Change your cooking oil!

Mum's shop in Pin Khlao

'I hear you have stopped going to Mum's shop and are now drinking at a new place in the soi?'

That was farang J, boyfriend of Mum's sister Aor, who is staying in the Northeast.

He took a taxi there as soon as he arrived in Bangkok from his native London several weeks ago.

We had not yet seen each other since he came, but already he knew that I had turned my back on Mum's shop.

Aor takes care of farang well, so no surprise if he should be enjoying his stay. I called him for a chat as I sat at the very same place which threatens to get me into trouble.

It is an eatery just down the way from Mum's shop. As drinking holes go, it is far superior, with its own outdoors bench and tables, a rock-pool garden, air conditioning, TV, music...

The eatery sits between Mum's rented apartment and her shop. She passes the place whenever she walks from her apartment to her own shop, or back again.

Last night I called out a greeting. Mum smiled awkwardly, but kept moving. In her eyes, no doubt, I am a traitor.

I had been going to her shop for six or seven years, when suddenly I upped sticks and took my custom somewhere else. Odd indeed.

Well, it's not my fault that she let the place go to rack and ruin. Mum and her husband do nothing to bring in customers any more.

Over the last few weeks, while I have been drinking at the rival place, I have seen just one customer sitting at Mum's shop, a regular who has been visiting the place even longer than I have.

'I left the shop because it's a dump,' I told farang J on the phone.

After we finished our call, a sense of guilt began to settle on my shoulders. I sent farang J a text message.

'Bugger it...I might have to go back anyway,' I said.

The new place suffers from one major drawback: cooking smoke from an open-sided eatery next to it drifts down to the outdoor area where I sit.

The open-sided place - really just a glorified food cart with tables and chairs - is outside a 7-11. It has a good name locally, and has been there for years.

They may have a good reputation, but they are slow to change the oil in their fry pans.

The stench of old cooking oil, accompanied by acrid smoke, drift down to where I am sitting next door. Cough, cough.

Why does the city not tackle smoke pollution caused by these lazy eatery owners who are too cheap to change their cooking oil?

The place where I was sitting is owned by a young go-getter called Wut. He has put B300,000 into his eatery, with ambitious plans to expand further.

The eatery is a bright spot in an otherwise dank and grey neighbourhood. It has been open only a matter of months, but already his customers are being smoked out.

If customers can't sit at his place without drifting down from some cheapo joint down the way, his investment could go up in smoke.

It's an Asian thing, perhaps, but it's also smoke pollution, and a health hazard.

The choices before me are looking sad. Mum's place is a dump, so I don't want to send time there. Wut's place is modern and comfortable, but covered in a cloud of cooking-oil smoke.

Maybe I should just stay at home with the boyfriend, where at least it is safe.

Seamless farewell

It pays to get to Thai funerals early. You get to meet the family, who are on hand to welcome guests.

One other reason? Thais cremate their dead promptly. The cremation was to take place at 3pm. Within 20 minutes, it was all over.

I went to the funeral of a farang colleague I barely knew. Farang K was Christian, but married to a Thai. He was cremated at a temple in town.

One couple turned up at 3.22pm. The deceased's casket was already in the furnace. I could hear it whirring, though smoke had yet to appear above.

What did they miss?

Thirty minutes before, a couple of men - possibly temple employees - carried the casket around the funeral pyre, set inside a small pavilion. We followed in procession.

The men carrying the casket took it up the steps of the pavilion, then set it down in front of the pyre.

Guests filed towards the casket, wai-ed the deceased, and left a paper flower in front.

As we descended the two or three steps of the pavilion on our way back to ground level, we walked past a large photograph of farang K, the man we had come to see off.

Later, as the casket prepared to enter the pyre, guests again mounted the two or three steps of the pavilion, to face the casket.

We set alight paper flowers and put them in front.

We left the pavilion one by one, then once again re-assembled into a group.

It was a casual affair. As soon as we re-joined the group, we resumed the conversations we had broken off when we entered the pavilion.

Even mounting the stairs to see the casket, guests were still chatting. It was informal, relaxed, and natural.

Two close friends of farang K, whom I had expected to see at the cremation, failed to arrive, possibly because they were stuck in traffic.

I arrived an hour early to the temple, in Ramkamhaeng. I was able to take part in all the ceremonies, including walking in procession around the funeral pyre. I was the only farang guest there at that time. The others were running late, but only by a few moments.

I was also able to meet members of his family.

If I had turned up at 3pm, the most we could have exchanged was greetings and farewells, as the ceremony lasts only moments.

At the cremation, I met farang K's ex-wife, his two adult children - who look much more Thai than farang - and his sister-in-law, who lives in the US but happened to be in Thailand when he died last week.

Farang K's children sprang to their feet when I arrived. They introduced themselves, and offered me water.

His daughter is an air hostess. His son is looking for work as a ski instructor.

I loved hearing them speak Thai, and watching them wai the Thai guests who turned up. I also enjoyed the casual, relaxed way they mixed with farang guests.

They took good care of us. Farang K had taught them the ways of the West. Their Mum had taught them how to be Thai. They switched from Thai mode to farang mode and back again with ease.

I am sure farang K was proud of them. I just wish I could have seen them together as a family when he was alive.

I also met farang K's elder brother, who travelled to Bangkok for the funeral, his first visit to Thailand in more than 20 years. That time, he came for farang K's wedding.

Guests were chatting in small groups as I left. I said goodbye to farang K's former wife, and waved goodbye to the kids.

By 3.30pm, I was heading back to the office in an office car with two Thai guests. My glimpse into the lives of these people, who I will probably never meet again, was over.

Farewell, farang K.

Through your Thai family, and the farang friends who knew you in Thailand, your ties to this exotic land live on.

Snaffling the ingredients

I am in trouble, after drinking all the wine which Maiyuu uses for cooking.

A few weeks ago, he bought a bottle of champagne. I can't believe he was proposing to tip this in his next cooking mix (it cost almost B1000), but Maiyuu is not used to buying wine, and has trouble telling drinking wine from the cheap stuff we throw in the pot.

'Where's the bottle of champagne?' he asked the other day. He had opened it a few days before, but we didn't finish it. I polished it off one morning while he was not looking.

'I drank it,' I said sheepishly.

'I wanted to use that for cooking!' he claimed. In that case, you can pay me B1000,' he said.

I talked him out of that, but then he insisted that I also settle accounts for a bottle of red and white, which he had bought a few weeks earlier, once again for cooking. Once again, this was quaffing wine, not the cheap stuff we use for cooking.

The red is gone, the white almost empty. He has used both a little for his cooking, but my needs have been greater.

The wine just looked too inviting, squeezed in among bags of cooking flour, eggs and cooking paraphernalia on the dining room table. I drank most of the them, I am afraid to say.

I agreed that I would help him with the cost of the red, so yesterday paid over B300, after negotiating him down from his initial demand of B500.

Heretic moments

I didn't go to church. Last night I couldn't sleep, possibly because I ate something too spicy before bed, but more probably because I couldn't stop thinking about the experience which lay in wait.

At 3am, still unable to sleep, I sent a message to Mr T, excusing myself and suggesting we leave it for another day.

It might have to be spontaneous, if I am still capable of such things....some day when I just happen to be awake on time to meet him outside the 7-11 before we head off together to his favourite place of worship.

Off to church, eyes off the priest

Mr T, the young man from the North who works at the local 7-11, has asked me to church this morning.

T is a Catholic, and tries to visit church every week. The last time I dropped in to the 7-11, we chatted about his religion, after I noticed him wearing a cross.

'Do you go to church often?' T asked.

T wears his hair in a Korean-style hairdo, long down the sides of his face. His chest is bony, and he pulls at his pants nervously when we talk.

'Hardly ever...I went to a tiny Christian church in the market here once. Middle-aged women were learning Chinese. It looked like a happy-clappy church.'

The church in Talad Phlu

T says he has been to several local churches, none of them particularly grand. The congregation is mainly Thai.

I shall have to ask him tomorrow when he started observing Christianity, or whether he was brought up that way.

With the exception of that poky little place in the market, I have not been inside a real church since I left the West to live in Thailand more than eight years ago.

It's about time this sinner returned to the fold of a warm, friendly congregation, though I am nervous about what awaits.

I am not a Catholic, but no one else in church will know that. But will they try to button-hole me as their only farang churchgoer, and ask me to spread the word?

T says he enjoys taking the bread in his mouth which the priest hands out at communion.

If he invites me to join him at communion, I might have to decline, as it's not part of my faith.

On the other hand, it's been a while since a man put anything in my mouth, so why not?

Today T called me with instructions where to meet. 'Wait for me at 8.30, outside the 7-11, if you like,' he suggested. 'I will come and get you.'

I wondered if I would be able to get up in time.

'What do I wear?' I asked.

He laughed. 'No special dress.'

Before I leave I shall have to look up the Thai words for Bible, congregation, and priest. Then I'll be right...well, that's what I am telling myself anyway.

At that early hour of the day, my mind is barely functioning, but I will have to make sure I am fed, watered, washed and dressed by 8.30 if we are to make it to church on time.

Another unsettling thought has just occurred to me. Do I have to sing?