(page 3 of 7) The distributor provided brief training, including a lesson in how to pour beer without creating foam. She was told to put down a $5 deposit for a scarlet Stella Artois uniform and advised to request tips on makeup from her co-workers. The company sent Ms. Aeng to Best Star, an open-air restaurant on a busy street, to work from 3 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. every day. The pay would be $40 a month -- more than most government employees here get -- provided she could sell 18 cases of beer a month. She would earn an extra dollar for every case over the quota and lose a dollar for every case under it. To prove how much she sold, she was told to collect the bottle caps and pull tabs and turn them in each night. Ms. Aeng quickly learned that customers could be flirtatious and aggressive. "They start their first beer, then talk, talk, talk," she says. One night, after her first week, a customer grabbed her breasts. She retreated to a corner and burst into tears, trying not to let the man see "because the guests could not learn that I got angry." The restaurant's owner also got angry -- at her. Ms. Aeng says the woman told her, "You're a beer girl -- why can't they grab you?" Despite fearing she would be fired, she complained to her supervisor at the Stella Artois distributor, Duong Chhiv Import Export & Transport Co. He laughed, she says, and said, "They just grabbed you. Nothing wrong ... . Normally the beer girl always gets grabbed by the customer." The supervisor, Men Chhan, who has switched jobs, says he doesn't recall the case but would never have responded that way: "No. Never. Impossible." The restaurant owner, Chhay Sokheun, denies she got angry at Ms. Aeng, saying that if a customer treated a beer girl that way, she would "tell the girl not to go to that table anymore." Ms. Aeng stuck with the job, learning how to drink beer, though she doesn't like it. Most distributors here want beer girls to share a drink with customers if invited because it sells more beer. Mr. Chhan, who says he is now with the distributor of San Miguel beer, says he "trains" girls to drink beer if they don't know how.         PREVIOUS PAGE RETURN TO BIO NEXT PAGE