a real educational experience
Tuesday, July 16, 2002
What do a zoo, an aquarium, a park, a beach and Alcazar Cabaret have in common? Give up? They are all educational places to take school children according to the Thai Education Ministry which recently organised a field trip for underprivileged children including all of the above!
The field trip was funded from the economic "stimulation" budget, and then children certainly found it stimulating according to the report in the Bangkok Post on 16 July - they voted the cabaret as the best part of the trip. The ministry justified including the cabaret because "poor children would rarely get the chance to experience such things themselves", which I suppose is true - it is usually foreign tourists you see watching the Alcazar show.
In case you think watching such a spectacle may corrupt the innocent minds of the poor children, you can rest assured as the teachers reportedly warned the children not to copy the behaviour of the performers. But I think the suggestion by a senate committee chairman that "children could be taught of dangers of a seedy lifestyle while touring red-light districts" was going just a tad too far!
So be warned - the next time a bus pulls up outside your favourite go-go bar, it may not be full of hordes of gawking tourists, it could be an outing from the local school.
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