One evening, walking through the red light district to get to Chiang Mai’s Sunday night market, I notice that the bar my friend Tani* usually sits outside is closed. There’s an uneasy feeling in my chest as we pass by the silent, empty, darkened establishment. I just shake it off at the moment — I’m not scheduled to do bar ministry that night and we’re just going to the night market (I have my heart set on getting some mochi ice cream). I do, however, tell myself that I’ll go back the next night and visit Tani again; one of my squadmates had mentioned that Tani asked about me and I wanted to keep bringing light and hope her way.
So, on Monday night, my friend Alice and I pair off as we leave Zion Café. We make plans to visit one of the bars where she’s made a friend and then go to the bar where Tani works. Alice’s friend is such a sweetheart and casually creams us both in Connect Four before pitting us against each other. This girl’s story brings me hope: her last night in the bars is coming soon because she’s going to focus more on her classes. Alice has also told me about how this girl loves Narnia because of the way it represents God. She has a beautifully lighthearted demeanor and I’m praying that the hope I saw in her will continue to be genuine and fruitful.
We pay for our water and juice and head to Tani’s bar as I pray under my breath for the bar to be open and Tani to be there. Lo and behold, there they are — five ladyboys perched on their stools on the sidewalk, twisting their hair around their fingers and glancing down at their phones. I eagerly walk up to Tani and greet her with a smile, wai, and a more practiced “sawatdee ka” than the first night I met her. She meets my eyes for only a moment, though, and nervously greets me under her breath. Instead of being swiftly escorted to a table, menus whisked into our hands and orders rapidly filled, Alice and I remain on the sidewalk as I ask Tani why the bar wasn’t open last night. That same uneasy feeling stirs inside of me as she says, “My boss complain,” her voice low and her eyes just barely meeting mine.
I’ve still got my expectations. I expected Tani to be excited to see us as she had been the second time I saw her. I expected to be seated quickly, to order a Lipton iced tea for myself and to end up paying for the ladyboys’ whisky despite our best efforts to buy them a soda (language barriers make some things difficult). I expected Tani and maybe So Top*, the other ladyboy we had talked to the first night, to sit down next to us and make conversation. But here’s where my expectations are blown away.
I still try to make things happen the way I expect them to. I order that same Lipton iced tea and try to buy Tani a soda, and she declines. “My boss complain.” I ask her to sit with us, gesturing towards the empty seats in our booth. She sits down delicately, sweeping her hair over one shoulder, before getting up again almost instantaneously and returning to her stool outside the bar. I even walk up to her and ask for another glass so Alice and I can share the iced tea, but she looks up uneasily at me and says yet again, “My boss complain.” Those three words are the only words I get from her for the rest of the night, indicating that something serious had happened with the boss.
As Alice and I take turns sipping our iced tea, I glance around the bar with that same uneasy feeling growing. A few of the ladyboys just outside the door call out to men as they pass, even reaching out and touching them, while the others look over their shoulders anxiously as if they’re being watched. So Top sits at the table across from us with a Caucasian couple who seem like they’re doing what we’re doing: going into the bars and trying to make genuine conversation with people, bringing life, hope, and light to the darkness. Instead of treating them as friends like Kop So had treated me and my mom, she returns their “you’re a beautiful person” and “you are valued” with a too-tight embrace and a caress of both their bodies. I’d seen the ladyboys at this bar with other customers before, but I had never seen them as aggressive as they were that night.
I try to drink as much iced tea as I can through my little bendy straw while Alice plays with the little girl who sat down next to her. I’m trying to rush us out of the bar; my mood has instantly dropped and I just want to get out of there. The vibes in that establishment have changed so much in the past couple of weeks. The lightheartedness and easy small talk we had when I first met Tani didn’t come into play at all this time.
On our way back to our team debrief, I start processing the evening a little with Alice. She reminds me that despite the darkness, fear, and entrapment I sensed, maybe we were there for a reason, even if that reason is hidden from us. Maybe our path and the other couple’s path crossed to encourage each other just in passing. Maybe that little girl came and played at our table to keep us there just a few minutes longer. We’ve heard stories from our squadmates about how their presence brings a different atmosphere to the bars and even about how men have left without a woman after seeing them. Tani’s boss must have cracked down over the weekend (“my boss complain, my boss complain”) and instilled a sense of fear in the ladyboys, but maybe just us being there brought some light to the situation.
It’s so hard for me to find hope when fear and anxiety and oppression seem to have the upper hand — especially when there was hope before. But I’m choosing to believe in hope. I have to. I’m choosing to believe in a victory that brings freedom. I’m choosing to believe that my God has a Kingdom in store where justice is done, mercy is given, and love prevails. And I’m choosing to believe that He is calling us, as His hands and feet in this world, to bring His Kingdom come, His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
*names changed
