Fiction begets froth but truth is stranger

by Yeoh Siew Hoon

Sitting in business class on Thai International and observing the flight attendants at work, I simply couldn’t connect reality with fiction.

There they were, sedate, modest and, dare I say, mature, serving me peanuts and drinks – the women look more like aunties than femme fatales and the men more like uncles than studs – and here I was, reading a newspaper report headlined, “Saucy scenes in TV drama to be edited”.

The report told me that the producer of the soap opera which has got the knickers of Thai flight stewardesses in a twist has “agreed to edit out some of the violence and steamy scenes”.

From now on, the producer said, “none of the air hostesses would be seen fighting in their uniform or in the aircraft cabin”.

The Thai International labour union had complained that the series (Air Hostess War) had cast their profession in an “unrealistic and immoral” light.

What on earth is the world coming to? Should housewives go on strike because Desperate Housewives portray them as desperate, scheming things? Should journalists protest because there are movies that portray them as the scum they are? Should medical interns walk out because “Grey’s Anatomy” shows them to be a bunch of whining, sniveling, nothing-better-to-do-but-fall-in-love-every-episode?

The froth in a tea cup elicited a string of letters. One told the flight attendants to stop worrying about their image, and focus on improving their service.

Another said, “Who do THAI air hostesses think they are that they can get a soap opera about them taken off the TV?”

Tiger Trevor added, “… soap operas in Thailand usually make fun of everyone. Soap operas look down on dark-skinned people from the North-east; I don’t see them protesting. They make fun of ladyboys; I don’t see them stirring chaos. They take the micky out of white people like myself, but I don’t care.

“As for how they show African people, that would be called racist in a Western country, but they don’t create a stink.”

Another said “the air hostesses’ complaint seems to be worthy of a pantomine”.

What would be worthy of a movie though is another piece of news that caught my eye in the Bangkok Post that day.

Relegated to the bottom section of Page 4 – it obviously did not qualify to be headline news because no one was murdered, killed or raped – it told the story of how a “Woman finds out former employer is father”.

The opening paragraph read, “A Vietnamese woman searching for her father worked at his home in Taiwan for seven months without realizing who he was before the relationship came to light …”

Apparently, the woman travelled to Taiwan in 2005 hoping to find her biological father. While there, she was hired by Mr Tsai to look after his paralysed wife.

After she left his employ, she realised she had left behind a bag containing her father’s ring and a photo of her father – the only two items her late mother had given her as keepsakes.

“When Mr Tsai opened the bag, he immediately recognised the items he had given his girlfriend,” said the report.

How’s that for a happy ending?

Thing is, when you look at the photo, they couldn’t possibly be anything but father and daughter.

As they say, truth is stranger than fiction and THAI air hostesses should be more worried about their real image than some silly fictitious soap opera.