A Farang Strikes Back

by Louis Anschel

  Behind the house I could spot a property upon which a house had been partially built, and beyond that I could see a few more houses. So, this was Ban Mueangow, the home of my girlfriend. You couldn’t fool yourself: Abject poverty reigned here.

  Some chickens, which belonged to the house no doubt ran around cackling and there was a dog–a young brown and white puppy with the name Pizza.

  Som’s mother arrived; I waied her and she responded. At once I spotted on her mother’s neck, the gold chain I had given to Som. Som had given it to her mother and not her daughter. The mother looked at me somewhat suspiciously while she talked with Som. I was almost completely excluded from this conversation because they spoke Lao and I hadn’t yet gone very far with my Thai. We sat down on the floor of the terrace and ate a snack. The mother offered fish, bugs and grasshoppers. I ate a piece of the fish and went back to my starvation diet–Isaan imposed. The mother fetched a piece of paper, and looked at her daughter, with a wink…a conniving grin.

  Som took the sheet and looked at it. “It's the electricity bill,” she said. “Just a couple of hundred baht.”

  I knew what was expected from me. The mother vanished with the bill and my money to pay. To where, I didn’t know, because there was no 7-Eleven in the village.

  Before, Som had made some business with a mom-and-pop store, she said. A huge rusted fridge with glass doors stood prominent on the terrace and served as a memory of a time in the past. Almost every second house managed a corner store and I wondered what kind of profit they could possibly be making. The owners of the shops were their best customers.

  But it was Som’s dream to reopen her store, she told me. She said, "You could live on that income". We should earn a lot of money with the massage parlour and then retire up-country.

  Before I could say something about that, we went for a walk through the village. First of all, we went to the property next to the mother’s house. On the large compound were several trees and there was a pond at the end facing the road. It surely was a nice piece of land. Next to the pond was a new house–almost finished. It consisted of one storey, with bamboo rods scaffolding the carcass. Some construction workers rendered the outer walls. Inside there was little to see besides mayhem. Cement bags lay beside bricks and in between there was a lot of garbage of every kind. The cement floor wasn’t tiled, and on the wooden beam of the roof truss there weren’t any roof tiles yet. The house had two rooms and a rambling terrace. The latter didn’t exist yet. Som walked along the space for the terrace and showed how large it would be. She didn’t decide yet whether she should build a roof for the whole–or only the half of the terrace. And most certainly, there was always the question of money.

  “The land belongs to my mother but she gave it to me,” Som said. “I wanted to have a new nice house and now it's almost finished.”

  “Why do you build a new house if you have already a big one?” I asked.

  “I want to change the big one into a supermarket. The shelves should be on the first floor and the stockroom for goods on the second floor. When the supermarket is finished we can live in the small house.”

  “Small but mighty,” I said.

  Som beamed. “But it has to be finished soon. Do you help me?” When I hesitated, she said, “It's not so expensive up-country.”

  “I don’t know,” I said indecisively. “Here, there is nothing!” I stretched my arms out. “Wouldn’t it be better to live closer to the main road? Or in Phu Khieo if not in Chaiyaphum?”

  “No!”

  I couldn’t remember ever getting a straight answer, let alone a negative answer so quickly and abruptly like that from Som.

  “I am accustomed to big city life,” I said but she didn’t know what I meant. And how could she? She was a country bumpkin and the biggest city she had ever placed a foot in was the provincial Pattaya.

  “We will live here!” she said with conviction.

  After this was cleared we went through the village, an accumulation of fifty or so houses. Some of the children who approached us made a wide arc around me because they had never seen a farang before and were somewhat afraid. We went to the rice paddies and came to a fork in the road. On one side grew rice and on the other sugarcane.

  “Does your mother work in one of the fields?” I asked.

  “She takes care of the cows. They graze on the plot of land I showed you.”

  “And where will the cows graze when the house is finished?” I asked for the fun of it.

  But Som didn’t understand fun in such things. She didn’t answer me and stopped smiling for a while.

  “Your mother supervises the cows,” I broached the subject again.

  Som nodded.

  “And besides this?” It couldn’t be such demanding job to swing the birch and stack up some hay.

  Som kept silent.

  I understood. The mother didn’t do anything. She waited for the financial transactions of her daughter who was sent to Pattaya to earn the family’s income. Som didn’t care for only herself and her daughter–every foreigner would have understood that–but also for her mother. Her mother wasn’t that old and she didn’t look sick. She just didn’t want to work. You could call it laziness. I figured she went to the bank in Phu Khieo every day to see whether or not her daughter had made a deposit.

  We went around a corner where a derelict wooden hut stood defended by some trees. Som’s brother Jack lived here with his wife and children. They had no electricity and no water. At least I didn’t see the huge water barrels like at Som’s house. Maybe there was a creek not far away. Some men sat in a circle, ate larp bpla (fish) and drank Beer Chang. Immediately, I was invited to join the group.

  Jack was one of the hosts, quite a beefy chap. He filled a glass with ice cubes, poured in some beer and handed it to me. He requested again and again for me to drink more. After I had hardly emptied a half glass he would pour more beer. As far as the food went, the fish seemed rather spicy.

  “Saep baw?” Jack asked. Delicious?

  “Saep elee,” I answered. Very delicious. I already leaned a couple of Lao phrases.

  The conversation continued in Thai so I could follow it. The women stayed to themselves and looked at the children.

  When we came home, Som’s daughter Boo had already arrived and was happy to see the presents which Som and I gave to her. Sunglasses, a T-Shirt and some hair clasps. Som had presents for her mother as well. She got five blouses in a style elderly ladies wear in Thailand; dark fabric with decent flower ornaments and padded shoulders. Three weren’t enough. Not four. It had to be five and I was angry when we bought the blouses but I wasn’t given the opportunity to present them.

  A discussion emerged concerning what kind of education the six-year old little Boo should receive. She was attending kindergarten and should go to school soon. Som didn’t think much about the village school in Ban Mueangow and excluded from the beginning of the conversation that Boo would go to school there. Som thought about allowing Boo to live with her father in Bangkok so she could go to an international school or even a private school there. This notion was combined with costs to be born by me because the attendance at schools of this kind are not free. Boo couldn’t expect anything from her father, because he had never paid alimony and didn’t make many appearances—Isaan men often leave their wives and provide no support for their children.

  If he let Boo stay with him he discharged his plight. Som didn’t want to increase the contact with her ex-husband and suggested that Boo would come to Pattaya and join us. There were good schools there and Boo could live with us. That meant I had to pay for her livelihood and school fees. Maybe she even wanted to bring her mother to Pattaya one day? So I thought. And then we would be a wonderful extended family. I had always wanted that! But I kept silent. I didn’t want to insult Som. Even if I had phrased my opinion as a question, she would have taken it badly. And so I didn’t make a fuss about anything and looked at the visit to Som’s village from an ironic point
of view.

  In the evening we had a small party–at first. We sat in the garden and made a barbeque with beer and Coke. The mother drank lao kao–self-made hard liquor. More and more people joined us, including the construction workers who were building Som’s new house. I figured they wanted to see a farang close up.

  Finally Som talked about our shared future–without mentioning her house in the village.

  “My mum would be very angry if we stay a long time like husband and wife,” she said. “It would be better if we get married.”

  I had to smile. “Do you propose marriage to me?”

  “But would you like to marry me?”

  How should I answer this question? It was happening all too fast. There was no rush. We hardly knew each other. Certainly I loved her, very much indeed and I had given up everything for her. But would I marry her? Of course, but not immediately. Despite that I was already married. But this didn’t play a role because my wife would file for divorce because I wasn’t at home. Would Som register the marriage, or just marry with a family party? Married is married. With or without registering it. In Thailand it doesn’t make a difference.

  That’s why I said, “Yes.”

  Som came over and laid her arm on my shoulder. When a family member was around she had avoided gestures of love–until now. She talked to her mother who smiled. I hardly understood a word.

  “You know you have to pay a price for the marriage to my mother when we get married, don’t you?”

  “Dowry”

  “Yes, dowry,” she continued. “100,000 baht. And when we marry we need some gold as well. We can't marry just like that. We need rings and gold chains.”

  “I know,” I said with a controlled voice and nearly choked on my anger. “But I also know that a dowry is paid for girls who marry the fist time. You actually buy their virginity and compensate the parents for time and money they invested in the education of their daughter. You had several boyfriends, had relationships with Thais and farangs, have a six year old daughter. If you would marry a Thai you would be lucky to get a single baht as a dowry. Do you really think I am a dumb arse?”

  I wanted to say something about the gold but couldn’t. Som went into the house.

  “Jai yen yen,” the mother said. Keep a cool heart, don’t become so agitated. To break the aggravating silence we talked about the weather, Thailand in general and Pattaya in particular. The mother told me she had never been to Pattaya to visit her daughter. She had never seen the shop in which her daughter sold clothes.

  Som came back after a spending some time in the garden, sat down and didn’t look at me. She didn’t talk to me for the rest of the evening.

  Farangs know this attitude of Thai women very well. They call it silent mode. Som never mentioned the topic marriage again.

  After the guests left the party, sleeping mats were unrolled on the living room floor, and we slept packed on the floor like sardines. Outside lay Boo, then Som, me and finally her mother, who snored in my ear the whole night.

  She got up early and started to work in the kitchen. While working, she talked to Som. She didn’t care that Som was still fast asleep. At six o’clock the night was over because a bizarre bluster woke me up. On the other side of the road was a tower with a loudspeaker. An unbelievable noise in the shape of Isaan music came out of it. The music was interrupted with propagandistic paroles and news. The Thai government had copied the invention of the communists, to keep their people in line. There was no way of catching any more sleep, not after one more hour when the government propaganda finally trailed off. In front of every house there was a lot of hustle and bustle. Motorcycles and noisy strange looking tuk tuks drove around, cows mooed and the villagers shouted at each other. At least that is what I perceived to be happening.

  I took a “shower” by pouring and splashing water over me–water which I took from the basin. The water was cold and smelled like the cattle behind the house. When I came out of the bathroom, Som broke her vow of silence and told me her mother wanted to buy a sack of rice. Amazing how her emotions could change when her wants came into the picture. The price was 1,000 baht. She then stretched out her arm, palm of her hand facing upwards and twitled her fingers. After her mother had disappeared with the family’s motorcycle, I sat down on the terrace and drank a cup of coffee. Boo waited until her grandmother came home, afterwards both disappeared on the motorcycle.

  That evening there was a festival. This was the main reason why Som wanted to go to Chaiyaphum. There was a stage on which a beauty contest would take place in the market behind the water reservoir and temple. Boo was part of the contest and her mother went home to assist her beloved daughter. Boo had spent the whole day in a beauty parlour to get prepared for the contest. She had extended her hair artificially, pinned it up, and wore a dark blue traditional Thai silk costume with a golden edging and heavy make-up. Som and I spent most of the afternoon near the market and watched several processions from the nearby villages. The villagers had dressed themselves flamboyantly and marched to the sounds of Isaan music which echoed from loud speakers on pickup trucks.

  When it got dark, we joined Boo in the beauty parlour. She was really beautiful and it was hard to recognize her at all. She had totally transformed herself into another person. Although only six years old, she looked like an adult and neither mother nor grandmother seemed to be disturbed that the little child looked as saucy and sexy like as any bar girl in Pattaya.

  We took Boo to the market where she waited behind the stage for her performance. There was music, a lot of dancing and much more slapstick comedy. And in between, there was always a beauty competition with about 20 rivals. They showed not only their child-like bodies but had to answer questions, sing and dance. I was sure that Boo could be one of the leading girls. The jury couldn’t have escaped the beauty of Boo and no one danced as well as she did to traditional Isaan music. At first the girls who won the third and second prize were called. Boo wasn’t one of these girls and slowly I began to realize that the incredible became possible. And yes: When the winner was announced, Som jumped from her seat and ran to the stage. Boo stood up as a beauty queen. A sash was placed upon her and she was given a gold and green trophy. I had to take and unlimited number of photos with my camera. I continued taking photos of Boo to document the transformation while Som and her mother removed her make-up. We partied the half night.

  * * *

  In the massage parlour Som had learned to lay cards. There were innumerable techniques to tell the future in this way–if you believed in it. With the cards Som told her mother’s, her daughter’s and her own fortune. We had spent the day in front of the television, as it was the only source of entertainment in the village. I had enjoyed game shows and soaps and was looking forward to our departure to Pattaya. It was alright to have seen Som’s home village but I wanted to leave it at that. I opposed plans like moving up-country and the opening of a corner shop. In the village you could learn very well how to do nothing. You just hang around, the whole day from the morning until the evening. Day after day, every day. Somebody liked it–Som’s mother for example–but in perpetuity I would have gone mad.

  And when you had nothing to do you could play solitaire or lay the cards otherwise the whole afternoon. Boo, Som and I sat on the terrace in front of the house, while the mother lay on the floor in the living room and watched TV. The villagers went back into their houses or talked to their neighbours. Directly in front of the house was the only public telephone booth in the whole village. It was cornered by youths all the time.