Expat teachers in Thailand
 

Did anybody else read the odd opinion piece that ran in the Bangkok Post today? It was written by Harry Nicolaides, described as "a Melbourne-born teacher who has taught in Thailand for the last three years." In his article he uses the recent arrest of John Karr to go off on a diatribe about the "strange people" teaching English in Thailand. As someone that has taught in Bangkok language schools, I can certainly confirm that there are plenty of oddballs posing as teachers, but I don't think most of them are criminally inclined. Anyway, one paragraph in this guy's article today was particularly bizarre. It almost looks like the editor screwed up, or maybe this guy just doesn't write clearly. In the following excerpt Nicolaides is talking about an expat teacher - supposedly a disgraced "former US senator" - in Phuket. Here it what he writes:
"I met him at a go-go bar in Phuket...he was last seen teaching a transexual prostitute to sing the Star Spangled Banner in an area notorious for homosexual encounters with young men who had had a sex change operation in Bangkok."
Huh??? And why did the Bangkok Post let this odd Aussie write a half-page article?

Teaching English?
 

If your quote is correct, the person is obviously not qualified to teach English.

English OK, attitudes not
 

The columnist's English sounds (just) OK to me, except for the misspelling of "transsexual" and its run-on wordiness.

His assumptions are what's troublesome: He assumes that a man who has had a sex-change operation is still a man, that a man who has sex with such a person is having "homosexual" sex, and that the whole thing is "strange."

He also may not know the difference between a U.S. senator (that is, one of the 100 members of the United States Senate) and a member of a state senate in one of the 50 U.S. states. There are probably thousands of such former state senators, if the man in Phuket was actually one of them; but few if any former U.S. senators would be found in a Phuket bar--they're generally too distinguished for that.

The mention of Karr is noteworthy. When the Karr story broke last week, I tried to post an inquiry about whether anyone on the list knew of anything that might be used by sensationalist U.S. media to construct a supposed gay link to Karr. For some reason, my post didn't appear. Considered off-topic? Meanwhile, the U.S. media have started to do exactly what I suggested we ought to be prepared for.

From what I have seen so far, the sensationalistic US media
have been playing up the child sex abuse angle and the
view in the US that such child sex abuse is common in Thailand.
I have not yet seen anybody trying to beat gays with this
yet.

I was in the US for a visit when this whole Karr story broke. Leopard is correct...there was no media mention of gay life in Thailand, as such. They originally talked extensively about how expat teachers can operate "under the radar" around the world and how paedophiles try to stay one step ahead of the law. They also talked a bit about the Thai sex trade. But, with each passing day, as this story got more and more bizarre, any thoughts of media gay-bashing went away....there were too many other strange angles in this story to report.

Strange angles
 

True, this story has more than enough strange angles to keep the media busy.

However, there have been several internationally circulated articles on how Karr supposedly was preparing for sex-change surgery in Bangkok. A few articles have even hinted at a gay connection.

To see for yourself, just go to http://news.google.com and do a search on
karr "sex change"
or
karr gay

confused
 

stillthrobbing might be on to something in regards to the article writer being confused about what constitutes a "US Senator." I'd also be very surprised if a real senator was "disgraced" and hanging out in go-go bars - and playing with katoeys - in Thailand. In today's paper there were several letters-to-the-editor ridiculing Harry's article. Besides the bit that I quoted he was raving about Nazis and bad teachers and the whole lot. Very whacky stuff. As far as Karr getting ready for a sex-change operation, that could be the Thai media making erroneous assumptions. They had interviewed the doctor at the clinic where Karr went for some sort of hair removal treatment, and so they "naturally" assumed that hormones and a sex change would be the next step. Hey, maybe so, but until this Karr character admits his desire to be a woman, I'll remain dubious. Meanwhile, the soap opera continues. I'm sure that Bush is thrilled with all the media attention that Karr is getting; it's keeping the heat off his own blunders for a while.

And now it seems, this Karr man is a complete lunatic who confessed to a crime he didn't commit!

So, all he has done is bring embarassment on his family, and suspicion on those of us who are teachers in Thailand.

Thanks a lot!!!

Karr an idiot???
 

Now he has a movie deal and a book deal. He will have millions before he visits thailand again.