Teen slum party, uncle grows detached

It was Ball’s first night back home after three days away at his grandmother’s place.

Ball and his family fled to her place in Onnut to escape power cuts in Klong Toey last Wednesday.

Mum invited half a dozen family members back with them. Ball’s elder brother, Boy was there, as were two youngsters aged about the same as Ball; two or three kids under 10, and their mother, a woman in her 30s.

They joined Ball's family for the night in their cramped slum home.

While the women folk squeezed in to Mum’s bedroom for a sleep, the guys – with Mr Ball acting as host – decided to drink up large in the living room. Mum herself went out for the night, to play HiLo.

Earlier, she called to invite me. Flouting curfew (just a short walk across the vacant lot, dear reader), I turned up to help the young ones celebrate.

It didn’t take Ball long to get into the swing of things.

A couple of times, he ducked out into the slum, returning with friends in tow, so at its busiest point we had 13 teens in the room, including Ball and his girlfriend, Jay, who had decided to let her hair down for once and join us.

Most of the visitors had seen me before.

Still, some behaved painfully in that show-offy way which teens have when in the company of adults.

One lad, who had spiked his hair and fancied himself as a hi-so, liked to talk into his cellphone in a showy manner and look important.

Another, who looked like half Caucasian, half Thai, dragged along his girlfriend. He was the only guy in the room who brought his partner.

He liked to dance and do fancy Indian-style hand movements, especially when he thought I was looking.

Ball was noisy, like the rest, but did not show off. He was our flush-faced barman, busy recharging empty glasses including mine. A couple of times, youngsters in the room dipped in to their own pocket to replenish supplies, but mainly it was me.

Someone set up a CD machine, which played karaoke videos. I was sitting closest to the TV, and the microphone could only stretch so far, so if they wanted to sing, guests had to sit near me.

Ball took a few turns with the microphone. He has a remarkable singing voice – high, nasal, and pretty...almost ghostly in the way it flutters around the notes.

As soon as he finished his first song, he looked at me for a response. ‘Did that sound good?’ he asked.

When he finished, he went back to the centre of the room to resume his duties as host.

At midnight, I cleaned up around the guests. The young ones were feeling the effects of their drink, and were starting to argue. As the rain pelted down, they ducked in and out of Ball's place to smoke.

One bare-chested, sodden youngster - his trousers sagging, and boxers up to his armpits - started to cry.

At 1am, I handed over the reins to the next oldest person in the room – Tum, the boyfriend of Boy’s elder sister – and left for home.

-
Ball and his girlfriend Jay haven’t worked since late last month.

They have found new jobs, staffing sales booths at city department stores. But thanks to the red-shirt troubles on Bangkok’s streets, they have yet to start.

A set of white work shirts hangs in the living room, where they have sat for a week.

I do not ask any longer about their work plans. Once, I would have pumped Ball or his mother with questions like: ‘When is your first day? Do you have all the work clothes you need?'

Now, I wait to be told. And even when told, sometimes I make no response.

What these people make of their lives is up to them, not me. I can’t help, other than by dipping into my pocket occasionally.

I have noticed that whenever I offer to help Ball, he does his best to avoid accepting it.

I bought him a small item of clothing on our last family visit to a department store a couple of weeks ago.

At home, I tossed it to him. He caught it - and threw it into his younger brother’s bedroom, where as far as I know, it remains untouched.

I no longer feel the need to help as much as I did before.

If I spend when he is at home, it’s usually on the brown stuff.

Several weeks ago, I gave Mum some money to help her buy work gear for Ball in the job which he has yet to start.

She bought some of his uniform, but not all. No doubt I will hear about whatever else she needs to buy, the next time she wants to tell me. I may, nor may not, feel like helping.

When we visit the department store or spermarket, I wheel around the cart, or the pram.

I enjoy looking after the toddlers, and watching their interaction with other family members.

Ball and Jay play together, as teens do.

Mum and I can talk, but for the most part – other than when we are drinking – Ball and I have little to say to each other.

In the West, I am an uncle many times over to the children of my brother and sisters. I love them, but seldom get to see them, as I live over here.

I would never ask myself, as I do when in the company of Ball’s family: What am I doing with these people?

Today, Mum and her family are likely to visit the department store again. She is likely to invite me along. It will be another opportunity, in dull moments, for me to ask myself the same thing.

‘Just why are you here?'

Doing the best we can?

Bangkok shortly before curfew, at least in the seedy parts of town I pass as I get from home to work and back, is a forlorn place. Shops are closed, and public transport is out. Kids zip about on motorbikes, pointing at the white face.

Taxis have taken fright. Few ply their trade at night, but they started disappearing even before a curfew was declared for the first time several days ago.

I avoided them even before the curfew regime, as my taxi route home would have taken me past a fortified encampment set up by the red shirts. On foot, I was able to cut across railway lines, over fences and past overbridges unseen.

The city cut the lighting, plunging streets into darkness. But never mind. I still felt safer left to my own devices than having to trust anyone else.

-
I am finding it hard to forgive Thais for what they did. The charm has drained away from this place...whatever it is that keeps me living here took a beating over the past few days of violence, senseless looting, and arson attacks on city landmarks.

Artistic types have started a campaign to bring back Siam’s smile. Actors and singer pose [link harvested - it died] before a director’s camera as they tour the wreckage of Silom, like birds picking over a discarded meal. Good luck to you – I won’t be heading there for a while yet.

However, I admire the fire-fighters, medics and so on who had no choice but to venture into that war zone while the fighting was raging.

I admire even more the unsung street cleaners, utilities men, builders and so on who will have to put the place back together again.

Most of all I have praise for the soldiers, even if some of them wore shooting at random. Many are just kids, serving out their time as conscripts.

-
Ball and family have been away for the last two days. When the red shirt leaders surrendered on Wednesday, extremist elements in their ranks went on a rampage, setting fire to prominent buildings – symbols of the city’s establishment and its elite.

Among their targets was the local electricity company. Power to Ball’s slum was cut. When I dropped in to their place in mid-afternoon, the place was in darkness.

Mum and other members of the household were hurriedly packing their things, ready to evacuate to her own mother’s place about 10min away.

On the first day over there, they busied themselves laying floor tiles. They stayed a second night, and again yesterday. Mum mentioned something about her eldest son, a soldier, paying a visit.

‘We are sleeping tops and tails,’ she told me last night. ‘Ball and his elder sister are sleeping with me,’ she said.

Space sounds as much at a premium at her mother’s place as it is her own.

On the night before he left, I spoke to Ball, who was drunk. He asked me why I spend so much time with him, and so little time with my boyfriend.

‘I think you are lonely and bored,’ he said.

True...I am. In the absence of his family, I have spent the last two days at home with Maiyuu, which was dull if bearable. Thankfully, I am still working, or I would have gone spare.

The next night, when I called his mother, he was drinking again. He could not remember any of our conversation the day before, which is typical.

He’ll be back today. I am working, but will drop in at some point.

I am not used to being absent from Ball and his family for so long, and wonder if we can slip back into our old habits as easily as before.

Idle-taxi driver Lort stayed at home. Two days ago, I dropped in to their place to see him. He was sitting idly on the couch.

The power had just been restored, after a wait of more than 12 hours. Dog shit and other detritus had piled up in the alleyway outside.

An uncle figure who helps the family occasionally takes a broom to the rubbish in the alleyway. I doubt Lort has ever lifted a broom in his life.

If slum families are failed families, Lort is part of what holds this one back from doing any better.

Even in the lead-up to the government’s crackdown this week, some Westerners were comparing Thailand to a failed state.

So, what elements do a Bangkok slum family, and Thailand’s ‘failed state’ have in common?

Domestic drama, crysanthemum make-up

Ball and Jay have found jobs staffing sales booths at city department stores. While they will work for the same company, they are at different locations.

They were to start work yesterday, but the inner-city clashes between red shirt protesters and security forces have forced a delay.

According to girlfriend Jay, the company head called on Sunday evening to say they could stay at home the next two days, as the red shirt mobs have forced department stores to close early.

They should start work on Wednesday instead, he suggested.

However, Jay kept this news to herself for the first 12 hours after the boss called.

When I dropped in to Ball’s place shortly before midnight on Sunday, she told me another story.

‘Tomorrow, you might want to take Ball to work, as I have the day off,’ said Jay.

The next day I turned up at 9am, ready to take him to his new job. I dressed up, in case he wanted me to take him into the department store where he will work. We were supposed to get there at 10.40am.

After greeting his Mum, I mounted the stairs to his room. The door was open. Ball and Jay were sound asleep. I pulled his toes.

‘I don’t have to go to work today,’ he mumbled.

At first, I didn’t get it. I went back downstairs to await The Master’s arrival. Mum had bought food. I put it into bowls, and poured him a cup of water.

Ten minutes later, he staggered downstairs. He did not eat, or talk.

He sat in front of the TV, looking morose. ‘I feel weak,’ he said.

I gave him some money for an energy drink.

After knocking that back, he forced himself to eat...and retired to his mother’s bedroom for more sleep.

Mum was busy with the toddlers and didn’t notice, or didn’t care.

Again, I was confused. What about work?

I massaged Ball’s body as he lay on Mum’s bed, hoping it would give him the strength he needed to get up, take a shower, and get dressed.

‘I don’t have to go to work today,’ he said again.

What?

His girlfriend Jay joined us downstairs.

Slowly it dawned on me that they weren’t going to work, despite what she had told everyone earlier about a Monday start.

Mum, and Ball's elder sister Kae were just as confused.

‘So just when do you intend starting?’ Kae asked Jay.

‘Wednesday,’ she announced.

I was upset. Once, I would have blamed myself for such a misunderstanding. Perhaps I misheard, I would tell myself.

But I knew I wasn’t wrong. I recalled clearly what the little madam had told me the night before. While she would spend the day at home, Ball would have to work. She also invited me to take him there.

As soon as I discovered Ball had no intention of working after all, I left.

However, 10 minutes later I called his mother, as I couldn’t let the matter rest.

‘When did Ball’s boss call to say he wouldn’t be needed at work, when as late as midnight last night, he still intended to go?’I asked.

Mum knew nothing. I was about to take a dip in my condo swimming pool at the time, but decided to go back to clear the matter.

Jay was sitting with Mum on the sofa. Ball was sitting on a chair next to them, in front of the TV.

I demanded Jay explain.

‘Why did you ask me here when you must have known he was not going to work?' I asked.
'I rose early, and raced over here...only to find that Ball had no intention of going,’ I said.

‘I told Ball at 3am today that he could take the day off,’ she admitted.

‘And when did you find out?’

‘Early last evening, while we were shopping,’ she said. Ball had stayed at home, so knew nothing about the call.

Mum and Jay had gone to a department store to buy clothes for their first day at work. She bought Ball and Jay white shirts, but had yet to buy the black trousers he needs.

‘I didn’t want to tell you, just in case you ended up drinking with Ball,’ she said. 'And I wanted Ball to think he was still going to work, so he would go to bed early.'

She deceived us both to keep her boyfriend away from the sauce.

'You assumed I wanted to drink. I didn't. It was midnight...I dropped in to give your mother some food,' I told her.

‘Unless his mother consents, I don’t buy him anything, and I have told you that before,' I said. ‘You have no right to deceive me, or keep your boyfriend in the dark,’ I declared.

As my voice rose, Ball turned up the volume on the TV.

Bail suppresses his worries, which makes him stressed. He can only take so much before lashing out at his girlfriend - usually after hitting the sauce.

Yet here I was, adding to his problems.

An hour or so later, I asked to talk to Mum alone.

She sent Ball and Jay out to perform an errand.

Mum is no fan of Jay. She is lazy, dishonest, and fails to pull her weight around home, she believes.

Nonetheless, she is Ball’s girlfriend, I reminded her – and he’s better off with her than without.

While we sat talking, Ball’s boss called.

Their conversation was over in a moment. According to Mum, the boss asked why Ball had not turned up for work.

What?

‘Jay told Ball he didn’t have to go to work, but I am not sure that’s right,’ said Mum.

‘I suspect she was worried I wouldn’t be able to buy her pants in time, so decided if she had to skip a day’s work, Ball should too,’ she said.

That’s too complicated for my sore head.

But as Ball and Jay returned, I lashed out at her a second time.

‘We’ve caught you out in a lie again,’ I said.

‘What are you talking about?’ she said angrily.

'Your boss never called to say Ball should take the day off - you made it up,' I said.

Mum mumbled something, as she tried to keep the peace. Ball sat down on the floor as if nothing was happening.

Jay fled to her bedroom upstairs in tears, while Mum went out to play HiLo with friends.

I was left with Ball, who said he was stressed and didn’t want to hear any more arguing.

‘She didn’t lie. You misunderstood,’ he insisted.

‘Well, your Mum thinks she lied. We care for you, but go about it in different ways. But if I have to take sides between your mother and Jay, I side with Mum,’ I told him.

‘Yes...but she’s my girlfriend,’ he said.

I looked at him.

‘Next to your girlfriend, I have no rights, Ball...and if you want me to leave, I am happy to go,’ I said.

Jay came down the stairs, her face puffy with tears. ‘Where’s your Mum?’ she asked Ball, over and over. She started packing up her clothes.

Jay had decided to leave, which is her usual reaction when she wants to punish her boyfriend.

I wanted to leave too.

‘I will be back in early evening. In the meantime, please talk to her,’ I told Ball. ‘It’s possible that Mum and I have misunderstood,’ I said.

Jay is his girlfriend, and as such she takes priority, no matter what Mum thinks, or what I want.

I don’t like making people cry, but nor will I stand by Jay as deceives me, and withholds information from her boyfriend.

‘Please insist on dealing with all work matters yourself – even if you do work for the same company,’ I told him.

As I sit in Ball’s cramped home, sometimes I look at the slum alleyway outside, longing for a catalyst, some drama which will test Ball's loyalty to me, or my own loyalty to his family...some crisis which will give us all our freedom, and the chance to start again.

PS: Two hours later, I went back with a peace offering. Ball had gone out with his younger brother to play football. I took a bunch of chrysanthemum flowers for Jay, and apologised.

I spoke to her for 20min. Her spirits improved. We agreed to start again.

Looting in Silom, a day in Ball's slummy life

Red shirt protester smashes up a 7-11 in Silom (file pic)

Maiyuu passed scenes of looting while cycling to Silom this morning.

Thugs had looted one 7-11 store he passed. The window was smashed, and the stock inside had been cleared away, possibly by the staff removing it for safekeeping rather than the people who did the offending.

The glass doors of a a bank were smashed. He also passed a bank of blackened ATM machines, which protesters had firebombed.

Youth on motorcycles buzzed about, but otherwise the streets were quiet.

Maiyuu took a side road to avoid a large group of soldiers, bought his food supplies in Silom, and hurried back. With parts of the city in an apparent state of lawlessness, why chance fate?

-
Here is a selection of remarks from the lively comments section of this blog’s most recent post, about Mr Ball and his family in the slums.

Anon:

What if an 80yr old gay man took a liking to you and you had no interest in him sexually but he seemed to benefit you in different ways?

YOU WOULDNT LIKE IT.

Me (reply):

I must admit I have doubts about whether the relationship between Ball's family and myself is really 'natural'. Ball can still be awkward around me. He probably feels sorry for me.

However, he also understands why I might feel a need to care for someone in a family setting. 'You are far from home, and lonely,' he said once.

Part of me hopes for some development which changes everything, and which might lead to a parting of the ways which is just as 'natural'. It hasn't happened yet.

However, for the most part I just try to fit in. If I go out with them for the day, I help look after the little ones, just as the older ones such as Ball and his girlfriend Jay do.

At times, Jay dislikes my being around, which compounds my feelings of being an odd hanger-on.

Yet in that regard I probably feel the same way as many other farang who become part of a Thai family.

Anon:

You've written that anyone can walk into mum's house and sit down - just like you do. Are you sure that makes you one of the family?

Me (reply):

No, I'm not. Sometimes Mum looks startled when I hand her some money and suggest she buys this or that for the kids. 'Where did he get that idea?' she appears to be thinking.

Handing over money doesn't make me part of the family, as I can show interest in the welfare of its members anyway...by sharing in fun family moments, helping take care of the toddlers, and listening to Mum unload.

I still have to contribute something, of course, as even a visit to the department store can be expensive. Why should they pay for me?

If I didn't contribute, I'd become just another hanger-on - and Mum has enough relatives who has stuffed up their lives and rely on her for financial support as it is.

I have no claim to be a hanger-on, as I am not related...so I have to help with money occasionally. The question is, how much?

Assume Mum knows that I love her son. She is happy to accept my support as an expression of the way I feel.

I have my own reasons for being here...loneliness, perhaps. Who cares? Thais would tend to regard it as my business. No one asks why I am there, even though I am sitting in their own home.

But I don't think we should assume that the more money I give, the more eager they are to embrace my presence.

It's possible that a bare minimum would do; and that I have gained the right to be there because they enjoy a foreigner's presence, or because Thais are hospitable and generous people.

But where my financial contributions are concerned, if I knew what the bare minimum was, I'd embrace it eagerly myself!

Fran:

Do you really believe that by encouraging Ball's daily drinking, his laziness, his unwillingness to work, his long sleeping hours, his useless and purposeless life you are helping him to fulfil "his duty in life [which will] be complete when he is able to look after his mother, and his future wife and children"?

If you believe he can do it with his present life style, then it would be helpful to check your thinking process in an effort to make it logical and reasonable. Believe my good intentions.

Me:

Mr Ball is younger than many 19-year-olds, I suspect...and that is probably a product of the sad environment in which he lives.

I knew a young Thai once, only one year older than Ball, and lucky enough to come from a middle-class home.

By the time I met him, he had been on several trips to Australia, even to Europe, travelling alone.

When he felt like a break without going overseas, he would catch a bus to Hua Hin and stay in a fancy hotel by the beach for the weekend.

Compare his fortune with my friends from the slums. Mr Ball, a keen fan of English football, spent the day yesterday in a gaudy football shirt and shorts; he was intending to go out to play with his friends, but in the end stayed put.

That was the closest he was able to entertain dreams of life beyond the slums. His Mum abandoned Ball and the rest of his family at home while she played HiLo with friends nearby.

In the early evening, his elder sister went out to buy food in the market. Apart from one other simple meal which I bought for them earlier in the day - enough to feed two people, perhaps - no food appeared at their place all day.

In mid-afternoon, when I met Ball, he had eaten Mama instant noodles - the only thing which he could find to eat.

When I dropped in again at midnight, he was still awake, looking after toddler Feh, who refused to sleep.

His mother still wasn't back. In her absence, he and his girlfriend took turns waking to take care of the baby.

Is that a fair way to treat two young people still in their teens? I don't think so.

I didn't ask about the others...it's too depressing, and worrying about Ball alone is enough.

Anchan flowers, home sweet home

We’re coming up blue at our place. Boyfriend Maiyuu bought some blue anchan flowers, which go into Thai drinks and deserts.

He dried them on the balcony, and since then has put them into a blue, slightly sweet drink called nam dok anchan (น้ำดอกอัญชัญ).

He has also made ice-cubes out of them, and even put them into rice to turn its colour blue.

-
I have spoken to Mr Noom a couple of times by phone since he returned to his home province of Roi Et to start the new school term.

We didn’t have much to say. The phone signal was weak, so I could not ask much about his life.

The first time I called, I could barely hear a thing, so had to cut our conversation short. The second time, he was having a meal with his family.

I still order a meal every night from the food stand where he spent his summer holidays, and where I met him shortly before his return to the provinces last week.

‘Has Noom called?’ asked the woman who introduced us, and who takes my orders.

‘We have spoken, but he is now back at school, so it is hard to find a time when he is free,’ I said.

I won’t call much more. The words, ‘Where do you think this is going?’ keep ringing in my head.

A farang friend asks me that question about my relationship with Ball and his slum family, but it might as well apply here.

To put it more bluntly, we could ask: ‘what are you getting out of it?’

I don’t expect my relationship with Mr Noom to head anywhere, as I have a boyfriend of my own, and a slum family nearby too. Both keep me busy, and happy. That’s enough.

-
An anonymous reader leaves this remark in the lively comments section of this blog's most recent post:

‘It take a certain type of teenager that looks around and says ..im out of here...and takes school serious and gets out of the slums.....if ball was this type he would be studying english will anything he could get his hands on and keep a job and figure out how to better his social condition.’

How many young men do you know who do that?

Let me describe his place to you.

Mum has at least eight people living under her roof. It is a two-storey wooden house in a bad state of repair. Only one room, her bedroom, has air con.

Downstairs is the sole toilet/shower, sitting room, Mum’s bedroom, and her youngest son Mr B’s bedroom.

A see-through slide door is all that separates Mr B’s room from his mother’s.

Access to their home is on one side only, along a slum alleyway. It has two doorways. If I stand in either, I can view everything in the living room.

Mr B shares his room, which has no permanent bed, with an old computer and a wardrobe. He has no privacy, as people move in and out of there all day.

Mr B usually sleeps on the sofa in the sitting room, on his Mum’s mattress bed, or on the floor.

On the storey above is Ball’s bedroom, which he shares with his girlfriend; and his elder sister’s bedroom, which she shares with her boyfriend, and their son. I can barely get up the stairs to reach the top storey, as the wooden staircase is so narrow.

The other toddler of the household, Fresh, sleeps with whoever goes to bed first. When I called last night shortly before 11pm, Mr Ball had just taken her to bed.

During the day, the family occupies the living room space or Mum’s bedroom, as the top storey gets too hot.

When everybody is at home, space on the ground floor is at a premium; if I am sitting on the floor, as I usually am, I find it difficult to know where to put my legs.

There is no kitchen, or kitchen table. They place food on a low-rise tray. The sitting room also has a dusty display chest, a stereo and TV. I can recall seeing only one chair.

Clothes and towels are dumped on shelves along the wall; anywhere where they can find space for them, in fact.

The sole sofa is old but can fold down to serve as a bed for family guests. Family members cook on a small gas cooker placed in the doorway entrance.

I have to squeeze past it to get into the place. If they are cooking on it when I arrive, I have to use the other doorway, as I can’t get past it when oil is bubbling away in the wok; I might tip it up, and get burnt.

On a hot day, up to three or fans might be going at once.

The two toddlers need only crawl across the living room floor, and they're in the slum alleyway.

We pull them back from the doorway to stop them going too far. If they head out there - a pile of slum rubbish sits right outside Ball's front door - we will have to clean their hands and feet.

I visited yesterday about 5pm before work. Mr Ball was moving about restlessly in the living room. He could only sit still for a few minutes before having to get up again. The space was too small for him, the day was too hot, and his general surroundings, I imagine, were driving him mad.

Earlier yesterday, I watched Ball play with Nong Fresh for half an hour, and nurse her to sleep. As he arranged her sleeping body on the floor, I complimented Ball on his skills with children.

‘You could be a Dad now, I reckon...if you had a job,’ I said. ‘How many children would you like?’

‘Two or three might be enough,’ he said quietly.

Here’s a blunt message for Mr Anon.

Ball believes his duty in life will be complete when he is able to look after his mother, and his future wife and children. He has yet to find a steady or reliable job, but will get there...he’s only 19, for goodness sake.

Far from wanting to get away from the slum, he regards it as his home. As long his mother is there, so will he remain, as she is the anchor of his family life.

It's his job, as her son, to repay the sacrifices she’s endured in bringing him up. I imagine he would think about moving out only once he has a more stable or secure income, and has passed a few other milestones in his life, like military conscription.

It's the Thai way. How many Western youngsters feel so obliged?

In some ways, these people are brave. There's no white flag hanging above their door.