Kingdom Come

It's 3pm in Pat Pong and the once deserted street is starting to show signs of life. Giant rice sacks, metal trunks, bright yellow tent material, and tables are being dropped off. By five p.m, construction is in full swing. The crew assigned for set up has less than two hours to assemble everything so the vendors can arrange their wares along the rows. They move with precision, each movement repeated daily… because every day the market is set up in late afternoon and taken down at 2am. It's just another work day.

Some enter the bars on the streets, the ones where the girls are somewhat clothed and dance on stage for all the world to see. Others disappear into stairwells, entering bars on the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th floors, each floor featuring a greater display of filth, perversion, and degradation.

It's 7:30 and a group of women gather on the 5^th floor. The sign outside the door says, "Rahab", and all who enter are safe. On many nights, dancers will gather outside the door to eat their dinner in peace because they know they can do it in safety.

 

 

Vendors call out to tourists-all potential customers. Ray Bans, Gucchi, fisherman pants, and Tiffany-they have it all and will sell it for "Good price, very cheap".

Over on Pat Pong Two, ladyboys apply makeup and rearrange their clothing to appear the most attractive as possible, calling out to men and women. They line the bridge up above and dance so that people walking below can see up their skirts.

The fetish strip also comes to life, where the bar with women dressed as young school girls pulses to life. The bar with the cage and hand cuffs, which no longer has them on display, lights up, and two young women call out to passersby, offering them a "spanking".

The deaf vendor writes his questions down for his customers; the young girls dancing sit with the men who will buy them a drink.
As the prayers from the 5^th floor rise up from the area marked "King's Corner" (how appropriate!), they settle over the night and drown out the noise from below. Here, He is worshipped. Here…. He is. There is no place on earth where God is not, no place anyone can go to escape His presence.
He sees and knows all.

Pat Pong is a place without apology. It's not that it's more debased than other places on earth…it's desensitized. This is life, and it has been since the Vietnam War.  There is no explanation needed for odd or cruel tastes, no apology necessary for customers willing to watch the girls dance and imagine… or purchase private shows… or just plain purchase a girl for the night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below, on the street, self and pleasure, lust and perversion are worshipped. But from the 5^th floor….

By 9pm, the night is in full swing. Thousands of people… all who desperately need to hear the love of Christ. Thousands of people, searching for love.

And heard from the King's corner bar, echoing throughout the streets, the lyrics to U2's song, Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For:

Lord, let your Kingdom come.
 

 
 
Lyrics to How Great is our God by Chris Tomlin and Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For by U2.

All photos by Kristen.