Your blog comments

Thank you for the response to yesterday’s post inviting more reader comments.

Readers have weighed in with ideas about where this blog has gone wrong lately, and what it’s doing right.

I have responded to almost everyone, in the comments section of the post. Let me put up a few highlights here, positive and negative. They comprise the name of the poster, a quote from what he/she said, and my response:

Anon 2:

--'As to what to write about, I believe that the majority of readers are interested in the daily life of Bangkok. For those of us who live in Farangland nearly EVERYTHING you see and do daily is different and unique to us. When I am in Thailand I feel like I am on a different planet. If you write using a little descriptive style, I believe virtually anything about life in Bkk holds interest.'

You make good points. I have to remind myself that life here is very different from what I could expect should I still be in the West. Sometimes I take it for granted, especially when I spend the day cooped up at home.

As you say, even humble excursions to the doctor can be interesting, if they are written up with a little style - highlighting those little details which point to the differences between life as we would expect it in the West, and what we get here.

Kriz:

'All I can say is that maybe you should get out of the house more often and explore your surroundings and take us along with you.'

I agree. I should.

I still believe that a story about a visit to the doctor (say), well told, is better than yet another humdrum post taking you on a tour of some part of Bangkok.

I am more interested in people, and what makes them tick, than I am in places, and I suspect most readers are the same.

Inbkk:

'I live in Thailand myself, and I like to read about other farang experiences. I see some new interesting blogs sprouting and some others losing steam...I am sorry to say yours is not in the first group...’

I am sure you do. Let me guess: Another cynical tale about Thai bureaucracy at the airport? The hopelessness of Thais in the classroom, as seen by a foreign teacher?

Why do so many foreigners living here just want to hear about other foreigners and their experiences of living in this place?

I would rather hear about Thais, thanks very much - I don't know about you, but that's why I'm here.

Many foreigners who live here are on a tourist visa, endlessly extended. Do they have much commitment to the place? They never know from one 90-day extension to the next how much longer they can stay.

Even those foreigners who work and live here legally are but migrant labourers. We are cut off from Thai life. Most of us get to meet few people of any note.

But if I was to write about those foreigners who stand out here, and have made a success of their lives, would you be interested in their stories, or would you try to take them down a peg (as so many other foreigners do) for having the effrontery to fit in?

Foreigners who 'fit in', or who lived here a while and are happy with their lives, might have less to say. Maybe I have been here too long to contribute anything much more interesting to a blog. Time will tell.

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Please keep the comments coming. Reader reaction shapes what this blog is.

A few readers reckon the blog has become more boring since I moved to my new place. I get out less, and meet fewer Thais.

I looked up my blog tracker to see if readership has declined in the four months since we left. Google Analytics tells me it is steady. It still pulls an average of 900-1000 unique visits a day.

Thank you for your support.

Pork steak, pay day ritual, more blog chatter wanted

Chef Maiyuu's pork steak and pasta, which he made for lunch yesterday. I went out for a run, and came back hungry.

Normally, I would go down to an eatery close to our condo to buy food. Yesterday, I didn't have to, as dear Maiyuu had made steak instead.

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It's pay day, and all is merry in the land.

We've been looking forward to this day, as we do every two weeks. 'We'll be rich again tomorrow,' Maiyuu joked last night.

One of my favourite rituals about pay day is one I am never awake to see. Maiyuu rises at 5am, and goes shopping, to avoid the crowds and traffic.

He stocks up on regular supplies and buy a few goodies as well.

I am asleep when he rises to go shopping. Often, when I rise a couple of hours later, he is still out.

Sometimes he goes out and comes back again several times, especially if he is shopping at different places.

Today he has been out twice so far, to buy grocery items; clothes (underwear for wearing around home, for him and me); and bakery.

This afternoon I want to visit the Carrefour megastore on Pra Ram 4, to get my glasses tightened.
We are likely to go together, so we might do more spending over there.

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Talk to me!

Please allow me to issue another appeal to readers to respond to blog posts.

The last time I issued such an appeal, a few months ago, you honoured me with plenty of feedback.

Readers offered plenty of comment on the blog, and respond to each other's remarks too.

Thai mind-reader, flat heads and big ears, 50 words on my condo

I swear Thais can read minds. When I left the condo to catch a motorcycle down the road to the doctor's clinic, my motorcycle guy knew where I wanted to go.

'Doctor?' he asked.

'Yes. How did you know?' I replied.

'I have taken you before.'

This was not strictly true: the motorcycle guy drops me close to the place, usually on the other side of the highway.

Then I walk across a couple of overhead bridges to reach the clinic.

On the previous occasion, I might have asked him to take me a little closer, but still...

Last time I might have told him I was seeing a doctor, just for something to say. Yesterday I had uttered not a word.

Yet he knew.

At the moment I get a motorcycle guy virtually daily. They drop me close to work, and I walk the rest of the way. Yesterday, how did he know that I wasn't just getting off for the walk to work, as I normally do?

The medical clinic, down a narrow soi inside a slum area, was busy.

The waiting room contained 10 people. In a small examination room off the doctor's office, I saw a woman stretched out with electrodes attached to her chest.

In the waiting room, I passed a curtained-off area where a middle-aged male patient was also on his back, being inspected by the sole doctor in the premises.

I know he was there, because I heard them muttering, and the patient's toes were poking out the curtains.

I told the two nurses that I had accidentally tossed away my fungal rash pills. Then I took a seat.

Seeing how many patients still had to go in before me, I changed my mind, and approached the desk again.

'Do I really need to see the doctor?' I asked.

No. They asked me which pills I wanted, and spooned them into small plastic bags. The bill was B120. I thanked them, and left.

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My post of yesterday complaining about the absent-mindedness of old age appears to have wound up some readers.

Some guys reach their 60s, and still go to the gym regularly. That's great. I run up the ramps of the condo carparking building for exercise. It takes just 15 minutes a day, but is enough, I tell myself, to keep my heart and lungs in good shape.

I don't care about the rest. I go through phases when I look at myself in the mirror and worry about my growing tummy, or the fact that I appear to be growing smaller, fatter, and wider with age.

Thankfully, I appear to be in no-worry phase at the moment. I can't remember the last time I examined myself critically in the mirror. Most of the time, I am trying to escape the heat.

I can't do much about the ageing process, which we all know is unflattering (well, those of us who are not 60 year-old gym-bunnies, that is).

I don't like the flat head, big, hairy-eared look which comes upon many men as they get older, but am pleased to see that it is not confined to foreigners. It happens to Thais, too.

I walk past my middle-aged colleagues at work and think to myself: 'You're a member of the flat-head, big-eared club!'

I walk past younger ones in the office (the youngest foreigners we have are probably in their early 30s), and tell myself: 'And you'll be there soon enough!'

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An Asian literary journal has asked me to write about life in Thailand.

They want to know about Thai life from the point of view of a foreigner, or even a Thai, as long as he writes in English.

I asked them to they give me a topic, as I can't write on spec.

'I can write about the inside of my condo,' I suggested.

What else is there to say, if you've been here too long as I have.

I live with Thais, in this fabulous land called Thailand, but spend most of my time thinking about the life I left behind - and this is on good days!

Absent-minded me (aka The Great Pill Hunt)

Being a worry-wort, I put my rash pills in the top pocket of my work shirt last night before heading off.

I am supposed to take a couple of pills after every meal, and I have an evening meal at work.

Being absent-minded, I discarded them some time during the evening as I was talking to someone.

But who, and where? I pass many rubbish bins in the course of my night. We live in a paperless age, supposedly, but not where I work.

The doctor urged me to finish the whole course, so we could kill off the fungal roots. So, thanks to my absent-mindedness, tonight I will have to go back to the doctor's clinic and ask for more pills, to replace the ones I threw away.

I didn't mean to chuck them. I suspect I was having a tense or animated conversation with someone, and reached into my pocket without being aware of what I was doing.

I found the plastic baggies (as one reader called them) in which doctors here prescribe medicine. Thinking they were rubbish, I tossed them.

I discovered my minor loss last night when I returned from work. My fading memory served up an image of myself folding up the bags and throwing them in the rubbish.

Needless to say, I looked everywhere...for the 100th time, my shirt pocket; my work bag, my trousers, the rubbish bin in my room. Nothing.

Once upon a time, such a minor loss would not have concerned me. But as I get older, I worry more. If I see a sponge in the wrong place by the kitchen sink, I will re-align it. I like my environment to be just right.

I called work to ask someone to check the bins. Kindly, he obliged, but found nothing.

A week from now, I will find them somewhere else entirely, and will discover I did not throw them out at all. It was all in my imagination, as are most things these days. Why can't I spend just a single day grounded in reality?

There are jobs to be done, people to meet (okay, not so many of them - I am a mere migrant labourer in Thailand, after all).

We need to concentrate.

PS: My admission above that I like an orderly living environment is not an invitation to regular reader the Shrink to psycho-analyse. Just chill, fella. In a few more years you'll be just like me, and know what it's like.

Vanilla fudge taunt

Chef Maiyuu has tried his hand at vanilla fudge, made with plenty of milk chocolate and a pod of vanilla. He asked me if I could smell the vanilla.

'Yes,' I said, though the scent of chocolate was stronger.

I have eaten two pieces. The rest of the fudge is sitting in the fridge, and stares at me whenever I open it. 'Eat me!' it says.

I am loath to eat too much, as the doctor has warned me not to pig out on sweet stuff. 'You've had a fungal rash...often they are associated with diabetes,' he says.

Actually, a foreigner doctor I know says there is probably no reason for alarm.

Recently I took a course of antibiotics for another minor complaint. The antibiotics could have set off the rash.

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This message just in, from reader Su...

'Hi Bkk.. I think what you and Maiyu have is really sweet. Love your coupley tales.. And Maiyu is a great cook! I cant believe I actually look forward to pics of his creations.. :) '

Thank you for the compliment. Sometimes I wonder if Maiyuu's repertoire of dishes will ever run out.

While he has his favourites, he rarely cooks the same dish, perhaps because he enjoys experimenting and trying out new recipes.