Tourism Recreation Research Pilgrimage and Prostitution

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Pilgrimage and Prostitution: Contrasting Modes of Border
Tourism in Lower South Thailand
a
Marc Askew Associate Professor and Chair & Erik Cohen George Wise Professor of Sociology
Emeritus
b
a
International Studies Program, School of Social Sciences, Victoria University, P.O. Box 14428
Melbourne City, MC 8001, Victoria, Australia; e-mail:
b
Department of Sociology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Israel 91905; e-mail:
Published online: 12 Jan 2015.
To cite this article: Marc Askew Associate Professor and Chair & Erik Cohen George Wise Professor of Sociology Emeritus (2004)
Pilgrimage and Prostitution: Contrasting Modes of Border Tourism in Lower South Thailand, Tourism Recreation Research, 29:2, 89-104,
DOI: 10.1080/02508281.2004.11081447
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TOURISM RECREATION RESEARCH VOL. 29(2), 2004: 89-104
Pilgrimage and Prostitution: Contrasting Modes of Border
Tourism in Lower South Thailand
Downloaded by [Thammasat University Libraries] at 01:32 04 August 2015
MARC ASKEW and ERIK COHEN
In this article we argue that 'Border Tourism' -intensive patterns of tourist visitation between adjoining countriesrequires more systematic attention by scholars as an important sociological, anthropological and spatial phenomenon.
Border Tourism and the often marginal spaces where it emerges exhibit some distinctive features: notably the
juxtaposition of illicit and liminal activities sustained by multiple motivations among visitors. This paper discusses
Lower Southern Thailand and the tourist-oriented border landscape which has emerged largely as a product of
intensive short-term visitation among Malaysians and Singaporeans since the 1970s. We discuss two contrasting
forms of tourism occurring simultaneously across this frontier; sex-tourism and pilgrimage (or religious tourism).
We investigate a number of key religious and entertainment sites and discuss how tourists engage with these sites
and their workforces, in particular the Thai sex workers in the border towns and the main tourist hub city of Hat Yai.
The Lower South Thailand border zone comprises dynamic spaces and sites shaped by the interactions between a
range of groups, including local inhabitants, a Thai tourist-orientated workforce (largely with origins outside the
south) as well as tourists/sojourners. The relationship of Malaysian and Singaporean tourist/sojourners with the
border zone is informed by a familiarity borne of proximity and cultural affinity as well as a difference marked by the
contrasts between the moral/legal regimes of their own countries and that of Thailand. The multi-dimensional
character and role of the Lower South Thailand border zone therefore ensures its continued importance as an
interstitial space for visitation and identification.
Keywords: border, sex, pilgrimage, prostitution, Thailand, Singapore.
Introduction
The literature on tourism distinguishes commonly
between international tourism- which attracts the principal
research attention- and domestic tourism (Chadwick 1994:
66; Hall and Page 1999: 58-65). However, this disregards
an important sub-category of international tourism which,
owing to its volume and distinctive characteristics, is worthy
of separate consideration- this is tourist visits across borders
of adjoining countries. We argue that this 'Border Tourism'
should be given systematic attention by scholars as an
important sociological, anthropological and spatial
phenomenon, one which displays complex and distinctive
characteristics.
As tourists move overland from one modern western
country to another, they cross international borders. In the
vast majority of cases such crossings involve mere formalities
(passport control, security checks and customs inspections)
which are activities of little sociological interest for the
student of tourism, except as more-or-less malleable
impediments to the free flow of tourists (Matznetter 1979;
B5r5cz 1996). But borders are more than just a formalized
line separating one country from another. The areas
adjoining borders, the 'boundary zones' tend to be marked
by some distinctive characteristics that distinguish them from
the more central zones of their respective countries - they
tend to be geographically as well as socially peripheral
(Prescott 1965:17). While this is less apparent in the
contemporary West, it is still often the case in developing
countries. In the social science disciplines - particularly
among geographers and, to some extent, anthropologiststhe study of borders between states and of their respective
border' zones' has become increasingly prominent; the issues
range from drugs, human trafficking and labour migration
to the redefinition of economic spaces through global
capitalism. A growing attention is also given to the
importance of cross-border interactions among contiguous
ethnic and religious communities (Donnan and Wilson 1994;
MARC ASKEW is Associate Professor and Chair, International Studies Program, School of Social Sciences, Victoria University, P.O. Box 14428
Melbourne City, MC 8001, Victoria, Australia; e-mail: marc.askew@vu.edu.au
ERIK COHEN is George Wise Professor of Sociology Emeritus, Department of Sociology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Israel
91905; e-mail: Mserik@Mscc.huji.ac.il
©2004 Tourism Recreation Research
Pilgrimage and Prostitution: M. Askew & E. Cohen
Feingold 2000; Grundy-Warr et al., 1999). Further, among
scholars in cultural and postcolonial studies, a so-called
'Border Theory' has developed around the key notion that
political borders are not simply physical boundaries but
metaphors for identity and state power. 'Border-crossing'
has been defined as a 'transgressive' practice of minorities
and diasporas who affirm identity by contesting nation-state
boundaries that are at once both physical and ideological
(Dube 1999; Kalra and Prewal1999). The cultural 'hybridity'
of borderlands has also been a prominent theme, notably in
studies of the U.S.-Mexico border (e.g. Canclini 1995: 207263).
Students of tourism have also acknowledged the
significance of cross-border movements, particularly between
Canada and the USA, and the USA and Mexico, and
increasingly, in Asia. Some attention has been given to the
role of international frontiers as tourist attractions and
landscapes (e.g. Timothy 1995; Paasi and Raevo 1998). But,
though aware of the considerable number of short-term crossborder excursionists, both in the West and in Asia,
researchers have paid relatively little attention to the
distinguishing sociological characteristics of this
phenomenon of border tourism. Rather, such studies focus
primarily on researching shopping or barter activities across
borders (e.g. Timothy 1999; Zhao 1994). Despite the
proliferation of studies of borderlands, the economic and
cross-cultural patterns associated with tourism across
borders have not been fully conceptualized or researched as
a distinctive mode of travel, interaction and experience. These
patterns are even more rarely studied in relation to the
evolution and character of emerging border sub-regional
tourist systems in Asia, where cross-border tourism is
becoming increasingly prominent, most conspicuously seen
in the recent surge in cross-border tourism between China
and Russia, China and Myanmar, and China and Vietnam
(Zhao 1994). Within the Southeast Asian region one can
identify numerous sites of border-crossing for tourism. It
often involves typical kinds of activities such as shopping,
entertainment, dining, but also gambling and the use of
sexual services. For example, on the Thai border zone of the
Thai-Cambodian frontier are places where market goods
such as cheap clothing are sold to visiting Cambodians,
while cheap commercial sex and gambling are available to
Thai nationals in the Cambodian border zone. These border
zones are often characterized by an infrastructure based on
illicit activities; but their ambiguous, marginal character
makes them, paradoxically, convenient spaces for the location
of sanctuaries, Turnerian 'centres out there' (Turner 1973),
attracting pilgrimages from within and outside the countries'
borders.
90
This article discusses Lower Southern Thailand and
the border landscape which has emerged largely as a product
of border tourism. Border-crossing by Malaysian and
Singaporean tourists into Thailand might be described as a
practice which is simultaneously: transgressive (crossing into
a permissive space from a home environment where certain
practices, particularly sexual, are very expensive, less easily
accessible, forbidden or not socially sanctioned), affirming
(that is, symbolizing a unity of belief among certain groups
through pilgrimage practice) and materialistic (based on the
consumption of cheap consumer goods). This heterogeneity
of motivations and activities and the tourist system and space
which has been shaped around them forms the key
phenomenon for exploration in this article.
Border Zones of Thailand
From a macro-sociological perspective, border zones
are often, particularly in developing countries, areas of
lessened (and sometimes contested) control by the central
authorities; they are characteristically inhabited by ethnic
or religious groups who do not belong to the national
majority. This is particularly the case in mainland Southeast
Asian countries, such as Thailand, due to their historical
transformation from loosely-bounded empires with
indeterminate frontiers based on vassal-overlord
relationships, to modern nation states with demarcated
boundaries. In Thailand it is noticeable that almost all its
boundary zones are inhabited by ethnic groups which do
not belong to the Thai majority: Shan along the north-western
borders; numerous hill tribes in the north; Khmer along the
southern edge of the northeast (itself composed of people of
predominantly Lao origin), Muslim Malays and Chinese in
the south. In the last instance, a reciprocal situation is found
in neighbouring Malaysia, where its northern border area is
inhabited by a Thai minority (Golomb 1978).
The southern border zone of Thailand is marked by a
considerable interstitiality: thus, while the formal boundary
with Malaysia is on the whole clearly defined and
recognized, the border zone is in many places a fuzzy inbetween area, in some cases virtually resembling a Malaysian
cultural salient in Thailand. This is particularly the case in
the area on which our study focused- the border zone around
the road crossing the boundary between Thailand and
Malaysia, located in the district of Sadao in Songkhla
province. It is topnymically expressed in the name of the
village adjoining the border: it is popularly known as Ban
Darn Nork, meaning the' outer village' (itself an indication
of its marginality); but it is officially called 'Thai Chang Lon',
which echoes the name of the nearest township on the
Malaysian side of the border (Chang Lon). Although the
latter name suggests that it is identified as an extension of
Tourism Recreation Research Vol. 29, No. 2, 2004
the Malaysian town, that name is in fact Thai in origin (Chang
derived from Chiang, meaning township). This itself is a
legacy of the mixed ethnic settlement patterns on the ThaiMalay peninsula which pre-dated the drawing of modern
national boundaries (based on the Anglo-Thai Treaty of 1909,
for which see Tej 1977: 162).
Border zones are often areas of intensive cross-border
trading; indeed much of cross-border tourism in the west
consists of shopping excursions. However, owing to their
fuzzy character and often limited control by the centre, border
zones are also frequently marked by a variety of illicit
activities, such as smuggling, contraband trade, gambling
and prostitution, some of which, especially the last-named,
may become significant attractions for cross-border tourism.
Indeed, gambling is the principal attraction for the intensive
cross-border business between Thailand and its neighbours,
Burma and Cambodia (Gilley 2001). Less common and less
noticed is that border zones, owing to their peripherat
interstitial character constitute virtually ideal liminal
locations for 'centres out there' (Turner 1973), namely for
cross-border religious pilgrimages. This is indeed the case
on the Thai side of the Thai-Malaysian border. Though other
kinds of activities, such as shopping, are also prominent on
this border, we have selected the contrasting themes of
prostitution and pilgrimage to examine the variegated nature
of tourism in the border zone. While essentially an extended
case-study, we hope to extract from our discussion some
ideas regarding the more general features of this neglected
form of tourism.
The Lower South Thailand Border Tourism Zone
Lower South Thailand is distinctive as a region by
virtue of the ethnic and religious characteristics of its
population, its settlement patterns and its history as a region
peripheral to the state centre. In different ways, these features
have helped to shape the border tourist space that has evolved
here over the past thirty years. Most conspicuously, the
majority populations of four of the five provinces adjoining
the border are Muslim Malay agriculturalists and small-scale
rubber producers. Thai-Buddhists and Sino-Thais
predominate in Songkhla province, historically the core of
the Thai presence in the extreme south. Thai agricultural
settlement also extends across Yala province and south into
the Kedah area of today' s Malaysia, but these Thai-Buddhists
remain a minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim agricultural
landscape. The conspicuous presence of the Chinese in the
Lower South has a long history, both on the western and the
eastern coasts of the peninsula. The Chinese have historically
been associated with tin production, rubber production and
trade (Donner 1978: 471).
Two prevalent spatia-cultural features have shaped
the nature of the border tourist space in lower southern
Thailand. First, the Chinese and Muslim communities in
the Lower South have historically maintained a cultural
orientation beyond the inscribed borders of the Thai nation
state. This is most obvious among the Muslim communities,
whose cultural and religious territory historically extended
across the peninsula as well as southwards from Pattani to
Kelantan. But also among the Chinese- and most obvious
among the Hokkien speech group - there has long been an
orientation towards centres of population and trade in
Malaysia, such as Penang. These affinities and networks of
trade, kinship and religion were never ruptured by the official
national frontiers which emerged in the early twentieth
century. Thus, for the two most significant ethnic groups of
Lower South Thailand, the space of 'Thailand' is only a
portion of a cultural region which straddles modern state
boundaries. The second feature is the overwhelmingly
Chinese character of the Lower South's urban settlements.
These urban settlements can be fairly described as ethnic
Chinese and Sino-Thai 'enclaves' within a predominantly
Muslim cultural area (Cornish 1997). And it is these enclaves,
especially the city of Hat Yai, that developed as the principal
destinations and communications hubs in an evolving
border tourist system.
Paradoxically, it was during the 1960s, a period
associated with communist insurgency and separatist
violence on the Thai-Malaysian border, that tourism began
to expand in the Lower South. Visits of Malaysians across
the Thai border were notable from the early 1960s onwards,
when they formed the second-largest national group among
all tourists to Thailand -their numbers were second only to
American visitors, who dominated the country's tourist
profile at that time. From a total of 40,349 in 1964, the number
of Malaysians entering Thailand rose by 1973 to 190,000,
making them in that year the largest single tourist group
(representing 18 per cent of all tourists). With the exception
of only a few years, Malaysians have maintained this
dominance until the late 1990s, when the Japanese overtook
them (Economist Intelligence Unit 1974, 1988; TAT 1990,
2000). The distinctive characteristics of Malaysian (as well
as Singaporean) tourism into the Lower South were already
clear from statistics from the early 1970s: this tourism was
marked by short stays and only limited movement beyond
the border provinces. Another distinctive feature of this crossborder tourism was that most visitors used overland routes,
whether by rail, bus, or private car, unlike the other
international tourists pouring into Thailand at this time who
arrived by air (Economist Intelligence Unit 1974, 1988).
Border tourism from Malaysia, and increasingly from
Singapore, was able to flourish because it was centred on
91
the Sino-Thai urban enclaves, not the insecure countryside
where communist and separatist camps were located. Above
all, it was Hat Yai which attracted tourists. Hat Yai's
importance in the Lower South had been based on its function
as a marketing centre for rubber (Songkhla province is the
largest rubber producing province in Thailand) and as a
railway and communications junction linking cross-border
trade (at both Sungai Kolok and Pedang-Besar) (Donner 1978:
484-485). Although the city of Songkhla is the governing
seat of the province, Hat Yai is the regional centre of
commerce and trade, and all the national development plans
(implemented since 1960) have favoured this centre in the
domains of higher education and communications (e.g.,
Sternstein 1976: 122). In 1972 the Thai government
transferred the site of the south's major domestic airport from
Songkhla to Hat Yai and upgraded it to the status of an
international airport shortly thereafter.
Largely due to the expansion of tourism from the early
1970s, Hat Yai's services sector increasingly diversified,
making parts of its economy largely independent of its
agricultural hinterland and intimately linking its fortunes
to Malaysian tourist flows and the Malaysian economy itself
(Wells 1973). Tourism was conspicuously focused on the
towns. In the first major study of tourism in the border region,
it was reported that Malaysian and Singaporean tourists
showed little interest in travelling beyond the Hat Yai city
limits: they focused instead on 'night life', shopping and
eating at the city's restaurants (TOT 1977: 19). The tourist
sector which has developed over the past thirty years in the
Lower South is critical to its economy, bringing an estimated
income of 19 billion baht from 2.2 million visitors, particularly
to the region's main city of Hat Yai (Bangkok Bank 1990).
In the 1990s and into the 21st century, tourism in the
Lower South has maintained its focus on Hat Yai and the
border towns of Sungai Kolok and Betong (TAT 2000: 21)
The final removal of the communist threat in 1987 and the
palpable decline of separatist terrorism opened the
hinterland to development; however, this did not
substantially re-orientate the largely urban focus of tourist
activities and infrastructure. For example, Hat Yai holds
approximately 90 per cent of the lower south's 8,000 hotel
rooms (Mings and Sommart 1994: 27). The bulk of the
remaining tourist accommodation is distributed between
Betong, Sungai Kolok, and the new burgeoning tourist-based
settlement called Ban Darn Nork, at the Kedah-Songkhla
border-crossing. To an extent, one can say that the
countryside has also been opened to tourism. A variety of
sites have been promoted by the Tourist Authority of
Thailand (TAT) and private tour agencies: these include
temples, waterfalls and other attractions, such as the
communist tunnels near Betong, and an ethnographic
92
museum and handicraft centre on Koh Yo island in Songkhla
province (Tammasak 1982: 120-121). Visits to temples and
shrines have become a key part of many Malaysian and
Singaporean tourist destinations in the Lower South.
However, the touristic development of the countryside in
the Lower South contrasts with that in other parts of
Thailand, such as the North and the Middle-South. In the
Middle-South, coastal areas and islands such as Phuket and
Koh Samui have become the sites of resort vacationing and
allied recreational activities, such as scuba diving, sailing
and trekking. In the Lower South, by contrast, the key foci of
tourist consumption are the urban places, with rural
destinations serving merely for day-trips.
In the Lower South the TAT as well as local groups
representing the tourist industry (including the Hat Yai
Municipality and the Tourism Federation of Hat Yai) have
actively sought to expand the tourist base by promoting the
Lower South as a tourist destination in Taiwan and
elsewhere; but Malaysians and Singaporeans still dominate
overwhelmingly the tourist profile of the region, among
arrivals by land as well as by air (Immigration Bureau, Police
Department 2000; Patsara 2002; TAT 1990: 18, 32). Despite
government programmes aiming to integrate Thailand's
tourist regions (including airport expansion and major
highway upgrading), the Lower South seems still to
constitute a regional sub-system of its own, driven by
distinctive patterns of movement and motivation among
Malaysian and Singaporean visitors to the area. It should be
noted that no reciprocal tourist sub-system developed in the
Malaysian border zone, on the other side of the border.
The dominant activities characterizing international
tourism in Thailand - and foreign tourist motivations
generally- do not fully apply to the Lower South. Malaysian
and Singaporean tourism is focused not on visiting natural
attractions or vacationing, but on three central activities:
shopping and dining; visiting temple and shrine sites; and
the use of sexual services. These orientations may be
summarized as: 'consumption', 'blessing' and 'catharsis'
respectively. Certainly such touristic activities are also found
in other parts of Thailand; however, in the Lower South this
particularly intensive cluster of activities has shaped a
distinctive border space, distribution of activities and
division of labour.1 The particular motivations and practices
of Malaysians and Singaporeans require exploration, since
in some fundamental ways they contrast with motivations
and practices attributed to western tourism to Asia. Western
theorizing on tourist motivations and media representations
stress the orientalizing process by which the exotic' other' the people, landscape, and women's sexuality- is apparently
constructed. Due to the privileging of Western tourism in
scholarship (including sex tourism), Western models of the
tourist practice continue to dominate the literature. However,
studies of Japanese tourist practices suggest that Asian tourist
behaviour has some distinctive characteristics, in particular
a concern with sites and sacred places of their own cultural
background (e.g., Graburn 1983; Reader 1987; Cohen 2001).
The common Western-centred themes of cultural/
ideological difference and the attraction of the exotic 'other'
might be questioned, or at least refined considerably in the
case of Malaysian-Singaporean tourist motivation and
practice in the Thai borderlands. For example, for the many
tourists of Chinese origin among the Malaysians and
Singaporeans there is in fact much that is familiar in the
places they visit. The urban-market enclaves which they
patronize are overwhelmingly Chinese in their character and
populations. So too, many of the shrines and religious
monuments frequented by these tourists are identified in
terms of recognizable Chinese symbols and meanings. There
exists, of course, a set of' differences' which help to generate
such a large scale of tourist visits across Thailand's southern
border line. But these are not cultural, as in the case of
Western tourism - they are fundamentally economic, legalpolitical and social. The economic differences are obvious:
goods and services are relatively cheap to buy in Thailand
because of the differentials in prices which favour Malaysians
and Singaporeans and enhance their purchasing power in
Thailand. This is enhanced further by the advantage of
Thailand's proximity and the ease of travel, particularly when
tourists have limited time.
Differences in legal-political and social conditions
prevailing in Thailand, compared to those in Malaysia and
Singapore, are critical factors underlying the continued flow
of tourism into Thailand and help to explain the predominant
forms it takes, namely sex-oriented tourism and pilgrimage.
In Malaysia the rigorous enforcement of legal sanctions
against the sex industry and the application of the strict
shariah law in some states contrasts strikingly with the
openness and ease of access to sex workers in Thailand across
the border. In Singapore access to sex workers is easier, but
restrictive both because of high prices and the limited size of
the trade. Thus, many Singaporean men travel outside their
country's borders to access services of prostitutes. The closest
border-crossing for Singaporeans is northwards across the
causeway to the Malaysian state of Johor Bahru, where
Malaysian, Thai, Filipino and Indonesian prostitutes work
in brothels thinly disguised as karaoke lounges or massage
parlours. The sex trade in Johor is subject to continual police
surveillance, and while many Thai women travel there
clandestinely (with the aid of Malaysian underground
syndicates) to engage in sex work, they are frequently arrested
and bars are often closed by the authorities (Nagaraj and
Yahya 1998). Large numbers of Singaporean men in search
of pleasure prefer to travel instead to the nearby Indonesian
islands of Batam and Bintan (Brazil1997: 77-78; GrundyWarr and Perry 2001). Despite the growth of the nearby
Indonesian island resorts, however, Hat Yai and the Thai
border towns remain popular with Singaporeans. The mix
of' familiarity' and' difference' encountered in these sites by
border tourists is explored further below.
Pilgrimage Along the Thai-Malaysian Border Zone
Turner's (1973) seminal article on the 'Centre Out
There' as the 'Pilgrim's Goal', proposed an important
theoretical notion regarding the linkage between pilgrimage
and the constitution of religious space. For, according to
Turner, the 'ex-centric' location of the sacred pilgrimage
centre outside quotidian, profane social space, removes it
from the normal divisions and differentiations of society;
being located in a liminal unstructured space, it is conducive
to the emergence of communitas, an undifferentiated
brotherhood between the pilgrims. While Turner's model of
the pilgrimage may not hold for all pilgrimage centres, it
appears to be most appropriate for small, popular centres,
secondary to the major, more formalized centres of world
religions (Cohen 1992). Boundary zones offer attractive
locations for such centres, owing to their peripheral and
interstitial characteristics mentioned above - the very same
ones which facilitate the proliferation of vice in those zones.
In Thailand, the most eminent and well-known of
such 'centres out there' is the sanctuary of That Phanom
(Pruess 1976) in Nakhon Phanom province. Like some less
important Buddhist sanctuaries along the Mekong river,
which marks the Thai-Laotian border, the That Phanom
sanctuary is located on Thai soil, but oriented to the Laotian
side of the border, from where most pilgrims appear to have
emanated in the past.
The Thai-Malaysian boundary zone differs in one
important respect from the Thai-Laotian one: in the latter
case, the boundary separates two countries with the same
dominant religion: Theravada Buddhism; whereas in the
former case, the boundary divides Buddhist Thailand from
Moslem Malaysia. The difference is significant, in that
Thailand offers to non-Muslim Malaysians (and
Singaporeans) opportunities for worship and other religious
activities, which are hard to realize to the same extent in
Malaysia and, for other, non-religious reasons, even in
Singapore (Cohen 2001). Indeed, Malaysians and
Singaporeans of Chinese origin often perceive Thailand as a
substitute Chinese homeland.
93
On the Thai side of the Thai-Malaysian border are
located several temples and sanctuaries popular with
visitors of Chinese background from neighbouring states, as
well as with Sino-Thai and Thai inhabitants of Thailand.
The historical background and religious orientation of these
sites is heterogeneous - some are relatively old, whereas
others have been established only in the last decade of the
twentieth century, with an eye to provide additional
attractions to border tourists; most tend to Mahayanist
Buddhism combined to varying degrees with elements of
Chinese folk religion. We have chosen four of the major
boundary zone sanctuaries for more detailed description.
Lim Kor Niew Shrine in Pattani
This is the oldest and most important of the four sites.
According to a legend (which iconically expresses the
tensions between the Muslim Malays and the immigrant
Chinese in the Lower South), about 400 years ago a Chinese
woman from the province of Fujien, Lim Kor Niew, came to
the city of Pattani, at the time the capital of a Muslim
sultanate by the same name, in search of her brother who
had settled there. Unknown to her, the brother had converted
to Islam, married a woman related to the royal family of
Pattani, and been given the task of building the mosque of
Kerisit (unfinished up to the present) a few kilometres outside
Pattani city. The shocked sister committed suicide by hanging
herself near the mosque. Her brother subsequently built a
Chinese shrine for her at a site adjoining the mosque. Her
spirit, inhabiting the shrine, was said to show miracles to
seafarers and other travellers. As her fame grew, her shrine
became a pilgrimage site. However, since at the time her
shrine was- despite the short distance from the city- still
difficult to approach, the leader of the Pattani Chinese
community decided to enshrine her spirit in a sanctuary in
the city itself; over time this became a major Chinese temple,
with Lim Kor Niew, who has by now become a goddess, the
presiding deity. A festival in her honor is celebrated yearly a
few weeks after the Chinese New Year (Vipasai 2002); but
throughout the year, the temple, as well as the shrine at the
Kerisit mosque, are popular with Chinese cross-border
visitors. An aberrant indication of its importance is the fact
that in October 2002, the temple became the target of a
fundamentalist Muslim attack, together with the principal
Thai Buddhist temple in Pattani, Wat Chang Hai.
Wat Khao Ruup Chang in Padang Besar Sub-district of Songkhla
Province
Though of recent origin, this temple best exemplifies
Turner's concept of the' centre out there' in the border zone.
Located in a mountain cave in a remote forest, far from human
settlements, it is just a few kilometres away from the Thai94
Malaysian border. Its foundation story confirms its liminal,
interstitial nature. It was established in 1969 by an ascetic
monk, Meng San, who was born in China and lived in
Singapore. He was first ordained in the Mahayanist Buddhist
monkhood, and later, during a visit to Thailand in 1968, in
the Thai Theravada order. Meng San retreated, in the
company of a Thai monk, to a big cave, in what at the time
was a jungle inhabited by wild animals. There he experienced
a vision of the goddess Kuan Yin and of Amitabha Buddha,
and decided to build their images in the cave. Wat Khao
Ruup Chang emerged around the image of Kuan Yin, and
expanded into the many other halls of the cave and, more
recently, into the flat land in front of it (Pravat 1995).
Like many other recently established sanctuaries, Wat
Khao Ruup Chang is basically syncretistic. Though officially
recognized as a Thai Buddhist temple, Mahayanistic
influences predominate. Around the two principal images,
images of other Bodhisatva and of various Mahayanistic
deities were installed. In the area in front of the cave a huge
Indian-style temple, syncretistically adorned by Chinesestyle columns, with dragons on top, is under construction.
In 1986 a grand opening ceremony was held at the
temple, in the presence of Thai, as well as Mahayanist monks
from Malaysia and Singapore. In the same year, the Kuan
Yin Bodhisatva Charity Society was founded, headed by
Meng San himself, and managed by a Singaporean board.
The Society makes annual donations to the needy in the region
(Pravat 1995).
The remoteness of the cave makes it a fascinating place
to visit; hence it became a popular destination for Malaysians
and Singaporeans of Chinese origin, as well as for SinoThais and Thais from as far away as Bangkok. The Kuan
Yin image is the principal object of worship; but while eager
to receive the goddess' blessing, some visitors appear to be
as eager to get a winning lottery number (from among those
scribbled on a Rusi image, as well as elsewhere) in the cave.
In contrast to the two sanctuaries described above,
which were - at least at the outset - remotely located, the
next two are found within the city limits of Hat Yai, the hub
of tourist traffic in the border zone. However, these
sanctuaries also symbolically preserve the character of a
'centre out there' because they are not located in the city
itself, but on the hills above the Hat Yai public park, in an
uninhabited forested area overlooking the city.
Thao Maha Prom (Brahma) Shrine
This is a relatively recently established shrine,
dedicated to the four-faced Hindu god of creation Brahma,
whose image is established in the middle of a pavilion in a
square, fenced-of£ terrace, on which several trees were
planted. The image is surrounded by large votive figures of
elephants, contributed by cross-border Chinese devotees,
whose names are inscribed on the elephants' backs. Along
the fence of the terrace are lined-up rows of hundreds of
smaller votive objects, also primarily elephant carvings.
Though nominally a Hindu deity, the shrine is primarily
visited by Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese, who refer
to the image as the 'Four-faced Buddha', thus sinicizing it
and incorporating it into Chinese folk religion. The image is
worshipped in Chinese fashion, including the burning of
joss-sticks and the lighting of strings of fire-crackers; the red
pieces of cloth at the end of the strings are fastened or thrown
upon the trees on the terrace and the numbers marked on
them are taken as cues for playing the Chinese lottery. Some
of the visitors pray devoutly before the image, while others
were observed paying their respects perfunctorily or even
playfully- reflectively making fun of their own devotional
act.
The Kuan Yin Shrine
This is the most recent, and as yet unfinished, major
sanctuary in the boundary zone, established by the Chinese
business community of Hat Yai and the municipal
authorities of the city, as a tribute to the Fifty Years Reign of
the present King of Thailand, Rama IX.
At the centre of the shrine complex is a tall image of
Kuan Yin, surrounded by her assistant goddesses. The
images are located on a big lotus flower, on top of a circular
ball. Inside the hall are found images of various Chinese
gods; in its middle, around the mighty column supporting
the tall Kuan Yin image, are lined up rows of hundreds of
small, gilded images of the deity. Nearby is a large souvenir
shop, selling primarily porcelain images of Chinese deities
and similar religious paraphernalia. On the top of the hill,
far above the existing complex, a very tall standing Buddha
image is under construction.
This Kuan Yin shrine is probably the most popular and also the most commercialized- sanctuary in the border
zone. A constant flow of Thai and cross-border visitors of
Chinese ancestry passes through the place. The popularity
of the shrine can also be gauged from the fact that a bus line,
connecting it to the Thai port of Pakbora in Sadao provinceand from there to a boat to Penang in Malaysia- starts from
here.
Though many cross-border visitors worship at the four
popular sanctuaries here described, not all of them should
be seen as 'pilgrims' in a strict sense. Rather, as in the case of
the visitors to the Chinese Vegetarian Festival in Phuket
(Cohen 2001), here too considerable variation exists in the
salience of their visits to the sanctuaries as against those to
other attractions, and in the degree of their devotion. Many
of the visitors arrive on brief, usually two-day weekend tours,
often in multi-generational family groups. Their itineraries
include, in addition to the sanctuaries, a variety of other
attractions, such as visits to an ex-communist insurgents'
tunnel complex and a Chinese dinner in Hat Yai.
In particular, the two shrines conveniently located on
the hills above Hat Yat are on the itinerary of many brief
cross-border excursions to South Thailand. Many of the
visitors to these shrines can be seen as 'religious tourists'
(Cohen 1998) rather than pilgrims: they avail themselves of
the occasion of their visit to the shrines to worship the gods
-but they would not travel to South Thailand especially for
a pilgrimage to these or any other sanctuaries. Though there
are some tours devoted exclusively to such pilgrimages even staying overnight in temples rather than hotels - the
great majority of cross-border visitors combine their visits to
the shrines with various other activities- including, in some
instances, the use of sexual services.
Visitors to the sanctuaries commonly purchase ritual
necessities or souvenirs at the site; some donate religious
statuary or conveniences (such as benches) for visitors. Some
devotees make more substantial donations for the
construction, enlargement or embellishment of the
sanctuaries. Pilgrimage and religious tourism thus play an
important role in the sustenance and prosperity of the
sanctuaries and indirectly in the local economy as a whole.
Religious tourism appears to be an increasingly
important constituent of boundary zone tourism in southern
Thailand. While the earlier sanctuaries of Mae Lim Kor Niew
and Wat Khao Ruup Chang were not founded expressly to
attract tourists, the establishment of the newer ones above
Hat Yai's public park were expressly intended to provide
new attractions to tourists, within a general policy spearheaded by the TAT- to diversify tourism to the border
zone and thus reduce the salience of sex tourism as its
principal attraction. Paradoxically, however, there is a
symbiotic relationship between sex tourism and the growth
and prosperity of pilgrimage centres in the region.
Urban centres such as Hat Yai and Betong have
mainly prospered on sex tourism, whatever other attractions
they might have had to offer to cross-border visitors. This
form of tourism has enriched a class of local businessmen,
who owned tourist-oriented establishments - not only sexspots, but also hotels, restaurants and entertainment centres.
This business community contributed generously to religious
establishments, either as an expression of gratitude and
95
appeal for further good luck, or as an attempt to improve the
image of the locality and diversity of its attractions. The two
shrines in Hat Yai as well as the Chinese temple with its
conspicuous pagoda and the Buddhist temple with its big
Buddha image in Betong, exemplify this link. 2 In turn, these
religious establishments attract more tourist visits, whose
contributions further their prosperity. Though prostitution
and pilgrimage are contrasting forms of border tourism, they
are nevertheless interdependent, and in fact reinforce each
other.
Sex and the Tourist Border Zone
A Permissive Space
The sites of the Lower South's sex-entertainment sector
constitute a permissive zone for thousands of Malaysian
and Singaporean men to engage in forms of sexual and
recreational behaviour with a freedom and abandon
impossible in their own countries. Behavioral sanctions
imposed by legal-religious regimes as well as social and
economic constraints in Malaysia and Singapore were the
subject of frequent complaints among the male tourists including those of Chinese and Indian ethnic background whom we encountered in the sex trade sites along the border.
Thailand represented a brief escape from the daily round of
life for these men. The cathartic nature of the experience essentially involving drinking, involvement with sex
workers and often gambling- was succinctly expressed by
one Indian Malaysian from Ipoh, who proclaimed: 'When
we come to Thailand, we forget everything'. The centrality
of the sex trade in the Lower South's tourist economy was
noted in the early 1970s, particularly in connection with the
region's main city of Hat Yai. In that decade Hat Yai' s
tourism-based nightlife industry had already boomed,
despite the fact that the countryside around Hat Yai was
considered unsafe due to bandits and terrorists (Wells 1973).
In 1977 a study conducted by the Tourism Organization of
Thailand reported on the reliance of Hat Yai's tourism
industry on male Malaysian tourists, who at that time
represented 90 per cent of Malaysian visitors. In a
breakdown of expenditures it was noted (simply as a matter
of fact, without any disapproval) that an average of 40 per
cent of each visitor's expenditure was devoted to nightlife
activities, including payments to prostitutes (TOT 1977: 19).
Over the past three decades, Hat Yai' s key role as a tourist
'nightlife' attraction to Malaysian and Singaporean men has
often been remarked upon, with 'nightlife' (or the Thai
equivalent term banthueng) used as a euphemism for sexrelated activities (Economist Intelligence Unit 1984: 14; Mings
and Sommart 1994: 28-29). However, neither Hat Yai nor
the southern border crossing points which host the sex trade
have been subjected to a level of lurid journalistic exposure
96
equivalent to the exposure of the Western-oriented tourist
sex zones of Patpong and Pattaya (for a brief mention see
Hewison 1985). Nonetheless, the size and economic
significance of the tourist-related sex trade in the Lower South
are comparable to the centres of the Western-oriented sex
industry in central Thailand.
The gender ratio of tourists to the region provides one
general background indicator of the continuing importance
of sex-oriented tourism. Notably, two-thirds of Malaysian
and Singaporean tourists entering the Lower South are male.
Since the mid- 1970s the very high proportion of men (around
90 per cent) among these tourists to Thailand has declined,
but it is notable that they still conspicuously outnumber
women in tourist flows from these countries. In 1990, for
example, men comprised respective} y 70 and 68 per cent of
Malaysian and Singaporean visitors to Thailand. Although
this percentage was lower than for males among Indian and
Japanese tourists, it was higher than the percentages of men
among the tourists from any western country (TAT 1990:
22-23). The southern border provinces share with Bangkok,
the eastern seaboard (including Rayong and Pattaya) and
the Phuket region of the central south the highest
concentration of commercial sex workers in Thailand
(Wathinee and Guest 1994: 34-35). But public references to
the tourist-oriented sex trade on the border have, until
recently, been largely muted. There are some obvious reasons
for this. First, the type of night life in the key sex trade sites of
the Lower South does not feature the conspicuous eroticism
and public displays between sex-workers and clients that
mark the Western-oriented sex districts of Bangkok, nor does
the Lower South region attract Western tourists in search of
sex; thus the Western media are not attracted to it. Second,
public comments by Malaysian and Singaporean
governments on sex-oriented tourism in Thailand's Lower
South have been generally muted because of a reluctance to
openly expose the popularity of the practice among tens of
thousands of their menfolk. The most explicit public
acknowledgement of Malaysian sex tourism occurred in May
2000 when Prime Minister Mahathir openly warned
Malaysian men of the dangers of contracting AIDS by
patronizing Thai prostitutes in Hat Yai and Songkhla
(Deutche Presse-Agentur 2000). The Thai government treated
the statement as an affront to the country, and Thai news
reports responded in tum by reporting the fact that many
sex trade venues in the south were owned by Malaysian
men, and that Malaysians were active in trafficking Thai
women into their country and beyond (Business Day 2000).
As for Mahathir' s advice to men to curb their sexual desires
when in Thailand, his statements had little or no impact these men's behavior continues to contest and contradict
the moral precepts of the Malaysian state.
Sites and Infrastructure
The sex trade infrastructure of the Lower South
incorporates a range of interconnected services including
transport, accommodation, eating establishments and
entertainment venues centred in Sino-Thai dominated
settlements. Paradoxically, this permissive commercialized
sex industry flourishes in the midst of a predominantly
Muslim Malay region where sexual licence is strongly
disapproved according to Muslim law and custom. The labor
force which directly participates in and manages this system
is largely unconnected with the local Muslim population.
The sex workers themselves are predominantly lowland Thai
Buddhist women (mainly from the northern, northeastern
or central regions, with only a small proportion from southern
Thai provinces) while the rest are women from tribal
minorities from areas bordering Burma, or 'Haw' Chinese
from northern Thailand and Yunnan (Chayanoot 1991: 54).
Owners, managers and other personnel in sex trade
establishments are Sino-Thai, Thai and Malaysian Chinese
males. Muslim women are conspicuously absent from sex
work. Thai Muslims, however, do participate indirectly in
this system by operating guest houses, restaurants and small
businesses which cater to the many Malaysian Muslim
tourists who frequent the border sex establishments.
The geographical hub of the system is the regional
urban centre of Hat Yai which hosts the greatest density and
variety of these services and venues in the region. Until very
recently, Hat Yai enjoyed a virtual monopoly of hotel
accommodation in Songkhla province. Today, with some
96 hotels, it maintains an overwhelming dominance in
tourist accommodation when compared to the other Lower
South centres of the sex trade - Betong (19), Sungai Kolok
(20) and Ban Dam Nork (13) (field survey, Askew and Cohen
December 2001; TAT accommodation data, Hat Yai and
Betong). Hat Yai also offers the advantage of proximity to
related services in demand by tourists, particularly good
restaurants and shops. Sex trade-related venues span the
gamut of types, ranging from cheap brothels and motels to
karaoke bars of various sizes, massage parlours and
discotheques. Most of the larger hotels maintain a range of
these venues within their premises. The size and glamour of
Hat Yai' s larger discos and massage parlours, in addition to
the quality of the hotel accommodation, are not matched in
any of the other sex-related tourist destinations in the region.
In Hat Yai there are also numerous gay and transvestite clubs
catering to the more specialized desires of tourists. In the
year 2000 it was estimated that the city's commercial sex
worker population numbered at least 10,000 (Charoon 2000).
The other key sites of the sex trade in the Lower South are
located directly on border crossings and maintain a more
limited range of entertainment and sex-related venues. In
the well-established border trading towns of Betong (in Yala
Province opposite Kedah) and Sungai Kolok (in Narathiwat
Province, opposite Kelantan), the sex trade is integrated with
the accommodation facilities and service infrastructure.
Prostitution-related venues in these settlements cluster inside
hotels (pubs, singing cafes and discotheques) or tend to
concentrate along particular streets close to the hotels. Venues
associated with the supply of tourist-related commercial sex
services number approximate!y 71 in Betong and around 50
in Sungai Kolok. A rough calculation of sex workers in
these two towns based on an average of 20 women per
establishment yields an estimate of 1,420 and 1,000
respectively. Pedang Besar is another border town linked to
the railway route into Thailand through Perlis state. It is
much smaller than the former two settlements and its sex
sector is correspondingly smaller, comprising around 15
'karaoke' bars with an estimated 300 female sex workers (field
surveys, Askew and Cohen December 2001 and June 2002).
In contrast to these market towns, the settlement of Ban
Dam Nork in Sadao district, bordering Malaysia's Kedah
state, has developed an almost exclusively sex-trade centred
economy. DamNorkisliterally a frontier boom town with
an economy based on the tourist-oriented sex trade and its
ancillary services. In the period of little over five years, from
the mid-1980s to 1990, this settlement was transmuted from
a border crossing point with a small marketplace catering to
shoppers from Malaysia to a settlement of over 30 brothels
and karaoke bars, with a female sex worker population
numbering over a thousand women (Chayanoot 1991: 41).
In the 1990s Dam Nork continued to grow, despite the lack
of any standard urban-related amenities such as water
supply, or facilities such as banks or post offices. By the end
of the year 2001 there were over 140 sex-related
establishments, some 13 hotels and nearly 40 guest houses,
with a sex-worker population of at least 2,000. This
infrastructure, together with food establishments, shops and
cheap local rental accommodation is clustered along 12 short
lanes which extend from the main highway leading from
the immigration and customs post at the Thai- Malaysian
border (field survey, Askew and Cohen December 2001). The
emergence of Dam Nork (still officially classified as a
'village' despite its population boom) as a centre of sex
tourism was directly related to a number of changes. Perhaps
pre-eminent was the improvement of the road and highway
system in Malaysia, particularly the super-highway leading
from Johor-Bahru, through Alor Setar in Kedah to the border
crossing at Dam Nork. This brought increasing numbers of
Malaysian men through the border crossing as well as
enabled others to travel convenient!y from more distant states
of Malaysia, particularly Penang. Another factor which
stimulated Darn Nork' s development from a stopping point
97
to a destination in its own right was the increasing costs of
accommodation in Hat Yai and the greater convenience of
Darn Nork for Malaysian men seeking weekend relaxation.
And a further, more recent, stimulus was the severe flooding
of Hat Yai late in 2000 which led to the temporary, and
eventually permanent, relocation of sex workers and small
establishments to the border, away from flood-prone land
(Charoon 2000). To some extent the development of Darn
Nork reflects a trend towards the dispersal of sex services to
the border, away from Hat Yai, with a division of labour
emerging whereby Hat Yai maintains pre-eminence in upmarket entertainment and Darn Nork hosts smaller
establishments (Horn 2000). Due to its convenient location
on main highway routes from Malaysia, Darn Nork has
grown at the expense of other border towns, such as Betong,
Pedang Besar and Sungai Kolok.
Supply and Access to Commercial Sex Services
and selecting women for them. The customers' payment for
the woman's services (determined according to the length of
time) is made in advance to the management, with this
income split (usually 50-50) between sex workers and
employers. An important source of additional income for
women is gained from Malaysian and Singaporean men in
the form of tips paid over-and-above the booking fee.
The booking system applies to a range of
establishments, even to those which seem, by their
appearance, to be'closed' - that is, businesses set up for the
sole purpose of providing sexual services, with minimal
allowance for any social interaction between clients and sex
workers. These most typical of commercial sex venues, as
noted already, are euphemistically named 'karaoke bars' (a
term employed by owners simply to reduce direct police
harassment). We may distinguish these latter venues from
the singing-karaoke lounges by designating them as 'sexkaraoke' bars. Chinese-Malaysian tourists who prefer karaoke
lounges and pay women singers for sitting with them
(generally 100 baht per hour) often denigrate the latter
establishments as 'sex shops'. But although they might be
simply described as 'brothels', the sex-karaoke bars are in
fact far more flexible than ordinary brothels, because they
function mainly as the bases for escort services. Most sex
workers in sex-karoake bars conduct their work outside these
venues. The booking system is generally utilized by many
Malaysian and Singaporean tourists in such a way as to
ensure that they spend time with women outside the
Malaysian and Singaporean men access prostitution
services in a variety of settings, including those that directly
provide sexual services like massage parlours and brothels,
or in entertainment contexts such as karaoke lounges,
discotheques or pubs and music cafes. Women's sex work
correspondingly spans a range of modes. They include: fulltime employment in establishments devoted to direct supply
of paid sexual services such as brothels (thinly disguised as
'karaoke bars') and 'modern' massage parlours; employment
as therapeutic masseurs or singers in karaoke lounges and
'cafes' or barbers' shops where sex is negotiable and separate
from the establishment's charges; or
freelance prostitution (phuying chap
khaek) in discotheques (this latter mode
is almost exclusively concentrated in
Hat Yai). However, it is the system of
'booking' that is the predominant
means by which women's services are
engaged. This booking system is one
of the key features differentiating
Malaysian/ Singaporean customerprostitute transactions from those in
the Western-oriented sex trade zones
of Thailand; it is common in other sex
trade districts in the regions of
Southeast Asia dominated by the
Chinese (including Malaysia and
Singapore, for which see Brazil1997:
93). According to this system, a
customer 'books' a woman for a
specified amount of time, generally
but not exclusively with the' captain',
Figure 1. Pamtings on the front window of a singing karaoke bar in Ban Dam Nork.
an employee of a sex venue, who is
(Photo: Erik Cohen)
responsible for attracting customers
98
establishment. This booking system contrasts strikingly with
Western-oriented venues such as beer bars and go-go bars,
where much of the entertainment and interaction takes place
in the establishment.
Women and Work Regimes
As already noted, the majority of women engaged in
sex work in the Lower South originate from north and northeast Thailand, which are known as the poorest regions of
the country. One of the few researchers who has conducted
a survey of these sex worker's regional origins (based on a
case study in Dam Nark) arrived at the following profile:
Northeastern Thailand 47.2%; Northern Thailand 35.2%;
Central Thailand 10.4%; South Thailand 5.2%; Burma and
Southern China 1.6 % (Chayanoot 1991: 54). These findings
correspond in general to our own investigation of four
establislunents operating in Dam Nark and discussions with
owners, operators and other sex workers interviewed
individually. The largest proportion of these women are
aged between 21 and 30 years, with a significant minority
between 18-20 years. In the border sex trade sites of Betong,
Dam Nark, Pedang Besar and Sungai Kolok, and particularly
in the small sex-karaoke bars, the larger proportion of the
women have commenced work with no prior experience of
prostitution. However, in these cross-border settlements
there are also found women with prior experience: some
masseusses have worked in Bangkok massage parlours and
some singers in the karaoke lounges have worked previously
in Hat Yai or Phuket. A number of women have previously
worked in brothels in Malaysia and are recouping income
lost following their arrest and deportation from there.
Our research in the Lower South confirms Chayanoot' s
findings at DamNark that women's entry into sex work in
the lower south is largely voluntary (Chayanoot 1991: 74).
A minority of the women have been trafficked, in the sense of
being deceived and forced into prostitution by agents, with
no knowledge of the nature of their work or even of their
destination. Women usually move to the south from their
homes in the north and north-east after receiving information
on work opportunities from friends, community social
networks, or neighbours, who may also be agents for owners
of sex trade venues. Women who enter work through these
agents (nai na) are obliged to pay a fee to the agent and often
take an advance from the employer. Sums of money owed by
women on entering employment range from 8,000 to 15,000
baht, depending on whether they have also borrowed money
for other expenses. Some women do not use agents but travel
to the establishments by themselves or with friends who are
already employed there. In these cases they do not incur
financial obligations to owners. In both instances women
are usually aware in advance of the nature of the work they
are about to enter. It should be stressed here that although
most of the women entering sex work are of a rural
background, they are not 'village women' in the
quintessential sense that they are ignorant of life outside the
rural environment. As with women entering the sex trade in
Bangkok, most have already engaged in a variety of urbanbased work during their lives (predominantly in Bangkok)
and draw on their knowledge and skills to make connections
and judgements about work options (see Askew 1998).
Cases of trafficking women to Betong, Hat Yai and
Sungai Kolok have been reported by a number of researchers,
but in these cases the women have usually been smuggled
into Thailand and belong mostly to ethnic minorities, such
as the 'Haw' Chinese from northern Thailand or southern
Yunnan or to the 'Thai-Yai' (Shan) from Burma (Bond et al.
1997: 202-203; Vorasakdi 1998: 37-38). In the tourist-related
sex and entertainment venues in settlements such as Darn
Nark, Haw women are found working in the large 'cocktail
lounges' frequented by Chinese Malaysians and
Singaporeans because they are able to sing fluently popular
Chinese language songs. They are also favoured because of
their fair skin, which Chinese men find attractive.
The women's conditions of work and their level of
freedom in the work place vary depending on the
establishment to which they are attached. With the exception
of Hat Yai, which offers greater freedom to the women to live
outside their workplaces, most women in the typical
commercial sex establishments are accommodated in rooms
above or next to the workplace. That 'workplace' is
essentially a rectangular room lined with cushioned seats
where customers are received and where women are pointed
out by the captain and selected by customers. Most employers
maintain a set of basic rules governing the women's
behaviour and work practices, often backed up by penalties.
The women are required to return promptly after a booking,
to receive permission to leave the establishment during the
day for routine activities (such as shopping or making
telephone calls). They are penalized if they refuse to
accompany a customer. In some establishments rules and
fines for infractions are recorded on a notice board. The
captain has a number of functions in the workplace - he
plays the role of host for customers, states payment amounts,
collects booking money and escorts women to customers in
their hotel rooms. In practice, business relations between
management and employees are carried on in a very personal
style. Thus, for example, in some venues that we observed,
the captains did not compel women to be booked by
customers whom they did not like. Captains are often
bypassed by women who independently select their
customers. Women working the brothels of DamN ark are
also allowed to return to their home villages to visit children
99
and parents in times of need or during official holiday
periods. Informality and flexibility is a function of the small
size of most of the border town sex establishments, where
owners also live on the same premises and often share meals
with their workers.
Relationships with Customers
Thousands of Malaysian and Singaporean men travel
to the sex venues of the Lower South for the practical end of
brief relaxation and sexual release, often in the company of
friends. Nonetheless, the transactions that take place
between many of these men and the female sex workers often
develop in various ways beyond the basic exchange of sex
for money. It is, in fact, the renowned sociability of Thai sex
workers that attracts men to cross the border. The ability of
the Thai sex workers to act as companions and become
'girlfriends' and mistresses is emphasized strongly in one
of the major Singaporean web sites devoted to sex-based
tourism for men. Paradoxically, this dimension is also a
source of considerable confusion for many Singaporean men
who find it difficult to disentangle the emotional from the
material bonds in their relationships (see for example
Sammyboy.com). This enduring confusion mirrors the
general dilemmas of Western men facing open-ended
prostitution in Thailand (Cohen 1982). Women develop
relationships of familiarity with their regular customers from
over the border. Relationships are also easy to maintain
owing to the good cross-border telephone connections.
Women who are in the sex trade for lengthy periods speak
the Malay language and also acquire elements of Chinese
dialects, particularly Hokkien; this enhances their appeal
for men of these speech groups. A stage beyond the sexworker's role as a regular companion is that of the 'mistress'.
This form of relationship, which is fairly common, combines
a mix of emotional and pragmatic bonds between foreign
men and the women. The maintenance of a mistress by these
men gives them the benefit of a permanent companion; it is
also an option which is recommended by many as an
apparent safeguard against the danger of contracting AIDS.
Among Chinese men in particular the mistress also serves
as an important marker of masculine status and potency
(Bao 1999). In short, Thailand represents a haven, a place for
relaxation and an arena for expressing potency and
masculinity. This highlights the important function of the
tourist border space of the Lower South as a critical sexual
and recreational hinterland for Malaysia and Singapore.
The tourism-related infrastructure in the Lower South
supports a space which functions as a tolerance zone for
Malaysian and Singaporean men. This zone comprises
dimensions which are both familiar and different to these
visitors. The familiarity is generated by certain cultural and
100
linguistic similarities shared between the visitors' societies
and the host societies of the Sino-Thai enclaves, and it is
enhanced by the geographical proximity of this zone to the
visitors' countries of origin and the frequency with which
they visit its key sites. Particularly on the border crossings,
as especially in Dam Nork, the settlements have developed
as virtual colonies of Malaysian men who visit weekly or
even stay in Dam Nork every evening and simply commute
to their work in Malaysia (by virtue of their border passes if
they are residents of the four adjacent Malaysian States).
The critical differences that mark the sites of this border zone
are represented by the legal and social regime of Thailand
which contrasts markedly with those of Malaysia and
Singapore, permitting behaviours which are illicit and illegal
in the visitors' countries of origin. Thai women, through their
work with their bodies, have sexualized the Thai-Malaysian
border, serving to act collectively as a major source of
attraction, using the border in their own way towards
strategies of economic recovery and improvement, often
through relationships of varying intensity and duration with
the cross-border visitors. Here we have concentrated on
describing the sex trade system and infrastructure within
this space; although this is an essential component of that
space, it helps to engender a broader environment of
tolerance that furthers foreign men's engagement in collective
recreation and sociability. In short, the border zone functions
as a space of catharsis. This is expressed succinctly in the
words of one Malaysian business man who travels regularly
into Thailand to visit his Thai mistress (a former karaoke
hostess) and to gamble and drink with his Malaysian and
Thai male friends: 'this [Thailand] is the place where I release
tension'.
Conclusion
Our specific findings regarding each of the contrasting
forms of border tourism have been discussed in the body of
this article. In this concluding section, we shall attempt to
tease out from our materials what appear to be some of the
generalizable features of border tourism in southern
Thailand, which we suggest might also be found, under
different circumstances, in border zones elsewhere. These
features are intrinsically related to the typically interstitial,
liminal character of border zones.
Border tourism in Thailand occupies an intermediate
position between domestic and international tourism,
bearing features of both of these kinds of tourism. This
intermediate position is reflected in the formal arrangements
of border tourism: unlike domestic tourism, it involves the
formality of border crossing; but unlike international
tourism, it does not in most cases involve the need for a visa,
but only of a border pass - whose validity, as in the case of
the Thai-Malaysian border, may be limited to the border zone.
But, more significantly, this intermediate position also
reflects the mixed character of the boundary zone,
incorporating as it does social and cultural features of both
adjoining societies.
Tourism to the border zone combines elements of
the familiar with the different, but does not have the
extraordinary character which is usually associated with
tourism (Graburn 1977). Neither does it generally involve a
quest for the strange or the exotic. Most border tourists in the
Thai-Malaysian border zone seek familiar experiences in a
different context than at home: more easily available, of a
better quality, of a greater variety, at a lower price or with a
greater freedom of choice. This is certainly true for crossborder shopping which is probably the most common but
sociologically the least interesting border-zone tourist
activity. More significantly, it is equally true for dining on
luxurious Chinese food in Hat Yai, as it is for worshipping
at the various Chinese sanctuaries in the zone, or even for
engagement in various forms of vice, and especially
prostitution in Hat Yai, Betong, Sungai Kolok or Dam Nork.
The last point is especially enlightening in a comparative
context: for Western tourists travelling to Thailand, the
encounter with 'Oriental' sexuality, even in its
commercialized form, is generally an 'extra-ordinary'
experience, occasionally verging on revelation; for the
Chinese or even Malay border tourists it is not.
It could be objected that pilgrimage to border zone
sanctuaries could not be seen as an ordinary, familiar activity
-owing to the claim, put forward by Turner (1973) and others,
that pilgrimage involves a reversal of everyday activities, a
journey to a' centre-out-there', which represents the opposite
of the pilgrims' home environment. But most visits of crossborder tourists to sanctuaries in the border zone represent
an attenuated form of pilgrimage: in contrast to pilgrimage
to important far-off shrines, visits to sanctuaries across the
border are a more casual affair, often included within tours
to several other attractions. The visitors are predominantly
'religious tourists' rather than pilgrims in the narrow sense
of the word. Moreover, in our case, in the spirit of Chinese
religious practice, visits to Chinese sanctuaries often involve
the perfunctory performance of ablutions, rather than some
exalting and profound religious act. We are aware, however,
that there exists a minority of fully-fledged pilgrims to the
border sanctuaries, who come to South Thailand in tours for
the sole purpose of visiting religious sites.
The quest for familiarity with a difference in crossborder tourism is closely related to its temporal
characteristics: the trips tend to be short, but repetitive. Crossborder visitors are usually on trips extending from a few
hours to two or three days, mostly over the weekends. Many
cross the border quite frequently, especially those living close
to it on the Malaysian side. Some Malaysians come to Darn
Nork on an almost daily basis, while others visit the town of
Betong regularly on weekends. The more repetitive the trips,
the more ordinary they become and the more familiar the
experience. Indeed, there are some cases of what could be
called 'reverse expatriates', Malaysian citizens working in
Malaysia, but living in Thai border settlements such as Darn
Nark. Some others sojourn semi-permanently in Thailand,
conducting their businesses- often related to border tourism
itself- in the border zone. A few people even have dual, Thai
and Malaysian citizenship. But even for those Malaysians
who do not reside in Thailand, the repetitiveness of their
visits enables then to establish more than just fleeting
relations with the locals. These are Malaysian habitues of
restaurants and entertainment venues on the Thai side of
the border who have befriended local employees and
customers. Some Malaysian men formed more or less
permanent liaisons with Thai women on the other side of
the border, taking them out of establishments offering sex
services and setting them up as mistresses or' second wives'.
This pattern of tourist activities and the industry that has
emerged to service them has played a significant role in
shaping the landscape of the Thai-Malaysian border zone,
notably in its urban centres and religious sites. Despite
official attempts to broaden the tourist base, the majority of
tourists to the Lower South remain Malaysians and
Singaporeans, largely of Chinese origin. It is essentially their
preferences and demands which will continue to shape the
border tourist space.
What evidence is available as to the extent to which
these general features of border tourism, proposed here on
the basis of the particular circumstances prevailing on the
Thai-Malaysian border zone, are found in other situations
of border tourism? The comparative evidence on border
tourism is spotty. Regarding the concrete cross-border tourist
activities found in our study, particularly shopping and vice
-specifically prostitution- many instances can be cited from
other border zones, in Thailand and around the world. Cross
border shopping, as well as prostitution and gambling, are
offered along the Thai-Burmese and the Thai-Cambodian
border. Brief shopping excursions to neighbouring countries
are a widespread phenomenon, involving in some instances
millions of cross-border visitors; well-known examples are
the Canadians and Americans shopping across their
respective borders (Timothy and Butler 1991; DiMateo and
DiMateo 1996), or the British on shopping trips in the seaside
towns of France across the Channel.
Vice and especially prostitution are also fairly
commonly found in border zones: for example in Mexican
101
border towns, such as Nogalas or Juarez, serving an
American clientele; in Botswana, serving mostly white South
Africans; and on the Czech side of the border between
Germany and the Czech Republic, serving German
customers. We do not know whether the cross-border visitors
in those instances form extended liaisons with their partners,
as they do in the Lower South of Thailand.
While pilgrimage is certainly a major international
phenomenon, with important pilgrimage centres attracting
the faithful from different and other remote countries, we are
not aware of good examples of pilgrimage centres in border
zones, expressly oriented to cross-border visitors, in other
parts of the world, besides the above mentioned case of That
Phanom in Thailand, oriented to Laotian visitors across the
Mekong river. This is a problem worth further study, since,
from an anthropological perspective, the possible existence
of such centres would constitute a particularly apt
confirmation of Turner's thesis of the ex-centric nature of
popular pilgrimage centres.
also present in other instances of border tourism. Rather, it
is whether border tourism in those cases is marked by the
distinctive general features described in this article - thus
lending empirical support to our claim that border-tourism
constitutes a distinct intermediary type of tourism, neither
domestic nor international. It is this question which should
be more systematically examined in the comparative study
of border tourism.
NOTES
1
While little research has been published on MalaysianSingaporean tourist priorities in Lower South Thailand,
the existing survey research confirms two of the
orientations, shopping and indulgence in sex-oriented
night-life (see Mings and Sommart 1994: 29).
2
Hat Yai and Betong appear to be special cases of a
broader link between the development of tourism and
the prosperity of Buddhist and Chinese temples; good
examples from other parts of Thailand can be found in
Pattaya and Hua Hin, as well as on the islands of
Phuket and Samui.
However, in a more abstract sense, the principal
sociological question is not whether the same concrete kinds
of activities found in the Thai-Malaysian border zone are
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104

Tourism Recreation Research Pilgrimage and Prostitution

Transcription

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