Acclaimed director Monica Garnsey takes a critical look at global sex tourism, focusing on the situation in Venezuela and Thailand.
Part 2: Girlfriend for Sale
In Isaan, north-east Thailand, the local girls have long since ceased to rely solely on the rice-crop to feed their families. Much more money can be made out of the sex tourists who flock to Bangkok or Pattaya to sample Thailand's famously beautiful and accommodating women. Told entirely from the women's point of view, this film
explores the multiple ways that a nice Isaan girl can make a living from a foreigner.
In the village of Konkaen, a foreign husband and a posh western house has become a dream for many local girls. The fastest method is to go Bangkok to work as a bar-girl, the euphemism for prostitute. Many bar-girls come back to the village triumphant, foreign husband in tow.
The film moves between sleepy Isaan, where letter-writer Ponpilai plays cupid by writing emails for the girls who've met a foreign man but can't communicate with him; and the frenetic world of the red light district in Bangkok, where Mamasan Jip runs a lucrative 'ladydrink' brothel bar in Bangkok, and promises her girls not only a good salary, but the best possible chance to meet a foreign husband.
It's worked for Fon, a savvy bar-girl who now has a Birmingham builder as a boyfriend. But Lek, a single mum used only to village life, is not sure that she's got what it takes to survive at Mamasan Jip's bar.
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