Pattaya

Pattaya

Daddy’s Hobby Previews

Published by Owen Jones on 27 December 2019

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Daddy's Hobby Previews

Daddy’s Hobby Previews

Daddy’s Hobby Previews

This blog post, Daddy’s Hobby‘s Previews contains previews on Amazon of BEHIND THE SMILE – The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl in Pattaya” volume 1: Daddy’s Hobby in all the languages I currently have available: English, German and Portuguese. In some cases, there will be special offers and free audiobooks, while stocks last.

Lek was born the eldest child of four in a typical rice farming family. She did not expect to do anything any different from the other girls in her class in the northern rice belt of Thailand.

Typically that would be: work in the fields for a few years; have a few babies; give them to mum to take care of and back to work until her kids had their own children and she could stop working to take care of them.

One day a catastrophe occurred out of the blue – her father died young and with huge debts that the family knew nothing about. Lek was twenty and she was the only one who could prevent foreclosure. However, the only way she knew was to go to work in her cousin’s bar in Pattaya.

She went as a waitress-cum-cashier, but when she realised that she was pregnant by her worthless, estranged husband, things had to change. She had the baby, gave it to her mother to look after and went back to work. However, now she needed real money to provide a better life for her child and to make up for spending its whole youth 500 miles away. She drifted into the tourist sex industry.

The book relates some of her ‘adventures’, her dreams and nightmares and her ‘modus operandi’. It tries to show, from Lek’s point of view, what it really is like to be a Thai bar girl – the hopes and frustrations, the hopes and the let-downs, the hopes and the lies and deceit that are part of her every day life.

One day she meets a man she likes and he likes her too. Nothing new there, it had happened hundreds of times, but she feels that it is different. They have a wonderful four weeks together and then he goes home – as they all had, leaving more promises and more hopes.

This one returns, but real life with a real boyfriend is not as easy as she had dreamed it would be. They go through good and bad times, but will they stay together and for how long?

After all she has been through, will she be able to be a regular girlfriend or even a wife again? Will she ever really be able to trust a man enough again either? Or would she be better off giving up her dreams and carrying on working in the bar?

Lek begins to find out that getting what you wish for is not always as good as you thought it would be.

‘Behind The Smile’ refers to the fact that Thailand is known the world over as ‘The Land of Smiles’.

English

German

Portuguese

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Daddy’s Hobby – Hinter ihrem Lächeln

Published by Owen Jones on 3 July 2019

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Das Buchcover von 'Hinter ihrem Lächeln' - Band eins 'Daddy's Hobby' - 'Bücher auf Deutsch'
Bücher auf Deutsch

Daddy’s Hobby – Hinter ihrem Lächeln

Die Geschichte von Lek, einem Barmädchen in Pattaya

von

Owen Jones

Übersetzt von

Patricia Stroleny

Lek ist als Älteste von vier Geschwistern in eine typische Familie von Reisbauern hineingeboren worden. Sie hatte nie erwartet, dass sich ihr Leben anders entwickeln würde als das ihrer Klassenkameradinnen in ihrem Dorf im Norden Thailands. Normalerwise hätte dies bedeutet, ein paar Jahre lang auf dem Feld zu arbeiten, ein paar Kinder zu bekommen, sie dann zu ihrer Mutter zu geben, um weiter auf dem Feld zu arbeiten, bis ihre Kinder eines Tages selbst Kinder bekommen würden und sie an der Reihe wäre, auf diese aufzupassen.

Katastrophe

Eines Tages passierte jedoch aus heiterem Himmel eine Katastrophe: Ihr Vater starb jung und hinterließ einen Schuldenberg, von dem seine Familie bis dahin nichts gewusst hatte. Lek war zu der Zeit zwanzig Jahre alt und die Einzige in ihrer Familie, die eine Zwangsvollstreckung abwenden konnte. Jedoch war ihre einzige Option, nach Pattaya zu gehen, um dort in der Bar ihrer Cousine zu arbeiten. Sie fing als Kellnerin an und merkte bald, dass sie von ihrem Ehemann, mit dem sie sich zu der Zeit schon längst auseinandergelebt hatte, schwanger war. Nun musste sich einiges ändern. Sie bekam ihre Tochter, ließ sie bei ihrer Mutter, um auf sie aufzupassen und kehrte  nach Pattaya zurück, um weiter zu arbeiten. Nun musste sie mehr Geld verdienen, um ihrer Tochter ein gutes Leben zu ermöglichen und die Tatsache, dass sie fast 1000 Kilometer trennten, wiedergutzumachen. So driftete sie in die Sexindustrie ab.

Daddy’s Hobby

In diesem Buch geht es um ihre Abenteuer, ihre Träume und Alpträume, sowie ihren Modus Operandi. Es soll aus Leks Sicht erzählen, wie es wirklich ist, ein Barmädchen in Thailand zu sein – mit allen Hoffnungen und Enttäuschungen, die damit einhergehen und zum Alltag gehören.

Eines Tages lernt sie einen Mann kennen, den sie wirklich mag und der ihre Gefühle erwiedert. Das allein ist nichts Neues, es ist ihr schon viele Male zuvor passiert, doch diesmal fühlt es sich anders an als sonst. Sie verbringen vier wundervolle Wochen zusammen, doch dann muss er zurück in seine Heimat – und wie so viele Männer vor ihm hinterlässt er eine Menge Versprechen und Hoffnungen. Und er kommt zurück. Aber das wirkliche Leben mit einem wirklichen Partner ist nicht so einfach, wie Lek es sich erträumt hatte.

Träume

Sie machen gute und shclechte Zeiten zusammen durch, aber werden sie zusammenbleiben und wenn ja, wie lange? Wird sie nach allem, was sie durchgemacht hat, überhaupt in der Lage sein, wieder eine ganz normale Feundin und Ehefrau zu sein? Wird sie wieder in der Lage sein, einem Mann wirklich zu vertrauen? Oder wäre es das Beste, ihre Träume übe Bord zu werfen und einfach weiter in der Bar zu arbeiten? Lek lernt nach und nach, dass zu bekommen, was man sich gewünscht hat, nicht immer so ist, wie man es sich vorgestellt hatte.

Der Titel “Hinter ihrem Lächeln” bezieht sich darauf, dass Thailand auf der ganzen Welt als das Land des Lächelns bekannt ist.

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Behind The Smile – Daddy’s Hobby

Published by Owen Jones on 28 March 2019

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Behind The Smile - audiobook cover
Behind The Smile – audiobook

Behind The Smile – Daddy’s Hobby

Volume 1 of Behind The Smile

by Owen Jones

Narrated by John Roberts

Lek was born the eldest child of four in a typical rice farming family. She did not expect to do anything any different from the other girls in her class in the northern rice belt of Thailand.

Typically that would be: work in the fields for a few years; have a few babies; give them to mum to take care of and back to work until her kids had their own children and she could stop working to take care of them.

One day a catastrophe occurred out of the blue – her father died young and with huge debts that the family knew nothing about. Lek was twenty and she was the only one who could prevent foreclosure. However, the only way she knew was to go to work in her cousin’s bar in Pattaya.

Daddy’s Hobby

She went as a waitress-cum-cashier to Pattaya, but when she realised that she was pregnant by her worthless, estranged husband, things had to change. She had the baby, gave it to her mother to look after and went back to work. However, now she needed real money to provide a better life for her child and to make up for spending its whole youth 500 miles away. She drifted into the tourist sex industry.

The book relates some of her ‘adventures’, her dreams and nightmares and her ‘modus operandi’. It tries to show, from Lek’s point of view, what it really is like to be a Pattaya Thai bar girl – the hopes and frustrations, the hopes and the let-downs, the hopes and the lies and deceit that are part of her every day life.

One day she meets a man she likes and he likes her too. Nothing new there, it had happened hundreds of times, but she feels that it is different. They have a wonderful four weeks together and then he goes home… as they all had, leaving more promises and more hopes.

This one returns. However, real life with a real boyfriend is not as easy as she had dreamed it would be. They go through good and bad times, but will they stay together and for how long?

Behind The Smile

After all she has been through, will she be able to be a regular girlfriend or even a wife again? Will she ever really be able to trust a man enough again either? Or would she be better off giving up her dreams and carrying on working in the bar?

Lek begins to find out that getting what you wish for is not always as good as you thought it would be.

Behind The Smile – Daddy’s Hobby: ‘Behind The Smile’ refers to the fact that Thailand is known the world over as ‘The Land of Smiles’, and Daddy’s Hobby was the bar where Lek worked.

Behind The Smile – Daddy’s Hobby audiobook link: Tektime

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Lek – The Beginning – Review

Published by Owen Jones on 21 July 2018

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The Beginning - volume 7 in the series Behind The Smile

The Beginning – volume 7 in the series Behind The Smile

The Beginning

Behind The Smile – The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl in Pattaya

(volume 7)

by Owen Jones

Review by Barry Boy

The Beginning is volume seven in the much-liked series Behind The Smile – The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl in Pattaya by Owen Jones.

Volume One in the series began when Lek was twenty-two and already working in Daddy’s Hobby in Pattaya, Volume Seven goes back to before she was even born – just before, to the days when her mother was young and working in the ‘na’ or rice fields.

Even nowadays, life as a Thai rice-farmer is hard, but for many, there is some mechanisation, but, then, in the early Seventies, it was mostly manual labour.

Pang and her husband, Maar, lived with Pang’s parents and worked their land. They all got on well, and worked for a better future for their family. One day, Pang announces that she is pregnant with their first child, and their lives change, as it always has done in all families around the world.

Lek has a happy childhood on the exterior, but she has her internal dialogue about her fears and insecurities. Ayr and Goong, her best friends, are there to help, but they drift apart for a while when Lek is forced to leave school at the age of twelve.

The stigma is to remain with her all her life.

The Beginning is written in the third person and the cover is apposite, being the same, except in title and colour, as the previous six. It is instantly recognisable in pink, being a diluted form of the colour of Volume One, which is red.

The Beginning: Behind The Smile -The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl in Pattaya (volume 7) will be published on December 26th, 2017 for $3.99, but the price will rice on January 1st to $4.99. However, you can pre-order it now for $2.99 at a discount of up to 45% and have it delivered to your device on Boxing Day, while you are recovering from a hectic Christmas Day.

What could be better?

Pre-order here:

Smashwords: http://smarturl.it/lek7?IQid=mps

Amazon: http://smarturl.it/lek7am?IQid=mps

Kobo: http://smarturl.it/lek7kobo?IQid=mps

It also gives you 25 days to catch up on any Lek Books that you haven’t read yet.

See the full list here: http://smarturl.it/my-books?IQid=mps

That makes two of the volumes that are NaNoWriMo Winners!

The Beginning - Lek 7

NaNo-2017-Winner!

All the best,

and enjoy December despite the rush,

Owen

Podcast: Lek – The Beginning

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Bangkok’s Red Light District

Published by Owen Jones on 9 May 2016
Bangkok's Red Light District
Bangkok’s Red Light District

Bangkok’s Red Light District

The Nana area of Bangkok is widely regarded as the centre of Bangkok’s Red Light District by millions of tourists from all over the world, although the police refuses to admit that such a thing exists anywhere in Thailand because it is against the law.

The thousands, nay, tens of thousands of young women (mostly) and (some) men in Bangkok, Pattaya and all the other tourist resorts are only working bars, according to the authorities.

Anyway, that aside, Nana is teeming with girls working the bars.

Soi Nana

That is great, that’s why people come here, because if you don’t want that, there are other districts where, let’s say, the nightlife is far less obtrusive. Khao San Road is great for shopping for goods, Soi Nana is far less so.

Khan San Road is very competitive, but Nana seems well-organized. From one end of the street to the other, no matter what is on sale, the prices seem pretty homogeneous.

80-90 Baht for a small beer Chang during Happy Hour, 100-120 afterwards.

The same goes for the food, although I hope that the quality is better than in our hotel. My wife says that she hasn’t found a decent Thai restaurant yet, but she is a very good cook and quite critical, although she wouldn’t dream of voicing her complaints to the management, which is typically Thai.

Bangkok’s Red Light District

You may think that the beer prices are cheap enough for one of the busiest places in the nation’s capital, but twelve years ago, when I first came here, the difference between UK and Thai prices was so vast, that I could never imagine them ever being remotely similar, but guess what? They are now.

Not hotel, travel and Thai food prices, but all the things that Westerners want, has shot up to all but parity.

This reduces Thailand’s attraction for many, but certainly not for all. If your reason for taking a holiday here is to enjoy the stunning scenery, taste Thai food as it should be and meet some amazing people, it is still a great place to come.

Nightlife, and its seamier side, is probably cheaper elsewhere now though, especially with the strong Baht.

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All the best,

Owen

Podcast: Nana – Bangkok’s Red Light District

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Full Circle – Lek6

Published by Owen Jones on 9 September 2015

Full Circle - Lek6 - Behind The Smile

Full Circle – Lek6 – Behind The Smile

Full Circle – Lek6

I have not been getting on well with Lek6, the sixth volume in the series ‘Behind The Smile ~ The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl in Pattaya‘ or at least not in comparison with the others. I have written 16,000 words which amounts to about fifteen percent of the 112,000 words I want the book to eventually be in length.

I have also more or less decided on the title, Full Circle, which ties in with a lot of what I have written already and the ideas I have for future chapters.

I am not going to give anyting away about the storyline of Full Circle at this stage, which is chapter four, but I will try to think of something that won’t spoil anyone’s enjoyment of the full book after chapter five, or possibly ten.

I can tell you this though, it will be a miracle if I can get the same artist to do a matching cover. I have been emailing her but she is not replying. It is very worrying. Another thing that I can reveal is that my daughter, the cover girl, would like the sixth volume to be pink.

If anyone has any useful suggestions for a cover designer for Full Circle, please let me know as soon as possible, because I like to get the cover out of the way before I finish the story.

On a different topic, if you have been following the exploits of our garden visitor, the Clouded Monitor, I have an update. Lizzie was spotted roaming the village yesterday, but no-one has seen her today, which is probably a bad sign.

However, Angun, our dog was going potty this afternoon, pointing at a bush. I had a look, but couldn’t see anything. A few minutes later, she ran into the bush and I saw something about two foot long flash through the fallen leaves. I think it was a snake, but my wife thought that it was Lizzie’s tail.

I hope it was.

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All the best,

Owen

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Podcast: Full Circle – Lek6

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Thai – A Succinct Language

Published by Owen Jones on 14 August 2015

Thai - A Succinct Language

Thai – A Succinct Language

Thai – A Succinct Language

I have been living in Thailand for eleven years, and learning the Thai language organically from day one with the help of a ‘Teach Yourself’ book and a wife. However, I am still not there yet, which makes Thai the hardest to learn of the eight languages I have studied. German and French took four years or so, Welsh six, Latin also six, Russian four, yet all to a higher standard than I now speak Thai after eleven years. It is just so different, and one of those differences is that it is such a succinct language.

I don’t know how much you know about speaking foreign languages, so please forgive me, if I am teaching you how to suck eggs, but amateur linguists, unlike the experts from places like the Hungarian translation company, tend to translate words , whereas they should be translating ideas. This is also true of newcomers to a language, ie before they learn how the natives think.

I am still at that stage in speaking Thai, so my Thai sounds odd to Thais. Yes, my accent is not good, and that doesn’t help, but it is not a huge problem with people who know me. The problem is a tendency towards flowery language – verbosity.

For example, we might say, ‘The wife’s mother is not well’ (six words), but in Thai that is ‘Wife’s mother not well’. ‘I have to be going now’, becomes ‘Drong bai’. It is such a succinct language.

‘It smells good’ – ‘Hom’.

‘It smells bad’ – ‘Min’.

People compliment me on my Thai every week, that is a sign of their nature rather than my ability, but I did receive a real compliment the other day and all she said was, ‘Good. Speaks short like Thais’.

High praise indeed.

Does that mean that speech loses something; that flowery prose is not possible; that Thais are not creative in their everyday conversations?

I don’t think so, just that they don’t expect to spell everything out to their interlocutors. They expect them to be paying attention. If you are talking about your own mother, why keep repeating the word ‘my’?

In a succinct language like Thai, for a flowery-speaking foreigner like me, this is a hard thing to get used to, and accounts for why foreigners have difficulty understanding Thais.

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All the best,

Owen

Podcast: Thai – A Succinct Language

 

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Holidays in Thailand – How Much?

Published by Owen Jones on 28 May 2015

Holidays in Thailand - How Much?

Holidays in Thailand – How Much?

Holidays in Thailand – How Much?

Thailand is, and has been for at least a decade, right at the top of both the world’s holiday resorts and travellers’ wish-list destinations. The same goes for retirees and expats, and the question I am asked most often, as someone who lives in Thailand is, how much are holidays in Thailand?

Holidays in Thailand – How Much?

This is a bit like asking how long is a piece of string, but if you will bear with me a while, I will try to give you a relevant answer.

Asia, in general, is quite cheap compared with Europe, and so is Thailand . Once you get there, and therein lies a variable that I cannot predict – the flight to Thailand  My first flight to Bangkok, Thailand ten years ago cost me more than £600,  but a friend told me today that he had been pleased to get a flight for £500. You may be lucky with great holiday deals.and low cost flights.

Most foreigners that I have met here come for a month, or at the very least a fortnight. Therefore, a thirty-day holiday starts at about £20 a day, a two-week holiday about £40.

However, most tourists need a hotel, and the cost of those varies with the star-rating and location, as it does everywhere. Cheap hotels cost £10 per night, expensive ones £800. Most people have a lovely time in a hotel with swimming pool costing £15 a night.

That brings our total to £35 a day.

Food is another unpredictable variable. If you want to eat Western food, be prepared to spend £5 a meal minimum, but if you want to eat Thai, then the cost comes down to between 80p and £2.

We are now on £37 a day for a thirty-day experience.

Drink? Let’s generalise it to entertainment. A bottle of the strongest beer in Thailand costs about £1. That is ‘Beer Chang’ – Elephant Beer. I  a village that will buy you a pint bottle, but in a city such as Pattaya or Bangkok, a half.

The same goes for soft drinks. Few bars are interested in serving tea or coffee, unless it is cold in a can or a bottle, but they are cheap by Western standards.

So, if you like to drink five bottles a night, that’s another fiver a day.

We are now on £42 a day. Let’s call it £50.

That is for one person. Most men would rather come to this country alone, but the cost of a hotel room is the same for one or two occupants. People come to Thailand for many reasons including the hot weather, the incredible beaches, the islands like Koh Samui, the sea, the millions of beautiful Wats (Thai Buddhist Temples), the famous food and the unbelievable night life.

All the best,

Owen

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Podcast: Holidays in Thailand – How Much?

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Marketing Books

Published by Owen Jones on 14 February 2015

Marketing Books

Daddy’s Hobby

Marketing Books

As you may be aware, I am working on a sequel to a novel I wrote about a year ago called ‘Dead Centre’ about a new type of terrorist organisation. This one is proving to be more difficult to write, but then a lot of the terminology and technology employed in the story is new to me, so the research necessary takes me away from writing and slows me down.
That makes it easy to lose track of where I thought the storyline was going with all the interruptions. It makes me wonder whether it would be better to do more planning on paper rather than just pantsering the whole book.
In fact, I already do a small amount of planning, but perhaps I should do more. At present, I try to have a few chapter titles ahead of where I am as waypoints, but no more than that.
I start chapter fourteen tonight or tomorrow, but after that, I’m not sure where the story is going.
No, that’s not true either. I know the ending, but I don’t know how we’re going to get there yet. It’s like knowing that you want to get to Berlin, but not knowing the way.
And that’s if you’re going by car and you have control over which roads you take, but if you hitchhike then you don’t even have that much choice.
That’s where I am now, hitchhiking towards the end of my book.

I have received a lot more pleas for help from authors recently, but I don’t know what to make of it. Is it a sign that my advertising is paying off, or that authors are finding it harder to sell books so far this year this year?
It’s hard to impossible to tell, because I had a far better January this year than last, but February’s sales are showing signs of flagging.
I think the answer depends on where you’re talking about. My US sales are way down using any metric I employ, but UK sales are up massively and my sales in Australia, while still small, are three times better than ever before.
Penetrating niche markets is difficult and can take a while before you see the benefits. I suppose it depends on why you think that your book or product is particularly relevant to that country or market.
I know from my research that the majority of white visitors to Thailand come from Germany, the UK, Russia, the US and Australia. Since a section of my books is about Thailand and in English, it makes sense for me to niche-market to those countries, but if I ever wanted to have my book translated, German would be the best option, because Germans are the number one visitors to Pattaya, which is the backdrop to several of my  Thai books.
How you go about targeting a particular niche with your marketing is another subject – one covered by hundreds of books, but all it really takes is a bit of thought and lots of work.

All the best,

+Owen Jones

Amazon Image   Behind The Smile: The Story of Lek, a Thai Bargirl in Pattaya, Thailand (Daddy’s Hobby)

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Pattaya – Fun or Sin City?

Published by Owen Jones on 20 May 2014 2

Pattaya - Fun or Sin City?Pattaya – Fun or Sin City?

Pattaya is a large seaside resort situated on the north-eastern side of the Gulf of Thailand. It is about 160 km from Bangkok or an hour’s taxi ride from the new Suvarnabhumi International Airport.

It is said to be host to over 1,000,000 visitors every year and I would guess that most of them are men. When I first went there ten years ago, it was quite clear that the majority of the tourists were white, middle-aged, European men, whom Thais call ‘Farang’ or ‘Falang’ – especially British and German.

However, these days the Brits and the Germans are still coming, albeit in lower numbers, but Pattaya receives many Russian and Asian visitors as well. In fact, the focus now seems to be on Asian visitors, the number of which will rise rapidly when the high-speed rail link with China has been completed in a decade’s time.

So, why do all these people come to Pattaya? Well, first it is worth looking at Pattaya’s past. In the early 70’s, it was a small fishing village that the American soldiers fighting in Vietnam found was good for R&R.

Presumably, the girls in Bangkok got to hear of it and went down to see if they could help relieve the soldiers of any of their stress. Pattaya soon mushroomed into a thriving city of bars, restaurants, night clubs and hotels.

Girls could earn more in a few nights than they could in a month back in their villages and the reputation of Pattaya as a paradise for men was born. Now, forty years on, Walking Street, Pattaya is world-famous for its nightlife and there are thousands of beer bars, hotels, night clubs, Go-Go bars and restaurants, tens of thousands of English-speaking bar girls and a million tourists, but you can see why most of them are male.

Most people either love Pattaya or loathe it. Most men love it, most wives don’t and nor do the religious. That all seems pretty obvious, except that I am referring to those who don’t like it who have never been there. All, every single one of the western women that I know that has been to Pattaya likes it as much as the men.

They generally feel a strange affinity with the hard-working girls of Pattaya. They respect them for their courage and ‘joy of life’ in the face of adversity, because whether you realise it or not, being a working-girl is a difficult and dangerous job.

Most men who go there are just randy, sex-starved, middle-aged and lonely and they feel terribly flattered when young, beautiful women of twenty to thirty pay them outrageous compliments.

The compliments are obviously lies, but they are readily accepted and do the faltering ego of an older man a power of good.

It is understandable that wives and girlfriends don’t approve of their men going to Pattaya without them, because it is a beautiful place and the girls are very seductive, but at the end of the day, it is not the girls of Pattaya who force those men to go there for sex tourism.

They go there on holiday of their own free will and accord.

The men want sex with enthusiastic, beautiful, foreign, young women and the girls want money – as much and as quickly as possible, although most of them would rather be back in their villages with their families.

So, is Pattaya Fun or Sin City? It’s up to you!

Amazon Image  Daddy’s Hobby (Behind The Smile – The Story of Lek, a Bar Girl in Pattaya)

Owen Jones writes on many subjects – whatever crosses his mind in fact. If you would like to read more, just click through to Behind The Smile and Owen Jones’ Blog and Website

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Daddy’s Hobby Half-Price

Published by Owen Jones on 30 August 2013 6

Behind The Smile - Daddy's Hobby Half-Price

Daddy’s Hobby

Behind The Smile: Daddy’s Hobby Half-Price

Owen here, I hope that you are doing well. I have great news for you – Daddy’s Hobby Half-Price !

I have lowered the price of ‘Daddy’s Hobby’, the first in the series of ‘Behind The Smile’, at Smashwords for a short time, so if you were still unsure about reading this trilogy, now is your chance to read the first part at half price.

‘Daddy’s Hobby’ and the other two books in this trilogy are available at Smashwords in quite a few ebook formats, so no matter what you use to read ebooks, Smashwords will have a copy of his book for you.

This is the URL:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/205362

Read more:

Behind The Smile;

The Story of Lek a Bar Girl in Pattaya, Thailand.

Book One: Daddy’s Hobby

“Daddy’s Hobby” is the first novel in the trilogy titled ‘Behind The Smile’. It covers that part of Lek’s  life where she works in a bar called ‘Daddy’s Hobby’ in Pattaya in the sex tourism industry..

Lek was born the eldest child of four in a typical rice farming family. She did not expect to do anything any different from the other girls in her class in the northern rice belt of Thailand.

Typically that would be: work in the fields for a few years; have a few babies; give them to mum to take care of and back to work until her kids had their own children and she could stop working to take care of them.

One day a catastrophe occurred out of the blue – her father died young and with huge debts that the family knew nothing about. Lek was twenty and she was the only one who could prevent foreclosure. The only way she knew was to go to work in her cousin’s bar in Pattaya.

She went as a waitress-cum-cashier, but when she realised that she was pregnant by her worthless, estranged husband, things had to change. She had the baby, gave it to her mum and went back to work.

However, now she needed real money to provide a better life for her child and to make up for spending its whole youth 500 miles away. She drifted into the tourist sex industry.

The book relates some of her ‘adventures’, her dreams and nightmares and her ‘modus operandi’. It tries to show, from Lek’s point of view, what it really is like to be a Thai bar girl – the hopes and frustrations, the hopes and the let-downs, the hopes and the lies and deceit that are part of her every day life.

 

Thailand is often referred to as the Land of Smiles .

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/205362

From the first pages I was mesmerised by Lek and the other working girls, their hard life styles and thoughts, so different from our own Western way of life and aspirations. Couldn’t put it down till I’d finished.

RLJ, Barry, South Wales

 

I enjoyed this book very much and would recommend it. I like stories that take place in foreign countries, so this was right up my alley. It was an easy read and flowed smoothly. Owen did a great job of creating a character readers could connect with and care about…

Vanna B., Philadelphia, PA.

“I am a big fan of books on Thailand – particularly what some would describe as the darker side. The Thai bar scene is much talked about and generally misunderstood. Many books seem to be written based on a single visit and dwell on the old cliche of sex pervert meets scheming hooker. It is all so much more complicated than that – and this book will give you a rally good insight. Owen Jones knows Thailand and he understands the interaction between the players in Thai bars very well.
“It’s authentic, poignant and very entertaining.”

All the best and have a lovely weekend

Owen

PS: as always, please let me know what you think of any book of mine you have read J

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/205362

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