Green curry duck, user Thais, Kong, Phiwit: boredom sets in

Chef Maiyuu s pulled a large duck carcass out of the fridge yesterday, and like a professional butcher started cutting it up.

The meat went into the casserole. I thought he was making it for Golf - his friend with the pet Chihuahua – but in fact it was for us.

Golf, who regularly orders dishes from him, pays Maiyuu for the ingredients.

He makes meals and bakery dishes, which she takes home to her family. 'Mum likes duck...can you make duck?'

We pay for the electricity, gas, water, and anything else we haven’t bought the same day to prepare her dish.

Forget the coconut milk? Never mind, we’ll use our own!

Forget to buy wrapping plastic? No worries, we have plenty in spares.

Maiyuu also donates his labour and cooking skills, which I find upsetting. It’s not an ideal arrangement, but they are friends.

Golf does, however, have the good sense not to appear when our money is running short.

She usually visits us around payday, when we are still flush with cash and presumably don’t mind indulging her wishes.

Dear Golf, why don’t you and your Mum cook something, and invite Maiyuu around as your guest some time?

Friendship is a two-way thing. No one likes a leech.
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Kong looks in danger of losing his eyesight after his road accident in Tomorrow, I’ll Still Love You.

His eyesight is fine one moment, fades to blur the next.

In last night’s episode, when he realises he might go blind, he picks a fight with boyfriend Phiwit.

‘Don’t come back here...I don’t want to see you again,’ he says by the front gate. Phiwit is shocked, as they were getting along so well.

Moments before, they were teasing each other playfully in the kitchen, as Kong whipped up a quick meal.

Kong heats his cooking oil for a weary 10 minutes as he and his boyfriend exchange playful banter. ‘Sssss...’ goes the oil, raising this viewer’s tension levels.

When will Kong stop playing around with his mate, and get on with cooking?

As Kong’s oil bubbles away restlessly, Kong tells Phiwit to get a haircut, as his hair is too long.

‘Shall I cut it all off, and go skinhead?’ asks Phiwit.

‘No...I don’t like that,’ says Kong. He wants his boyfriend looking good, not like some bald-headed bodgie on a bike.

Phiwit leaves the kitchen, Kong’s eyesight fails again. Fade, blur, shaky cam.

Kong stumbles around his cooking space. Scary close-ups of the sautéed chicken and the angry wok follow.

Will he wear the cooking oil, and in a delicious helping of tragedy heaped upon ill-fate, end up facially disfigured as well?

Phiwit re-enters just at the right moment. The spatula has gone on a quick airborne journey across the kitchen, but apart from that, no drama has transpired.

Cooking-oil crisis averted, he asks if Kong is okay.

‘I think we’d better get you back to hospital!

Sitting in the garden, Kong commiserates with his sister and the household help over his likely fate as a blind man.

His Mum overhears them talking; she is shocked to discover that her son reckons he might lose his sight.

Oh piss off, woman. Your family keeps you in the dark, and you are too stupid to figure out what’s going on. You stopped being credible long ago; now you are just a pain.

Cut to the front gate. Phiwit has bought in food from outside. He gives it to the household help.

Kong presents himself at the gate and tells Phiwit to leave his life.

Unspoken, dramatic sub-text: If he does go blind, he doesn’t want Phiwit to have to carry the burden.

Kong picks up a hose and turns it on his boyfriend, trying to shoo him away.

Phiwit wrestles it off him, gets cross, and storms off.

‘When you’re ready to talk sense, call me,’ he says.

‘But you’re all wet. Hurry inside and change, or you’ll get a cold,’ he adds.

Gakkk. Director’s message to increasingly impatient audience: Phiwit and Kong are sweet, caring and protective of each other, no matter how many crises beset their lives.

Where most straight characters in the show have long ago abandoned any decorum as the pressure heaps on, Kong and Phiwit can still be decent to each other, despite the occasional fight or misunderstanding.

It’s this tender stuff which gets viewer fans of this gay coupling so excited.

Later, Kong and the household help (Toon, a fat ladyboy inserted for comic relief) turn up at the racetrack where Phiwit, a hi-so type, races cars.

As they watch from a distance, Phiwit is talking to a handsome young man who could be mistaken for his next gay wife.

Kong watches Phiwit, but doesn’t let him know he’s there.

‘How could you have found a new wife so fast!’ he’s thinking.

Kong’s eyesight fails again, so Toon hurries him away. I could go on, but by this stage I was sick of the show's melodrama, and was busy with other things.

Boyfriend Maiyuu and I jeered as we watched it.

It airs again tonight. I will carry on writing brief summaries, though to be honest I can’t wait for it to end.

Whatever gay promise that the Kong/Phiwit coupling once held has been dashed against the rocks of credulity. It’s just another ‘saow Y’ fantasy (girls who like to fantasise over gays). Anyone who tells you differently is a member of the ‘saow Y’ generation herself.

Here’s a definition of saow Y (เด็ก ตัวน้อยใสซื่อ) supplied by a denizen of the Pantip webboard:

สาว Y = สาวน้อยน่ารักใสซื่อไร้เดียงสาที่ชอบจินตนาการจับคู่ชายหนุ่ม A กับชายหนุ่ม B ให้เป็นแฟนกัน (แม้ที่จริงพวกเขาจะเป็นชายแท้ก็ตาม) ถึงแม้จะจินตนาการอย่างนั้นแต่แท้จริงหัวใจพวกเธอล้วนบริสุทธิ์ดังนางฟ้าตัวน้อยๆ

An expensive stomach

‘That’s an expensive stomach,’ said Maiyuu, giving my belly a disapproving prod.

‘No, not expensive...we just have to invest in it often,’ I said, referring to my large appetite, and the fact that I like to eat.

The day before pay day, our money has run out, as it usually does at this time.

‘If you sold it, you’d probably never get the investment back,’I added.

‘We could chop you up and sell it as kuay teow neua nam khon (beef noodles),’ suggested Maiyuu.

‘You could only sell it the once – once it’s gone, that’s it,’I replied.

‘Yes...but it would last all week,’ said Maiyuu.

Roll on pay day!

Reluctant mop man

‘I might have to clean the floor today...I can’t bear it any more,’ said Maiyuu.

Just yesterday, he had told me that the floors would have to wait until the middle of the week, but now even he is starting to notice that the floor feels sticky underfoot.

I sweep every few days, usually when he has stepped outdoors. But it is not enough...those underfoot surfaces also need a regular scrub and polish.

Maiyuu appears to have missed last week's appointment with the mop, rag, or whatever he uses.

During the past week, my floor cleaner has done little but sleep, while I have done little but work, including two 12-hour days (double-shifts) at the office.

I want some extra money over Christmas and New Year, to make up for the end-of-year bonus which my company this year says it cannot afford to pay.

I decided to work overtime to make what the company would otherwise pay me as a bonus, so I can buy myself a new pair of prescription glasses.

‘How much can we afford to spend on my glasses?’ I asked.

‘That will depend on how much you make,’ said ever-practical Maiyuu.

The first of my overtime payments comes out tomorrow.

Ice-cream inventions, bunny suits, prancing eunuchs

Chef Maiyuu’s strawberry/cream ice-cream...the strawberry number was made mainly with milk and cream, with a few strawberries thrown in. 

Next up, he will turn his hand to making lavender icecream - with real lavender!

‘I’ve figured out how to do it,’ he says.

We will have to wait until pay day early next week before attempting it.

Today, however, he will have a go at creating yellow watermelon ice-cream, which he can make without adding cream or other complicated things. Pictures to come.

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Maiyuu has bought himself several cotton body suits. They button up at the front, rise to the neck, and stretch down to the ankle. They look like the full-length underwear outfits which in wintry climes some men wear to bed.

There’s another name for them, but because I have lived in hot places for so long I can’t remember it.

I’d like to add, ‘Pictures to come’, but we might have to wait for Maiyuu to go out first, as he is a reluctant model.

I call them his ‘bunny suits’, because Maiyuu looks like a baby rabbit when he wears them - minus the fluffy tail and twitching ears, of course.

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They are chaste and harmless, but that’s the way Thais like their gay couples portrayed.

Fans rave over the gay Kong-Phiwit coupling in the Channel 5 series, Tomorrow, I’ll Still Love You.

On webboards, enthusiasts have started mini-novels depicting the romance between Kong and Phiwit as they would like to see it end. Others call for sitcoms starring the pair.

In one recent episode, Kong and Phiwit looked as if they might share their first kiss.

Women fans were beside themselves, according to one guy writing at the Pantip webboard, who says his office came to a stand-still.

Yet what we have seen so far is tame - and not just because the pair have yet to go to bed.

Phiwit and Kong show each other puppy love. They bait and tease each other, which is romantic and cute.

Yet it is hardly real. Once they pass the initial courting stage, what next?

Asked what they want from the relationship, most fans at Pantip agree they are happy for the pair to hold hands, hug, and give each other moral support.

Few want to see it go any further, however, as that would take their relationship beyond the realm of ‘innocent love’, into a scary real-life zone.

Like...bad breath in the morning? A lover who sits around all day while his partner goes out to work?

When talking about their roles, the actors playing Kong and Phiwit are careful to say the characters are merely close friends. The dreaded 'G' word never gets a mention, and not just because they want to spare their own feelings as actors.

They want to keep the fantasy alive for mainstream viewers, many of whom are teenage women. The producers have told them that too much real stuff turns people off.

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As the series enters its final stretch, thinking types are opining on its virtues.

Gay blogger/broadcaster Vitaya S says critics of the series are not so much ‘old-fashioned’ as merely homophobic.

The series gets a brief mention at the start and again at the end of his article, but otherwise it’s just a vehicle for Vitaya the aspiring gay activist to hop on his soapbox. Knock yourself out!

More inspiring is ‘The unbearable lightness of chastity’, a think piece in the Nation newspaper.

Author Paisarn Likhitpreechakul says the relationship between Phiwit and Kong emulates a Thai-style courtship (just Thai?) where the guy goes to great lengths to gain the trust of the woman who has taken his interest.

Here are excerpts, with tiny editing changes (link to the original article follows):

"There's no sex involved. Just caring for the other and his family, staring into each other's eyes, occasional hand-holding and brief consoling embraces.

"Despite the crazy tumult of heterosexual lust, jealousy and rage around them [in the series], or perhaps because of it, Phiwit and Kong's relationship somehow emerges as the moral underpinning of the whole show. And that's what has put the conservatives up in arms.

"One newspaper columnist wrote that the show's portrayal of gay relationships may 'normalise such relationships and mislead Thai youths into believing that they are acceptable'.

"Most fans are average members of the audience who overlook the gender of the protagonists and see the relationship for what it is - an insufferable tenderness for each other that is love.

"However, there's another side to this enthusiasm. Although it is doubtful that we'll see so much as a peck on the cheek between Phiwit and Kong, I wonder how many of these fans would remain faithful if the star-crossed lovers were to be shown spending a night together in bed - something freely allowed to onscreen heterosexual couples.

"It seems the only same-gender relationships palatable to Thai audiences and the public at large will remain - for the time being - hopelessly idealistic relationships between eunuchs."

Vitaya’s turgid blog piece is here (Thai only). The Nation piece is here (link harvested - it died).

Kong, Phiwit: When being hit by a car is not so bad

Go on, scoop him up!

The tumultuous road accident scene in Tomorrow, I'll Still Love You (พรุ่งนี้ก็รักเธอ) has finally arrived.

Phiwit is still being persecuted by his straight elder brother Phiphat.

Dastardly Phiphat turns up at his place, where Phiwit is giving shelter to his boyfriend Kong.

Phiphat can’t accept that his brother is gay – or, as he puts it, a sexual abnormality.

Kong hides upstairs, the encounter passes without incident. However, when they venture outside, Kong and Phiwit find Phiphat waiting for them in his car.

A fight ensures, and Kong and Phiwit run away. Phiphat chases them in his car.
The pair tries to make it across the road, but a car is coming.

Kong sees it, tries to get his lover Phiwit out the way, but ends up getting hit himself.

He bounces off the car onto the road, where after a brief body-roll towards the gutter comes into contact with broken shards of glass. His eyes are bleeding. Phiwit cradles his gay lover in his arms, distraught.

Kong is taken to hospital, where he undergoes surgery.

Phiwit calls Kaew, Kong’s sister, to tell her the news.

Kaew knows they are a couple, and has previously tried to force them apart.

She turns up at the hospital with her boss/lover Por.

Por and Kaew

They are the male/female leads in the show. It is good to see Por/Kaew, and supporting leads Kong/ Phiwit, connect.

Kaew blames Phiwit for the accident which has befallen her brother. An angry exchange follows.

‘This is why I don’t want you to be together!’

Phiwit begs her forgiveness, while Por tries to restrain her. In his eyes, she’s gone too far.

Teary hospital scenes follow...Phiwit holds his lover's hand as Kong, his eyes bandaged, recovers in his hospital bed.

Kong may have lost his eyesight, as the glass shards penetrated deeply into his eyes, says the doctor.

As they wait for news at hospital, Por and Por talk about the problems they share in common, in what was one of the best moments of last night’s show.

Por loves Kaew, but circumstances are always getting in the way. It’s love one moment, animosity the next.

Phiwit’s dilemma is the same. He loves Kong, but because they are gay, family members are trying to force them apart.

‘Kong has someone who loves him,’ says Phiwit, referring to Kaew, who does not want the gay relationship to continue.

‘But I will never give in... I will never consent to losing him.’

Por commends Phiwit’s strength.

‘To be forced apart when you love someone...just how far can you go?’

He says if he had shown the same courage earlier, he and Kaew could love each other now without problem.

‘Still, it’s never too late,’ says Phiwit, encouraging Por to press on.

It is a sweet scene. I liked seeing Por talking reassuringly to Phiwit, who is worried about his gay lover.

Por is straight, but does not judge him. Phiwit can see Por’s problems in the same dispassionate light.

Cut to the hospital bed, and it’s time for the big unveiling. The doctor peels away Kong’s eye gauze. How is his eyesight?

Kong is a gay boy at heart. In his first remark, he compliments his mother on her choice of dress.

Obviously, he can still see. However, his eyesight keeps going fuzzy...maybe he is not so right after all.

The series continues next Monday.

Watch the action here, here, and here (links harvested - they died).

In the first clip, Kong and Phiwit share a cute scene over a cup of tea. Phipat arrives, drama ensues. They leave the condo, only to find him lying in wait outside. Phiphat gives chase. Kong gets hit by a car.

In the second clip, Phiwit calls Kaew to tell her about the accident. At the hospital, they argue.

The doctor warns Kong’s family that the patient may not see again. Por and Phiwit talk about the problems they have in common, and Phiwit comforts his lover by his hospital bed.

In the third clip, the doctor removes Kong’s eye gauze. He can see, and his eye wounds have miraculously healed. However, Kong's eyesight still blurs out every few minutes. Is it a permanent condition? Will he tell anyone, or suffer heroically in silence?

Extra: Here's a background video of Kong/Phiwit's road accident scene (link harvested - it died). Fluke Pachara Thammon (ฟลุค พชร ธรรมมล) plays Kong, and Oh Anuchyd Sapanphong, Phiwit.

Your internet resource of choice for all things Kong/Phiwit must be Bee Boa, who has faithfully provided snapshots and videoclips of all the key scenes since the series began. Visit her Bloggang site here.