Breakfast in Bangkok. (by SWANclothing) This is near Bangkok, I don’t remember where exactly. This is me though not really me since I was working, and when I worked my name was Victoria not Tara. I’m 16 here, or maybe 15. Before the bubble burst. This was on a trip from Tokyo, as in I was under contract in Tokyo and my agency arranged a series of jobs from there. The shoots for various Japanese magazines and products were in Thailand and Singapore. So like usual you are surrounded by nice people who don’t speak english and you all sort yourselves out as to the shoot idea and poses pretty easily because that’s what we did. We stayed in Bangkok and Phuket for the Thailand part of the trip. I remember machine gunned guards along those water markets, and soliders eating sardines out of cans with knives in a cafe. I ate so much flaming banana and ice cream desserts that one night the photographer took my dessert away. This was in that restaurant where they built an artificial island surrounded by a moat where Thai dancers came up through the center of the island. And all the waiters wore purple satin knickers and rollerskates. Actual rollerskates, we weren’t at roller blades yet. All the order taking was digital and it was the 1st time I saw that, this was a while ago so that was kind of amazing. There were other adventures besides restaurants but I’ll mention them later. I find this photo disturbing, I am such a white girl here. So young and can hardly adapt the stance that is so obviously being suggested. But I pretty much find everything disturbing.

P.S. Always hard to answer comments but wanted to add that this isn’t suffering, at all, at all. This is me coming home from trips to Tokyo with money belts full of stacks of Yen, to put it vulgarly. More than anything it was very weird, and you were, we were, I was in it before you could get your head around it and you never really did. Some did. My friend Kirsten Owen still works it, but she is kind of a legend.