Cooking the blogging goose

Readers can be an insistent bunch. We want this! We want that! And if you don't provide, we'll go somewhere else!

One reason I welcome comments is that I want this blog to reflect reader demands.

If I turned off the comments, let's say, all you would get is my idea of what a blog should look like, but nothing more.

If you ask for something and I provide it, the blog reflects more of what readers want, not just me.

I posted a fluffy piece yesterday about ear drops; then, at the request of a reader, included a brief description of my latest argument with Maiyuu.

That's not the post I intended to leave, but it looked better as a result.

There are limitations, of course. I won't drop the boyfriend, just because a few disgruntled readers from Silom's blog, for example, may not like the sound of him.

I suspect I have annoyed more than a few farang readers with my stories about Maiyuu. They are used to getting their way with Thais, perhaps...or maybe they just seethe with the rankling injustice of it all.

This unpleasant set invariably posts under the anonymous label, despite their supposed bravado.

I want to bring you one reader comment - anonymous, needless to say - which someone left on this blog in response to yesterday's post. He's responding to my remarks that I seldom get to meet Maiyuu's relatives.

Earlier, I said the profusion of new Thai gay bloggers has given me the ability to say 'piss off' to hostile posters with impunity.

Even if I lose one reader today, I am likely to pick up another few passing their way through the other blogs. We all link to each other after all...
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''Very suspicious that the 'love of your life' doesn't let you meet his relatives; but you probably fund them anyway.

The 'power' that comes with a 'real blogging community?' You're off your meds again, mate.

If your blog becomes nothing more than a sparring match between Maiyuu's cooking and Thai fashion-chickens, your blogging goose is already cooked - there are only so many times that you can rehash all of those old stories.

Incidentally, you might mention to Maiyuu that you make more money when you give details on the blog- I suspect his opinions are highly influenced by that particular issue, no?''
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I deleted the post from the comments section when it appeared, but am reviving it here, because this reader deserves his moment in the sun.

Why is he so grumpy - can't he just enjoy the wonderful guys illustrating this post like the rest of us?

PS: When I told Maiyuu that readers like hearing about our domestic dramas, he put aside his usual reluctance to have me publish personal matters in this blog.

Maiyuu told me to go ahead and publish whatever I like. Happy blogging days ahead!

Anatomy of Thai argument

Today, I said I'd bring you a tale about the boyfriend's underpants, right? Okay, so maybe I was joking, or as one reader put it, being 'snippy'.

I had to ponder for a moment when I read that: I wasn't sure what 'snippy' meant.

Maiyuu spent most of the day yesterday getting around the condo in a pair of soft-cotton white boxer briefs. He looked great. No doubt they also felt good on his slim body.

I was looking forward to taking that body (and the thinking part of him, of course) on a walk to the local flea market, about 10 minutes from our home. In the end, I went alone, as fate intervened. In the two hours previously, we argued.

'Would you like to come with me?' I asked when it was over.

'I am no longer in the mood,' said Maiyu sadly.

I had wrecked it. Still, it was a good argument, as these things go. We talked out our problem, and now understood each other.

As we sat in front of the television last night, we started the process of rebuilding, which is always necessary after a row.

We talked about the third season of America's Got Talent, which was playing. Neither of us was really that gripped by what we saw, I suspect, but it was a way of healing the emotional wounds which had opened.

Since turning over a new leaf on this blog, I can't tell you what our argument was about. My boyfriend might read it, then I'd be in trouble again.

You will recall that a while ago, Maiyuu took a read of this blog and discovered I had been sharing our secrets...relating our domestic dramas in intimate, painful detail for the perverse enjoyment of readers.

'You tell your friends about me, but only tell them the bad things. They get a bad impression of me, and other Thais too,' he said last night.

He wasn't talking about the blog as such, but my general habit of telling people too much about our lives - all the stuff he would rather keep hidden. Oops, did I really say that?

'If a couple has problems, they should keep it between themselves.'

I am not sure I agree with that in all cases, but never mind.

We live in Bangkok, one of the world's largest cities. But sometimes the space I occupy with Maiyuu seems extremely narrow and suffocating, as if no one else's views or experience ever surface, or in his eyes, rate a mention.

The fact that I have spent most of my life overseas, where I have friends, a work history, and loving family seems not to count.

'You are in Thailand now. You want to be like a farang, you should find a farang partner. If you want to fit in, you have to be like Thais.'

Take a ride on the wild side

Here's a typical telephone conversation between a Thai and a farang.

Note the Thai's attempt to show concern by pretending to be jealous.

Actually, the barworker might actually be jealous, who knows - even if they only met the day before. Note also the plea for money.

Thai: Hello, how are you?

Farang: Fine. You?

T: I am going into hospital/my parents are sick/I am lonely.

F: That's funny...I have problems too. Would you like to hear about them?

T: Are you with girlfriend/Do you have girlfriend? You have many girls, I know...

F: No. I am single.

T: You want see me?

F: Up to you...you are the one who called me, remember?

A farang friend of mine had this conversation a while ago with a young woman of the night.

Man, woman, it makes no difference - the Thai bar worker in her comes through clearly enough.

Heading for trouble

For superstitious reasons, Maiyuu wants to move the head of my bed away from the window.

'Your head faces west, which is the same direction in which people's bodies are placed when they die.

'This is why you get ill so often,' he said.

I didn't know I get ill often. However, it is true that I often wake up with stiff joints, which previously I put down to age.

As part of this package, I will also get a desk for my computer. If my bed moves, the computer will have to go somewhere else, too.

I was pleased to hear about the computer desk, as the space I use at present is not ideal.

Superstition can be a useful thing after all!

Joys of Thai blogging: Another satisfied customer

An anonymous reader left this treat:

'Just wanted to thank you for the two years of wonderful posts. With the new direction your blog has taken I find it utterly uninteresting.

'What made your writing so compelling was that you wrote about your personal experience in a foreign land and some of us could vicariously experience every day life of a farang.

'Thanks for the wonderful read and good luck to you and Maiyuu.'

I am not sure what new direction the blog has taken, and the reader doesn't bother to explain. The posts about Thai stars? The pictures of Maiyuu's cooking treats?

The absence of tales from a Thai market where I once lived, or that hole of a drinking place I used to visit in Thon Buri?

As I said the other day, readers of this blog are happiest when I am writing about some domestic drama with Maiyuu.

Lately, we have not argued much, so I have plugged the gap with posts about Thai stars, most of which have a gay angle, or which I think are interesting anyway, even if they haven't.

No one blog can do everything, and if it's part of a vibrant blogging community, should not be seen in isolation anyway.

The number of Thai blogs written by Bangkok-resident foreigners has grown in the last six months, which is welcome. Readers can shop around.

We all link to each other anyway, so it is easy to get your daily dose from half a dozen or more blogs with a similar theme.

One day, I might serve up a tale about Maiyuu; on the same day, BB at his blog might talk about his pizza delivery guy, or the technician at his condo, while Kawadjan might bring us a tale from his Filipino friends, or his latest exotic travels in this region.

Those who enjoy news about Thai stars can find it here, or at Lyn's lakorns blog, or Dirtii-laundry blog. As you can see, no two blogs are alike.

If readers enjoy tales of misfit foreigners lashing out at Thais, or foreigners dogging the tails of moneyboys in Silom, then I suggest you go elsewhere.

I have been here nine years, for goodness sake! I am no longer interested.

The idea of living in a foreign country is trying to fit in. As a foreigner spends longer here, hopefully he will get better at it.

In that event, you should expect the number of stories about foreigners ogling over Thai good looks or the gaudy lights of Patpong to diminish.

After a while, it becomes repetitive and just dull. Or, if such stories distinguish themselves, it's usually in the clever or entertaining way they are written, as the subject matter has been covered so many times before.

Bangkok Pundit's blog is the grand-daddy of all Bangkok blogs - probably the most popular and respected blog by a foreigner writing on Thailand.

What's that about? Not Thai girls, the Silom nightlife, lifestyle issues, or any of that flim flam. It's about politics, plain and simple.

Here, you get a mix of what I think you will like, and what takes my interest, which I publish whether or not readers are likely to read it. It is, after all, my blog.

The posts about Thai stars or Thai music might seem esoteric to foreigners overseas, but they interest me. Among the recent additions to this blog are posts about Thai folk singer Thee Chaiyadej.

Not interested? Well, someone might be. Someone should tell these stories, and it might as well be me.