Honey I Would Not Harm A Hair On Your Head

Oh happy is the smiling Thai who does not give a dam.

I wish I was a smiling Thai “my god perhaps I am”

More frequently these days you see something a little out of the ordinary even by the LOS standards that make you wonder if the lunatics have really taken over the asylum. And it is not just the irritating things such as getting pulled over
by the boys in brown for not having a seat belt on as families of 4 with bags of shopping ride past on their old Honda 125 with kids precariously perched onto the handle bars.

It's often the small things that can make you think the most here and question reality.

I stood still and looked in bewilderment at the 20 or so hanks of hair hanging down on the tatty wooden board on the stall. I had been shopping at the Zeer centre and was walking along the soi just outside the Asia Hotel complex.

On a closer look I could see that the hair had been thoughtfully hung in differing shades of jet black, all the hair was very long, some hanks were up to 3 feet in length and all were held together by a band at the top that pulled the hair
together and made the hair so thick and you would have had trouble getting your finger and thumb around the circumference.
It hung in a way just as if it had been cut that very moment it was long and strong and brilliant with shine, its shear
volume of weight made it hang straight and heavy. The quality of the attention its years of loving care had received stood out a mile.

I could only think about what kind of beauty the women who had once carried such locks of hair like this must have beheld.

The girl on the stall seemed a little out of place in her floral dress; she was very carefully trimming out a few stray fly away hairs on one of the shanks hanging up.

I stupidly asked her was the hair real………Yes she replied…..

What was the hair was for……….“Bonding”……..

She then took great pleasure in lifting her own hair up at the back and showed me how the lengths of hair were bonded to her natural hair at the base of her scalp. As she let her own semi long hair back down you could not see any difference
in colour or texture on the extensions that hung down further and made her hair flow with grace and sexuality.

Her small stall had an old blue plastic chair and small electric pronged welding gun at the ready for anyone wanting this service.

How much for a whole one of these hanks… 10,000 baht each kilo she replied.

The hanks of hair I was looking at must have taken a girl a very long time to have grown and lovingly cared for each day.

I have to admit I was inwardly amazed at what I was looking at. And it puzzled me why any woman with hair so prized and wonderful would want to cut it all off and sell it.

It was a dumb, small and maybe insignificant question my mind came back to many times in the weeks that followed.

The obvious thought was that it was sold purely for money someone’s needs were so desperate that they would sell there own hair. Reminiscent to Cosette in Les misrebles. A common prostitute forced to selling her hair to feed her child….
Desperate people do desperate things.

Was this another avenue for money from some of the Bangkok lady boys who wanted a career change when the silicon started to sag?

Was it taken from the dead? Not a nice picture formed on that one and I quickly dismissed it from my mind.

No the answer was simpler…

We hear so much these days from the Farang bitching with a sob story about how out of pocket they are when their moment in paradise turns into a living hell. What is not so widely reported is the peer pressure and hurt many of these girls
go through when it also goes wrong and the dreams of a better life for them drift away. More Farang than ever are coming to Thailand clued up and seeing themselves here as players.

The majority of the hair hanging up had once belonged to girls who in some way had been deeply hurt.

Many of the hanks of hair hanging up were the signs of self inflicted punishment. I have often heard of girls cutting themselves when face or feelings were lost. I have heard of the suicides girls have committed over the loss of a loved one
or sponsor.

Thai girl thinking is like nothing in this world you will ever have come across, rationality is a word that is not easily understood by them. Loss of face is everything to these girls to underestimate its loss is foolish.

When a Thai woman goes off at the deep end, expect the unexpected everything and anything is possible.

Thai girls do genuinely and regularly fall in love with Farang. They will always care for there own blood – it’s inbreed into them and is their god bound duty to provide and care for there own families.

What is developing fast before our eyes is almost open warfare between Thai and Farang and there are casualties on both sides both innocent and not so innocent.

The risks here in Thailand for the average Joe are very high for those who get involved in a relationship with a Thai girl and believe that they can be players in a dealer’s world. The odds of the house are just not in your favor.

I do not know of any Farang who has successfully broken off a relationship with a Thai girl if she did not want the relationship to end, that has got out of the situation mentally, monetary or physically unscarred.

101 ways to leave your Thai lover now there is a book in the making.

As for the hair on the stall I am sure its availability will grow as will the number of girls owning big western style houses in the furthest corners of Isaan.

Stickman's thoughts:

It is a sad fact that to extricate oneself from a relationship safely, one often has to do a "midnight run". Such people are often termed as cowards, but with some of the irrational reasoning and actions that Thai women are capable of, the old midnight run is sometimes the ONLY exit strategy available.