blue chili, cambodia’s premier declared gay bar, has the most entertaining and the liveliest drag show in town….fridays and saturdays, at 11pm, the bar clears, patrons retreat to the sidelines, crane their necks, to watch a show that’s simply bubbling with camp, high energy, and ridiculous costumes. Almost all the time the mush-anticipated drag show has several of the following: slim and svelte trannies, with their washboard abs, gyrate bollywood-style, or do a mean shakira impersonation. Auk, the stylish owner, does her obligatory madonna tribute—complete with furs and platinum blonde wig—a dusky and pint-sized khmer plays a downtrodden provincial lass, who is inevitably mocked and scorned by her friends, tossed and slapped around, but finally gets her cute khmer boy, not much taller than her, in the end…the lady wannabe who sings a shirley bassey standard, never mind if the lyrics dont fit the lips, raunchy didi with her ooutlandish gestures and make-up, who starts coquettishly, and ends up inevitably grabbing someone else’s crotch, or mimics a blow job with ease……and on occasion, “guest” performers from an unamed southeast-asian country, not as svelte and much more buxom and mature, who mince and prance to whitney houston or beyonce classics, or screech out their lungs, celine-dion and jennifer-hudson style, complete with afro wigs a meter high, and leopard-skin shawls…. in short, not the sort of performance you’d want to bring your mother to.
this extravaganza plays itself out on the top of a bar that is about 18 inches wide, and about 3 meters long….with lots of foot-stamping on huge wooden clogs with ribbons, and tottering stilettos…for the better part of three quarters of an hour, the girls gyrate and swing, while the bar is wiped clean of bottles and glasses. sometimes one takes a step too wide and falls off, but thankfully, no broken bones reported…
but two saturdays ago, a twist to the usual show—sokha, bar co-owner and auk’s partner, saunters up the bar, does a sleazy dirty dance, takes of his shirt to show off a mouth-watering naturally hewn physique….as they say, “er na er” —farm-er, construction work-er, style, not the definitions obtained by hours of preening in gyms. he playfully opens the top of his jeans to show the abs, and the line of dark, curly hair leading to the crotch–teasing, teasing…the crowd loves it, hooting and screaming.
and that’s not all,,,the theme from zefirelli’s romeo and juliet (a time for us), adapted for a thai gay movie, “bangkok love story” begins to trill out of the speakers—two guys appear on the bar, one seemingly injured, with a blood stained shirt, and the other gently supports him, caressing and touching, dressing the “wounds”, while the other moans in what must be the ecstasy of pain and pleasure—nothing explicit so far, but it s a tad different from all the other performances…their eyes closed, they begin to caress each other, and finally, as “a time for us” builds to a crescendo, their lips lock in a passionate kiss, that lasts all of 15 seconds…the crowd gasps at first, then cheers, and yowls…camera phoens begin clicking…for the FIRST ever male-to-male public kising scene in the history of the cambodian stage !!!
