Dream spell breaks (5, final)

Reprise: Teenage Dream left, and Lek, far right

Finally, more than four weeks later, I biked down Dream's soi on my way home. Since our bizarre conversation that night, I had chosen to avoid them by taking the long way back via the main road skirting their soi.

Dream was setting up a drinks table to welcome friends to another gathering. The ever-present Lek, sitting nearby, called me over. I dutifully stopped for a chat, and she immediately called out: "Dream, Mali's here!"

If the script played out correctly, he would come over and greet me before returning to his friends, and I would sit down with Lek and shout her a beer.

Lek was making explicit the link between her opening the door to Dream's renewed friendship, and my need to pay for her booze habit by way of thanks.

"I need a drink. Shout me a beer," she said.

Once happy to shell out for alcohol or even help the regulars there with various expenses (including Dream's tuition costs, unbeknown to him), I recoiled inwardly as I contemplated helping such a hard-boiled user.

Not content with the misery our first manufactured coupling caused, when she paired us as "father and son", more than eight years later she was trying to reboot it, in "estranged friends reunite" mode, again to her cynical advantage. 

Dream was party to this arrangement on both occasions, though first time round, I suspect, he was too young to understand. And where was his mother? As ever, a mute witness.

"No thanks, I am heading home," I said.

With that I peddled off and left her, before she or Dream could say another word.

She wore a sickly, disbelieving smile as this old bird perhaps realised that I am no longer in thrall to her cynical manipulations, or bewitched by the Dream spell.

He failed to deliver on his sales pitch, despite his marketing smarts, as she was left with nothing but her empty plastic drinking cup.

Lek was indeed a good friend to me in reuniting Dream and me for our first heart-to-heart. Our conversation showed me that I was foolish to spend so much time worrying about the friendship which could have been, and which in the heat of the moment, many years ago, I had destroyed. 

He's just a lad; an unusual one, granted, but no one I need to know.

He's also happy to be used by this old boozer Lek, even if it means conning this farang. I wonder what hold she has over him. 

Regardless, to the extent he really did want to be friends, he left his run too late. While I am relieved we were finally able to bury the hatchet, and grateful he gave me the chance to talk, I lack the energy to get to know him or his friends again.

Dream gave me a steely-eyed look as I arrived as he, too, perhaps realised that the game was over. I have not been back.

Rock on!

Dream spell breaks (4)

Dream, left, and some of his mates

A few minutes later I made my own excuses and left. As I hopped on my bike, Lek made sure that I knew that she was responsible for Dream approaching me that night: "I am such a  good friend to you," she said unconvincingly.

Right.

The next day, I met Dream briefly as I was heading home. Now we had moved our relationship into "friends" mode, I felt relaxed when I stopped my bike and exchanged a few words of greeting.

If he was embarrassed about his drunken magnanimity the night before, he didn't show it.

Over the next few weeks, as I tried to absorb what happened, I avoided Dream's place. He had invited me to celebrate his birthday during the Songkran festival, to seal our rebooted friendship, but I did not go. I felt annoyed that Dream was so happy to monetise our friendship at Aunty Lek's urging.

What if I was to take advantage of my new status as his "friend" and turn up at odd hours asking to see him, or crash his drinking circle? Before long we would argue and go back to where we started. 

As always, my access to him would be under the controlled conditions of his choosing, and presumably conditional on my playing the game: if Lek is there, I can stop for a chat with Dream, but only if I help pay for her booze.

The drinking circle outside Orng's house as I once knew it more than eight years ago is a shadow of its old self, beaten about by the passage of time, Covid, and the sad state of the economy.

His mother, who previously sold noodles in the market but now works as a cleaner on Rama IX Road, goes through moody phases when she won't talk; nor does she drink outside her place much any more, but keeps to herself indoors.

Some of the regulars who gathered there back in 2014 have moved away (Pee Mee, a fabulous cook), fallen ill (a practical joker known as Pooh), or died (Orng's younger brother, Tong, who beat her up in my presence one night).

Lek is one of the few stalwarts left, turning up faithfully day after day and rattling about in search of paying friends. 

I have seen her pick through plates of old food left on a table in the fetid darkness of a typical Bangkok night after almost everyone had left for home. Why does she do it?

Aunty Lek tells me she lives with five relatives, including a young nephew of whom she is fond. Why not spend her nights with them?

now, see part 5

Dream spell breaks (3)

Nearby Talad Penang, in Klong Toey

A touching assessment of my worthiness as a life partner followed.

'You would make a good partner," he said, "but Dream has no style," he added, referring to himself diminutively in the third person. By "style", I gather he meant that he was straight, so not a good match.

"Bring your partner around to meet us some time," he offered expansively. "And if you ever need a new one, get in touch."

Some idle conversation about work followed, with Dream noting that his boss is a foreigner, like me.

"He likes me because I speak my mind," he said, asking if I had met many other Thais like him in my travels.

"No, Dream, you are a one-off," I said confidently.

Commenting on why we have remained virtual strangers all these years, he said:  "I see you biking past but never said anything. I wanted you to be the first to talk," he said, explaining the absence of any greeting. I felt the same way, needless to say, but apart from that, it never felt right.

Finally we reached perhaps the strangest point in the evening, when Dream started a sales pitch on the virtues of drinking. Lek, I gather, had told him that I had quit alcohol and seldom sat at their table for long when I drop by.

This, of course, had to change.

If I am not shelling out to help cover the cost of the next bottle of whisky, as I did regularly in the past, regulars like Lek are forced to go dry. 

I suspect this is what prompted her to approach him, though I don't know the precise nature of the plea. Perhaps it sounded like this: "If you tell the farang you want to be friends, he might come back and start drinking again."

Orng's place is in a quiet alcove at the end of the soi. In years gone past, she could draw 30 or more drinkers on good evenings, including her elder brother, a DSI policeman, who was treated with great respect. 

Some regulars further down the feeding chain still come even without an invitation, as Orng's  place adjoins a community centre overseen by the soi committee. Some of that space around the spirit house outside his front door is regarded as common land. 

Some of her regulars - messengers, labourers and the like - are noisy drunks. I spotted one guy in recent weeks urinating on the front path running up to their place, just metres from the front door.

Surely Dream had grown sick of this riff-raff by now? Well, no, at least not on this occasion.

"People still gather here to drink at night," he began.

I chipped in to finish his sentence: '...making a lot of noise."

Naively, I thought he was about to complain about the drunken regulars who gather outside his house, depriving his family of that middle class eccentricity known as privacy and perhaps also interrupting his sleep.

Silly me. "People still gather here, and alcohol loosens people up nicely," he added. "My mum and Aunty Lek don't have many friends, so you are welcome to come back and keep them company as you did before."

I had heard enough. I suggested my young friend head inside for a shower and sleep. He smelled musty after drinking outside for hours.

By this time he had hugged me half a dozen times, and even kissed my neck, for which he sought my permission.

"Aunty Lek, please look after Mali," Dream, ever the generous host, said as he bade farewell.

now, see part 4

Dream spell breaks (2)

Back to Dream's effusive conversation opener - "I know you like me, but I don't want you liking me like that"  - I can't say I was too impressed.

I barely look at him in "that way": having Dream as a friend or even a younger brother-like figure would be enough. 

His assumption that I am addicted to his physical beauty and barely holding myself in check after all these years of suppressed excitement was a bit much. But in the shock of the moment, I did not have the smarts to react.

As for his offer, repeated many times that night, that "I am ready now to be your friend" - far from welcoming, it sounds more like he had to talk himself into it.

More surprises were to follow. "I want to say sorry for the way I spoke to you that day. A younger person should not swear at someone more senior. If I had let it go, we could have moved on," he said, referring to our argument when we cursed each other and he told me not to return to his house again.

"But I swore at you first, remember? it's only natural that you should respond in kind," I replied.

"Well yes, you did," he smiled, while insisting he still needed to say sorry.

"When will you forgive yourself?" I said. "It's no big deal. In fact, I quietly admired you for it. I didn't know Thais could be so outspoken."

Score one for Mali!

An odd teen-style bonding ritual followed, in which at his invitation we swapped Line app details so I could contact him should I ever run into trouble in the Land of Smiles.

"I can vouch for the people in the soi, but nowhere else," he said grimly.

He believes that as a foreigner in Bangkok, I must tread warily to avoid dark threats lurking around every corner. Dream and others in his mother's drinking circle have warned me many times over the years not to trust Thais (other than themselves, of course), and also seem sceptical about my partner.

"You must stop going into the community near your place," he said protectively, referring to the slum soi next to my home. "But if you ever get into trouble, just contact me on Line, and my friends and I will be there."

Dream has many mates, it is true, but this sounded too much like the Thai teen gang ritual where youths seeking to avenge wrongs committed by rivals in the neighbourhood go on the rampage. 

My young friend and I had our heart-to-heart standing by his front door. I was on my feet for the occasion, as I needed to be, as Dream offered me one warm embrace after another, and even a kiss.

Dream's mother, normally a quiet one with little to say, was next to me, along with Lek. They were perched at a small table outside their place which has been witness to many gatherings over the years. Though they said little, I suspect they were no less stunned than I was by Dream's behaviour.

My erstwhile "son" seemed unflustered by their presence as he unburdened himself, and in fact I wonder how much of it was intended for their consumption. Lek had approached Dream before I arrived, I was to learn later, asking him to break the ice with me.

Dream, who works for a freight forwarding firm in Wattana, likes to play the genial host. He was nothing if not a showman, slapping his mates on the back and farewelling them noisily as they headed off on their bikes. 

He also has a night-school qualification in marketing, I told myself, so perhaps all this performative drama is par for the course. But it still sounded odd.

"I also want you to know I was never angry with you after our row," he said, claiming that his mother would have shunned me from the drinking circle if he had really been upset.  "She sides with me if I take a dislike to anyone," he said.

"Never angry?" I thought. What about the time he slammed the door in my face? 

One day I tried to hand him a painfully composed note apologising for the way I had treated him. He threw it to one side and flung the door closed with disgust even as I stood there. Boom!

Once again I said nothing, for the most part simply watching as Dream's Mr Geniality act rolled on.

"I am happy when you bring your family here," he added, referring to the time I brought one of my sisters and her family, visiting me in Bangkok in April 2014, to Orng's place for lunch. 

She puts on a big meal for locals in the soi every year to mark her mother's passing, and that year, my family were special guests. 

Dream and I were still in no-talkies mode back then, so he made sure to sit with his friends with their backs pointed to me and my family rather than acknowledge their presence or, God forbid, interact.

now, see part 3

Dream spell breaks (1)

Friends again...

"I know you like me, but I don't want you liking me like that," said my young friend Dream, with whom I have shared a rocky relationship since a regular drinker at his place tried to pair us as foster father and son many moons ago.

"I want to be your friend. I am ready now!" he declared after I dropped in to see his mother and her drinking friends recently after a long absence.

As if to prove his sincerity, Dream, 26, who had spent the night drinking when I turned up after work, hugged me repeatedly and even kissed my neck.

A lengthy heart-to-heart - the first time we have opened our hearts to each other, so to speak, in the many years since we met - followed.

Strange? The night he festooned me with hugs and kisses was also the first time we had spoken in almost three years. We had barely managed more than a few words in the more than eight years, in fact, which had passed since that fateful argument, and yet here he was proposing to make a new start and offering profuse apologies for the past.

Our troubled father-son venture hit the rocks in early 2014, barely weeks after it had begun, when I swore at him one day after he grew distant. 

For another two years after that, surly Dream refused to talk to me. While we made up eventually, relations were tense. While we chatted occasionally on Messenger, we avoided talking to each other if we happened to meet. This is a shame, as the young man was charming company for the brief time I knew him.

I have spent many fanciful hours wondering over the years what my young friend was doing with his life and what he was really like. 

Dream's change of heart gave me an intriguing chance to find out, I thought as I stood there outside his place. However, I am wondering about his motives: while I believe he was genuine about wanting to be friends with this foreigner, I think he was also put up to it. 

A close friend of his Mum's, Aunty Lek (as she styles herself) asked him to talk to me that night, I was to find out later. She likes a nightly drink, but needs someone to pay for it.  If Dream and I made up, I suspect was was thinking, this farang with money might turn up more regularly to see him - and shout her booze by way of saying thanks.

Cynical?

Let's take a step back. About a month ago, I started dropping in to see his mother Orng and Lek after an absence of many years, though I held out no hope of getting to know Dream as I thought that phase had passed. I had visited three or four times at most, stayed half an hour, and left again.

On the night Dream and I reunited, I had dropped in after work. Dream's mother many years ago started inviting friends to drink at her place at night, and one or two locals in the soi would cook up delicious Thai meals for those who came.

On this night Orng and Aunty Lek were sitting outside the house. Dream himself was wrapping up a drinking session with a group of his own friends at a separate table in the concreted area out front. 

Seeing me turn up, he noisily announced his intention to clear the air with an expansive remark aimed ostensibly at his mates, but really meant for me:

"Mali knows what my temper is like, don't you Mali?" he said at the tail end of a conversation as he farewelled his friends, referring to our argument many years before.

Orng's place is in a slum alleyway in Klong Toey, close to Talad Penang market between my condo and office. 

I used to walk to work back in those days when we first met. I would cut through Dream's soi as it's quicker than following the main road.

He was often chatting to mates outside his house. We'd exchange greetings as I walked to work and back again. I didn't think much more of it than that.

Then, as I was heading home on New Year's Eve 2013, my young friend, then 18, thrust a glass of whisky into my hand and invited me to sit with them to drink in New Year.

Most of the regulars were friends and family of Orng's and included some colourful locals from the soi. We enjoyed many boisterous nights sitting at the rickety wooden table outside her place as I got to know the crowd, some of whom, such as Aunty Lek, had been drinking there for many years.

Aunty Lek, a family friend rather than a blood relative who calls herself "aunt" as befits her middle-age, quickly asserted herself as the genial hostess, pouring drinks and introducing me to the others.

When I wrote my first post about this family, I had been drinking there the previous three nights. On night two, Aunty Lek paired me with Dream as foster father/son, even though I barely knew the lad. 

I suspected later she had motives of her own: Lek, a cleaner, is a sturdy drinker who needs her nightly alcohol fix. She saw me as a financial enabler, as cynical as that sounds.

She figured that if she could persuade me to take an emotional stake in the family's life via Dream, I was sure to come back regularly. 

Once there I could be persuaded to help pay for her drinking, Lek barely having the financial means to do so herself. At the table she took on the role of barman, in return for which regulars were expected to keep the alcohol flowing. 

In that first post, I wrote it up like this:

We have drunk together for the past three nights. As the only farang to have joined their group, I am the star attraction.

The first night was for introductions; the second, family bonding.

On family bonding night, I had only just joined the table when Aunty Lek asked me if I wanted to be Dream’s foster dad.

Being hospitable Thais, they are anxious that I keep myself stress-free and happy.

‘Yes,’ I said.

A few seconds later, Lek, who appears to enjoy stitching together the emotional fabric of this family, asked Dream to join us.

Dream, head bowed, quietly took a seat next to me.

‘Farang Mali says he wants to adopt you as his foster son. Do you want farang Mali as your foster dad?’ she asked, getting straight to the point.

Dream, who can be as boisterous as any teen when it suits, gave an emphatic ‘Yes!’

I was surprised, as I thought they were just having fun.

Since then, the family has introduced me as Dream’s foster dad.

No one has explained how this is supposed to work, though for the moment I am happy just to go with the flow.

Our falling out came a mere few weeks later. At the time I wrote:

In the past week or so, I have called and he didn’t answer.

I send text messages, often prompted by snippets of information his mother has given me about her son’s day-to-day goings on, only to get no response.

I was tired of his lack of interest, and told him so when I tricked him into answering the phone one day. I called him on a number he does not recognise as mine, and he answered.

‘What do you think you are doing, ignoring my calls?’ I demanded, swearing at him.

‘You have no right to talk to me like that. You are someone from my home life. When I am at work, I focus on answering work calls,’ he replied.

'Many people enter my life. I am not dependent on you, and can pick and choose,' he said confidently.

now, see part 2 

Young man between jobs (part 4, final)

Man, showing off the tatts

My parents' reply was sane and sensible:

'Make friends but please do not give them money. These people will take everything you give them, start to expect it, and become resentful when you stop supporting them.'

I was to take their advice, as I didn't feel comfortable handing over money. Man was able to help himself before I came along; even if he had to ensure a bit of hardship, I am sure he would have coped. I replied:

'I am not prepared to just cut off support as he won't have petrol to get to work nor food to eat. However, I am sure he can make do with a bit less than I have been giving. When this is over I will confine my help to meeting them as a group for a meal.'

After Man's finances improved, I started seeing him less, as he was working long hours. However, we kept in touch for a time on social media. 

At first man was responsive to my messaging; one day he posted sadly about loss of his Mum and I suggested he light a candle for her and wai before her portrait, as I had seen him do previously on Facebook.

A year later, on the anniversary of her death, he posted a similar message and I left a similar suggestion. By this time I had stopped giving money and Man ignored my advice. In fact, he didn't even bother with a reply. 

This did not really surprise me: I always get the impression with social media addicts that they would rather be talking to someone else.

The friendship had started to peter out well before then, when I visited the gang at our old haunt on Chua Phloeng Road one night and saw them in a different light: just a bunch of tatty teens.

"Man's here, Man's here," his mates said, ushering me towards a dark corner where I found him sitting in a smart soft collared T-shirt and pair of shorts. They knew we were once close, and recall that I supported him for many weeks when he was in need of help. 

I had also help steer him towards young adulthood, in the brief time we were together, encouraging him to come off the drugs, quit smoking, eat properly, get sleep...

Despite his financial problems, Man always looked well dressed. When I asked him about that once, his reply was frustratingly, vintage Thai: "I am up all hours of the night and day. No one understands how I live."

On this occasion, I barely talked to him. He gave me a big smile but somehow looked less than the person I had known previously. Everything, in fact, looked diminished.

It took me 10min to cycle there from work, but surveying the uninspiring scene before me, I lost interest in conversation and decided to leave.

Man looked shocked when, with barely a word, I turned on my heel. He could see the spell was broken. I see him pop up on social media, but we have not met since.

Young man between jobs (part 3)

Another shot of Man

In a lengthy email to my parents about Man and his mates, I described things this way:

"He chews through the money a bit, and thanks to my help is certainly doing well compared to some of his mates over there, who go without some meals because they simply have no money. 

"I met some of his mates over there again today, and the lack of money to buy food appears to be a common problem...two complained of being hungry. I helped one youngster but I can't give money to everyone. 

"I wonder how they feel when they see me helping Man but rarely them. 

"Anyway, Man and I are developing a relationship of sorts...I find I have to tell him what to do often, as kids his age appear to have few ideas, though he generally does better than I expect he will. 

"Today he opened a bank account and organised an ATM card and Thai ID card, all without adult help. I was impressed. 

"I had arranged to meet him so I could give him a bit of money to cover his expenses, but when I turned up, found he had already left.

"I sent him a message saying he would have to wait now until evening, and he put up a sad post on Facebook (our way of communicating when he is not happy) where he wrote in English: 'I asked someone to be sincere...'  I retorted that I asked someone to wait (but he wouldn't)." 

When I went to see them again he was asleep at a friend's house in a slum off the main road. I had forgotten how mixing with teens could be so chaotic. I take up the story here:

"His mates were sitting on their motorcycles outside and told me how to get there. The place was a wreck...it's a family home, but there was bare cement on the walls, a mere fridge dividing the parents' bed from the one occupied by Man's friend, called Por. There were clothes hanging from the ceiling, the door was falling apart. 

"I gathered one of his mates, Arm (there's a big lad called Arm and a little one by the same name; this was little Arm) had let a third youngster take Man's motorbike out to buy something...Man was worried he would run out of petrol on the way to work. 

"Yet another youngster berated Arm for lending the bike, as it was not his, although both Man and Arm work together at the brewery (Thais do everything together) and probably go on the same bike, so maybe he thinks it's almost like his own. I told Man amid this hubbub that I was impressed that he managed to open his bank account and get the ID card, but I doubt he was even listening.

"I haven't told Maiyuu about my new friends, as I decided to put all this child-support stuff behind me years ago, and he would not be happy to hear it had started up again. Normally I keep my money to myself but in this case I decided to help." (email, Aug 18, 2018)

now, see part 4

Young man between jobs (part 2)

'I have only you (to look after me)': another FB post

This drama followed a clash between the two groups in which both sides armed themselves with iron bars, planks of wood and so on and attacked each other. One lad showed me his injuries which he suffered in the clash, which thankfully did not result in any serious bloodshed. 

They had gone to the police, who called in both sides for a chat. However, the police had not advised the parents of any of the youngsters involved, Man and his mates told me, as at age 18 or thereabouts they were now considered young adults. The case had resulted in police charges, and some of the cases were likely to end up in court.

Chua Phloeng Road is known for its clashes between rival teen groups, though I am not sure I had heard about this one. Never mind...we would just have to keep ourselves out of plain sight, in case the gang with the handgun came back for a reprisal clash. 

I drew closer to Man, the lad who took me on his bike in search of ya dong on our first night, because his life story seemed so sad. He lived alone after losing his mother to cancer three months before; he showed me pictures her funeral. He had an elder brother, but he, like their father, lived elsewhere. Man still lived in the rented place he had shared with his mother in Suan Phlu, about 15min away.

Man and a mate at their meeting place on Phra Ram III Road

Man, in common with one or two others in the group, also had a young child of his own, despite his tender age. The little boy stayed with an "aunt", really a close friend of the mother's, he said.

Man and the child's mother, herself a teen, had broken up after the lad was born and she was not interested in raising the boy herself. 

When we met, Man was about to end a no-hoper job lifting goods somewhere, and had applied to join a German brewery-cum-restaurant on Phra Ram III Road. 

I was to help him over the next few weeks meet his expenses, as the first pay he received from the brewery, where he worked six days a week, was only just enough to cover his rent. 

I told him I would look after him until he starts getting paid properly (normally they are paid every month, but he had started in the middle of the pay cycle).

now, see part 3

Young man between jobs (part 1)

Man, telling me I let him down

'I asked someone to be sincere...'  lamented a young Thai friend, Man, writing in English on Facebook.

Man, 18, was upset that I failed to meet him that day as arranged to hand over money. He was about to start a new job and at his boss's request had to get a Thai ID card made, and open a bank account.

Man was about to start work at a German brewery on Rama III Road. We had arranged meet on Chua Phloeng Road, across the way from my condo, where I would give him some money to get to the get the card done at the local body office, and also visit the bank.

I was taken aback to see his FB post, accompanied by a staged picture of himself, no doubt taken where we were supposed to meet. He was looking at the camera, and holding up thumb and finger in the shape of a heart.  

I suspect he had friend take the picture for him; he and his mates, social media addicts all, routinely take pictures for each other as they dream up their next FB post, I was to discover. It was the first time I had seen the heart gesture, and marvelled at how youngsters have time to arrange these set-piece stunts for Facebook when they could be doing something useful like - well, working.

I did make our meeting as arranged, as it happens - he had left early without letting me know. His friends told me Man had already left for his errands. He borrowed money from them instead.

I met Man and his teenage friends some weeks before on a lone walk one night across from the slum community in Klong Toey where my regular drinking friend Ball lives. 

Ball and his younger brother were seldom home since they started working as chefs at a restaurant in town. I was at a loose end, and decided to go for a walk to see if I could find anyone in the neighbourhood still selling ya dong.

I came across Man and half a dozen mates in a shadowy corner as I walked along Chua Phloeng Road. Some lived in the slum community behind the road frontage; others, like Man, had gone to school in the area and perhaps even lived there once but since moved away. However, they would bike back to see their friends, usually after dark, as they liked to take drugs, shoot the breeze, and race their motorcycles up and down the road late at night when the traffic eased.

"Do you know anyone around here who sells ya dong?" I asked Man and his mates. Man knew of a trader further up in Phra Ram III Road and took me there on his motorbike. 

"Watch out, the farang might seduce you," his friends teased him good naturedly as I climbed on the back of his bike. Unfortunately, that vendor had closed for the night, so Man took me back to see his mates and I shouted everyone beer instead. It was raining as we made our way back, but I held up a small folding umbrella I had brought along to shield us as Man steered his vehicle. 

This was to the first of a series of after-dark meetings which seemed to grow with new cast members every night. Many of the youngsters in the neighbourhood go to the same state school. The primary school is adjacent to my condo; the secondary campus about 200m down the road. 

Occasionally lads from over Ball's way would pay a visit to see Man and his crowd, or we would head over to Ball's side of the road for a meal close to the local 7-11 where a dozen or so traders open food stalls at night.

The first night, we posted a picture of ourselves on FB, and within 24 hours I had 30 or so new FB friends, all of them youngsters who knew Man and his mates. 

When I asked why they seemed to be hiding in the dark, they said a gang of youths had gone past and shot a handgun at them a few nights before (they showed me what looked like a bullet hole in a corrugated iron frontage to some old guy's place). 

now, see part 2

Culture shock (part 5, final)

How can you get your fill on this stuff?

In the course of the night the ranks of the "kids" swelled, when we were joined by another cousin of Robert's, aged 20 or so, who was to start working for Pim at her stand within weeks, replacing Robert himself who was still being lippy with his aunt. 

Pim's boyfriend, James, also turned up on his motorcycle, though paying for him wasn't my problem. I took the kids home in a taxi about 10.30pm, as I was sick of the place. Pim contributed to their taxi fare, which was kind, as the bill including food came to almost 2,000 baht. 

On the way home, Robert started chatting to the taxi driver, a friendly guy well into his 60s. Robert referred to me as his Dad throughout, and talked to the driver about my habits, likes and dislikes. He was a touchingly attentive surrogate son, I thought.

His mother had started a new family in the provinces, he told me once, and his real father had vanished from the scene years ago. This was a lad in need of a role model and all that, perhaps - but really, just a growing teen looking for a bit of fun. At the first distraction, he would be off.

The next day the mood soured when a woman who runs a streetside eatery down the way from Pim's stand and who I have known for more than 15 years, warned me off the family.

"We are worried about you and don't think you should get too friendly," my friend, who I shall call Mai, said. 

Mai runs a great eatery nestled in a small garden and employing two or three young workers from Laos. I discovered her shop years ago, and drop in every day before work. Before leaving home I phone ahead with a order: two boxes of food which I pick up on the way to the office. I know her family, and when we go away on trips we buy presents for each other. Civilised behaviour, and no one trying to gain an advantage over the other.

"We have never wanted anything from you. but these folk have taken your money for clothes, a guitar, a restaurant meal..." Mai said. "What's next?"

Actually, Robert had asked for a new smartphone, but I had told him he would have to help me save if he wanted that item.

Mai had been talking to another trader who runs an Esan-style eatery next to her own shop, who has also known me for years. Her husband works for the same company as me, and I have known her son and daughter, both kids when I met them and now grown up, for as long as I have been here.

Both traders were annoyed by the presence of the Laos family, as their stand drew customers away from their own eateries -  but their unease went further than that.

"If one day they decide to move shop again and they forget about you, what will you be left with?" Mai asked.

I decided to heed my trader friends' advice, especially when I heard that Pim and her young charges had been muttering among themselves about how the outing to the food barn in Bang Kapi was "too expensive" and not worth the effort.  They were grumbling together as they set up shop the morning after our trip and Mai overheard them.

In the coming weeks, Robert was to grow distant as he spent time with his elder cousin, the one who turned up at the food barn that night and eventually joined Pim at her stand.

Shortly after he started, Pim was to banish Robert back to her brother's shop in Jet Sip Rai, and I didn't see him again for more than a month. 

He did not ask his aunt how I was, even though he saw her every night after work. Nor did he call or send messages. I wrote letters which I asked Pim to pass on, but she seldom brought back word. 

I decided I had had enough. When Robert finally returned he apologised for the lack of contact and declared he had mended his ways with his aunt and was now back for good. However, I suspect he had really come back to persuade me to buy him a smartphone - our last bit of unfinished business before he had disappeared. 

"Do you still want to buy Robert that phone?" Pim asked me one night around that time, and I knew after that I should expect a visit from Robert, and so it was. Within a day or two, he was back.

I listened to him patiently but did not commit. I had no intention of parting with any more money, but said nothing. In fact, we weren't to speak again.

I passed him at the shop another few times before his aunt realised I had lost interest in supporting them. She sent him back to the brother's shop, as I suspected she would, and some weeks later closed her stall permanently and moved. 

I seldom spoke to any of her crowd after I saw Robert that day, and for weeks biked past their stand with my nose in the air as if I didn't know them. We have not seen each other since.

Culture shock (part 4)

The Korean-style moo kra ta joint in Bang Kapi; also, below

He looked at me, fish-eye indifferent, as if he was used to getting such brush-offs. Robert, who heard the exchange, looked shocked at my response. I stormed away.

I fumed all the way home, pedalling furiously, and stopped in the slum soi to compose a stiffly worded message to Pim. "Your father has just tried to menace me into buying him khong fak," I said.

Pim replied almost instantly. "Oh, he's always saying that to people. Think nothing of it. It's a misunderstanding," adding hurriedly that she hoped I would still take them out to dinner to celebrate Robert's birthday at a moo kra ta joint as planned.

"Of course," I replied niavely. "Just because he has no manners is no reason to punish the boy."

The next night Robert, a teenage cousin who also worked at the stall and I piled into a taxi close to Pim's shop for the long trip to Ramkamhaeng. Pim, who was elsewhere, spoke to the driver on the teen's phone as we climbed in, but didn't tell the kids where we were going. I had to ask the driver, a crabby guy in his 60s, where we were headed, as she didn't talk to me either. We had been travelling for 20 minutes, edging our way through peak hour traffic, with still no end in sight.

"Why, do you want me to let you off here?" he asked sarcastically, when I dared ask where he was taking us.

"No one asked for your feedback - just drive," I replied tartly.

Pim, it transpired, had spent the night in Ramkhamhaeng where she has a flat, no doubt for an inimate night with James the motorsai driver. She lived there before moving some months ago into the Jet Sip Rai community to be close to her brothers.

A good looking bunch: Pim and her son...

...brother Jalin

...and brother Lek

No doubt it was convenient for her to summon us out to that remote part of town rather than travel back to the city. But as far as I was concerned, it was cheeky - why have us battle heavy traffic for an hour and a half, including a lengthy wait for two motorcycle taxis who took us on the last leg of the journey, when we could have done this in town?

The eatery was off Ramkhamhaeng Road in remote Bang Kapi. I can't recall the last time I visited that part of town ...I may as well have gone on a trip to the provinces, it's so far.

She had been to this Korean-style bar-b-que joint before and enjoyed herself, she said later. "They put no time limit on your stay, unlike some others in town which give you a couple of hours and charge extra if you haven't finished everything on your plate," she said.

It was a huge barn-like place, so far out we were almost in a rural area. After the motorcyle taxi left us we had to dodge traffic on highways as we made our way towards the two storey restaurant (see pic), which was almost empty. 

Diners eat smorgasbord style, moving between food stations which offer dishes from a variety of nationalities. I took a look at the place and realised it was ideal for families and large gatherings, not the kind of restaurant set in more intimate surroundings which I would typically visit with my partner. But then, I would insist on interposing myself in some else's young family... I took one look and wish I had never come.

I saw the way Pim was piling her plate to the brim with expensive shellfish and the like and decided to lay down a marker. "I will pay for the kids only. The adults are on their own," I declared. Pim looked non-plussed, as if she was expecting it.

now, see part 5

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.

Culture shock (part 2)

All that's left of their stall these days...

She was to run into similar problems at her site where I met her down the road from my office in central Klong Toey. She was to last a matter of months before packing up and moving somewhere else. 

By then our relationship had also moved on, as I grew sick of their strange ways.

Robert lived with his aunt Pim at a rowhouse in the Jet Sip Rai area, about 10 minutes from where they set up shop. She had several brothers who ran their own food stalls, much like her own, including one in front of the rowhouse where they lived. 

One day I chatted to members of the family as they turned up at Pim's stall lugging supplies or equipment. First I met her partner, an amiable motorcycle taxi driver. 

Later I met her brothers, cousins, uncles, Pim’s father, and even an elderly grandmother with whom Robert, one of the youngest members of the family, had lived for years before moving in with Pim.

All arrived from Laos years ago and no one had work permits or visas permitting them to stay. Robert, 16 when I met him, had been in Thailand since he was little boy when he crossed the border with his grandmother. 

Because he lacked paperwork, including an ID card, he could not enter the schooling system. While he spoke Thai well, he could barely read or write.  

Pim could see I felt sorry for him as we chatted away, and was keen to encourage idea that Robert was a hard worker with few friends. 

It took me a while to piece together the events in his life, but I found out Robert had moved in with Pim only recently; six months before, he was still living off Chua Phloeng Road with his granny.

I could understand why he wanted to leave Granny's place. Pim's home in Jet Sip Rai offered the independence of young adulthood and a job. At granny's place he was just a kid with no income, spending his days playing football and computer games.

Nonetheless, it was a tough life. Pim paid him a pittance, just 100 baht a day assuming sales went well, but he worked 12 hours at a stretch, with few breaks or days off. 

“We are all family so it doesn’t matter. We help each other out. Apart from that, I have to keep money aside for his future,” she said expansively. Still, it looked like slave labour to me, and I told her so.

Perhaps because he was finding the adjustment to working life tough, Robert and Pim bickered often. 

Robert did not let his youth hold him back; he was outspoken and blunt with his aunt, even in front of customers. When Pim tired of his surly behaviour, she would pull in other youngsters as helpers, and banish Robert to her brother’s shop at Jed Sip Rai. When she forgave him she would let him come back again.

When Robert worked at Pim's shop I was protective of him, as I didn't like to see him exploited. He was much smaller than other boys his age - a family trait, the elders told me. "They all grow up small in our family," one said.

I helped Robert heavy items in the shop, put up the umbrella when it rained, lift the gas bottle off his motorbike after he went into the market to fill it up. If I fussed too much, he would reprimand me jokingly: "Just sit still!" 

Robert enjoyed playing guitar, he said, so I bought him one on the internet. I had never bought online before and enjoyed the experience. However, I felt deflated when someone at Pim's place broke the guitar the same day Robert took it home.

During this time I had all but abandoned my friends in the slum next to my condo.  When a youngster from that community contacted me one day wanting money, I suggested he come and see me. Nong Ton and a school friend turned up on their motorbike and I shouted them a quick meal at Pim's stall.

At the prompting of the ya dong stall owner down the way, I also gave them 200 baht for a meal at a Japanese eatery where were heading to meet friends. When they left, Pim caustically remarked: 'You should stick with us. They they just want handouts." 

Meanwhile, curious members of Pim's family were turning up at the stall to meet me, as if welcoming a new member to their family. They included the grandma on her first trip away from Chua Phloeng Road in months (a relative escorted her). It was as if I had married into the family through the aunt or Robert and everyone wanted to check me out.

now, see part 3

Culture shock (part 1)

Pim's stall sat where the pink chairs are now

"Everything that's yours is also mine"...that's a public-spirited attitude I hadn't bargained with when I decided to help a young man at an eatery close to work. 

I bought Robert a guitar, but his relatives, with whom he lived in a rowhouse nearby, borrowed it and broke it on the first day. 

I offered to buy him clothes, as he appeared to have few of his own, but his family invited themselves along and insisted I buy clothes for them too. 

Weeks after we met, in early August last year, I suggested we go out for a Thai-style bar-b-que for his birthday, but his aunt, wo also ran the streetside stall where he worked, hijacked the occasion. She dragged us along to a huge barn of a place in faraway Bang Kapi because she had been enjoyed herself there once before. 

By that time I had grown wise to their exploitative behaviour, and offered to pay for the kids in our group only; the adults would have to look after themselves.  

Robert was doing well because he happened to meet a farang who felt sorry for his plight. Yet his family was not content with that, as they wanted some of the action for themselves.

If he was doing well, then by rights they should benefit too, as they were an indivisible whole - an extended Laos family in which anything which accrued to one member should accrue to all. How joyfully socialist!

The family welcomed me as one of their own when I met them a year ago or so, which was touching, but it proved too much of a culture shock.

Back in those days I would drink regularly at a ya dong stand down the road from my office. The mainstay of the family, an attractive young woman in her 30s called Pim, opened a little stall on a vacant space next to us on the footpath.

Her stall was sandwiched between a busy road on one side and a truck yard on the other.

Some customers drove up alongside, barked out their order and waited for their food to be delivered in a white styrofoam box. 

Others with more time on their hands parked their motorcycles and took a seat at one of the rickety tables and chairs which spilled onto the roadside.

Occasionally we would have to shout to heard above the din of the trucks, as all that separated us on the footpath from the yard behind was a chain link fence.

Robert

I noticed her nephew, Robert, sitting alone for hours at a time as I knocked back my ya dong from shot glasses at another stand next to their little shop. 

He and one or two other youngsters served customers while Pim made their orders. They also helped her open and close the stall each day, and fetch supplies from the market.

This was a casual family-run stall, consisting initially of a gas cooker, a few pots and pans and a glass display cabinet, and not much else. It had no roof or walls or doors as such - when finished for the day they would string netting across their belongings, tucked into a corner on the footpath, and hope no one stole anything.

They turned up overnight after Pim reached a deal to rent the footpath space from the owners - a family living in a squattie or lean-to arrangement smack up against the chain-lik fence in the smelly truck yard. 

Don't these people own a proper home - and how did they gain possession of what was a public space by the side of a busy road?  

The husband and wife who lived in this hovel argued often, sometimes coming to blows. Customers in Pim’s shop heard the racket as it drifted through the chain link fence; we all did, but pretended not to notice. Welcome to life in the slums!

Pim, who comes from Laos, opened the stall originally in a busy nearby community called Jet Sip Rai, where she and her brothers live, but ran into trouble with the local council inspectors, who did not like the way her tables and chairs spilled onto the road.

now, see part 2

Shattered dreams (part 3, final)

The lane leading up to their place where we hid

I recall two scenes vividly - Orng hanging on for dear life to an iron fence at the mouth of the soi as her family pulled her by the hair; and another of Orng, her hair astray and shorts adrift, being kicked inelegantly around the front yard. 

Auntie Lek and I were sitting at the table when the first punch was thrown and quickly found a place to hide, down the lane about 15m from the house. We watched as the attack carried on, not game to interfere as it was family business. 

It was only a matter of time before someone in the soi called the police, I thought, such was the commotion; finally I left for home as I couldn't stand being present as the assault unfolded.

One of the regulars at the table warned Auntie Lek and I not to get involved (by all means watch, but say nothing), and it was good advice. 

I can't recall if the police were called but when I turned up the next day Orng, Noi and her family had made up, though the younger brother, the first to hit her, remained on the outer. 

In late October I wrote to my parents about the family fight - a new one for me, even after all the time I have spent in Klong Toey slums:

"Last week I witnessed her younger brother and older sister beating up Orng, after she got into debt. Her husband had to take on responsibility for repaying the loan sharks, but called on family to help.

"It was an awful fight, and thankfully little blood was shed. Life is now getting back to normal there, and Ong and her husband Noi seem as close as ever, despite the dreadful scenes that night. I am pleased few kids were around to witness it; Orng's teenage son Dream was away on a trip to the provinces.  

"Dream turned up the next night, crying, according to Auntie Lek. He asked his uncle over and over why he had to beat up his mum." 

My parents, who have given up warning me off odd types in the slum, remarked laconically that the scene must have been an "eye-opener", which indeed it was.

My relationship with this crowd has waxed and waned. We renewed our ties again in May last year when, coincidentally, my sister was due back in Bangkok on another visit. 

Orng urged me to bring the kids over, though a churlish member of her drinking group said I should stay away until my sister had arrived. "Don't bother with him now - wait until he's brought the kids," she said brazenly at I sat at Orng's table. 

Their interest in befriending me again was tied solely to whether they would get to see those cute farang kids. After that, presumably, they would give me the cold shoulder.

My family was in Bangkok just a week so time was limited. I raised the prospect of a visit with the kids but no one seemed keen. "Are you still seeing that family we had lunch with?' my oldest nephew, now 16, asked. 

He recalls the day we went there for lunch, when he was a little over 10. When I said yes, he grimaced.

Where Dream is concerned, things are adrift. Funnily enough, even after we made up, I found it difficult talking to the lad, as too much time had passed.

Dream and I have spoken a few times online about our shared fondness for dogs (he raises two Beagles ), and we exchange greetings at the 7-11. "You are my friend," he declared in one online chat.

I gather he still works as a messenger, though no longer for his aunt as he did before. He still plays football, though appears to have finished night school. He had a live-in girlfriend for months, but they split up and on FB now declares himself single. He is also a social media addict.

"One day I willl ask you about your life, as I know almost nothing about you," I told him on chat. "I hardly ever bother snooping on your FB."

These days even that's not an option, as he has put most of his posts in friends-only mode. However, he leaves up a few pictures with his old girlfriend, no doubt to let the world know that he once had one. Dream was never big on self-confidence, and I doubt much has changed.

"He has football in his life, and that's about it," his mother liked to tell me.

These days, you can add to that his drinking mates, and FB feed.

Dream may be willing to make a new start, but I find I am too nervous. If I see him outside his house, I whizz past on my bike; we don't talk. I hear his friends, some of whom I know independently of Dream, ask: 'What's wrong with the farang?'

When I see Dream in public I stumble over my words and don't know what to say. Where do you start, after years in which we were estranged, long periods which we should have spent getting to know each other but didn't? 

He was such a charming young man, and my early experiences of mixing with the crowd at his home warm and vivid. 

However, when I go past the house now it seems a shadow of what it once was. While Orng's friends still gather, the drinking circle has shrunk dramatically. 

They fall in and out with the folks who gather further down the lane to drink. Worse, the young people who used to lighten the atmosphere there have all but gone, as they are now old enough to socialise at bars and eateries with their own mates instead.

Another phase has passed with an unsatisfactory ending. I often think of Dream and his family, but the cost of re-entering their lives - tolerating hours of miserable, endless talk about 40 baht street food and 20 baht football bets - seems too high. I must have moved on, even if they haven't. 

Shattered dreams (part 2)

The angry one and his mum's drinking crowd

Dream must have resented the fact we hit it off, and when we were together would studiously avoid me as usual or even attempt to pull his cousin away if we were talking.

We had many involved conversations standing in Orng's front yard as Dear, an ex-con who served time for drugs in his youth, offered me some well-meant life advice. "Make money, find a woman, have kids," just about sums it up.

Some months later Dear gritted his teeth and moved back to his family home in leafy Bang Krachao, the so-called "green lungs" of Bangkok across the Chao Phraya River. I have not seen him in many years now, after he and Dream's family fell out.

Meanwhile, a neighbour and distant relative of Dream's mother, Orng, invited me to her daughter's wedding soon after I met the crowd.  Dream's mother and her friends were happy to welcome me into their lives, despite my problems with the angry young one.

They held the wedding at a nearby playing field, which was fancier than it sounds, with overhead lights, dining tables and so on. At his uncle's suggestion I kept a watch out for potential trouble. "Teens in the neighbourhood might hear about the wedding and turn up to cause mayhem," his uncle, a DSI policeman and elder brother to Orng, said darkly. 

I kept an eagle eye out for strife which did not arise. Dream dressed up and looked fabulous, as did his mates. I recall much laughter and group photos, but not much else. However, still no talkies.

Time passed. In April 2014, some months after we met, Ong invited my sister and her family, who were visiting Bangkok, to join a religious ceremony at their home. 

Orng had invited the monks to bless the ashes of her late mother, as she does every year on the anniversary of her death. She puts on a big meal afterwards and when she found out my sister was in town was quick to invite her. 

Orng and her friends made a fuss of us, perhaps her first farang visitors, seating my sister, her husband and their three kids at their own table, and explaining the Thai dishes on offer.

My nieces and nephews, the oldest of whom was about 10, were popular, with Orng and the others trying their best to chat in English, and even Dream remarking to his mother on their startling blue eyes. 

On the day we joined them, however, he made sure to sit with his back to my family, as he joined his mates at their own table nearby. 

Later that night, his messenger friend, Laem, invited me to a football game in Klong Toey. We went as a group, including a few kids, but once again Dream pretended I did not exist. 

Orng's place wasn't always so warm and welcoming. In October 2015, Orng's relatives assaulted her after she fell into debt with underground lenders and left them with the bill.

Orng, aware she could no longer afford the repayments racked up over months of casual borrowing, fled home and left her husband Noi to cope with the problem. 

Indian lenders do the rounds of the soi offering easy money at high interest. I see them on their bicycles as they move up and down the lane offering loans or collecting interest, like doctors making house calls. 

Thais in the soi stop them to borrow money for spending as casual as laying a bet on a football game, and worry about the consequences later.

Orng racked up the debts on the quiet and abruptly left her husband rather than tell him what she had done. When the lenders told Noi that he was on the hook for tens of thousands of baht, he told his shocked friends and family. They lured her back home for the inevitable confrontation.  

Her younger brother and elder sister arranged with Noi to be present when she returned, though they went into hiding, for dramatic soap-opera like effect. When Orng turned up in early evening after several nights away, she no doubt hoped she would find her husband alone.

Her family sprang out from wherever they had secreted themselves and demanded she explain. Her younger brother Tong, a surly individual who lived in a delapidated lean-to down the lane, ran out of patience, and thumped her in the shoulder to show his displeasure. 

I was sitting next to him outside their place and was startled to see him hit Orng, especially as he regularly helps himself to food at her house. 

However, he was not the only relative happy to lay hands on Orng that night. Her brother and elder sister chased Orng around the front yard over the next two hours, punching her, slapping her, pulling her hair, tearing at her clothes, and dragging her into the house.

They were demanding retribution for saddling them with debts which they assumed they would have to help pay off.

As the screaming intensified, Noi closed the door to outsiders so family members could vent in privacy. 

Noi, while he may have tricked his wife back home, did not appear to lay a hand on her, I am pleased to say -  but nor did he try to stop the others from hitting Orng.

now, see part 3