Chapter 3:

Pui; Cabaret Girl

Early every evening, I arrive at Calypso Cabaret in Asia Hotel to get ready to perform in front of a foreign audience who come to see what is described as a ‘men-dancing-in-women’s-clothes’ show, one of Thailand’s ports of call.

When you start with that tag line, the audience will never see us as women. It also makes our gender nonconformity the main attraction, glossing over the fact that we are trained performers with real talent, not just a group of men who dress in women’s clothes and prance about the place. Although I’m glad to be a part of an outré attraction bringing money into Thailand, I speak on behalf of all the performers when I say that we want to be judged on the merit of our performance, regardless of what’s going on ‘up here’ and ‘down there’, or what is no longer there.

When I work I consider myself a performer first, not a kathoey. In fact, I don’t think of myself as a kathoey , or even gay. They are just words other people use to identify me. I simply live my life as my own person. Outside of work, I dress as a man in a simple t-shirt and trousers. The only feminine trait that people sometimes pay attention to is my long ponytail. I don’t want to present myself as a woman all the time. However, I do like to wear a sarong at home, let my hair down, sweep the floor and do chores like a good housewife.

In my opinion, gay and kathoey are the same in the sense that they are both attracted to men. What differentiates us is how we dress and present ourselves in public which, to me, is superficial and therefore of little importance. I find labelling ridiculous, but if I had to choose between gay and kathoey , I would choose kathoey. Thai society seems to put me in this category in an ‘effeminate man’ sense, not in the literal transgender sense. I’ve done nothing to make my body more feminine, unlike many of my co-workers, who have completed their transformations surgically. I’ve had no operations, and I don’t even take hormones.

I don’t care what people call me. What matters is that I’m happy and comfortable in my own skin without troubling others. I just want to walk on this path of life as straight as I can, uninterrupted by nagging voices around me. My name is Pui, and I would like to share my story with you.

I’m from a poor, Islamic family in a southern province of Thailand. I learned early on that if I wanted or needed something, I had to work for it. My family runs a small roadside eatery where I used to help out, serving, washing dishes and wiping tables in order to earn money. I truly learned the value of hard work in those days, and because of this, I’ve never bought into the expensive lifestyles that I sometimes see around me today.

One of my family’s few indulgences was the occasional trip to a local cinema to see Bollywood movies. Unsophisticated and too melodramatic for some, I found them to be highly entertaining and inspiring. I always left the cinema feeling elated. However, stories of star-crossed couples whose love conquers all didn’t seem to inspire me as much as the elaborate dances and saris did. And later that same evening, I would stand on the family’s dining table and imitate dance moves I had just seen, to endless rounds of applause from my mother and sisters. They would tell me how beautifully I danced and how talented I was. I didn’t stop until I was too exhausted to continue.

When we could afford to buy our first TV set, I was captivated by it and spent hours in front of this magical box, admiring the singers and dancers of those days. Once I came across a ballerina who seemed to be as light as a feather. I was so mesmerised by her grace and poise that I said to myself, ‘What beauty! I want to be like her.’ From that moment on, it became my goal to one day perform on a stage somewhere.

As you can see, I’ve manifested my effeminate side since I was very young, but I never cross-dressed in my village for fear of shaming my family. I didn’t socialise much outside my family anyway. I had a sheltered childhood. I played with other children at school, but when I got home, I stayed in with my nine siblings. There were special occasions when we would participate in a charity ceremony at the mosque, and afterwards we visited every neighbour in our pick-up truck, offering them gifts of fruit and desserts. The neighbours came to visit us from time to time as well, but other than that, we kept to ourselves. When I had to interact with others, I tried to put on a masculine charade befitting of a young Muslim boy.

When I was 21, I came to Bangkok to further my education at Ramkhamhaeng University, and I’ve lived here ever since. Not only was I giving myself a chance at a better life, but I was also introduced to the freedom of self-expression for the first time. At first, I still behaved like a man, but when I found many like-minded friends at the university’s performing arts club, my pretence of masculinity began to melt away. I decided to join the club, which consisted mostly of male-to-female transgender students. Prior to joining, I had no official training in performing arts, but I discovered that my childhood Bollywood imitations made me a natural. I also found I had a talent for choreography as we brainstormed to come up with shows to celebrate the university’s many special occasions. The club allowed me to express my femininity through the safe and healthy outlet of performing.

While I was still completing my studies in the university, a friend in the club told me about a job as a female impersonator going at a club on Silom Soi 4. The club was very famous and even received attention from foreign gay media. It was the place at that time, and gay people, fashion designers, models and celebrities all frequented the club. It was also the first place in Thailand to offer this kind of entertainment. I did five shows a night, performing in both male and female roles. I was best known for impersonating ladies of colour like Diana Ross, Shirley Bassey and Donna Summers because of my swarthy brown skin.

There were no videos of these artists for us to study, so we learned to impersonate them from photos and vinyl record covers. Then there were the lyrics, which we had to translate so we could convey the message with our movements. In my experience, the standard of English in Thailand is generally very poor; I’m one of the many university graduates who can’t speak English properly. Fortunately, the club’s patrons were international, so I had access to help. I befriended some Westerners who were regulars at the club and asked them to explain the lyrics to me in simple language as I wrote them down. If I couldn’t find any help, I would revert to the dictionary, which was a painstaking process because I had to look up almost every word of the song.

We had over three hundred shows to rotate all year round, and each month we introduced three or four new numbers. It was a demanding job indeed, and I worked myself to exhaustion, but I was keen to improve myself as a performer. I had my portable cassette player plugged into my ears for hours every day, and my dictionary lay permanently at hand.

I continued with this rigorous routine until I decided to embark on a new goal of starting and managing my own cabaret team. While I was still in the initial phase of recruiting, a friend who worked in TV told me that a national talent show would soon be taking place. I decided to sign up, and my newly recruited friends and I won many rounds of the contest before we were eventually selected as the overall winners. I was known in the show for my Tina Turner impersonation.

Despite the euphoria of my victory, I suffered from a gnawing fear of my father’s disapproval. My effeminacy had received nationwide exposure, and I thought he would be furious with me for humiliating our conservative Muslim family. I decided to visit my hometown, and all the way there I dreaded the confrontation. Surprisingly, instead of disowning or berating me, he gave me a whimsical smile and asked how much prize money I had received. I think he was secretly proud of me, but too shy to show it. I’ll never forget the sense of relief that flooded over me then, and my gratitude for my family’s acceptance cannot be measured.

The answer to my father’s question was that the prize was worth hundreds of thousands of baht, which was more than enough to get my cabaret team going. We were offered many gigs, from acting in music videos to creating an intermission show for the Miss Universe programme. We were quite famous.

I worked with my cabaret group for a few years before we decided to go our separate ways. I loved the independence of running my own show, but it took up most of my time and energy, and I felt I wasn’t growing much as a performer. We parted on good terms, and I will always remember it as one of my greatest achievements.

There was much more I wanted to learn about performing, so I was delighted when my ajarn (instructor) Hans asked me to join Calypso. Hans is our director and choreographer from Germany. He is very professional and extremely passionate, which Thai people sometimes mistake for aggression. He had been an actor in Germany, and he loves musical theatre. He came to Thailand to work with a Thai television network and also to teach performing arts students at a university.

Before I joined Calypso, I was only good enough to be hired by those who didn’t know what the art of performing was all about. I had no one with real wisdom and knowledge to give me constructive critique. Under ajarn Hans’s direction, I spent the first three months just mastering the basics. This is rigorous, repetitive training meant to readjust the body to stand and move as a dancer would. As I practised walking with and without shoes, twirling and executing simple dance movements in drill after drill, I was re-learning posture and movement. Learning the basics is like becoming a lump of clay that conforms to a mould. The mould makes you suitable for performing. It is imperative to look effortlessly graceful with each move which, ironically, takes a good deal of effort—it takes some girls months to master even the simplest move. My training in the basics completely changed how I work with my body.

Twenty years later, I’m still working with Calypso. I’m 49 years old and have therefore become the ‘biggest’ big sister among the Calypso performers. I’ve been asked to sit as a panel judge whenever we have auditions for newcomers, and I’m in charge of training them as well. You can be sure that they have to endure the same extensive training in the basics that I went through, but before they can even get that far, they have to first get past the audition.

Auditions are challenging because we don’t tell prospective performers what kind of song or attire they should prepare; we want to test them on creativity and common judgement. The candidates who present themselves plainly or lack sufficient stage presence are not likely to be accepted because personality is vital when you have to interact with a live audience in an intimate atmosphere.

When we find candidates who have potential, we ask them to come practice with us four days a week until they excel at the basics. This could take from two months to a year, and it takes a lot of patience and diligence on their part. Some girls give up because they can’t bear the tedium of working for so long on the same skills. The ones that persist and succeed are assigned to different routines as we see fit.

Training at Calypso is a process of self-improvement and character building, and not just for the newcomers. Even the most experienced have to diligently rehearse if we are to continue to live up to our high standards. As an instructor, I believe learning by observation and participation is far better then learning from spoken instructions. I don’t tell them which is the right angle for their hand to form a graceful pose, and I don’t tell them that they should move from point A to point B. I encourage them to observe the more experienced performers and work at it religiously. Discovering your own way of learning makes you more eager to improve and enables you to take control of your education. As strange as it may sound, it’s useless to tell the newcomers which is the first, second and third step they should follow. They would only undermine themselves by being passive students rather than real learners.

Being a part of Calypso is a privilege. Not only have I learned to be an artist instead of a mere imitator, but I have also gained a family. Here, we help and accept each other. There is no such thing as a ‘one-woman show’ on stage; no matter who’s in the front or who’s in the back, every individual brings her own unique talent to the show. Behind the curtains too, each of us has a valuable story to share, of transformation and overcoming obstacles.

One of the Calypso girls, Michelle, comes from a Chinese family in a household where the female relatives are strong and active while the presence of male relatives is weak. Her father used to be a boxer while her mother worked in a sewing factory. She didn’t spend much time with either of them. Her aunts ran many small family businesses—a tailor’s shop, a hair salon, a food stall and a news-stand. They were the ones who clothed and fed her, as her parents had already drifted apart.

Whether the absence of male figures in her childhood has anything to do with Michelle’s identity or not, to her earliest recollection she claims she has always known who she is. On her first day at school, she was made aware of her differences when another boy called her a kathoey. The young child came home puzzled, and innocently asked an aunt what was the meaning of the word. Instead of giving her an explanation, her aunt widened her eyes in shock and asked, ‘Well, are you?’

Michelle didn’t know how to answer her aunt but realised from that moment on that there must be something about her that was better left unsaid.

When she was 11, a male cousin caught her playing with Barbie dolls alongside her younger sister; he snatched the dolls from Michelle’s hands and hid them from her. This discovery alerted other male cousins to take action against Michelle’s effeminacy. Her father was the one who took the news the hardest. A former Muay Thai boxer, he hated kathoeys ’ guts when he was a young man. Thai people say, ‘Fear a fear, and it shall come upon you.’ And what came upon him was Michelle, a gorgeous, vivacious ladyboy who couldn’t be more unlike him if she tried.

The only way the male relatives could think of to ‘save’ her was to oppress her femininity and forcefully try and instil masculinity in the young Michelle. They pried her away from her sister and the aunts she was living with, replaced all her clothes with sportswear, and made her live with an uncle who woke her up early every morning to go jogging with him. In his determination to ‘make a man’ of Michelle, he brought her to a boxing ring one day and forced her to fight another boy, threatening to kick her if she was defeated.

She was a punch bag for the other boy at first. Then the rush of blood to her head combined with the escalating pressure of her male relatives’ oppression worked in her favour. She fought back with all of her being, swinging fists and kicking like an enraged animal; she finally defeated the other boy. She surprised even herself with this victory.

After that the male relatives left her alone, and Michelle resumed living with her aunts. Her uncle’s attempts had been futile because, as she says, being a transgender is not a `flu or disease that can be cured. She’s never pretended to be a kathoey ; she just is.

When she was in secondary level, one of her aunts befriended the ladyboys in the neighbourhood, which had a network of kathoeys running beauty salons and fruit stands. Michelle was extremely curious about them but never tried to befriend any. However, they could tell that Michelle was a ladyboy in the making. ‘Only ghosts can see other ghosts,’ they often teased her whenever she walked past their fruit stands. ‘ Khun phra chuay! Kathoey dek !’ (‘Goodness help me! Look! Novice ladyboy!’) That prompted her to run home blushing while people giggled in her wake.

Later on, a ladyboy named Jai came to speak with her aunts at home. Michelle watched Jai from a distance, hiding and wondering why Jai became who she was, and how she had grown hair and breasts? Jai was not there merely to be social with her aunts but to recruit Michelle. Then an aunt told Michelle, ‘Come here, luk (child). Come talk to her.’

Jai became her mentor. She later asked Michelle if she wanted to have breasts and showed her the hormone pills saying, ‘You want to be suay ? These are magic pills that could help you become beautiful. If you want to, you should start your journey now.’

Michelle was 12 years old when she secretly started taking one or two pills every day. She describes the sensations she felt afterwards as extremely uncomfortable. She suffered from spells of severe dizziness and felt like she wanted to vomit all the time. She also experienced acute cravings for food and slept 14 hours a day. She believes it was the effects of oestrogen combined with the normal hormonal imbalance of adolescence. She also started hiding her penis between her legs because she didn’t want to wear school shorts and have a bulge.

Taking hormones at the age of 12 sounds outrageous, but Michelle’s beginning was mellow compared to novice ladyboys of today, who start at even younger ages, with a handful of pills daily. Some get oestrogen injections every week when the recommended frequency is once every three months. Some get injections on top of taking pills. The most extreme case I’ve heard of is crushing the pills and mixing them with three daily meals, thus easily going through the whole month’s package of 21 pills in a single day.

These ladyboys think contraceptive pills possess magical powers—the more they take, the faster they will attain beauty, and the more exquisite that beauty will be. I often wonder what these pills could do to the health of these younger sisters—weakening of the bone, brain damage, mood swings and who knows what else. However, I understand that the desire to obtain a female physique is stronger than the fear, the risks and the warnings of others. As Michelle puts it, there is no return. ‘Not even an elephant can pull you away,’ when you’re that set on a goal.

After Michelle studied home economics at college, she, like many other Calypso girls, came to see our show and was so impressed that she auditioned and eventually became one of us. Unbeknownst to me, I served as her inspiration on the day that she came to see Calypso for the first time. She was amazed by how someone like me—a bespectacled, hippie-looking man by day—could transform into a beautiful woman on stage.

Once she was accepted into Calypso she had to face another kind of pressure. Backstage you would hear comments like ‘Look! She has got everything done. More suay than ever!’ or ‘What beautiful breasts she has!’ Comments like these make others who are perhaps in the initial process of transformation want to go all the way even if they had previously been happy with themselves the way they were. We Calypso girls are a close-knit society, and the pressure to conform is high. The need to feel that you belong to the group is vital since we rely on each other for support probably more than on anyone else.

When Michelle started at Calypso, she only had hormonal breasts, and she admitted that she was quite happy with herself. However, the more she heard testimonies of fuller figures and smaller muscle mass from those on the other side of the operating table, the more she contemplated a sex-change operation. Although it was something she had always wanted to do, she felt it was a big risk to take. When she still had her penis intact, it was hard for her to be on the road for long periods of time because she had to sit on her penis. She vainly tried to take her mind off the pain by thinking to herself, ‘When I get enough money, I’ll get rid of YOU!’ This attitude is not uncommon; many ladyboys I know don’t even want to touch their penis when going to the toilet.

Fuelled by peer pressure and a strong dislike of her male genitalia, Michelle decided to go in for sexual reassignment surgery. Fortunately, she is happy with the outcome, but she admits it didn’t change how she feels about herself at all. She insists that being a ladyboy is more of a state of mind than body.

Her family now accepts her identity. They even change pronouns when they address her. Being of Chinese Taechew descent, she used to be addressed as ‘ hia ’, the appropriate pronoun for an older male cousin, but now she is addressed by the female equivalent ‘ jay ’. She is really pleased with the change. At a family gathering, a very young girl asked her how she could go from being a boy to a girl. Michelle told her that she was born a boy and grew into a girl, and fervently hoped she hadn’t confused the girl too much.

I have my own way of explaining my identity to young children. On one visit home, there was a construction site opposite my house. A group of homeless children were playing with sand and brick around the site. I was sweeping the floor when a boy approached me and asked, ‘Uncle, are you a man or a woman?’

I said, ‘I’m a man.’

The boy quickly replied, ‘Then how come you have a ponytail?’

‘Have you seen those rock stars on television with long hair?’

‘Yes, I have!’ the boy squealed enthusiastically. I nodded and said, ‘That’s it.’

It’s easier for me to explain my identity to children than it is for those who have completed their transformation, but I still take care to be appropriate and not draw children into awkward situations.

Even now that Michelle has become so womanly in her appearance, every now and then she still attracts the eyes of those who question her birth gender. Once, she went to the island Ko Samet with another ladyboy friend. As Michelle was sunbathing on the beach alone, she noticed a farang who repeatedly circled her from afar and, each time, stole glimpses of her. Michelle suspected he found her attractive. Her speculation was confirmed when he came over to talk to her. They introduced themselves and exchanged pleasantries. Unfortunately, she took a wrong turn when, out of curiosity, she asked him the fatal question, ‘What is your job?’

He said he was a shoemaker from Australia and paused, as if he’d just figured something out. Staring at Michelle’s feet, he was silent for a moment, and then he said, ‘Well, you’re a beautiful woman. Nice to meet you,’ and hastily walked away.

It dawned on poor Michelle that the size of her feet had given her away. He had hovered around her to find any sign of her being a ladyboy but was not sure until he saw her feet up close. She blamed the loss of a potential boyfriend on those travel documentaries warning foreigners about ladyboys in Thailand and providing lists of tell-tale signs to help tourists identify them.

It is already hard enough for foreigners to tell the difference between Thai women and Thai ladyboys with the naked eye, but it has become even more difficult now that there are back-alley document forgers giving ladyboys female ID cards. Ladyboy prostitutes use these fake ID cards to convince their customers that they were born female. It may be hard to swallow, but it’s probable that many foreigners who have been in Thai red-light districts have unwittingly slept with ladyboy prostitutes.

It is my observation that once a ladyboy completes her transformation, she gets a false boost to her self-esteem. Some who used to dress modestly opt to wear low-cut tops to show their cleavage after they’ve had breast augmentation, and some become more promiscuous. I’ve seen many of my sisters flash their new breasts to friends in private, or even give a quick view of what’s no longer ‘down there’. I heard of one ladyboy who, out of the blue in the middle of a dance floor, lifted her mini-skirt up to show the patrons her surgical vagina, as an invitation to any interested parties.

Tuktik, another fellow performer, used to be one of the arrogant post-ops. She acted high and mighty towards those she deemed ‘incomplete’. But bless her heart that she came around and reverted to the nice girl we used to know. Today, she regrets the way she used to treat us. For her, being a ladyboy is like being a tiny creature under a microscope; people seem to watch and judge every move she makes. She can’t help but feel inferior to others at times.

Perhaps that’s why peer pressure played such a vital role in Tuktik’s decision to go all the way. She had already been contemplating a sex change for some time, but she was worried about the side effects of the very complex and invasive operation. What she was most concerned about was what the operation would do to her brain—what if her brain went numb, or she went insane? After much thinking, she overcame her fears and decided to undergo the sex change in a well-known place in the Chonburi province.

She and Michelle are fortunate that they are happy with the results of their operations. They both knew that it would never be the same for them sexually, but neither of them wanted to experience sexual pleasure through the penis anyway. If they couldn’t have an orgasm as women, they didn’t want one at all. Some doctors claim they can keep orgasms for male-to-female patients, but that, according to Tuktik and Michelle, is too optimistic a statement.

Tuktik is from the province Nan in the north of Thailand. Her parents divorced when she was very young. Her mother brought her to start grade school in Bangkok, and both of them have lived here ever since. Tuktik’s transformation was gradual, as she wanted to make it easy on her parents to accept her identity. Like Michelle, Tuktik remembers being called ‘ kathoey ’ or ‘ tut ’ (an abbreviation of Tootsie from the movie by the same name) on her first day at school. She realised from such a young age that she was something in between a man and woman. She played only with other girls at school, but she liked to hug and touch other boys.

In most respects, Tuktik led a very normal life. She went to a good school and graduated from university with a degree in economics. However, she felt uneasy at times living in, as she put it, a ‘so-called normal’ society. Although other kids in school socialised with her, it was on a very superficial level. She found it hard to choose a side, not really belonging to either gender group and always wondering, ‘Am I a boy or a girl?’

After she graduated from Krungthep Commercial College, she chose to study economics in a prominent university, and was the only transgender student in her class. This time she didn’t have any problem fitting in. Her group of close friends consisted of male and female students. She dressed in the female student uniform and had hormone-induced breasts. While she found students in her own faculty were more accepting of her identity because they knew her as a person, she was hassled and howled at by male students belonging to other faculties, who reminded her that she was still an outsider in the wider world.

Whenever she was harassed, all her friends gave the offenders a collective cold stare, and it usually worked. Other times, someone might walk by her group and poke fun at them, and Tuktik would respond with something humorous to relieve the tension. All the ajarns were surprised to have a transgender student because the faculty’s student demography usually consisted of only male and female students. Kathoey and gay students usually study mass communication, art or humanities. Tuktik was Halley’s Comet, the exception to the rule. The ajarns treated her as a normal student and never discriminated. They even entrusted her with special responsibilities, like organising extracurricular activities, and collecting money from fellow students to fund them. During her third and fourth years, when the ajarns learned she had been working nights at Calypso, she was asked to perform for the faculty on special occasions. She truly felt that both male and female instructors were equally encouraging and understanding of her identity.

After graduation she found that, as a ladyboy, she had to be overly qualified or have graduated with first-class honours in order to get a job, while others didn’t seem to have to try as hard. There is generally only a limited number of occupations for kathoeys —cabaret dancer, waitress, beautician, hairstylist, make-up artist, prostitute—all of them traditionally regarded as feminine and not necessarily well-paid.

Tuktik, however, chooses to be a cabaret dancer because she loves it, not because she doesn’t have other choices. She was so enthralled with our show, that after seeing it only twice, she decided to audition. I was there as a judge, and I saw an 18-year-old amateur who tried her best. Her legs were shaking like a leaf as she lip-synced and danced. She won me over with her potential and enthusiasm.

Tuktik claims that only at Calypso, in the company of second-kind-of-woman friends, can she truly speak her mind. Her female friends are more understanding than male friends, but certain topics are still too outrageous for them, and it’s even more difficult to have platonic relationships with males, who wouldn’t be caught dead walking with her alone. For Thai men to be seen with ladyboys is very embarrassing; they think it looks like they can’t find any real girls.

As for her family, Tuktik’s mother started to introduce her as a daughter rather than a son, now she has completed the transformation. She can tell from the look on her mother’s face that she is still reluctant to do so, but Tuktik appreciates her trying anyway and hopes that one day her mother will have no reservations about calling her ‘daughter’.

When I was younger I used to think about how difficult my life was. I always wondered why I had to be born like this. Why can’t I have a normal love life like other people? Tuktik finds her answer in Buddhism. She believes that anyone who has violated Buddha’s third precept for laymen—someone who has committed bad karma through sexual misconduct in a past life, whether through adultery, giving false hope of romance and breaking another’s heart, or impregnating a woman only to abandon her—is destined to be reborn for the next 700 incarnations as a human being with abnormalities or disabilities. Their fate is bound by embarrassment. Every time Tuktik uses a women’s public toilet and suffers the humiliating stares of women questioning her true gender, she feels this theory confirmed.

As for me, Islam is known for having many strict rules. I don’t want to cause any offence, so when I go home, I always dress as a man. My long hair used to draw attention every time I attended the village mosque. I felt uncomfortable at first, but after a few times, people got used to my hair, and it was no longer an issue. What was an issue was my single status. It is unusual for a Muslim man of my age to still be single. My parents had asked me for years when I would marry, even though they’ve known for a long time what I am. I always answered either that I preferred to be single or had no intention of getting married.

Eventually my mother asked an Imam in my village to visit us and clarify whether my being single violated any Islamic laws or constituted a sin. Thankfully, he said there was nothing wrong with my single status if I was not ready to get married. His answer was a big relief to both me and my family, and it certainly took a mountain of pressure off me. I don’t want to marry a woman because it would be the biggest sin of all. It would be a farce, a lie that would wrong not only myself, but also my wife and children.

I still believe and practise my religion, but not wholly. I keep the parts that seem to fit with my way of living in order to stay connected with my family and live my life as correctly as I can. I see no reason to practise the principles I don’t believe in, but in other cases it’s better to partake and conform. For example, I don’t personally feel the need to visit the mosque every Friday, but if I didn’t go, the neighbours would question me, and I would have to come up with excuses. I’d rather pray at the mosque as expected and enjoy the chat that always comes after prayer. It’s giving up a little of yourself in order to offer peace to others.

Sacrifice has its limits though. I used to wish for a normal love life like everyone else, but to be honest with you, I no longer believe in love. Or maybe I’m too selfish to be able to be in a relationship. I’ve had my fair share of boyfriends, but we’ve ended up being friends now. From my experience, a relationship requires compromise and self-sacrifice. I don’t want to give a part of myself up to a man. If I do, I’m afraid that what is left of me will be unhappy.

I have seen too many couples who were so sweet to each other when they were in love and cried their eyes out when they fought. It was not pretty to see, and I learned through observation that romance isn’t always a beautiful thing. I admit that the fallouts between lovers I saw, combined with my own less-than-perfect experiences, scared me away from romance. I just decided not to be involved anymore. I have no intention of going to nightclubs like I used to do, so men can come and hit on me for a one-night stand. I’ve seen many friends dying on their own beds, losing their hair, having sores all over their once-fair complexions because of AIDS.

Instead of nursing the idea that I have to find someone or be with someone, I’ve turned my focus to finding peace of mind through praying and people-observing. I went through that phase of life where I tried to prove myself with my outward beauty, but as I grew older I learned to study others and learn from their mistakes.

And do you know what I’ve learned from all this observation? Some like to eat noodles, while others like to eat sandwiches. People are just different. I’ve come to terms with who and what I am, and that has been a tremendous source of liberation and peace of mind. In the past I had to wear trousers, cut my hair short and act manly to conceal my true self. Now I’m happy wearing a sarong, letting my hair down and sweeping the floor with a broom like a good housewife. I can do things like that and nobody in my family says anything about it. My nieces now come and ask me, ‘Auntie Pui, how should I dress up for this evening’s party?’

Although marriage isn’t in my future, I still happily participate in weddings. Today, when someone in my family is getting married, I go home to join the festivities. I help make the wedding dresses, style the brides’ hair and beautify them with make-up. My contribution to our community brings broad smiles to my parents’ faces, and everyone in my family is thankful for my help.

I’m content with my life now. I’m happy with myself, my friends, the family I was born into, and the other family I found at Calypso. They are all that matter to me. It may sound harsh, but I don’t care about the rest of society so much. Of course, I don’t live in a cave, and over the course of my daily life I interact with many people; however, my families and friends are all that I need and care about.

My birthday is on 4 December, and I have this tradition that after the last show on that date, everyone is invited to my home for a feast of khanom chin (rice noodles) and southern Thai delicacies. I make them all myself. It’s hard work, but I love to have everyone celebrate with me. All I need from these sisters is their smiles and the knowledge that they are well.

When I’m down and too inwardly focused, I try to distance myself from my own situation to see that others, regardless of their gender, are dealing with their own problems. Then I see my life from a different angle and know that nothing is really easy that is worth anything in life.

We all struggle and have our own share of hard times, but I would like to believe that we are all patient people. My heart goes out to those som tam vendors who pound raw papaya with their mortars and pestles to create spicy salads for passing pedestrians. The sweat runs down their faces as they carry their equipment through the hot, crowded, polluted streets of Bangkok. They work hard, as we all do. You have to have patience in everything.

The most dreadful question a person in my profession can ask herself is, ‘How will I live when I’m old?’ I don’t have an exact answer for you, but I can tell you that I don’t worry about aging anymore. I’m already old by my standards, and the idea of using a cane to support myself isn’t that scary to me anymore.

I also plan ahead like everyone else. I have put money aside so I can support myself when I’m too old to work. I’ve put some aside for my family too, in case they should need it.

When I compare the lives of others with my own, I can’t help but appreciate what I have rather than focus on negativity. I’m in my element working in Calypso, and I can’t imagine myself holding on to the handrail of a crowded bus in the chaotic traffic of Bangkok every day like white-collars do. In this regard, I consider myself fortunate: I have passion, a love for what I do.

In the lobby, five large chandeliers hang above a massive, multi-coloured flower arrangement. The room is humming with the different languages of guests from Asia, the Middle East and the West. They are here to see Calypso’s last show of the evening.

Behind the panelled doors, the elegant showroom awaits them. Maroon carpet and walls papered with delicate gold print of cupids, peacocks, geese and lyres contrast enchantingly with a black ceiling. End tables are tastefully adorned with small lamps. Black, thin-framed chairs with red seating face the semi-circular stage, soon to be illuminated with bright stage lights when the thick curtains part. It feels as classy as a Parisian café.

Backstage is magical. Excitement and nerves create a charge in the air, and the buzz of last-minute, high-energy preparations is sharply dissimilar to the quiet of the showroom. But chaos is not allowed. There is a place for everything, and everything is in its place. There is a small picture of Halle Berry cut from a magazine on the wall. Everywhere are vanity tables full of make-up, hair and beauty products arranged in perfect order. Glittering costumes of bright colours and ostrich feathers hang out of harm’s way but within easy reach. I’m in my element here. I impart make-up tips to my younger colleagues as we swap stories and gossip.

My ‘sisters’ and I have been here for hours already. We always arrive early to prepare ourselves and sometimes to rehearse new numbers before we move to the stage for the first show at 8.15 p.m. Even though I’ve worked as a performer all my adult life, I still feel the pressure to win the hearts of the audience. I suppose it is common to all performers, and that nervous energy helps us perform to the best of our ability, but there is added pressure on the girls at Calypso because we know that many in the audience expect imperfection, knowing that we are not ‘real’ women.

They come to see the show with a preset attitude. ‘Who still looks like a man? Who has manly legs? Who is too big to look womanly?’ I can read what the audience is thinking by their eyes. Sadly, some audiences are too quick to judge us. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run to the front of the stage and some members of the audience are so taken aback, they look as if they’ve seen a ghost. I don’t know whether it’s because they didn’t expect us to look this bad or this good. Some, who are under the influence of alcohol, or what we Thais call nam plian nisai (habit-changing water), like to howl, act foolishly and make loud, inappropriate comments.

Just one round of hysterical laughter can render all of us overly self-conscious. It’s unnerving because we never know which of us the audience is laughing at. ‘Is it me? Is it my earring or my hair?’ I worry, trying to maintain the poise I have practised. Personally, I think it’s impossible to make the audience think of us as female, no matter how hard we try. The only things we can develop in the hope of winning them over are our beauty and performance skills.

After every show, we line up to thank the audience and see them out. This is a chance for us to mingle and take photographs. I vividly remember one woman who rudely pointed at us and proclaimed, ‘They are men!’ as if she’d just discovered a new species. I was standing there at the end of the line in my white magician’s outfit, and for a moment my smile almost vanished. I wanted to blurt out, ‘Why state something so obvious and offensive?’ But I caught myself and managed a gracious smile as I thanked her for coming.

We receive encouraging feedback from the audience as well. More often than not, the most womanly performers are flattered with comments from the baffled female audience, who take their hands and say repeatedly, ‘Are you real? You’re not kidding me, right?’ or ‘You just can’t be. You have to be a woman.’

Hans told us the best compliment he received was from an audience member who told him how we smiled wholeheartedly, how we seemed to enjoy our work and, most importantly, how spectacularly we performed.

In some ways, every performance at Calypso is like a battle to gain respect for our ‘third’ gender. Thailand is not as accepting of ladyboys as foreigners might think. Ladyboys exist without real legal recognition or rights. The authorities try to limit the presence of kathoeys in the media because they fear that children will imitate us and become deviants by our example. I don’t think being a kathoey is imitable, and I don’t think it’s contagious like a disease. Kathoey is just another form of being.

I do hope that those who have completed their transformation can one day obtain female titles on their ID cards and passports; more importantly, that rapists will be held fully accountable for their crimes against ladyboys instead of being let off lightly for ‘physical assaults’. However, I don’t feel the need anymore to fight for respect from other people. All along, deep down I’ve known that I fight for my own respect, as I cannot force anyone to accept my identity. The only thing that matters is that I live life as myself and am happy about it.

We Calypso girls are just a tiny part of a very small but complicated society. We willingly put ourselves out there, on-stage and off-stage, never knowing what kind of reaction we will get from people, but hoping to be seen for who we are—performers, artists, people. Standing there at the end of the receiving line and seeing the last of the audience out of our showroom, I can’t help but wonder how their responses might have differed if we were women. Would they have been kinder? Would they have evaluated our performances on a different scale?

Who knows? The only thing I know for sure is that I could drive myself crazy with such questions. My time and energy are far better spent concentrating on my performance, and letting the dazzling stage lights blind me to the audience.