'No topless dancing please, we are Thais'
Source: Agencies |
April 19, 2011, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THAI authorities denounced yesterday three young women who danced topless on a Bangkok street during New Year's celebrations.
The incident occurred last Friday, on the last day of the New Year's water festival known as Songkran, not far from the world-famous Patpong Road red-light district, where live sex shows can be seen for the price of a drink and offers of sexual services to passers-by are only thinly veiled.
"Dancing topless during the Songkran celebrations is very inappropriate and unacceptable," Culture Minister Nipit Intarasombut said yesterday. "I assume they worked in some kind of nightclubs and got carried away by the vibe."
Songkran traditionally was a time to sprinkle water on elders respectfully in exchange for blessings. Splashing water on unsuspecting friends or passers-by eventually became a welcome relief during some of the hottest days of the year, but now the revelry often includes drunken mayhem.
Silom Road, where the incident happened, is shut to traffic during the festival, and vendors sell food and booze and play music, while young people dance in the streets and dump water on one another.
Videos of the women show them dancing atop parked vehicles with shirts off, and then removing their bras as a rowdy crowd chants, "Take it off!"
The dance has been posted online and has been shown again and again, with naughty bits blacked out or blurred, on local television.
"I demand that society come out and criticize them," said Nipit.
He said the women face only a small fine if arrested, but that they should carry out community service to heighten their cultural awareness, such as reading books about Songkran to children.
The incident occurred last Friday, on the last day of the New Year's water festival known as Songkran, not far from the world-famous Patpong Road red-light district, where live sex shows can be seen for the price of a drink and offers of sexual services to passers-by are only thinly veiled.
"Dancing topless during the Songkran celebrations is very inappropriate and unacceptable," Culture Minister Nipit Intarasombut said yesterday. "I assume they worked in some kind of nightclubs and got carried away by the vibe."
Songkran traditionally was a time to sprinkle water on elders respectfully in exchange for blessings. Splashing water on unsuspecting friends or passers-by eventually became a welcome relief during some of the hottest days of the year, but now the revelry often includes drunken mayhem.
Silom Road, where the incident happened, is shut to traffic during the festival, and vendors sell food and booze and play music, while young people dance in the streets and dump water on one another.
Videos of the women show them dancing atop parked vehicles with shirts off, and then removing their bras as a rowdy crowd chants, "Take it off!"
The dance has been posted online and has been shown again and again, with naughty bits blacked out or blurred, on local television.
"I demand that society come out and criticize them," said Nipit.
He said the women face only a small fine if arrested, but that they should carry out community service to heighten their cultural awareness, such as reading books about Songkran to children.
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