Just too polite

Mum made suki last night for me and four boys from the performing arts school. When I turned up at 11pm, the boys had already started drinking, and by the end of the night, they had managed to get through a whole box of beer.

About 1am, Mum set up a casserole dish filled with water. We dragged an extension cord across the sidewalk from the shop to the table where we wanted to eat, and plugged in the casserole dish to make the water boil.

She also brought over a bag of greens, noodles, and a large bowl of uncooked meat, which she had spent the previous hour preparing.

Once the water boiled, we dropped in the greens and the noodles. Using chopsticks, we dipped the meat in the boiling water to scald it, before transferring it to small eating bowls.

Mum and I decided to eat first, since we had gone to the effort of preparing it. But the boys would not have dared join the table first anyway, as they are too polite.

The boys included two brothers, Sakda and Toon, who I have known several years. One of the other pair was a new face.

The fourth boy, I met about a year before. He has small, wiry features, and is keen on Thai history, football and Thai boxing.

'Do you remember that night we met?' he asked me. 'A drunken guy turned up waving a large knife,' he said.

I did remember the guy with the knife, which was so large it actually resembled a small sword. He had just argued with his girlfriend, was drunk, and feeling sorry for himself, so he whipped out the knife to show everyone how fierce he could look.

That night, I was drinking with Sakda, Toon, and Mr Wiry at the bar, when the guy walked up out of nowhere, and pulled out his knife. Sakda and Toon immediately jumped up to challenge the man, while Mr Wiry held me to one side, so I would not get hurt.

The boys left the bar to tackle the guy on the sidewalk. They knocked him to the ground, kicked, punched and abused him. Eventually, a local policeman intervened. The policeman, who also drinks at Mum's shop, talked to the guy calmly, then sent him home in a taxi.

The boys returned to the table, where they rehashed the incident excitedly, as their heightened testosterone levels slowly returned to normal.

I could not intervene, as it was a Thai thing. It had looked like a gang attack, but really it wasn't. They were just bringing the drunk back into line, Thai style, for disrupting the peace.

After the boys finished with him, and before the policeman arrived, I helped the drunk get to his feet. I asked him what was wrong. He told me tearfully that he had argued with his girlfriend.

The boys are from Kalasin, in Esan, and when they are not laying into drunks who carry knives, are polite, gentle and well-mannered.

When we pour new drinks and salute each other (do the 'Cheers!' thing), the boys deferentially tip their glasses to one side so the rim of my glass is always higher than theirs when the glasses connect.

This is to show respect, because I am older. Sometimes they can tip their glass at such a low angle that I almost miss hitting the thing, and glide over the top instead. As the night wears on, I tell them not to bother. It's a touching gesture, but I also want them to relax.

Last night, after Mum and I finished eating, I rejoined the drinking circle, and asked the boys to take my seat at the suki table nearby so they could fill their stomachs. They would not.

'I cannot eat when I drink,' said Mr Wiry. He gave me several variations of that excuse over the course of the night, so in the end I just gave up. But I know the other two boys better, so I could be more persistent.

My chair sat empty for the next 30 minutes, before any of the boys was game enough to get something to eat. Toon wandered over, but still was not prepared to sit. Instead, he stood hesitantly, while he poked about in the casserole dish with his chopsticks.

'It looks more polite if you sit,' I told him.

Mum could not understand why I was trying so hard to get the boys to join the table.

'They are shy,' I said. 'I have to coax them over just to eat.'

'Shy, where? They are not shy,' she insisted.

Eventually, Toon forced himself into sitting position, and then the others joined him at the table, so everyone ended up getting something to eat. All except for Mr Wiry, who insisted his digestion system could not cope.

I was particularly keen on persuading Toon to eat. The last time I saw him, he had just broken up with his girlfriend, had lost interest in food, and barely ventured outdoors. Last night, he looked much better, so his love life must have improved.

I asked his brother, who I thought would probably know such things.

'Your brother has put on weight. Does this mean he has found a new girlfriend?' I asked Sakda. Toon had stepped away from the table to use his cellphone.

'I don't know. I don't dare ask, as it's his business,' he replied.

Mr Wiry told me that he trained as a Thai kickboxer when he was in his teens, like many country boys. He lifted his shirt to show me his chest muscles.

By 5am, we had drunk enough. Some of the boys had an early start; Sakda was getting up at 7.30, which is barely time to rest his head.

Mum gave me the rest of the suki to take home in a large plastic bag. Persuading the boys to accept the food would have taken until morning, as their politeness and sense of kreng jai (consideration towards others) are just too well ingrained.