Big Money Is No Change

[Bangkok, 1/2/23]

Since leaving Vung Tau on 11/9/22, I’ve been at seven hotels in five cities in three countries.

Returning to Bangkok from Chennai last week, I thought about staying near Hua Lamphong. There, I wouldn’t just get to know another neighborhood, but be ready to hop on a train to wherever.

Instead, I returned to Mam’s House in Phra Nakhon. Exhausted, I needed the relatively familiar, and I’m getting it, with frequent visits to Hong Kong Noodle, and my writing station at a repurposed Cisco sewing machine in Mam’s lobby. Sometimes I sit at the shabby eatery right outside, overlooking Bang Lamphu Canal. Skipping its indifferent food, I order a coffee, orange juice or Singha Beer.

The clientele here is mostly young backpacking couples or older men, traveling alone. I’ve talked to an Italian in his 30’s, a German in his 50’s and a Canadian couple in their late 50’s who spend roughly six months of each year in Southeast Asia. I’ve already mentioned the American teen boy who refused to move or answer his flustered father.

Here, I also met a Thai-American of Chinese descent. Sporting an expensive haircut, this natty man in his late 20’s had this unfortunate habit. Whatever topic or even place I brought up, he had to impress upon me he knew it way better than I did. Too impatient to do this, this longest pissing dandy often cut me off. It’s not easy to be young.

Most disappear almost instantly. Wearing his backpack, a pepper-haired white man with a modest beer belly said to the three ladies at the eatery, “Goodbye!”

The one with short hair, a boyish figure and stained teeth replied, “You go home?”

“Yes.” As if reluctant to leave, he lingered.

“You come back!”

“I will. I’ll try.” Still, he did not move.

“Good luck! Your life, your job. Make money!”

As if encouraging him to do something, anything, she gave him a maternal smile. Her very limited English didn’t allow her to say anything more.

At the eatery, there’s this sign, “Big Money is no Change / Please Small A Better.” Though hundreds of English speakers have seen it, no one has suggested a correction. It’s clear enough, and, more importantly, gives this joint its character. Flaws define us.

Mam’s receptionist speaks pretty good English. Bearded, trim, young and gregarious, he seems like a ladies’ man, until you notice his mannerism. Zeya is also not Thai but Burmese.

There’s a million Burmese in Thailand, he tells me, with half of them in Bangkok. Here nearly 12 years, Zeya first came illegally, “It was very easy to get in.”

“How long did you stay?”

“A year.”

“A year! So how much did you have to pay to get out? I mean, what was the penalty?”

“Nothing,” Zeya smiled.

All he had to do was tip the border guard 200 bahts [$5.78]. Considering the heavy traffic, those officials seriously raked it in. That exit option has been eliminated, unfortunately.

Subsequently, Zeya has entered on tourist visas, with extensions arranged by his employers. Because of his good English and, frankly, good looks, it’s relatively easy for Zeya to get work here.

“Did you learn English in Myanmar?”

“Yes, but mostly, you know, on the streets.”

“Some people have a gift. Many can study a language forever yet, still, they can’t talk.”

It doesn’t hurt that Zeya has had a succession of English-speaking boyfriends, “I like them, especially older ones. I liked them so much, I didn’t even think about, you know, gifts. I didn’t see them as sugar daddies. I didn’t want anything from them.”

“But most of them were generous, no?”

“No, not really.” Then, “I love them, but I’m getting a little tired. They’re not serious. They just like to fuck around. Even when they’re with me, they’re thinking about fucking somebody else.”

“That’s the general mindset of the traveler. He comes to a place and knows next to nothing, and no one knows him, so he thinks he can get away with just about everything. There’s this sense of freedom. Plus, he knows he only has so much time.”

“They just like to fuck around.”

“So you want love?”

“I do.”

Rather astonishingly, Zeya thinks the ideal man is Thailand’s present king, “He has a sense of style, and he’s free. He’s just about perfect.”

“Wow, I’m amazed to hear you say that! I thought people didn’t like him.”

“I love him.”

Since there’s nearly always one or several images of Bhumibol around, I pointed to a print of the blue-suited king standing behind a charcoal-colored Buddha, “But people love him more, no? He really looks like a king.”

“So? Anyone can be a king.”

“The new one, he doesn’t look happy. I don’t envy him.”

“I envy him. I want what he has.”

“I wouldn’t want to be him.”

As we discussed Vajiralongkorn, Zeya touched his phone, looked at me and smiled, so I laughingly shouted at my closed laptop, “Hello, guys!”

Of Bhumibol, Zeya said, “When people say they love him like their father, I don’t understand! Many people say they love him even more than their father! Every love is different. When I’m with a boyfriend, I don’t think I love him more than this one, or that one.”

“Every love is unique.”

“Definitely!”

“I understand it’s very easy to be gay in Thailand, but what about Myanmar?”

“Same.”

“Really?”

“I never had a problem.”

“Did you always know?”

“When I was very small and didn’t even know the word gay, I knew I was special.”

“How often do you go back?”

“Every year, I try.”

“And how long do you stay each time?”

“Five, six months…”

“Wow! So you’re really more comfortable there.”

“I don’t feel Thai. I don’t want to be Thai. When I go home, I don’t even think about coming back here.”

“Do people know you’re not Thai? How is your Thai?”

“Very good. Most Thais don’t know I’m Burmese, but when I’m with people and they talk about their village and growing up, I can’t say anything.”

“You can’t fake it.”

“I can’t fake it. If I talk, they will know, so I just listen. When the farangs ask me about Thailand, sometimes I must tell them I don’t know, I’m not Thai. When the farangs ask me about some Thai holiday, I always say, ‘What holiday?’”

Thai dishes, Zeya eats because he must. It’s nothing like Burmese food. Zeya has two sisters also living in Bangkok, however, so he has places to replenish his soul.

Zeya on Aung San Suu Kyi, “Without her, a thousand people would not be dead. Most Burmese don’t even know who she is. In the cities, they know, but not in the villages. I never went to the protests.”

Then, “When the farangs know I’m Burmese, they say, ‘I hope things get better over there,’ but I think, ‘I hope it stays the same!’ When I tell my friends on the phone they should come to Thailand, they tell me, ‘No, we want to stay here!’”

“So Burmese are basically happy?”

“Yes, they’re happy.”

“What about Thais? Are they happy, too?”

“They’re also happy. You see them talk, laugh.”

“But there are so many protests each year…”

“There are not so many protests. Most people here don’t care about the protests.”

Dissidents or relatives of disappeared dissidents would have an entirely different take, of course, but in any society, most people just want to be left alone to deal with their private head, heart and muscle aches.

If their house was burning down, though, this passivity would be suicidal. How many Americans still think they live in a democracy with free speech, that their politicos serve them and not war profiteers, banksters and Jews, and those Jewjabs coerced or tricked into nearly all of them are safe and effective?

Like Zeya, these Americans are also habitually shafted, but unlike Zeya, they’re only vaguely aware of this pleasure.

[Bangkok, 11/24/22]

Though Zeya constantly greets visitors from all over, his world is small, as it is for most people. Although he sleeps at the hotel, at least it’s in a room and not on a cot in the lobby, as is common at low-end lodges in this part of the world.

Each day, his gentleness and good spirit cheer up all those around him. Even as I type this, I can hear him laughing.

[Bangkok, 1/1/23]

[Bangkok, 1/1/23]

[Bangkok, 1/1/23]

[Bangkok, 1/1/23]