Winds of change (4, final)

Traders adapt, or they die.

As business at her shop tails off, Mum and her husband, who run it, have found new ways to supplement their income.

Both gamble on football games. They write down in notebooks details of what they have lost and won.

They wager with customers who are also good friends. When they turn up, the first item of business is to settle debts from the previous night’s game.

I see B1,000 bills change hands...sometimes several of them.

Mum’s husband, Pa, is on the phone to his bookie virtually every time I see him.

These days, I go only two nights a week, and do not stay long. I don't like the way gambling dominates activity there.

I teach English to two children in the area, so have to go anyway. After I finish, I drink at Mum’s shop, but I usually leave by 10pm.

The other night, Mum tried to talk to me, the first time we had spoken in several weeks.

‘I sent her back...she was lying and stealing...we had to pay the bus fare...’

Mum was talking about a relative, who comes from the provinces but stayed in Bangkok during the school break. A teenage girl, she is a handful. One day, Mum told her to go home.

I listened, but I didn’t take it in. Once, I would have asked questions, and shown an interest. Now I can’t be bothered, so I sat there and said nothing.

Performing arts student Jay was drinking next to me, but I hardly talked to him, either.

Later in the night, Chin, a fan of Japanese comics, joined us.

He sat down and started reading, with barely a word of conversation. He did not want to be disturbed, so I let him get on with it.

Either we have become so close that we don’t need to talk any more, or we are apathetic.

‘Mr Fatty...don’t you wan’t to talk to me? In that case, I will pretend I never met you, either.’

Tearaway Thai boy Kew – part-time security guard, part-time ageing bar boy in Pattaya, who I met one night close to Mum's shop, many years ago now – sent me that text message a few days ago.

He had called me one day when I was busy. I talked to him briefly, then hung up.

I haven’t replied to his message. No doubt, if we meet again, we’ll still be friends. I feel the same way about the young people at Mum’s shop.

Winds of change (3)

Big eateries have drawn away night-time custom from Mum’s shop.

Young Thais like to drink and eat in large, busy places with atmosphere.

One new eatery, built on a large plot of land next to the Chao Phraya River, offers a riverfront view, undercover dining with an evening breeze, parking space for patron's motorbikes, a live band, modern toilets...

I don’t eat in such places, but then I don’t go out with groups the way Thais do.

Mum’s place, a hole-in-the-wall shop, fronts an intersection leading into a soi. 

A couple of years ago, a 7-11 also went up opposite Mum’s shop. Given the competition, I am amazed her business survives.

Only solitary souls still visit – a few performing arts students (most have now gone), and middle-aged men who want to get away from their wives.

The middle-aged crowd drink, gamble, watch football. I have little in common with them, so we rarely talk. We have seen each other’s faces too often to be interested any more.

Yet the area is packed with young people. They buzz up and down the street on their motorbikes. They come out to look at stalls when festivals are held on the street once or twice a year.

The moo-grata eatery by the river – a serve-yourself grill which also sells alcohol – can keep patrons entertained most of the night. 

Some of those customers might drop into Mum’s shop on the way home for an after-hours drink, but few do.

In a flagging economy such as ours, no one has the money. They come for tiny B5 bags of cigarettes instead.

now, see part 4

Winds of change (2)

Last week, a three-day fair opened in Talad Phlu, the market where I live. It is about 10 minutes from Mum's shop. 

Traders sold food, provided rides for young ones, and movies and a dance show for the oldies.

A man brought along a vintage commercial movie projector, and erected a screen made of white cloth. At night, he screened old Thai films.

I enjoyed watching this old machine as it rattled away, churning through those reels of old film.

A beam of light shone from the projector up to the ceiling of the covered market in which we stood. A stream of smoke, caught inside the light, rose to the ceiling with it.

Another group of traders brought along rides for children – a small Ferris wheel, and an inflatable castle. Next to them, close to a dirty canal, a group of khon dancers set up a stage.

They took over a concrete-laid playing area which local lads use to play football. It has a wire fence, to keep in the ball.

Three or four men sat on stage, playing hand-held instruments. Music tinkled away, as someone narrated a story into a microphone. Dancers wearing make-up and costumes performed scenes from the story as he spoke. About 20-30 people gathered around to watch.

The exotic poses which the dancers strike are beautiful. But I wonder how many khon dancers make a decent living, or are forced to move around from one small village fair to another like this group, performing for a few hours at weekends to make ends meet.

Back at the shop, Mum would console the boys.

‘It’s hard to make a living from performing arts,’ Mum would tell them, back they still visited.

She was right.

Mum used to cook behind her shop for the boys and me. She rarely cooks any more, as they no longer come.

now, see part 3

Winds of change (1)

‘I’m about the only one still left,’ said khon dancer Jay.

He was sitting at Mum’s shop in Thon Buri with his girlfriend.

Jay was referring to his friends from his khon dance class. They went to school not far from Mum’s shop. Today, they have graduated, and dispersed to the winds.

Some, like Jay, still perform Thai traditional dance on weekends. Others have given up trying to make that avenue of work pay, and now do something else.

Once, most of Jay’s friends lived close to Mum’s shop, as it was just across the river from the school.

But since graduation, they have moved away. Now, Jay is virtually the only khon dancer from his class still in the area.

Another young man from that school still drinks regularly at Mum’s shop. Called Teung, he teaches music in town.

The first night he and I met, Teung gave me a small photograph of himself. One night, I went to Sanam Luang to watch him and three or four others boys perform music for a khon dance troupe.

I met Jay, Teung and a large group of their friends several years ago, when they were still studying.

They would form a big drinking circle at Mum’s shop at the end of class, and wile away the hours until bed.

Often, they would be there until 2 or 3 in the morning, only to have to wake again a few hours later for class.

Most were from Esan, in the country’s poor Northeast, and had known each other since childhood. They started studying khon dance while still at school, which means the rest of their formal education took a back seat from as early their mid-teens, or younger.

Khon dancers do not earn much. Jay works on weekends only, and is paid about B1,000 a day.

The boys, who hire themselves out for functions, formed their own management company.

Occasionally, a Thai embassy or cultural outfit hires them to perform overseas. They go as a group, staying in the same hotel and travelling on the same bus.

In January, I wrote a story here about another student from that group, called Toon.

He had just returned from his mother’s place in Kalasin, Esan, and missed home. He wanted to give up his apartment close to Mum’s shop, and move back to the provinces to live.

‘I don’t want to be a burden on my mother,’ he said. ‘I can’t find work to do in Bangkok, other than performing at weekends,’ he said.

Shortly before that story appeared, Toon, Mum’s younger sister and I went to the city’s airport.

We were seeing off farang J, who visits Bangkok a few times a year from his native Britain, to be with his girlfriend – Mum’s sister, Isra.

That airport adventure was one of the last times I saw Toon. A few weeks later, he moved back to Kalasin to live with his Mum. Today, he works for a car company.

When he graduated in performing arts, he left with the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. Yet in the provinces, work for khon dancers is just as patchy as it is in Bangkok.

now, see part 2

ครั้งแรกเปิดซิงกับ Camfrog

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เต้นแก้ผ้าโชว์หน้ากล้อง มีคนหื่นเข้ามาดูไรงี้ แต่ในความคิดผมคือ ผมว่ามันก็แค่โปรแกรมนึงที่คนที่อยู่ในกะลาโลกแคบที่ดันมีอำนาจคงไม่เข้าใจ

เหมือนกับการที่มาต่อต้านหนังโป๊ทั้งที่เป็นเรื่องธรรมชาติไรงี้ สำหรับคนไม่รู้คร่าว ๆ คือ มันเป็นโปรแกรมแชทออนไลน์ผ่านกล้องเวปแคม ซึ่งข้อดีเห็น ๆ 

มันก็คือการสื่อสารออนไลน์ที่ทำให้มีความเพลิดเพลิน แก้เหงา บลา ๆๆๆ และมากกว่านั้นสำหรับคนหูหนวกก็สามารถสื่อสารผ่านโปรแกรมนี้ได้ดีเลย ถูกมะ
 
พอดีช่วงนี้ห่างเหินแฟนเพราะยุ่งเรื่องงานใหม่ ๆ อยู่คนเดียวบ่อยไม่มีไรทำ เลยโหลดโปรแกรมมาดู บวกกับพึ่งได้เวปแคมมา เลยอยากลองใช้กล้อง

MSN ก็ไม่มีใครออนไลน์ งั้นลองโหลดโปรแกรม Camfrog มาละกัน อิอิ

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แล้วคนอื่น ๆ ก็ลุ้น ๆๆ ให้ถอด ๆ มีดีเจประจำห้องด้วยคอยพากย์ บรรยาย แถมมีเสียงผู้ชายโหวกเหวกจังวะ

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*หมายเหตุ : การเล่นกล้องในแคมฟรอก ผู้ใช้สามารถเลือกดูหน้าคนได้ทีละคน ถ้าอยากดูได้หลายคนพร้อมกัน 100 จอ! ต้องจ่ายเงินอัพเกรดโปรแกรมครับ