Butter me up

'It is necessary to put butter in a cake if the recipe says so? ' Maiyuu asked.

'I think it's there to make it soft,' I said, unsure myself of why they ask for butter.

'I have put in milk for that, but left out the butter,' he said as we turned in for bed.

Well, I went to bed. Maiyuu stayed up a while longer to look after his cake.

When he woke this morning, he was grumpy.

'The cake failed. It's as hard as a rock,' I said.

I took a look. It was round, and yellow, the way a cake should be. However, it was not as moist as his usual efforts.

'Never mind...it's still edible. It's no harder than a scone,' I said.

Maiyuu likes to play around with baking recipes. I was always told that they are set in stone. Change one ingredient, and you have to adjust the rest.

'I suppose this is why they say to put in butter,' I said unhelpfully.

Maiyuu agreed.

Bursting the language bubble (2, final)

I have cancelled lessons with Toi, the Thai woman who offered me body massages in return for English tuition.

She would give me a massage, then ask me to read from an English-language massage manual in return.

We met three or four times. Toi, who comes from Esan in the North-East, has just finished a massage course.

She wanted to improve her English before travelling overseas, where she hoped to find a farang to marry.

Unfortunately, this massage enthusiast couldn't keep her hands to herself.

'I hope you don't mind if I touch you,' she told me the day we met. 'I am not like other Thai woman...I am not afraid to touch people.'

As I read from the manual, Toi acted out the meaning of words on my body. I did not invite her, she just did it.

'Squeeze,' I said.

Toi squeezed my leg as if she was still massaging it.

'Knead,' I said.

She changed her grip, and kneaded my leg instead.

Once, she started beating my leg. I can't remember what word I read out to trigger that response, but she hit me too hard.

After Toi's painful demonstration on my leg, I sent her a text message the next day, cancelling lessons.

Toi left school early, had brought up a daughter, and now dreamed of finding an elderly farang to look after her.

Overseas, she hoped to find work as a massage therapist, and pay for the rest of her teenage daughter's education. She would find a farang man, and drag him back to the Northeast. She would persuade him to build a home for them.

'Do you know any elderly Americans at work who would be interested?' she asked.

She was serious.

'No,' I said.

'If the farang I meet is really old, and needs stimulating down there, I know massage steps to make him hard,' she said, while inserting her fingers into my groin.

Toi tried her luck with me. Why look overseas, when there was a farang man right here?

'How could someone reach your age and still have no Thai girlfriend?' she asked.

I ignored her.

Next month, Toi announced, she would move to Phuket, to offer massage services. She was not interested in Pattaya, as it was too seedy. In a few more months she hoped to have saved enough to go overseas.

A mutual woman friend introduced us.

'The farang is kind-hearted. He will help with your English,' my friend offered.

Thank you for volunteering my services! Why didn't you ask me first?

Our first lesson did not go well. Toi asked me to read from an English textbook into a hand-held recording device. I had read 30 pages before she would let me finish.

Toi interrupted often, asking me to repeat things. She could not remember instruction I had given her moments previously. The woman was stupid.

She tried mimicking the accent or emphasis I put on particular words as I read out sentences. Toi had told herself that tonal emphasis was the key to sounding convincing.

'Look, English does not have tones in the same manner as Thai.

'If it comes out with emphasis, it's because of its meaning in the sentence. But that's for advanced learners...don't go fooling around with that. Your job is to concentrate on pronunciation, and learning vocab,' I said.

For Toi, that was too hard. She cancelled a couple of classes, because she was busy taking a hair-dressing course. When I asked her if she had learnt the vocab I gave her, she brushed me off.

'I will just copy the way you say it,' she said.

Toi had persuaded farang before me to make voice recordings. She played a recording of a farang teacher she knew, who sounded miserable as he read out her English phrases.

'Is he good?' she asked.

He was a native speaker; of course he sounded good!

After cancelling lessons, Toi called me persistently. I refused to take her calls, and eventually she gave up.

Toi was keener on farang than learning English. I enjoy teaching Thais, but try to avoid those who really do not want to learn.

Getting to know you

I am spending more time with the boyfriend, and enjoying it.

Once, I went to Mum's shop in Pin Khlao on both nights off every week.

Boyfriend Maiyuu was often home but I felt like a break anyway. In my absence, he has to entertain himself.

Now I go to Mum's shop just one night a week. Unless I have a friend to go with me, I get bored over there.

Now that I am 'home-based' on one of my nights off every week, I can explore the market where I live at a time of day when I do not normally get to see it. Last night I visited a food stall to try their khao mun gai (chicken on rice).

Maiyuu visited a friend. When he returned a couple of hours later, we watched television.

It was relaxing, and fun. We have been together more than seven years, but I feel it is only in the last 12 months that I am really getting to know him.

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?