Before reaching the Stars By Wat Wanlyangkun

 

Before reaching the Stars

By Wat Wanlyangkun

Mother walked slowly away from the abbot’s residence, past the sandy courtyard and the shade of the pikun tree, towards the rear of the central shrine, One hand carefully supported a water-bowl, while the other held a rattan basket used for carrying the things needed for merit-making. A horned owl moaned softly from a dark corner of the shrine’s eaves. The sweet scent of frangipani blossoms drifted towards he with the breeze and the gentle waving of the flowering grass. Mother sank wearily down in front of the mortuary containing her dead son’s body¹. With its oblong shape it looked like a coffin, except that it was made of cement-- and the smell of fresh cement still lingered in the air. There were other, identical mortuaries stretched out in a long row. The empty ones looked like dark caverns. And adjacent to the mortuaries little memorial stupas ringed the central shrine, whose dingy white walls were crumbling away in places from sheer age.

Mother carefully laid down a tray, on which she’d placed white porcelain cups filled with rice, kaeng som phak krajiap, fried salted fish, chiffon- and sticky layer-cakes². The smell of the kaeng som wafting into her nostrils reminded her of him so much that the tears welled up in her eyes. Roy had loved it ever since he was a little boy, especially with fried salted fish, and he’d eat up rice like no one else. The soft, fluffy, pink chiffon-cake looked so tempting to the touch, while the sticky layer-cakes had the red of blood. So Roy used to tell her. Sobs formed a choking lump in her throat. She had never dreamed that her son’s life would come to a bloody end as two bullets pierced his tender flesh. Roy must have suffered, but her suffering was still worse. A pain not visible to the eye, but experienced in the heart, in the feeling, above all in the feeling of a mother. She didn’t understand how some people could be so cruel as to devour the flesh and blood of their fellow men… Softly Mother muttered his name… “Child, come and eat your food…”³ Then she pushed forward the engraved water-bowl, which still had a few grains of well-cooked rice stuck to it here and there, dipped her forefinger into the water, murmured prayers⁴. And, as she slowly closed her eyes, clear drops trickled from the corners down the wrinkles on her cheeks.

Before she’d rowed the boat away from the temple-jetty, the abbot had been kind enough to come and talk to her, and speak to her about her son. The words that still rang in her ears were: “Roy was a good boy, dear lady, well-behaved, quiet, and serious. Who could have had the heart to do him harm?… These days people have become so cruel…”

Mother had heard praise of this kind ever since Roy was a little boy. And when she heard it repeated now, she couldn’t help feeling proud and happy. When Roy had grown up to be a young man and had gone off to study in Bangkok, he remained her own adorable son, unchanged. When she said that students didn’t have to wear their hair long, he cut his short. It got to the point that she felt hesitant to scold him. If she wanted to give him some advice, she had to think it over very carefully before she brought it up: so much so that Ro, her youngest boy, used to tease her by saying that she had a saint for a son.

There was only one thing she couldn’t stop him doing-- when he broke the news to her that he probably wouldn’t be able to finish college in four years because he had to devote part of his time to “activities”. Mother later came to understand that these “activities” meant politics.

“Politics aren’t what I’m really after. I’m using my time to study and learn about the problems of the poor, who are so much poorer than we, who don’t eat three meals a day, and who have to do heavy work as manual laborers, hiring themselves out for low wages. When they demand fair pay, and appeal for help, how could you have me stand idly by, Mother? Or when the peasants demand justice, sometimes to the point of having to make demonstrations, I can’t possibly rest comfortably through it all. I’m concerned about our poor, not about politics. But politics concerns itself with me. So we can’t escape it…”

But no matter what reasons he gave, Mother loved him too devotedly to accept them. The very word “demonstration” pierced her to the quick. She couldn’t bear to look at the photos of the young men and women gunned down on the streets during October 1973⁵. Worse than that, her thoughts would fly ahead in so many directions: if there was a mass demonstration, and someone threw even a single bomb, rows of people would be killed or wounded. She urged him to hurry up and finish his studies, hurry and get a job and settled down like his older brothers and sisters, so she could stop worrying about him… Roy couldn’t explain and get his mother to accept his reasons; so he’d just keep silent, listening quietly to her advice. But as the days passed, she had to recognize with a sigh that he was not following that advice. After that, Roy gradually drew away from his mother. Only once in a long while would he come back to visit his riverside home, even though it was really not that far from Bangkok. The one thing that deeply pleased his mother, though, wast Roy finally graduated, even though he took longer than usual to complete his studies.

She’d written to congratulate him. Yet in the letter she’d used the words “obstinate child”. For, no matter what, she remained just as concerned as ever, and urged him to hurry up and find a job.

“It won’t be many years now before Ro finishes high-school, and we’d like him to continue his schooling in Bangkok. If you can get a job with a salary befitting your education, it’ll mean you’ll have got settled, and won’t have to go on being a burden to your uncle. Your little brother can depend on you from then on, and I won’t have to worry any more. Now that you’ve graduated, you won’t get involved with those demonstrations any more, will you? It was all well and good while you were still a student. I’m sure someone like you, Roy, won’t take more than a few years to get settled. It’ll be much better if you set your mind to establishing yourself first. I’ve never been disappointed in your elder brothers and sisters. They’ve all done well, every one of them. Just two weeks ago, in fact, your elder brother Rong bought me a radio-tape recorder set, boasting that he got it in Japan. I think his company must have sent him there-- his boss must like him a lot. I feel very happy for him. And it looks like your little brother’s crazy about this present. Ro listens to it day and night, and pays no attention to his books, so I’ve had to put my foot down”.

Mother tied the boat to the bridge and scooped up some water to rub her face clean of the dirt and dust of her grief. The samun-tree by the water’s edge was beginning to change its leaves to welcome the cool season. Little Ro, wearing nothing but a pair of khaki shorts, was lying prone on the floorboards reading a newspaper. By his side lay the brand new radio-tape recorder set, playing a song.

“Any news today?” Mother asked, picking up the betel-tray from inside the rattan offering-basket.

“They say Elder Brother’s case is still a mystery. They have to interview the people close to the case, but so far they haven’t been able to track them down. And the bullets taken from his body aren’t any use in solving the riddle. Another paper makes it out to be an affair with some woman. It also says he was an extremist and a troublemaker. So I didn’t buy that one. I was afraid you’d be upset”.

She was struck dumb. She sighed and shook her head without a word.

A moment later she told her youngest son to get the cassette, murmuring very softly “I’d like to hear it one more time. I miss him so much”.

She still remembered very well that after she’d sent the letter congratulating Roy on his graduation and urging him to hurry up and settle down, she’d heard nothing more from him. He seemed to have vanished as silently as a needle dropped into the sea, until one day he sent her two cassette tapes through the mail. The one with a dove on the outside was simply filled with songs; the other contained a recorded message for her from Roy.

“Dear respected Mother, I received your letter a long time ago. The reason I’ve been so long in answering isn’t because I don’t care about the family, but because I’ve been very busy with my work. Then, when I heard that Elder Brother Rong had bought you a radio-tape recorder, I waited till I had enough money to spare to buy a cassette. The other tape has songs on it that I want Ro to hear….

“I understand your love and concern, and I’ve been turning over in my mind for a long time how I could best express myself to you, so that we can really understand each other. Right now, I’m a reporter for a little newspaper. The salary isn’t very high, but I’m satisfied, because the paper takes its stand on the truth. It speaks for the poor and attacks those who take advantage of the great majority and sell out the country and the people. The truth is, I’ve been at this job since before I graduated. I didn’t dare tell you then. I was afraid you’d be upset. I hope you aren’t angry with me, Mother! If I’d waited till graduation to join the movement for justice, I’d have proved to be the kind who thinks first of himself-- and it would have been too late. So I joined in before I finished school. It was a golden opportunity for someone who believes danger for sure, especially for investigative reporters. I’ve seen poor, pitiful peasants murdered, one after the other, like fallen leaves. I’ve seen women workers bravely resisting the clique of savages. Sometimes they’ve been cruelly mowed down. If you’d met them, if you’d seen them, if you’d understood them, you wouldn’t be able to stand it either, Mother….

“Your love for your child may be so great that it prevents you from seeing things as they truly are. You’re afraid that your child will get hurt, get wounded by a fragment of an incendiary bomb, or be gunned down. I feel a deep warmth in my heart whenever I think of your loving concern. Yet I’d like to pass on to you something a friend of mine who works here with me once said. He said that death is a common thing and comes to everyone without fail. But before we die, we have three choices as to how to spend our lives. The first is just to drift along worthlessly, seeking only our own safety, and in the end dying in oblivion. The second way is to seek meaning in life, struggling against the oppression of the many by the few, working with a heart brimful of good intentions for our fellow-men, not as a sacrifice but as a duty. The last way is to live by seizing everything in sight for ourselves, to live without conscience, wallowing in selfish pleasures over the blood and tears of others, before dying to the sound of curses. Mother, which road would you want your son to take?….

“So it’s no wonder that sometimes we have to risk danger. Right now I’m investigating a case of some Thais who are conniving with the Americans to swindle our people out of a huge quantity of the nation’s priceless resources, destroying what ought to be for the people’s benefit. The accomplices of the farang are all bigshots with a lot of political and bureaucratic influence. The profits they’re making in this case are so enormous that we guess that any attempt to expose them will certainly be blocked. A modest step would be to shut down the markets to prevent the public reading the newspapers. The decisive step, though, could be shedding blood. Right now. We’re getting death threats on the telephone. But I won’t choose money or bullets, because I have my own right choice already. If such persecution develops, Mother, don’t be frightened; be proud that your son hasn’t lived in vain….

“Please tell Ro that the songs I’ve sent are songs with real substance and value, because they tell about the vast numbers of people who live in darkness and utter despair. I’m sure Ro will like the first song. The words are a kind of vow by someone who is ready to sacrifice even his life to help win peace and happiness for the mass of his fellowmen…

We ask to be corpses turn by turn,

piled on top of one another like a staircase,

high enough to reach the sky,

bringing the stars down to the earth.

If we make this world beautiful, and make the people in it happy and equal,

this world will be a star…

“Mother, in your life you’ve found some happiness. You’ve had enough over to give food to the monks every morning, while so many others have nothing, not even something to eat. They drown in the swelling flood of their debts. If you were ever really to experience all these things, I know that someone with your sense of justice wouldn’t be able to stand for it, and you’d see the need to join the struggle.

“I tried to communicate my thinking to the girl I used to love. I tried to get her to understand my work. But she left me. I’m sorry about it, of course, but it was unavoidable. We always went separate ways. She had no love to give to anyone else, not even to the pitiful and the starving. She saw only herself and me. She was trying to enter a framework from which I was escapiing. I’ve already lost one person that I loved. Don’t let me lose you too, Mother…”

The days passed smoothly by like the flow of water in a stream. Every evening, when her youngest son sprang up out of the outboard riverboat, she would poke out her head and ask right away whether there was any word of Roy. From this daily routine, she came to experience the sale of lies on the pages of newspapers. The more she insisted that Ro buy every newspaper that had any news of Roy, the more she was able to make comparisons, beginning with the investigating of Roy’s background. There were two papers which tried to show that Roy was a despicable character, with a deep inferiority complex. They also included an interview with a police officer to the effect that her son’s activities showed he was involved with the “ideology of the other side”. On the other hand, there was almost no interest in his unsolved murder-- to the point that the paper which had so often smeared Roy finally went so far as to say that his exposure of the giant mining swindle had sabotaged the national economy, made foreign countries afraid to invest their capital, increased unemployment, and led to chaos, following the blueprint of the “ideology of the other side”.

Mother put the ricebowl and the metal cooking-pot away in the rattan basket. She knelt respectfully before the abbot and then took her leave. She cast a glance at yesterday’s newspaper lying against the veranda of the abbot’s residence. The moment she could distinguish the color of the ink, she shuddered with disgust⁶. The abbot spoke up:

“Are you in a hurry to go and feed your boy”? She answered softly in the affirmative, and so he continued:

“When he was a boy your son seemed such a good lad. It’s only now I realize how mistaken I was. Who’d have thought that as he got older he’d turn into one of those extremists who are destroying the country. Too bad! Must have gone around with some fine friends, I suppose….” the abbot went on sarcastically. “That’s why these extremists don’t live long. Keep a close eye on little Ro; watch out or he’ll follow in his elder brother’s footsteps. Ah, the young people these days, they’re no good at all…” and he shook his head.

Mother’s face went burning red, her heart beat violently, and huge beads of sweat suddenly bathed her forehead. She quickly took her leave, unwilling to take any time to dip up water for the memorial libations. However, she didn’t want to blame the abbot either.

1Hollow cement structures for the storing of bodies prior to cremation. When “occupied,” their apertures are sealed with new cement.

2 Kaeng som phak krajiap a simple dish made of fish, okra, hot spices and tamarind. The sticky layer-cakes are made of flour, coconut cream, sugar, and coloring, usually constructed in alternate red and pink layers, and steamed before serving.

3It is a Thai custom to bring offerings to “feed” the deceased before cremation. Mother here is speaking to her dead son.

4She follows the traditional ritual for making offerings to the dead.

5A reference to the violent repression attempted against the mass demonstrations in Bangkok in early October 1973, which ultimately led to the fall of the Thanom-Praphat dictatorship on October 14^th.

6Thai dailies typically print their front pages with a particular brightly-colored ink, allowing easy identification from a distance.

The railway hamlet - Chatcharin Chaiwat

 

 

The Railway Hamlet by Chatcharin Chaiwat

The sky was an orange glare. The firewood, piled high as three men standing on top of one another, and stretched out in a long line, hid the living-quarters of the railway employees from sight, and let us see only one jagged half of the sun. when struck by its rays, the pile of rotting logs loomed like an ancient mountain. The children of the railway clerks and the other employees liked to run and play on it. Once in a while one heard that some railwayman’s baby boy had slipped and fallen off.

The sight of the orange April sun and the different colors of the children’s kites, swooping and darting through the grey smoke of the train hurtling in towards the station, was a delight to the eye. It meant that the railwayman’s wives would now be stepping out onto their porches and telling their older children to put away their kites and run to meet their fathers off the train. And the younger kids would be scrambling up onto the porches and peering out over the pile of firewood, watching their fathers waving from within the incoming coaches.

As the kites were put away and the sound of the train gradually died down, the children would run to take their fathers by the hand, put on their big railwaymen’s hats-which would flop loosely down, completely covering their eyes-hoot with laughter, pick up the fruit and toys, and race each other down the red-earth road.

“Peng” was the smallest of them all and rarely got the chance to do what all the others did. He’d been fatherless for a while now. Before that, he’d always raced us for his father to watch. His father had worked on the same train as mine. “Peng”, for all his tiny size, was a mischievous lad, every inch the son of his hard-drinking father.

He had two younger siblings, aged seven and three, and a mother whose hair was always a tangled mess. In those days we all smiled scornfully at “Peng”, because we knew he had no father any more. He’d stand there, picking the dried snot out of his nose, and watch us walk back from the train hand in hand with our fathers. Sometimes he’d run after us, cling to my father’s shirt and stare into his eyes for a long time. Sometimes he’d run to carry things for Father, and even have the nerve to call him “Daddy”.

That was why I got into a fight with “Peng” the day the railway put on a film-show down at the station. I was furious with him because he called my father “Daddy,” and Father in turn seemed so sorry for him. Sometimes, too, he’d make so bold as to carry the toys I should have been the one to get from Father and bring home. He could run faster than I and he’d always bring things to my mother before I could.

On the evening of the film-show at the station, we fought till I gave him a bloody nose. I called him names till a grown-up came to put a stop to it, and smacked me hard on the bottom. Everyone said how sorry they felt for him… “Damn him!” I’d say to myself, “I love my father too. He’s got no right to take him away from me”.

Everyone knew that the father of “Peng” was my father’s subordinate. His job was coupling the coaches to the locomotives.

He was also a ticket-collector and porter- what they call a ham lo¹.

We children remembered that day very well. The orange sky of the past few days had deepened into red. The train had come to a halt more quietly than usual, so quietly that even the children sensed something queer was up. There was an indescribable languor in the air. The kids were very tired that day, and were slow to run off to the station. “Peng” ran ahead of all the others, for today his father was coming home.

Not long after I’d brought Father’s things back to the house, to give him a bit of a rest, I realized something unusual had happened. All the people in the railwaymen’s quarters were clustered together, sitting and talking to one another, and staring at little “Peng”, who stood there picking his nose. Some muttered “How pitiful! His kids are still so young…” “Peng” came back to play with us as usual, but he seemed very quiet. Now, long afterwards, the word spread through the railway hamlet that as his father was coupling the coaches he’d been struck and dragged along the tracks through two stations, without anyone in the train noticing. I stood there staring at the corpse and “Peng”. It looked like meat chopped into jagged pieces. Most likely “Peng” couldn’t recognize his father either, for he didn’t cry, just stood there silent and impassive. My friends and I yelled at him that he was an ungrateful son for not crying when his father died.

The little kid had never been one to give in. Even though I was bigger than he, and taller by several spans, he fought me till my lips were split.

On the day of the funeral the whole railway hamlet seemed in a stupor. The children were all so scared that none of them dared to go out to take a bath that night. They were terrified that the ghost of the dead father would come to spook them. As soon as the drum began to thud, the sound of chanting monks could be heard throughout the hamlet. The children sat huddled in a group, all with their legs drawn up to their chests². It was even scarier at my house, for Father and Mother had gone to help with the funeral ceremonies. We kids wouldn’t let ourselves be separated from one another for a moment. We drew our legs up till our knees were stiff and sore. And when darkness fell, not a single streetlamp gleamed. All the roads had turned pitch-black. The sweet, sad music of the pi and so³ made several of us start crying in spite of ourselves. Not long afterwards there was a tap at the door, and the sound of a childish voice:

“Please open up! Mother’s sent me over with some curry”. Everyone immediately recognized the voice as that of “Peng”, but no one dared to open the door. Only one was brave enough to stretch out his hand and slide back the bolt. “Peng” poked his nose in the doorway, a mirthless smile on his lips. It made me see his father’s face in his.

“Put the curry down, and get out! Who knows, maybe your father’ll come after you to spook us!” I shouted at him. “Peng” smiled and left at once, with a firm step.

Not long afterwards my father moved to another province, and I came to grow up on Bangkok, climbing steadily through the school system. At the time we moved, “Peng” had become a young pushcart-vendor, selling water from door to door, at 5 baht a cartful. His mother sole khao yam⁴ at the railway station.

When I was full grown, with a deeper voice and a higher education, I went back to inspect the piece of land that Father had bought in the hamlet. Some of the older railway people I’d known were still around, though they’d aged. Some who where still young girls when I’d lived there, and attractive enough to have young men hanging round them all the time, now sold fried bananas or sticky rice along the footpath beside the railroad tracks. When I went back to visit them, some of the railway old-timers would greet me saying:

“Hey! When did you get back? You’re Old So-and-so’s boy, aren’t you? You’ve sure turned into a real Bangkok kid!”

I felt even more proud that my clothes were quite different from those of the other young men in the hamlet, and my accent, had completely changed from what it used to be. When I spoke, in fact, many of them had to cock their heads to catch what is was saying. They couldn’t stop expressing their admiration-- though actually it was nothing special. I looked different from them only because I’d had a chance to live in Bangkok for a while and had had a better education. Father had made some money by doing business from province to province, so my status immediately seemed far removed from theirs.

I walked farther and farther out along the road. Some women who’d been my playmates in the old days followed me on their bicycles in a straggly line. The stamp of a Bangkok kid must have been displayed conspicuously on my chest. The dust-choked red-earth road was exactly the same as it had always been. It was still a road I ought to tread on proudly: I’d had more opportunities than it, and that made me its “better”.

Soon afterwards I ran into my old friend “Peng”. There was no dried snot in his nose like there used to be. But he was still undersized, just as in the old days. His wife was very pretty, and they’d had two children. “Peng” now worked as a station employee, through the patronage of the new station-master for whom he’d worked as a houseboy earlier on. His hair was now smoothly combed. The minute I reached his house, “Peng” clutched my hand tightly, and held it for a long time without uttering a word. His manner was very deferential, not at all the way it had once been. When I settled into a chair, he lowered himself to sit down on the floor, even though it was his own house. “Tell me how long you’re staying, so I can make something for you to eat on the way back.” “Peng” spoke with a strong rural accent, and smiled so broadly that I could see all his black cigarette-stained teeth.

The truth is I felt pretty uncomfortable, for in the old days we had been equals. Our fathers had had almost the same rank at work. Even though his father had been no worse than mine. He’d often treated me-- and fought with me-- without any inhibitions. Inwardly puzzling how and why two people, who came from the same place, whose way of life had been so similar, could become so unequal, I leaned back, chatting casually. There was something that made me want to dash over and embrace him as a dear old friend; yet something else held me back –I couldn’t say exactly what. I only remember thinking that his sitting lower down made it difficult for me to jump up and hug him to my heart’s content.

I was staying at a hotel in town and had become a sort of local glamor-boy. All kinds of people cycled up and down by my hotel. Old friends came crowding in to visit. And the rich kids, who used to ignore me, now came to take me out. So I didn’t get a chance to follow up the invitation from “Peng” to go have a drink at his house.

The last time I saw “Peng” he spoke to me just as respectfully and deferentially as before. “Won’t you come and have a drink at my house? Please do, I’ve got everything prepared. And I’ve wrapped up some nam phrik⁵ for you to eat on your journey back.” I had stopped in once at his house. But when I saw the food he’d prepared, I lost interest. He’d set out a big gurami with some liquor, kung yam⁶, stir-fried leafy vegetables—and plain water. So this time I excused myself rather feebly, and went off to drink with some other friends at a restaurant on the beach.

That day, as I was walking home late in the afternoon, my face felt strained and an indescribable sensation flashed through my body, for once again the sky was an orange glare, deep almost to the point of red. The long bank of firewood was a dull grey. I rubbed my eyes, thinking maybe it was drink that made my face feel tight. Inside, a sudden pang knifed through my heart. The atmosphere in the hamlet revealed the pattern right away. The people on the platform sat in huddles, deathly silent. I saw his 5-year-old kid standing there stark naked, holding a piece of bamboo and scraping it back and forth through clots of blood…

Fragments of flesh were still stuck to the railway tracks. The smell of the blood, smeared about like the tears on the cheeks of his wife, was nauseating. Stiffened feet, streaked with crusted blood, protruded from under the stretch of the drab-white covering-sheet…. Another station old-timer was dead. He’d caught his leg in the coupling, and had been struck and hurled aside by the train. The white sheet, bulging according to the shape of the body underneath, looked ghastly, as ghastly as the day when “Peng” poked his nose in and set the curry down in front of the door of my house. It was the station-master who bought coffin into which the corpse was slowly lowered. The sky grew dark, crumpled horribly. The sound of the train’s whistle moaned like someone in his death throes. Many people couldn’t hold back their tears.

Once again the drum thudded insistently, just as on the day when the father of “Peng” had died. But this time it was “Peng” himself who was lying in the coffin. The so played in short, sharp beats, as before. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. My chest felt burning hot and suffocatingly tight. The long, towering pile of firewood looked like the wall of hell. And the jagged rim of the sun, which had almost vanished into the pile, seemed to be pointing out something over and over, as though it were a satanic spirit with the power to trample down and crush little people….

I stared at the sun so long that I felt dazed. And when it disappeared behind the firewood pile, my vision blurred. Everything I looked at turned red and purple. Not until someone brought me a handkerchief to wipe the tears from my eyes did I realize that I was crying, crying hard. My old friend’s eldest boy was still running about playing with his kite, as before. But when he ran close to the stroller of the station-master’s baby, he stopped still, stood looking at it and then stretched out his hand to touch it. Whereupon he was roughly shoved to the ground by the stationmaster’s servant, who grabbed the chubby, cuddly baby by the hand and hurried it into the house.

Watching this scene, I felt I had no tears left to weep. The long railway tracks extended into our little hamlet in parallel lines which never met, even at the station’s end. The little station-worker was never given the opportunities we had. All he could do was wait and scramble for any chance that might come by. No one had ever given “Peng” and his children any security in life. I felt certain that what had happened to “Peng” would be forgotten before long. There’d still be people selling sticky rice on the station platform. There’d be a new young worker in his place—who might well be his own son. And so it would go, on and on, over and over. People would always say: “Don’t brood over such a trifle. It’s not worth it.”

My friends were urging me to leave, when some said exactly these words, insisting that I not get too involved. After all, he said, everyone dies some day. It must have been because the sun had just disappeared that I was confused enough to say out loud: “You know, he’s not really dead at all. Do you see his two little kids? Do you see his wife? Do you see their future? That’s just it, no one sees. Where will those two kids end up? It’s not over yet. I know for sure that it’s not over yet. It’ll happen again, over and over, because no one gives a damn about these little people”.

I remember bursting into the most racking sobs at that funeral.

1An all-purpose term for unskilled railway laborers.

2In many parts of Siam, it is believed that ghosts like to seize children by their feet.

3The pi is a kind of oboe, the so a kind of vio.

4Khao yam is a Southern Thai dish made of rice, vegetables, and a spicy sauce.

5Nam phrik is a condiment made of shrimp paste, lime-juice, hot pepper, and garlic.

6Kung yam is a dish made of prawns, lemon-juice, and hot pepper.

In the Mirror by Kon Krailat

 

 

Kon Krailat's short fiction about an alienated male sex worker.

Chiwin¹ sits quietly in a dark corner, waiting for his moment to come…

Tonight the place is packed, since it’s the beginnig of the month and people still have enough cash to go out and enjoy themselves. Chiwin lights up a cigarette and inhales listlessly. It’s very strange, but this evening he feels lonely, moody, not himself. He’s got a lot of complicated problems on his mind, among them a letter from his mother: “Win, my dear son, your father isn’t very well. The riceplanting season’s already here, but there’s no one at home. How are things going for you in Bangkok? Have you found a job yet or not? We haven’t heard from you at all…” Parts of the letters Mother wrote usually went like this. In fact, of course, she hadn’t written them at all. She was illiterate, so she must have asked someone in the neighbourhood to write them for her.

Actually, it’s only now that Chiwin takes cognizance of how long it’s been since he left home. Days turned into years before he was aware of it. In this city, where he now lives, night and day are unlike night and day anywhere else… They rush by so rapidly that he doesn’t have time to think about things as the happen…

If he does think about them, it’s only cursorily, for a moment or so…. Like a brief gust of wind which merely rustles the leaves and then vanishes without a trace….

His mother’s letter brings to his mind images of various people, but heaped up on one another in such confusion that he feels dizzy and disoriented. And Chiwin inhales cigarette smoke, puff after puff, one after the other…

It’s so dark in that corner that people can’t see each other’s faces. The customers sitting at the tables loom up only as obscure silhouettes. The waitresses move back and forth, some holding flashlights to guide new arrivals in search of empty tables. On the tiny stage a naked girl is dancing to the pounding rhythm of a song. Her name is Latda. She has two children, plus a do-nothing husband drunk day in day out. So she’s had to come and work as a go-go girl, stripping her body for people to have a look. She’d told him all about it one day, not long after they’d got to know each another… The Tale of Latda… cracked in pieces like the lives of all the women in this place, full of knots and problems. If one had a good and happy life, who would ever want to bare every inch of one’s body for any Tom, Dick, or Harry to stare at? Chiwin reflects, like someone who thinks he understands pretty well how the people working here tick.

The last strains of the song die away. Latda steps down from the stage. There’s some halfhearted clapping from a few customers, none of whom know why they clap. Utter silence for a second, as though the spectators sense that the moment they’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. The lights on the stage turn pale pink. A slow, soft melody…. Laa-laa-laa-laa-laa-laa… strikes up…. Another girl, dressed in black underwear, takes her turn on the stage. She makes her appearance slowly and silently.

And now they’re playing Chiwin’s musical cue. He stubs out his cigarette and pushes himself to his feet. He steps out of the dark corner into the pink glow, with the lithe movements of a young man of twenty-four. Some of the male spectators who remember him stare at him now, half in scorn, half wanting to do it themselves.

“You know, it’s not easy at all,” Chiwin had once told one of those who spoke to him in this tone. “It’s only when you’re on stage that you realise it’s really no piece of cake.”

No one has much of an idea about the music that’s now being played, and it seems as if no one has the slightest interest in finding out. Most of the spectators simply know that when it’s played it’s time for the house’s “special program” to begin. The words, accompanied by rhythmic sighs, most likely describe the mood of a young woman on a lonely night. The girl on the stage stretches out on her back and begins to writhe and quiver as though her flesh were burning with desire. Then slowly she removes the two little bits of clothing from her body.

Her name is Wanphen…

Chiwin has now stepped up onto the stage. The play of spotlights moves back and forth between purple, blue, and red. Wanphen’s act is so well done that it makes some of the young men close by the stage almost forget to breathe. Chiwin slowly unbuttons his shirt, then shakes his head two or three times. His eyes are getting used to the lights, which keep changing colour like a magic-show.

A moment later and Chiwin has nothing left to himself but his bared body. It’s a handsome, well-proportioned body, full of young flesh and blood. He throws his clothes in a heap in one corner. Everything takes place with the utmost slowness, as if in this piece of life time has ceased to exist. At this moment no one can think of anything else-even if country should meanwhile collapse in ruins.

Chiwin stretches his body out alongside Wanphen and embraces her, while caressing her naked flesh with his hands. He kisses her once, and she kisses him in turn, then turns her face away and snuggles it into the hollow of his neck.

“How many times have I told you, Elder Brother Win!” he hears her whisper,
“Please don’t smoke before doing the show with me. It smells horrible. I can’t stand the stink, and I lose the mood…”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers back, as he rolls his body back and forth over hers.
“Something’s been bothering me. I’ve been in a bad mood, so I forgot…”
How many times now had he partnered this woman!….

Chiwin thinks about the man with the unremarkable face who comes to wait for her every night when the bar closes. He can’t imagine what the man’s real feelings are. He comes to wait here in silence, and he goes home in silence. He must feel something. How could one man not understand another? But the two of us don’t even know each other. And we both suffer. At least the man had once stared at Chiwin with a strange, cold gleam in his eye.

“He’s my husband.” Wanphen had once explained, “a real husband, you know; we’re properly registered and all”.
“How can he stand having you come here and do this kind of show with me?” He couldn’t put the gleam in the man’s eye of his mind.
“What can you do?” she’d answered seriously. “It’s a job. It’s a way to make a living. If you live with a woman like me, you have to be able to take it.”

She’s right. That’s what it is, a job. O.K. At least it’s a job for me too right now. Chiwin has the feeling that he won’t be able to perform well tonight. He doesn’t feel prepared at all. The young man rolls over and down. Wanphen knows the signs very well, so she presses her body tightly to him. Deploying her skills, using everything she has, she begins, with intense concentration, to arouse his desire. The play of the lights halts for a moment at pink, bathing the bodies of the couple and bringing out their beauty.

Chiwin stretches out full length and closes his eyes. The whole world darkens before his vision. The air-conditioning makes the air cold and moist, but he feels the sweat beginning to ooze from some of his pores. His ears catch the soft music… when the song comes to an end, it starts up again, in an endless, indolent cycle, making his thoughts drift far away, to the past, to broad ricefields and to days and nights long gone.

….. By now the rains must have started back home….
Sometimes one could see the grey-white rain pouring down, moving in over the ricefields from the horizon, blurring everything in sight. The nights would be chilly and damp, and filled with the loud croaking of big and little frogs. And mornings, if the sun shone at all, its beams would be soft and tender, soon to vanish as the thick rainclouds piled up once more. In the rainy season, the earth would be turned over once again with the plough. And it wouldn’t be long before the rice-plants came up green, ripening later to a brilliant yellow throughout the paddies. But this isn’t his work any more. He abandoned it a long time ago. It’s hard work, backbreakingly hard. Worse still, the harder you work, the poorer you get. He’d been so utterly, indescribably tired of that way of life that he’d struggled to get a better education, and with every ounce of will turned his face and headed towards Bangkok to find a new life…

…. And my little brother Wang…. I wonder if he’s out of the monkhood yet? Mother doesn’t mention him in her letter. He’s been in since last Lent². Does he really want to study in the temple to become a Maha?³ Doesn’t he know these days there’s no road to Nirvana any more? And what about my little sister Wan? She must be buckling down to looking after the kids she produces year in year out, giving her almost no breathing-space for anything else. She got married to a boy from another sub-district before she was even eighteen. Everyone’s left the family home. Only Father and Mother still remain, and how much can they do on their own? And now Father’s sick too…

Last night he’d had a terrible dream. It seemed that Father was in it somehow, but he couldn’t arrange the images of the dream properly in place. All he knew was that it was so horrible that when he woke up his heart was pounding with fear. And then he remembered that it was a long time since he’d dreamed at all. Every night he fell into a deep sleep, as though his body’d been picked up and laid casually down on the bed, feeling nothing, till a new day dawned and the time came for him to get up once again. And when the next night fell, he’d be picked up and laid down once again in the same old place. Dreams are the travels of one’s soul. It’s no good if one lives without dreams. It shows that there’s no soul left inside. So it’s a good thing he dreamed last night, even if the dream was a nightmare…

Chiwin feels Wanphen’s body arching up and pressing tightly to him almost all over. As she rains kisses over his chest and in the hollow of his neck, she whispers…
“What’s the matter with you tonight….huh?”
“I told you, I’m really feeling down…” Chiwin embraces her in turn mechanically, “I keep thinking about my father…..”
“You crazy? This is no time to think about your father…. If you go on like this, how can we do the show? In no time at all, the crowd’ll be booing us!”

Chiwin shakes his head once. Some sort of realization makes him push his body up from hers on outstretched arms. If only this night were over! The spectators are dead quiet, each pair of eyes glued to the stage. He puts everything of out his mind, draws Wanphen’s body onto his, and begins to go through all the acts he usually performs on this stage.

Many of the people up front move closer and closer. Some of them even poke their faces in, right close up-as though this were the single most extraordinary thing in life, something they’d never seen from the day they were born. Some of the customers who have girls sitting with them begin to grope them obscenely. His gaze meets their eyes in a flash he senses in that some things men may not understand other men at all. In their eyes glitter a thousand and one things-pleasure and desire. Some of the men pretend to be unaffected by the scene, though in fact their souls are seething through every vein.

“What have I become?” Chiwin asks himself. He feels like a male animal in the rutting season, brutishly copulating with a female animal, right before the eyes of a group of studmasters. The more powerfully he performs, and the more varied the couplings, the more they’re satisfied.

He glances down at Wanphan for a moment. He is now fully astride her body. She is sighing and groaning, twisting and writhing her body as if she’s being aroused to the limit, even though actually she experiences nothing from what she’s doing. This is the first time that Chiwin understands her life clearly, and he feels a heart-rending pity for her. He wants to ask her just one question: how much does she suffer from living this way? Having intercourse with a man she doesn’t love in front of a crowd. Pretending to experience so much pleasure to arouse all these people… in exchange for no more than a hundred baht a night. Do her children back home know what’s going on? Isn’t there a night when she goes back home, lies down and cries? After all, she still has feelings, doesn’t she?

Chiwin lifts his head and stares once again at the audience, as if searching for even one person with some understanding of the things that go on in the stories of the people working here. But he sees nothing but faces burning more hotly than ever with satisfaction and excitement. In fact, it looks like some of them have even reached a climax.

Chiwin begins to see the truth...

All of us here are simply victims… Latda… Wanphan…. Me…. Even those people sitting there watching with such satisfied expressions. All of them feel the pressure of the society outside. So they come here for emotional compensation, to build up a superiority complex. They come to eat and drink. They come to sit and watch others expose their genitals and perform every variety of sexual intercourse. This allows them to feel contempt for people they can then regard as lower than themselves. Man has a deep abiding instinct to shove his way up over his fellow men. The truth is that we’re all animals of the city, who live lives of pain and suffering in the midst of a demented society. The only difference between us is that those who have greater advantages stand on top of those who have less, and so on down the line.

“Give it to her! All the way, kid…!” comes a roaring cheer from a table to the left, mixed with delighted laughter from a group of friends. Wanphen clutches him still more tightly to her body. I wonder what she’s thinking about now. Chiwin stares at her, but can’t see her clear. In her eyes there’s an expression of entreaty. He grits his teeth, swallows his saliva down his dry throat, and gasps for breath. The sweat oozes from his forehead, back, and shoulders. A stinging drop trickles down into one eye, blurring his vision. Feeling a numb rage, Chiwin is almost at the point of jumping up and kicking out in the direction of those voices. But on fact he doesn’t dare do anything, not even respond with words.

Wanphen’s hands, still clasped around his back, give him a stealthy pinch. “Take it easy, Elder Brother Win,” her voice is barely audible. “Don’t listen to those crazy people. I’m not a cow or water-buffalo, you know…”

So that’s it! He’s turned Wanphen herself into a victim of his own oppression. He comes to himself at the nip of her nails and the sound of her voice. Suddenly the tears well up in his eyes, mixed with drops of sweat. He pushes his body up, leaning on his outstretched arms, and stares Wanphen full in the eyes. When he bends over and gives her a kiss, she’s surprised by a touch she’s never felt from him before. Just then the song ends and the stage-lights dim to darkness.

Chiwin goes into the bathroom, his shirt still unbuttoned. He turns on the tap, washes his hands, and scoops up some water to rub in the hollow of his neck. As he lifts his head, he encounters his own face reflected in the little mirror above the basin.
Indeed man encounters his real self when he stands before a mirror…

In the bare, empty bathroom the fain sound of music filters in. he leans on his hands, gripping the basin’s edge, and stares at that face for a long time, in silent questioning.

He thinks back to his mother’s letter. “How are things going for you in Bangkok? Have you found a hob yet?” How can he possibly tell his mother about the kind of work that he has found? She would faint dead away. And he himself can’t really say why he’s struggled so hard to make a living this way. The easy answer is probably because he was hungry and had reached a dead end.

When he’d set off for Bangkok, carrying his teacher’s certificate with him, who could have known that for months he’d be clutching at straws, trying to compete with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of others, taking test after test? And then go home, waiting to learn the results of his applications, place after place, day after day. At first his hopes had still been bright and clear. But, as time passed, they’d faded, like a candle that melts itself completely away, dimming down to his last baht. Then a friend of his, who worked as a bartender in a go-go club, had invited him along to try this line of work.

“Don’t worry… at first you feel a bit shy… but you get used to it after a while… A good-looking guy with a nice build like yours is just what these people are looking for. You get a hundred a night, two or three thousand a month. It’s far better than being a teacher. You talk yourself blue in the face for nothing but a few pennies a month.” His friend had patted him on the shoulder and said, “Okay? Give it a go, to tide you over while you wait to hear about your job applications. You want to starve? You don’t have to worry about getting picked up. The police don’t make any trouble, the people there have got connections high up.”

Is this the true image of a man who’s studied to become a teacher? Chiwin stares at his reflection with a feeling of nausea. His hair’s a mess, his eyes dry and lifeless, with a timid, evasive look. The skin on his face and lips is parched and wan with strain. Not a shred of dignity left, though he’s still young and strong. How did a man with clear, firm hopes and goals end up as someone who doesn’t have the courage to confront even his own face?

Suddenly he feels a terrible churning deep in his abdomen. It surges up through his insides to his throat. Chiwin clings tightly to the wash-basin, hiccoughs once, and then, before being conscious of it, doubles over, arches his neck, and vomits in a torrent. All the different foods he ate earlier in the evening, accumulated in his belly, spout in streams, splattering the wash-basin. Once, twice, three times. Sounds of retching follow quickly, one after the other. Each time, he spits out what he’d swallowed earlier, till he’s gasping with exhaustion. Snot and tears join together in a dirty stream. Chiwin lifts one forearm to wipe his mouth, and smells the sour stink pervading everything.

The reflection in the mirror is now a murky blur, because of the tears which well up and fill the sockets of his eyes. He feels so dizzy that he almost can not stay on his feet. Chiwin swallows his viscous saliva and hiccoughs once again. This time what he vomits up is a thick, clear liquid. It spouts out so violently that it seems to carry with it his liver, kidneys, and intestines.

1The name Chiwin, hardly chosen at random, also means “life”.

2The Buddhist “Lent,” which runs from mid-July to mid-October, is a time designated for religious retreat and for the ordination of new monks.

3Maha is a title awarded to any monk who has passed at least the lowest of the seven grades of the ecclesiastical examination-system for the study of Pali texts.

Truth About Tech

Yesterday, whilst checking my inbox I found a polite email from a reader, well actually they said they just found me after doing a search about Trade Unions and Labour Rights blogs subjects which I have more then a passing interest in. So maybe they'll become one in the future, anyway the reason they got in touch was to bring to my attention a graphic they've made illustrating the state of the cyber economies manufacturing sector. You know the people who build our mobile phones, laptops, plasma screen tellies and Ipads to name just a few must have items. This is the second time I've made a post based on a readers email, and I just want you all to know that on the off chance someone sends me a line I do read it, I of course can't promise a response but if you have something you want me to take a look at I will do so.

It is quite enlightening, I'm sure we're all familiar with China's role in producing apple products, if only because they seem to produce everything these days, well that and because Apple's front companies have once again strove for and achieved the impossible, by being perhaps the most abusive employers to operate in the People's Republic a competition with an exceptionally low bar indeed.

Here's a couple of highlights:





Anyway on to the Image




The poster has asked for some feedback, so if you have anything to add, criticism, praise or points for improvement feel free to leave comments. Speaking for myself I think its pretty good, the only thing I'd add is that it might be better to do a few more about Canada and Europe's consumption of technology and any specific problems relating to them. While I enjoy a good excuse to criticise Eagleland it would be extremely dishonest of me to not point out that all Developed nations with extensive consumer markets play a part in fuelling this cycle and the only way to completely end injustice in the work place is through global solutions. Still this is welcome information, I was most surprised to see Hungary on the list but then again the EU is at heart a club for European Industrialists putting labour rights quite low on the priority lists.

Well the image is made under Creative Commons so feel free to use it and spread the word as you will.

Thai officials fiddle while Bangkok Drowns

As is probably well known Thailand is suffering under very severe flooding with the capital itself is under threat. The banks have been bursting for over three months now with no sign that they'll be dissipating any time soon. The death toll has been placed at around 530 and Thai industries (including hard drive manufacture) and agriculture have been gutted.



However despite this quite severe crisis Thailand's Administration have some how managed to schedule some time for the important work of tightening up its anti-criticism (read pro-censorship laws) to protect its beloved Monarch (and the system he props up) from hearing negative words, by trying an independent journalist and blogger Chiranuch Premchaiporn for a maximum sentence of 20 years because someone left a comment on one of her web site that prosecutors believed to be critical of the Monarchy.

Yes you read that right at a time of national disaster Thai authorities are wasting time trying a women for something someone else did. Sadly this kind of asinine censorship exists even in this country as these twoposts make clear. But in the British examples the worst punishment possible was a fine and a mandated grovelling apology, still stupid and out of line and a graphic illustration of why the UK needs to reform are Libel laws.

But any jail time at all because someone else posted something on your site, that is ridiculous. Its bad enough Thailand has a law against criticising anyone in power but to enforce that with a hefty prison sentence is just overkill. It also brings into question the claim that the King is universally popular in Thailand (I have no doubt he is popular with large sections of the population as it isn't hard to have a positive image when every time your mentioned in the media its to get credit) but if his as beloved as the government would have you believe then surely the law is a complete waste of ink and paper.