Leaving the tourist zone (2, final)

Tinker entertains the men while they are here. When they go back home, they send her money.

Farang C had told me about one of her sponsors, an occasional visitor in his 30s called David.

In a bold moment, I asked her about Mr David.

Tinker looked surprised. No girl wants people outside the 'zone' to know that she sells her body.

She described him, and showed me his picture, which she took on her cellphone. However, she did not tell me how they met.

Good girls don't meet men in bars; still less do they take them to bed for money like Tinker.

'At first I did not like farang. I was scared of them....they have such big bodies,' she said.

'I had never met one before I came to Bangkok, and my brother never introduced me to any foreigners.

'But now I have decided that I like them - sometimes more than Thai men, who are unfaithful towards women,' she said.

'I was a shy girl,' she insisted. 'I did not lose my virginity until late. My father, who is Chinese, was strict about letting young men seeing me.'

Tinker is no longer so bashful, but we didn't go into that.

After a couple of hours, Tinker and farang C left to go back to town.

Tinker wanted to visit her women friends at the bar.

According to farang C, who went with her, Tinker latched herself on to two foreign customers as soon as she arrived. While she chatted away, farang C amused himself playing pool in another part of the bar.

One the men lives here, but the other farang was a tourist. What did tinker see in him? Money, I suppose.

How many foreign sponsors is enough for a woman of the night? I should have asked.

Leaving the tourist zone (1)

Mum's shop is five minutes' walk from the Pin Khlao Bridge pier

I met a foreign friend, farang C, at Mum's shop. He brought along Tinker, a bargirl he has known since his arrival in the kingdom, 2.5 years ago.

To get to Mum's shop, they had to travel from the tourist district in Silom, where farang C lives, and his girl friend works.

They took the skytrain, and the subway. Then they hopped on a ferry to the Thon Buri side. As they sat on the boat, they watched the lights of Bangkok at night slip by.

Tinker grumbled about the long journey. She was not used to leaving her comfort zone in Silom.

'Why can't your farang friend meet us half way - ha sip, ha sip (50-50),' she asked farang C about me.

'Farang Mali has to travel, too...he does not live around Mum's shop,' he replied.

However, within a few minutes of climbing aboard the ferry, she relaxed.

'It is beautiful out here,' she said, holding his arm.

For Farang C, getting away from the tacky tourist district does him good, too.

He enjoys the all-Thai environment at Mum's shop, and jumped at the chance to meet when I suggested it.

Tinker, who has a tiny figure, and cute, impish face, put on a good show for farang C's friend (me). She wore a bright, billowy yellow dress, and greeted me with a big smile.

At first, our conversation was business-like: originally from the Northeast, she has a degree in Thai traditional dance, and is studying tourism.

We did not talk about her work in Silom, nor how she supports herself.

Tinker, farang C tells me, has overseas-based sponsors - foreign men visit Thailand as tourists, fall in love with her at the bar, then send her money every month when they go home.

now, see part 2

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.