Bursting the language bubble (1)

'I would like to learn English,' said Mr Friendly at the 7-11.

I walked in the other day to buy some supplies for home. Mr Friendly was there, the first time I had seen him in several weeks.

His real name is T. He works at a 7-11 close to my home.

'Then why don't you try talking? You might want to befriend a farang first,' I said.

That sounds like blatant self-interest, because T, who comes from the North, is good-looking.

'It's not as hard as you think.'

T pointed to a pack of chewing gum.

'How do you say that in English?'

'One pack of gum,' I said.

'I would like to be fluent, but I never get the chance to talk,' he said.

We talked a while longer, before someone turned up at the counter wanting service.

When I walked in, T greeted me by name. Thais have a terrific memory for names, and T is no exception.

Once upon a time, I might have followed up my visit by taking him in a textbook for Thais learning English. I would suggest he borrow and study it.

I thought about it briefly, but decided not to bother. Thais teach themselves basic English if they are really interested. Instead of playing computer games in the internet cafe across the road, as T likes to do in his spare time, he could read English-language websites instead.

Thais feel guilty about English when they see a foreign face. They forget about it again when the foreigner walks away.

Learning a second language takes years of dedicated study. No one wakes up one day and finds themselves miraculously able to speak. Unlike the tooth fairy, it does not dance across your pillow sprinkling gold dust as you sleep.

now, see part 2

Low life in Bangkok

As the month winds down, so does our income. In the last few days I have given my Thai boyfriend B1,000 to help meet expenses.

He spent most of it buying food, as he likes to bake and cook.

Today the man from the power company paid us a visit to turn off the mains supply, in a friendly warning to pay the bill. It was due some time this week, I suspect, but as I don't get paid until tomorrow, they just have to wait.

The computer was off at the time, thankfully, as it does not enjoy power outages. The television was on, but I hardly noticed, as I was in the shower. Boyfriend Maiyuu turned the power switch back on, restoring supply.

Three days ago the telephone company cut our home telephone line, though Maiyuu insists it is for repair work, not because he forgot to pay the bill. He called the company again today, and was assured service would be restored by tomorrow noon.

In the absence of a telephone, I have been visiting an email cafe for the last couple of days. As I returned at midday, I found boyfriend Maiyuu in the lift with a pile of magazines.

He was using the lift to take magazines from our condo. He left a large pile of magazines stacked in the condo carpark.

Maiyuu has found two new methods to raise money. One is to sell his collection of men's fashion magazines, which go back several years.

Yesterday, he called a man who sells second-hand magazines. He picked them up at the condo, and paid Maiyuu B200 for them.

A day earlier, Maiyuu took overseas currency left over from trips to see my family to a man who exchanges coins for Thai currency.

Banks refuse to take coins from overseas, but Maiyuu found some traders in Bangrak, Bangkok, who do accept coins - at a discount to the exchange rate prevailing at banks, of course. He raised another B300 from that source.

Tonight as I prepare to leave work I have B200 in my wallet. If I finish late, I shall have to take a taxi. That will eat up B100, leaving me with just B100 to my name.

Roll on pay day tomorrow!

Jeffrey Bernard

Postscript: Does anyone here remember the British writer, Jeffrey Bernard? He wrote a weekly column for the London Spectator magazine, called Low Life, about his exploits as an ailing alcoholic in Soho, until his death in 1997. Are these tales of penury and financial woe turning my blog into the same thing?

Leaving, vs the BF's briefs

My workplace has an official retirement age of 60, and my immediate boss, who is about to reach that age, will soon lose his job, unless the firm re-employs him at cut rates on contract.

They would expect him to perform the same tasks, of course, even if they pay him half price, as they have one or two foreigners before him, who have been here for years and have life-long visas.

They were issued back in the days before the government realised that living here, to some foreigners, was actually worth something.

A contract deal seems unlikely in the case of my boss, as he does not have a life-long visa, and the company can't be bothered applying for an annual visa extension for him after 60. They would rather hire younger (cheaper) labour.

My boss, who has a Thai wife, has little money saved, and does not know how he will survive. 'I should have left Thailand years ago, but never did. No one would overseas want to employ me any more,' he says.

Grimly, I have been wondering whether I will ever share his fate. I am now in my early 40s.

I cannot earn a significant amount more than I make now, as my workplace holds out few prospects for career advancement. We barely manage to save, at least on our present expenses.

The firm views its foreign staff as migrant labourers. It employs us to do what it suspects its own staff cannot.

So what keeps me sane? For the last two days, my boyfriend has been wandering around home wearing the briefest pair of briefs.

Yesterday it was black. Today it is white.

He spends his time sleeping, or cooking. Today he has made pork meatballs, egg soup, and a chili and onion paste for canned fish.

When he steps out doors, he puts on shorts, which again slip low on the waist.

I am not really allowed to touch, though I will steal as many discreet cuddles and kisses as I can. 'You are kissing me too much. It's annoying!' he grumbled last night.

Maiyuu leaves piles of unwashed clothes lying about. Some are stuffed in travel bags which he brings home from overnight visits to work.

When he is away from home, I get lonely. If I open one of his travel bags, the mingling scent of after-shave rises to greet me. Obviously it has been a while since he washed them. On missions to work, he might have worn the same clothes several times, in fact.

I put his clothes to my nose and inhale.

My boyfriend can calm such restless thoughts, and give me the energy to carry on working in a place with little future. 

Making the money stretch

Maiyuu has gone into a sulk, after I questioned him rigorously about our finances.

Maiyuu holds the ATM card to my main bank account, and has responsibility for paying bills and buying most of the groceries.

Yesterday I flew into a small panic as I thought I would not be able to get through to next pay day without an injection of funds - and I hate asking him for extra money.

Maiyuu transfers B6000 to me every two weeks. I live off that until my next pay day.

Most of the time, I manage, but lately I have lost two part-time teaching jobs. Prices in the market where we live are also going up.

The husband and wife couple who make several servings of food for us every night - which usually keep me fed through the next day - closed her shop inexplicably a few nights ago, which forced me to buy food from a different stall nearby.

Normally I order from the same couple every night, and Maiyuu pays the bill at the end of the month. In their absence, I had to start paying nightly food bills myself.

I also suffer from vagueness. I find it hard to remember on which day I get get paid. The boyfriend, of course, never forgets.

I sent Maiyuu several insistent text messages, asking where it had all gone. It was hours before he replied, because he was busy at work. By then I was contemplating drastic schemes, such as cancelling the ATM card.

I asked him how much he normally pays for various bills, and worked out how much he should have left. I under-estimated almost all the bills, because I do not pay them myself, and forget to look when they come into our home.

I am pleased that I didn't cancel the card, as he would regard that as a gross insult, and pout for days.

When he finally called, I felt relieved. He set me right about pay day. It falls sooner than I thought. I can probably make my money stretch.

The husband and wife couple who makes our food have also re-opened their shop today, after a two-day break over the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival inexplicably became a five-day no-show. I should tell them that their unexplained absence almost caused our divorce.

The boyfriend has refused to give me any more money, saying he has spending commitments, including a pair of work shoes he has ordered for me.

As I left work, he was still feeling hurt that I questioned him so closely in my text messages, and that in my crude attempts to draw up a household budget, forgot to make any allowance for his own expenditure.

'Do you expect I can just live off thin air?' he asked angrily. 'As it is, I have had to go back to work more often, to earn money to meet my expenses, as sometimes there is virtually nothing left by the time the bills are paid.'

'Dead' mother reappears

I called tearaway Thai boy Kew, which I don't do often.

I thought he lived aone, so was surprised when a woman answered. I was even more surprised when she introduced herself as Kew's mother.

'How are you, Mali? We last met years ago. Kew tells me about you. I hope you are well.'

Kew has told me consistently, for many years now, that his mother is dead.

He had called me the other day, suggesting we meet for a drink. Kew was about to travel to Pattaya on a work errand and wanted to see me first, but I was busy, so declined.

However, I called him back yesterday on the same number he used to call me.

I last saw Kew's mother four years ago or more, when she was suffering from a bone disease. That was back in Kew's wild phase. He was just 20 or 21, mixing with bad people, and according to his mother, taking drugs.

'They made him crazy,' she says.

I met her in a large one-room space she occupied in a condo not far from my own. The same night, Kew had asked me for B3,000, for his mother's hospital bills.

She was about to go into hospital for an operation to treat her bone disease. I told Kew that I would like to meet his mother first, to be sure that he did indeed have a sick mother in need of help, and was not merely paying off gambling debts or putting the money to some other hopeless cause.

'Mum is poor. We have sold all the furniture to pay her medical bills. The condo is bare. I do not want to take you there,' he pleaded.

I insisted, as I did not trust him. I wanted to believe him, but I did not want to hear later that he had made up the story.

As it is, I did not want to give him the money, as I needed it myself. I have a boyfriend to support, and my own needs to look after.

Kew took me to his mother's place. He had spoken the truth. His mother was indeed sick. Propped up on a bare mattress, with no other furniture in sight, she looked thin and gaunt. Her daughter, 10, had woken her so she could meet the farang.

I felt embarrassed, as if I had intruded on a personal space. Kew took me to an ATM machine, and I withdrew B3,000 for his mother's medical expenses.

He had asked for B4,000, but I did not have enough. He turned away angrily and walked off, without saying a word.

Last night, while I was at work, I called the number again, to make sure I had heard right.

'Forgive me for asking, but are you Kew's Mum - the one I met years before when you were sick?' I asked.

'I am. Did he tell you I was dead? How long ago did he tell you?'

Kew's Mum knows about her son's tendency to make up stories when he wants sympathy.

His father and mother are estranged, and live apart. Kew seldom hears from his Dad.

'He told me years ago that you were dead...and we have talked together many times since about his memories of you. He said he wondered what you were doing, and if you were still looking over him,' I said.

'He told me that his sister now lived with an aunt, and that you had left your condo to him in your will.'

Kew's Mum did not sound surprised. 'So you were thinking I was dead, all this time?' she asked.

'Yes. But now that I know you are alive, I feel much happier,' I said.

I asked after her health. Her bone cancer did not kill her as Kew claimed, but has rendered her unable to walk.

'I am now in a wheelchair. I visit the hospital every couple of days. Kew takes me. He lifts me up and puts me in the taxi, then we get to the hospital, lifts me out again and puts me in the wheelchair,' she said.

Kew is now single, but until recently, lived with a girlfriend.

'When he was with her, he hardly ever came. He was not interested in me, so I had to call on his sister to get to hospital.

'Now that he is single again he is much more attentive. He takes me regularly,' she said.

I sympathised. 'I am pleased he left that girl. She was too young for him. He needs an older woman who can look after him, and keep his behaviour in check,' I said.

I said that after all these years, it was time I met her again. Mum sounded reluctant.

'We are poor, and the condo is bare. I am too ashamed to let you see it. Perhaps one day we could meet when I come out of hospital,' she said.

I told Mum that I was not angry or upset with Kew. 

'Over the years, he has had many opportunities to correct his story, to tell me that you are still alive,' I said. 'But I am sure he had his own reasons for not saying.'

Mum was having none of it.

'Kew tells me stories about you. He says you care for him, and are never angry at him for what he is,' said Mum. 'You are like a relative of the family. He should have told you the truth.'

As I write, Kew has not yet returned from Pattaya. He doesn't know that I have spoken to his Mum.

'I will get him to call when he returns,' said Mum.

I would like to spank his bottom in public for misleading me for so long, but I suspect he might even enjoy it. I shall have to think of another way to discipline my wayward young man.

'He's 24. He's old enough to know better, but is much better than he was,' said Mum.

I agree. If Kew is taking his mother to hospital every two days, he has certainly improved on the wild young man I knew of old. But we still need to talk.

The lying has to stop. We have known each other too long for such nonsense.

These days, Kew - a security guard, former Pattaya bar-boy, shrimp farmer, and pirated-CD merchant - no longer asks me for money.

He has finally learnt that real friends do not go to each other constantly for financial help.

Kew has little money of his own, but no longer expects me to supplement his family's meagre income, even though he knows he could. As his mother says, that is a huge step forward.

Now, if I could just get him to overcome his foolish pride, and tell me the truth...