Sunday, 12 December 2010

Can I cancel that? I'm having a domestic


A  doctor living at my condo hires me to teach him English.

Mr B saw a notice I pinned on the condo office noticeboard advertising my services for just B200 an hour.

The notice was up for a couple of months, but he was the only one of the Thai owner/tenants here to call asking for lessons. About 60% of this inner city condo's occupants are Thai.

That’s not to say that the other Thais who live in this eight-building complex have perfect English. They don’t.

They are just too busy making ends meet to afford the pricey rents, or perhaps too stuck up to take English lessons from a foreigner. To do so would be to admit a weakness.

Mr B lives with his doctor wife and young son in a condo twice the size of mine which cost him B4m baht. He secured a 100%, 15-year loan from the bank, which he is paying off at B40,000 a month.

He volunteered these details when I asked one day last week. We meet for conversational English at his condo, where he also has a nanny and a maid to help him get through the day.

Thais can be disarmingly honest with financial and personal details which as westerners we prefer to keep secret from each other.

We met in the morning for an hour. The same day, Mr B asked me to come back in the evening for a second round.

However, the second lesson failed to go ahead, after Mr B sent me a text message to cancel.

Mr B has a habit of pulling out at the last minute.

The public and private hospitals which employ him to practise sports medicine keep him busy. He can be called in to perform an operation at short notice.

On this occasion, however, he cancelled because of problems at home.

Charming Mr B sent me the following message, which was disarming with its frankness, and rather sweet with its broken English:

‘I apologise you once again. I have some problem with my wife. I don’t have any concentration for learning. Can I cancel you once again our meeting this night?

Poor B. I know just how he feels. I have problems with my wife too, which can leave me unable to think straight.

A few days after he wrote me that message, Mr B was planning to take his wife and son to Chiang Mai for a break. I hope they were able to surmount their little problem, and enjoy their time away.

1 comment:

  1. 5 comments:

    Anonymous13 December 2010 at 00:00
    Is the doctor cute & a potential playmate? Eduard.

    ReplyDelete

    Bkkdreamer13 December 2010 at 00:45
    He is very clean, and with a sweet smile. However, he also has a child and aa wife. So no, I don't think so, Eduard.

    ReplyDelete

    Anonymous13 December 2010 at 04:08
    potential playmate? you offend our repressed sensibilities! whatever could you mean?

    ReplyDelete

    Hendrikbkk13 December 2010 at 05:48
    But Bkkdreamer, he has some problem with his wife, so you never know...
    Maybe he thinks you have a sweet smile also.

    ReplyDelete

    Bkkdreamer13 December 2010 at 17:40
    Hendrik: His wife is aged in her 30s, as is Mr B himself.

    I only steal men from teens.

    ReplyDelete

    ReplyDelete

Comments are welcome, in English or Thai (I can't read anything else). Anonymous posting is discouraged, unless you'd like to give yourself a name at the bottom of your post, so we can tell who you are.