Thai food gets dull (1)

After years of surviving on Thai food alone, I am now branching out into western food, thanks to my Thai boyfriend, who is cooking foreign food for us every day.

Branching into western food - in Thailand? How shocking!

Foreigners flock to Thai restaurants in their home country, because they are cheap and in vogue.

When they visit Thailand, I am sure they enjoy eating Thai food here too, as it's more 'authentic'.

Yet many foreigners who live here do not seem to get to grips with a wholly, or even mainly Thai diet.

The food is too spicy, they say, or too dodgy.

'I don't buy food off the street,' my foreign friends at work tell me.

Off the street? They probably mean the wandering vendors who push carts selling fried chicken or squid on a stick, common in the tourist and business district of Bangkok.

Yet not all vendors are the wandering type. Some have semi-permanent stalls, just off the street, where they have catered to customers for years.

I usually buy from them...but even there, I can get bored with Thai food.

I live in a Thai market, a long way from the tourist district. Here, Thais are fussy about the food they get, partly because the price keeps going up.

In the centre of the market, a styrofoam box (one serving) of Thai food can cost B35. If I walk deeper into the market, into a small street 10 minutes away, I can get it for B5 less.

Thais who live in the market also complain about the price difference - but who can be bothered walking for 10 minutes when you feel hungry?

Every night, I order food from a stall in the market. It is run by a husband and wife team. The wife cuts the vegetables, while her husband cooks.

I wish it was the other way around. Some men are sloppy when they cook. This guy, who smokes heavily and cooks bare-chested, tosses in the ingredients and waits until they look hot enough to put into a styrofoam box. That's one order, ready to go.

I take one of his boxes of food to work, which I heat in the microwave when I get hungry.

Last night, as I was picking through a dish of fried rice and minced beef, I found a glob of shrimp paste, which he had thrown in without bothering to stir.

I am tempted to cancel our standing arrangement with that pair, as the food is often disappointing. Sometimes I can barely bring myself to eat it.

We pay the bill once a month. I keep ordering from them, because it is convenient to pay that way rather than having to find the money every night. Sometimes I am just too tired.

But you pay for what you get. One order from them costs about B35. In a Thai restaurant at the local shopping mall, which serves much better food, and where the owner pays higher rent, I would pay B80-100 for a dish.

now, see part 2

Growing pains

My partner is still on his cooking jag, which is a good thing. However, he also appears moody and uncommunicative. Maybe he needs to get out more?

When I came home from work last night, I found a large cheesecake in the fridge, which he had spent most of the day making.

Last night, after I went to bed, he made puff pastry. The day before, he made a meat loaf and onion soup.

While I go out to work and see people, Maiyuu stays at home, and cooks. His social life might suddenly light up after I walk out the door, but I doubt it.

He appears content to spend hours alone in his own company, cooking or baking.

But is he really happy?

We do not talk much at the moment. Maybe the cooking keeps him preoccupied.

We talked briefly about Academy Fantasia last night, and other tidbits I had read on the internet. It did not grab his attention.

He rarely sits in front of the television any more, as he used to do. The two of us would lie together, propped up on pillows. If I was lucky, he might give me a hug.

These days, he is too busy cooking, or planning his next meal. I suspect he is keeping himself busy because he is not happy. Is it money?

Today I will give him B3000 to meet household expenses. That might brighten him up.

I wish he would see his friends more, or at least try communicating with them.

I don't want any more of his long, fruitless trips to the provinces just yet. But he can always try talking to friends over the telephone.

He spends hours in the toilet adjoining his room, smoking. I wish he would not smoke in such a confined space. He is smoking too much, but I will not stop him. He gets prickly when I try to influence his behaviour.

Maiyuu was once diagnosed and treated for a spot of lung cancer., or so he said.

Am I worried he will get it again? Of course - barely a day goes by when I don't think about it.

Maiyuu is so fiercely independent that even if he did fall ill again, he would probably disappear to some cancer hospital in the provinces and that would be the end of it. He wouldn't want to be a burden.

What does he want? I don't know. But I wish he's go out and see more of the world. If gay Thais think that giving up on work to spend their days at home caring for their foreigner boyfriends is the ideal life, they are kidding themselves.

At work, I am opening up to people, particularly foreign staff, in a way I have not done for months or even years. I am chatting, joking, and having fun, the way I used to do in my old job overseas.

Here, I have never hid the fact that I like guys. The Thais don't care, as it's my business. But for most of my time here, I have let the Thai habit of acting reserved, and keeping things bottled up affect my relations with colleagues at the office.

My foreign colleagues appear to accept what I am, as there are much bigger things to discuss - such as where to find a good beef steak restaurant in Bangkok. A colleague from Ireland sought my advice on this matter the other night.

When I return home, my head is still buzzing with the night's conversation, the lively social interactions at work.

I get back to the condo to a Thai partner who looks morose and is barely interested in talking. It is like running into a brick wall. Why would you do it, if you had a choice?

He will have to find his own way out of the black hole he has entered. I can't help, as he won't let me, and to be frank, I have better things to do with my time.

What I do worry about is that I am outgrowing our relationship. Now, that's a dangerous thought.

Bed warmer

A Thai woman friend contacted my partner yesterday with an offer of temporary work, sampling consumer opinion on a new bed.

A bed manufacturer has hired a room in a city hotel for eight days, and put in there a new bed or mattress on which it wants customer feedback.

Boyfriend Maiyuu and any other Thais who sign up for the work would approach foreign guests or visitors in the hotel lobby, and ask them to accompany them upstairs to the room, to take a look at the bed.

Why foreign visitors? I have no idea. They would work from a script, written in English. If they saw a foreigner walking through the lobby, they would approach him or her, and (presumably reading from a script), invite the hapless person to take a look at the bed. Just a look, mind you. They do not get to sleep on it.

Maiyuu would be paid B1000 a day, but he would have to persuade 10 farang to give their opinions on the bed every day.

'You will never get that many, as foreigners who stay in hotels are usually there on business, or are going out for the day. They don't have 15 minutes to look at a bed. What's in it for them?' I asked.

'You foreigners are tight,' said Maiyuu, meaning we are mean with money, or perhaps time.

'Even so, we are usually too busy to waste time on something like that,' I said.

In the end, Maiyuu agreed that it probably would not work. He is likely to turn down the job offer.

'I have a question: if a foreigner liked the bed so much that he asked you to sleep on it with him for the night, what would you say?' I asked.

Maiyuu looked shocked.

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.