THE END OF RICE by Peter Nolan Smith

Thailand has many superstitions. One concerns rice.

Never joke while eating or else a ghost will steal your rice.

The ghosts will have to wait, for this is the beginning of the rainy season and throughout the Kingdom aging farmers are planting rice. The current price for jasmine rice per tonne from the wholesalers is between 15,000-20,000 baht, which has been guaranteed by the government since last year. Mothers and fathers call their children for help with the crop, but fewer and fewer Thai young work the fields. Manual labor is beneath them. As one old farmer said, "The only thing my son knows how to carry is a mobile phone."

Several years ago at dawn in Bannok my wife's father asked, if I wanted to plant rice.

"Plant rice. Know life Thai."

"I don't know."

I had seen rice planting all across South East Asia. It never looked like an easy job.

Not in Bali.

Not in Java.

And not in Thailand.

Maybe you not man. Maybe you ladyboy," joked Den.

"Ladyboys make more money."

Not you. You ugly ladyboy."

My mother-in-law, wife, and daughter laughed at the thought of me as a kathoey.

"Okay I'll give it a try."

Finish eat. Go field."

Nu begged off going. She had had her share of the rice fields as a child. Angie, my daughter came with me, carrying cold beers. She knew my weaknesses better than most.

We arrived at the rice paddies with the sun creeping over the palm trees.

Ten migrant Burmese were already hard at work.

To the west mountains marked the frontier.

The air was gentle, but the first rays of the sun promised a hot one by mid-morning.

"Paw-ter, not do rice," my daughter begged and pulled me from the path.

Angie was worried about my health.

I was not a young man, but neither was Den, who handed me a shoulder bag crammed with baby rice shots.

See me do."

He stepped off the path into the brown water and began the traditional repetition of planting rice without ever standing up straight.

Now farang." Den motioned for me to join him.

I stepped off the path. My bare feet sunk into the soft mud and the water lapped at my thighs. Old stalks poked at my tender soles. My technique of stick the rice shoots into the field were met with harsh criticism from the old farmer in Ban Nok.

"A pig shit rice better than you." Den was joking, but only half-joking about my effort. He was 65 and his fatless body resembled the starving Buddha.

"I never work rice."

"I see you never work rice." Den was planting twenty times faster than me and my daughter laughed from dry ground as did several of the Burmese migrants whom Den had hired to assist with the crop. They got paid about $5 a day with a meal.

I got nothing.

"Farang no work rice."

I had picked apples as a young boy on the South Shore, but couldn't recall working on a farm since then. Only ten minutes had passed and I was ready to call it quits. I headed for my daughter, who wore a wide-brimmed hat and long-sleeved shirt to protect her skin from the sun. She grabbed cold beer from the cooler.

"You stop work?" Den nodded with satisfaction.

He had bet his wife that I wouldn't last more than fifteen minutes.

"Yes, I stop work." I sat on the dirt and drank a Leo beer in one go.

"You same all farangs."

"Same all Thais too. Where young Thai?" I waved my hand across the fields.

"Your daughter lazy."

"Not lazy. Not stupid same kwaii," Angie disrespectfully muttered under her breath and stormed back to the shaded rice shack.

"I last Thai. After me no Thai grow rice. Then they eat air," Den shouted after me. "Thailand old now. Not young. No one have baby. Only farang."

He was right, for Thais have been abandoning the rice fields for work in hotels, factories, and bars. Thai families have been shrinking too. Once Den's generation is gone, the communal rice tradition of long kek will disappear into the abandoned paddies.

Back at the shack I asked Angie, "If I am old and have no money, will you work rice so I can eat?"

"Mai." Her refusal was quick. "Growing rice for stupid people."

"Farmers aren't stupid."

"Then why they not rich?"

"Money isn't everything." Most rice farmers are hopelessly in debt to the banks and one in Asia worked harder.

"You want work rice?"

"No."

She brought another beer and hugged me.

"Same me."

My beer was very cold and I was glad she was my daughter.

Smart and loving.

Always.

Den came over to join me.

Angie gave him a beer.

We gave them together.

A Thai and a farang.

He shouted for the Burmese to get back to work.

"They drink lao later. We too."

He is the most real Thai I know.

Chai-yo.

3 Ma - CO2 = 400+

Three million years ago Paranthropus Boisei roamed the East African woods, existing on C4 plants according to scientists. Turtles, elephants, giraffes, zebras, lions, rhinoceros and gazelles appear in the fossil record of that long-lost era. The CO2 level 3 ma was 400 ppm and this week the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii recorded that number after 3 ma of 270 ppm.

I blame everything on consumption

Needless to say climate denialists refuse to recognize man's hand of the CO2 accelerator led by their fat champion, Donald 45 Trump. If this trend continues unabated, then the CO2 ppm level will reached a rate not seen for a half-billion years.

Although we achieve that regularly in some cities.

Like Delhi.

Beijing.

Kathmandu.

New York City.

But not the Western Forest.

Ban Nok is still clean.

How I wish I was there.

Old Black Magic of Siam

Two years ago my friend, Pi-Noi, brought his work crew down from Ban Nok to install an air-conditioning system in a Pattaya bar. The 400-kilometer drive gave them a healthy thirst and that night under my mango tree we drank a case of Chang Beer. Nearing midnight the bottles were empty, but the out-of-towners wanted more and I introduced them to cheap Russian vodka.

The aficionados of lao khao downed the liter in minutes. The only evidence of being mao was the cranking up of the stereo volume and Pi-Noi asked for me to tell a ghost story.

"Pii ni-Thann?"

"Chaii." Thais love ghost story.

"

"Yes, very funny you tell in Thai." Pi-Noi has long claimed that I’m the last surviving speaker of Neanderthal Thai and another plastic bag of Lao magically appeared. Pi-Noi's friend poured a full glass of the white fire.

"Dhim."

I drank as commanded and launched into a ghost tale about a underwater photo shoot in

Another plastic bag of Lao magically appearederwater photo shoot. LIFE had hired my friend as a photo assistant to shoot the female lead of SPLASH in bathing suits and bikinis. I had never heard of the actress and neither had my Thai friend, although when I mentioned she was the star in a comedy about a mermaid falling in love with a mortal man, everyone sat up straight in the shadows under the mango tree.

“Ngeuuak?” asked Pi-Noi.

“Ngeuuak.” The mermaid myth was known to every sea-going culture.

“Suay?”

“Suay mak.” Darryl Hannah was a blonde goddess. The photographer was working to seduce her. I explained to the Thais that I was his ‘thaat’ or slave. They understood this term, since all Thais had been slaves until 1095.

“We stayed at an old hotel. Hotel have ghost.”

“Pee ngeuuak?” Thais have scores of designation for ghosts; phee phohng ‘evil spirit’ phraai water ghost, bpee saat or ‘animal ghost’ et al.

“No, ghost old lady,” I continued how the actress had complained about a female ghost entering her room. She was barely visible. Her words were echoes. The encounter frightened the actress, who wanted to sleeping my room.

“Sex with mermaid, good.”

“No, my friend is jealous. Says he won’t pay me, if I sleep with me.”

“Farang kee-nok.”

“Yes, he was bird shit. I get revenge by drinking rhum. I drink lots of Rhum.” 150 proof quelled the disappointment of not having sex with a movie star. “Mao mak. I go sleep. Someone touches my shoulder. I think it’s puying farang suay.”

I really had thought it was Darryl Hannah.

Instead my visitor was a long-haired apparition of an 80 year-old woman.

“Mai puying suay. Phi gair. Phee.”

I acted out the part of an ectoplasmic old lady.

“Guah.” Pee-Noi and his crew shivered with collective fear.

“Not scared. Mao.” I dismissed the old ghost and fell back to sleep in a drunken stupor. The tale was meant to be funny, but at its end Pi-Noi demanded with a chill, “Ching?”

“True 100%. The ghost was as real as you or me.”

“You sex with her?”

“No way.” I was too drunk to do anything but tell her to fuck off.

“Mai shua.” He preferred to think that I had made love to a ghost.

A really old ghost.

His friends told it was funny, but Pi-Noi rolled his eyes.

“Didn’t you like my story?”

His face was set with anger. “You don’t make fun of ghosts.”

“They do in the movies.” Thais at the Big C Theater roared hilariously about headless ghosts chasing fools through the night. I laughed too.

“Not same. This your house.”

“You believe in ghosts?”

Pi-Noi shrugged, as if he take them or leave them.

"I only scared my wife."

"I understand that."

I was scared of his wife too.

And I suspect so were most ghosts, then again my Irish blood grants a special affinity for spirits and I don’t disrespect the beliefs of this or any country.

Every year thousands of Thais and tourists line the Mekong River to view the glowing gas balls floating into the air from the mythical Naga creature. Temple steps are often decorated by a representation of this serpent. Farangs tend to deride the Thais’ belief in creatures eating your intestines or a greedy man doomed to wander eternity with a worm-sized mouth without taking into consideration that 65% of Americans believe in guardian angels.

While not 100% convinced, I really did see a ghost in Jamaica and ten years ago during a visit to Isaan with my one-eyed girlfriend we drove to a mae-mod or witch’s house. The old crone’s house was located beyond the electrical grid. A score of women sat in the candle-lit hut listening to their fortunes, while men lingered nervously outside. At one point the oldest women were assembled in a circle. Lots were chosen and the most wrinkled of them was led into the jungle by two men.

“Where she going?” I asked Vee.

“Women have lottery. See who die so others live longer.”

“They’re going to kill her?”

“No, she picked same woman every time. Other ladies never know or don’t remember.”

It was a scam, but a scary one in this setting.

The next morning a green potion was smeared on the rim of my glass. Vee said it was nothing and I drank some. We were both sick for two days. A year later we broke up and neither of us could leave the other. When I returned to the States for business, I didn’t sleep for three days and sweated out a fever. A Thai friend smiled knowingly and said, “Red-lum.”

“Magic?” Jack Nicholson had said the same in Kubrick’s THE SHINING.

“Red rum.”

‘Murder’ backwards.

He nodded. “At least she drink it too."

Ban-thee."

"Maybe?"

"Thai women like simple magic."

"That they do."

And like that I became a believer. Of course being half-Irish I wake at night to the slightest whisper, because not everything going bump in the night is a thief.

Luk Thung Garage Funk

Modern Thai music is dominated by Pop bands churning out hits, however a purer form of music is Pleng Luk Thong or 'music from the children of the fields'. The folk songs telling the stories of the poor became popular in the first half of the 20th Century and blossomed in the 1960s with the unabashed adoption of a multitude of influences.

Going up-country to Ban Nok or 'village of the birds' usually means drinking lao khao or rice moonshine and listening to Luk Thong classics.

Few compliations are better than Luk Thung! (The Roots Of Thai Funk) Vol. 3.

These bands know how to rock old school.

To listen to Luk Thung! (The Roots Of Thai Funk) Vol. 3, please go to the following URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT4-FtSD104&list=PL3B831157432689B0

CAVE ANATIS by Peter Nolan Smith

I spent the summer of 2008 on Palm Beach care-taking a haunted mansion and a crackhead Airedale for Johnny Zombie. The months of June, July, and August were very off-season, as the ultra-rich fled the fabled island for less muggy climes in France, Italy, and Maine.

The house off Ocean Avenue was a big change from my previous place of residence, Pattaya, Thailand. I also living alone instead of dividing my time between two women; my ex-wife #1 and our daughter and my pregnant girlfriend Mam. Pom Pom was a good companion. She only barked at other dogs. The snarls were saved for strangers.

I phoned Thailand everyday and sent money to both women once a week. It was not enough, for you don't get paid much to take care of a crazy dog, even if it was on the most wanted list of Palm Beach county for mauling poodles.

My friend Lisa had arranged this job.

She was a single mom. This status didn't score any sympathy for my situation.

Every day she criticized my lack of decision.

"You'll have to make a choice one day."

"But not today." Thailand was 9000 miles away.

"Why not?" This rationale was unacceptable to her code of ethics.

"I barely have enough money for a cheap 1.5 liter of wine let alone a round trip ticket to Bangkok." I did my best to not tell her 'hoop bargh' or shut up in Thai, but she was relentless.

One afternoon we rode over to the Thailand grocery on Dixie Highway to pick up Thai food. Lisa mentioned to the owner that I had lived in Thailand. The woman asked where and I told her Chainat and Jomtien.

"Why two places?"

"Because he has two wives." Lisa answered the question for me.

"You are very Thai. Who you love #1? Mia noi?"

"She's not my mia noi, but I love Mam." My admission was easy since my wife had done many bad things over our six years together. I was no saint, but her sins were forgivable without being forgettable.

"Should he tell #1 about #2?" Lisa thought now she had an ally.

"Tell for what? For hurt two people. No way. Better to say nothing." Boon was in her 50s. She had lived in America over thirty years. Her family was from Ban Nok same as both my wives and she understood country ways.

"If he tell wife #1 she angry and maybe cut off his penis."

"Cut off his penis?" Lisa crunched up her face like she hadn't heard right.

"Yes, Thai lady not want man have sex with other lady. She cut off penis and feed to ducks."

"Why ducks?"

"Because unlike pig, duck eat everything. Better you say nothing." She looked at me, as if to say never tell the truth until you have to. "Not telling truth not same telling lie. No one get hurt. Not him. too."

It was sound advice, but after the birth of my son Fenway the lie was not a viable path.

Upon returning to Thailand I told my ex-wife about Mam and Fenway.

"I already know. I not stupid same Kwaii." Buffaloes are considered stupider than farangs by Thais.

That night I slept in the other bed as I had since my ex-wife left me for another man.

I don't think she would cut off my penis and feed it to the ducks.

She knows I love my daughter.

But it's always better to play it safe with a woman from Bannok, so fellow farangs 'cave anatis' which is Latin for 'beware of the duck'.

Like Boon said, "They eat everything.

Up Country Blackout

I'm upcountry in the Western Forests of Thailand. There are no farangs on the mountainous border on Burma. Just me and that's more than enough for me, so please excuse the absence on Mangozeen, but I've been re-writing my hitchhiking novel BACK AND FORTH I'll be back in civilization this evening. Have the London Olympics started yet?

The End of Rice

Thailand has many superstitions. One concerns rice. Never joke while eating or else a ghost will steal your rice. The ghosts will have to wait, for this is the beginning of the rainy season and throughout the Kingdom aging farmers are planting rice. The current price for jasmine rice per tonne from the wholesalers is between 15,000-20,000 baht, which has been guaranteed by the government since last year. Mothers and fathers are calling their children for help with the crop, but fewer and fewer Thai young are working in the fields. Manual labor is beneath them. As one old farmer said, "The only thing my son knows how to carry is a mobile phone." I've tried to plant rice. My legs were knee deep in muddy water. Old stalks poked at my tender soles. My technique of stick the rice shoots into the field were met with harsh criticism from the old farmer in Ban Nok. "A pig shit rice better than you." Den was joking, but only half-joking about my effort. He was 65 and his fatless body resembled the starving Buddha. "I never work rice." "I see you never work rice." Den was planting twenty times faster than me and my daughter laughed from dry ground as did several the the Burmese migrants whom he had hired to assist with the crop. They got paid about $5 a day with a meal. I was getting nothing. "Farang no work rice." I had picked apples as a young boy on the South Shore, but couldn't recall working on a farm since then. Only ten minutes had passed and I was ready for a break. I put down my bucket and headed for my daughter, who was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and long-sleeved shirt to protect her skin from the sun. Angie had cold beer in the cooler. "You stop work?" Den nodded with satisfaction. He had bet his wife that I wouldn't last more than fifteen minutes. "Yes, I stop work." I sat on the dirt and drank a Leo beer in one go. "You same all farangs." "Same all Thais too. Where young Thai?" I waved my hand across the fields. "Your daughter lazy." "Not lazy. Not stupid same kwaii." Angie disrespectfully muttered under her breath and stormed back to the rice shack in the shade of a copse. "I last Thai. After me no Thai grow rice. Then they eat air." Den shouted after me. "Thailand old now. Not young. No one have baby. Only farang." He was right, for Thais have been abandoning the rice fields for work in hotels, factories, and bars. Thai families have been shrinking too. Once Den's generation is gone, the communal rice tradition of long kek will disappear into the abandoned paddies. Back at the shack I asked Angie, "If I am old and have no money, will you work rice so I can eat?" "Mai." Her refusal was quick. "Growing rice for stupid people." "Farmers aren't stupid." "Then why they not rich?" "Money isn't everything." Most rice farmers are hopelessly in debt to the banks. No one is Asia worked harder. "You want work rice?" "No." "Same me." She sat on my lap and hugged me. Like father, like daughter. My beer was very cold.

Thai White Elephant

Many Asian cultures regarded fatness as a sign of wealth, however with the advent of 7/11 consumerism in the Orient obesity is fast becoming a health issue for the region. The Thais like to joke about fat people, whom they call 'chang-nois' or little elephants.

"Why are farangs so fat?" An old rice farmer asked me in Ban Nok.

"Pepsi. KFC. Lotus." Few Thais have yet to make the miraculous connection between mega-supermarkets, 7/11, fast food and obesity. "Pepsi no good?" Den never drank soda. His favorite beverage was lao-khao or rice whiskey. "7/11 paeng." "7/11 is expensive." I only bought beer there. "Why farang poom-phoey?" "Farangs are fat, because they kin aharn mai-dee." Most westerners live in Thailand without any change in their typically European diet. "Fat good." "No, fat is not good." "Puying Thai like khang noi si khao." "White elephants?" "Chai." Den nodded with rapidity. "Fat farangs same as chang noi si khao."

"Same?" Only the king can own a white elephant.

"Yes, Thai lady have fat farang and she has good luck. Same king." The Buddhist adoration of white elephants date back to the birth of Siddhartha whose mother dreams about a white elephant giving her a lotus flower, which symbolized purity. "So white elephant good luck." I was overweight and not obese.

"Chang si khao good luck and bad luck." Den has an uncommon perception for traditions which his wife blamed on his excessive drinking. "Not have many white elephant. But white elephant can not work. Only can eat. Same as farang."

"Farangs work." I've been working since I was 12.

"Never see farang work rice paddy." Den considered farming the only honorable work left to a man. "And white elephant not white. More pink."

"Where you see one?"

"Friend have one. He have to give king. No money. Bad luck more." Den has no need for money. He lived in the rice paddies protecting his crop from rustlers. A package of tobacco, a little rice whiskey, and he was a happy man. "But good luck for king. He have many white elephants and Thai ladies have many chang-nois. Everyone happy."

"Even chang-noi?"

"Even chang noi."

As I said before, Den is a happy man so he knows happy. It's the simple things in life.