postcards from the other side of the world

Tod's Thai Top Ten

An Alliterative Special Edition

In no particular order:

1. BEST STREET NAME: Tie between Rat Porn Street and Soi Ding Dong (Ding Dong Lane). Seriously – I kid you not -- these are real street names.

2. BEST STUDENT’S NAME: Tie between Treetip Kumchumnum and Supaporn Loetwatthanasukan. (‘Supaporn’! Sounds like an English retail pornography chain!) Truly, you cannot make this stuff up.

3. BEST BEER: Beer Chang (Elephant Brand Beer); No debate here. Chang boasts a 6.4 % alcohol to water ratio and will set you back a mere 50 cents a can. What’s not to like?

4. BEST WACKY ENGRISH T-SHIRT SLOGAN SO FAR: This one is a photo finish: The winner by a nose is ‘Pirate of the Month,’ closely followed by ‘Summer of Milk,’ ‘Loud Monkey Music’ and ‘A Group of Puddles’ (which, incidentally, features a drawing of some poodles).

5. BEST WACKY ENGRISH BAND NAME OF ALL TIME: ‘Big Ass’, by a fairly comfortable margin of victory.

6. MOST UNAPPEALING SNACK FOOD (in ascending order): Runners Up: Dried Fish Strips and Squid Flavored Potato Chips; Third Place: Deep Fried Grasshoppers; Second Place: Deep Fried Flying Beetles; and the Winner is (no real surprise here): Deep Fried Larvae!

7. BEST THING EVER SAID TO ME BY A THAI PERSON: First Place: "You very long." (NOTE: We were both clothed, she was my mother’s age, and she really meant to say ‘tall’.) Second Place: "There are no pirates here in Thailand. We catch them all." (Said to me by one of my students, a Colonel in the Marine Police, roughly equivalent to the US Coast Guard.)

8. BEST SMOKE: Krong Thip, by a long shot. Smooth, tasty, and not lackluster like most other filtered cigs, they’ll run you about a buck a pack. Read it and weep, fellow nicotine-addicted New Yorkers.

9. COOLEST FORM OF TRANSPORT: Longtail boats. Forget the tuk-tuk, these homemade, low-slung wooden craft are powered by modified motorcycle or car engines strapped to their sterns, and are steered by angling the long rudder that sticks out the back (this is the original engine’s drive-shaft -- only extended, with a propeller welded to the end), thereby giving them their name: Longtail. The smaller ones can do about 20 or 25 mph, and the ones with the car engines can probably get up to around forty or so. But because you’re so close to the surface of the water, you feel like you’re flying.

10. BEST ANIMAL: Without a doubt, the Gecko. Every room has one. They’re cute and bright green, they can walk across the ceiling, and they eat the mosquitoes. Mine is named King, after the King of Thailand, whom he somewhat resembles -- except for the glasses, of course.

Colonel Bundit, Pirate Catcher

One of my private students is a policeman. But he is no private; he is a Colonel in the Marine Police. As far as I can figure out, his rank is roughly equivalent to that of an admiral in the Coast Guard. His name is Bundit Tungkasernee, and he is a professional Pirate Catcher. Though, he will not admit to that.

We have a text book at our disposal for our two hour lessons but we rarely open it; his English is already very good. Instead, I grill him about his job, and he tells me what he has been up to since I last saw him. He talks, pausing only to ask me for a word he doesn’t know, which I then endeavor to supply. When I provide him with a word or phrase he thinks useful or interesting, he jots it down in a small, black notebook. In this way he expands his work-related English vocabulary, and I learn a lot about the Marine Police.

One of the first things I learned was that there are no pirates in Thailand; he told me this on the first day. That was strange, I replied, as I was sure I had read several articles on piracy in the Bangkok Post. These had usually been short news pieces -- sidebars really -- and true enough, they were usually about pirate attacks in other countries. But often enough the incidents took place in Thailand. "No," he replied firmly. "In Indonesia, Malaysia, yes, there are many pirates. But in Thailand, we have no pirates."

Strange, I thought, that he be so insistent. And yet, I was certain I had read of pirate attacks in Thai waters. I started doing a little research into the subject and found the following on the Heritage Foundation website:

"On March 17, 1999, 20 pirates boarded the cargo ship Marine Master off the west coast of Thailand. The pirates wore army uniforms and masks, and carried automatic weapons. The 16 members of the crew were kidnapped and then set adrift." Just as I had thought: Thailand, pirates.

A far cry from their cutlass-swinging forebears, these latter-day pirates were very real, very modern, and very dangerous. Sabers and flintlocks had been replaced by machine guns and grenade launchers; captured schooners had given way to speedboats and fishing trawlers; but the profession of piracy was very much alive and well in South East Asia. In fact, if anything, incidents appeared to be on the rise. According to the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Center website reported attacks against commercial ships had tripled during the 1990’s, increasing by 40 percent in 2000 alone. And in the last five years the problem has only grown worse.

Captain Pottengal Mukundan, Director of the IMB reports: "Following the tsunami of 26 December, there have been at least three violent attacks in these waters. The first attack occurred on 28 February, when a tug towing a barge carrying coal for Lumut Power Station was attacked off the port of Penang. A gang of pirates abducted the captain and chief officer and held them for ransom."

"In the second incident, on 12 March, a fully laden oil tanker en route from Samarinda to Belawan in Indonesia was attacked by 35 armed pirates. The captain and chief engineer were kidnapped and are still missing."

"And at approximately 1830 hours on 14 March, the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre received a report that the Idaten, a Japanese tug, had been attacked roughly 70 miles South West of Penang while towing Kuroshio, a construction barge, from Batam, Indonesia to Myanmar. Armed pirates arrived in three fishing boats, abducted one Filipino and two Japanese crew members and transferred them to one of the fishing boats. The whereabouts of the abductees is still unknown."

The problem is not only growing in S E Asia, it is growing worldwide. The pirate’s realm has expanded to include not only South East Asia and the Indian Subcontinent, but the African coasts and the Red Sea, South and Central American waters, and the Caribbean.

I wanted to know more. I wanted first-hand accounts. Here I had an expert at my fingertips: Colonel Bundit.

I will grill this man about pirates until he cries for mercy, I thought, then flip him over and grill him again. But it was not to be so easy. The Colonel wouldn’t give me jack. He would of course admit to catching the occasional drug smuggler. He had to; his department was responsible for one of the biggest heroin busts in Thai history only last month. It was all over the newspapers. But pirates? In Thailand. No, sir. This he would not concede. "There are no pirates in Thailand," he told me. "We catch them all."

Now, Colonel Bundit is a cultured and educated man. He appreciates music and literature, and plays golf on the weekends. He is proud of his country and has made it a personal goal to visit every Thai town of note before he dies. He is not prone to rudeness. So by his curt and sullen answers, I was given to know that this was not a subject he wanted to talk about, at least not on his dime.

It was as if I was inquiring into the frequency of his herpes flare-ups, or whether he masturbates with his left or right hand. I was the one who was being rude, by bringing up a subject he found embarrassing and uncomfortable to discuss. By implying there may be incidents of piracy in Thailand, I was not only questioning his effectiveness as Chief Pirate Catcher but in the process dragging his country’s good name through the mud.

Imagine my frustration. Here I had an expert on modern piracy at my disposal that invariably went mute on the subject. Whenever I brought it up, he would grow vague and distant, and the humor drained from our conversation like cold bathwater. But his obstinacy on the issue only piqued my curiosity.

I became obsessed with pirates. What a fantastic idea for a book, I thought. Who were these people? What was their story? Was there any truth to the commonly held belief that many of them were descendants of the notorious Sea Gypsies who had plagued these waters since well before the time of the first European incursions into the hemisphere? It was fascinating to think that an entire race of oceangoing bandits had survived -- and not only survived, but actually prospered -- through the 1900’s and into the 21^st century.

I was hooked. But if my expert source wouldn’t provide any answers (and the internet surrendered only tantalizing tidbits of information), how was I going to find out more about these ferocious sea villains? I wanted to see them in the flesh, maybe even speak to them. I wanted to hear their stories, in person.

These were not musty, fictional characters. They were living, breathing, and very dangerous criminals: smugglers, extortionists, killers. How could I get the dirt without getting myself murdered in the process? I didn’t know yet, but the questions kept buzzing about my head like flies. I was headed for Calcutta in three days time to start a new job. Calcutta was one of the three great ports on the Indian Ocean. And the Indian Ocean was a hotbed of modern piracy. I didn’t know yet which way the wind would blow. But the story -- I had a feeling -- was just beginning.

Thai Pop

The pop music in Thailand is bad. Trust me, it’s even worse than in America, if you can believe that. BAD. Bad with a capital B, and a capital A, and a capital D.

You might rightfully suggest that I’m not really qualified to make sweeping generalizations on Thai Pop music, as I have only lived here three months. But you would just be a spoilsport, and who cares what you think anyway?

Let’s just say that in those 3 months, I haven’t heard more than one song, ahem, of note. What was the song? It was an old standard called "Welcome To Thailand", which rather gently, but still quite effectively takes the piss out of all of us palefaced farangs. But this is the only Thai pop song I’ve been exposed to thus far which even hints at social commentary. Generally speaking, Thai pop songs seem to come in one of three basic styles: The Folky, The Bubblegum, and The Tearjerker.

The Folky stuff is the least offensive to these particular ears. In fact, actually I quite like some of it. Thai people call it Country, but although it often features an acoustic guitar, it ain’t no Achy Breaky Heart. The melodies are clearly Asian, and audibly more influenced by Chinese than Indian musical traditions (Thailand has absorbed much that is Indian over the centuries). It’s usually sad, plaintive stuff that sometimes unexpectedly puts one in mind of Hank Williams – not because of any melodic similarity, but because of the frank plainness of the songs.

Sometimes Thai Country music can be bouncy, even dancy – especially the music from out East in Isan province. But it rarely gets rowdy. Thais are almost never rowdy, even when completely loaded. And they like to get loaded as much as the next guy (unless, of course, the next guy happens to be me). Beer and whiskey are the nighttime beverages of choice here for men, while ladies imbibe a noxious concoction known as Spy, which tastes like Night Train laced with carbon monoxide gas. I harbor a private theory that Spy was created by the Thai government to curb intoxication in women, as it produces almost instant nausea, and results in a hangover akin to a baby elephant tap dancing on your head. But I digress.

I merely meant to convey that wild, out-of-control music is met here with blank stares of incomprehension. The propensity to go berserk just doesn’t seem to reside within the national character. Mick Jagger, Tom Waits, or Iggy Pop would be greeted in Thailand with a combination of perplexity and pity.

Thais like their music beautiful -- beautiful, or cute. Thai Bubblegum falls into this second category. It’s basically disco, but with a faster, bum-titty, bum-titty beat. Occasionally Thai Bubblegum songs will reveal a fleeting foreign Techno influence. These songs will be faster, snappier -- and even cuter, if that’s at all possible -- their beat curtailed to a far fleeter bum-tit, bum-tit, bum-tit. Imagine Madonna’s early work if it had been composed by Barney the purple dinosaur, or think Menudo on speed. Thai Bubblegum songs will invariably feature one of the 3 currently most trendy English words: "sexy," "naughty," and "cheeky" -- and sometimes all all of them, if you’re lucky.

Thai Bubblegum songs are about sex, for people too young to engage in coital union just yet -- which in Thailand is just about anyone under the age of 30 who bears the embarrassing stigma of being still unmarried. Despite its reputation as the sex capitol of the world, Thailand is actually quite conservative. Teenage girls may parade about in skin-tight jeans, proudly sporting an "I’m A Playboy Centerfold" T-shirt, but don’t be fooled, they have no idea what the English slogans they are endorsing actually mean. There is little premarital sex here. Women usually live with their parents until a suitable mate can be located. But, sorry, we were talking about music.

The third and most ubiquitous type of Thai Pop song is The Tearjerker. Like its American cousin, the Power Ballad, this trash is a scourge upon your eardrums as well as your patience. Unfortunately little can be done to avoid it; it blasts from every bar, every karaoke joint, every shop and tuk-tuk and taxi. The Tearjerker appears to be manufactured under a strict set of government guidelines which are religiously adhered to: It has to be performed in a mind-numbingly dull middle tempo; musically, it can only be gratingly predictable; and it should always feature the lyrical equivalent of soap opera dialogue.

I learned this last fact in the course of my unflinching research into the subject. Me: "This song is awful! What the hell are they whining about?" Thai Person: "She has gone very far away and he is very sad." Or, alternatively, Me: "This song is complete shit! What in God’s name are they shrieking about?" Thai Person: "He has gone very far away, and she is very sad."

Variations on this theme include: He Has Gone Very Far Away And He Wrote Me To Tell Me He Is Now Banging His Secretary, The Bastard – AND: She Left Our Farm And Moved To Bangkok To Work At The Motorcycle Parts Factory So I Have Been Engaging In Sexual Congress With The Water Buffalo. Alright, so I made the last few up. But you get the idea.

While I can’t claim to actually understand the lyrics, these songs always sound strikingly like some miserable Thai waiter yowling the contents of a menu: "Why don’t you tryyyyy my Phad Thaiiiiiiii? I think you shoooould, it’s really gooooood!" Musically, The Tearjerker is much like the unpleasant musical wallpaper to be found anywhere in the world; it’s everywhere you go, and difficult to block out. Every Thai secretly loves this dreck, as you will soon discover if you ever go to a karaoke bar with one. I suppose there are plenty of people in America with a taste for audio excrement such as Kenny G and Guns ’n’ Roses, but I pity these rubes and do not count myself among them.