Going Native

I could never imagine life as a bank clerk or a government drone in say, the Parks and Gardens Department. Or working in the local tax office. Occasionally life makes you deal with these people. You are never richer for the experience. The poor buggers are no better off than worker ants. Oh to be thirty years old with twenty years left on the mortgage, two point four kids and to know with certainty that, should everything go to plan, every Sunday afternoon for the next twenty five years you will be found mowing the lawn, just after you’ve washed the car. I just couldn’t do it. It took a while but at the age of thirty five, I washed up on the shores of Thailand. I knew almost instantly that when I returned to Farangland it would be as dust in a glass jar.

I don’t have too much to do with farang women. They irritate the bejesus out of me so I avoid them as much as possible. Sometimes I find myself having to have a conversation with one at a gathering at a friend’s house or at someone’s birthday bash but I find it very hard to listen to them wittering on about ‘happiness’ and other BS. All the farang women I come into contact with these days are such posers. Mostly they are married to expats with too much time on their hands. They can be found doing charity work and other such nonsense just to be seen to be doing good. Let’s face it, these women wouldn’t be seen dead within ten miles of a shelter for the homeless or an AIDS hospice in their own country.

To be fair, it’s not only farang women that I find irritating. Once, a misguided wanker who thought he was my ‘boss’ told me that I shouldn’t have any more to drink because I was giving our (my) client the wrong impression. My client, who was also a good friend and I would go out drinking together most Friday nights in Bangkok. This was the first time my Australian ‘boss’ had been invited. I had had two beers at that point so I followed him into the bog and told him that I would drink as much as I liked on my own time and advised him to zip it unless he wanted to eat through a straw for the next six weeks while his jaw mended. He told me I couldn’t talk to him like that and he would have my job. I chinned him right there and then. Through his fat lip and bloodied nose, he threatened to have me fired and arrested but as this is Bangkok and he didn’t know the rules I suffered no consequences. He, on the other hand went back to Melbourne shortly afterwards, never to return. Apparently there were some irregularities with his work permit.

On another occasion I made a comment about women drivers not being able to reverse park. Well, they can’t! My Australian colleague was horrified that I should say such a thing aloud and derided me for my blatant display of male chauvinist piggery. I looked at him wryly. My convictions are genuine and heartfelt. His obviously are not. Poor sod.

I know there are many things wrong with Thailand. Like, not knowing when the bars are going to be told to shut on any given night can be damned unsettling. But if you can handle the big issues, everything else will take care of itself. An old friend of mine came to Bangkok a few weeks ago on business. I hadn’t seen Jon for about twelve years. He is now in his mid fifties and still married to the same English woman that he married in 1976. Thankfully, he left her at home in Manchester. Jon doesn’t get out much anymore and so needed little persuasion to immerse himself in Soi 33 and Cowboy during his short stay. Over one more beer outside Baccara he confided in me that he finally realized why seemingly intelligent, successful men run away to Thailand. I dropped him off at his hotel later that night with a leggy 27 year old Isaan princess from Surin. A good choice, even if I say so myself. Jon is no idiot and enjoyed the experience, then flew home.

Me? I’m still here…

Union Hill

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