Each night I walk home to my apartment block. It’s literally two minutes from where Mengly and Ting live but neither of them is happy about me doing it. While it’s a safe neighbourhood in the day, it’s not so at night when there is, apparently, equal chance of me getting either attacked by one of the stray dogs, or robbed by someone. I, being cocky, walk home regardless, and don’t feel at all unnerved until maybe the third night when I get barked at ferociously by one particular dog. By day they may be docile and disinterested in anything; by night it’s a different matter.
On Tuesday afternoon, free of having to teach shy boy Tong who cancels his lesson, I go to Dusit Zoo, and spend a few hours there taking pics of some quite impressive animals. It’s a shit day weather wise – it’s extremely hot and humid but really cloudy and overcast. The animals react as such by sitting around looking lethargic and not doing much interesting. I can’t blame them really, I feel the same, but feel I need to do something with my free afternoon.
Near the zoo is Abhisek Dusit Throne Hall, which was built by Rama V at the turn of the 20th century. He visited Europe extensively and came back inspired to recreate aspects of the cities he visited in Bangkok. As such the road leading up to the Throne Hall is very wide and Parisian, while the Throne Hall itself looks like a smaller version of Buckingham Palace.
Walking back towards a main road where I can pick up a taxi I’m stopped by a security guard and told not to go on the road. I look around. Everything has stopped. The cars are still, and the people wait quietly on the pavement. Something is happening, and I only realise what when a parade of police cars and motorbikes come wizzing through, silently but lights flashing, flanking a large cream limousine. It’s a member of the Royal family, obviously. Which one, I don’t know. But it’s quite interesting seeing the effect their presence has on the people around – everyone seems solemn and respectful.
My birthday on Friday is preluded by a night out on Thursday, seeing as I’m working all day Saturday and will not be able to do much Friday evening. I want to go to the Banyan Tree hotel as the rooftop restaurant and bar has been recommended by my friend Lucy for its amazing views of the city. I go with Ting and Mengly and Ting invites Sai, Aom and Aor. We have a nice, if expensive, evening. The views are stunning and it’s interesting giving Aom and Sai food to try instead of them testing Thai food on me. The foie gras doesn’t go down well with them, which surprises me. I thought they’d love it.
My new friends surprise me with a birthday cake, which is sweet of them and tastes amazing, but I’ve been stuffing my face already so struggle to get it in. But I manage. It’s been a nice evening, a subtle and pleasant way of marking my 29 years on the planet. I can behave like a 22 year old for the rest of the year now.
On my actual birthday I work; not something I usually like doing but I don’t bother requesting a day off because I have a new lesson starting which intrigues me. It’s a private lesson at the students’ house – a teenage boy and girl who are the son and daughter of a fairly famous actress here. I have no idea who she is so it’s not that that is of interest, but she will undoubtedly be fairly loaded so it’s an opportunity to see how the other half live in Thailand. I have to get a bus there, which is my first time doing that as well. It’s an awful experience. I’m taken by one of the ECC staff and we have to get it during rush hour, so I have to stand up in this metal tin of a bus, squeezed in with a load of others, trying not to gag on the pollution and petrol fumes that are flowing freely through the open windows. It’s vile, but cheap. You get what you pay for, I guess.
After what seems an eternity we get off and we have to get bikes to the house, which is in some kind of gated community which you enter through what looks like a toll booth, manned by scaryish-looking guards. The house itself is, of course, lovely: big garden, long swimming pool, a veranda with a roof that acts as dining room and TV room as well. I sit and wait in this bit for the kids. Their father comes and sits with me for a while and we chat a bit. I think he works, or worked, for the military police. I say I think because he was talking about it and I was trying to restrain myself from going into full-on nosey-parker journalist mode and asking lots of questions. I wasn’t sure it would be appropriate as a teacher of his kids. But anyway. He’s a nice and interesting fella and we were talking about why so many Western men come over here to find Thai wives – basically because it’s a culture where they’ll be looked after, by both their wife and their wife’s family. That, of course, rarely happens in Western marriages these days and so they go looking for the old school way of marriage in this country. And, as my students’ father tells me, they find it here in plenty, not least because the Thai families appreciate the financial boost having a Westerner in the family can bring.
The kids eventually arrive, late from scouts and guides (yes, they have it here!) because of bad traffic. I get them to teach me Uno because I’ve never played it before, which takes some time as they have to explain in English. The father told me his son is hyperactive and has to take drugs in the morning to calm him for the day. He doesn’t bother giving them to him in the evening or weekends, even though he could. He wants his son to be himself as much as possible. The lad is hyper when I teach him and his sister, but not uncontrollably so. He’s fiercely intelligent as well, and I can see he’s assessing me when I teach them, weighing me up. But it’s not intimidating or off-putting, I like the lad, and I feel afterwards I’m going to enjoy teaching them.
I meet the actress mother afterwards. She’s not from that crazy soap that seems to be on every evening, which is slightly disappointing. She’s nice, pleasant, like her husband: they offer me to eat with them but I politely decline, saying I’ve arranged to meet a friend for dinner, and I head back to meet Mengly.
The bus back is better. I get a seat, and the bus travels faster so it’s breezier by the window. I meet Mengly for dinner – we have grilled chicken and chips at a Western restaurant called Sizzlers: the name says it all about the menu. We have one of those big confessional chats that you have when you’re becoming good friends with someone new. She talks a lot about her love life, or lack of it. I tell her a bit about mine, or lack of it, and explain the tattoo on my wrist. It’s quite funny watching people realise the tattoo is not as innocuous as I make it out to be. They always seem honoured to have been let in on the secret.
We go bowling. Mengly can’t get over the orange and silver shoes we have to wear. I quite like them and strut around in them, trying to convince Mengly they look cool. I fail. I am very bad at bowling. Luckily Mengly is EXTREMELY bad at bowling and so I have a birthday win, which is slightly cheering.
We walk home and hear some awful singing from across the road. There seems to be some sort of show on the other side of the motorway, so we head over and have a look. Some people are acting out a play in overwhelmingly glittery and colourful costumes. We watch it for a bit but have no idea what is going on apart from some men drug another man and a woman is very upset about it. It gets annoying so we leave.
The weekend brings more work. With first day nerves out the way I take it all in my stride. Saturday night I head to Sai and Ting’s with Mengly for more food-tasting. Aom feeds me salted mackerel (okay but very strong), sardines in tomato (bit spicy but good, and reminds me of my childhood when my Mum would make me sardines in tomato sauce sandwiches), and these tiny clam things which you suck on and get this intense rush of salt. I’m not sure if this is pleasant or not.
I also help Aor with her English pronunciation, which of course is slightly different to the American pronunciation she’s being taught. I’m not sure if I help her or not!
Sunday night Mengly and I head to RCA (Royal City Avenue), a designated ‘entertainment area’ in the east of the city. It’s full of loads of swankier than swank bars and clubs that managed to escape some of the curfews and crackdowns on nightlife that Bangkok suffered under the former Prime Minister. When we get there I realise why – it’s basically for the rich and fashion conscious of Bangkok, the upper echelons of Bangkok society. We walk past the massive exteriors of these clubs and bars, which all look like they should hold celebrity parties in LA. They’re all blasting out R&B and hip hop but look pretty quiet – it is Sunday night I guess – apart from one which has a queue of trendy-looking students queuing outside it.
We venture down further and find some more downbeat bars. We go into one which we can’t decipher the name of (mainly cos I need the loo) and order some drinks. I’m amused by the signs for the loo – the men`s is called John and the women`s Pussy. I go to take a photo of the women’s entrance (as it were) and catch a woman coming out of the cubicle just as the flash goes. I scarper.
There’s some bands playing and we have a listen to them, they’re not bad. One acoustic duo does a version of a song by a Thai artist called Endorphine that I hear on the radio at the office all the time. Their version is much better. Mengly is impressed, she’s doing a story for a girls magazine back in the US about music in Thailand and wasn’t that impressed with Endorphine. She’s looking for female artists with a Debbie Harry, Soiuxsie Sioux feel about them; something a bit more edgy. But she’s having trouble finding much here. It’s all boy bands, girl bands, Euro pop like Tata Young or indie rock bands like Silly Fools and the hilariously-named Potato. It’s all very mainstream.
We walk further up the road and hear a band playing Oasis’s Don’t Look Back In Anger VERY, VERY LOUDLY. We walk towards the bar, called Prop Bar. It looks big and is obviously very popular. Mengly gets IDed on the door and I go to have a laugh with her about it when I get IDed as well. This is not so amusing.
We have trouble ordering drinks due to the loud music and language barrier. Even getting Mengly a Coke (she doesn’t drink) is nigh on impossible. The crowd is very hip, very young and very drunk. We go upstairs so we can people watch and sit next to some boys who are checking out the girls as they walk down the stairs.
Another band sets up, the singer wearing a big white hat Jay Kay style. They start and it’s a ska band. Long Beach kid Mengly is very happy and asks me if I know what ska is. I smile and say yes. I point out that ska was big in the UK back in the 1970s, long before it became big in America in the 90s. She’s surprised to hear it.
The singer starts skanking and Mengly wonders how ska made it here. I say probably the same way most other Western music gets here – the Thai kids don’t have much of a musical movement of their own, apart from traditional Thai music, and so look further afield.
The band is awful. The instrumentation is all over the place, they play slightly too fast, and even the singer looks bored, looking at his watch more than once. But Mengly loves them, they remind her of home. Next to us Mengly notices the boys have gone and have been replaced by a man in a white jacket and white three-quarter length trousers. He looks ridiculous but obviously thinks he’s the coolest cat in town. We take the piss discreetly, and are amused to see him dancing downstairs ten minutes later – arms flailing like a mentalist but having the time of his life.
The band finishes and we head out. Mengly stops to chat with one of the band members. Their name is Joy Boy (wow, do I even need to take the piss out of that?), apparently, and they’re all in their late 20s. But the guy doesn’t speak much English so she gives up after a while.
We wonder down the road a bit further – there’s a bowling place, a cinema – but the area starts to look dodgy so we head back. We walk past a bar we didn’t notice on the way up, which advertises itself as ladies only. It’s obviously a lesbian bar and I point this out to Mengly. She’s not convinced, despite the dykey-looking women, some of whom are WEARING SUITS. HELLO?? She’s only convinced when two girls – one very pretty, the other a ‘tomboy’ - walk in front of us holding hands. I feel pleased to know that there are some lesbians in the city; I was beginning to wonder where they all hid out.
No comments:
Post a Comment