After a day of pure bliss and indulgence making the most of what I don’t have back home (and I don’t think I ever could), the FOMO seemed to be calling to me, somewhat. As beautiful as this apartment is, should I be spending so much time inside? The app on my phone is buzzing like a starving and determined mosquito every few minutes, telling me about the things other ‘nomads’ want to get together to do. I’m swiping away like the bugs they are, because I still need a bit of time to touch down, I still need to be constantly landing.
Don’t I? Or was last night enough? I can stay home and watch movies at my family home in December when it’s empty. I should go out and do something else. I should explore. I don’t want this place to become a gold-plated cage, do I? But surely one more day in will be good for me.
I think back to my question… do people get used to this? Do people get bored of this?
Will I get used to or bored of this? I really hope not.
But every now and again, I can’t help but see the other residents in the building that I’ve passed by in hallways, the lobby, in the elevators. The blank look on their face, the shuffling from one area to the other. The amount of foreigners in sportswear and tanktops, glassy, glazed over eyes. There seems to be ice on their shoulders, a world of division between us. I open the door for one tankytoppy foreigner entering the lobby before he can get his keycard out and step aside with a smile… and he walks straight past me without a look or word.
I’m reclining back on the sofa, looking up at the ceiling and wondering whether that happens to everyone. Is that just part of normal life? Am I thinking and hoping for too much? Would I become like that if I lived here? And my memory flashes back to the residential condo in On Nut, and I was in a world of smiles, bowing, coming home from my endless wandering and smiling at the old woman who does my laundry hanging out with mothers and their babies in the play area, laughing into the night.
Uh oh. I feel like I have to get out of here.
So, off I go to volunteer at a “Kid’s Day,” at the charity foundation I walked past on the way to Benjakitti Park. I take a wrong turn and end up walking down a road with no streets, passing by little man-made shacks and homes. I see a quartet of tanned men drinking Chang and smiling happily, as if they had no worries. I walk along and find huge roosters and cages with pigeons, budgies, dogs and chickens. As I stare at them, the owner turns up on his bike, smiles and I ask if they’re his. He says yes. He points at the chicken, “chick-enn” he tells me and I say the Thai word and he nods happily and then zooms away.
I’m VERY fucking lost, and stand on the side of this dusty path watching the budgies follow me back and forth, the huge rooster eyeing me from behind some plants and somehow… I feel very comfortable, here. I feel like I could spend more time here, instead of looking at my phone to check the location of my driver. Instead of being in my duplex wondering how I could spend my time.
My driver whisks me away and I try to feel good about the wind whipping through my curls, but something feels off. I get off at the Bangkok Vocational School, with a group of Thai families lining up outside, and finally make my way into a big sports hall. There’s lots of local and foreign people around in the blue t-shirts of the foundation, and I’m walking around looking confused as to where to go and get started.
It’s not the most welcoming environment, and after trying to ask at least 3 people what I’m supposed to be doing (who also don’t know what they’re doing), I’m pointed to a corner of the hall and told that I’ll be giving out donated pillows and slippers. I stand in my lonely little place, watching the other volunteers smiling, having fun and laughing with each other as I try to pick out who the regulars are and who are my fellow newbie kin. I start ripping open boxes of pillows and stacking them to make my job easier, reminding me of my previous life working in events, when I was destroying myself to save so I can one day be abroad, in a place like Thailand, where I can…
Stack boxes of pillows on my own?
Wishing I was back in my fancy apartment eating enough lasagne to make Garfield green with envy?
Trying to get away from the zombies in the building so I can be on my own and think about On Nut?
Why am I here?
One of the co-founders of the organisation, an extremely round, greasy looking American with a bad comb-over sometimes waddles past me. He must have quite the story and passion for people to help build something like this! I can’t wait to find out more, after the woman I met a week ago told me how nice everyone here is and how I’m going to meet so many people who feed my soul!
This large co-founder instead points at me, then points at a cup on a table and with an almost cartoonish, nasally voice befitting of his stature, commands me to pick up a cup and pose for a photo. I stare blankly at him for a moment (my name’s Kenny, by the way, first time here, nice to meet you) and then down at the cup which has the text, “I Love Beer.”
“I love beer?” I ask him, and his nose speaks out a curt, “yeah.” Confused, I turn to the camera and let them take a photo of me, and wonder what the people in the Alcoholic’s Anonymous meeting I attended a week before would think.
Eventually, people start pouring into the courtyard and flocking to the the tables with so many goodies: popcorn, chicken drumsticks, soda, candy floss, toys, clothes. I see a child reaching for the “I Love Beer” cup.
Why am I here?
The large co-founder waddles next to me, and I wonder if we’re going to have some sort of exchange, if he’s going to “feed my soul.” He looks hungry and out of breath. He picks up a slipper, barely turns my way and smacks me lightly on the arm with it and his nose squeaks, “you give those out, I’ll do these.”
My soul is finally so full, I feel like it’s going to burst.
A mile-long line of Thai people approach me for a pillow, and I’m bowing constantly like one of those drinking bird toys. “Kohb khun khap. Kohb khun khap. Kohb khun khap. Kohb khun khap.” I have never used so many K’s in my life than in that hour of smiling and handing over these pillows to people. They’re actually incredibly lovely, smiley, grateful, and it’s astounding all the kinds of people that are here: middle-aged mothers; old, cool looking men with tattoos, dreadlocks and a cheeky smile; young looking women who speak in American accents; Grab drivers in their signature green jacket.
When I see the humanity and personality in these people’s faces and how much they want a pillow, something lights up inside myself. But then, there’s the angry looking Thai volunteer standing near, her phone camera locked onto me bowing and kohb khun khapping for dear life, a genuine smile on my face for the people, but gets weighed down by the awkwardness every time my peripheral picks up her non-stop snapping photos of me. She’s got so much sunscreen on she looks like she’s doing an early Halloween impression of Thai Michael Jackson.
The older American woman that I met a week ago and lured me into this suddenly turns up, rushing over with her phone held high and aiming it at me for a few moments as I wave to her. I’m expecting some sort of conversation, but she waddles off after the co-founder also waddling off. I feel like I’m in an assembly line of awkward human-penguin hybrids, here.
And why am I here?
When the pillows are all gone, I am thinking of high ceilings and lasagne, again. Some of the other volunteers look relieved to be done, chatting away with the many influencers wielding selfie sticks and Go Pros. A few volunteers share gossip with me, like how the greasy co-founder is “a bit of a jerk”, how the waddling American woman who looks like an unkempt version of the witch in Spirited Away is someone to watch out for, and other things about corruption within the organisation.
I really wish I stayed in for lasagne.
A few of us jump in a taxi, and it’s kind of nice to finally listen to the stories of some people who have lived in Thailand. One older woman tells me about how she moved here years ago and has moved around to lots of places, and about all the different types of food in Vietnam, what Christmas is like there, and after a dull day of being around waddling cartoon characters who have no social savvy, it’s nice to feel a bit of an edge and wit from someone so well-travelled and sharing their experience of being in Thailand.
BUT WHAT GOES UP, MUST COME DOWN.
Myself and another volunteer, an older American man get dropped off at the BTS. I feel empty, hollow and like I’m running on fumes. For the first time during this trip, I genuinely do not want to be near another soul. I just want to be alone, switched off, far away from anyone and everything. I can almost picture the glazed over look in my eyes, the shards of ice on my shoulder like the other residents in my building, and coming to an understanding as I try to shake off this older man.
To avoid spending a few minutes on the BTS with him, I lie and say I’m going to look for food. Unfortunately, he happens to live 5 minutes away, wasn’t getting the BTS, but knows all the best places to eat and is going to hang out with me for at least an hour. Fucking greaaat.
He walks me to the Terminal 21 food court, and I’m feeling terminally ill from all the attempts I’m trying to make at conversation with him, which steers promptly off a large cliff. He tells me about all the food courts he’s been to in Bangkok, all the ones he doesn’t like, what he likes in the one I’m at. After my fiftieth attempt at talking about something other than food courts, I try to make the excuse that I can’t be bothered to top up a card to buy food and there’s too much choice, but I let him convince me that it’s easy… and the fried rice does look incredible, and is SO cheap!
We sit at a table together, and I wonder how quickly I can end my life with a spoon, and wish I picked up a knife on the way to the table.
I’m always fascinated by people who have moved to a country like this, who have left everything behind like he did: family, his house, his familiarity and routines and way of being. What inspired such a move? What has it been like to be there for over a year? Adapting to the climate? Learning the language? The nuances in how to pronounce things, the reactions of locals when you make the effort? The good? The bad?
My hands are hurting from trying to squeeze blood out of a stone. This guy doesn’t have much to say, other than he likes living next to this food court. He comes to this food court every day. He pays a premium on a small apartment just because it’s close to this food court. It’s cheaper than all the other food courts he’s visited.
“Wow, you really love this food court!” I say and smile brightly at him.
“Well, not really. I just hate cooking,” is the monotonous response that is as blunt and dull as the spoon I’m trying to kill myself with.
Oh my god, do they do IV drips for passion in Thailand, anywhere? Surely there must be more reasons to want to live in Thailand than crossing the road to visit a food court several times a day?
“Wine, women and sun,” he tells me. I wait for him to elaborate. Of course, he doesn’t.
“Do you have a Thai girlfriend?” It looks like a Herculean effort for him to shake his head even slightly. “Do you want a Thai girlfriend?”
“There’s a lot of paedophilia, here,” he replies, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with this information, as I try to hit a vein in my arm with my spoon. He does, however, have a fascinating 10-minute story about how he went to dinner with a friend, and her nephew turned up, bought a load of food thinking it’s a buffet and it wasn’t.
In the hours that feels like months, I never see this man smile. Not once.
And I realise that every woman I’ve spoke to in this country absolutely LOVES it. I see their eyes shimmer as they talk about their food, how they came here to be with their family, how they go out and meet people constantly, do fun things, know all the great food spots, travel a lot, they smile, they laugh, they genuinely seem to be soaking up some kind of electricity from the country, and are fun to be around.
The men? Erm… they seem perpetually lonely, impersonal, unhappy, bored, hungry and searching for something with their eyes shut tight. And consistently trying not to display any of this too overtly.
Why am I here?
Am I any different?
I get back to my building, shuffling on autopilot and not noticing any of the other human beings I cross paths with. I just want to get to the apartment, shut the door tight behind me, order loads of junk and food so I don’t have to walk around, talk to anyone, make any kind of effort at all. I am lonely, impersonal, unhappy, bored, hungry and spent the day searching for something blindly.
I order some cookies and then seethe as I sit in the car park looking around for the driver, only to find out they were taken to the wrong location. I message the driver to keep them, and for the first time that day, I smile as they reply with a heart emoji, thanking me and telling me “I hope you have a good day everyday.”
I turn those words over and over in my mind as I recognise I’m frowning into the hot air of the night, waiting impatiently for the next batch of cookies and meat skewers to turn up.
When did I stop hoping I’ll have a good day everyday?
I’m thinking about all the cold people in the building and how separate I felt from them.
Until now, when after a day of standing in my isolated corner stacked high with pillows, I now sit back in the sterile corner with high ceilings. Contemplating if the magic of being in this foreign land and these beautiful apartments wears thin when dealing with the less exciting aspects of everyday life, under the distress of cookies being delivered to the wrong location, when politely dealing with the most boring people on the planet and thinking, “I feel like I have to get out of here.”
Back to the place I’ve got used to, away from all that I’m used to:
My gold-plated cage.
