Thai purse gets fatter

I have found some extra work to do at the office, so for the first time since the last oil price rise, our income should improve.

When oil prices went up a couple of months ago, I lost two part-time teaching jobs. Boyfriend Maiyuu, who works just a couple of days a week, also found his services in less demand, as Thais felt the income squeeze.

The extra work I have found should bring in an extra B12,000 a month, which is a big increase - even compared to the days when I had teaching work.

Maiyuu and I have not discussed what we want to do with it, other than to buy a new pair of jogging shoes for me. We might like to take a trip somewhere - get out of Bangkok, which we have not done together for at least a couple of years.

-

'Would you like to go back to Chon Buri?' I asked Maiyuu last night.

'No. It's boring...nothing to see or do,' he said.

'I will take you to the Don Wai floating market in Nakhon Pathom instead,' he said. 'We have been there before.'

We have? I have forgotten.

'We will buy food...walk around...eat in a restaurant.'

At the start of our relationship years ago, we would spend weekends away in Chon Buri.

Maiyuu and I travelled to the coast to visit his home town there a couple of times a year.

We stayed at a hospitality hotel kept by the navy.

One of Maiyuuu's childhood kathoey friends has a father in the navy, and if we we wanted to stay, his friend would arrange a place through her Dad.

Ocassionally Maiyuu invited me out with his friends for the night. More often, his gay and kathoey friends - Chon Buri has so many, they could start their own theme park - would gather at our place for something to eat, then go out dancing without me. I stayed back because I wanted time by myself.

I would take a bath in the place we rented for the night, then look forward to sleeping between cotton sheets. At home I have a duvet, which is not the same.

My fantasies of enjoying another bubble bath and wriggling my toes between the crisp cotton sheets of the navy hotel will have to wait. The Chon Buri phase in our relationship appears to have passed.

Maiyuu's family is over there - his sister and grandmother, with whom he has fallen out of touch, plus uncles, aunts, and their children - but he has no desire to see them. His childhood friends are over there, too, but he does not appear to miss them.

-

The cool season is approaching, to replace the wet one we are now in. The sun goes down faster - by 6pm, it's almost dark in Bangkok - and the air is getting cooler.

The ants who have taken over my place in recent weeks are growing fewer.

They do not like the cold, so take shelter wherever ants go when it gets too cold to roam.

Unkind farang keeps wallet closed

I decided to put the advice of Lyn and other regular readers to the test: stop giving money to Thai beggars! 

The youngsters around my place who ask me for money may actually come from reasonable homes, but they have learnt the begging habit.

I know my willingness to give them money for food only encourages them, but who taught them to put their hand out in the first place - Mum and Dad?

I walked to the canalside pier close to my condo, as I do every day to watch the boats go by. My internet connection at home was down yet again, so I visited earlier than normal.

As I took a seat on the empty pier, a group of four or five youngsters aged under 10 waved and called out to me from across the other side of the canal.

Some were in the water, a few were perched on the base of the bridge which passes over the canal.

They started to swim over to my side.

Why? To ask for money, of course. They have asked me for money on two or three previous occasions. It wasn't much, and I gave them what they wanted. They thought I would happily give again, so over they came.

I was not in a giving mood. Several youngsters gave me a wai by way of greeting. I returned it.

One big guy took a space next to me on the benchseat which runs along the rickety pier. A skinny guy sat on my other side.

'Do you have money for food?' the fat one asked. He was probably the ringleader.

The others stood around and watched.

'Why is it that every time I come here, people ask me for money?' I complained.

Mr Big Guy looked sullenly ahead. It was like talking to a brick wall, as he refused to acknowledge my comments, other than to say 'krub', over and over.

He was waiting for me to get that complaint off my chest, so he could ask me for money once more.

'I didn't bring any money with me today,' I said.

'Krub.'

'Next time,' I said.

'Krub,' he said. Then, turning to his friends: 'He'll give us money next time.'

The skinny one on my left looked relieved. They now had an answer: next time. They could go back to playing.

Mr Big Guy and two or three others gave me another wai. Our business transaction over, they jumped back in the water and swam to the other side.

Kindly farang opens his wallet - again

I picked up my order of food from the market last night and was heading back to my condo when I heard the clump-clump of teenage feet.

Two young men who saw me collect my food order from a covered eating area opposite my condo were in pursuit. I heard them muttering, then realised they were heading towards me.

I stopped. 'You don't recognise us any more?' one young man asked.

He had dyed his hair gold. No, I didn't recognise him in that colour. I am used to black.

Thais get upset if you forget them, even after months pass by. To delete a Thai's phone number from your cellphone memory is a sin, if you do happen to meet again and he grasps the terrible truth.

The young man with gold hair swims in the canal nearby. I had not seen him fully dressed before.

'We haven't eaten...I have been to work, but my pay hasn't come out yet,' he said.

'It was midnight. How can you not have eaten?' I asked. I wanted to get home and eat myself, but felt guilty, holding my plastic bag containing three Thai meals.

He repeated his story.

I pulled out my wallet. This was becoming a habit. The day before, two youngsters aged 10 or 11 asked me for 'snack money'. Feeding children that age is cheap - they wanted only 10 baht each. As they get older, they want more, and feeding them gets more expensive.

'How many need to eat?' I asked.

'Just me and my younger friend,' said Mr Golden Hair, pointing to a young man whose face I did not know.

A wild-looking youth who knew them pulled up on a motorbike as we talked, but was sensible enough not to put out his hand.

I gave Mr Golden Hair B40 baht, which was barely enough for two meals. I hope he forgives me.

I visit the canal every day to watch the boats go by. I have given youngsters swimming there money for food almost every day this week. The cheeky ones ask, while the meeker ones hold back.

I do not want to get a reputation as a kindly, avuncular farang with a deep wallet. Why can't their parents look after them?

The security guard from my condo watched me hand money to Mr Golden Hair and his friend.

He saw me talking to them, and wandered over for a look. No doubt he disapproved - of the young men asking for money, not me. I am just the stupid foreigner who gets exploited.

Going canalside

Talad Phlu pier, above and top

My local pier doubles as the local teen hang-out, at least during the school break.

Usually it is a quiet place, and I can sit there uninterrupted for an hour or more a day, watching the river.

During the school break - we are in the middle of one now - young ones turn up on motorbikes. Sometimes they bring beer, as they did last night. They always have cigarettes.

Yesterday at lunchtime, I found a lesbian girl with her girlfriend sitting on the pier's benchseat. I had seen one of the girls before: a long, lanky thing, she was evidently the manly half of the relationship.

She had put her arm around her girlfriend's shoulders in a vice-like grip. The younger, fem half was wearing her jeans half way down her backside, no doubt waiting for the butch one to pull them up for her.

When she saw me, the older one took her fem mate away to a more private part of the canalside area.

When I turned to look, the butch girl still had her fem girlfriend grasped around the shoulders in a firm embrace.

-

My side of the market has two small piers, one on each side of a recreational area under a bridge, which youngsters use for playing football.

When they are not there, oldies run laps. One woman who comes dressed in Lycra gear throws what looks like a discus against the chain link fence. Yet another local practises his golf swing.

The pier which I visit most often is next to an eatery. It has better seating space.

On the other side of the court, a new pier has been built, after the old one rusted away. It looks far too smart for the local school-age population. They would rather sit on the grotty, dilapidated pier with me.

-

Last night I visited again. The eatery next to me was full of customers. A man in his 30s sat on the pier, fishing. Ten minutes later, I heard the sound of motorbikes pulling up. The local teen population had arrived.

Within five minutes, I was sharing the small pier space with 15 youngsters, of varying ages. The oldest ones have left school, but some as young as 11 also come.

Sometimes we chat. The young ones who have talked to me before like to sit next to me on the benchseat for a minute or so. Maybe they feel safe next to someone they know, or maybe they think I look lonely.

Then they rejoin their friends, chatting and smoking away on the rickety boards of the pier.

I did not want to disturb them. The river looked still under a moon-lit night. Once I had taken in my fill of the night-time canalside scene, I left to rejoin my boyfriend at home.

Friends: It's still a gay song to me

A fan of Thai singing duo Golf and Mike attended their city concert the other night (a post on a Thai webboard tells me), where they joined a couple of young women singers to perform a version of the pretty pop song, I Want to Know, But Don't Want to Ask  (อยากรู้...แต่ไม่อยากถาม).

He complained that he could not get 'in' with the song, because he kept thinking of a version of the same song made for the gay thriller, Friends.

I don't know who sang the song originally. I have found one version by Bomb Yuthanan, and Urban Lullaby from the Thai drama, Awejee Si Chompuu (อเวจีสีชมพู), so perhaps it's them. 

However, for many fans, the version which comes to mind most readily is the more recent one sung by Pop from Calories Blah Blah for that gay movie Friends, otherwise known as Bangkok Love Story, directed by Poj Anon.

Poj liked it, and asked Pop to re-make it. Scenes from the movie accompany the MV for the song. It, a policeman who has lost his way, looks for his hitman lover Mehk atop a grotty inner-city building in Bangkok, where the pair have taken refuge from Mehk's bad-boy past.

The lyrics take on a new meaning in a gay context. 'I want to know (if you love me), but am afraid that if I ask, you won't love me any more.'

Another Poj critic said he could just about cope with watching It calling out plaintively for Mehk, who is repulsed by his own gay feelings and is trying to hide from the man.

However, he could not handle the sight of them wandering around the rooftop together in their white briefs. 'Only Poj could get away with that,' he grumbled.

Put look that, it almost sounds like a compliment. Poj is also well-known for his kathoey comedies, such as Hor Taew Tak, Cheerleader Queens and Spicy Beauty Queen in Bangkok.

Another poster whinges that for him, Poj has now 'ruined' two songs - by associating them with gay themes, presumably. The other song which he previously liked is by Academy Fantasia 2's Wan Thanakrit, singing Ra Ya Plodpai (ระยะปลอดภัย). That one's not bad either, even without an accompanying gay theme. 

I can't imagine what Golf and Mike singing the melodic I Want to Know, but Don't Want to Ask would be like. 

I associate the song first with the manly actors from Poj's movie, not those scrawny, wanna-be rap-artist teens. Some songs are just too good to be sung by kids.