Chef Maiyuu’s fried prawns and rad na (a Thai-Chinese noodle dish).

-

A small update on Mr Ball.

Judging by some of the reader responses I have been getting, some of you have some odd ideas about Thais.

One unpleasant character left a message today saying I was having serious ‘boundary’ issues, and that my relationship with Ball was exploitative, built on self-delusion, and so on. He’s poor, and half my age, so I must be up to no good.

Others say we are using each other: I want to feel young again, and like to have someone to paw over. He likes my money.

The truth is more complicated; real life always is. These are stories not just of Ball himself, but also my relationship with his friends and family, and the other characters at carer R’s ya dong stand.

They are about our conflicting expectations, values, and backgrounds, and how we reconcile them. It’s about how people who are so different can still find enough things in common to be friends.

I can’t expect readers will understand or sympathise with all of what happens, especially if it beyond the realm of their own experience.

For the record, Ball is now drinking much less than when I met him. He stays up late, but no longer keeps the ridiculous hours he observed before. He does not have a job, but is making half-hearted attempts to find one.

Now that he knows I live with a gay man, he no longer shows me the affection he once did, as he doesn’t want me to get ideas. He is also worried that people in the neighbourhood will think he is selling himself to this middle-aged farang.

When we say goodbye at night, we shake hands. When I am with him, I shower him with affection, it is true, because giving it makes me feel almost as good as receiving it.

‘I try not to think too much about that,’ he says. Before long, I will have learnt to keep my hands to myself. I’ll be protective, but not over-bearing.

All relationships evolve. Ball seems happier now that he is on better terms with carer R. I like to think that he is happy to have me in his life too.

We can both listen as he unloads about his family and girlfriend. He also knows that we can love him for what he is.

The other night, carer R found some bug on the ground, and without giving any warning, dropped it on Ball's lap.

Ball happens to hate this particular type of bug. As it fell in his lap, he was taken by surprise. He jumped back in his seat, and clenched his fist, as if he was about to hit someone.

I felt a wave of sorrow for my young man. He has so little life experience to protect himself against the unexpected. I worry about his welfare, especially in a rough place like the slum.

Sensibly, when he is not at carer R’s place or at work, he spends most of his time at home, rather than mixing with the element in the neighbourhood. He may be wayward, but his Mum has taught him a few lessons in how to look after himself.

At this difficult time in his life, what Ball needs most is friends. Few, if any of his friends from school or work call. ‘My phone is silent all day,’ he says.

In carer R and me, he has found two friends who can help him make sense of the demands which his family and girlfriend place on him.

Naysayers among my readers can think what they like. Over time, I’ll show you just how ordinary – and yet at the same time, how special – my relationships with Ball and my other Thai friends can be.

‘I want you to stop buying me things. We meet over drinks. That’s enough,’ said young Ball last night.

I had just bought pizza for Ball, myself, and carer R.

After I ordered the thing, I handed over the phone to carer R, as I am hopeless with directions.

‘Come to the end of the soi. We’re at the ya dong shop,’ he said.

It is probably the first time that a motorcycle delivery guy has dropped off a pizza to a humble ya dong stand.

For me, it was worth doing for that reason alone.

‘I have never seen anyone eat pizza with ya dong before,’ said Ball.

A shot glass of ya dong goes for 10 baht. Most customers are taxi drivers, and other simple types. It is a country drink, though its popularity is now seeping into Bangkok as well.

Ball reprimanded me for spending so much (480 baht, for a large pizza, chicken, and garlic bread).

‘R and I are embarrassed. There’s no need to be so generous,’ he said.

As soon as the pizza arrived, Ball took out a slice and gave it to one of the kids who lives with carer R’s mother-in-law.

Carer R asked if he could take out a few more slices, just in case his mother-in-law was to get hungry later in the evening. Another child aged about 10 lives with her. He declined an offer of pizza, but took a piece of chicken and garlic bread instead.

It was exciting watching this activity. I liked the way carer R and Ball helped others before they ate anything themselves.

The night before, Ball told me he rarely eats fast food, as his family doesn’t have the money. He didn’t put it quite like that, but I knew what he meant.

‘I eat it if it should come along,’ he said.

‘So, would you like pizza if I order it?’ I asked.

He smiled, nodded, and said nothing.

That’s a Yes, as far as most Thais are concerned. Ball and R feel a keen sense of ‘kreng jai’ (obligation), if I do anything out of the ordinary. As an honorary Thai, I try to keep my head down and do as everyone else does.

I might buy a full bottle of ya dong for everyone, rather than a half bottle as the Thais do, but if no one makes a fuss, no one needs to feel any different.

Occasionally, however, I want to do a little more, if only because the act of giving is so enjoyable.

Carer R and Ball don’t know it, but for me the highlight of ordering a pizza was seeing how they automatically gave to others around them before they agreed to partake themselves.

Even then, they were reluctant. I had to find a plate for Ball and put a slice of pizza on it myself before he would agree to eat. Carer R ate nothing, claiming he was sick of pizza, as his last employer used to shout his staff to pizza meals so regularly that the novelty had now worn off.



Really, they were just kreng jai. It’s a difficult word to define, but is one of those concepts which gets at the heart of what being Thai is.

Broadcaster/writer Andrew Biggs, a long-term resident of Thailand, defines it as consideration, empathy, and deference.

That’s a fine definition. I used the word ‘obligation’, because that’s what Thais feel if you give them something which is out of the ordinary, or beyond the call of what would normally be expected.

Yet how does the foreigner know what is an acceptable display of generosity, and what goes so far beyond it that people feel awkward, rather than happy to be the recipient of someone else’s largesse?

For Thais, it is probably easier, as no one has much money.

I have more than the average Thai, though not a huge amount more. In any event, boyfriend Maiyuu holds on to my ATM card, an arrangement which suits me – or I might be inclined to show even more generosity (and discomfit my Thai hosts in the process) than I do now.

‘I wonder if you can separate the two. I know you have never asked me for anything, Ball, but perhaps I just like giving. Can you understand that?’ I asked ball.

In truth, I have not given much. I have bought him a belt, because he plainly needed one, as his pants were forever falling down. I bought him a pair of jeans, because someone in his family told me that he had none.

I have bought food for his mother twice, and now the pizza. Yes, I’m bad. I am making people feel awkward, but hopefully not too much. In any event, can’t they find it in their hearts to forgive?

‘We don’t have to be like father and son. We can just be drinking friends, as you’ve given enough,’ said Ball.

‘I am not just your Dad. I like you more than that,' I said.

Carer R took himself off to sleep somewhere nearby. He was away half an hour. Ball took the opportunity to quiz me about whether I ‘really’ preferred men, or whether I would be happy with a woman.

‘You're getting old. Why don’t you try to find a girl, and have a family? Thais like to deceive farang. I worry you have ended up with someone no good,’ he said, referring to boyfriend Maiyuu.

Ball asked me about Maiyuu in detail: his age, where he comes from, his job, what he looks like.

‘So you never have sex? How can it be? Do you kiss? Is it a deep kiss?’ he asked.

How sweet. Ball’s teenage mind is trying to come to grips with the way complicated adult relationships work. How can two people stay together unless they get physical?

‘A kiss on the cheek,’ I told him.

Did Ball look relieved? I couldn’t tell.

‘I have only ever had two girlfriends – Jay, my present one, and one other girl, who lasted one day,’ he said.

‘I can’t find anyone who suits me or makes me happy.’

‘Ball...please let me give you some advice. Don’t fool yourself into thinking men are the answer. Don’t go down that path – there’s only misery,’ I said, urging him to stay straight.

Of course I would like him to make an exception where I am concerned, just as I suspect he wants me to make an exception where he himself is concerned, when he urges me to take some nice little woman for a wife.

But I am kidding myself, of course.

‘Do you really prefer men?’ he asked.

‘I am with you, aren’t I?’ I asked, as I massaged his legs.

Ball went home to bring out his baby sister. His Mum, and step-father followed. Even his girlfriend paid a brief visit, though he soon shoo-ed her away.

‘Go home...we’re talking,’ he said to her.

‘Can’t I sit for a while?’ asked Jay, who had just finished her job at the supermarket. Ball’s younger brother Beer picked her up on his motorbike, as he usually does.

‘Are you looking for trouble?’ he asked.

She left.

I gave carer R and Ball a brief reading and listening test. Both left school early, though carer R’s English is better.

Ball, I was dismayed to find, can barely read or understand a word.

’I used to skip English classes,’ he said.

Ball asked me about foreign girls. A sample of his questions:

‘Do you think foreign girls would find me attractive, or would they look down on me?’



‘If I flirted with them, would they get upset?’

I replied that foreign girls would jump at the chance to get to know him, as he was so handsome.

‘First, though, you might have to learn a little more English,’ I said.

Ball isn’t interested; not yet, anyway. My friend farang C, who has met carer R and Ball, sent a text message.

‘It is so obvious that you have nothing in common with those people,’ he wrote.

Yet when I am with these two, I am relaxed.

Carer R is like a safety net, waiting to collect my mistakes.

If I say something wrongly in Thai, or behave ineptly (buying expensive pizzas, for example), I know he will come to my rescue.

If a passer-by asks who bought the pizza, R will come up with an explanation which helps me save face.



‘The farang forgot himself, and was thinking of home so much that he just had to order western food,’ he will say.

I massaged Ball for a couple of hours: I rubbed his shoulders, legs, waist.

He put his legs on my knees.

‘Keep massaging in a straight line,’ R joked, as he watched me plunge my hands right up to Ball's groin.

I went up his shorts leg, but stuck strictly to the leg, just as R advised.

Whenever a motorcycle came our way, I would have to take my hands off him, as he is worried about what people in the neighbourhood will think if they see him with a farang.

‘I really enjoyed the night you took me to my bedroom,’ he said, referring to a visit I made to his place a few weeks ago, where we were able to sit in privacy for once.

I can’t recall doing anything special that night, other than inviting him to sleep in my arms. Still, he appears to want more.

About 2.30am, I excused myself to go home. Ball, for the first time, declined to escort me across the vacant lot between carer R’s stand and my condo.

Only the night before, he told me how much he enjoys our walks across the vacant lot. Last night, however, he stayed seated.

As the night wore on, young Ball started to look ragged. My young man rose late in the day, but was already in need of bed. His T-shirt was stained in front, and rumpled under the arms.

As carer R chatted away absent-mindedly, I took Ball’s hand, and kissed it.

‘Good night,’ I said.

Carer R bought us each a steaming cup of Mama instant noodles. Young Ball was
so hungry, he was gulping them down as fast as he could.

His hands are tiny, his body still forming, I thought as I watched him eat.

Who does he belong to at this moment? His Mum will be thinking of him, as mothers always do. He has a girlfriend, too, though the two argue often, and she seldom ventures out of doors to see him.

At the ya dong stand two minutes from his home, he also has me and carer R.

Is it enough? And how do we rank in his life?

Is it a question meant in fun, as I have no right to get possessive.

Ball is close to Ah, a guy in his 30s who lives next to R's shop. He joins us at carer R’s ya dong stand in the small hours.

I know he likes Ball. After an hour or so of imbibing ya dong, they can barely keep their hands to themselves.

But even as he plays his man games with Ball, Ah is looking at me, worried I will get jealous if I see him touching Ball too much.

When he sees Ball sitting alone at R's shop (before I have arrived), he asks Ball: 'Are you waiting for the farang?'

Ball doesn't like that. 'I can pay for myself,' he says.

I have been distant and remote from Ball lately, as I didn't like the
way he responded to me last time we met.

I went to see him at his place, but he kept sitting at his computer.

His Mum invited me in, but I didn't hear. I waited outside for five minutes, but after he failed to come out to greet me, I walked home alone.

Later the same day I sent him a text message asking if I could give him some food money...once again, no response.

Last night he explained his apparent lack of interest. He is worried what people are thinking.

'Is the farang coming to see you?' his Mum asked when she saw the text message.

'I wanted to say yes, just like I wanted to welcome you in the door when you came to see me at home, but I wasn't sure how to do it,' he said.

He is not worried about the gay thing so much as he is perceptions that he is selling his body, which is a typical Thai response.

He lives in a slum, around his peers. He worries that when they see us, they will assume he is trading in his body to this middle-aged farang for money.

'The truth is, I have never asked anything from you,' he said.

Ball says he likes the way I treat him; and I love being with him, too.

I saw Ball and carer R last night, after a few nights away.

Carer R had missed me, as he kept talking about my absence, but I was
busy with work, and in any event wanted to spend more time with
boyfriend Maiyuu.

Carer R loves to talk, and seems keen on having me as an audience. I am not sure what need I am fulfilling, as he is married, and loves his wife. Is she not a good listener?

He also likes the idea that Ball and I are close friends, much more than just
customers.

'We are friends, and help each other,' he said last night, as he went off to fetch us instant noodles, which he paid for himself.

'You need something to line your stomach when drinking ya dong,' he said.

We are an odd bunch, it is true.

As I am massaging Ball's legs, back and shoulders, rubbing my hands through
his hair, and admiring at his sensitive face, R is busy chatting away, trying to distract my attention with this or that compelling life story.

As soon as one story ends, another starts.

As for Ball, I was stand-offish when I arrived at carer R's stand.

We sat apart from each other, and I had little to say. Ball asked me politely about work, and I responded briefly.

But after an hour at carer R’s stand I decided there was no point in being a stranger.

While carer R went off to buy cigarettes, I asked Ball to sit next to me.

He explained his lack of interest the day we met at his home, and discussed his latest attempts to find work.

His own feelings had not changed, he said, despite my perception that he had grown more remote.

‘I am still the same,’ he said, looking at me earnestly. 'I miss our talks. Some things I say to you, I can't say to anyone else.'

I carry a pottle of ointment for massaging away aches and pains. I pulled it out, and set it on the table.

As I laid my hands upon his shoulders, Ball's small frame relaxed.

After a few days away, we were slipping back into our old roles. We do indeed care for each other, each in his own odd way.

Who gets to own who hardly matters.

Chef Maiyuu’s lemon curd ice-cream on a base of vanilla cream swirls. It’s a little over-exposed. Sorry.

-

Maiyuu is rifling through our CD collection, looking for a stray CD by Grammy singer Marsha Vadhanapanich. He must have her entire collection, but this particular disc was his favourite. We still have the cover, but not the disc inside.



I suspect it fell victim to our most recent argument. When we argue, I go into clean-up mode, as vigorous physical activity, even with a duster, helps me release stress.

After our argument a few weeks ago, I set to work making order of our disorderly CD collection. CDs without a home lie scattered about; no one ever thinks to be put them back in their covers. Maiyuu was in his bedroom sulking at the time.

I must admit, I took advantage of the opportunity to throw out about a dozen discs for which I could find no home – mainly no-name CDs on which we had recorded this or that, but which we hardly ever play. Out they went, into the rubbish. I fear Marsha’s CD may have gone with them, though I can’t recall it.



I would not have done it deliberately, as I like Marsha, and even after the heat of our argument – when I told Maiyuu forcefully that he would have to leave – I still knew, inside my heart, that we would probably stay together, because we always do.

So it must have been an accident.

‘Why don’t you buy another?’I asked.

‘You can’t find it in stores now...and it was my favourite, too,’ he said glumly.

Sorry, lad.

Maiyuu wants me to admit that I threw it out, so he can stop looking for the wretched thing.

But I honestly can’t recall whether I tossed it out or not. He suspects I threw it out just to spite him, but really I am not so clever as to know which Marsha albums are his favourites, and which aren’t.

Marsha wasn’t the only material loss we suffered as a result of that row. A B1000 baht mirror also went the way of the Swanee as well.