The Dream

Owen Jones Other

The Behind The Smile Series is the story of Lek, a bar girl in Pattaya, Thailand. Lek was born the eldest child of four in a typical rice farming family in the northern rice belt of Thailand. A catastrophe occurred out of the blue one day – her father died young with huge debts that the family knew nothing about. Lek was just twenty years of age, and the only one who could prevent the foreclosure of the family farm, and allow her younger sister and two brothers to continue their education. However, the only way she knew how was to go to work in her cousin’s bar in Pattaya.Can a Pattaya bar girl ever go back to being a regular girlfriend or wife?`Behind The Smile` is a look into one part of Thailand, a country known around the world as `The Land of Smiles`.The Dream takes up the story of Lek, her family and friends from two years further down the line. In the past, it has always been Lek who issued the ultimata, but this story opens with her having received one and it throws her. She is offered the fulfilment of her oldest dream, but can she take it? The fulfilment of any dream requires sacrifices, but is Lek prepared to make them now that her goal is within her grasp? It is a tough one, which means a hard time for her, although her family and friends are behind her as always. Which way will she go? The instinct to follow her dream and the inertia of a comfortable life in the village, as she gets older vie for supremacy in her mind. As is usual in this series, nothing is hidden from the reader, we are privy to all of Lek`s agonizing thoughts.

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