Silicon surprise

The family and I attended a "lip singing" contest at a shopping mall in Chiang Mai. At the end of the contest, there was a "lucky door" for the audience who had filled in forms.

Many of the contestants (the really pretty ones, anyway) turned out to be Ka-Thoy (men who had had sex change operations). Some of the prettiest women in Thailand are men. Abia, my elder daughter (age: seven at the time), was fascinated with this and sat eyes-fixed throughout trying to guess which of the contestants were real women.

One contestant inadvertently let one of 'her' (silicon) breasts show during a dance number. Most of the audience was too polite to say anything and just embarrassingly pretended nothing was out of the ordinary.

Not Abia and Gigi (age five at the time). It took them a while, but when they realised what they were looking at, they pointed and screamed "Nom! Nom!" (Boob! Boob!), "It looks like a real Nom, papa, look do you see it, LOOK!" At which point the dancer noticed, and without missing a stride, slipped the thing back into her dress. The audience sighed, relieved they didn't have to pretend everything was normal anymore.

I tried to find a place to hide. Luckily there was a computer mall on the next floor I could escape to.