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

Get out of that sun

The boyfriend is on the telephone, angry.

He is calling the internet provider. Our signal is so poor, I can’t get it on my home computer.

That means I can’t surf the net. I can’t blog. I might get restless.

The boyfriend wants to keep me happy, so that I stay out of his hair. Without prompting, he calls ToT, the state-owned body which controls gateways to Thailand’s internet.

We rent a high-speed net service from ToT. Some days, we get a connection. Some days we do not.

‘The bastards just keep me waiting and waiting,’ he grumbled, puffing furiously on his cigarette.

‘There are no officials available to take your call, ka’ Maiyuu says, mimicking the voice recording he gets on the phone. ‘Please wait a moment longer...’

‘Chang yet!’ he says.

That’s a swear word in Thai. It gets a frequent airing in our house, as Maiyuu grapples with officialdom over the phone.

In the end, he gives up. A moment after he hangs up, internet service is restored.

The light on my modem stops flicking, which means we have a steady signal.

‘Thailand is like that,’ says Maiyuu in disgust, before heading out the door.

He was taking a pair of trousers to a clothes mending shop. He wants the shop to let them out, as his waist is getting bigger.

Maiyuu has taken on the role of housewife in our home.

He has waited a long time for this, I suspect – the opportunity to quit work and care for me as a full-time housewife.

His friends have all found boyfriends (husbands) and elevated themselves to housewife status.

Yet here he was, at 30, still trudging out to work. That had to end, so one day he simply stopped going.

Two months of tension and uncertainty followed, as I tried to figure out what was going on. Did he want to work, or not? Was he going back, or not?

Maiyuu spent his days at home, sleeping, eating, and doing little else, as he waited for me to wake up and adjust to the new reality.

Maiyuu longed for a signal from me that it was okay if he stayed at home.

It took me a while to catch on. At first, I thought he was depressed, and was waiting for his spirits to revive, at which point I assumed he would return to work.

No. Maiyuu had tired of the workforce. He could spend his days more productively, looking after our place, and caring for his ageing farang boyfriend.

Eventually I realised that he wanted to be a homebody. I told him it was okay to stay at home, if that is what he wanted.

However, he would have to pull his weight, or I would ask him to go back to work.

He is doing a great job. It is early days, perhaps, but most nights, when I come home from work, I find a house transformed.

The dishes are washed. He has ironed my clothes. He has cooked. Even the air con in my bedroom is on, waiting for my return.

When I walk in, I find Maiyuu, as fresh as a daisy, watching satellite TV, waiting for his husband.

‘You didn’t answer my phone message!’ he said the other night, as I greeted him.

Maiyuu wore a bright yellow T-shirt, and pretty boxer shorts. He looked lovely. That’s what all men like to see after a hard day at work.

‘I am sorry – I was busy,’ I said.

I hung up my hat and coat at the door. They hang next to my wife’s apron.

I jest.

I finally saw Maiyuu’s text message the next morning.

He thanked me for buying him a packet of cigarettes.

‘How are you – okay? Kiss, kiss!’ it said.