HOT MESS – Oh Nana. We’ve had some good times (that night with the ex in the plaza) and we’ve had some bad times (meeting a guy in Bed who thought smacking my boobs was sexy).
While Nana (except for soi 11) isn’t my hangout of choice, my office is based there so I end up spending quite a lot of my time on its streets. Despite the general grittiness, I have to admit it’s never dull. Barely a day goes by when I don’t experience a little casual sexual harassment.
Yesterday I was wandering along Phleon Chit and, almost as soon as I hit the Nana border, I got hissed at. For a second I was thrown off until I remembered where I was. I’m pretty sure it was a sexual come on of sorts, though I am unclear what sort of response my hisser was looking for. I opted for a sort of sickened scowl.
Since I can’t jaywalk from my office to the supermarket because of the new fence up along Sukhumvit, I now have to take a longer stroll through the neighbourhood, which has resulted in more pestering.
Most recently, I was the recipient of a few sly gropes when I was shuffling through the cramped market stalls that line the sidewalk. These gentlemen were so covert I didn’t even know who to take my rage out on.
Another way to ruin my lunchtime and have me yanking at my hemlines for the rest of the afternoon is to ask me if I’m a hooker. One time I got asked this when I was sitting in my sweaty gym kit smoking a shisha with a friend. A guy sidled up and spent quite a long time skirting the issue before inquiring if we were escorts.
I really don’t dress provocatively (not that it should matter), yet in Nana I’ve been approached for sex everywhere from a Foodland to an ATM. On one occasion it happened twice in one day! It’s almost funny when it happens because they’re mostly polite requests so I find myself saying “oh, no thank you” before carrying on reading my book.
Perhaps these kinds of encounters are why I’ve developed a little crush on a Starbucks barista in the neighbourhood. Nana is such a seedy little bubble that when a shy coffee jockey calls me sweet and puts extra syrup on my frappuccino (not a metaphor), I’m overly endeared.
In a way this white knight is illustrative of sort of wonderful randomness that occasionally happens in Nana. Most of the neighbourhood, like the men, offer me only cheap thrills. My barista boy on the other hand, just brought me something I would have never expected to enjoy in a hotbed of vice – a skinny banana muffin.
CORRECTION: The original headine on this story read “The Ying and Yang of Nana.” It has been changed to “The Yin and Yang of Nana.”
