[Faidenk]

We were intent on enjoying ourselves, the girls in the bar intent on extracting their dues with various devious means. Among their arsenal, youth, beauty and charm although any single attribute will suffice. Those not in possessions of these attributes have other tricks to put a foot firmly between the door, like massaging the uninterested customer, or, depending on the state of inebriatness of the customer, just hang around and hope to get tipped at the end of the day.

These girls receive a monthly stipend from the proprietor, averaging $70. The girls complement their income by pushing lady drinks at $3 each. The LD could come in the form of a beer, a gin tonic, or a bourbon coke or whatever she desires. The girl gets $1 of it and the rest to the bar owner. In recent times, many bars have upped the LD price to $3.50 and I have no idea if the girls’ share has been increased. There are bonuses for achieving monthly LD targets set by the proprietor, as well as penalties. The girls are expected to be tipped, anything from a dollar up, depending on her physical attributes, the length of time she spends with you, the quality of service and the amount of saliva you drool.

The biggest contribution to their income comes from customers booking the girls out of the bars, anywhere from $25 to $50 for a ST, from $50 to $100 for a LT, all depending on several factors – beauty, or lack of; time of booking; state of drunkenness, and so on. To compensate the bar for the absence of a staff, a ‘bar fine’ is imposed, from $7 to $10, depending on the bar. Some bars stepladder the bar fine, $7 before 11 and $10 after, other charge a flat fee. The bar fine goes entirely to the proprietor and the ST and LTs’ for the girls, unless she has a minder to pay. Some, in lieu of a barfine, stipulates the purchase of 3 LDs, as in the case of Shanghai Bar, a foreign-owned bar/restaurant.

No unions or specific laws govern this group of workers. Usually $5 is deducted from their pay for a day off. This applies to a wide spectrum of workers in Cambodia. Unions are reserved for the foreign-owned factories.

Most bars are owned by locals although a number are only ‘fronted’ by locals but owned by foreigners. Officials ‘smell’ these bars out for ‘special’ attention. Foreign-owned bars are easy targets for the NGOs, what better ways of raising funds to help the local female populace exploited by the evil foreigners.

Most of the girls come to PP from the provinces, although there are a few PP inhabitants. Quite rare but these girls know the bars are generally patronized by foreigners and little chance of bumping into a cousin, 3 times removed. These girls come for a variety of reasons – poverty, joblessness, abandonment by husbands, kids. Same reasons as in anywhere.

I won’t go into the specifics of our evening, we did what we went to do, we contributed to the local economy, we made several people happy, we were happy and we left at 11pm, tomorrow being a Sunday.