My Name Lon. You Like Me?

By Derek Sharron

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9749272153
• ISBN13: 9789749272152
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Bangkok Books
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Very honest and insightful

I enjoyed this book and felt it was written very honestly. In reference to the other reviewer, Lon really didn't have too many choices available to her: 1) Her family was unable to afford sending her to school and so her job opportunities were limited. Especially since a lot of the Thai people look down and discriminate against people from her province. 2) And yes, she did get a job working as a dancer in Europe, but what other choices did she have? She spoke very little of the language and again, she didn't have much of an education to back her up. I really felt for Lon, and hope that she's found success and happiness in her life. She's a very strong person who's had to make a lot of very tough choices in order to survive and make it in life.

Insights into Thai culture and Western sex tourism

This book is the story of a young woman who worked for years as a Thai bar girl (i.e., a prostitute) servicing Western sex tourists, beginning at the age of 14. Lon talks about the pressure from her family, especially her mother, to send increasingly larger sums of money home to her family in the rural north of Thailand. This, in turn, causes her to take on increasing more unpleasant Western customers, who are willing to pay premium prices for sex partners they can treat roughly and abusively. The book offers a rare insight into the Thai prostitution industry and explains where these girls come from (generally poor rural areas), and why they get into this business. This is NOT a book about a woman forced into sexual slavery against her will. Lon comes off as a complainer, blaming everyone else--her mother, her brother, her customers--for poor decisions she made in the quest for more money. In the end, she marries a Westerner and moves to Sweden, where she takes on a job as a stripper! So while it's tough to feel any real sympathy for Lon, the insights into the Thai prostitution industry are fascinating.