Book Review: Ladyboys: The Secret World Of Thailand's Third Gender

Ladyboys: The Secret World Of Thailand's Third Gender by Pornchai Sereemongkonpol
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When reading a collection of stories, we can choose to think about the book as a sum of the individual stories, or to think about the narrative stringing these stories together. And unfortunately, for this book, the narrative is much more interesting (and thought provoking) than the individual stories.

As stories read together, this book offers us a peep into the lives of the ladyboys through their own words. We know, briefly, the story of these ladyboys - how it was like growing up, when did they start being aware of their sexuality (and gender issues), the operation (if there was), and what life is like now. And through this method of story telling, we are introduced to 9 lady boys, from the famous Nong Toom, the beautiful boxer, Auntie Nong, the ageing dancer, and to 7 other lady boys.

The simple story arc, however, does not do justice to these individuals because it leaves the reader wanting. Wanting to know more about their trials and tribulations, the emotions that these individuals go through beyond feeling rejected, and all the finer details in their stories that we are left out of. Without all these layers in the stories, each “chapter” feels like a repetition of the previous chapter, because arguably, people's lives are pretty similar to one another.

What piqued my interest however was the bigger narrative behind these stories - the social dimension/pressure of fitting in with older kathoeys, and the conservatism of Thailand.

It might come as a surprise to some, but Thailand is a conservative country. Behind all the glitzy neon lights in the Patpong district of Bangkok, the beaches of Pattaya, is a country still deeply rooted in traditions - something that the tourist to Bangkok will not even begin to suspect. In Thailand, there is a still a huge population of people who are living in rural areas where gender roles are still very much expected to be followed; not doing so brings shame to the family and that is something that most Thais would consider doing. This conservatism comes through policies as well - individuals who have gone through gender realignment surgery is not officially recognised as the gender he/she has become post-surgery.

And so when someone young realises that he or she does not fit into the prescribed gender roles, we see much anxiety and agony growing up. They have to withstand constant bullying and name-calling from others. and this can often lead to disastrous outcome, such as severe depression and teenage suicide - something very prevalent amongst individuals with gender identity disorder.

What is interesting here is the comfort that the older kathoeys provide to the struggling teenage protagonists. The older kathoeys are seen as beacons of hope - individuals who can navigate the maze of everyday realities, individuals who made it in the difficult road of life, and someone to provide emotional support. But what I also got out of the book, is that these older kathoeys create a sense social pressure for the young protagonists to become one of them. They have essentially “judged” and determined that they are one of the ladyboys.

It is somewhat disturbing to read words coming from the older kathoeys, suggesting that the younger individual should embrace his inner woman and go for a gender realignment surgery. And indeed all of the protagonist in this book who went for the surgery did so with the support/pressure from the older kathoeys. Some felt that it was the best thing to have happened, one regretted it.

And it got me thinking, once again, on the fluidity, and the non fluidity of sexuality; and that of gender identity. Having read psychology as one of my majors in college, the effects of Gender Identity Disorder is something that I know of, and to that end, I actively try to educate others about it - that it is a real issue that causes severe trauma to individuals. It is not something as simple as a person suddenly waking up one day and decides to be of another gender.

But through the stories here, I am confronted with the fact that there are a lot of social pressures within the transgendered community in Thailand to go for surgery - it is about status, and not about psychological wellbeing. What drives some of these individuals is the glamour of the community hanging out together.

This makes me wonder, is this the “secret world of Thailand’s third gender”, as the title suggests? If only the book would give us more than what it does



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Book Review: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Slum

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Slum. Katherine Boo by Katherine Boo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reviewing this book is not something that came easily to me, because this book is somewhat different from what I had expected. Picking up a book on India almost means that one will either be reading about the rags to riches stories, detailed emotional stories of the underclass, or some other stories that will arouse strong emotions in the reader. Not this book.

What is beautiful about this book is that it does not milk you for your sympathy, it does not wrench your heart, nor make you cry and weep over the lives of the 'residents' of Annuwadi. Instead it presents to the reader a novel of the every day lives of the undercity dwellers - the "life, death and hope" of them as individuals, and as a loose community who lived together not because they chose to. And so rather than crying your heart out about the tragic lives that they lead, we finish the book gaining new perspective and new understanding.

We feel like we have learned about the stories and the lives of the many different individuals in the book, and about Annuwadi. We feel like we might have more than an inkling of what every day is like for the residents there. We feel like we might have known the inner workings of the bureaucracy surrounding the fast developing Mumbai. Katherine manages to achieve this because she did not write a novel about one protagonist and the happenings around his/her life, instead she wrote about the many people of Annuwadi. She gave voices to different individuals - to Abdul, the garbage sorter who keeps the family business running because he’s really good at his job; to Manju, the college going daughter of the female slumlord Asha; to Sunhil, a scavenger who has to keep going to keep him and his sister alive, and many others.

And not once did Katherine allow herself to come into character, not once did she hint at any form of sympathy towards them, because the dwellers are not the poor and pathetic Indian caricatures that readers may have in their mind. So while we read about the corruption that happened to the Annuwadians time and again, the injustice that befalls them, the terrible living conditions they face, we come to realize that this is par for the course for the Annuwadians.

When we realize this, I suppose the bigger emotion is the hope that each individual Annuwadian have for tomorrow. That despite all of that, they carry on, hour by hour, day by day, week by week. And this “hope”, is seldom the stereotypical big hopes and dreams that we are used to, mostly it is a hope for something more immediate – putting food on the table, being able to give lessons to the children, making sure that the child is safe from danger.

Yes the book might not satisfy in the way we expect –it lacks the emotional arc that we might have become used to. Yes the book does indeed portray the world outside Annuwadi as somewhat of a ‘dark evil capitalist’ world. But this book is really not about those things. It is not about pitting the Annuwadians against the rising modern Mumbai, but instead it is a stunning portrait of the lives of the people living behind the wall filled with the advertising for “Beautiful Forevers” - a somewhat poignant dividing wall of modern Mumbai airport, and the modern Mumbai slums.


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