In the swarming streets, people pass me over. Tall white guy, they know who I am. They've seen me or someone like me a thousand times. I'm as predictable as a macaque monkey, with double the sex drive. Getting near me is nothing but trouble.

I drop a coin in the bowl of the beggar squatting before a large Buddha decorated with bits of gold leaf and spent incense sticks. Sewage gas threads the haze of the leaded exhaust fumes, the sky darkens. Like angry bees, the mopeds buzz past, driven with the determination possessed by those who have nowhere to go.

Me, I'm in no hurry. I'm going to get what I want. I take dinner down by the water under a string of colored Christmas lights. No waitresses, only waiters. I perversely ask for chopsticks, because the locals never use 'em. While I wait for my food, I notice another occidental at a corner table and he's got his lady already. He's lecturing her and she's nodding, because of course she doesn't understand more than two words of what he's saying. I sip my beer and he glances over without any concession that we are members of the same club.

The waiter arrives in minutes with a freshly broiled fish dressed in tiny circles of green chili, a mound of white rice and a beer. Like some Graham Greene expat, I contemplate the dark water lapping up at the ancient Buddhist wharves, wallowing in exoticism "lite." I pick bits of flesh from the little ribs on my plate and chew slowly. I am the ugly American. So what?

After dinner, I amble through the cluttered market lanes, past the young guys hawking packs of Marlboros, past the skinny hookers trying to meet my eye. I avoid the transvestites passing little cards illustrating all the sexual positions of the zodiac. I'm sized up by the mock-friendly vendors standing by their piles of cheerful souvenir T-shirts and bootleg videos. At the food stalls, silent cooks, cigarettes dangling from their frowns, supervise smoking bits of fish and egg.

Streetlights are an accident and deep shadows carve every wall. Down the gloomy alleys, men gather, beckoning me to sins that have stood the test of time: "Banana show," "ping-pong show," "razor blade show." Been there, done that. I want something more personal. I could hit a massage parlor, take my time in my selection, gazing through the 10-foot-high plate glass. Here the girls let their minds watch TV as they wait for their bodies to fetch a companion. I have no idea whether they're watching "Baywatch" or kickboxing because the TV set is facing them and they are facing me. If I wanted one to join me upstairs, I'd nod to the Mama-san and give her the number pinned to the chosen one's blouse. But blatant slavery doesn't do it for me either. I prefer the subtle kind.

Private Life Romance, relationships, and the personal side of Table Talk