Chinese New Year: Happy fat ang pao

Today is Chinese New Year. On one side of my condo hangs a large advertisement, placed by a condo developer. 'We hope you get a big fat ang pao gift,' it says.

Ang pao is Hokkien Chinese for red envelope.

Chinese people and their descendants give each other cash in red envelopes at Chinese New Year.

Boyfriend Maiyuu's grandmother comes from Thai-Chinese stock. He has no direct Chinese ancestry through his parents, but expects me to give him a red envelope anyway, as he likes getting money.

I bought a pack of red and gold ang pao envelopes from a local hardware store yesterday.

On the face of this year's envelopes is an ox, as 2009 is the Year of the Ox.

I only ever use one of them, as the only person to whom I give a red envelope is the boyfriend.

This morning when we woke he gave me a New Year's blessing for good luck and robust health in the year ahead.

I kissed his head, and presented him with his envelope. He has now gone to Silom to buy food.

Chinese shop in Talad Phlu

In the market where I live, many Thais live in shophouses - mainly two-storey affairs which have space for selling goods downstairs, and living quarters upstairs.

They were paying tribute to their ancestors this morning, as part of Chinese New Year festivities.

Some residents had put out food, as a sacrifice to the gods or their forbears. At one place I passed, the table was groaning with food. They light incense, and pray. Once that's over, some families sit down for a meal to eat it all.

Others burnt paper money in barrels. I passed several of these barrels this morning, with charred notes weeping smoke.

PS: Wiki tells me that the cash amount in the envelope should end with a lucky even digit (so, B500 qualifies). Next year, can I get away with giving him B250? It ends with the same digit, 0, after all.

The bamboo tray man

The khan toke (file pic)

We now eat our meals northern style, around a bamboo tray on the floor.

Maiyuu staggered in the door the other morning with a round bamboo tray, called a khan toke, on which we have eaten all our meals since. He bought it in old Thai market where we live.

'Eating khan toke' (ขันโตก) is a tradition passed down from the Lanna Kingdom in the North - and now we have our own taste of it in our humble abode in Thon Buri.

Food which accompanies rice is placed on the tray. Families gather in a circle around the tray and help themselves.

It is designed to take the dishes we eat with rice, though northerners also use them as general purpose trays.

'Where did you find that?' I asked Maiyuu, as he squuezed in the door.

The khan toke looked large in his hands.

'A man in the market sells them,' he said.

I go into that market at least half a dozen times a day. How come I had never seen them?

Maiyuu also bought a selection of northern food to eat on our khan toke, and made a few more dishes to accompany them.

Instead of sitting at the dining room table as we used to do, we now get down on the floor around our khan toke instead.

Did I mention that we sit in front of the TV? That's probably why Maiyuu bought it, but it is a romantic addition to the household nonetheless.

'Don't spill anything!' Maiyuu said sternly. I have clumsy fingers.

When the meal was over - we ate lobster and a few curry dishes for our first meal, and khao tom pla before bed - I carried the tray back to the table, where it sits when not in use.

'Don't drop it!' Maiyuu warned me again.

In Chiang Mai, visitors can dine in the khan toke style at the Khum Khan Toke restaurant. After dinner, guests watch Thai traditional dance on stage, including the fingernail dance and candle dance.

Some khan toke tables are multi-leveled affairs with legs. Ours is circular and made from humble bamboo, but others are crafted out of wood.

Just don't show me the weight scale

Boyfriend Maiyuu made keow dumplings and sen lek noodles for breakfast.

When I went out to the kitchen to give him a thank-you kiss, he presented a tray of mussels. 'They're for lunch, with cheese,' he said temptingly.

'I'm going away to see my parents in six weeks - how will I lose weight, if you keep making all this good food?' I asked.

'No one forces you to eat it,'he said.

Maiyuu has been experimenting with different cheeses in his cooking. The other day he asked me which farang cheeses taste best.

'Tasty cheddar, blue cheese...but avoid ordinary cheddar, or those awful cheese sticks,' I said.

'I don't want smelly cheese,' said Maiyuu.

Unlike Maiyuu, I do like smelly cheese, so I recommended blue cheese anyway.

Maiyuu went to the supermarket and bought the cheese I put on his list, trusting I would not let him buy old cheese.

He was surprised when he arrived home to find that I had duped him.

Blue cheese smells!

He disliked the pong, but found it tasted better than he thought, and is also a potent ingredient in cooking.

Now, Maiyuu looks for new opportunities daily to grill or melt his cheeses.

The latest is mussels with grilled cheese on top. Last night, he made mini-pizzas with an eggplant, and roti base, again with grilled cheese on top.

I thought the diet could wait. 'Looking fat is better than going without food,' I said.

Maiyuu patted my stomach.

'I thought you'd say that.'

The little wife at home

Maiyuu probably won't bake for the shop I found in Thon Buri. A taxi fare there is B80, and he would have to send any baking he did to the shop by taxi. 'It's hardly worth it,' he says.

The shop would add its own (minimal) mark-up, and reserves the right to send back any food it cannot sell. Maiyuu and the shop's owner Wirut (Wut) have yet to talk, but already Maiyuu is going off the idea.

'Why don't you bring your friend...oops, boyfriend...here one night when you come?' Wut asked nervously last week.

A couple of times, he had asked me about my 'wife' , so I thought I had better set him straight.

Wut says he is an open-minded fellow. However, he still tiptoes around the issue carefully, as he thinks it might be a sensitive matter.

'He rarely leaves home, and hardly ever with me,' I told Wut.

'However, when you have finished making the changes to the shop, I will give you his number, and the two of you can talk,' I suggested.

Wut plans to add a small extension to the shop, to create more selling space. He could offer bakery from Maiyuu, sushi, coffee and packed fruit to customers as they pass on the street.

Maiyuu is still as busy as ever in the kitchen...last night, he made a lemon cream and coconut cake roll, followed by a chocolate cake. 'You have a talent for cooking and baking - I wish other people could see it and appreciate it,' I tell him.

'Never mind - I don't have to show other people. I am happy cooking for you and my friends at home,' he said.

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.