Name a price (3, final)

I told the story about the funny Thai names I encountered at the massage shop, to my new friends Gai, Tew, Nurse and Dewars.

As the children sat with me in the sit-down eatery, their parents asked them to try talking to me in English.

'How are you...where are you from?" Dey asked, while admitting he was not good with languages.

I answered.

Then the girl asked me a few questions. Her eyes shone brightly, and she looked eager to talk.

"Nurse is not scared to speak, and has a quick mind," said Dad.

Gai asked me if I would like to teach them English.

I said I would be interested. First, we would have to find a time when the children and I were both free.

"Please give me your cellphone number, and I will send you a text message," I said.

I sent him a message that night, asking him if he was serious, and if so, to name which days suited.

I did not get a reply, but then Thais are not good on texting.

The next night, Gai was away. I spoke briefly to Tew.

She called her daughter on the cellphone, to see if she was still interested. "Do you want to learn with the farang?" she asked shyly.

The next night, I met Gai again. He fetched a glass, and poured me a beer.

"I will ask you to join me in a small beer," he said. "I don't drink much - two or three bottles a day. But I drink every day," he said.

Further negotiations followed.

"Can you cope if I pay you just B200 an hour?" he asked.

I had asked for B250 an hour, which is already cheap. However, I was prepared to charge that no matter how many children turned up.

Happily, however, Gai thought that was the daily charge per student.

His aunt joined us, from her cart outside the shop.

"I don't have much money," she said.

Gai looked at me, waiting to see if I would cut the price still further. I stayed silent.

The next day, I called Gai on the telephone. He handed the phone to his wife. A further round of negotiations followed.

We settled on a flat price of B500 a day. However, three children will join the classes, not two - another member of the extended family.

The children go to a public school nearby. It has a specialist unit which gives English instruction in most subjects.

"All the kids around who live around here go to that school," said Gai.

Foreigners teach at that unit, which is for secondary students only. The family once hired a foreigner to teach Nurse privately. Neither child is old enough to join the unit yet.

Their parents are eager for them to learn. On Mondays and Tuesdays after school, they have extra tuition in other subjects.

I will teach English to the three youngsters later in the week. We will meet above the shop, before I go to work.

The teaching assignment will bring in extra money, but could also wear me out.

I hope I still have energy left for my main job. If I turn up looking bleary-eyed, it's because I've taken on to much work teaching Nurse, Dewar and Beer down the road.

I told a Thai-Indian friend from work about how my new friends tried to drive down my price.

"Are they Thai-Chinese?" he asked.

"If they are, then they want their education, and a discount as well - they're businesspeople," he said.

"They look like ordinary Thais. But their shop has been there a long time," I replied.

"In that case, they might have saved money - shops like that did very well in the past," he said.

Tew, mother of Nurse, asked me to teach conversation. She also negotiated on behalf of Dewar's Mum.

Thais get sick of grammar instruction - that's what they get in class, from their mainly Thai teachers, and it fails to work.

Conversation is easier to teach than grammar instruction. If the boys fail to follow what's going on, then we can call on Nurse, who is just 10 but bright, to help.

"They have asked me to teach conversation," I told my friend.

"They want to pick up the farang's accent," he said.

Lessons start this week.

Waggle, waggle

A young Thai man wearing flimsy white shorts was waggling his bottom provocatively in front of me.

His mother called out to him by name, to let him know a farang was approaching from behind.

I was late for work, and walking in a hurry. I had left the steps leading from an overhead bridge and was now on the footpath.

I walked past the mother. She saw that I was a farang male, so called out to her son, who was slightly in front of me.

'Taem!'

He turned around, saw me, and looked shocked.

A large farang was bearing down on his scanty frame. More importantly, it was a male.

Taem looked about 16, tidy, and compact.

I didn't wait for an introduction. This young man looked cute.

'Do you have a boyfriend?' I asked.

He giggled, put his hands up to his mouth, giggled some more. His bright white teeth flashed in the fading dusk light.

He must waggle his butt - more like strutting on a catwalk - as a matter of course, because he didn't know a male was approaching. Does his mother get sick of all that preening?

She wanted to help her son find a mate. That's why she called his name, so he wouldn't miss me.

Taem repeated my question. His voice was deep.

His mother laughed.

'No.'

'Why are you waiting?'

I was in a hurry, and couldn't slow down. In a moment I would be past him.

He laughed again.

'...Or do you like being single?'

I sped past. I looked back at him a few times, as I continued my hurried journey to work.

He kept waggling, a white beacon in the gathering gloom.

But the distance between us grew, until he was a faint white blip at the end of a dark road.

Name a price (2)

"My name is Gai, which is Thai for chicken. Nurse, my daughter, is 10," he said.

My new friend at the sit-down eatery then pointed to his aunt, and her son.

"His name is Dey," he said.

I turned to the boy, who is older than Nurse.

"What does that name come from?"

"It comes from Dewar's [Dey-wars] whisky," he said proudly.

"Back in those days, we used to drink a lot," said Gai sheepishly.

Gai's wife is called Tew. I don't know where the word comes from - I must ask. It is probably part of a compound. Depending on what word accompanies it, she could be a mountain range, a panoramic view, a row of trees.

Sometimes Thais are at a loss to know what to call their children.

At my office, I know a Thai man who has three sons. He called them after the Thai words for One, Two, and Three, presumably because he couldn't think of any better name when the first boy was born. When the other ones arrived, he carried on the same way he started.

Earlier the same day, I went for a massage, where I had encountered other unusual Thai names.

The massage shop, about 15 minutes' walk from my home, is run by a large family. A big girl from Esan, in the Northeast, worked on my back.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" she asked, as soon as we started. "I ask, because I need a mate."

A woman in her 50s turned up. She brought a small boy with her. The boy's name was Leo, after the Thai beer.

"You have a delicious sounding name," the Esan woman joked. "Come here and give me a taste."

"My mother's name is Beer," said the boy.

"Is your Dad's name Lao Khao [home-brewed alcohol]?" the Esan woman asked him.

now, see part 3

Name a price (1)

At my new eating place in the Klong Toey fresh market, I have exchanged the sickening smell of drain water for the bracing odour of raw meat.

Sound unappealing? It's not all bad.

A few weeks ago, I left the smelly noodle place close to open drains where I was grabbing a quick meal before work for a covered shop further inside the Klong Toey fresh market.

The smell coming from the drains was unbearable. I hope the owner and his wife, who support four children, don't mind that I have moved camp.

The place where I eat now, a two-storey shophouse, is further inside the same street. If I kept walking, eventually I would reach the heart of the fresh market.

Trucks carrying pig carcasses and green produce compete for space in the narrow street with residents, traders and customers getting about on wobbly bikes, motorbikes and on foot.

My bus stops around the bend. I follow a large group of passengers as we head down the street, past the streetside stall with the open drains where I ate before, and down towards my new place in the shophouse. Some drop into the shophouse eatery with me for a meal; others carry on their way further into the market.

I bow my head and try to look busy when I walk past the streetside stall, which sits just inside the corner.

Every night at my new place, runn by a local family, I order the same dish from the menu of fried rice with pork.

"Don't you get sick of that? You should try one of our dishes with basil and chilli - we're famous for them," a Thai man told me.

Aged in his early 50s, he introduced himself as Gai. His mother owns the place. I had seen him in the shop before, serving a group of middle-aged men who come nightly for a meal and a whisky.

Thais are a friendly lot, but this was the first time I had met anyone. Gai invited his wife over, and his aunt. They introduced me to their children.

Gai's aunt runs a food cart outside. The shop itself has been open 30 years.

It is on the ground floor of a shophouse, with a living area upstairs. The sides open onto the street. When the shop closes on weekends, the owners pull down metal slide doors to shut it off from the outside world.

"In years gone past, we were located closer to the street. The alcohol laws were not as strict. We could open at all hours, and the place was full of customers," said Gai.

He asked me what I did. I told him.

"I would like my daughter to improve her English, and my aunt wants her son to study more, too."

I met the girl, aged 10.

Almost all Thais have nicknames in addition to their formal names. The girl was named after the English word "Nurse".

"She was born at Bangkok Christian Hospital. We thought it looked clean, tidy and proper, so we called her Nurse," said Dad.

now, see part 2

Show him who's boss

A regular reader who posts bravely behind the name 'anonymous' has been offering me advice on what to do with my boyfriend.

For his own good, he says, I should force him out to get a job. I should give him a deadline, and if he fails to meet it, tell him to find a new home.

Anonymous was annoyed when I said I might have to negotiate with boyfriend Maiyuu before I visit the dentist next week. I want to make sure I have the money in hand when I go for my appointment.

I have asked Maiyuu to withdraw the money from our main account. For the sake of convenience, and because I like to 'empower' him with responsibility for the finances, he holds the ATM card.

If he does not give the money to me, I would have to use my own money, which would be silly, as I would rather keep that for when we really need it.

The anonymous reader reckons I lack the courage to upset him. He says I have fallen into an unhealthy relationship of co-dependency with my boyfriend, and that he should contribute financially, or get out.

Of course he should get a job, and help me pay the rent. It all sounds wonderful, in theory.

A few practical obstacles remain.

My boyfriend is gay. I can't expect him to cut up pig carcasses in a fresh market.

He has skills in particular areas, such as cooking, clothes-making and design.

I would like him to get a job which makes use of those skills...but at his age, and with his lack of qualifications, finding such jobs is hard.

If he does find such work, probably it will be through friends, not by knocking on doors.

Even if he gets the job of his dreams, it will be poorly-paid. The cost of getting to work and back will consume most of his earnings, and I will rarely see him.

But let's put that to one side. The farang critic says he must get a job!

Thanks to me, Maiyuu's days of flipping hamburgers at McDonalds, which he did when he first arrived in Bangkok years ago, are over.

That's me indulging him, Mr Anon would say. True, I wouldn't want to see him in such unrewarding work. But they wouldn't want him anyway - he's too old.

In any case, why should it be my job to lay down the law? Some foreigners appear to think that it is their duty, if not their right.

I have tried the confrontational approach. It makes him angry and does not always lead to an improvement.

I now try more subtle approaches, which over time I hope will achieve the same result.

Maiyuu owes it to himself to get a job and build a better life. If I fell under the Klong Toey bus tomorrow, he would have no home, no job, and no money.

If it was me, I would do whatever I could to make myself as financially independent as possible, for my own peace of mind.

I don't know how he lives with himself, knowing that his health and general welfare - whether he even has a roof over his head - depend on keeping this farang happy.

That's not a fair or satisfactory basis on which to run a relationship, and gives rise to Mr Anon's complaint that we have fallen into a co-dependency rut. Or to put it another way: Where is Maiyuu's self-respect?

That's the way foreigners think, anyway. My Thai boyfriend had a tough childhood. My upbringing in the West was privileged by comparison.

I don't really know what he thinks about financial independence, the power to make one's own decisions in life. He's never had much money. Before he met me, he went from job to job in different provinces, moving about the place with friends.

He would probably think independence was a great idea - if he thought it was possible to achieve.

Someone has to show him that with his skills and background, such goals are still attainable.

I hope that day comes for him - but it won't come if any sooner if I force him out to find a job he does not want.

I shall have to work on him in more subtle ways, which seem lost on some foreigners, whose first instinct when confronted with a Thai boyfriend who does not behave in the way they expect, is to lay down the law.

That might work in a relationship of equals, which each partner gives as good as he gets, and can afford to walk away.

But Thais from poor families do not always think of themselves in such terms, at least where the mighty farang is concerned.

I have education and money which my Thai boyfriend lacks. Mr Anon thinks I should wield the power which those advantages confer to get my way.

I wonder what would happen if Mr Anon should happen to end up with a noodle-cart worker for a mate rather than a tertiary-educated student, which he has at present.

Now, he can afford to insist on equality - if his Thai friend is prepared to pay his share, then he is showing respect to the farang.

Mr Anon has a Thai friend who reckons it's a good thing if a Thai date can pay his own way at least five times, to show he's 'serious' about the farang.

Not all relationships here fall into that tidy category. Just how much money do you think a poor Thai who left school at 15 or 16 can bring to the household?

Want him to 'pay his share' at the movies? Take me out for a meal, to show he really loves me?

Perform any number of other financial tests to show he genuinely cares?

I don't care for the farang money test. It's cheap, nasty and demeaning. Its advocates sound like outsiders...foreigners perpetually on the outside, looking in.

I wonder how the farang who advocates that his Thai dates jump through such hoops would feel if he was the one on the receiving end - told he must pay for this, pay for that, before he qualifies for the exalted status of 'boyfriend'.

Few Thais would insist that farang perform such tricks. They treat them with more respect.