the third sex

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A 21-year-old student named Nong Noeng won the Miss Tiffany Universe 2008 beauty contest on Friday night, emerging as an easy front-runner from a total of 30 finalists.

Nong Noeng, Kangsadarn Wongdusadeekul to give her her formal name, is a student at Dhurakij Pandit International College.

Pattaya was a particularly lively place during the four days leading up to the contest, because the finalists were trundled around the resort getting the maximum media coverage for the tourist attractions and the venues of the sponsors.

Everywhere the 30 girls went was followed by a media circus, and on the night itself, the show was broadcast live from Tiffany’s Theatre throughout the nation.

This annual event has become big business, and with the coverage extending far into other parts of Asia and in fact the world, the international interest in Thailand’s ladyboys just keeps on growing.

Nong Noeng won some glittering prizes. There was a cash prize of 100,000 baht plus a Honda Jazz car, along with numerous gifts from the sponsors. She now looks forward to a year of conventional beauty queen activities, opening events, modelling and so on.

Thailand’s ladyboy cabarets, of which Tiffany’s was the first and is the most famous, are one of the country’s main tourist attractions. Tourists are brought in by the busload to Tiffany’s and Alcazar, while in Bangkok places such as Calypso, Golden Dome and Rachada Cabaret are generally packed for their twice-nightly performances.

Whereas Miss Tiffany Universe is a pageant only for Thai ladyboys, Nong Noeng now goes forward to Miss International Queen 2008, which will be held at the end of the year.

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Tiffany’s Theatre in Pattaya is getting ready to stage this year’s Miss Tiffany Universe beauty pageant, the finals of which will take place on May 30. If you are in Pattaya at that time, a visit is recommend. If not, there are extensive plans to broadcast the event overseas.

The organising committee staged a press conference to announce the contest a few days ago, and once again I was struck by how this has become such a well respected and accepted event.

The driving force behind Tiffany’s these days is Miss Alisa Panthusak, for although her father Sutham is the owner, he has plenty else to occupy him as he is one of the leading members of Pattaya’s business community.

Alisa is in her 30s. I know her slightly, and she is a charmer. Like her dad, she is also a greatly respected local figure. She was appointed last year to the national commission that was drafting Thailand’s new constitution, and that gave her such a taste for politics that she has just run for the position of mayor of Pattaya City.

Although Alisa lost out to a very powerful candidate last week, she did however attract a respectable number of votes and increased her standing with the public by fighting a very clean and credible campaign.

Making the announcement for Miss Tiffany’s Universe, she pointed out that the contest, which is entering its 11th year, has become a major media event in Thailand and in many overseas countries.

Significantly, she said, it now has at least 20 high-profile sponsors from many different business sectors. These, said Alisa, include manufacturers, hotels, IT companies, and even finance and banking houses.

‘It is recognized that the Miss Tiffany contest is a strong brand name, and is becoming more socially accepted,” said Alisa.

This is all a far cry from when the show actually started, nearly 40 years ago. It began life in a small transvestite bar in South Pattaya, no more than a couple of converted shophouses, and although it was a harmless kind of place it was repeatedly being busted by the police.

I met Sutham a few years ago, and he told me how he had started his career as an accountant in one of Pattaya’s first hotels, round about 1970. He had then launched out on his own, with one of his first businesses being Pattaya’s first foreign exchange service, serving the increasing number of tourists that were travelling to the emerging resort.

Another venture was the setting up of a shooting range on land he bought on Pattaya Second Road, which was almost rural at that time. Wondering what else he could do with the plot, he decided to build a theatre. At the very same time, a man named Ungthi, the owner of Tiffany’s, told him he was pondering giving the business up because of all the trouble he was having.

The two decided on what must have been a very risky venture by moving Tiffany’s into the new theatre premises. However, it has subsequently become one of Pattaya’s biggest attractions. How times do indeed change.

Visit: Miss Tiffany’s Universe

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This beats McDonald’s any day. Long known as a hub for electronic and comic geeks, Tokyo’s Akihabara district is now a battleground for role-play based maid cafes. In the latest twist to Tokyo’s popular maid cafes, which feature real girls, Japanese men cross-dress and fill in for women to serve the patrons. This clip is from Reuter.

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The following is an AFP report released on March 19.

“Thailand’s military will stop branding transsexual conscripts as mentally disturbed, and will list them in a new ‘third category’ as neither male nor female, a senior officer has stated.

Thai men are required to report for the draft once they turn 21. Under the current system, transsexuals are rejected as suffering from ‘a mental disorder.’

Gay rights groups have complained that the label penalises transsexuals for the rest of their lives, because men are required to prove if they have completed their national service when they apply for jobs or bank loans. When transsexuals submit their military rejection forms declaring they have a mental disorder, they are automatically disqualified from many jobs and mortgages.

Lieutenant General Somkiat Suthivaiyakij, head of the defence ministry’s Reserve Command Department, said the military would immediately stop using the mental disorder label. The military is trying to find a new word for a ‘third category’ that is neither male nor female, that would not discriminate against transsexuals, he said.

Until the army decides on the new category, transsexual conscripts will be turned away with a form saying they have an illness that cannot be cured within 30 days.

‘It’s a temporary measure to deal with the problem as the defence and interior ministries work on a permanent solution,” Somkiat told AFP.

To qualify for the third category, transsexuals will have to report for the draft for three years in a row to prove they are really trying to live as women, he added.

The annual draft takes place in April, and transsexuals make up less than one percent of the conscripts each year.

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.Taking out-of-town friends around Patpong last week, and seeing the place through the eyes of visitors, I suddenly realised how little it has changed since I first went there, when I was a schoolboy in short trousers (nearly).

The most obvious change since those far off days has been the coming of the street market. I can remember when, before the market, the street was open all night to taxis and tuk-tuks, which would cruise through looking for customers to come out of the bars with their girls.

Looking through the market the other evening, I realised that it probably earns as much for the Patpong family as the bars themselves, because I don’t think you could physically fit any more stalls into the area.

But although bars may come and bars may go, overall there never really seems to be a major change. Safari has not changed one bit in 25 years, and it has always had the best music of any of the Patpong go-go bars. I can remember back to the days when there was only one King’s Castle, rather than the three there are now.

The present-day King’s Castle 3, which of course is now ladyboys-only, was actually the first King’s Castle and was a girlie go-go bar. I used to go in there for happy hour, when I would be almost the only customer present, and I would watch the girls come in and get changed, which because of lack of space most of them had to do in the bar. It was the best free show in town.

Interestingly, the mamasan of the present-day King’s Castle 1 girlie go-go bar, just across the street from the original, is herself a ladyboy and I can remember when she was just a cashier working in the bar. I took her home and had my evil way with her and her deliciously hairy little bottom.

That was a quarter-century ago, and she has never forgotten it. Well, she wouldn’t, would she? But I always get a big smile and a wai when I see her, and although she has transformed over the years from a shy little ladyboy into a ferocious mamasan who scares all the GGs working in the bar, I’m sure she still has a heart of gold.

I’m not exactly certain when KC3 was changed from being a girlie bar into a ladyboy bar, but it would have been some time in the early 1990s. I’m also not sure if it was the first ladyboy bar, because there was another named Limelight, not far away and on the same side of the strip, which flourished during the same period. Limelite started with go-go girls but quickly ladyboy go-go dancers took over. Limelite however disappeared while KC3 flourished.

Elsewhere, many of the restaurants remain unchanged. Mizo, the Japanese-American outlet that was the first ever restaurant to open in Patpong way back in the 1950s, probably hasn’t even been decorated since that time. Tip-Top, the Thai restaurant where the go-go dancers and bar workers often go for a late meal, has recently had its interior changed but still serves good Thai food at very cheap prices.

The Derby King no longer serves the meatloaf that was my mainstay when I used to eat there regularly, but a couple of the staff are there from the early days and they remember me. Likewise at the Thai Room, where I always order Mexican Meal D, and the staff don’t even bother to ask me what I want because I have never had anything else there.

The Patpong Bookshop disappeared a decade ago and has become a music bar, which changed the appearance of that corner of the strip, but otherwise there have been no big changes on that side except for another music bar on the corner of the alley that cuts through to the multi-storey carpark.

On the other side, the pesky luggage shops have taken over some of the bars, notably the Blue Sky Boxing Bar of fond repute. But otherwise, really, it is all still recognisable. There are still a number of smaller bars, one of which offers a small short-time room just above the bar, and which I used to use frequently. You could actually look out into the street while you were on top of the lady of your choice, and see if any of your friends were walking past.

On Patpong 2, there have been very little changes. A slight rejigging of the restaurants where Bobby used to have the monopoly, but that is about all. King’s Garden, which used to be a great unofficial ladyboy venue, has become a rather more sedate music bar.

Foodland, one of Bangkok’s first ever Western-style supermarkets, is completely unchanged in appearance and layout since I first knew it. The Chinese manager has been there ever since I can remember, and greets me cordially whenever he sees me.

This is one of the great things about Patpong. To so many people, it is a big, throbbing red-light district. But underneath all the razzmatazz, it is just a village, and a friendly one at that.

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