In the mood for cooking

I must be doing something right by the boyfriend. Last night, as I went to bed, my partner Maiyuu went to a local supermarket to buy supplies. It had been raining all night, and was still spitting when he left.

Maiyuu was in the mood for cooking. He came back with celery, radishes, and two chicken steaks.

He had not seen radishes before, though he knew what they were called.

'What do you use them for?' he asked me this morning.

'Salad,' I said.

I went back to the computer. While I was busy there, he fried two steaks, and made his salad. He cut the celery into strips, and sliced the radishes thinly. Then he made a mayonnaise dressing.

He assembled the salad on two plates, using radishes as the base. Then he popped a few olives on top. Viola - a chicken steak and salad lunch, which I did not know I was getting.

'I sauteed the steaks in alcohol. When I came back last night I put them in a bowl with whisky, and soaked them overnight in the fridge.'

I am pleased to know that the bottle of rough Thai whisky I keep at home, and drink from regularly, can be of use in the kitchen.

The meal was delicious.

I don't need to visit hi-so restaurants in Silom to get western-style food if I want it. The boyfriend cooks it instead, and without prompting.

Thank you, Mr Maiyuu!

Playing truant

The internet connection to my home computer is down until at least Monday.

The light started flickering on my modem yesterday, which is always a bad sign. My partner Maiyuu called the internet provider. He said something about the local 'board' being down, borrowing an English word.

Sometimes when Thai borrows from English to get across a technical meaning it makes less sense than the original English, because it is not used correctly. Board...what board? Internet shops in the market are serving customers, but we can't get it at home.

I shall have to wean myself off the thing until next week. To fill in all that idle time I shall think about deep things like the meaning of life, my relationship, Thailand.

No, I won't. I'm addicted, like anyone else. I shall count the hours until I am in front of a computer at the office again - or instead visit the neighbourhood internet cafe, which is always an experience.

This morning I visited my regular place, a family-owned shop in the market.

Someone had half-opened the steel slide door, and a motorbike sat inside the entrance. I took that as a sign that the shop was closed for the day.

Next, I tried an 24-hour internet cafe on the other side of the market. This place has about 60 terminals and opened a few months ago, but I had never been inside.

A bank of 10 or so motorcycles sits on the sidewalk outside.

Customers buy a coupon first, for one hour or more of internet time. I bought a coupon for three hours, as I suspect I might have to visit again.

About 20 school-age children are sitting in here as I type. Mercifully, they are not bashing their keyboard, which is what I usually get if I visit the other place.

The owner of the smaller family-run place is so desperate for money that she will let children destroy her hardware. They thump the keys when they get excited playing computer games.

During the school term, internet shops are not supposed to let school-aged children play during the day. This one does, though as I say, they are well-behaved. Still, if any teachers from the many neighbourhood schools around here are wondering where their young charges have gone, then this internet shop might be a good place to start.

Other, much smaller internet shops are scattered about the market, in tiny nooks and crannies between shophouses. and down narrow lanes. If this large, exposed and well-lit shop has 20 kids in it today, then I am sure those better-hidden ones are packed with youngsters playing truant.

Ghost with a guitar

'How are you, Mali? Do you remember me? I am Muss.'

That was Muss, my Thai bass-guitarist friend, whom I had not seen in 18 months.

The other night, he turned up at Mum's shop in Thon Buri.

Muss - who is polite, and knows his manners - introduced me to a girl he brought with him. 'This is my latest girlfriend,' he said.

They sat the the bar. I was sitting with a group of regular customers at a table nearby.

The regulars are all much older than Muss, who is in his mid-20s. In another age, I befriended Muss. I took him home to sleep at my place a couple of nights to keep him company.

He was still at performing arts school, with another six months left before graduation. He did not mix with his student friends much, and felt lonely, so asked if he could sleep with me at my place.

I took him home. He suffered an allergic reaction to the air-conditioning. I held him in my arms as he tried to sleep on the floor instead. He managed to get some sleep. I had none.

Those days are over. I no longer take lonely young men home, and they are sensible enough not to ask.

Muss still has the shoulder-length hair of old, but has dyed it a blondish yellow. He wore a green T-shirt, and army shorts.

His girlfriend, who had a jaded Khao-San Rd look, has also dyed her hair blonde. I warmed to her. No one likes to be referred to as the 'latest conquest'.

'Can't you think of another way to introduce your girlfriend?' I asked Muss, as I slipped back into parental mode.

'She does not want to hear that she is just the latest in a long line of girls.'

Muss looked at me perplexed, until his girlfriend explained to him what I meant.

'Oh...sorry,' he agreed.

Muss has kept his big chest muscles, and his baby-face features. He had spent the last 12 months working on an album with his five-member band. They had just finished work.

I excused myself from my circle of drinking friends, to join him briefly at the bar.

Muss borrowed my phone, so he could dial his own number into my memory.

'I change my phone number often, but I see you still have the same phone after all this time,' he said.

'Do you still have the photographs in your cellphone which you took of me?'

'No - I have only just deleted them,' I said, which was true. After two years of thinking about Muss, and wondering how and where he was, I had finally taken the decision to delete his pictures from my phone, not even one week before.

I wanted to talk more, but I couldn't. A young, obnoxious type who had evidently arranged to meet Muss sat opposite us and was intent on having his say.

Muss wants to find a distributor for his album. The young man opposite, largish and wearing a black cap, looked like a typical entertainment industry type: full of himself.

He urged Muss to have patience. 'Jai yen yen,' he said over and over, as if trying tio explain why he couldn't distribute the album, despite Muss's pleas for help.

The black-hatted man spoke patronising nonsense..like an over-aged teenager trying to impress.

Reluctantly, I took my whisky bottle, and returned to the table occupied by my regular drinking friends. They are in their late 30s, or older. Some have families. Most have jobs, and are relatively settled. I have 'upped' myself since the days I drank with Muss and his friends, in the sense that I now act my age.

My friends have passed Muss's phase. He is still at the stage where he has yet to make anything of himself, and is looking for people who can give him a hand-up.

The last time we met, Muss asked me to pay his rent for one month - as a loan, of course. My partner had just been admitted to hospital, so I said no. I never heard from him again.

'Muss is like that - he makes friends with people to get things out of them,' a mutual friend told me once.

No wonder, then, if Muss cannot find a steady girlfriend, or even steady friends. He is too busy trying to impress as he tries to get ahead in life.

Pardon my ignorance (2, part)

She had seen the film, couldn't understand it, so decided to change it half-way through. She didn't ask us if we were interested in seeing it through to the end.

Mum has done this to me before. Where the television is concerned, she is boss.

'The ending makes no sense,' she said for a third time, looking at me, with a half-smile on her lips.

'Makes no sense to whom? ' I asked.

Chin said nothing, and went back to his comic books rather than watch Godzilla, Mum's choice of superior entertainment.

Kathoey Best refilled my glass for the 10th time. Life went back to normal.

Mum's husband emerged at the shop, after taking a short nap at home.

He saw we were watching Godzilla. Normally he is a serious politics man. He picked up the remote. Maybe he will turn over to the next channel, Inside Man, instead?

No. He turned up the volume. He wanted to hear Godzilla's roars even louder.

'I'm going back for a shower. Don't change the channel,' Mum said to me.

She walked away.

Kathoey Best left to chat up a young man with Chinese looks who serves at the shop next door.

Twenty minutes later, he returned.

'We really must be like family. Our interests come second to hers. Who cares what the customer wants?' I complained.

Best picked up the remote, and changed it back. We had missed about half an hour of the movie, and were into the last 15 minutes. It was pointless watching it.

Mum returned, and grumbled as she saw that we were watching Inside Man again.

She asked if I wanted to share the meal which she had cooked. I declined, as I don't like to eat with Mum and her husband any more. They are too wrapped up in their gambling talk, so I let them eat together in peace.

'No, I'm not hungry.'

'Why, what's wrong with you?' she asked with a scowl.

Declining her offer of hospitality probably hurt more than the fact that we went back to watching the movie of our choice.

Once, I remember reading a guidebook for farang visitors to Thailand: 'If someone offers you a meal, always accept.'

Well, I didn't. Call me ungrateful.

Mum and her husband sat down next to us at the counter to tuck into their meal, while Best, Chin and I watched the last 10 minutes of Inside Man.

The closing credits came up. Bitchily, Best asked: 'So, did you understand the ending?'

'Yes, I did, thanks,' I said.

Pardon my ignorance (1)

'That movie is no good. The ending makes no sense,' said Mum.

Three customers including me were watching television at her shop in Thon Buri. We were the only ones there.

The American thriller, Inside Man  was airing on satellite TV.

I knew what that meant, as I have heard it before. Mum wanted to change the channel, and was canvassing for support. She wanted someone to agree with her.

No one did. We were enjoying the show. Thais can get involved in western movies, even when they don't understand what is going on. This one had Thai subtitles, but that is beside the point.

Thais are usually taken by movies which have visual impact. The sight of two farang screaming at each other in a slapstick comedy which bombed at the box office might turn off the average western viewer, but it can hold the attention of Thais, because so many Thai films are made in the same vein. They also wonder if farang carry on that way in real life.

Inside Man is a star-studded thriller about a bank heist, by director Spike Lee. It combines suspense, drama and quirky New York-style humour. I am not surprised if much of it was lost on Mum, who prefers to watch action movies, such as Godzilla, showing on the next channel, about a giant lizard tramping through the streets of New York.

I was sitting at the table with graphic designer Chin, who had turned up with a handful of comic books, and a new kathoey friend, called Best.

Chin devours Japanese comics avidly, and had just been to a bookstore to buy the latest releases. However, he put them down to watch Inside Man.

Ladyboy Best, who comes from a high-class family in the North, but is out of work at present, busied himself filling my whisky glass. Thais are famed for their hospitality, but this is one courtesy I can do without, as I prefer to pace myself when drinking.

I do not want people filling my glass while I am not watching, but it would be impolite to decline, so I say nothing.

Mum repeated her comment about the meaningless ending, then took herself behind her shop to cook a meal for anyone who was interested. Good, I thought - maybe we can get some peace.

However, half an hour later, she was back.

'The ending is no good. I will look for something else,' she announced, while taking the remote, and blithely changing the channel.

The three of us who were watching Inside Man were left, as the Thai saying goes, with mouths agape. We are regular customers, but our needs come second to those of the shop's owner.

now, see part 2