Miss Bangkok: Memoirs of a Thai Prostitute (4 page)

What I remember most about that morning was
por
’s body language.

As I walked out the door for the last time, I turned to
por
and said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll come and visit you often.’

Por
smiled. On the inside, I believe his heart was breaking, though he dared not show any emotion for fear of losing face.

Mae
left without saying a word, not even a goodbye to my father. She didn’t even look back to gauge his reaction.

Por
also remained expressionless. ‘That’s alright, dear, just be good to your mother and don’t give her any trouble.’ We didn’t hug or kiss goodbye. That is not the Thai way.

Mae
, my sister, and I went to the nearest bus terminal in Khorat where
mae
bought three bus tickets to Bangkok.

It was a surreal journey. My parents were now two separate entities, instead of just one.

My home, which I’d had no interest in leaving, was now a thing of the past. I feared the city. I knew I was embarking on a journey to an unknown place, where my childhood would soon be forgotten. The next part of my life was about to begin.

I sat in the seat behind my mother and sister so that I could gaze out at the passing countryside and have some time to myself to think.
Mae
, on the other hand, talked incessantly in an obvious bid to enlist our sympathy and support. She blamed
por
for everything and, of course, took no responsibility for her own actions. I decided against pointing out the obvious because it would have been a futile exercise.

I wanted to ask her exactly how much money she had, but decided against it, knowing that I would be disappointed with the answer. I had no choice but to trust that she had some sort of plan.

The heavy bags under
mae
’s eyes revealed how tired she was, and I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for her. I smiled at her purposefully anytime she turned around to look at me; the daughter trying to reassure the mother that everything would be okay.

I was equally exhausted as I had barely slept the previous night. After
mae
had fled the house,
por
had decided to become intimate with his
mia noi
. And I had unfortunately been privy to every whispered word, every movement of the bed, and the constant pleas to my father to ‘do it’.

I drifted in and out of sleep several times during the bus journey.

About an hour before we reached Bangkok,
mae
announced to my sister and me her grand plan to go into business. We listened in stunned silence. This newly confident and capable woman outlined how she planned to purchase a vending cart from which she would sell homecooked papaya salad.

My initial scepticism disappeared as I realised that it wasn’t such a bad idea.
Mae
also decided that my sister should continue on with her education. I was both surprised and relieved by this decision. Finishing school would give my sister the opportunity to really make something of her life.

At that moment, I understood why I had been allowed to leave school early. My parents had believed that educating a girl like me was about as useful as playing the fiddle to a buffalo. This realisation was to the forefront of my mind as the bus pulled into the station, the old Moh Chit in the Jatujak district of Bangkok.

Bangkok, the City of Angels, mesmerised me. I had never before seen so much traffic, and I found myself longing to return to the wide-open spaces of Khorat. Bangkok reminded me of a disturbed ant hill; it was teeming with people who were frantically rushing in all directions, trying to reach some unknown goal.

As we stepped off the bus and into this alien world, I was immediately struck by the differences between the local people and my mother, sister and me. Their clothes were more modern and they carried all sorts of gadgets with them, many of which I had never even seen before. Most of the locals were in too much of a hurry to pay us any attention, but to the ones who did glance in our direction, we must have looked like country bumpkins on our first visit to the big city.

Would I ever be able to settle here?
I asked myself.

Then my thoughts turned to
por
. I wished he was here to protect us. A wave of sadness washed over me as I realised that such a reunion was unlikely and that this strange and busy city was to be my new home whether I liked it or not.

I turned to look for
mae
and saw her walking away from me.

‘Wait there, Pumpkin,’ she called, ‘I’ll just be a few minutes.’

I was happy to people-watch, but my sister Nang was restless. She told me that she needed to use the toilet, but I had heard horror stories of gangs preying on innocent girls like us, so I refused to let her out of my sight.

‘When
mae
comes back, I’ll take you to the toilet. I need to go too.’

‘And I’m also hungry.’

‘Yes, well so am I. Look, I’m sure
mae
has money for food. Just be patient.
Por
told me that we were to be good and not cause any problems. Okay?’

‘Hmphh! We’re not to cause any problems, but it’s alright for him to upset her, and us too.’

All of a sudden her eyes welled up, and she turned and hid her face from me. I gave her a hug and whispered that everything would be okay. She wiped her tears away, ashamed of being emotional in public.

‘Pumpkins,’
mae
called out.

We gathered our possessions and made our way towards
mae
, who was now smiling broadly.

‘I’ve good news and bad news. Which would you like first?’

Without waiting for a reply, she continued, ‘The good news is that I’ve managed to talk to my friend Pa, and we’re going to see her this evening. The bad news is we’ve to get on another bus.’

She pulled a funny face, making us laugh and temporarily forget about the second bus journey that awaited us.

‘Are you hungry? Let’s go find the bathroom and then get some dinner.’

As we walked,
mae
explained that Pa used to live near the camp with her husband and three children. She had left her husband after he beat her up once too often.
Mae
said he had been a heavy drinker who regularly accused his wife of having affairs.

As we walked, I was assaulted by a deluge of new scents, sights, and sounds. The numerous cars never stopped honking their horns, and their fumes made the hot air pungent. My eyes were doing cartwheels in my head trying to take it all in.

We ate pork skewers and beef from a market stall located outside the station.
Mae
continued to talk, explaining that Pa lived in a district called Bang Na, a suburb of Bangkok.
The food quietened our growling stomachs and served as a temporary distraction to our problems. I guessed that this visit to Pa was not merely social and that she must have offered to let us stay with her.

Although it would take two hours to travel there, at least we had somewhere to go, somewhere to leave our bags, and somewhere to call our own. I was sure this had to be a good omen for the future.

Even after all these years, it is hard for me to describe, let alone comprehend,
mae
’s feelings about what had happened. But at that moment in time, she appeared to be more concerned with stepping forward into the future rather than drowning in the quicksand of the past.

The journey to Pa’s home was more tiring than the first trip, although it was a shorter journey. There was no air-conditioning on the bus and the heat was stifling. At times, the smell of petrol fumes overwhelmed me. I tried to take my mind off the conditions on the bus by concentrating on the sights of the city.

I had never seen skyscrapers, or the threewheeled
tuk-tuk
s, or such large numbers of
farang
s in any one place.

The noise also perturbed, and at times, deafened me. I felt threatened by this new world and wondered if we were well enough equipped to survive here.

On the bus,
mae
began to discuss her troubles with a strange woman seated next to her.

Such casual conversations may be considered normal in Western society, but it is not so in Thailand.
Mae
spoke openly about
por
’s ‘whore’ and recounted the story of how she had defended her honour with a sweeping brush. Of course, she failed to mention her own gambling addiction.

The woman listened attentively and occasionally laughed out loud. She mentioned that her eldest daughter had recently chased a prospective
mia
from her kitchen, causing her husband to fall to his knees and beg her for forgiveness.

From the moment they began talking,
mae
’s voice grew louder and more animated. I closed my eyes and hoped that she would fall silent, but this, to my shame, did not happen. By the time we reached our stop, our fellow passengers knew the most intimate details of my parents’ marriage.

Our destination was Bang Na, a small town surrounded by fields and trees. The setting immediately relaxed me, as it reminded me of home.

Pa was waiting at the bus stop with her three children when we arrived. She looked genuinely delighted to see us.

Her children smiled shyly at me. Grateful for their warmth, I eagerly returned their smiles.

My exhaustion must have been etched all over my face because Pa patted me on the back and said, ‘Don’t worry, it isn’t far.’

Mae
recounted the events of the previous evening to Pa as we walked. I heard my father’s name mentioned once or twice, and slowed my pace to avoid the inevitable mention of the word whore.

Pa’s youngest son walked alongside me. He was too shy to talk until I asked him where his friends lived and if he liked to play football. My questions prompted an outpouring of conversation. He described his school, his classroom, his teacher, and so forth.

We reached our new home minutes later. Pa had warned us that our room was empty, but said she knew where we could buy cheap furniture. We were just so happy to have a roof over our heads that we didn’t mind the bareness.

From the moment we met her, Pa made us feel welcome. Once we had settled in, she brought us upstairs to her flat, where she offered us soft drinks. As she poured the drinks, she apologised for not being able to do more for us. She spoke of the difficulties she had faced when she first arrived in Bang Na. Her story was one of endurance in the face of adversity. Listening to her gave us hope for our own situation, and it lightened the atmosphere considerably that evening.
Mae
certainly appreciated her efforts because she declared, without a hint of irony, that Pa had done more for us than my father ever did. Pa looked slightly embarrassed by this comment, but she soon regained her composure, and went to fetch us some blankets to sleep on. She also gave us some cleaning materials, telling us that she had scrubbed her own flat clean on the night she moved in. ‘
Mai pen rai
,’ she said every time we thanked her. ‘Don’t mention it’.

Our room was located on the ground floor and we had a miniature backyard in which to dry our clothes. The small room that was to be our new home didn’t look too welcoming, but
mae
assured us that with a few pieces of furniture, it could be made more homely.

I, for one, had not been able to understand how
mae
had been able to afford the move to Bangkok. This mystery was solved when she confessed that she had borrowed a few thousand baht from a relative in Khorat and had left the responsibility of clearing the debt with my father.

I nodded my head in agreement when she told me that she’d had no alternative, though I suspected her original intent was to spend the money gambling.

We slept soundly that first night.

Pa brought
mae
out early the next morning to help her pursue her street-vending plan. When she returned that evening, she was the proud owner of a cart and cooking equipment.
The prospect of running her own business had ignited a fervour in my mother that neither my sister nor I had ever witnessed before.
Mae
had even walked around the industrial area in search of the optimum location for her stall. She finally settled on a spot that was both close to our building and also convenient to the nearby factories.

I was astonished by my mother’s newly developed business sense. Her plan, contrary to my expectations, seemed to be well thoughtout.

She discussed the venture in great detail with me. She hoped to purchase some chairs and foldaway tables for her customers, adding that her food would be cheap but delicious.
As for my role in the venture, I was free to find another job if I wanted. But for the first time in my life the prospect of spending time with my mother actually appealed to me. It was becomingly increasingly clear to me that I didn’t really know her at all and I saw the job as an opportunity to change this. I also thought that it would be a nice and safe way of getting to know Bang Na.

The work on the stall turned out to be unrelenting. It being my first job, I found it difficult to rise early and spend the entire day standing on my feet. The work itself was also very demanding. Every morning at 5am,
mae
would wake up and go to the market near Bang Na junction to buy ingredients. She also took care of the cooking and, once again, contrary to my expectations, she was very good at it.

Customer care was my responsibility, as I was ‘chief server’, though I also helped prepare the vegetables, playing kitchen hand to
mae
. We weren’t an idyllic team as everything was so new to us and we were both struggling to learn the ropes.

Not surprisingly, considering my later profession, I discovered that I liked dealing with people once I overcame my initial nervousness. But
mae
was always more outgoing than I and she became very friendly with some of the more frequent customers.

There were quite a few people from Khorat, and many others from provinces in northeastern Thailand, living in Bang Na. Like us, they had come to Bangkok in search of work.

Many became regulars at our stall, not because we came from Khorat, but because the food we served was delicious.

Mae
would spend hours preparing mortar after mortar of
som tam
, a spicy papaya salad from Laos and the Isan region of Thailand.
Som
means ‘sour’ in Isan and Lao, and
tam
translates as ‘pounded’.

The main ingredient for this dish was grated papaya, which
mae
pounded with a pestle and mortar. She usually added chilli, garlic, lime, dried shrimp, peanuts and fish sauce, depending on the customers’ tastes.

Mae
also cooked
larb
, a type of Thai and Lao meat salad, for which we charged 15 baht per serving.

Business was always good, but I found myself both loving and hating the work in equal measure. Though I liked dealing with the public, I eventually came to resent
mae
.