Street Urchin of Bangkok

cafegemmayze wrote:

KKJohn wrote:

cafegemmayze wrote:

EOS Paul wrote:

She'd have your wallet as soon as look at you.

And the real urchin reveals himself...

I have lived and worked in Thailand for over 30 years and speak and read the Thai language well, as well as some Lao- write only a little as it's very difficult. So I know the culture pretty well. And having spent enough time here, I can tell you that the street people tend to have a certain look, in fact, are dressed to give them that "poor" urchin-like persona so rich foreign tourists will sympathize and give them money. Also, I disagree with the above statement re the wallet. She made absolutely no attempt to get close enough to try and grab my wallet. The young Bangkok street people are amazingly unassertive, not like in other SE Asian countries, in particular Vietnam where one little kid came right up to me and grabbed a pen out of my shirt pocket. In some tourist areas in Thailand- parts of Bangkok, Pattaya or Phuket, there are some street people that can be aggressive, tho generally they are the "katoeys"- lady boys. The younger ones are much less so. These above comments are typical of those foreigners who know little of Thai culture and show the ignorance that many foreigners have about what goes on in Thailand.

So you have no comment on your use of language here? Frankly, your assertion that they have a 'certain look' is still pointless. So do bobos in Paris or- indeed- western expats in Thailand. There's always a certain type and way of dressing. But only the poor are assumed to look so same-same that you can't distinguish them because nobody spends time looking at them, everyone prefers to look away. That was my point: your photography should be giving human faces, not dehumanizing. You're use, again, of 'urchin' makes clear that this will never happen.

Sad.

I wanted constructive criticism, not a rant about my use of language. This will be my LAST post to DPR