Visit to the shaman (5, final)

Final glimpse of the offerings plate, with my worried partner in the background

Talking about the encounter later, I adopted the phrase "witch doctor" (หมอผี) to describe Mor Sawaeng. I was speculating aloud whether he sends a cut of his earnings as a shaman back to Mor Joe, who sent him our trade after all.

I also wondered why Mor Sawaeng's boss at the restaurant puts up with his frequent excursions into the carpark to perform his ritual over customers, and also the fate of the alcohol, which we left there unopened with him. 

Perhaps it finds its way into the Chinese dishes on offer at his restaurant, or maybe the cooks knock it back together out the back.

Maiyuu said that if I was being polite, I should call him a mor peun ban (หมอพื้นบ้าน), which translates as traditional doctor. This is a more innocuous phrase, of course, but also helps salve my partner's bruised ego, after he regretted leading us on this silly expedition.

Later, as I mused over whether I should feel upset at having parted with a stupidity fee (ฝรั่งเสียค่าโง่) as the Thai rather bluntly puts it, or the cost of my own ignorance, Maiyuu suggested we should see the encounter with Mor Sawaeng and his enabler Mor Joe in a more positive light. 

The day's expenses, which came to over 1,000 baht including the teacher's fee, alcohol and taxi fares, were really the price of buying a new experience (ค่าประสบการณ์), said charmingly.

However, Maiyuu admits he should have thought about the expedition more carefully. "I panicked, but I was worried about your condition," he said, wearing a sorry look.

It's not as if we were not warned what was coming, in a roundabout way at least. As I left Mor Joe's place for the taxi, he uttered some parting words which puzzled me at the time: "Never mind, we all have to help each other in this life."

I can see now that he was referring to his mate Mor Sawaeng, to whom he was sending a "referral", courtesy of our own gullibility.

Never mind, indeed. I learned from the experience, and enjoyed meeting Mor Sawaeng, warm, ebullient soul that he was. I hope your days are plenty and prosperous, if I may offer a prayer of my own in return.

I am sure they will be, if Mor Sawaeng indeed is treating a constant procession of needy types from the provinces in search of low-cost cures for shingles  as he says. The cost of seeing an ordinary doctor, in our case, would have been much cheaper.

As a postscript, I should add that I realised on the way back in the taxi what was really causing my red spots: an allergic reaction to clothes washing liquid. I wash some items in a bucket, slothful person that I am, and in my haste to get the items into the sun, forget to rinse properly. I passed this news on to Maiyuu, who looked relieved to have a more likely explanation of what ailed me. 

Since our misbegotten adventure to Phaya Thai, we are now converts to modern medicine. Maiyuu has bought some conventional lotion for inflammatory dermatoses, which he applies to my body at night before bed. The red spots are fading nicely.

He has also replaced our clothes washing liquid with a softer mix tailored to children and which is less likely to inflame my skin. It has a great scent, I am happy to report. 

Maiyuu knows my habit of rinsing clothes inadequately in my humble bucket, which I keep in the bathroom, is unlikely to change, so buying products suitable for kids rather than adults is the best way to keep me safe. How apt, I thought. Now I can stop pretending I am grown up.

Visit to the shaman (4)

The offerings plate: alcohol, a few baht for the monks, leaves, dry herbs

No, as it turns out. Mor Saeang placed the bottles of alcohol on a plate, one each for me and Maiyuu, who also underwent a similar ritual for a persistent viral complaint in his eye, for which he takes ordinary meds. 

Mor Sawaeng said a prayer for him too, just as he did me, to drive the virus away, just in case his meds fail to work.

Alongside the bottle of alcohol, Mor Sawaeng dropped a few leaves and, from a grubby bag in his pocket, some dry herbs, no doubt to add some spice to his cure. He also asked us to donate a few baht for local monks, and had us hold up the plate close to head level as if making a sacrifice to the gods. 

In my case I had to accomplish this with one hand, while holding up my shirt with the other, so he could blow on my red spots.

So how did it go? "Gibber gibber gibber....pause...blow, up and down the body."  Be careful not to miss any red spots, my health may depend on it. I made sure to keep quiet as he chanted, lest the health gods not be amused.

Forgive me if I can't recall the words of his mystical Buddhist cure. I don't do Esan, though I swear I heard the Thai word for diabetes (เบาหวาน) thrown in there. 

He blew on me a lot, and I admit I enjoyed the experience. I can hardly wear my sceptical foreigner's hat after such an event, as I happily took part in the ritual, even when the outline of what was to follow started to take shape and I realised he was not a real doctor at all.

When the chanting ended, Mor Sawaeng told us not one, but multiple times, that practitioners such as himself  do not charge for dispensing their wisdom, but merely suggest we leave a teacher's fee. 

"It's up to you how much you give," he said, smiling. 'but people come from all over the country to see me for a cure."

Maiyuu parted with 500 baht, or 250 baht for each of us, as we both recevied a prayer while holding up our booze plate. 

I went first, followed by Maiyuu, who managed the plate more adeptly than I did, and offered a graceful prayer to the spirits as Mor Sawaeng did his thing. The way Thais have with their hands when they pray; it's an unfailingly beautiful thing to watch.

My ritual, if I can call it that, lasted longer, perhaps because I was the main attraction, reporting with "shingles" as I did. 

That said, Mor Sawaeng looked surprised when he came out to greet us and realised that I was a farang. I am sure few foreigners seek him out for his cures, no matter how grand his reputation might be. They would rather place their faith in modern meds, but there you are.

now, see here

Visit to the shaman (3)

The restaurant where our shaman works as a cook

However, to get them, Thais would have to part with money for a doctor's consultation and of course the meds. Shaman's cures in the provinces, however, are cheaper. A Thai friend in his 50s told me recently that when he was a boy, shaman's cures, often dispensed by a monk, could be obtained for as little as one or two baht.

Maiyuu anxiously called Mor Sawaeng, and made a time to see him. Within half an hour, my partner and I had hailed a taxi and told the driver to head for a restaurant (of all places) opposite Vichaiyut Hospital in Phaya Thai. 

Initially we had planned to go the following week, but Mor Joe impressed upon us the urgency of it all.

"It is in the early stages. Catch it now, you can cure it. Leave it, you could die," he said, vouching for the effectiveness of Mor Sawaeng. "I have sent hundreds of customers to him for a cure," he added.

Nice work if you can get it. Shaman such as Mor Sawaeng typically ask for a "teacher's fee", a payment supposedly for the monks who taught him the magic words he chants. But more of that later.

Mor Joe's shaman friend is a portly, cuddly looking chap who works as a cook at the restaurant and offers cures as a sideline. We met after a tense 15 minute drive from the massage place and many, many phone calls between Maiyuu and Mor Sawaeng, who guided us to the spot.

Initially, muddle-headed Mor Joe mistakenly gave us the name of a restaurant in Pattaya, not the one in Phaya Thai we needed, which confused our taxi driver, who looked it up on Google Maps and asked why were going so far afield.

When we arrived, Mor Sawaeng came out to meet us in the carpark wearing his cook's apron and ushered us to a table under a tree. The carpark faced the rear of the restaurant, where from an open door I could see cooks working on Chinese dumplings in little bamboo boxes. 

A motorcycle taxi driver from a nearby queue came over to watch. He was to be our audience of one for the unusual ritual which followed.

Before we left, Mor Joe asked Maiyuu to buy two small bottles of lao khao, a severe Thai spirit which tastes like rocket fuel. Maiyuu said later that he assumed that the mystic would blow the alcohol on my red spots.

now, see here

Visit to the shaman (2)

The turnoff to Vichaiyut Hospital, with ambulance handily placed at left.

The sound of the hospital was re-assuring. I assumed he was a doctor there and would pop out to see us with some meds, without us having to go to the bother of seeing a doctor the normal way. But blowing?

At first when I heard the word blow (เป่า or Pao), which in this context was shortened from pao raksa rok  (เป่ารักษาโรคงูสวัด), I was none the wiser, though my partner knew what he meant, and should have put a stop to it then and there. 

It's his job to protect me from such voodoo stuff, and any other con jobs which naughty Thais might want to spring on me, or so I thought.

Mor Joe wanted to send us to his Esan shaman friend Mor Sawaeng, transplanted to Bangkok, who blows his breath on the patient's body while reciting religious incantation in Esan dialect. 

It's a traditional remedy handed down through the generations and which doctors these days recommend against.

Look up the Thai words  above (เป่ารักษาโรคงูสวัด) and Google intones solemnly at the top of the results page: ไม่ควรเป่าหรือพ่นยาลงบนแผล เพราะจะทำให้ติดเชื้อแบคทีเรียแทรกซ้อน แผลหายช้าและกลายเป็นแผลเป็นได้ (You should not blow medicine on a wound, as it may become infected with bacteria, grow worse and leave a scar").

The medicine is often alcohol. In this clip of a traditional blowing ritual, which I found subsequent to my visit to Mor Joe, needless to say, we can see a female shaman blowing booze on a guy with the shingles virus, which appears as a long red, scaly patch (see the 1.56 mark).

The clip warns viewers against such things, just as Google did, while also adding confusingly that viewers should exercise their own discretion whether to believe in such miracle cures (well, yes). Another clip is here.

Doctors are unanimous in warning against blowing on shingles, for the practical reason that the shaman's saliva may infect the wound; I imagine the alcohol wouldn't help much either.

Apart from that, patients are placing rather a lot of faith in the healing properties of the mystic's religious incantation; why not just see a doctor and ask for a conventional cure? Ordinary meds will provide a fix in most cases, no further drama necessary. 

now, see here

Visit to the shaman (1)

Portly shaman Mor Sawaeng

"Oh, that's shingles," my massage therapist, a middle-aged guy who hails from Esan, pronounced assertively. For months, he had been poking about my body as it lay on his bed, marvelling at how many spots show up.

Inevitably, he asks what they are. "Pimples," my partner calls from the corner of the room. He rarely looks up from his phone when we are with Mor Joe, as he is known, unless directly engaged in conversation.

Boyfriend Maiyuu has turned to collecting and trading household adornments such as crystal figurines, spectacular coloured vases and even dolls, which bring in a modest income but keep him busy. Most of the business is online, though occasionally he will venture into town to vie with hordes of fellow traders for the latest consumer item which has caught the public imagination (most recently: Cry Baby dolls).

Maiyuu takes me for a massage under Mor Joe, a specialist in tackling disorders (mine is office syndrome), in the Sathu Pradit area every two weeks.

It has been a regular outing of ours for several years. The office syndrome never gets any better, but the visits to Mor Joe do offer some temporary relief. Apart from that, it's fun.

Mor Joe has a constant stream of customers, who have no doubt heard about his healing powers, which in my case he achieves largely with a hot compress and a deep knowledge of bones (so he says) rather than the firm hands of a heavy therapeutic, or deep tissue massage.

"You must be living your second youth," Mor Joe jokes, marvelling that someone my age can still develop acne spots, and we laugh it off.

On this occasion, however, he was sure that the spread of red spots on my upper frame, back and front, was more serious. He referred to shingles (โรคงูสวัด or gnu sawat), which is triggered by an onset of the varicella-zoster virus, often leftover from a childhood chicken pox infection (โรคอีสุกอีใส).

This pesky virus lies dormant in our bodies if ever we have caught chicken pox as a child. I assume I did; I can't recall.

My partner sprang to his feet and rushed over for a look. "I didn't notice, and the farang never bothers to examine himself," Maiyuu said, referring to me, as he explained why the isolated red spots - hardly an angry, weeping sore or rash, which  would be more worrying, and is more typically associated with shingles - had gone undetected.

Mor Joe, sitting in his premises

This rash of activity, if I can call it that, broke over me as they inspected my front flank. 

I also flopped over on my front at their beckoning so they could inspect my back as well. No one bothered asking if I knew what was going on; this was a job for the adults.

I had heard the Thai words for shingles and chickenpox in my travels, but as panic filled the air I had to ask Maiyuu to look them up on his phone with the English translation. The English left me none the wiser.

Shingles? A colleague at work had complained of a skin rash recently which doctors initially attributed to shingles, but on later inspection diagnosed as the fruits of anaemia. 

As for chicken pox, presumably that has come and gone. Painful and itchy in their day, I am sure, but the spots which had broken out on my body since my last visit to Mor Joe rarely bothered me.

"I have someone who can cure these," Mor Joe averred, recommending we visit an Esan friend of his, Mor Sawaeng, opposite Vichaiyut Hospital in the Phaya Thai area. "He'll blow on them."

now, see here

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. However, I was 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.