Author: montescott

A Comedic Connection

Beer Garden is located a couple blocks off of Sukhumvit Road, on Soi 7. It is what is known as a “freelancer bar”, a meat market in other words, where Thai women go to find a foreigner willing to part with some of his baht for a brief interlude of intimacy. With dimensions resembling that of a warehouse, there can be two dozen girls lounging around the maze of counters some nights, chatting with their friends while keeping their eyes peeled for a “customer”. If there is a heaven for lonely old men, it surely includes a place like this.

I ended up sitting next to Bam one July evening purely by accident. We swapped looks, but with her square, rather plain face and tiny figure, she didn’t make much of an impression. After awhile, to kill time, I got out my language notebook and begin practicing writing Thai characters. This is the way I meet women over here and it works amazingly well. When they see the pages I’ve churned out, demonstrating my seriousness, they practically fall over each other attempting to give me instruction. It’s a natural, nonthreatening way to make a connection. Soon Bam had joined the nearest barmaid in writing down Thai words that I’d comically mispronounce, which kept them both entertained.

Where Bam and I hit it off was when I had her write the words in Thai for “zero baht”. I copied them onto a small piece of paper then, reaching over the bar, took my running bill for the evening from its wooden cup and replaced it with my scratchings, all the while keeping a straight face. The audacity of this had Bam in stitches for the next ten minutes. (The barmaid was somewhat less amused, being responsible for the bill, but was a good sport once she realized I wasn’t trying to pull a fast one.)

This was the first of what became three consecutive evenings of at times uproarious fun. Bam would try to teach me some Thai while I looked for ways to send her into semi-hysterics. Although I like to see myself as a composed, somber individual, at heart I’m a comedian and am delighted whenever I find someone whose sense of humor is on the same wavelength.

When I showed up later in the week for what I hoped would be a fourth night of frolics, Bam informed me and the barmaid (who had become part of our little gathering) that she could not join us. Though I had been tipping my petite instructor five hundred baht each night ($14), this was not enough to pay the rent and she needed to find a serious customer.

If had half a brain, I’d have seen this coming. This was a freelancer bar, not a nightclub, and it was naive of me to expect a lady there to welcome my rib-tickling company night after night only to be left with a pittance. On the other hand, shelling out more baht for the company of someone I was having such a super time with might be a worthwhile outlet for my new riches.

Not being interested in trying to find another lady to entertain, I soon left for home. The featured music that night was grinding electronic garbage and I needed some quiet time to consider my next move.

And It Makes Me Wonder

After banishing Newt from my apartment, I’d hoped I’d seen the last of her. The best explanation for all the unpleasantness is that my generous financial help had caused her to go goofy on me. There must be, beneath that calm exterior, an undercurrent of weirdness that the well-intentioned money had somehow brought to the surface. It baffled me that I’d never sensed this before. Usually I can tell if a Thai lady is somewhat off kilter (especially if she’s had a few too many). But not with Newt. She became a completely different person. Kind of scary.

Three weeks passed with no more surprise visits or messages. It seemed I was finally free of the craziness. Then Newt fired off another round of incomprehensible SMS texts. Huh? I would have thought she’d gotten the point during that apartment scene when I emphatically explained I was through helping her. The Thais after all place great value on maintaining face; shouldn’t this have caused her to reconsider and not risk another (and likely more vehement) rejection?

This time I decided to send a brusque reply, having grown weary of the unending gibberish: Leave me alone!! Unable to let things go, Newt responded with another batch of messages (which often seem to come in threes for some reason). The first two contained the usual indecipherable garbage. But the third was a brief (and surprising) apology, which I found mildly encouraging.

Soon after that exchange, I left Bangkok for my annual U.S. vacation. As one of my pre-departure tasks, I turned off my cell phone and removed the SIM card, leaving it along with some other items with a friend. This meant that any attempts to contact me would result in a “not available” response. If Newt wanted to bang her head against this electronic wall for over a month, she could go right ahead.

Perhaps that did the trick. In the almost three months since I’ve returned to the Land of Smiles, there have been no further mystery texts. But to my dismay, my tormentor ended up back at her old job at the massage shop, a couple dozen paces from the entrance to my apartment complex. I was not completely surprised when I saw her there, however; in fact I could have predicted this sad trajectory once there was no more support forthcoming. I forced a smile and a friendly wave, then rapidly retreated to put some distance between us, all the while biting my tongue least I spit out the f-word. At least she can no longer make surprise visits to my room — the guards will not let her by.

All in all, it’s a messy, exasperating ending to what began as an honest effort to assist someone in real need. Instead, it turned into another lesson in how things in this country can unexpectedly go awry.

One nagging question remains: What happened to all the money? This woman burned through over one thousand and five hundred dollars in less than a month — an exorbitant rate by Thai standards. If I had to speculate, I’d say she saw this not as a lifeline, but rather an opportunity to live the high life off of my largesse while assuming it would continue. Or, to put this another way, that she could cajole me into keeping the cash coming. This strategy might actually have worked to some degree if she had acted in a sensible manner.

Ultimately I am never going to know what she was thinking — or if she was just acting out of instinct and not thinking at all. It will have to go down as one more Thai Woman Mystery.

🎄Holiday Notice🎄 Next posting will be Sunday, January 8, 2017.

Please, Sir!

I had predicted to my American friend that Newt would be showing up at my place as soon as the money was gone. The way she’d been behaving suggested someone unable to get her life together and who’d inevitably be seeking another infusion of cash. (I’d had an aunt who was like this.) What shocked me was how soon what turned out to be the grand finale took place.

If I had not been up late watching a movie, I would have missed the soft, tentative taps on my door. As I peered through the peephole, I could only make out a dark, bedragged figure that must have mistaken my apartment for that of another fellow. (My neighborhood being the sleeze center of Bangkok meant there were often women coming and going at odd hours.) Opening up, I took an involuntary step back. Before me was Newt with greasy, unkept hair hanging down over the shoulders of a rumpled, dirty blouse. On the verge of tears, she pointed to a large bruise on her upper leg while mumbling in a self-pitying voice. Destitute and helpless.

What the hell had happened? That large sum I’d transferred into her bank account a while back when combined with my prior “donations” meant Newt had enough to comfortably get by on for three or four months. Yet now here she was, barely four weeks later, in dire straits all over again. Suspecting that the money had been wasted, and more than a little pissed off, I firmly shut the door. While not denying her wretched misery — like a character out of a Dickens novel — this was also an attempt to wheedle a knee-jerk reaction out of me. Something like Newt…? Oh my God! Come in! Unfortunately for my visitor, I am a veteran of Asian woman mini-dramas and had no interest in following the script.

Temporarily repulsed, Newt slumped to the floor next to the door, out of my sight. There was no thought of admitting defeat. Rather, this was the next act: to try and make the soft-hearted guy reconsider the plight of the forlorn woman huddled on his doorstep. Someone with nowhere else to go. (Cue heart-wrenching music.)

I didn’t even bother to peek out as I reached for my shoes while trying to keep my mind clear; I knew she was there, playing the game. Yet despite my experience in these situations, Newt had nevertheless shocked me — this was not the woman I thought I’d known (ah, and how many Western men here in Bangkok have uttered that lament?). It was time to put some distance between us.

OK, then. The first step in these predicaments is to remove the lady from the premise. Stepping out past my supplicant, I motioned for her to come with me, which to my relief she did, no doubt anticipating another trip to the ATM. (If she had remained, I was prepared to head out on my own and leave her there.) As we descended the second flight of stairs, Newt re-engaged her Oliver Twist persona, stepping with her good leg, then painfully dragging the injured one down beside it, all the while grasping the railing. The performance was so compelling that in a better mood I might have applauded.

At the gate to the apartment complex I suddenly stopped, mentioned the amount of money I had given her so far (some $1,500), then crossed and uncrossed my arms like an NFL referee signaling an unsuccessful field goal attempt. I wanted to make it clear that nothing more would be forthcoming, that this…was…the end. I then quickly turned and headed back to my apartment, leaving her standing there, silent. On my way I stopped and asked the guards not to let that woman through again.

…On the Road to Hell

When we’d last left our hero, I’d given Newt a hefty sum of money to allow her to escape from a violent boyfriend and leave Bangkok entirely, returning to her family and friends upcountry. This was of course only a temporary solution and with no job, her “vacation” would not last long. Therefore, the day following her departure, I transferred thirty thousand more baht ($850) into her bank account, hoping this would allow ample time to get her life in order and decide on the next move.

Though we were never close, Newt had always struck me as a down-to-earth, reasonable person, which is why I was helping out. After I’d taken care of the money, I texted her the details, expecting maybe a thank you in response with a brief update on how things were going. Instead, I get this desperate message saying that she now, suddenly, really missed me and “needed to hear my voice”.

Yeah, right. Being boyfriend-less, Newt was clearly going into overdrive to recruit yours truly, Mr. Generosity, as a replacement. Perfectly understandable. However, the tactics being used were comically divorced from reality. There never had been anything the least bit romantic between us and her clumsy attempt at manipulation guaranteed there never would be. In fact, I decided right then and there that, having done my good deed, I was through assisting my former masseuse.

I have learned from long experience that there is no real reasoning with a Thai woman. The (Western) guy may think he’s making a point when in reality he’s only wading deeper into a quagmire. It is more than cultural differences; these ladies are just plain tough and never lose sight of what they are after. Therefore, I elected not to respond to Newt’s declarations of newfound affection. Nothing I could say would have any effect.

A few days later a trio of text messages arrived, having been sent at the ungodly hour of three in the morning. The first was the standard “miss you” missive. Not unexpected. However, the other two were rambling narratives that I could not make any sense of whatsoever. It’s like they were written by some alien who knew the rudimentaries of English, but was clueless about how to use them.

For the next three weeks, I maintained an uneasy silence while batches of bizarre, stream-of-consciousness texts continued to show up at irregular intervals. At times Newt seemed to be talking about some guy she once knew, but I could not follow the story at all. The woman seemed to have wandered off the reservation. And what, do you suppose, was going to happen once the money ran out? Would I need to start looking over my shoulder?

This was not going to end well.

Good Intentions…

I wish I could say that Newt, a lady masseuse who works at Friend’s Thai Massage in a nearby hotel, is a person I have a good rapport with. Like so many single Thai mothers, she is struggling to raise her children while working in a field bereft of glamour or good pay. Yet despite knowing her for over four years, things between us have never advanced beyond brief hellos and semi-annual massages in my room.

I think it stemmed from the second time I had Newt over, way back in 2012. As described in Making the Rounds, she wore a seductive dress and coyly let me know what the rate was for a beyond-the-rubbing roll in the hay. I was of course tempted — a woman does not get through the door of my apartment without having some physical appeal — but this time I hesitated. My lover-to-be hadn’t shown any real affection or desire during the massage and was now viewing me in a rather cold, calculating manner. Waiting to see if the mouse would take the baited cheese.

I ended up declining, though it was a close call, and from then on kept a certain distance. Our rare massage sessions remained pleasant enough; at times I found myself enjoying her company. Things just never advanced beyond that.

It was during one of our get-togethers back in June when Newt showed me a sore bruise on the back of her head. Apparently she has an abusive boyfriend who had slammed her up against a wall. Knowing the limits of what I could do in this situation, I nevertheless provided her with some extra money in order to return to the doctor. After we talked a bit more, I also decided to include cash earmarked for her son, advising her to go to a bank and put it into a savings account. During my half-decade in this country, I’d heard far too many unhappy stories about negligent Thai men and what absolute turds they could be. Better to keep any windfall out of his sight.

Two weeks passed. Then late one night, well after midnight, there was a soft knock on the door. It was Newt and a friend, both holding grocery bags filled with clothes. Newt had decided to leave her boyfriend as well as her dead-end job and was stopping by to bid me farewell. She was also clearly hoping I would provide some more money to help facilitate what sounded like a courageous move. No hay problema! I got dressed, took her down the street to an ATM, and withdrew twenty thousand baht (almost $600). She then hailed a cab to the bus station at Mo Chit, on her way out of the city.

Before she departed, I got Newt’s phone number and asked that she text me the number of the savings account she had opened. It was my plan to provide her with special assistance once she had resettled with her family(?) out in provinces. She clearly needed time to get things sorted out.

And that’s when it all got strange…

Postscript

May, 2015 — Bangkok

I was to stay in Pattaya for another three months, into late March of 2011. By then it had become clear the city was never going to be the retirement mecca I’d envisioned. Not developed enough for my taste. Crowded and messy. Seemed I could never really relax when I went out. So, with the punishing hot season well underway, I decided it was time to depart. Not just Pattaya, but Thailand. I had given the country a try, but things had not worked out. I closed my bank account, packed up all my belongings, and returned to Seattle.

Actually, all I really needed was a some time away to clear my head. In fact, it only took a week of being back in the Emerald City before I came up with the idea of returning to Thailand, this time to live in Bangkok, which would offer a more modern, comfortable life. I still had half a year remaining on my hard-earned Retirement Visa, plenty of time to see if this might work. What the hell.

At this point luck came into play. For my apartment hunting base, I had booked a hotel in Bangkok on Soi 4, not far from the bars and go-gos of Nana Plaza. An area of the city I knew somewhat. What I didn’t know was that just a couple blocks from my hotel, in the opposite direction of the Plaza, was an apartment complex called Siam Court. On my second or third day, I happened to wander by there and saw a sign advertising monthly rates. I walked into the office, had the manager show me a few units, and after a half hour of looking had paid a deposit and first month’s rent on a spacious second floor studio with a partial view of the outdoor swimming pool. Four years later on I am, amazingly, still residing here, although I check out each summer for a month or two back in the states. All because I made a second attempt at living in this country.

For More Details, See: Another Try in the Land of Smiles

✦ ✦ ✦

As for Rasamee, when I left Pattaya so did she, to go back home to Udon Thani and work at a laundromat she and her sister owned (and which I helped pay for). But once she found out I was back in the country, living in Bangkok, getting down to see me became a near obsession. I fended her off, wanting instead to meet more women in order to discover what I liked and disliked about them; whether I indeed wanted a girlfriend, or simply casual acquaintances. My years as an IT social misfit had never afforded me the opportunity to find this out.

This meant Rasamee and I were at cross purposes and when she asked for money a couple months later for her son’s college tuition, I said goodbye. Being in different cities this time, the breakup proved more durable. Rasamee ended up going back to the bar in Pattaya for the higher salary she could earn working there.

It was not the end, however. A half year later, in early 2012, she emailed me, saying she’d heard I had a new girlfriend (which was not true) and wishing me well. Not sure where she got that notion from. In any event, I didn’t want to hear from her, a feeling that was reinforced in April when her bar unexpectedly closed down and she had to travel over to Cambodia to find work that payed as well. Once again she ended up needing help and, after initially refusing, once again I opened my wallet. (At no time did we ever meet, though. It was all long distance.)

This pattern continued for the better part of a year: me gallantly coming to the rescue whenever the latest financial crisis hit. After each bailout I’d swear to myself no more, that’s it, only to get sucked into the next calamity. Finally, totally fed up with being on call, I deleted the email address I’d given her, leaving my persistent ex with no means of ringing the fire bell. It was, in the end, the only way for me to move on — severing all communication.

But old habits die hard. For Rasamee’s fiftieth birthday two months ago, I anonymously transferred fifty thousand baht (close to $1,500) to her bank account. After four years apart and countless experiences with the “fairer sex”, I have not forgotten the hard-working woman who once knitted me a Christmas scarf. How could I?

Rasamee with Family — Daughter, Son, Me & My Lady

Forward!

Dec 31, 2010

During our time here on earth, there are perhaps a handful of years that, in hindsight, stand out. When far-reaching decisions are made. Or when momentous events roll through, rearranging perspectives and priorities. While we cannot know the new future that is being summoned, we can sometimes sense when a path has been altered.

I’ve been fortunate to have lived in two foreign countries before coming to Thailand (Japan and South Korea). The years in those places were indeed special, with unforgettable experiences, but did not change my life’s overall trajectory. Despite the occasional moments of euphoria, I knew the day would eventually come when I’d pack my bags and return home. America was where I ultimately belonged.

Thailand, however, has presented a new kind of challenge, thus insuring that 2010 will go down as an important, even a pivotal, year. For moving here required a new mindset. I had to let go of my home country and prepare myself for not just another extended time away, but a journey. To travel down a sometimes twisting road whose ultimate destination would be unknown. It has been both exciting and a little unsettling so far. The undiscovered country — in more ways than one.

My maternal grandfather had a younger brother, Raymond, who worked for a number of years as an accountant for a hotel chain. His financial acumen allowed him to retire early and devote his energy to various pursuits such as playing the violin and traveling (which, like me, he had a real passion for). Because it was late 1960s America, with cheap gas and most of the new Interstate Highway System in place, he and his wife decided to purchase a small sized motor home. Discovering they loved the experience of being on the road, exploring, they ended up selling their house and spent a number of years crisscrossing the U.S., following the seasons. Winnebago Vagabonds. My grandparents would know of Ray’s whereabouts only from the occasional postcard. One of them contained the below postscript, which I think will be helpful to keep in mind as I venture into the new year:

“Don’t know where we’re going. Don’t care.”

See Ya Next Year

Dec 30, 2010

Time for some more bad news: Rasamee’s daughter was in a motorbike accident a few days ago. The girl had been driving home after repaying ten thousand baht (part of my gift from last week) to one of Rasamee’s friends when it happened. Thank heavens it was not serious. Following two nights in the hospital, she ended up with only a sore shoulder. Lucky. This is the third person in Rasamee’s life who’s had a motorbike mishap, her son and best friend Wan being the other two. (There was also an older brother three decades ago who, like Wan, was killed.)

Would someone please teach these people how to f*cking drive?

Rasamee is going to take a few days off work to go home, look after her daughter, and be with the extended family over New Years. It is a Thai tradition to get together for this holiday and I was invited to be part of it but declined, not being comfortable with the implications of meeting the parents. Plus, I could use some time to myself. Being around Rasamee and her troubles makes me on occasion feel like I’m suffocating and it will be nice to have her out of town for awhile. Her vacation will be my vacation.

Before Rasamee’s departure this afternoon, being in an understandably good mood, I treated her to a New Year’s lunch over at the Central Festival Shopping Center, or whatever the hell it’s called. (Our eating out together is one of the things I’ve come to enjoy, sans any bad news.) This was one of the malls I went to with Tip a couple weeks back for a bit of sightseeing on what turned out to be our only date. For Rasamee, I took her to an upscale Thai restaurant on the fifth floor that I’d been wanting to try. Both of our dishes were scrumptious. In a way, this meal was an atonement for my forgetting to get her a New Year’s Day card. (Oops!) She gave me one, and I should have remembered the reverence Asians place on this particular holiday. But at least we were able to share a nice lunch to commemorate it — and say our goodbyes for the year.

An Expat Christmas

Dec 25, 2010

Here it is Christmas Day and I’m sitting in my modest room in my boxer shorts, typing away at my PC with the fan aimed at me. (Actually, I’m wearing my comfy attire a day early — Boxing (Boxer?) Day is tomorrow.) What an agreeable change from a year ago when I was fighting the flu back in dark, chilly Seattle.

I celebrated Christmas Eve by having a special dinner, by myself, at a place called Bob’s BBQ and Mexican Grill up on Soi LK Metro street. (A friend introduced me to it a few years back during one of my visits. Rather strange to see a something like this in Thailand.) I’d been in a bit of a dining rut, having had chicken and fried rice the previous four evenings at the corner eatery. Not that bad, but with the waitresses becoming a little tired of me, it was time for a change of cuisine and Mexican sounded wonderful. I savored every bite. When finished, I carefully packed up the leftovers, then stopped by Canterbury Tales, a large English language bookstore a few blocks away. There I purchased a couple of paperbacks, one by Stephen King (cannot go wrong with that guy!) and another by Tony Hillerman. Simple pleasures for a simple (?) man.

After getting home, I dropped my books off and went down the street to Rasamee’s bar (Boomerang) to see what they were doing for the holiday. To my amusement, all of the girls were wearing Santa hats with flashing red lights. After I’d plopped myself down at a table, they put one on me too, which probably looked silly, but who cares? All part of the fun. I had brought my Thai writing book with me and Rasamee and her best friend ended up sitting on either side, happily critiquing my struggles with the hieroglyphic-like alphabet in return for buying them drinks. Perhaps not the best way to learn a language, but it did keep everyone entertained.

Amidst the atmosphere of shared comfort and joy, I was surprised to discover that Rasamee was “in the mood”, so to speak, pointing out it had been nineteen days since our last little tryst. (Quite a change from Seattle, where such intervals were often measured in years.) My emails a while back attempting to break things off had not been taken seriously in light of the special financial help I’ve been providing. Therefore, we should retire to my apartment for our own private celebration.

I turned her down. Anything that has the potential of bringing us closer together these days is going to be resisted. From the couple of weeks I spent being her pseudo boyfriend, I’ve discovered I’m not ready for the emotional demands of an intimate relationship with one of the natives. It’s too much, too soon for someone who has been in the country only a couple months.

My refusal was met with a friendly argument or two from my would-be lover, who did not see a little bit of holiday intimacy as any big deal — a view I suspect my Thais share. I, however, had been raised with a more reverent attitude regarding “the act”, which means I tend to make it far more complicated than it needs to be. Fortunately, Rasamee is an easygoing person and did not overreact. I was thus able to escape home to my waiting novel (The Shining) an unmolested free man.

Green Santa

Dec 22, 2010

I took Rasamee out for a special pre-Christmas lunch at a Japanese restaurant I particularly like (Fuji). While enjoying our meals, I informed her I’d be willing to pay all of her debts except for what she owes on her family’s two motorbikes — vehicles I’m not especially enamored with. It comes out to just under sixty thousand baht (about $2,000). Upon hearing that figure, I promptly pulled out my coin purse and began ponderously counting out one baht coins. We both got a good laugh out of that.

My offer was made not a day too soon. Yesterday Rasamee had gotten a call from her daughter, who is feeling the strain of holding down a part time job while studying at college. It was hard to tell how serious a problem this is — when Rasamee told me about the call, she did it with a smile, which is the way Thais often convey bad news. Probably the girl simply misses her mother; in Rasamee’s absence she’s having to handle the household chores in addition to her studies and work. Very stressful. Since my support includes funds earmarked to pay her tuition for next year, perhaps that will help ease the burden.

The rest of my money is intended to clean up loans Rasamee has taken out from her sister and two friends and is paying interest on each month. (Borrowing money seems to be a common feature of relationships here.) I’m of course not so naive as to think I’m changing her life, just helping her through an especially difficult time. A couple years down the road she may well be in the same situation, though with her son and daughter both hopefully through college.

Because there’s a thirty thousand baht limit on ATM transfers, I sent the money over to Rasamee’s bank in two transactions. For the first one, I let her push the buttons to initiate it. The second I did by myself after we’d finished up our shopping. Throughout all this, Rasamee was clearly very grateful, but there were no sudden tearful hugs or heartfelt declarations of love. That is not really her style, plus we were in public. However, I did get the impression she feels the two of us are now closer — when we got back to our neck of the woods, she asked to take a nap in my apartment for a couple of hours. Since this did not put a crimp in my plans — what plans? — I said no problem. But I was not enthusiastic about the idea. It would be difficult — and perhaps a bit mean — to try and explain I’m helping her more out of admiration than affection.

Whatever my motivations, this felt like the proper thing to do, and the right time of the year to do it in. 🎄 Ho! Ho! Ho! 🎄

From a wooden plaque that used to hang in my grandmother’s kitchen:
“I shall pass through this world but once.
If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or good I can do,
let me do it now.
Let me not defer or neglect it.
For I shall not pass this way again.”