Just another temple fair

Youngster at a temple fair

A temple close to us is holding a fund-raising fair. I know they are raising funds, because that's what temples do. Apart from that, I could hear a monk babbling through a loud-speaker about the need to support the temple.

The temple is five minutes' walk from my place, on a side of the market which I seldom visit.

The other day, I bumped into a teenager who lives locally, and who I used to meet with his friends near the canal which runs through the market.

He and his school friends gathered there to smoke, gossip, and drink.

They stopped going a few weeks ago, probably because the police shoo-ed them away.

My friend is 15, goes to the local school, and is gay. 'Are you going to the temple fair?' he asked, when we saw each other on the street.

My friend had just bought himself an ice-cream. He offered me a lick. I said no. I walked with him back to his new hide-out these days - a small, dark, sinister looking email shop, popular with teens.

Last night when I visited the roof of my condo to look at the stars, I noticed a slowly-turning Ferris wheel off to my right where the temple sits, and heard the monk babbling into his loudspeaker. Ah, the temple fair!

It was already 11.30pm, but thought I may as well pay a visit.

Wat Klang, our local temple

First, I went back to the condo. 'Wat Klang temple is having a fair. Would you like to come with me?' I asked.

I already knew what the answer would be.

'No, I am busy making brownies,' said Maiyuu.

I went alone, which is my lot around this place, as the boyfriend seldom does anything with me outside home, as everyone on this blog must know by now.

I last visited a local temple fair two years ago, with a kathoey who used to live around here.

That visit opened my eyes to the potential weirdness of temple fairs.

When I arrived, stallholders who lined the main routes inside the temple were packing up for the night.

They sold snacks, desserts, clothes and knick-knacks which you can find almost anywhere else in Bangkok.

The convenience of a temple fair is that everyone is gathered in the one place. If you pass enough stalls you might find something you like.

Some stalls sold tiny fish in buckets. Stallholders and their children were trying to catch them in cups, before bagging them and taking them home.

Thai fair-goers stared at me. I kept a smile on my face as I walked around the place. I had never been inside this temple, and often wondered what it looked like.

It took me 10 minutes to walk past all the stalls.

At one, a gay youngster in his teens was selling perfume. He wore a white T-shirt, noticed me, and started stretching himself to show of his body. On my way out of the place, I made sure I passed him again. This time, he was chatting on the telephone.

I saw few gays, or if they were gay, they were so firmly locked in their own worlds that outsiders could but watch.

I didn't like the look of anything on offer, so bought nothing. Ten minutes later, I walked home.

A youngster outside the temple carried a whistle in his mouth. He was directing traffic, and looking over visitors' motorcycles. 

His wore his jeans in the loose, baggy style.

On my way in, I had looked at him admiringly. On my way out, I barely gave him a second look, as I had had my fill of strange Thais for one night.

Neurosis creeping in

‘Finished,' said Mum bluntly, waving me away from her shop.

She meant she was not willing to serve me at her shop any more, since I had taken to drinking at a rival place inside her soi.

Farang C and I turned up at her shop after the eatery in the soi closed. She saw us arrive, and sold farang C a newspaper.

But if we wanted to carry on drinking, she said we would have to carry on somewhere else.

We took a table at an eatery next to her place instead.

-

Suan Lum Night Bazaar

Earlier, farang C and I met at Suan Lum Night Bazaar, my first visit to that inner-city tourist haven in eight years.

Before my friend arrived, I wandered past a few stalls, and bought the boyfriend a jazzy pair of underpants.

They are stretchy, and have brightly coloured stripes.

'Are you sure you don't want a more conservative design?' the shopkeeper asked.

She was nervous that boyfriend Maiyuu may not like them, as they were more 'out there' than the designs and colours which most Thais choose.

'No - I am sure they will be fine,' I said.

-
We took a taxi from there to Mum's shop in Thon Buri.

We took the route which takes us past Central World and the Ploenchit market, via Lang Suan, Petchburi Rd, and so on, until we reached the Victory Monument and we realised we still had another 10 minutes of travel still to go.

This was 8pm, past the so-called peak hour, but the traffic was still painfully slow.

The taxi driver and I talked about what to do if you are caught in a traffic jam but need to pee.

'An empty water bottle?' I suggested. 'I didn't bring one.'

'You could stretch out in the back seat there and no one need know what you are doing,' he joked.

'Or Pampers?' I suggested.

'A rubber tube and a bag on one leg?' he asked.

'And should you tell your friends?...they might be in need too,' I asked, then thought better of it.

'No, you shouldn't tell friends - they might ask to use them too.'

We arrived more than 25min later.

'You have to stay philosophical when stuck in traffic jams,' said farang C wisely.

'That's hard when you need to use the toilet badly,' I said.

-
Maiyuu is back from his two-day getaway - not at a temple, as I first thought, but to Pattaya.

Last week when Maiyuu told me that he wanted time out from our relationship, he said he would go to a temple in the provinces for a couple of days, and warned me not to send anyone looking for him.

I believe he decided some time before he left that he would not visit a temple at all. He stayed at a hotel in Pattaya instead. He told me the name, which I have forgotten. Was it in Boys' Town? No. He says it was close to a beach, where he took several walks, alone.

-

Thais like plotting, subterfuge, conspiracy theories, ghosts. On the night Maiyuu returned, he asked me whether I had been on the tenth floor of the condo, gossiping about him with his friends.

'No...why would I do that?' I asked.

'I have been hiding by the railway lines outside, to watch who was coming and going - and I thought I heard you talking to Duck and the others about me,' he said conspiratorially.

'You mean, you heard us from outside the condo even though I was supposedly talking to them on the tenth floor? ' I asked, confused.

I gave up. I am not sure whether Maiyuu is slowly going mad, or if he is letting moods cloud his judgement.

He told me about his Pattaya adventures. A Russian guest in her early 20s struck up a conversation, and flirted with him at the pool.

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Maiyuu found a long strand of what is probably woman's hair in our bathroom yesterday, and asked if I had invited anyone to our place why he was away.

No - I knew few women here, which is sad, but true.

I told Farang C about the strange accusations Maiyuu has been making since he returned.

He reckons Maiyuu is feeling guilty about his Pattaya adventures. If he can accuse me of gossiping, or smuggling people into our place, then he feels better about whatever he was doing in Pattaya.

In truth, I think he spent most time in the city of sin alone, as my boyfriend is not much good with people these days.

When people go mad, do they start cutting themselves off from the world? His world is getting smaller, centred mainly on me, and home.

Face slapping: New massage technique for men

Enjoy a good face slap?

A fresh meat trader at the Bang Kapi market in Bangkok offers a face-slapping service for men who like the fresh-faced look.

She says that by applying the right slapping technique, she can make the skin look fresher, more vibrant, and alive.

Beauty-conscious gays and kathoey who want to improve their appearance are among her most loyal supporters, says Plernrasami Ngernthongudompet, 39, who adds she took up face slapping to supplement her daytime income.

Plernrasami is a student of Thailand's pre-eminent face and breast slapper, Kemika na Songhla, who has appeared on television to demonstrate her technique (ตบนมอึ๋มและตบหน้าแอ๊บแบ๊ว).

Kemika slaps women's faces and breasts to make them bigger, though the stories I have read do not say how long the swelling lasts.

She has appeared on television to demonstrate her technique. To see the face-slapping demo, go here (link harvested - it died). For the breast-slapping demo, go here (link harvested - it died). 

In the first video, the programme hosts say they notice a difference immediately. The woman who volunteered to have her face slapped suddenly looked brighter and bigger in the cheeks.

In the second video, Kemika took her volunteer behind a couch. The volunteer took off her top and lay down on the floor out of view of the cameras. Kemika poked her head above the couch so she could carry on chatting with the programme host, as she set about slapping the woman's breasts.

Tdop! Tdop! Tdop!

Breast-slapping, she says, is not something she can show on national television. After the demonstration, her volunteer, was who wearing dark glasses to disguise her identity, submitted her chest to the tape-measure test. Before being slapped, her chest measured 32 inches.

Afterwards, the tape measure had barely budged, but the host agreed that she had developed a pleasing mound.

Kemika, whose massage technique has made headlines internationally, can show students how it's done for B1000.

'If I showed viewers how to do it on television, my income would dry up in a flash,' she told her host.

Women who visit Kemika at home to get their breasts slapped would feel uncomfortable in the presence of men who come in search of the service, she said. For this reason, she has declared her home must remain a male-free zone.

Spotting a market opening, her apprentice Plernrasami says she decided to offer the face-slapping service to men herself. She believes the market for slapping men has the potential to expand as least as much as that for women, as this is the age of metrosexuality, when men care about how they look.

She slaps the face in a way that makes the skin pores rise. She says getting results from men's faces is easier, even though their skin is rougher than women's.

She uses the front, back and side of hand, depending on whether she wants to make skin tauter, and the flesh on the face rise, or diminish.

However, Plernrasami says she has to slap men hard, which can be shocking at first. One session lasts 15 minutes for each side of the face.

Her teacher Kemika, who has been slapping women's breasts for more than 10 years, had complimented her on her slapping technique. 'You have a gift,' she said.

Plernrasami says many years of cutting up meat in the market have given her a sense of timing and strength in her hands which she needs to make this unusual massage technique work.

Source: Excite Thailand.

Postscript: I do not have a contact number for her. Nor do I know how much she charges.

Absent lover

My partner Maiyuu is on temple retreat. Looking after me is hard work, he says.

When I came home last night, the place was in darkness. Normally, it is lit up brightly, and Maiyuu is busy in the kitchen making something, with the TV going in the background.

Last night, nothing. When I called his number, no answer.

At midnight, I went downstairs to pick up an order of food which he had phoned through to a stall nearby.

Even though he is not here, he is still thinking of his awkward, demanding farang boyfriend.

Maiyuu says he will be away until Sunday, meditating at a temple close to Bangkok.

The other night, he said he was worried I would send a private detective to tail him, after I joked about wanting to know where he would stay.

'Yes, I have hired a detective for B500 a day to trace you and report on your whereabouts,' I joked.

'That's bad behaviour. You don't trust me,' he said.

I explained that I was not serious. Thais enjoy conspiracy theories and intrigue, especially if they are related to jealousy. If I hired a PI, it shows I really cared.

'You know me better than that - I am too mean with money to spend B500 a day on something so trivial,' I said.

That was a joke, too. Thankfully, he understood.

He went supermarket shopping at 5am yesterday, then carried on to the mall to buy a few extras, and to Silom, to buy me some clothes. He returned shortly before I left for the office.

I gave him a kiss as I left. Standing at the door for a final goodbye, I asked Maiyuu to smile for me.

He has a stunning smile. I wanted to remember that, to keep me company over the next two days.

Temple sojourn beckons

We are looking forward to pay day tomorrow, as Maiyuu has spent most of our money cooking and baking, mainly for me, but actually for anyone around here who is interested, as my stomach is not big enough to take it all.

Last night I took a bag of cookies, a piece of cake, and a bag of sausage rolls in to work. Free food, anyone?

Maiyuu is getting enthusiastic about supplying the eatery I have found in Thon Buri. After initially poo-pooing the idea, he is now warming to it.

'I would like to make a name selling a limited range of pastry products in small sizes which are well-packed. Women like small, cute things, and I will choose products which can last beyond a day without going stale,' he said.

As I write this, Maiyuu has made roti bread, cut into triangles, and a tiny bowl of massaman curry sauce, both presented to me on a small ceramic serving dish.

Maiyuu doesn't just cook and bake, but takes care to arrange his food well, which makes it more appealing.

I watched him rolling small sausages in thin strips of puff pastry yesterday and wondered where he found the patience.

Moments later, he presented me with a large dish of tiny sausage rolls, and a mayonnaise sauce in a tiny dipping bowl.

However, all this hard work can take it out of a boy.

Maiyuu has announced that he wants to seek solitude in a temple in the provinces for the next two days. 'Looking after you is hard work,' he says. 'I need time out every month to rest.'

When he is happy, as he is now, Maiyuu is super-productive, and rarely rests until the day is out. He visited to a gay-hairdresser friend later yesterday to get his hair cut.

Maiyuu packed an impressive bag of ginger cookies for his friend. He placed them in a plain plastic bag which, with the aid of tape and pair of scissors, he turned into a sachet, or small carry-bag with handles.

We do, however, indulge in an old man's habit in mid-afternoon. Most days now, Maiyuu and I retire for an hour's sleep.

Thais can sleep at any time, but sleeping during the day is a habit I have learned only recently.

I find it hard to sleep well in an empty condo, so I have asked Maiyuu to limit his temple to stay to one day, if possible. Most of those monks are trying to escape from the world anyway, right?

Living in the real world is harder but more fun, so bugger them.