Thais tighten belts

I have lost two part-time teaching jobs in the past week, with rising fuel prices cited in both cases.

I teach English to the offspring of a regular customer at Mum's shop. The children go to a school in Nonthaburi, outside Bangkok, where the family has another home.

Usually, they travel from their Bangkok home to school and back every day. Their mother drives them there, and picks them up. The journey takes about 30 minutes.

Mum told me the other day that their children would start sleeping the night more often at their home in Nonthabuuri, which is five minutes from their school, to save on petrol.

On those nights when she does not bring them back to Bangkok, my teaching services would not be needed. Normally I teach them on my nights off, soon after their mother brings them home, about 6.30pm.

I also teach a group of students close to work. A few days ago, the father of one student called to say they were busy studying for exams. 'I'd like to cancel in the meantime,' he said hurriedly.

The extended family runs a restaurant close to my office, where I eat before work. Last night I asked one mother how the students were going.

'The real reason they have quit studying is that I have no money,' she said.

The father gave me the exam explanation to save face.

We were standing in front of a small grill which stands next to the restaurant, where the mother makes pork satay on a stick.

Two young women from the neighbourhood ordered half a dozen sticks of satay, which is dipped in a sweet sauce.

Thais love sweet food. As soon as those customers left, another couple of girls arrived. I stood on the mother's side of the grill, where we were enveloped by a cloud of smoke.

Every night, she takes her children home via the Pra Ram 2 motorway, a 15-minute drive. 'It is costing B80 a day just in petrol,' she said.

I offered to teach for free in the meantime, as I do not want to lose a regular source of income.

Mum, who looked embarrassed to get such an offer, said she would talk to her children again.

I do not hold out much hope of getting the students back, as the family is struggling with other financial problems - the air con in the upstairs part of the restaurant, where we meet for class, is broken.

But if I do end up teaching English for free, then I hope oil prices go down in a hurry. Then they can start paying me again.

Helping hand (2, final)

'Why are you single now?' I asked the young Vietnamese.

'I can barely earn enough to look after myself. I can't look after a woman as well. I have nothing to offer her,' said Kai.

Kai is not gay, nor looks it. But he needs money, like anyone else. That's why he was showing an interest in me.

His male Vietnamese friend, Nam Kaeng, has been here about a month, though this is his second visit. He was last here three years ago.

Nam Plao, the girl, has lived in Thailand about a year. All speak good Thai, which they say they learnt from friends.

'Why are you still here if you earn so little?' I asked Kai.

Kai says he wants to go back to Vietnam. He was trying to save the B6000 fare, but it was hard.

That's when he asked me if I would like to travel to Vietnam with him.

I did not reply. Kai turned to Pao, and mouthed the words, 'It won't work.'

Naughty Pao had probably suggested that Kai try chatting me up, to see if I would help with the return fare.

I am not made of money. I had just bought the group a bottle of whisky, and before the night ended, gave Pao B1000 to buy himself new shoes and clothes.

'I saw that...that's not a nice thing to do,' I said to Kai, crossly.

'How can you carry on like that in front of me, and think I won't understand?'

Kai looked unhappy, and apologised. He went to another part of the restaurant and sulked for 10 minutes.

When he came back we chatted some more. Then his Vietnamese friends declared it was time to go home to bed.

As they prepared to leave, Kai asked if I have a cellphone number.

'I do have a cellphone,' I said, without giving the number.

'Will you be here tomorrow?' he asked.

'No. I'll be here next week. I'll see you then.'

We said our goodbyes.

Now there were just three: me, Pao, and the cook at the eatery where he works.

The day before, I had suggested to Lek, the cook, that I entrust to him the money that I wanted to give Pao for new clothes. Then the two lads could go shopping.

Lek is older, so I thought he would be safe with the money.

However, when he saw me pull B1000 out of my wallet, his mood changed.

'Can I have money to fix my cellphone?' he asked.

'No. I've just met you,' I said.

Pao jumped in.

'That's right - we've known each other about a year now,' he said.

Lek looked miserable, and asked me another half dozen times.

I gave up on the idea of entrusting the money to the cook. I gave Pao the money directly, then went home.

Now I know why I do not live close to Mum's shop. I would never have any money if I did.

Helping hand (1)

'It won't work.'

A Vietnamese man in his early 20s, Kai, mouthed those words to my young Thai friend, Pao, who was sitting opposite.

He meant: 'I don't think the farang will part with money.'

That was cynical of him, particularly as we only met that night.

Kai had just asked me if I had ever visited Vietnam.

'No. I am going there next year with my family,' I said.

'Why not travel there sooner,' he asked sweetly.

Kai meant: 'Why not let me be your guide? We could pretend to be gay travelling companions.'

I met Kai an hour before, after I sat down for a drink with some young people from the shop where Pao works. It is next to Mum's shop in Thon Buri.

A Vietnamese girl, Nam, works at the shop with Pao. Over the last two nights, I have been getting to know her friends.

A young Vietnamese man who grew up with her in the same village turns up late at night to see her, when the shop is ready to close.

His name is also Nam.

'How do you tell yourselves apart?' I asked the boy.

'I'm Nam Kaeng [ice], and she's Nam Plao [water],'he said.

Nam Kaeng insists that he and the girl are just friends, though they look close.

Nam Kaeng works at another karaoke/eatery place about 10 minutes away. Last night, he brought along a male Vietnamese friend, Kai, from the same restaurant.

They all live together in the same rented room.

Thai employers must like migrant labourers such as the Vietnamese. They can employ them cheaply, and ask them to do work which Thais would refuse.

The Thai owner of the restaurant employing Kai pays him just B2000 a month. He gets tips of up to B300 a day on top of that.

Kai told Pao how little he was earning at the restaurant down the way. Pao nodded sympathetically.

Pao gets paid nothing at all, as he is still in debt to his shop for about B1000.

That bill stems from a spot of legal trouble Pao fell into more than 12 months ago, when he first arrived in Bangkok.

His relatives, who run the restaurant, paid a police fine on his behalf. Now he is working at the restaurant to pay them back.

Kai has pale skin, and a wide, friendly smile.

He stood up and stretched in front of me as he told me about his life in Bangkok since he arrived three years ago.

Kai is single, but has gone out with Thai girls. One relationship ended in heartbreak, he says. Kai showed me scars on the top of his wrist where, in grief, he attacked himself with a burning cigarette.

now, see part 2

Roughing it

Pao, the young Thai who works next to Mum's shop in Pin Khlao, needs more trousers.

He has returned to Bangkok after months in the provinces, to his old job serving customers at an eatery/karaoke joint.

'I have just the one pair,' he said, referring to a back pair of jeans which he wears without a belt.

We were sitting at a table outside his shop. It had closed for the night, and only a handful of staff were left.

I brought a half-bottle of whisky over from Mum's shop, and gave it to him and his friends.

Last time I knew him, I bought Pao a belt. That had now broken, so he left it at home at the farm in Esan.

He had taken off his T-shirt, and his black boxers spilled over the top. 'It's hot,' he complained.

He stood in front of me, and stretched. His boxer shorts rose a long way on his narrow waist. Without a belt, his jeans slipped below the top of his buttocks. I asked him to put his T-shirt back on.

Pao also showed me scars from injuries he sustained when he fell off a motorcycle recently. 'I need medicine to get rid of the scars, but have no money.'

Pao has scars on his chest, shoulders, arms and back.

Pao says he is working for nothing at the shop but food and board. His hair, which he wore in a smart Japanese style when he first arrived a few weeks ago, now looks ragged.

On his feet, he was wearing a rough pair of rubber flip-flops, which he claims is the only footwear he brought with him.

'Mum has gone back to the farm,' he said.

Previously, his uncle Top worked at the same family-run shop. Top and his girlfriend slept in one room above the shop, Pao in another.

Now, Uncle Top has changed jobs. He is working as a cook at a similar shop down the way.

Pao introduced me to a young man aged about 30, called Lek.

'He sleeps in the same room as me,' said Pao.

I have not seen him before, but I suspect the pair work together.

Pao has lost weight, and his hair is thinning on top. I felt sorry for him.

'I will give you some money to buy some more trousers. However, I will entrust it to Lek. He can take you shopping,' I said.

Pao looked happy. He liked the idea of his older friend taking him to the department store to buy clothes.

I do not trust Pao to spend the money wisely himself, as he is only 17.

When I noticed him at at the shop for the first time since his return, Pao avoided eye contact, and tried not to talk to me. I put this down to shyness.

Last week, after they finished work, I bought him and his friends a few bottles of beer.

Pao has now overcome his anxiety. He remembers we were friends.

'What do you want with him?' a foreign drinking friend asked me.

'Just to look after him, or help,' I said.

My male drinking friend, farang C, nodded. Pao and his friends invited us over when they finished work.

An hour before, I had told Pao that farang C liked the look of a Vietnamese girl who worked at his shop.

'I will bring the whisky if you help introduce him to the girl,' I said.

He laughed.

After the last customer left, Pao set up two drinking tables on the footpath, with chairs, soda, and an ice-bucket for each. The Vietnamese girl, whose name is Nam, was there, along with a male Vietnamese friend who had arrived in the country just a few days before.

They insisted they were just friends. Nam had spent a year learning Thai before she left Vietnam a month ago. However, she has no English, which makes communication with farang C difficult.

An hour of drinking, the girl and her friend excused themselves and went home to bed. I was left with farang C, Pao, and Lek.

Half an hour later, Pao and Lek declared they were tired, and also went to bed.

I will go back tonight with the money for his trousers. Pao does not expect much, as he is used to having nothing.

The last time I knew him, I was in two minds about whether to help Pao. Mum said I should go ahead, if it made me feel good.

'You only see each other when you come here to drink, so why not?' she said.

Two weeks ago, a woman who works with Pao came over to Mum's shop, and signalled with her eyes that Pao was now free.

She is aged about 50, and is related to Pao. She is also happy for me to support him.

I like the idea of having a bad-boy nephew. Let's hope he does not get too expensive.

Book-loving Thai

After a quick visit to the supermarket at the local mall, which was all but empty, I went to the bookstore nearby.

I always drop in to this shop.

At home, I have a large collection of books written for Thais learning English. I bought them when I first arrived in Bangkok, and still use them to help me teach.

Back then, the books were written mainly by Thais who had learnt English at university, here and abroad. They were dry, heavy, and boring.

Today, we have entered the digital age, and publishers are getting smarter.

Many 'pocketbooks', as Thais call them, are sold together with a CD-Rom, by television personalities, Thai and farang alike, who have their own TV shows and language schools.

More ambitious authors package books together with VCDs in huge boxes which are plastic-wrapped. You have to ask staff to open them if you want to take a look.

I saw one on sale, written by a Thai, for B700. I took one look at the blurb in English and knew straight away whether it was worth that price. It is among the top 20 best-selling items in the shop.

What happens when the buyer gets his or her purchase home? I suspect the 'pocketbooks' end up on the sitting-room table. The bigger packages, in the pre-wrapped boxes, might end up under the bed.

Confronted with so much choice, some parents give up, and let their children get on with it. They park them in front of the English language section, while they browse elsewhere.

I tried to look at what was on the shelves, but could not reach them. The space between the aisles is narrow, and youngsters were sitting on the floor, reading.

Next to me, one biggish Thai woman was negotiating with her two children, aged under 10.

'Now, just one book each today, please...' she said in Thai.

She tried to move past, perhaps to give me more room.

'Ex- cu-seme ...fub.'

In English, she was trying to say, 'Excuse me, please.' And maybe she did say it, but it was so faint I could barely hear her.

Ironies abound in this place. We were standing right in front of a bank of books on English grammar. She was talking to a farang. Yet she could barely bring herself to speak the language she wants her children to learn. Perhaps she was worried someone would hear.

I looked at the beaming television personalities on the shelves - Khru Lilly, Khru Andrew, Khru Chris, and a few other sunny faces I didn't know. All want to teach Thais how to learn English.

They were smiling from the covers of their attractively packaged 'pocketbooks' and VCDs - but they were not laughing at her.

They know better than to mock...they just want to sell more books.