Stickman's guide to Bangkok Readers' Submissions
Thai Journal 1.5
By Caveman
Japan Hotel Guide • Ramada Sapporo Hotel • Royton Hotel • Sheraton Hotel Sapporo • Tokyu Inn Hotel My Thai Journal, which was posted on 7/4/2002, did not include the following saga which transpired mostly after I departed Pattaya. After I left Pattaya, I spent a few days in Khon Kaen, which was a real eye opener. Grab a beer; here is a hitherto untold tale.
In the summer of 2001, I decided to post a profile on an internet dating service called Matchmaker. Not really being my style, I figured, “What the heck, what have I got to lose?” There are advantages to meeting someone through an internet dating service because you can review their likes, dislikes, hobbies, employment info, etc before you meet them, screening out the obvious incompatibles. Well, I dated a couple weirdoes, then reviewed the profile of a Thai woman (let’s call her K) who posted her profile with a nice picture. She responded to my email and for a while we corresponded; no phone calls for a while, but just stuck to email. I had never been to Thailand at that time, but had dated some Asian women in the US. I had no idea that I would ever really go to Thailand to meet her, but that’s exactly what happened in March 2002, when I spent the last few days of my first Thailand visit going up to her hometown of Khon Kaen to finally meet K personally. To facilitate things, K had put me in contact with a friend of hers (let’s call him P) from her childhood days who spoke good English and turned out to be a really good guy. My Thai language skills were nonexistent at the time. He told me that I was fortunate to be meeting K because she had received literally hundreds of hits on her Matchmaker profile. He explained that it was his idea that she post a profile just to learn some English and that he prepared it for her. It’s doubtful that she posted just to learn English because, among other things, I also found her profile on another internet dating service. I never informed P that I knew this. P and I met at the BKK airport and flew together to Khon Kaen. We were in agreement that I was to surprise K, who did not even know that I was in Thailand and knew nothing of my impending visit. She was under the impression that P was coming to Khon Kaen to visit her alone, as they had not seen each other in a while. We stayed at the Kosa Hotel in Khon Kaen: first class digs. P arranged for K to come into the hotel lobby, where my plan was to surprise the living shit out of her. Well, it worked. In fact, it worked so well that it appeared she was going to cry. The only part of the whole thing that I found distasteful was that even when she realized the deal and properly digested it, she failed to even muster a smile. This was to prove to be a problem for me. She did not have that renowned smile that so many Thai women are known for. When they have it, it can really light up your world; when they don’t, it just seems there’s something missing. But P’s gorgeous beauty of a friend who picked us up at the Khon Kaen airport in her car certainly had a smashing, gleaming, glow-in-the-fucking-dark smile (let’s call her N). In fact, N was downright gorgeous, a “10” without a doubt, no exaggeration. She was one of the most amazingly beautiful women I’ve ever met, and to be honest, I could not help but make the comparison over and over again as I was in the company of N and K for the next 3-4 days. I could barely control myself a couple times. I think I did a pretty good job at disguising the fact that I wanted to bang the living dog crap out of her in every way humanly possible. N had a decent job as a butcher at a shop in central Khon Kaen at one of the markets. (Piss her off and she’ll use a meat cleaver to chop off your schlong instead of a wimpy little knife). Onward: K smiled only occasionally. She was very duty oriented and a Type B personality, displaying a willingness to do whatever the hell I wished, that much is true. If that is what I was after, K had it down to a ‘t’. It has often been said of those Western guys that have a penchant for the Asian persuasion that we have that penchant because they are obedient and subservient, while we are mostly pig-headed, prefer things done our way, and besides, no one else would put up with our shit. For some of us, maybe that’s true. For me, I guess there are times (I honestly think they’re pretty rare) when I like it “my way or the highway” (mostly times when I’m standing on principle for something I strongly believe), but I don’t want a fucking slave or a woman who can’t think for herself. To me, there’s no such thing as a “woman’s job”, for the most part. She needs to have a certain spirit of independence, not be afraid to disagree, not be a puppet, be insistent on some things of her own, have some definite personal preferences and opinions.....I don’t want a groveler or a heel-hound. It should be 50-50. A mindless robot is not what I’m after. Not saying that K was that, but I can certainly say that she gave the impression that she wanted to get married and expected to play the traditional subservient role that many guys are looking for in the female of a family, while I was in the driver’s seat. And yes, she was a virgin. Not only did P tell me that she was a virgin, but he further informed me that she had NEVER had a boyfriend in her life. To this date, I have every confidence that this was true. Now, this type of thing can NEVER be found in the US for a woman of 26 years old, which was K’s age at the time, except maybe in some misfit with 6 ears, antennae, and missing half her teeth. While some guys might consider K’s virginity to be equivalent to discovering a gold mine, that’s not really what I was looking for, at least not explicitly. The big thing that bothered me again at first was that she was a bit smiling-challenged and seemed too routine-oriented and humdrum; she was anything but excitable. Maybe she was just too overly preoccupied with pleasing me and projecting the best possible image to the point where it made her a bit apprehensive during my visit. The times I went to her apartment to visit her, with her family always present, she made no fuss on my arrival, and indeed sometimes did not even greet me. Eventually, she would place herself by my side on the uncomfortable wooden chairs on the uncomfortable polished concrete floor, but I could say that she seemed inept at times with her attentions. Now, I wasn’t expecting her to do fucking handstands or anything, but let’s face it: I had traveled 10,000 miles to be at her doorstep, so I think I had the right to expect a bit more enthusiasm. That said, at other times she gave me attention to an extreme degree. For instance, at meals, thinking of one in particular where I had a variety of shellfish that was still in the shell, she dutifully sat at my side and peeled, cracked and otherwise assisted in opening them for me as I ate. I was amazed at this behavior and that she should pay me such attention. Observing the whole scene in full comprehension of the dynamics of what was transpiring in front of him, P made the comment to me, “This is not an act. She will always do that for you. Thai women are expected to do such things for their man. In fact, this is just the tip of the iceberg.” Well, holy shit, Batman. Did I really want this? Aside from me, no one present found it to be out of the ordinary or even paid it much attention, but if I were to import her to the US, it would draw some stares. Not that it would necessarily bother me....fuck the world, in fact. I’m just saying that it would draw some attention.
As memory serves, one other thing I found a trifle deceptive, and I’ve seen Stick point this out at least once, is the way that some Thai women go to a photographer and have professional photos made. In fact, they can be so good that it doesn’t resemble the woman being photographed after the application of makeup, lighting features, dress-up, etc. I’m not saying that K was unattractive, but the photos that she had sent me before we met were not a true representation of her actual appearance.
After we met at the hotel, I decided to rent a sedan for my stay in Khon Kaen. A car is certainly not necessary in BKK, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Chiang Saen..... but in Khon Kaen, it came in useful. Also, I knew that I was going to want to travel around and knew that the grandmother, brother, and others would want to accompany. P did almost all of the driving; he enjoyed it immensely, as he didn’t own a car himself and rarely got the chance. We then used it to go to the supermarket and fill 2 shopping carts with a shitload of food and brought it all back to K’s apartment. It was really cheap, too, as you can imagine. Her grandmother thanked me for the gesture with a smile and a wai. To review K’s family situation, her parents were divorced and lived apart, and she lived with her brother and grandmother in a fair sized apartment in central Khon Kaen. Her grandmother was about 70 years old and did not work, so it was her brother’s and her responsibility to provide. Her brother was a fortune teller of sorts, and ran his operation directly out of their apartment. From what I gather, he didn’t make a heck of a lot of cash at his job. Maybe if he could really predict the future, he’d start with predicting a lottery number for himself. K worked a small office job making 4K baht a month. Yes, they were pretty dirt poor, just as so many families in Isaan. Not wretchedly poor, but poor. I was to discover later (P told me) that her brother was gay. Didn’t really bother me, but yeah, he took it up the hinyhole, smuggled the salami, smoked the skin flute, rode the baloney pony, and was otherwise a member of your friendly neighborhood AFL-CIO Fudge Packers Local No. 69. He did exhibit a protectiveness over his younger sister (as K was). For instance, at one point where he knew that K and I were alone in my hotel room (for a very short time), he came directly to the room to see what was about. This didn’t exactly endear him to me. Understood that it was his little sister, but she was an adult and therefore in my mind should have the right to make her own decisions without his interference, while I didn’t need/want the family watching over my shoulder. As it turned out, he had nothing to worry about because I had no intention of deflowering his sister; I guess that’s why it bothered me even more. I felt like he should mind his fucking business. Knowing how close family ties are in Thailand does not exempt you from having strong reactions like this about things when they actually happen to you personally. Another thing: I think K was ready to fuck me! Check that: there is no doubt that she wanted me to get down and lay some pipe. On one occasion, P made it possible for K and I to be alone for quite a while in my hotel room, and doubtless for that exact purpose. We made out a little and it was obvious by her aggressiveness that she wanted to go all the way. Why didn’t I? For one thing, I respected the fact that she had maintained her virginity so steadfastly up until the age of 26; consequently I believed it would have been disrespectful to take her virginity with no real intention of marrying her. Also, being a little older, more experienced, and more mature than her (late 30’s), I figured that if she gave me her virginity, she might later regret it if we did not marry. On top of this, I wasn’t certain that I really wanted to deal with the baggage that would have ensued. You can imagine how attached that a virgin might become to the guy that pops her cherry. Did I really need to deal with all that crap? Why fuck up a perfectly good life? In the interests of full disclosure, I was also sick as a fucking dog with a severe case of the shits, gas, and extreme stomach ache as a result of drinking tap water. Imagine scrogging the garbage out of her, having a bloody mess all over the place due to the fact that she’s a virgin, then crapping myself (while knee deep in the act) due to my own condition at the time. Imagine the mess! Sorry for the graphics. What am I saying?....no I’m not.
We frequently ate out at restaurants (always a good subject after writing about shitting in one’s pants, eh?), and I never had a bad meal the entire time I was in Khon Kaen. Food was usually ordered by P and the rest, with the typical table full of dishes where everyone shares. And yes, there was leftover food most times. I can remember one really neat outdoor restaurant where we cooked our own food at the table with little grills in the center of the table, and where an elephant was brought tableside by its owner on foot, where we fed stalks of bananas to the huge pachyderm. Being in the presence of an elephant, such an incredible creature, is always a moving experience for me and one that I never take for granted. There was yet another outstanding restaurant, also of the outdoor variety where we ate in thatch-covered, wooden hut-type contraptions that were constructed next to and even partially on top of (with extended sticks placing your hut over the water surface) a small stream. Ambience was mesmerizing and gave the whole experience a refreshingly local flavor, but the mosquitoes were a small problem. From what I can remember, I didn’t eat that much, as I was still suffering as explained above as a result of having drank tap water. Man, was I in a hurt-locker. One day we took a trip to a huge reservoir about 1.5 hours drive from Khon Kaen, and upon returning to the hotel, I almost shit myself. Yeah, almost didn’t make it to the crapper. It would have been so embarrassing. Speaking about eating at the restaurants, I paid for every meal for every person present with us every time we dined out. P usually offered a few baht (the gracious MF’er that he was), but otherwise it seemed that it was expected; at the time I didn’t mind, either, and just asked for the bill. At least one of the meals, there were about 10-12 people present, but the bill was always dirt cheap by U.S. standards.
It was this generosity that eventually gave the wrong impression that I was ready and willing to pay for anything and everything that anybody could want. As “Steppenwolf” (Readers Submissions) wisely points out, if you don’t want to be treated like a walking ATM, then don’t act like one. Good advice. Upon retrospect, I was acting like one. My most generous ATM-like act while in Khon Kaen occurred when we strolled by a motosai dealership. P had told me that K’s motosai was 10 years old, broken down, in the shop, etc. On the spur of the moment, I decided to buy K a brand new motosai; cost was about 36K baht. She was very surprised, as was P. In fact, P was more surprised than K. Again, this was not planned, but I knew that she really needed one, and it wasn’t like I was buying her an expensive but useless piece of jewelry; a motosai is not an unnecessary luxury for her and her family, but a requirement and something that would be very useful for them all. I knew that it would serve her/them well. Came with basket for transporting goods, new helmet, and a couple of other bells and whistles. But again, by being so generous, you can send the wrong signals. Unfortunate but true, because I know that many farangs in Thailand feel good about giving to those they encounter who are in genuine need. It is a real shame that so many people on the receiving end of gifts cannot simply be thankful for what they get without becoming greedy, while also seeing it as a weakness of the giver. In fact, in the culture of Italians, a favor or gift is supposed to be returned in kind, and failure to do this is not only insulting but sends a message that the gift should never have been given. Doesn’t this make more sense? It reinforces the friendship by demonstrating that your gift is appreciated, while simultaneously sending the signal that the recipient intends to reciprocate equally in the friendship. Thus, a good action breeds more good actions......However, my understanding is that this is rarely done in Thailand. Well, at the time, buying the motosai for K made me feel good inside, and it still does. But if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t. You’ll see why as you read on.
Another problem reared its head. K had informed me in our early email correspondence that she spoke half-decent English. It turned out that her English was almost nonexistent, as was the English of most others I encountered except for P. One reason her English was so bad was that her teacher, taped lessons of whom she owned and that she played for us while we were cruising around, was terrible! In fact, it took me a while to even realize that this teacher was speaking English along with the Thai, her pronunciation of English words was so ATROCIOUS on the cassette tape. Poor English caused a good laugh on one occasion when we visited a park where there were dinosaur fossils. Great visit, that, where we took a small hike through the bush and even heard monkeys yelping in the distance. Anyway, one of K’s young and pretty lady friends (Yao) who was with us was interested in my teaching her English. There was a small statue of a dinosaur, a stegosaurus (dinosaur with those 4 spikes on his tail and plates on his back), at the entrance to the park. I told Yao, “That’s a stegosaurus. Can you say that? Say, ‘stegosaurus’”. She replied, “Texa-cola”. I laughed until I almost pissed myself, as it was so funny and even sexy how it rolled off her cute little lips (yeah, she was a looker: a sweet, petite little sex machine). I called her Texa-cola for the remainder of my visit. To continue, were it not for P, who turned out to be quite the interpreter, communication would have been next to impossible. P served as a capable interpreter for everyone I encountered, to include K and especially her family, which included her grandmother and her brother. We went out to visit her Mother and Father separately, and I enjoyed each visit. My favorite visit was to her Mother’s house where I met her Stepfather, who was a man of very good cheer, being a lead farmer of sorts in the farms of a small village near Khon Kaen. He was the supervisor for about 50 other farm workers, so he made a relatively decent wage for the area. His house, if you can call it that, gave me a taste of what it’s like to live in the small village town that he did. It consisted of a large shack with a few rooms all on 1 floor. There were no walls in much of it, to include the entrance, and the roof consisted of a large corrugated metal tin thrown over the entire structure. Holes/openings/orifices were everywhere. Anything could have and most certainly did get in any time to include flies, mosquitoes, rats, centipedes, birds, snakes, tigers, elephants, low-flying 747’s.... I am certain that although it did not rain at the time, his house/shack/abode would get flooded out when it rained heavily. Chickens, puppies, kittens, roosters, and other animals frequented the grounds of his property....and he was in the lists of the well-off in this area. The kicker is that he was a very happy man with everything he had. He smiled more than almost any American I know, welcomed me to his house warmly, had a drink with me (or 2), and I can definitely say that I was sorry to leave when the time came. He showed true mirth every minute I was with him, was obviously a genuinely happy and well adapted person and proud of everything he had, loved his family, his village, and his country, and was just a gem of a human being. Admiring him and also just being fascinated by a person so indigenous to the culture of the area in particular, I asked him endless questions which were all well interpreted by my buddy P. I was treated with dignity and respect at all times while in his house, offered plenty of food and drink from the minute I arrived until I sadly departed, and was never asked for a dime. That is the standard of my impression of the typical Thai family upcountry, and I was immediately impressed in a highly favorable manner with Thai people, culture, traditions, and the lot, of which he and his family were excellent representatives! It certainly breaks the mold if you think that most Thai families are out to fleece the farang. This visit helped me form many of my current opinions and admiration for the Thais upcountry. You MUST see it to believe it. You will never forget!
Renting the sedan was a great idea. In addition to visiting many of K’s friends and relatives, P (as our chauffeur) took the liberty of just cruising around onto the back roads, into small nearby villages, taking the scenic routes, etc, just about everywhere we went. We trekked through some really cool little villages that were so enchanting, I can hardly explain. It was riveting. I got the priceless opportunity to see not only the people, but their living quarters and conditions, associated paraphernalia, shops, farms, green and verdant countryside, beasts of burden and other animals, EVERYTHING. This gave me the best taste possible for what I believe to be the REAL THAILAND for those who think they’ve found it on Silom or Sukhumvit. We came upon villages that were having mini-parades where the town folk were strutting around the roads in their traditional accoutrements, which they evidently did on a regular basis according to P. At one time, we had to stop until they had finished crossing at the intersection. I can remember many other times when it was difficult to get by the local farmers who use the roads to walk their buffalo around between the fields. I enjoyed seeing the buffalo, as you just don’t see them in Hometown, U.S.A., to say the least. Food for the soul.
To continue, communication was rough, especially if P was not around. I tried to keep him in my hip pocket at all times.
One thing that made me uncomfortable and began to sow the seeds of dissolution between K and I was the way her grandmother and brother raked me over the coals in regards to my plans with K. They were always cordial, but always seemed to have a million questions about it all. On one occasion, they actually sat me down in their living room with P as the interpreter and grilled the dog shit out of me. Being the logical creature, my plan was to try to get K a visa to visit me in the US, see how she liked it and how things worked out in general, and then just take it from there. They seemed to be indicating that their desire was for me to marry K in Thailand first before taking her anywhere, but didn’t necessarily seem hell-bent on it. Keep in mind that I had only known her for about 6 months and had only spent a couple days with her up to that time, so to me it was outrageously ridiculous to be considering marriage so soon. It’s all tied in with saving face, the idea being that if everyone knew that K was accompanying me to the US without marrying me, then it would be assumed that we were having sex before marriage. Etcetera, etcetera, et-fucking-cetera. I could easily have lied to them, told them what they wanted to hear, and agreed to it all to make it easier on myself to get them the hell off my back; but I stuck to my guns, maintained my integrity, told them my true intentions and wishes, and paced that red, white, & blue smile like a champ. At all times, even when K later expressed a willingness to disregard her family’s intentions and just come to the US with me (which was bold of her), I found it difficult to completely discount her family’s wishes and just take her away. This would doubtless have caused problems down the line, even if I did believe that it was rightly K’s decision to make.
After my return to the US, check out this happy horse shit. K and I continued to correspond and decide whether she should come over to the US, assuming that we could get her a visa. She told me that she was ready to come over. Her grandmother and brother enlisted a close relative of theirs (who could write half-decent English) to send me an email explaining their desires in no uncertain terms: I was NOT to take K to the US without first marrying her. I emailed back that I was skeptical of what she was telling me, and that if it were true, that I wanted her grandmother to phone me in the US at my home phone and personally inform me that she wished it; otherwise leave me be. Up until this time, although my suspicions were that this relative was really correct, it had never really been stated to me outright and I wanted to hear it right from the source. Maybe I just didn’t think ol’ granny would have the stomach to do it. Boy, was I wrong. Not only did K’s grandmother actually do this, she even put the light-loafered brother on the phone immediately afterward, where he delivered the same verbal message on my answering machine. Speaking no English, the words had been written down for them and were read into the phone. Bloody amazing. When K found out what they had done, according to P, who stayed in touch with me, K approached her grandmother and brother and told them off. According to P, her brother gave her a physical beating for it, too. I do believe this. But what could I do about it being 10K miles away?
The final straw to this episode with K came when we continued to correspond, mostly be email. Requests came in slowly for financial support. Not overwhelming ones, but requests nonetheless. One particular request was that I “lend” her some money so that she could attend hairdressing school. I explained to her that I was not sure if I could afford it, but that I would give it some thought. She misunderstood, maybe even intentionally, and thanked me profusely for agreeing to help. I clarified matters with another email. That’s when the shit really hit the fan. She sent me an email with the following words: “Thank you for the help you used to give me.” What a pisser! Was this a communication breakdown? Was this just a poor choice of words due to her inexact grasp of the English language? Had she intended to say something to the effect of, “Thank you anyway, you have done so much for me in the past, don’t worry about it”?? At the time and even now, I don’t really give a rat’s ass. That drove me up a fucking wall. “Thank you for the help you USED TO give me.” (???!!!) That, together with other things, caused me to decide to refuse to answer any further emails or phone calls. I closed the door to further communication.
As a final note, I have not seen K since that time of my first visit to Thailand in March 2002. My last correspondence with her may have been a month or 2 after my visit when she dropped the aforementioned bomb on me. Laugh your merry ass off at this: as I type this in August 2004, SHE CONTINUES TO CALL MY HOUSE! I screen every call, so I never pick up when an unwanted caller calls, and she is an unwanted caller. She called one time when I was having a loud BBQ party (I ID’d her by my caller ID), and I (cruelly?) had an Armenian guy answer the phone and start spouting off to her in Armenian. You might figure that this would discourage her. Not a chance. In fact, she left a few messages just last week. I got one message mixed in with a couple of K’s messages from a Thai female (not K) in that undeniable Thai accent which delivered a 2-word statement: “Fuck you”. My crystal ball tells me that K informed one of her friends that I never answer any of her calls, so her friend told K to dial my number and give her the phone, after which she delivered that hilarious 2-word love note. When I heard it, I laughed long and hard. I played it over and over, it sounds so damned funny. I couldn’t even bring myself to delete it, and still have not deleted it. If I could play it for you, kind reader, you would laugh as I did, no doubt. I guess the final conclusion about K is that she is fucking insane. What woman in her right mind would continue to call and call and call and call......when never receiving a reply? And after about 2.5 years, to boot! She’s lost her marbles. Yes, I feel sorry for her in a way, but I refuse to throw good money after bad and waste my time. As I’ve said before, if you decide to break things off with a woman, do it like taking off a band-aid: in 1 quick motion: RIGHT OFF! And don’t look back.
So ends my saga of K.
Stickman’s thoughts:
Wow, from an upcountry visit to a possible romance to prank phone calls, you have got to wonder. It is a shame when people get nasty in situations like they ultimately did here. Sometimes I wonder about the extremes in Thailand. The women can treat you very well, but when they are pissed off, they can become really nasty, often more than you would think is commensurate with the situation.
The author of this piece can be contacted at cromagnon9669@yahoo.com
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