Soi News

Bangkok, like Tokyo, has been described as a series of small villages strung together. Each soi or Moo Baan has its own character. Sometimes, sois within a moo baan have their own individual character too.

My family and I live in a great little soi out on Phaholyothin Road near Kasetsart University. It’s a good 20 to 30 minute drive to the city down Vibhavadirangsit expressway. We are a 10 to 15 minute drive to at least three Tesco Lotus shops, Makro, Central Ram Indra, and The Mall Ngamwongwan. So we are very central to the essentials. We don’t even have far to go to the MRT or Skytrain.

Just around the corner from the soi where we live is a little ‘larn serm suay’ (beauty shop) where I go and have my hair cut and my nails trimmed every couple of weeks. The whole family turns up sometimes. My wife and eldest daughter get their hair washed and dried, nails trimmed and painted, and my youngest daughter charms the customers. It’s a pleasant way to spend an hour together. Afterwards, we drop by the VDO store to pick up a couple of vids for the night.

Young daughter’s kindergarten is about 50 meters further on. She is well cared for there. Her big sister went there too and graduated at six years old able to read, write and speak English and Thai. She has since gone on to a private Thai school where she came top of her class at the end of her first semester.

Life in the suburbs is pleasant.

But what makes living here such a pleasure is the friendly neighbors up and down the soi. We know almost everyone and they know us and dote on my two daughters. The people living in the apartment building across the road all know us. Most of them are very friendly.

Two Soi Ladies

There is one girl living in the apartment who has remained an enigma to all. She is tall, very pleasant to look at, and either extremely shy or very snobbish.

I thought it was because I was a farung (foreigner) at first. I would say ‘hello’ whenever we passed each other walking up the soi. But she always kept her head down and plowed right on without stopping or smiling. When I asked some of the neighbors about her, they said the same thing. She keeps to herself, doesn’t bother anyone, so we just accept her as is.

There is another lady who lives a few doors down from my house who has always been very quiet too. She’s about mid to late thirties, I guess. With a little more attention to her clothing and looks she could be very attractive. But she seems to live only for her son. Every time the son wants to go somewhere, she accompanies him. He never comes out into the soi to meet or play with the other kids. In fact, the only time we ever seem them is when they walk up the soi together. I have watched him grow from a young kid of about 7 or 8 to a mid-teen. Yet, even now his mother always goes out with him. In the eight years we have lived here I have never seen her husband, although I am told he is in the house and rarely ventures out.

The Soi Drunk

We had one other strange bird in the soi too. He used to be a fairly high ranking government official. However, he had a serious drinking problem and he was asked to take early retirement. Since then, he has remained drunk full time. I have never seen him sober. I tried talking to him a couple of times. He actually spoke reasonable English when you could understand his slurred words.

We would often see him weaving up and down the soi, on his way to or from a drinking binge. He never looked happy. My wife explained that his wife left him a few years ago and he had stayed drunk ever since. My daughters were afraid of him so I steered clear of him when they were with me.

As he lives in a house full of about eight relatives, they looked after him. He was always clean, but his face never looked anything but totally drunk and unhappy.
 
There is an old abandoned car outside his house. Over the Songkran weekend he staggered up to the little drinking shop at the mouth of the next soi and stayed there until about 3 am. When he got back outside his house he tripped and fell, banging his head on the abandoned car, and then on the road. He suffered a severe concussion. No one found him until a couple of hours later. By then it was too late.

They rushed him to hospital but he only survived a few more hours before he died. My wife went to his cremation today. A sad ending to a tragic life.

The Doctor’s Girlfriend

Until recently we had a very pretty neighbor who lived with her young daughter and husband with his family. My daughter was very good friends with the young girl, so she spent a lot of time around at her house. I often accompanied her, so I got to know the family well.

Looking in from outside you would think they were a normal, reasonably happy family. The pretty wife kept giving me inviting glances and making comments that might have suggested she would like to extend our friendship. I never responded, so I can’t say how serious she was about this. She was a real flirt.

Even if I had responded I doubt anything would have happened. It transpired that she had a raging hot relationship going with a very rich and famous doctor. This, of course, caused severe tensions in the house, especially with the mother in law. I was a bit puzzled at first why the husband didn’t seem upset that his wife was staying out until late, obviously having an affair with another man. Then my wife told me that he was actually gay. He was going out to visit his boyfriend as well. They only stayed together because it was cheaper. The daughter didn’t seem to be much of a factor in their decision at all from what I could see.

One day I went around to their house. The young wife was obviously very excited. She had her bags packed standing by the door. It was late in the afternoon and she told me she was waiting for her doctor to arrive to pick her up. They were going to live together. She went on to tell me that the doctor had bought a beautiful house for them to live in. She also boasted that he was going to give her a large sum of money next week. She was over the moon.

Just then, the phone rang. She answered. A few moments later she turned deathly pale, dropped the phone, and fell to the floor sobbing. I grabbed my daughter and left right away. This was obvously not  good time to be there. Her family would look after her.

Of course, I soon found out what had happened. Her boyfriend was driving his Merc back from a new clinic he was building in Ratchaburi when he lost control of his car while overtaking. He was killed instantly.

His wife called the mistress to tell her. I imagine she was quite nasty about it, judging from the girlfriend’s reaction.

The story continued to unfold over the next couple of months. Of course, the poor girl lost the house and she never got her hands on the money he had promised her. She attended the funeral where the wife and girlfriend got into a big fight when she tried to lay her claim to the doctor’s promises. She was not welcome anywhere near the doctor’s family again after that.

Things at home were grim too. Her husband let her stay with him, but mother in law made things very difficult for her. No love lost there.

Eventually, she moved after getting a job up north in a large town. Since then, she has only come back to visit a couple of times. The last time, she turned up with a much fuller chin and thick lips. She’d had Botox injections in an effort to improve her looks. In my humble opinion, the results were disastrous. She looked like Desperate Dan in the old British Beano comics.

Success is Sweet

A young couple lives a few more doors past the quiet lady and her son. This couple has a son and a daughter. The son looks like a young version of the King. He even wears round wire frame glasses like you see the young King wearing when he was a kid studying in Switzerland.

His mother started selling NuSkin about three years ago. Since then, she has built a team here in Thailand, as well as another in Indonesia. She is rapidly becoming very successful. But it has taken a small toll. She is often away in Indonesia and other countries building up the business, so her husband is left to look after the kids and run his own business. His pre-kindergarten school is very popular. My eldest daughter started her schooling there at two years old where she learned to socialize with other toddlers.

Despite this, the couple are both happy, working hard to a successful future for them and their kids. These are the young, middle class, upwardly mobile Thais that are rapidly becoming the backbone of the nation.