Buhay Bangkok

“Do not climb the fence please – Foreign Department”

The sign was printed from some inkjet printer in one of the school’s offices. It hangs on the gate of Sarasas Bangbon’s side entrance, which opens into a soi (street) across  which is located the apartment complex where we reside.

My wife and I chuckled when we first saw it because we remembered the story told by one of her Filipino co-teachers, Tupe (short for Christopher). Tupe lives in the apartment complex inside the campus. However, his Filipina girlfriend lives in our apartment complex. The distance between Tupe’s apartment unit and the main gate of Sarasas is something like 300 meters or so. Quite a distance for a Romeo intent on seeing his Juliet (Tupe’s girlfriend teaches in another Sarasas branch).

To save time, all Tupe would do was climb the tall iron-wrought gate in the side entrance and he’d be in his sweetheart’s apartment in a matter of minutes. Typically Pinoy behavior, always looking for a shortcut. Madiskarte, as we call it.

But the rigid Thai mindset rebels at such transgressions. Thais do things by the book and by the numbers. They swear by the old rules, do only what’s tried and tested. In short, they don’t think out of the box. So, somehow, they can’t abide these Filipino ajarns (teachers) clambering up the side gate when they can simply use the front gate. Thus, the sign.

But here’s Tupe’s story which sent us laughing:

He was coming home one night from one of his amorous visits and again felt an urge to take the shortcut, this time, on his way in. He knew about the sign posted on the gate itself. No go. Undaunted, he walked a few meters past the gate and started to climb the concrete wall. Just as he was on top of the wall and ready to jump inside the campus, his eyes met the eyes of the Thai guard, who it turned out was keeping his vigil beside the guardhouse.

Beaming his best smile, Tupe cried out in his best broken Thai: “Sawadee kap! Tong non, may day. Nee, day!” (roughly translated: Good evening! I know it’s not allowed to climb there, but here, there’s no sign, so it’s OK). And then made his jump.

The Thai guard, perhaps encountering such logic for the first time in his life, can only laugh. Mai pen rai.

Today’s issue of The Nation reported that a 51-year-old Thai woman died yesterday after getting crushed by a mob intent on buying amulets in Nakhon Si Thammarat.

The report said nearly 10,000 people forced their way into a technical school which was selling coupons for the much-coveted Chatukam Ramthep amulets. Reports said the people have encamped in the area as early as midnight.

It took the hundred or so cops guarding the event some time to break up the mob. Only then were they able to rescue the women and old people who were injured in the stampede.

The abbot of Wat Phra Nakhom observed that three groups of people were involved: those who believe in the magical abilities of the amulet; businessmen who trade in amulets; and teen-agers hired by these same businessmen to buy amulets in their behalf, thus boosting the number of their goods.

Though the report didn’t state how much each amulet costs, an officemate of mine told me it can be bought for as low as 100 Baht but the price can increase tenfold if sold by a middleman.

As usual, the authorities—both the police and the temple officials—promised a speedy investigation and meting out of justice. “Never again,” seems to be the favorite motto of authorities irrespective of race and creed during tragedies.

This report reminded me of similar incidents in the Philippines. The annual Nazarene feast in Quiapo and the Wowowee TV variety show stampeded in Pasig City two years ago come to mind.

The Quiapo is a well-known religious event. Thousands of devotees, garbed in maroon, would gather in Quiapo every January for the feast. Selected male devotees would pull the carriage bearing the life-size Nazarene image out of the old church, parade it around the block, amidst a sea of humanity. Thousands of devotees brave the heat, the exhaustion—and yes, the danger of a—stampede just so they can a glimpse—or better yet, get near and touch the sacred relic, in the belief it would bring a miracle in their lives.

It’s a different story in the Wowowee incident. Thousands of people encamped at the former ULTRA compound where the show would hold a remote telecast the following day. The people went there to try their luck. Most of them were poor, some were even from the provinces who had borrowed fare money just to get a chance to have a shot at the prizes awaiting them in the variety show: passenger jeepneys and tricycles, house and lot packages and cash.

In both cases, people were injured, and some died, because of the stampede that followed. What drove these people to face such risks? Desperation, whether rooted in material want or a sense of helplessness over their own lives.

Manna and miracle. Faith and profit. Either can be had with the quick fix offered by amulets and TV variety shows. But for a steep price.

Holy Week was a special time in my childhood. It meant our family would make the annual trip to my father’s hometown in Salcedo, Ilocos Sur.

I was nine years old in 1981 when my father bought a passenger-type jeepney. It was a source of additional income for our family as it plied the Guadalupe-Buendia route back then. It came in handy whenever our family took a long trip such as we did during Holy Week.

We would always leave on the night of Holy Wednesday. The journey took at least 10 hours. I remember spending the night catching some sleep while sitting, leaning against whoever happened to be my seatmate during that trip.

A stopover in one of the all-night eateries in Tarlac was a welcome respite from cramped legs and grogginess. Somehow, a steaming cup of Milo was more delicious during those stopovers compared to the Milo I drink for breakfast at home.

Sunrise would find us cresting the ridge overlooking my father’s home village of
Atabay. At the time, the road between Atabay and the Salcedo town proper was unpaved. A bulldozer just blazed a trail in the mountainside, strewn the path with rocks for better traction for the vehicles and that’s it. I still remember the hairpin turns, with the wall of the mountain on one side and a sheer hillside on the other. The vegetation on the slope prevented me from seeing the drop, but it only made my imagination run wilder on how high up the mountain we were.

We would always stay in the house of my great-grandmother. At the time, she was around 70 years old or so but still strong. She would be puttering in the kitchen early in the morning, then go outside to fetch water from the tap by the road, her earthen jug balanced steadily on her head. All the while she’d have a tobacco clamped between her teeth. Everywhere in the house, you’d see plugs of rolled tobacco she would leave in odd corners and crevices. Up to this day, I associate the scent of dried tobacco with my great-grandmother’s house.

Holy Week in Atabay meant playtime for us kids. Although we can hardly speak a literate sentence of Ilocano, we can somehow understand some, as we stayed for six months there when I was five years old.  The streets of the barrio were unpaved, dusty and strewn with stones. Us Manilenos wore rubber slippers while our cousins walked barefoot, the soles of their feet thick after a lifetime of going barefoot (My father would always boast that the callus of his feet were so think the thorns of bamboos are simply broken every time he steps on them. Ouch!).

For Catholics, Good Friday is a solemn day. Kids were not supposed to play, much less shout or romp around in the neighborhood. We were just supposed to sit around the house and bear the summer heat and watch the boring Mass on TV and watch as the mechanical Jesus on the cross lowers his head signifying his death as 3 o’clock in the afternoon strikes. But that was in the sweltering heat of Makati, where we lived with my mother’s Catholic relatives. In Protestant-dominated Ilocos Sur, Good Friday is the best day for going to the karayan, or river.

Early in the morning of Good Friday we would get ready for the picnic in the river. The men would prepare the nets, the earthen pots or palayok, and their itak or machetes while our mothers would prepare the towels, soaps and the clothes we’d change into after bathing.

The karayan of Atabay would always be a raging torrent (some of our older relatives say 10 feet deep) during the monsoon months but during the hot months of April and May, it would be just a trickle of a stream. The riverbed would be a dry wasteland, stretching as wide as 100 meters or so, with boulders the size of houses dominating the sandy landscape. The stream would be just up to our thighs at its deepest, just enough for a nine-year-old to swim in. My sister and cousins would gather stones as big as coconuts and dam portions of the stream to make our swimming area deeper.

Meantime, the men would look for a stagnant pool fed by springs on the banks of the river. Spotting one, they would then cast their small net to catch mudfish and gobies and freshwater crabs.

By noontime, us kids would emerge from our frolics in the stream and join the elders as they cook their catch. Usually they just throw in the fish and the crabs together in the large palayok, pour water in it, sprinkle the brew with lots of salt, onion and ginger and cook it with fire fueled by the dry twigs they have gathered in the woods nearby. By then, they would already have cooked rice too.

Lunch would stretch up to mid-afternoon, as my parents conversed with our relatives to catch up with family goings-on while the children take a nap under the shade of trees in the riverbank. The sky would be a bright summer blue, with cottons of clouds drifting by.

Black Saturday would be spent trekking to the fields. There among the tobaccos and ricefields would be the jackfruits and bananas. My father just loved taking out his itak and chopping off the tree the biggest jackfruit he can find. The same with the bananas. We feel like conquering heroes as we walk home with our burden of jackfruits (with their sap still dripping on our hands and shirts) and bananas and whatever other fruits we got along the way.

All this time, The whole village would be quiet. No laughter or sounds from radios or TVs can be heard. Protestant Ilocanos might enjoy picnics in the riverbanks during Good Fridays, but they also observe the solemnity of the occasion by turning off the sound of the rest of the world. A Holy Week spent in my father’s barrio would convince you that there is indeed a ‘sound of silence.’

All this would change at dawn of Easter Sunday. At a little past midnight of Easter Sunday, my father’s uncle, who acts as the barrio’s patriarch, would preside over the slaughter of one of his cows. His field hands and cronies would lend a hand. In fact, the whole adult male population of the barrio would join in the slaughter. It was organized work: There were the designated butchers, then the parts would be apportioned to the cooks, who would then prepare the dishes. All parts of the cow (or sometimes an old carabao would do) were not wasted (except for the horn and others, of course).

I would not be aware of this process till I reached adulthood. All I remembered when I was just young was waking up on the morning of Easter Sunday to the strains of the FM radio of our next-door neighbor; but more inviting was the scent of stewed beef wafting from the kitchen. Indeed, the scent and taste of beef stew from a freshly-slaughtered cow was eons away from the beef we buy in the Pasay City public market. We would have beef all day.

And mangoes too! If there’s one thing I remember fondly from our yearly trip to Ilocos, it was the scent of ripe mangoes. And their luscious sweetness. During our six-month stay in Ilocos in 1978, I remember refusing any other viand except mangoes. Thailand might offer cheaper-priced mangoes (the ones in the talad can be bought for 10 Baht a kilo), but nothing beats the taste of ripe mangoes from Ilocos Sur.

We also did our best to attend the Easter Sunday worship service in the Assemblies of God church in the barrio. There were no Catholic churches in the village, just two Protesant churches–The Assemblies of God near the hillside and the bigger Methodist one in the barrio’s plaza.

Late afternoon of Easter Sunday would find us preparing to make the trip back home. There would be the long goodbyes as we sit in the jeepney while our relatives, especially the old ones, would brush away a tear or two from their eyes as they say goodbye to their grandchildren. My father’s uncles are not that emotional; they’re too busy loading the jeep with going-away presents: sacks of rice and malagkit, mangoes in tiklis, basketfuls of suman na malagkit wrapped in banana leaves and other delicacies. Somehow, this cornucopia in comparison dwarfed the pasalubong we brought when we arrived: detergent soaps, local chocolates and candies and hand-me-down clothes.

Finally, as the sun begins to set, we would start our journey home. We would retrace our steps, though this time, we would have dinner in an eatery in La Union, with a stopover for coffee (and Milo for me) in Tarlac around 3 AM. Dawn would see us in Monumento and we’d arrive in Makati just as our neighbors start having their breakfast.

Groggily we’d get off the jeepney and help carry the goodies inside the house. After a brief breakfast I’d fall asleep. When I wake up, I would wander outside the house, find my playmates and resume my life in the city. Ilocos would always seem just like a dream to me.

Several days later, Lek told us an interesting story involving mai pen rai and the Thai’s capacity for patience even in trying situations. Nope, it’s not another wriggling roach story. Instead, it has all the elements of a good, hard-to-put-down tale: humor, human interest, cultural quirks, and, yes, sex. Read on.

Lek is one of the first of my officemates introduced to me when I joined our company. She and Nu, who is her friend from college (they’re both from Thammasat U) acted as my ‘minders’ during my first few days in the office, helping me get settled down, showing me around and acting as my guides to Thai food during lunchtime.

Anyway, Lek claims her grandfather is a Chinese who migrated to Thailand decades ago. But one of the senior staff  would always chide her, “But she doesn’t look like Chinese.” Indeed, Pick resembles more a Latina rather than a Chinese. For me, at least, she can pass herself off as a Latina, or even a Filipina, anywhere.

So, she was telling us that she took the Skytrain one day on her way to Siam Paragon. She noticed this Thai guy beside her who kept stealing glances at her. When the Skytrain stopped at the Siam Square station, she got off the coach. Suddenly, she felt somebody touch her lightly on one of her arms. When she turned, she saw that it was the same guy from the Skytrain.

He told her something like, “Is 2,000 Baht OK?”

The guy was clearly attracted to her. For some mysterious reason, this guy mistook Lek for a, well, a pick-up girl, and expressed his desire to spend a few hours with her somewhere private, for the sum of 2,000 Baht. And this is in broad daylight in one of the most crowded BTS stations in Bangkok. So, what was her reaction to this indecent proposal?

“I found it funny,” she replied.

Huh? Funny? Why? I asked her.

“Because at first, I thought he was asking me for directions to the G2000 Shop. I told him it’s in Siam Paragon. When he repeated his offer, that’s when I understood it.”

She was telling this story while we were having lunch at Tops. A senior staff was with us, along with a new staff member. So we asked the same question: How did you react to his proposition?

“I simply told him ‘No,’” she said.

Good girl! (Jay always said with pride that Lek is a nice, decent girl.).

“That’s all?” I asked her. “Didn’t you slap him? Or at least cuss him?” I added, “In the Philippines, a decent Filipina will cuss and scream if somebody offers her such a proposition.”

Lek stared at me, showing surprise on her face. “Slap him? Cuss him?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why not?”

“But that would be impolite.”