Bangkok Boy: The story of a stolen childhood

by Chai Pinit

Pinit grew up a normal boy in Thailand, until he was molested by a teacher. Unable to confide in anyone or seek counselling, he started drinking in his teenage years and became an alcoholic who sold his body for money in the red light districts of Bangkok and Pattaya. But now, after years of emotional torment and dispair, the author breaks his silence to tell his haunting story. A devastating account of a childhood stolen by sexual abuse and the consquences that follow.

Genres: Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2009

Reviews

[Fadillah · Rating 3 out of 5]

“We have a saying, Thai mung, which translates as 'a Thai stare. It's a cultural thing. If an accident occurs everyone rushes to peer at what has happened; few do anything to help the situation though. It's as if an accident is a welcome distraction from the monotony of their humdrum existence, by providing them with something new to gossip about. I must be careful not to become embittered about this outlook though. In reality it was my own fault I ended up in hospital. It's about time I stopped blaming others and started taking responsibility for my actions. The indifferent world won't readily lend me a helping hand, that's for sure”.
- Bangkok boy by Chai Pinit
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The synopsis mentioned “childhood stolen by sexual abuse” led the author intended to share his trauma that triggered the path to the red-light districts of Bangkok and Pattaya. I was intrigued and it was an instant buy from me. The first 100 pages is not going in the way that i expected. You can see that there’s a lot of sexual grooming and predatory behaviour hinted among the person that he knew in his life. It is no surprise that sexual abuse usually committed by someone in the close circle either family/relatives or even friends of family/relatives. I can understand that teenagers is hormonal and that they are in the age of experimentation. What he did with his friend simply just boys discovering their sexuality. BUT when a grown man and fully adult named ‘LOED’ is courting him, this is where the author couldn’t fathom how this will affect him later. He enjoyed it but he didn’t necessarily felt he is gay. He kept coming back because he got paid for the act. This is where everything started to go downhill. He didn’t excel in his class like he used to, he enjoyed that he earned money and can spend it on gambling/betting, and when the time he got to college, he didn’t even finished his study and decided to work. It got pretty severe when he couldn’t even hold one job in a such a long time. I did read this as a sign of a trauma. The fact the author kept hijacking his life and going with the worst way possible felt like a cry for help (at least for me). I can understand why many readers are frustrated that the author kept making a series of bad decisions that fucked him up for good. However, considering that therapy was not available and he did not have any outlet to resolve it, this must be the reason why he kept on self sabotaging himself. Be that as it may, the author did contradict himself few times in the book. He himself is a sex worker but kept showing double standards towards female sex workers. Whenever things did not go according to his plan, he indulged in alcohol and gambling plunging himself into more messy situation. He blamed everyone but himself. He has met few women that accepted him for who he is but yet, they all left because throughout the book, we can see that he is someone that is difficult to live with. Overall, i still appreciate that he came clean and admit his shortcomings at the end of the book. I learned many things particularly the booming sex industry in Thailand especially in Bangkok and Pattaya. It was pretty graphic and i don’t think i will be able to put it in my review. At the end of the day, Chai Pinit wanted to share his story and that’s what he did in this book.

[Willemijn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't agree with this book's subtitle. It's not a story of a stolen childhood. It's a story of bad choices and fucked up logic. It must have taken a lot of courage to write.

[Sahani Perera, The Book Sherpa · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unimaginable life story that promotes the quote " you are what you choose to become".

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

From a storytelling standpoint, Bangkok Boy was a bit predictable; an addictive personality will tend to descend repeatedly into vice the way Chai clearly did, and I could see it coming. However, from a humanist standpoint, this was an eye-opening portrayal of the poor and troubled parts of society in Thailand. It even offered insights on the general state of society in Southeast Asia in general.

I found myself making connections between Chai's revelations on Thai thinking and the behavior I've seen in Vietnam and Cambodia. More than anything, it made me realize that what we tourists see as scams sometimes strike a shaky balance between true scam and desperation for survival in a dog-eat-dog world. The struggle to save face and dignity in a world of corruption and seediness is very real in some areas here, a reality not to be taken lightly. Bangkok Boy was an engaging lens through which to appreciate this reality for myself.

[J. James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a lot of admiration for any author who writes about their own personal experiences and challenges. The honesty of the book was something which helped me to connect to it. I am a particular fan of memoirs and autobiographies especially those that deal with complex issues such as sexuality, molestation, etc. I did feel the book was a little predictable and the quality of the writing did not always capture my interest- it was one of those books that took me longer to read. Living in Bangkok myself I enjoyed reading about a familiar setting although this sometimes distracted me from the message of the story. I would recommend this book to others, particularly those interested in memoirs but there are other similar stories of a better quality out there.

[Mark Hand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book and good read. I do disagree as some others, that he was not molested as a boy. Instead he choose to sell his body for $3. To a teacher whom he knew paid his friends for sex. But overall I really enjoyed the book. Sounds like he finally turned his life around. I now live 90 minutes away from Bangkok, but never went to see if he is working where he said at the end of the book.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and detailed book. I'm not sure if it is a stort of a stolen childhood but it definitely stems from there.
It was great to see the author share his story with the rest of the world and probably was one of the hardest things to write and admit but I am so glad he did. It is such a vicious cycle but eventually the lessons were learnt

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

How you spend your life will always be trial-and-error. Your past experiences may affect your life choices and your choices may not be the best ones that you can have. But at the end of the line, what's important is that you learned something out of these choices.

[Chris Radel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was insightful to a manner of life in Thailand. I think I was able to learn about ways of life, cultural norms, and some Thai language.

I was frustrated by the character constantly, but especially at the end. It was worth the read to me.

[Michael Fruergaard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks for sharing your story. I wish you had read the 1st of Covey's habit - your life would have been so different.

[John Collings · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know what Chai Pinit was trying to do by telling his story, set up a cautionary tale about the mistakes he made in life so others do not fall for the same mistakes that he has. The problem with this story is that it is market as a sympathetic story about somebody who was a victim to circumstances beyond his control, but this is not the case. This instead is a story about a person that was given opportunity after opportunity and squander them away with poor decisions while looking for the easy life instead of pushing to find a more substantial life that was earned through his hard work. I had a hard time feeling sorry for this individual because I felt like he constantly took the path of least resistance and that is there reason that his life turned out the way it did. There was even an attempt at the end of the story to show the lesson that he had learned through all of the experiences, but even that fell through in the epilogue as it was obvious that he would just return to the same mistakes that put him in this position in the first place. The one redeeming aspect of this book for me was the fact that I see a couple of my students going down the same path that he did. It disturbs me to think that this is their future because of the choices they are making today, and by reading this disturbing account of someone that made the same mistakes, they might find a way to avoid the same fate. On a whole, this book falls short of what it was attempting to do, and it is only because the story it is trying to tell is not as compelling as it thinks it is.

[Kaitlen Broome · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️💫
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I’m struggling to review this memoir, which was massively illuminating in terms of understanding aspects of the sex worker industry in Thailand, but it was, ultimately, too graphic and unsettling for me.
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The subtitle itself, “The Story of a Stolen Childhood”, is somewhat misleading, as most of the text focuses on the author’s “choices” in adulthood. I hesitate to use the word “choices”, as Chai’s life is rife with addiction and abuse, which leads to unheard of situations in which his state of mind was clearly disturbed and unstable. Strangely, the author’s horrific guilt was juxtaposed with a somewhat self-aggrandizing tone, which seemed in conflict with the entire message of the memoir, and made the whole reading horribly uncomfortable for me! Some sexual escapades were celebrated in a way that shocked me, and I felt unnerved for almost the entirety of the book.
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I can see how some readers could endure a memoir of this variety, but it was not for me. That being said, I couldn’t put it down and read it compulsively in under 24 hours! It was a strange experience...one which is difficult to convey here, so I will end my review with these closing words: proceed with caution!
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TRIGGER WARNING: graphic sexual content; emotional, physical, and sexual abuse; underage sex-work; animal cruelty; child abuse; substance abuse; death; pregnancy/abortion; mental illness.

[Fabiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ho comprato questo libro a Krabi, in primis perchè avevo finito di leggere tutti i libri che mi ero portata in vacanza, poi perchè volevo approfondire la storia dei "locali", delle condizioni di vita che portano a effettuare delle scelte.
In particolare ho scelto questo libro perchè parla di un go go boy, professione discutibile ma comunque una realtà in questo paese: devo ammettere che vedere "determinate situazioni" e ascoltare certe conversazioni mi ha parecchio stranita, vergognandomi di appartenere a un occidente sfruttatore e deviato ... ma per fortuna che ci sono persone che vanno in Thailandia anche per altro...
Tornando al libro, è un'autobiografia iniziata da Chai quando decide di cambiare la sua vita cominciando a viverla "normalmente", ma se poi questo avviene non ci è dato saperlo e io personalmente ne dubito. Sono un pò critica nei confronti dello scrittore, forse ingiustamente dato che le scelte di altri non si dovrebbero giudicare, ma non riesco proprio a condividere quelle di Chai perchè se è vero che errare è umano, perseverare è diabolico e lui sembra non imparare mai dai suoi errori, ricommettendoli continuamente.
Sicuramente un libro interessante, per scoprire un mondo dentro il quale non sono voluta entrare di persona, ma che mi mette proprio tanta tanta tristezza.

[Mathura (Maya) G Krishnan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read about Chai's life from child to adulthood, rural to urban life, survival and the sex industry in Thailand, especially its entry points, deception, coercion and exploitation of male go-go dancers. Throughout the book, Chai recounted his experiences, misled thrills and perspectives in a first-hand narrative. This method had both pros and cons for me; on one hand, I enjoyed getting to know his deeper psyche i.e. schema, remorse or the lack of and suppression throughout the narrative, on the other hand, some parts felt boring as his destructive pattern tended to be redundant and repetitive particularly at the middle chapters. Overall, while not a literary prowess, it makes for an easy and interesting read of Chai's and other lives briefly, not often visible nor heard in the upper echelons society. I'm just left hanging wanting to know more about how the other characters like Sao, Dao and his siblings turned out!

[Omanik · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alles in allem enttäuschend. Was ich aus diesem Buch mitnehme sind weniger die (für meinen Geschmack zu detailliert) beschriebenen Erlebnisse des Autors im Sexgewerbe als vielmehr die Einblicke in die thailändische Kultur und Denkweise.
Der Untertitel des Buches ist nach meiner Meinung nicht zutreffend. Hier wurde nicht wirklich eine Kindheit gestohlen, sondern durch eine Aneinanderreihung falscher und teilweise katastrophaler Entscheidungen hat der Protagonist nicht nur sein Leben an die Wand gefahren, sondern auch dasjenige unzähliger Menschen in seinem Umfeld gefährdet, zerrüttet oder gar zerstört.

Das Verstörenste: Das Buch vermittelt den Eindruck, als würde die ganze Sexindustrie auf freiwilligen Deals zwischen Käufer und Verkäufer basieren. Möglich, dass der Autobiograph tatsächlich immer Herr seiner Entscheidungen war. Dennoch dürften ihm gewaltsame Strukturen bis hin zu Menschenhandel oder Kindesmissbrauch nicht unbekannt sein. Leider dazu kein Wort - obwohl ich ursprünglich das Buch gekauft habe, weil ich annahm, dass es genau um diese Thematik gehen würde.

Ich würde dieses Buch niemandem empfehlen.

[Zainab Hasan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bangkok boy, Chai, a normal thai boy, however chose the wrong path in life. He was a smart boy and lost all that to gambling, drugs, alcohol from an early age. He says he was molested by his teacher, that is not true at all! As he explained in the book, he went to the teachers house and gave his body to him for a couple of bahts. I really feel sorry for Chin for chosing all the wrong path thinking he will do well to himself and family.

However, telling his story in details and every aspect of his life, i appluad that! It takes couragment to write and say his story.

[Pandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Real life account of a tough guy, straight, becoming a male prostitute.
The book is not fun or pleasant, but might shed a bit of light on how Thai people crave money, face, and social standing - however fake.
Expect some graphic descriptions. If the life of a male prostitute interests you go ahead, otherwise, read something more pleasant.

[Soumya · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very graphic read and may not be palatable for all readers. More than stolen childhood,it’s about series of hard life choices , reverting to old ways and insight in to life of go-go boy in Thailand. Hard to feel bad for the situation the author has willingly put himself in. Simple language and story , can be finished in one sitting.

[Taj Martin-Simpson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thing that struck me most about this book was how badly spoiling kids can mess them up.

[Andréa Nicholenas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mind-opening experience reading through this book as it sheds light on the famous Thai nightlife and how it can be all consuming.

[Mike Newby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was a very good book, tells the very sad story of this man growing up in thailand, some parts were hard to read but a very satisfying ending to a tragic story

[Noelia Muniz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was an okay read. I was ready to get done with it.

[Noelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an okay read. I was ready to finish the book though.

[Marsilla Dewi-Baruch · Rating 3 out of 5]

kinda absurd. The boy hailed from rural northeast thailand chose his path instead of deceived or abused. He had chances, instead he blew them off.