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decreaseThere are two kinds of conversations among the expatriate communities on Phuket: those that begin with “When did you get back?” and those that begin with “When do you have to go?”
It's a very mobile society. Even if an expat doesn’t have a seasonal job or impending court appearance to go home for, the necessity of leaving the island to renew their visas every three months makes them all experts on travel. And the necessity of filling endless idle hours makes them all willing to talk about it.
Jeff loads his suitcase with ball-point pens and disposable cigarette lighters before traveling through Eastern Bloc countries, and uses them for tipping.
Murray always orders the Kosher meals on transoceanic flights; he says that you get twice as much food that way. He also writes a letter of complaint to the airline after every trip, no matter what the service was like, and gets a complimentary upgrade on his next ticket. Joe carries his own towels, soap and toilet paper wherever he goes.
Whenever he’s carrying anything of a sensitive nature in his luggage, Peter always puts a couple copies of Playboy on top. Customs officials of any third world country will take one look at the smutty magazines, sternly inform Peter that pornography is illegal in their God-fearing nation while stashing the offending material in their drawer, then close his suitcase and hustle him through the gate as quickly as possible.
Mel takes his wife’s passport, bank book and identification card with him whenever he’s going to be away for longer than 24 hours.
Given half a chance, any expat on the island can fill an hour with praise for his favorite type of carry-on luggage. Sam favors the Land’s End Square Rigger: heavy sailcloth construction, riveted shoulder straps and non-rust plastic zipper, and a collection of deep pockets tailor-made to house pens, notebooks, passports and cell phones.
For travel within the Kingdom Andy carries a Thai Army surplus backpack stenciled with the name of some private from Udon Thani. It has no locks or secret compartments, but nobody expects a private from the parched northeastern drought planes to be carrying anything worth stealing - beyond a few pilfered hand-grenades.
They all know how much a carton of Marlboros costs in any duty-free shop in the world, and if you want to know which pharmacist on Phuket will sell powerful tranquilizers without a prescription, ask the guys who regularly go up to Bangkok by bus. They can tell you where to get anchor chain in Anchorage, stockings in Stockholm and bar fixtures in Barcelona. They can say “Excuse me, sir or Madame, but where is the bathroom, please” in more languages than a United Nations interpreter. They’ve all been laid over in the airport in Entebbe, snowed into the bus station in Des Moines and becalmed in the Seychelles. They are all pretty patriotic about their homeland but would still rather complain about it. They’re all thinking of moving up to Chumphorn.
They talk about hotels and airlines and visas and clinics. They argue over which country has the best Chinese food, which has the best liquor, which has the lowest legal age of consent. They discuss Christmas shopping in Katmandu, reggae bars in Amsterdam and the Opera in Nairobi. They know where the best all night laundry is in Addis Ababa and the biggest synagogue in Mexico City. They measure time by the tides, money by the day’s exchange rate and the only important weather is happening at the airport.
They talk for the sake of talking; the subject matter isn’t really important. They’ll waste half an hour describing how they bargained a local vendor down fifteen baht on a batik sarong, and spend a hundred-twenty baht on beer while they’re talking. They talk about motorcycles and tropical diseases and Buddhism. They talk about movies and books and sports and music. They talk about their houses and their spouses and the jobs they used to hold back in the world. They talk about home.
Normally they shun the company of tourists, but when they do lower themselves to speak with a stranger they complain bitterly about the trials of living on Phuket: the bad roads, the bad telephone service, the corruption and the pollution and the language barrier. But if anybody suggests that they leave, they stick up for their adopted home with the vigor of a Burmese diplomat defending his country’s human rights record.
They talk in bars and restaurants and discos. While the tourists dance and sing and take photographs, the expats talk. They shout out their opinions over the hiss and crackle of bad stereo speakers, over the din of a platoon of Australian paratroopers fighting with pool cues, over the roar of boat engines or plane motors or the pounding of the surf. They’ll sit ankle deep in salt water, on a stool in a beach-side bar flooded with monsoon waves, drinking warm beer by candle-light in the middle of a power failure, telling each other what they would do to solve the problems of humanity if they were King Of The World.
The only subject they don’t discuss is whatever brought them to Phuket. A man or woman’s history is never discussed if they are in the room. Of course, they all know each other’s biographies; it’s a small island and not a soul on it can keep a secret. But the past is strictly referred to in the third person.
“You know Bob, don’t you?”
“Sure. The guy who’s on the run from the Capital Gains Tax.”
“Nah. That’s Fat Bob. I’m talking about Skinny Bob.”
“Red hair? Blew up a gas station in Liverpool?”
“That’s Irish Bob. I mean Crazy Bob. Swindled his cousins out of their inheritance, seduced the teenage baby sitter, stole the money out of the church poor box.”
“Oh yeah! Helluva nice fella! What about him?”
“Well, last week he kicked my dog.”
“He did? The son-of-a-bitch. I never did like that guy.”
© Steve Rosse. All rights reserved by the author.
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