BIrd Funeral

A mango tree shades the house in Sri Racha. Birds roost on the branches. Our next-door neighbor hates the tree. Its leaves fall into their yard. The tree cools down both houses, but the neighbor only sees the leaves and the other week she called up the electricity office to trim the tree, while we were away. I wanted to say something to her, but Mam advises to keep a jai yen on these matters, since a cool head is easier to live with than a hot heart. I smiled at her without humor. She smiled back wondering what I would do to right her wrong. I smiled again communicating that my revenge was only in my mind and she smile with gratitude. The Thais have more names for a smile than a Wall Street banker has for ripping off money from the taxpayers. This week a small bird fell from the tree in front of Fenway and me. Its mother swooped to the ground and attempted to get its baby to fly, but the little bird was grounded by a broken wing. Fenway is almost four year-old. He grabbed the little bird and put its body in a box, promising to heal its wing. His mother and I knew the truth. Mam was younger than me, but it had been a long time since either of us had been three years old. We fed the little bird rice and its mother came to visit the stricken bird. Our efforts fell short and three days ago the little bird expired in the night. In the morning Mam asked me to bury the bird. "Is that what Thais do with dead birds?" "I not want cat eat." "Okay." I sat down at the computer and searched google for 'thai bird burial'. Tibetan sky burials covered the first five pages and no narrowing or broadening of the search words returned a traditional Thai bird burial ceremony, so I decided to give the little bird a sky burial. Years ago I had been trekking around the Ganden Monastery in Tibet. Tim Challen and I were accompanied by two Canadian women who had been attending the Women conference in Beijing. Scores of golden vultures were gliding to a cliff top overlooking a fog shrouded river. A gargoyle of a man stood over a human body. He held a savage cleaver in both hands. His bald head glistened with sweat, as he hacked the corpse into smaller pieces. A monk watched from a short distance. His prayers were a mantra caught by the wind. The vultures came to his call and swallowed chunks of flesh whole. "What are they doing?" The girl from Toronto asked with wide eyes. "A sky burial. Tibetans and Zorasterians believe that putting a body in the earth defile the world, so they let the vultures take them." I had read about this rite in Francis Younghusband's journal about his invasion of Tibet. "It's disgusting." Ann was a homeopathic nurse. She hated the sight of blood. The burial butcher turned around and waved for us to come closer. The two girls argued about the sanctity of this moment. Tim and I hadn't traveled thousands of miles to miss such a sight. "If you want to keep walking, go ahead." Tim was young. 18 years old. British. This was something neither of us would ever see again. "You can't be serious." Ann's friend was a squat feminist who had little use for men other than cadge good off them. "Dead serious." Tim and I joined the sky burial. The two women stomped off in anger. The vultures hobbled over the rocks to pick at the flesh. Their skull were red. The sun broke through the clouds. Tim and I looked at the dead man's face. He wasn't wearing a smile. We left before the butcher chopped apart the skull. Somethings were better left to the imagination. The little bird didn't require such a strenuous effort. I went outside and chucked the still body onto the roof. I didn't bother to say any prayers. I didn't know any for dead birds. "What you do with bird?" Mam asked with Fenway hugging her legs. "I took care of it right." "Sure." "I've been to Tibet. I know what to do with the dead bird." I certainly know what they would do with me, if given the chance.

THE FAITHFULNESS OF LIES by Peter Nolan Smith

Several years ago my friend, Sam Royalle, suspected his girlfriend was seeing another man.

"How do you know that?" Farangs don't understand how hard it was for a Thai woman to be with a westerner.

They don't speak the same language. Their tastes in food, movies, music, and humor were complete opposites. No matter how hard a Thai woman worked to be farang she will always be Thai and vice versa.

"She's always late."

"Thais are always late." Thai girlfriends normally were having too much fun doing what they're doing to be with their farang.

"She never answers her phone."

"Bad coverage." I knew all the excuses.

"That's what she said."

Not answering her phone was very suspect. Thais love speaking on the phone. Actually they love the sound of their voices, if only to not have silence, since silence opens the door for ghosts and nothing scares a Thai more than the thought of a ghost or 'phew'.

"And she comes home smelling like she just showered."

"Thais like being clean." I always have suspected that Thai girls shower after sex to erase any evidence of sex, although the Thai police insisted that criminals can't leave fingerprints on another body.

"It could be nothing."

"It wouldn't bother me if he was farang, but I think he's Thai." Sam had more than a hunch. He had seen a Thai man driving his car. She had said it was her cousin. The possibility of this being the truth was about .0001%, because Thai women in a relationship with farangs gravitated to Thai men for the comfort of a shared culture. I regarded the situation more as polygamy than infidelity.

One world Thai.

One world farang.

Can't we live together as one?

I learned the hard way that the answer is no.

Sam's girlfriend confessed to having an affair with a Thai man. Said he was a long-time friend.

"Said it was only three months."

"Maybe."

Sam Royalle threw her out of the house without torturing her to find out if it was three months or six.

"She'll be back when she breaks up with him."

"Okay."

Thai women always have a boyfriend in the background. 100% and this week a German farang hung himself rather than leave his girlfriend alone. Suicide was the only way he could be sure she didn't cheat on him.

What is wrong with these farangs?

Magic love potions?

I was poisoned with one and the only remedy is to have a woman stand over a pot of steaming rice and have her sweat drip into the pot and eat it. The rice tastes a little fishy, but I think it works and certainly would save a lot of people from a death before their time.

For those desperate men ask the cook for Khao nam-lai puying.

The life you save maybe your own.

YOU BET I WOULD Thai Bikini Girl

Orgasm Mai Ching

Back in 1991I had sex with a Thai woman, who writhed in passion with her bones crackling like popcorn. At the end of an hour the twenty-year old Isaan native said, "I finish many times. You #1." I tipped the Marine Disco free-lancer an extra 200 baht and was very proud of my stud accomplishment, until hearing the same line during several subsequent encounters with other Thai women set afire by the ardor of my devotion. The tips got smaller and smaller, for their praise was either the truth or a lie and I was man enough to admit that perhaps these women might have been faking their finish. Ching ching or mai ching. A 2008 survey stated that 70% of Thai women don't experience an orgasm during sex. They feel nothing, while 79% of Thai men say that they have good sex without caring about their partner's needs. Foreplay is taboo for most men and western females are in agreement with their Thai sister. Orgasm is a rare occurrence, due to their sex partners' lack of foreplay, then again women have to realize that for most of a man's sexually formative life, we are forbidden by girls to touch their breasts or any other erogenous zones, so that by the time women actually want foreplay we've been preconditioned to consider most of their erogenous zones as off-limits.

This theory comes from Nick Hornsby's HIGH FIDELITY, but I have heard many Thai women swear that they never had an orgasm with their Thai boyfriend.

"He too quick. Only care for him."

Also Thai women have a problem with feeling free, since good girls wouldn't enjoy sex.

Only dok thongs or sluts like sex.

Not so, because while you can't eat love, it sure fills the heart when two come together as one. And I know, because no one ever fakes orgasm with me. NOt even me.

U-Nai Teelat

Thai girlfriends are renown for their devotion to untruth, especially when it comes to letting their absent boyfriends know their whereabouts. “I’m in my village with maih.” I’ve heard this phone conversation from the bed of many a naked woman and Soi 6 is certainly not Isaan. Many suspicious farangs increasingly hire detectives to track down their errant loves only to disbelieve the facts, however a solution to their girlfriends’ mysterious travels might be available through the microchips. These tracking devices would be perfect for implanting in retired bargirls. GPS surveillance at all times from the comfort of your home. “I know all and see all.” Just what your girlfriend wants to hear, because anyone who thinks they’ve know all the answers haasn’t heard all the questions.

Thai Ties

Every time I visit my tailor for shirts, he asks why I don't buy any ties. I tell Pinky that I wore them for most of my life and don't see the point of wearing them in Pattaya. Like who am I trying to impress?

My drunken friends or the madam of the Buffalo Bar?

I don't think so, but occasionally I spot farang men wearing ties in Pattaya. Most look like missionaries, however it got me to thinking on what occasion would a tie be appropriate in Thailand.

The four most popular reasons in the West for wearing a tie are weddings, funerals, seeing a judge in court, and because your stupid boss told you to wear one.

Sporting a cravat at your wedding sets a bad impression in that your Thai relatives might think you have more money than they had previously imagined and they'll start hounding your loving bride to fleece you at a previously unimaginable rate. Not that she wants to exploit you, but Thai women put their families before a farang. It's just the natural order of things.

Funerals is another event for a tie, however no one is going to waste 100 baht of buying you a tie if you are a stiff. A farang would be lucky to get a clean set of clothing on your corpse for your final voyage to the homeland or the nearest incinerator.

A tie presents respectability in a court of law back in the West and the same value is matched in Thailand. The judge will look at you standing there all handsome and say, "Alright, add a zero to the fine."

Finally the work place.

Unless you are a salaried wage slave for a corporation sucking out your life's blood, then there is no acceptable reason to wear a tie, unless it is to goof on those who have to wear a tie every day and in that case wear the loudest and most out-of-date tie possible and by all means don't worry about any food stains. After all ties started out as scarves that we used for wiping your mouth after a good meal. Why should now be any different?