Culture shock (part 3)

The Jet Sip Rai community in Klong Toey; also, below right

I was drawing close to Pim, the boss of the family, who also had a good head for business.

This was a woman of intrigue, I decided: she had a teenage son by an ex-lover in the South, but in Bangkok had remade herself as young, sexy and available.

She dyed her hair blonde, wore clingy, figure-enhancing clothes, and enjoyed flirting with male customers. One admirer, a trader in Klong Toey market, would turn up to pester her occasionally, annoying her boyfriend, James, the motorcycle taxi guy, who asked a woman who sold food from a pushcart across the road to act as lookout for him. If any admirers turned up to flirt, she should let him know, he said.

Anyway, I was heading to work one day when Robert told me his grandmother was coming for a visit. When she arrived he alerted me by text message and I biked down the road to see them. 

I gave her a wai, as is the custom, and sat down for a chat. However, James reprimanded me for turning up empty-handed.

"Where's the gift?" he said bluntly, in front of everyone.

I ignored the taunt, but it stung. How could I buy a gift, when I knew only the hour before that she was coming? I put it down to a cultural misunderstanding, though complained later to Pim.

We arranged an action packed weekend around that time to coincide with Robert's birthday. It was our first big outing as a family, as really I knew them only at the stand. My partner was away in the provinces so I could indulge myself.

I had noticed that Robert had virtually no casual clothes so asked him what kind of clothes he needed. Pim overheard me and joked I should buy some for her too. I didn't think much of it, but should have realised she was serious.

The first outing of the weekend was to take Robert to Saphan Phut wholesale clothes market. The family goes there regularly to buy cheap clothes, Pim told me. 

I was expecting her to turn up with Robert in a taxi, but was shocked to see she brought along her father and another young employee from the shop as well...anyone she could squeeze into the vehicle, it seems.

Saphan Phut wholesale clothes market

I was expected to buy clothes for everyone, I was informed, and they helped themselves as we wandered from stall to stall - a pair of jeans here, a belt or T-shirts there, even a jacket for Pim's father. If they were embarrassed to be relying on the generosity of a farang who was not a genuine part of their family, they didn't show it. The trip was expensive and I wasn't happy about it.

A day later Pim's father, who about to return to the provinces after a brief visit to Bangkok to see family, approached me as Robert was packing up shop. Pim had quit early and gone home, leaving her nephew to clean up and close the stall.

He asked me for gifts (khong fak) for his relatives back in the sticks. Like a true farmer, he wanted bags of rice, or fish. A humble enough request, I suppose, but given that I had just clothed his back, had met him only days before and didn't know his relatives at home from Adam, I refused.

"Of come on, you know you can afford it!" he said in vaguely menacing manner, as Robert stood by our side.

He was trying to bully me in front of the lad to improve his chances of getting me to part with money. However, that only made me angrier.

"I don't know you, and you ask me for money? You have no manners. Don't ever pressure me in front of that boy again," I growled at him.