TV soaps are bad for you

Is Thai television slipping in too many gay and kathoey roles into its nightly dramas, asks Kom Chad Leuk newspaper?

The paper has noticed a profusion of gay and kathoey roles in television soaps, and is worried about the influence they may be having on the nation's young.

Recent or upcoming television series with gay and kathoey roles include the drama Botun Kleep Sut Thai, comedy Sapai Look Tung, and ghost story Heep Lohn Son Winyan. Two others are Channel 7's Khun Noo Tewada, and Nam Tan Mai, which recently started filming.

In most cases the gays or kathoey are there for comedy relief. However, in Botun Kleep Sut Thai, the gay character plays a more prominent role. Played by 'Ta' Warit, he is gay, but marries and has children. While his parents are unaware of his identity, his wife discovers he has had a gay relationship with a young man.

'The series sends the message that stories like this occur in everyday life; but that whatever your sexual identity may be, we hope you are a good person - that is enough,' the newspaper said.

In Sapai Look Tung the message is similar. The gay role is taken by actor 'Job' Nithi Samutkojorn (จ๊อบ" นิธิ สมุทรโคจร), who disguises from his family his preference for men.

'The message is that while in some cases your family may not accept you if you come out, if you are a good person then there is a good chance they will.'

Nonetheless, in Heep Lohn Son Winyan, the gay character, played by 'Eak' Eakachai Euasangkomset (เอก เอกชัย เอื้อสังคมเศรษฐ์), is way out there - no hiding in the closet for him. 

Meanwhile, in Khun Noo Tewada, the gay character played by 'Klom' Noppon Pithakloopanich (กลม นพพล พิทักษ์โล่พานิช) is best friends with the male lead, played by 'Weir' Sukolwat.

Perhaps because he is there for comedy relief, he is also the stand-out character in the cast.

'Even though this story presents gays in an endearing way, if parents aren't there to give advice, young ones could end up emulating the behaviour of the gay character,' Kom Chad Leuk intones.

More gay roles are coming to television screens. Ta Warit, plays the married gay man in Botun Kleep Sut Thai, has taken on another gay role in Nam Tan Mai - his second in a row. This one has only started filming. 'Watch this space,' the paper says.

Kom Chad Leuk spoke to the Department of Mental Health about the potential influence on young minds of gay characters on television.

Department spokesman Taweesil Witsanuyothin says television dramas reflect what is already happening in society. TV dramas have more gay characters, because gays, kathoey and lesbians are popping up more often in society at large.

However, he still thinks young people are susceptible to mimicking the behaviour they see on television.

'After watching gays on television, young viewers could end up being gay themselves...though we cannot say for sure what causes people to be gay. It could be in the hormones, genes, something which takes place in the womb,' he said.

'Another possibility is that a young person who is gay but in the closet, may end up imitating what he sees on television, and start acting gay as well. For that reason, television has to be careful about the gay characters it presents on TV.'

Dr Taweesil claims Thai gays are relatively open about expressing themselves, while their counterparts elsewhere in Asia, such as Korea and Japan, are still inclined to keep such things hidden.

Thai girls getting around with shaven heads and mini-skirts are an example of the pervasive influence of the media, he reckons.

'Thais are becoming more open, but in places like Japan and Korea, people are still hiding...they are not game to show themselves. If Thais are more open about it, it could be as a result of the media,' he says.

Shedding old skin

Maiyuu is selling a large pile of his clothes and shoes to a woman in this condo who makes a living on-selling them.

A hand-written sign appeared on a noticeboard outside the lift asking if anyone in the condo has items of clothing, shoes, or jewellery to sell. She left a phone number and name.

Maiyuu says the woman lives in this condo, and has offered to buy per item, rather than buy by the kilogramme as such merchants often do.

Maiyuu's clothes - he has an enormous collection - are in good condition. I would not be happy to see this woman set a price per bag or kilogramme, as they are too good.

Two or three large rubbish bags full of his clothes have sat in my room for months...since our last big argument, in fact, when I decided to toss him out, and put his clothes in bags to help him get the message that he was no longer welcome.

He has never bothered unpacking the bags and putting his clothes back in the wardrobe, perhaps because he realised he did not need half of them.

Gone are the days when Maiyuu went socialising constantly. He rarely goes out any more, so does not need so much fancy gear.

He told me the other day about his plan to sell clothes to this woman, but it wasn't until 1.30 this morning, as I contemplated going to bed, that he decided to start sorting.

He dragged the bags into his room and started arranging the clothes into piles of 'to sell' and 'to keep'. He further sorted the pile of 'to sell' clothes into trousers, shorts, shirts, and jackets. Later he added shoes, and bags.

In some phases of my life, I have sold personal items in garage sales which I later regretted losing ...including LPs (vinyl records, for younger readers) which are probably valuable now. I would like to have kept them, if only for old times' sake.

It was time to dispense some caring advice to my hermit-like boyfriend. I don't want him selling perfectly good clothes which he will later miss.

'I know you don't go out much any more...' I said hesitantly.

'It's boring,' he said.

'Still, there may come a day when you want to re-enter the real world...to leave the condo and interact with people again,' I said.

'Don't sell all your clothes, or you will have to go out in your underwear,' I said.

Maiyu laughed.

I don't know why he feels the need to sell his clothes. It is like shedding an old skin. What will the new Maiyuu be like? I don't know how he really thinks of himself these days.

Generous offers

Visiting the canal, I met a young man who asks me for food money. He sells goods at Klong Thom market during the day, and turns up at the canal in late afternoon.

He was fishing off the rickety pier when I met him yesterday. It had been raining all day. A group of school students in uniform – blue shorts, sweat-soaked white shirts, bare feet - were playing football in a fenced playing area next to the pier.

On the opposite side, the local eatery was doing busy after-work trade.

We exchanged a few words of greeting.

‘I am hungry,’ he said.

‘Where are your friends?’ I asked, as I gave him B25 for a meal.

‘They have gone to the funeral for a friend. He was our age...he was shot while trying to protect a woman,’ he said.

‘Did they catch the guy who did it?’

‘A group of young guys who knew the victim kicked him to death,’ he said matter-of-factly.

The young man lived on the Thon Buri side, as do we all. He thought of going to the cremation, but the rain put him off. No doubt his friends will tell him what happened. The victim died just a few days ago.

-

Ten metres down the road, I stopped outside a place that used to be an internet shop.

The owner, a man in his 50s with white hair, was outside. I stopped to chat.

Two years ago or more, I used to teach English on the footpath outside his shop.

He spread the word at his internet shop. Youngsters who were interested could turn up in the afternoons to get free English lessons.

Classes were open to anyone. A mix of school and university students came, plus a few office and sales workers.

Two afternoons a week, we would pull out a couple of tables and chairs, sit outside the shop and learn English.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked my white-haired Thai friend, whose name I have forgotten. Let’s call him Uncle.

‘I am teaching maths to a couple of students. They live in the area and come here to study with me,’ he said, pouring me a red drink in a bag of ice.

I don't know if he charges them for the service. ‘No one in this area has any money,’ he said sadly.

‘Do your parents send you money from overseas?’ he asked.

‘No...I do not bother them. I work full-time, and make enough to support myself,’ I said.

‘That’s great!' he said, sounding impressed.

Inside his shop, two or three secondary students were sitting at computers.

‘Would you like to teach English again at this shop the way we used to do?’ he asked.

‘I would. I do not have any students at the moment. I miss them,’ I said.

Uncle will ask among students who visit his shop. He has teenage children of his own who might also be interested in joining lessons.

'Do you have any new approaches to teaching?’ he asked, no doubt thinking back to the last time we met for lessons at his shop, which petered out after a few months for lack of interest.

‘Yes...much more conversation, and less book work,’ I said.

That should please the students, if any come. Many Thai teachers focus on grammar because they don't trust themselves to speak the language.

Assuming Uncle can rustle up enough interest, our first lessons will start next week.

Traitor in Thai market (2, final)

For several weeks, I put off the big day when I would make the switch from our regular supplier of Thai food in the market to the other couple down the way.

The food was always there when I returned from work. Why not just take it, swallow my complaints, and carry on as normal?

The do-nothing approach might have worked, if their food improved. But if anything, it was getting worse.

If I switched, I would have to tell this loyal couple that I had decided to take my business somewhere else. Ouch! To add insult to injury, I was proposing to switch to another couple just metres away.

All the traders in the market know each other. If one is busy, sometimes another trader will take payments for him, or give change to customers on his behalf. They settle up at the end of the night.

It would only be a matter of time before these faithful and loyal Thai traders discovered I had decided to buy food elsewhere.

They would probably wonder: Why has he switched? What is wrong with the food we make? Did we not deliver good service all these months?

I asked boyfriend Maiyuu how we might best go about the switch. At first, he wanted me to be the one who told tell them it was over.

Eventually, I brought him around to the idea that as the one who pays their bill every month, he should cancel our arrangement, next time he settles our account.

The other day, Maiyuu went down to talk to them. 'We will stop ordering at night for the time being, but if we change our mind we'll let you know,' he said.

Another night market scene

We will pay their final bill next week.

That left one last problem: How do we order food from the new couple without being seen?

We can't just walk up to them, order, and walk away with three styrofoam boxes. It would look too obvious. Our regular couple would see us and might get hurt.

Maiyuu devised a solution. The same night, Maiyuu asked two gay friends to take a note to the new couple, on which he wrote down an order for three boxes of Thai food. He gave them cash to pay for it.

When they finished making the order, the couple brought it over to our condo and left it with the security guard. They do not know who wrote the note. All they know is that we live at this condo.

Maiyuu did the same the next night. He asked his two gay friends, who live in the area but are not regular visitors to that market, to take to the new couple another hand-written note.

Unfortunately, his gay friends had a dizzy gay moment. By mistake, they took the note to the couple nearby instead - the same ones with whom we had just cancelled our three boxes-a-night arrangement.

They dutifully made the order, then delivered it to the security guard at the condo. Maiyuu asked his friends to get their phone number, which they wrote on top of the box. 

He meant the number for the new couple, with whom we have yet to enter a formal arrangement asking them to make food for us every night.

As he was punching the number into his phone memory yesterday, Maiyuu's phone told him that he already had it. That's when we discovered that the traders who made our order the night before were in fact the regular couple.

I opened the boxes for a look.

'Can you tell the difference? 'Maiyuu asked.

I had one box left over from the night before, which the new couple had made.

'See - the rice which the regular couple uses is like glue...white, with big grains. It is tasteless. The new couple uses much better rice - fine grains, and present it in a different way,' I said.

Maiyuu called his friends and asked them why they took the note to a different couple. Oops! Just as he suspected - they were having a dizzy, distracted gay moment, and took the note to the wrong traders.

'You are lucky you did not call that number,' I said to Maiyuu.

'I wonder if they recognised my hand-writing on that note?' Maiyuu wondered.

I am looking forward to paying the regular couple their final bill, so we can start a arrangement with the new traders, regardless of any hurt feelings we might encounter from the other side.

They may prefer we pay each night in cash, of course, as Maiyuu's gay friends have done for the last two nights on our behalf. That's okay - just as long as we can drop the deception and do it openly, as this subterfuge is exhausting.

Traitor in Thai market (1)

Dining in a Thai restaurant overseas once, my parents asked me if there was such a thing as bad Thai food.

In Australia, the country where I was born, Thai food is popular if you are dining out.

Since I lived there, it has supplanted Chinese and Japanese as the Asian takeaway (or even eat-in) menu of choice.

Why? Thai is cheap, light, and tasty. And you don't have to struggle with chopsticks if you would rather use a knife and fork (or even a spoon and fork combination, if you want to look really Thai).

'Yes,' I said. 'You can buy poorly-made Thai food from street vendors, almost anywhere,' I said. 'But mostly it is well-made, because Thais love their food.'

We were eating at a 'Thai' restaurant in provincial Australia where not one cook in the kitchen was Thai, or even Asian. They were young farang, working from Thai-cuisine cookbooks.

They used local ingredients as a substitute for 'real' Thai ingredients which are hard to find there. The dishes had also been modified - made more bland - to appeal to Western tastes.

I didn't complain. When I visit my parents every year, we go to a Thai restaurant the night before I am due to return to Bangkok. I get to recommend the dishes, which is fun.

For the rest of the time, we eat Western food, which is a welcome change from the all-Thai diet I normally get in the Land of Smiles.

But back to poorly-made Thai food. Even Thais can be lousy cooks of Thai dishes.

For the last few weeks, I have been trying to wean myself off one of them.

Every night after work, I pick up three boxes of Thai food from a husband and wife couple who run a shop under a tattered tarpaulin in the market opposite my condo.

Talad Phlu at night

This same generous couple once offered to lend me money for a taxi when I had run out of cash to get home from work.

They have made food for me every night for at least 18 months. Normally we pay them once a month.

Lately, perhaps because they rush to get my order finished before midnight when my bus arrives, the quality of the food they make has deteriorated.

When I heat it in the microwave the next day, some is so awful I can barely eat it.

They know what I like, and vary the dishes they make for me each night. But when I open the lid of their white styrofoam boxes, some dishes look so off-putting that I toss the lot in the rubbish.

Clearly, this could not go on. The monthly bill comes to B2,500. That's too much if I am not enjoying it, or not even eating some of it.

Twenty metres away from their stall is another Thai couple who make similar dishes, which they sell in similar white boxes.

I had bought from them a few times before, when our regular outlet was closed.

They use superior rice. Their food is also tastier, and the price is the same. So why not switch?

now, see part 2