John Galt Presents: The Middle Finger

I have quite a few older memories from my childhood. A few go as far back as being a toddler. I want to tell you a brief story about something that happened to me at a school back in the second or third grade. Bear with me on this, it's pertinent to the topic and we are going somewhere with this.

I was at lunch with a small group of my fellow classmates. Most of them were boys at my table. We were doing the normal boy things and during the course of that meal and towards the end, someone was doing something with their hands that caused a small stir. I looked on to see this boy holding up his middle finger to another. They all seems to get a kick of of that. So, I gave it a try. I held up my left hand and squeezed down fingers 1,3, and 4 with my thumb, extended that hand and proudly gave "the bird" to the guys at the table. They thought it was comical. I didn't think much of it except for the fact I got some attention. Attention is cool when you're just a kid. Being the quick thinking intelligent boy that I was, I made a bird with the other hand, held it up proudly, and I doubled the response. Man, was I on a roll. Soon I was going over to the next table, and shooting the girls a bird too. My friends were cracking up. Every time I stretched out those arms with middle fingers extended, I heard a roar from the kids. That was fun.

Lunch ended and we returned to our class, I was walking on a high. I felt pretty good that day. There was a little buzz of chatter around me as we were entering the room and setting up our things from lunch. Evidently, this caught our teacher's attention and she asked my side of the class what was happening. Everyone had pretty much sat down by that point. I don't know what they said but I was called up to her desk to explain what I had been doing. So, I walked up to her a little nervously and with I squeezed those those 4 fingers together, eased out my little arm, and I shot her a bird right there at her desk. No one was laughing. The silence made me a little nervous. She paused a moment with some little disgust on her face. She looked at my friends across the room, and looked back a me. She said to me, "Don't do that again. Go sit down". I didn't get in trouble that day. I didn't have any idea what it meant. Prior to the teacher's indignation, it just didn't register as good or bad because in my world, it didn't mean anything.

Now, last week, I posted pictures of Stickman's co-workers (not children) and I super-imposed bananas on those photos and I quoted a Stickman article where he said that it was very likely that a young innocent girl would thing very little about pealing a banana and joking about it. Here read it again:

Workplace banter can get quite risqué in Thailand and you don't have any of the issues of sexual harassment that seem to be a real concern in the West these days. I never cease to be amazed at some of the stuff that is talked about. A petite, innocent female Thai employee eating a banana for breakfast would think nothing about saying “Oooh, it is big, isn’t it” in English and then giggling to herself. A light atmosphere is never a bad thing.

I received a far amount of email (from both pro & con Galt Readers) about how I might get in trouble with my publication.

Girls in a normal Thai environment do not see a banana as a phallic symbol to my knowledge. Some girls in the bar business might pick up on it. I would even go as far to say that most males would not natively associate a banana in that way.

In Thai society, the banana pictures would not be considered offensive. So, people, don't worry about this piece of light hearted humor. Even Stickman above implies there is no problem with sexual harassment in the work place. The reason for this? Thais don't take a lot of these types of things very seriously because they are not deeply rooted in their culture. They are not offended by farang symbols and in general, they do not have a natural instinct to be offended.

In fact, it's highly unlikely that a girl would even make the above hypothetical statement "Oooh, it is big, isn't it". It could happen, but it's unlikely. In the full 5 years that I've been here, I have never seen any Thai girl make a joke with a phallic symbol (outside of the bar industry). I'm sure it can happen but it is rare.

A number of years back, when we were seeing jokes about President Clinton on TV about the cigar and Monica Lewinski, I would believe the Thais would have no idea what was going on in our minds.

I was sitting one time with a group of girls and they decided to use the word "pussy". They were throwing that word around and I was cringing. I was funn'n around with them and making a fuss, plugging my ears and saying that their language was ugly. The just snickered back at me.

But, you talk in front of them saying He or Ham in just the right way, you'll see them squirm and wiggle in occasionally shriek in discomfort. (first word is Thai for pussy and the second for penis).

One group my girl friends have a running joke with me. A few years back when I knew very little Thai, they taught me a phrase. They had me repeat "Pom Dong-gon He". I repeated it and and they busted out laughing. I'm like, what did I just say? I didn't know for sure. I knew the Pom part, "I". I later found out Dong-gon was "want". I told you above what "He" meant. Oh damn, this is the same type of joke played on me back in grade school. This time with language. Well, I was at least in the right company for the joke.

Now every time I pass these girls in public, they giggle, smile real big, look me straight in the eye and call my name and say "Pom Dong-gon....", and expect me to finish the sentence. Then I give them a sour look and they bust out laughing. What pranksters they are but, I love them like family.

If that wasn't enough, take a look at this. You know this is? Its a Phuk or Phuk-tong (pumpkin). Yep. This one is actually called Phuk Na because this vegetable has been stuffed with a special sweetened congealed egg filler. But the work Phuk sounds exactly like our "F" word.

But, it's just a vegetable. If you say the English "F" word in public it's not really considered all that offensive at all. Of course if you're angry and say it, the Thais may understand you're not speaking Thai, but their ears don't hear something offensive. Most people do know that Phuk is a bad word in English.

Let's look at it another way. Let's say in Thai language, their "F" work sounds like the English word, "Tomato". It doesn't but just imagine that it does. In our culture, Tomato is a vegetable just like a Phuk is a vegetable in their language. Now imagine a Thai guy going around yelling and swearing like a Tomato. Tomato-ing this and Tomato-ing that. Would you be offended or rolling on the ground laughing at him? I imagine this mean old Italian guy with New York accent. Hey, Tomato You! What the Tomato you look'n at, eh?

Oh, yea. Well, I think you get the picture. Is anyone still concerned about the banana pictures now?

The Phuk-tong don't really have a great taste. I like it about 20%. There are of lot of things in the kingdom that I don't like the taste of. But, you want to hear something interesting? If you offered a piece of blueberry cheesecake to them, chances are they wouldn't like it. This just goes to show that taste for food is highly conditional to previous exposure.

By the way, you might find it interesting that in 5 years of being here, I have never once seen a Thai "shoot a bird" at anyone.

When all this begin in earnest 11 weeks ago, I had no idea it would go on quite this long. I expected Stick to contact me fairly quickly and make an inquiry and see what kind of "burr was in my saddle". I did expect to hear from him directly at some point.

Early on, I began to realize that Stick was in denial. My readers told me that Stick ignored their questions about this site. Stick also told his readers that this site had nothing to do with him. His tactic was complete denial. It was at this point I knew Stick was less honest about who he was to the general public.

This intrigued me further. Now I really wanted to know what Stick was hiding. As I continued on with my weekly rebuttals and criticisms, others in the community began to contact me and explain their displeasure with Stickman. I began to hear stories of Stickman's dishonestly and miss-dealings. Some of that information is still coming in. I have hinted around about of these topics in previous columns. Still, Stickman did not contact me. We'll I made some assumptions that he just didn't care.

Two weeks ago I published that knew his name. No word from him. Last week, I published indirect information from his English school web site, that got his attention.

From my perspective, much of this brouhaha could have been avoided a long time ago. So what does that tell you about Stickman?

So, here we are...... What now? Stickman is off-line. Stickman and friends are out on other webs sites right now fanning the flames of anger against me because his web site is off-line. He can blame me all he wants.

Stickman contacted me the morning after The Banana Girl publication came on line. This happened just before he pulled his site off-line. See these pictures of that conversation. (you need to click on this image for a better view).

I haven't heard from him since. Stick has not made any public statements that I am aware of about what his position is. This is typical for guy who hides. All these years you may have thought well of Stickman, and now what are you seeing? Put your bull-shit meter on high alert and read between the lines.

Stick will be back this coming week with a 5/11 column. The page is not on-line at this time but the weekly layout has been updated:

Here take a peek at the weekly page for yourself. I don't know how long that link will be good.

Will Stickman actually make a response to the Galt's comments? Hard to say. My guess is No. He is a man of denial and trickery. But, I have been wrong before. So, it's anyone's guess.

My web site is now receiving a couple of thousand hits each day. I'm sure this is smaller than the typical Stickman population but I do believe a lot of Stickman fans are coming here trying to figure out what is going on with their Bangkok commentator.

I have Stickman's identity. I know where he works. Is it time for Stickman's reader to find out just who he is?

Do you want to know who Stick is? I'm taking a vote. Please write to me JohnGaltThailand@gmail.com. Thumbs Up for "exposure" and Thumbs Down for "keep it a secret". You can add in your comments as you like. I'll read them as time permits.

However, let me also add one more thing. If I expose Stick, his name, and workplace, etc, everything that I reveal about him I also needs to be balanced with exposing myself as well. That right. What I'm saying here is that I'll tell you who I am as well. If I show his face, I'll show mine. If I tell you his name I'll tell you mine. If I tell you his work place, I'll tell you mine.

So, your vote for exposure means that I'll reveal Stickman and Galt (myself) at the same time.

Keep in mind though that its my choice as to what I will actually do next week. I'd like to take the vote to see how you feel as readers and it will influence my choice to a great extent.

Stickman had scheduled a writers meeting for all those were submitted articles. The plan was fixed for Nov 20th at Livingstones in Bangkok. Does anyone know if that meeting is still on? Has Stickman cancelled it? Or had the location been changed? Just curious if anyone want to drop me a line and share that information.

Galt,

When I was a newbie to Thailand I became infatuated with a girl in Pattaya. I asked Stickman if he would check on her for me and he quoted 12,000 baht to do so.

I asked him to find out if she had a criminal record, medical record (babies) or anything substantial he could show me on her. His response was negative on everything but if I sent him the money in advance he would spend the weekend in Pattaya and find out from her co-workers all he could.

I may be new at the game but I thought enough to reply "you mean I pay you for a weekend so you can hang out in a bar and chat it up with the girls"? He was offended I would suggest this and I didn't hear much from him after that.

Someone needs to warn the newbies that Farangs also take advantage of Farangs naivety in Thailand. I wonder how many sent the money for him to enjoy a weekend of mongering?

In my opinion, its nearly impossible to determine if a person has a criminal record here. Lots of things are never recorded and like western countries, records from one city may never be seen in another.

Let me add to this -- girls who have babies go into hiding many times. They will leave a job (whether bar or just a normal job) and live with family while they are showing (that means the country for bar girls). Once the baby is born and mother can wean the child, they come back into society. This is extremely common for a single woman without a husband. Some girls show signs from pregnancy (stretch marks, etc), some girls do not show these signs. It's impossible to always know for sure and medical records? Never in a million years would Stick be able to track these things down. They would laugh at him at any hospital for asking.

As you see, Stick "was negative on everything". I think that means that Stick didn't make any hard promises on the legal and medical background.

As you may have now have surmised. Every time Stickman went down to Pattaya, he was doing so on some else's money. Remember, he doesn't really even care for the bar industry anymore. I'm sure Mrs. Stick wasn't letting him come down just a grab a beer with the boys. He went down there for work each and every time.

12,000 baht is pretty good weekend. Not bad for just a little talking to the target's girl friends. Stick slips by the Western Union office, grabs the cash and goes to have a rip-roaring time on money that the Mrs. Stick doesn't necessarily know about. (we inside the Kingdom all know that means, don't we?). (Wives like to track money so they know what the hubby has been up to).

Sticks been eating out of a couple of "rice bowls" for a while now. Not a bad job. And I haven't even had a chance to explain the size of the ad fees on Stickman's site up to this point.

It should be of no surprise to you that my numbers were up solidly this week. A lot stickman readers came here to see what the fuss was all about. I don't expect these numbers to last. This site is just not built for it. Unlike others who fabricate themselves to you, I am in fact just one man. The exception to this is that I have employees doing my work for me while I pound the tar out of Stickman. This effort takes quite a bit of time and I spend money on it. I don't receive any money for this work. However, I will say, I have made a number of interesting friends by it. And I may have investors come to my company because of it.

We were solidly in the 400 visitors per day area last week before Stick took his site off-line. You can clearly see the rise in traffic after Stick's site went down.

The numbers inside Bangkok have risen quite a bit. There is a very large local X-pat crowd in Bangkok. I'm sure Stickman's fan base is 3 or 4 times this size at least. Not a bad set of numbers that Stickman was keeping a secret from us.

Hey, a late piece of news for you. One of the crown princesses rode by my office today. No kidding. I was sitting my computer typing away and doing email work and all of the sudden, my employees were rustling around and running down stairs and over to the windows. I stepped out for a moment and I saw that the police had blocked off the main road that runs by my place. (this is the most popular and beautiful road in the city). A grabbed my camera but I didn't realize what I was seeing and it happened so quickly that I missed the "money shot". (later I was told that I couldn't take her picture anyhow).

There was a girl, plainly dressed riding a bicycle in blue shirt (queen's type of shirt) in the center of the road. She was ahead of a line of bicycles just behind her. That line behind her was about 15 abreast. She looked about 20 years old. I was told by my people that she is the daughter to the prince. Wow, I was 50 feet directly from her as she passed by. About 100 yards behind was a line of cars in a precession. About 20 cars in all. We all waiting to she if she would come back by but that never happened.

Later that night, I bumped into a couple of visiting farangs and one local friend at a restaurant and they also confirmed that the princess was staying at their hotel.

Quite a treat to see one of the royal family in our neck of the woods. Did you guys in Bangkok see any of this in the news a few days ago? If so, I saw this first hand. You now know where I am now don't you?

My goal is to get back to what I like to do. I'd like to continue to publish a little bit about Thailand and the culture. I don't mind talking about the naught night life. I'm very interested in writing about business opportunities.

The Non-Stickman work is kind of a drag. It's not that fun. I'd rather not do it. I've been looking at it as a necessary evil.

Stickman has his choices. If they lead to a more self regulated, more honest Stickman then I'm happy for him.

If the times are changing in Thailand for farangs, then we'll all need to change along with them. Me included.

Some farangs parents who send children to expensive schools have been seeing the postings at different web sites and have been less that excited about Stickman continuing to work at an English school. Perhaps he should just give up the web work and focus on his main source of income and give his students his best efforts. Or perhaps he should exit teaching and make StickmanBangkok.com a fully legal enterprise (if he thinks that is possible). The choice is not mine. My choice is to publish my writings.

I'm throwing you bone Mr. Stickman. Do you want to take this opportunity to comment before we potentially give up your identity to the thousands of readers who might want to know? After all, you do claim to be the "Bangkok Commentator".