Getting to know you (2)

I like people caring for me, though I get tired of answering the same questions, as they usually concern some aspect of my physical appearance which Thai boys and girls notice is not quite right.

In this case, Tik had noticed that I get a rash on my scalp, which can go fiery red in extreme heat.

'Is my head red?' I asked. I was surprised, as the weather has been unseasonably cool.

We discussed my skin rash. 'I have had this problem since birth,' I said.

'It's in the genes,' Tik said knowingly.

That remark has a sense of finality, like the religious beliefs which young Porn (and maybe Tik, too) hold dear.

Porn believes in fate and destiny - that good and bad things come around, no matter who we may be in this life.

If you're bad, you will get your come-uppance. If you are good, you will be rewarded in the same fashion.

Everyone likes to think that life makes sense, and is fair, even if we have to struggle with it day by day. In fact, the more we struggle, the more we like to believe that at the end of the day, this life is just.

Struggle is virtue. Being born into good fortune, or as a relatively privileged foreigner, is...what?

Porn came to the defence of my rash.

'Of course Mali has a red head - he comes from a cold climate,' says Porn, chiding her friend for thinking that my head rash is caused by a genetic malfunction which will stay with me for life, no matter where - or with whom - I fetch up.

With a refreshingly open mind, no matter what her religious beliefs have taught her, Porn often asks about my life overseas - what foreigners like, and dislike.

Two weeks ago, when I started dropping in regularly, we had deep talks about her life in Laos, her experiences living in Bangkok for the last seven years, and her employer - more like an idol, or surrogate mother - Jay Pa.

When customers arrive at the shop, we are interrupted. She gets up to serve them, then comes back and resumes our conversation.

Porn boils rice and sells it from the shop, which opens into the soi (small street) at the back and front. The job may not sound much, but keeps her busy. The customers are mainly residents who live in the area, but cannot be bothered making their own rice.

Sometimes, they turn up on foot. Often, as is the Thai way, they turn up on a motorcycle. They call out their order, but do not bother getting off their bikes.

It's like driving into a take-away food place, and barking your order into the intercom - only this is a simple shop in a small soi, not a fast-food restaurant with its own drive-in area where you get served without having to leave your vehicle.

This being Thailand, however, people are more relaxed - or perhaps just more tolerant of what elsewhere we might regard as bad manners. Customers remain seated, engine running, until Porn has served them.

She makes the rice in small round containers, like pastry patties, which sit in a round steamer resembling a flying saucer on legs. The steamer juts half way out the shop, so people can see it from the soi. Many shophouses in the area sell steamed rice, so the competition is stiff.

As they sit waiting for the rice, customers like to take a look inside. Often they see me sitting there with Porn, alone.

What am I supposed to do? I smile, or ignore them.

now, see part 3