up with more flowers for them to sell.
There’s always something to sell, more to be sold.
Instead, I smiled and nodded at Becky, who had pulled out coloring books and crayons. “Do you want to color, Beauty?”
Her eyes shone with excitement and she reached for a crayon. Becky handed it to her and offered to hold her flowers. The next thing we know, this little girl was standing between us, bent over the table, coloring as her pigtails bobbed on top of her head.
Robyn pulled out the chair next to her, across the table. “Do you want to sit so you can color better?”
Beauty considered it for a moment, then sat. We scooted the rest of her box of crayons over to her. Robyn and I shared another. I set to work trying to capture Madam Blueberry in all her glory. We all took turns laughing and interacting with this girl, especially Becky, who the girl developed a sweet connection with.
“Do you want a Coca-Cola?” I ask her. The waiter translated and she shook her head, an unsure look in her eyes.
The waiter at this point had brought ours, so I point at the little girl and order one for her, if nothing else to “buy” our spot at the table. When it came, her eyes grew wider than 50 cent pieces. Laughing, Becky popped the tab for her and gave her the straw. Beauty leaned over and gulped it, eyes dancing.
Apparently, she did want the Coke. She just thought it was too good to be true.
*photos and collage by Connie Rock.
Then the female tout who’d led us to the table grabbed my shoulders and pulled me so that I leaned into the alley, pointing and saying something I couldn’t understand. Finally, I realized she was saying, “Little girl”, just as another girl, who we’d known since the first “Little Pong” came into view. She was the daughter of a nearby vendor. We’ve watched her grow over the past two years from a chubby child to a beautiful girl. Her mother motioned for her to join us and she sat next to me. I push my half-finished Madam Blueberry over to her, which she promptly started coloring red, and ordered her a Coke.
This girl cracks me up every time I see her, because she is so serious about her coloring. Everything is precise with her. We also learned last year that she loves cameras, as a teammate left her camera at the table and this little girl filled her mega-memory card with photo-after-photo of our corner of Patpong through her eyes. Which is probably why she is more hesitant than other children who’ve joined us at the table… after all, she’s grown up here and seen things little girls should never see.
But for two years, she’s known this corner is safe.
A few moments later, Connie arrived with the rest of the team, and we all sat together coloring, drinking Coke, and playing. By now, “Beauty” had completed 4 pages, and was ready to start another. We gave her the entire coloring book and the crayons. She also had several bracelets tied on her wrist as well, as we all smiled into her sweet face and told her that she was beautiful and God loved her.
I asked her again about the flowers. “Are you giving me the best price?” I teased. She nodded solemnly as several of us bought roses from her.
When Beauty left a few minutes later with her boss, who had come to find her, she skipped. She stopped and twirled. She smiled and sprinkled her little girl fairy dust down the row, past the touts and the bar staff, back to our table.
I realized after she left, that other than telling us her name and the price of the roses, this flower child didn’t say a word.
The other little girl didn’t say anything either. When she finished coloring, she went back to her mother. Dana, a teammate, gave her a bottle of bubbles and she jumped to catch them while her mother blew them all around.
In the Red Light District, life went on. Customers entered and exited bars, shopped in the night market, and walked past as if they didn’t see us. Girls danced and bar workers called out to anyone nearby to get them to enter inside. Patpong hummed with its usual activity.
4000+ women working to pay off debts. Hoping for a better life.
And two little girls who barely said a word, but for a few hours one night, knew they were safe.
