I went out for Halloween last week with my roommate, Dao, and some of her friends. The rich culture of Halloween is sort of lost on the Thais, but the collegiate spirit remains the same: it's viewed as a night when you can go out hard, and nobody really looks at you twice for looking or acting a little strange.
After dinner, we headed to Tawan Dang, a huge, warehouse-sized bar and concert hall in Chiang Mai. I think it's named after the much more famous German brew house and live music venue in Bangkok, but that's about where the similarities end.
If Halloween is a night when little abnormalities are overlooked (if not celebrated), then Tawan Dang is the ideal venue for such an occasion. Functionally, it's pretty much like any other Thai mega-bar. There is a huge stage, absolutely no dance floor, and a couple hundred tables that are waited on by cute girls wearing 100 Pipers or San Miguel uniforms. People order bottles of whiskey and soda water, and you sit or dance around your table, having a good old time.
Except Tawan Dang is kind of Facist. Tawan Dang means "Red Sun," and around the border of the whole bar are 20-foot tall portraits, the kind you would see at Mussolini rally or in V for Vendetta. And there are certainly a few portraits that hit the mark: a couple of Thai generals are the first thing you see when you walk in.
But then things get weird. Turn to your left, and you see these guys:
That's right: Elvis, Che Guevara, and Karl Marx. Turn your head a little more, and you see a Marx-sized portrait of Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Thailand is a strange, strange place.
Unless things get really slow, I think we can skip Tawan Dang when we visit. After a bottle of whiskey, I might be compelled to start tearing down the posters. Could have dire consequences.
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