I-Phone dilemma, telecoms giant impoverishes Thais

I was entering the condo as the boyfriend was going out to pay bills.

'I am also going to ask the telephone company about buying an I-Phone,' he said.

Maiyuu has seen advertisements on television for Apple I-Phone.

Our satellite TV provider, True Move, is offering phone deals to its television subscribers, via its telephone subsidiary, True Mobile.

Parent company True Corporation announced last November that it had reached a deal with Apple to import the 3G I-Phone to Thailand.

I don't like these vertically integrated telecoms companies...they always have some new deal, some new way for you to waste money. Be that as it may, Maiyuu, who is at home most of the day, saw one of these ads, and decided he would like an I-Phone.

I am not keen on the idea, as I can't see the point. Where once he had many friends, now no one calls, and he hardly calls them. So there goes the usefulness of the phone part of the appliance.

'Oh, I can surf the internet,' he says.

Again, I ask, what's the point, when he has his own computer in his room, with internet access.

Who wants a boyfriend with his head buried all day in a cellphone/mini- computer, or whatever it is? This assumes, of course, that the novelty will last, and that he won't get sick of the thing after the first few weeks.

Most importantly is that I would have to pay. From memory, the thing costs about B23,000 and True is offering it on time payment - payments of B900 a month or so for 24 months.

What a colossal waste! I am not sure yet how Maiyuu proposes to pay for the thing. 'I will spend less on grocery items and food,' he told me as he set out this morning.

True is impoverishing hard-working Thais who can't afford satellite TV, but whose red satellite dishes you can nonetheless find scattered on the roofs of many slum houses in Bangkok.

At my last place in Thon Buri, I overlooked a collection of slum houses - little better than tin shacks - built along a railway line. I could count at least 10 True satellite dishes from where my place stood.

My boyfriend is not a hard-working Thai, if you assume that looking after me at home is easy (he would dispute that).

Nonetheless, he is hardly bringing in a wage, so I would have to pay for this dreadful device myself, if Maiyuu goes ahead as threatened and buys the thing.

'You can't want to go overseas with me, then,' I said in an SMS this morning.

'You already have a computer in your room - what a waste of money. If my income should take a dive, who will take responsibility for paying it off? You will have to get a job,' I said.

50 baht blues, sweetened bread, life as single man

One day left before pay day, and we’re down to the last 100 baht. I felt sorry for boyfriend Maiyuu, so gave him half that amount this morning. 'I will buy a can of sweetened condensed milk,’ he said.

I wondered what exotic creation he was whipping up in the kitchen which required condensed milk. Even as our money has run out, we have still been eating well.

Yesterday, Maiyuu made three dishes, including beef curry, which we ate with rice. They kept us going most of the day.

He wasn’t baking at all, it turns out. He poured his sweetened milk on a slice of white bread (yuck), which he took with some chocolate drink.

The fridge still looks full, so we are not going without. But at times like these I recall fondly my early days in Bangkok, when I was still single, and had money to burn.

I rarely ran out of cash before pay day. A single man’s expenses are much less than those of someone who has found a mate, and Bangkok is no exception.

If I was asked to choose I would still opt for ‘married’ life with Maiyuu, even if we do encounter financial problems occasionally.

I am older now, so do not mind spending my days at home pursuing simple pleasures - reading, eating, watching television.

Apart from anything else, they are cheap. But I also get less pleasure from going outdoors than once I did.

‘Why don’t you want to go out and look at boyz?’ I hear you ask. ‘Surely you live in one of the most exciting cities of the world!’

That’s a single guy’s thing. I can’t see the point otherwise, though I could think of many better places in which to go looking for a potential mate.

Cheese-paring mission, braving floods, sparkies take pity

Two days before pay day, we have virtually run out of money. I am down to my last 500 baht, which I am rationing out.

Maiyuu cut his finger while cooking yesterday. Outside, it was raining. We had run out of plasters at home, so he put a condom on his finger as temporary protection, until the rain stopped and he could go out to buy medical supplies.

I am pleased I had a few extra baht handy, or he'd have to go without.

Maiyuu made a tray of brownies. They are now sitting on the kitchen table, along with two cakes he made the day before.

In retrospect, I would rather he had kept aside the money for more important items, like regular meals, as he must have known that money was getting scarce.

I suggested we go to the supermarket, to buy cheese. If all else fails, I can eat cheese sandwiches, I thought, as we have plenty of bread in the fridge.

Maiyuu and I set out in mid-afternoon. The low-lying streets around our place were flooded. We waded through thigh-deep water to reach the main road.

On the way, we passed centipedes and millipedes floating past. 'Watch out for dog poo....that's here too,' warned Maiyuu.

At the supermarket, Maiyuu cashed in a voucher which gave us B80 worth of credit.

I bought Swiss cheese, for B180. The guy serving behind the counter must have thought I was some poor farang on a benefit.

On the way home, we visited a flea market which opens twice a week on a large piece of vacant land next to a dormitory.

Maiyuu bought som tam for B30, and a large bag of garlic cloves for B25; I bought a large bag of tomatoes for just B20, to go with the cheese sandwiches.

Actually, things are not so desperate. We did manage to buy a few other things from the market...I just can't remember what they were.

I was delighted to find the place, even though the ground was covered in mud. 'They set up the market here twice a week,' said Maiyuu.

'We must come here again, especially if the money runs out,' I said.

The problem is not that we have too little money. It is that Maiyuu misjudges how much we have left, or forgets that we need to live on basic foodstuffs, not just baking.

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Maiyuu is talking about creating his own blog, but undecided what to put on it. Pictures of naked guys? His recipes?

More seriously, he is also thinking about selling his cooking and baking on the internet.

Customers who like what he makes could place an order, which we would deliver.

'I would have to come up with unusual recipes: Thais like recipes that are different and eye-catching. They are not interested in what everyone else has,' he said.

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On the way back from the supermarket, we met two guys in a truck, who gave us a lift on the final stretch of winding, narrow roads so we could avoid the floods.

Maiyuu and I were standing at the head of a low-lying section, about to wade back into the thigh-deep floodwaters which we had earlier braved on the way out of our condo.

A truck stopped in the middle of the road next to us.

'Where are you going?' a young guy in the passenger seat asked Maiyuu.

He gave the name of the condo.

'Hop on,' said the guy.

We clambered onto the back of the open-bed truck.

Sitting on the sides up there, we could watch the floodwaters swoosh by. We were also higher than people in ordinary cars...it felt great.

The men stopped just before our condo to let us off.

They are electricians working at a building site 20m away. We thanked them, and walked the rest of the way home.

Blog turns 3, Mario wilts, glam girl Kawadjan

This blog is now 3. Happy birthday, blog!

How much has it changed?

When the blog started on this day three years ago, it contained stories with a gay theme which I originally posted at a Thai webboard.

I grew tired of the trolls on that board, so decided to move the stories to my own blog instead.

Regular posts about Thai film, gay life, and the boyfriend were to come later.

At first, I wrote mainly about my friends of the night, and Thai entertainers.

Boyfriend Maiyuu and I enjoy following Thai entertainers, especially those we fancy might be gay. I thought I would write them up on the blog.

Back then, few English-language sources were available. The internet contained the odd fansite, and one or two web forums.

But the coverage was patchy and irregular, as most contributors were just fans, like us.

If I knew little about a particular star, I would have to ask Maiyuu to fill in the gaps, as the stories I found in the Thai press rarely told me everything I needed to know.

Fast forward to the present. Today, we are spoiled: readers can turn for daily coverage of Thai entertainment news to Lyn’s Lakorns blog, the Man of the Rose blog, and Dirtilaundry blog, to name but a few.

Three years down the track, I am no longer so interested in the antics of Thai stars.

If I write about them at all, it's usually because the story has some gay theme, or because their fame makes them interesting.

I complained yesterday that research for blog posts can take hours, and at the end of that I still can't be sure if readers will like it. Solution? Write stuff that interests me, and hope others will understand!

This blog probably has a mix of readers in their early 20s looking for star gossip, and another group aged 30 and above, interested in stories about Thai gay life.

Most readers who Google the actor Mario Maurer, for example, are probably young themselves.

They might be interested to read about Mario here, but I doubt they want to know about the new sofa I have just bought. That stuff probably sounds too domestic, and - well, old.

If those posts sound like a man in his 40s wrote them, it’s because he did.

I still write about Thai stars occasionally, as they provide a source of new readers to this blog. However, I also enjoy writing about 'old' stuff as well, because I am getting old, and can't help the way I think.

These days I write much more about my boyfriend, and our lives together in Bangkok.

Stories about the homely side of Thai life draw many more reader comments than those about Thai entertainers. They also give the blog a more personal feel, which I like.

I want to keep up that balance, so will continue writing regularly about the boyfriend and life in Thailand, with the odd post about Thai stars thrown in.

However, the best part about blogging for me is feedback from readers. Posts now get an average of eight responses each, which is great.

Please keep them coming. As I have said before (though it took me a while to learn it), a blog is nothing without you.

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My favourite Thai-based blogger over the past 12 months is Kawadjan.

Like mine, his blog is three years old, though he started it before he arrived on these shores.

Kawadjan, who comes from the Philippines, lives and works in Bangkok.

He has a distinctively gay voice as a writer, is funny, and blogs with a sense of excitement about this place.

He also visits out-of-the-way places in Bangkok, and travels in the region. Could you ask for more?

I like the look and feel of his blog: it is a good place to be. He sounds as if he is talking to intimate friends, even though he is also writing for a wider audience.

He posts pictures he has taken, MVs, and reviews books which have taken his fancy. Kawadjan’s blog is distinctively his own, much more than mine has ever been.

In the next 12 months, I would like to make my blog's 'stamp' more personal, like his. I can't promise to travel, as I hardly go anywhere. I will bring you more tales from Maiyuu's busy kitchen instead.

Broken lift blues

The lift at my condo breaks down often, but it is good to know that the office is on top of the problem.

Maiyuu has been stuck inside the thing at least once, when the doors failed to open.

I was trapped inside briefly another time, when the lights and the feeble air-conditioning also gave out.

Two other tenants were in the lift with me. If the doors had taken much longer to open, we would have been in trouble.

The other night, the lift was broken when I came home from work. I had to walk up seven flights of stairs to get home.

After the recent series of break-downs, the condo office has now hired a lift repair firm to fix the thing whenever the need arises.

It has posted three notices in the lift for tenants' inspection over the last week.

They are written in Thai, and direct occupants who encounter problems to call the repair firm.

The first notice which went up gives three numbers. The second notice gave a number where a repair man can be reached 24-hours a day.

The most recent notice urges tenants who encounter lift problems not to 'reset' the lift themselves.

'This can make it hard for the repair man to identify what is wrong, so please leave the lift alone,' the notice reads.

Reset it? The lift has only so many buttons which tenants can press.

As for the notices with all the phone numbers, I assume they have gone up in the lift so that we can call for help should we get stuck in there. Let's hope we can still get a cellphone signal out.

Yet still the problem persists. A hand-written sign telling me the lift was broken was posted on the ground floor when I went down yesterday afternoon.

Someone forgot to remove the sign. The lift had been fixed since the notice went up, as I had just travelled downstairs in the thing.

Nor is the problem confined to our building. The lift in the car-parking building at the far end of the complex has also broken several times in the last week.

Do lifts go peculiar in hot weather? Perhaps the condo needs to change its lift repairers. At this rate, they could move office to our condo, and rarely be out of work.