Fending off the Touts of Pantip Plaza
30th September, Bangkok, Thailand
I had heard a lot about Pantip Plaza before getting to Bangkok. Many years ago I'd been told of this place by a friend who couldn't quite get over the vastness of this place where you could get just about anything computer-related, particularly software. Particularly pirated software.
There is a sign on the front door of the Plaza in Thai which, I am lead to believe, translates roughly as this:
"There is no pirated software in Thailand. If you see anyone selling pirated software inside this shopping centre, please call this hotline..."
So, that's the official line, and it's supported by an annual demonstration of Thailand's piracy crackdown whereby elephants happily trample all over a pile of all the pirated software that has been confiscated that year. 'This is Thailand's pirated software being destroyed', this spectacle portrays for the associated media assembled.
The truth is actually very different.
We stepped through the door - Manda and I, along with Stef, Am, little Dylan and Am's nephew Nai - and within seconds - seconds! - we were being offered shonky DVDs and porn. Stef had warned us that this was Mai-ow-khap land ('Mai-ow khap' being the Thai phrase for no thanks, or literally 'not want, thanks'), and I must have used the phrase a good five times within ten paces of entering. It seemed kind of appropriate in this place that sells so many computer games that I felt like I was in a computer game myself, trying to clear a path through the touts that would almost jump out at us from the sides with one of the following phrases:
"Sir, sexy movie?"
"DVD movie, PlayStation games."
"Sexy movie!"
Yes, there was definitely a theme here. That theme was 'sexy movie', and just in case we didn't understand the phrase, the touts would helpfully hold the cd case right in front of us, literally right in front of our faces, leaving us with no doubt that by sexy movie they were not talking about some tame half-naked model cavorting around for the purposes of a karaoke VCD (of which there are many).
It was kind of laughable, but at the same time quite irritating. Strangely, when Manda was by my side and we were holding hands, the young men with their sexy movies restrained themselves, but if Manda was as much as a couple of paces away from me in any direction, I was, once again, offered them. The irritating thing was when they would put their hand on my arm as they offered the sexy movie, which kind of creeped me out; it also made me double-check my bag to make sure that it wasn't some kind of distraction technique while they slide a sharp knife down my bag and grab inside for my belongings (something that is not unknown in this busy plaza).
Inside the 7-floor Pantip Plaza.
We spent a little while walking around the plaza with Stef, Am, Dylan and Nai, but they left shortly after lunch (Stef had just one thing to get and couldn't bear it for too long, especially since Dylan began repeating the mantra "I want to go home, I want to go home" in Thai). Manda and I then spent the rest of the afternoon traipsing up and down the seven floors of the plaza with nothing in particular to buy. I managed to come away with a couple of small items, though (keyring and fan, wow!) and I enjoyed trying to spot the next likely 'sexy movie' touts that might pounce on us before we got there. Mostly I got it right, except for one particularly surprising one who, I swear, had one of those workout trampolines hidden away in his stall. I mean the speed at which he appeared at my side to announce those now-familiar words must have some explanation!
So, these touts were mostly there on the ground level, trying to snare us as we passed, but upstairs a few levels were more of them hanging around various software stalls. Here the piracy was more blatant. There were catalogues of the dodgy software available, flip-books showing the covers of all the items on offer and so on. People were gathered around, building up lists of the titles they wanted which would be brought out to them 10 minutes later (who knows where they came from?). And then something funny would happen. The catalogues would be ripped from the hands of the bargain-crazy westerners, mid-browse, and slid under the nearest cabinet, while the flip-books of titles would be replaced with Karaoke booklets. Yep, the authorities were nearby, and the overt selling of pirate software became covert. What?! Like no-one's gonna know what they're there for?! It was obvious to even the most dim-witted individual with almost zero understanding of Thai what these stalls sold, so the police (or security guards) would definitely know.
Truly, it was a laughable sight. Moments earlier these stalls had been a hot-bed of activity, now they were simply tables covered in karaoke booklets that no-one wanted to buy. They were surrounded by bored-looking youths, some of them playing draughts to pass the time, who were obviously just waiting for the all-clear so that they could spring into action once more and go about undermining the earnings of film stars, programmers and musicians many thousands of miles away.
Sexy movie, sir?