Wan Sat Jeen: Hungry ghosts, firecrackers, burning bins

Wan Sat Jeen offering

I can hear bursts of firecrackers in the distance. In the slum quarter close to my condo, Thai-Chinese traders were burning paper in bins.

Welcome to Wan Sat Jeen, otherwise known as the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival. We are exposed to it less now that we have moved to the centre of town.

But this time last year, when we still lived in a market dominated by Thai-Chinese, it was all around us. Apart from the firecrackers and the traders burning paper in bins, I remember the large crowds at the local market, buying duck as offerings to their ancestors.

Last year I tried buying half a boiled duck to eat. A market trader told me that Thais buy whole ducks, not half ones at this time of year; and buy them as offerings to ancestors, not for consumption. So that’s why the birds looked so tatty!

-
Maiyuu is making banana cakes for Golf, a woman friend.

He made a tray of cakes today, which he will take to her in a cardboard box this evening.

Thai-Chinese are great traders. Maiyuu has Chinese blood (though he doesn’t observe Wan Sat Jeen).

It would be great if this box of cakes were to be the start of a home baking venture.

He could put his Chinese trader ancestry, if he has any, to good use, and supplement our household income at the same time.

Home baking, anyone?

Salmon concession, paean to nerds, incompetent taxi, champion of journalists

Maiyuu is making a salmon dish (above).

He asked if he could listen to some ghastly teen-style pop on the stereo while he works.

I can hardly begrudge him, if the salmon ends up tastier as a result.

-
I ventured into the tourist area for a quick beer with farang C, my neighbour.

As we drank, my eye was taken by three young French men at a table nearby. One guy was moderately well-built, with sensitive eyes and wavy hair.

‘I fancy the one in blue with glasses,’ I told farang C, who is straight, but likes to check out the men who take my fancy.

‘You like nerdy types,’ he remarked, as the three youngsters left.

‘It is good to see the faces of strangers occasionally, even foreigners,’ I remarked.

‘You’re such a social recluse that you rarely see anyone any more except for people at work,’ said farang C.

-
On my way home, the taxi lost his way.

This happens so often to me it is barely worth commenting on any more. I live in the centre of town, where most tourists also gather; yet in most cases, the taxis will not know where they are going.

Taxis, in fact, are one of the reasons I seldom go out. I don’t like being dependent on their services.

I could have walked, and with a little fumbling, found my way home. But it was raining, and by the time I left farang C, I was tired.

The taxi took a right when he should have kept going. ‘What is it with you Thai taxi drivers – why can’t you find even the simplest of things?’ I snapped.

‘I don’t know these side streets, but I do know the main roads,’ replied the driver, aged in his 60s.

A Thai song from the 30s was playing on his radio.

Normally I like those old songs, but when he took his wrong turn the mood changed instantly. It sounded like caterwauling, and I almost told him to turn it off.

‘I just gave you directions for a main road, but you can’t find it,’ I said, talking over the radio noise.

A moment later, he took a second wrong turn.

‘You’re a disgrace. You shouldn’t be driving if you can’t find your way around,’ I said.

I told him to take the easy back route. I left his taxi at a 7-11 at the back of our place, and walked across the slum to get home.

I didn’t mind the walk; it was better than spending another moment in the company of a taxi driver who was too incompetent to be on the road.

The taxi driver we took to go out also needed help, as he, too, had no idea where to go.

‘Just keep going straight ahead,’ said farang C wearily.

-
Maiyuu is showing a young woman friend how to bake cookies.

He spent most of the day at her place yesterday.

I can’t recall how she came to sample his cookies, but she liked them, and offered to pay him for the instruction.

She also wants to pay him to bake cakes.

-
Hong Kong blogger Joyce Hor-Chung asks why I link to her blog.

In a post, she linked back to Bangkok of the Mind, after I added her, unheralded, to my blog roll a few weeks ago:

'Here's another linkback -- or whatever kids are calling it these days -- to a site that links to Joyceyland, and that has contributed a good number of hits.

'Bangkok of the Mind is written by a farang (that would be Thai for
gweilo) and his local boyfriend.

'It's decked out with G-rated glossy pix of cute boys in their underwear, and is about daily life, food, cooking, Thai celebrities, etc.

'The great thing about personal blogs is that they give you a fly-on-the-wall look of lives you would never lead yourself.'

She adds: ‘God knows what those Bangkok boys see in Joyceyland.’

Joyce is a journalist for the International Herald Tribune. Why did I add her?

I like print journalists.

Like Joyce, most take a no-nonsense approach to writing.

She understands that less is more – once they have answered the five W's (who, what, where, when and why), is there anything left to say?

Back into the kitchen, plea for pleasant comments

It’s the day before pay day, and chef Maiyuu is in the kitchen making khao toon na moo tord, a Japanese-style pork omelette.

He makes it with a couple of Japanese sauces, one of which tastes like beer.

It’s the first time he has made a meal in days. Instead, we have been buying prepared food from a market close to home.

He cycles down there every morning, and buys three or four servings of food. When he gets home, he makes the rice to go with it. That food keeps us going for the rest of the day.

‘When I buy from the market, it is much cheaper than making our own. If we are to save money, I’ll have to make my own food less often, and supplement it with food I buy from the market,’ he said yesterday, as we discussed savings plans.

So, Maiyuu will probably cycle to the market to buy food someone else has made, two or three days a week. On the other days, he’ll make his own.

The food from the market is not as tasty, and gets boring after a while, but we can’t have everything. Making our own dishes every day, especially to the restaurant-style standards which Maiyuu sets for himself, is just too expensive.

-
Alert readers will notice a few Asian food blogs on the blog roll. I added another one today, Sticky Rice, by an Australian expatriate living in Vietnam.

I like his simple description of what his blog sets out to accomplish: ‘Eating, drinking, sitting, watching -these are the things we love about Hanoi. On this site we will attempt to eat our way through Vietnam's northern capital and pass on the results.’

In one recent post, the author ‘shares’ a nasty email he received from one reader, which made me recall similar unpleasant comments I have received from readers of this blog over the years.

The email is spectacularly rude, and xenophobic. Here’s an excerpt:

'It's always so much fun to listen to a pretentious, self-important expat brit [sic] try to work out his colonial complex by fawning over primitive cultures...’

Now that we have a new template, I thought it might be time to mark a new start in other ways, by making an appeal for pleasant commentary on this blog.

I am not keen on diatribes, especially those about my relationship with my Thai guy. From now on, they get the boot.

Their authors like to dress up their criticism as ‘helpful advice’, and some of it is interesting as feedback. But too much negative carping, as these comments inevitably comprise, lowers the tone. Few readers seem interested anyway.

The internet can attract some odd types, as we know.

Even after 3.5 years of blogging, I am still stunned at the unpleasantness, impatience and general lack of manners which I routinely find in reader comments left at blogs (not just my own). Who do these people think they are?

Most blogging is poorly rewarded. The authors are kind enough to share details of their lives. In so doing they invite criticism, of course.

But we don’t really know what their lives are like; we are hardly in a position to judge, still less criticise. Those readers who persist in posting one rant after another obviously have a complex of their own they need to overcome.

I have a couple of my own regular critics. One left unpleasant messages in response to the post on the savings box. I have deleted them, along with my reply. As I say, it’s time for a fresh start.

Read the Sticky Rice ‘I’ve got hate mail’ post in full, here.

Strange signals: Thais, raise little finger; farang, scowl

I passed a foreigner moving out of our condo.

He had deposited his household possessions on the ground floor, and with the help of his girlfriend was moving them out piece by piece to a truck in the courtyard.

I know how awkward it feels to have your life on display as you are moving from one place to another.

I felt like I was invading their privacy. I could hardly stare at their stuff, still less (perish the thought), pick over it, like a shopper at a weekend market.

‘Oh, that’s a nice hanging basket – where did you get that then, luv?’

They had bought similar stuff to us, I noted approvingly.

Outside, the cleaner’s child was playing. He could have been a girl, but was probably a boy.

‘Mum – who’s this?’ he asked, as he saw me approach.

‘A farang,’ I answered for him. ‘I live here.’

He said nothing, but raised one pinky finger in the air.

I looked at him. What was this, code?

‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

‘It means, Okay,’ he said.

Do kids not talk any more, but use hand signals?

As I approached the lift, I came face to face with the foreigner tenant. He gave me a hostile look, as if I was intruding on his space.

I get used to that look from foreigners here. It is like they have discovered paradise, and don’t want anyone else to share it.

The Look says: 'Listen mate, I’m an old hand here. Buzz off!’

-
I visited the pool twice today without seeing anyone, as usual. It’s quiet up there, even when the sun is out.

Thais don’t like the sun, so stay away until late afternoon. But where are the foreigners?

It's a Saturday morning, so perhaps they are busy taking in Bangkok.

I have been here too long (longer even than the owner of that childish hostile stare, I dare say), so am all fascinated out.

Back to the past: Template change relief

Alert readers will notice that I have gone back to a stretchy version of the old template, with a single-column sidebar on the right.

I will leave it up for the time being to see if I can live with it on the right; my eye instinctively looks for these things on the left.

Readers were unhappy with the old template, as the column width for posts was too narrow. I agree. The search box was also hopeless.

For this template, I have downloaded a new Google-powered blog search engine, which is more accurate than the search engine on the old template.

I am open to suggestions, but for the kind which say: ‘I preferred the old template better. Change it.’

PS: Hopefully Adsense clicks (for ads which take your interest only, please) will also improve. Lately they have all but died, perhaps because readers disliked the new design.

-
Diary-style posts will resume after pay day on Monday. For now I am posting entertainment news only, as our household budget is in lockdown mode – in plain terms, we have run out of money.

Once the money comes in again, I am sure we will have more adventures worth sharing.