It never stops!!!!!!

I’M JUST KIDDING. I LIED. I WANT TO CONTINUE WRITING MORE ABOUT POWER.

             So I got the chance to attend Ladyboy cabaret/burlesque show the other night, which ended up being quite enjoyable. Throughout the show, I felt everything but disgusted; the ladyboys were giving it their all out there, doing something that they enjoyed. I really want to mention this epiphany I had, that (I guess on surface level), their lives weren’t too bad. Be it pre-op and post-op, there seems to be a network that promotes and supports a transgender society.

            Therefore, I want to continue my discussion of power and it’s consequence on transgender people of Thailand. The “Power” in play is what keeps the Ladyboys oppressed: a non-accepting society that is not only heteronormative, but religious in that acceptance is only situational. However, transgender people are a commodity in Thailand – commodity to those with power. Therefore because sex sells, there seems to be a set-up in which although society discourages the lifestyle of a Ladyboy, it attracts too much economic gain to be halted completely. I don't know exactly when Thailand became a hotspot for Ladyboys and transgender surgery, but I do know that it is now in 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathoey is a little description about the history of Ladyboys. It seems that nowadays, Ladyboys are even more accepted than in past decades (which seems quite reasonable - times change). This confuses me even more, and it might be because my origins are from a liberal, yet very judgmental society, but it does not seem like it; the Kathoey might be accepted in the underground society of Thailand, one that promotes deviant acts (Binge drinking, drug-consumption, and human trafficking), but under regular Thai norms, Ladyboys are stigmatized to be a disgrace to Thailand as well as their own families. One of the my sources (I say this because I can't quite remember who told me this) mentioned that the lifestyle of the Ladyboy is a consequence of bad parenting. 

           So then what does that say about Thailand? What does that say about Power - especially Power given to those that are not suppose to have it. This revelation of Thailand's power system is interesting because it seems almost communistic to me - especially their war on drugs, as quoted in Merchants of Madness which encouraged an onslaught of Thai citizens. But the interesting thing is that Power doesn't seem to be abused - at least not on surface level. Ladyboys risk the heteronormative structure that many Thai people already believe in. On that same note, from an objective point of view, what is an xxx,xxx number of lives compared to saving a whole country (which mentioned again in Merchants of Madness did not happen as planned). So then another question is proposed: who really has the power within Thailand? Is it the Thai people? The government officials? The drug lords? I argue that at least between these three Power aspects, Power is interconnected and is circulated through all three at different times in a continuous loop. The people fuel government officials. The government officials take action against drug lords. However, the drug lords depend on citizens to flourish. Power is therefore distributed and a chain of survival seems to develop. I want to give a definite answer to this Power question, but I can't. Needless to say, I need to research more, especially increasing comprehension of the rhetoric behind the concept of Power. However as I see it, no matter when you are in the world / where you travel to, you will always see power struggles. In our case, Thailand sees power struggles in multiple dimensions: socioeconomic status, gender, political issues, and so on. This is evident in the slums of a city that is supposed to be one of the greatest hot spots in the 21st century, in the Ladyboys who are oppressed and turned into a commodity, and in a society with a underground world shadowing the normative world.

I understand that I have much more to say  about power, for example: power relating to the religion of Buddhism, power relating to wars that create the ruin temples that we visited, and many more. However, as this is a blog that is a reflection of my journey, I believe a talk about the current individuals under societal power strains in Thailand is sufficient.

I would however like to discuss more about Power in terms of addicts, but I believe I'll leave that to my blog post about addiction.

Anyhow, thanks for reading.

Disclaimer: Again this is my interpretation. I apologize if I'm uneducated.