I was photographing a wat one day when I noticed a young farang touring the property.  He had stopped to deliver a Buddhist style prayer in front of what he must have thought was the phra ubosot (bot) or ordination hall, which is the holiest prayer room and building of greatest importance in temples that have them.  Even if this was the wat’s bot, one would not stand outside and pray.  As it turns out, the building he had selected was the wat’s crematory.  They, like this one, are often very ornate in design.  At this particular wat, the crematory building was in a central location and no other building stood out as being special.  In fact, I don’t recall seeing a bot at this temple.

crematory at this wat

Just to make sure I wasn’t misinterpreting what I’d observed, I latter asked Princess about it.  He said, “We do not pray to the ghosts.”

example of a phra ubosot

When the young man was finished showing his respects, he approached me for a light.  We had the usual brief exchange that consisted mostly of what country each of us was from and then he moved on.  I decided it was best to leave him in innocent bliss, and said nothing about his earlier mistake.

Thais have this wonderful way of making lemonade when life delivers lemons.  The other day I was out taking photos with my 21 year old friend and photography student. We were just finishing up at a wat when a bird, perched on a wire above him, let go with a big dump that hit him on top of his head and down the front of his shirt.  His reaction was, “I lucky…bird shit on my head.”

Thais like to take these little annoyances that life dishes out and turn them into a positive.  It is refreshing to see, but I must admit I’ve not been able to adopt a similar outlook.  Maybe in time this too will change.

Awhile back I wrote about one of the many superstitions boys have.  This one had to do with clipping finger and toe nails, in the room, between 6pm and 6am.  The boy that told me about this said to do so would bring bad luck to the home.

Well, over a year later this same boy is at my place clipping his nails, after 6 in the evening.  So I asked him what the deal was.  The boy told me he no longer follows that belief, but still adheres to the practice of throwing the clippings out the window.  Princess is also in the room and exclaims he too believes in tossing the clippings out the window.  Why?  For good luck, of course!  The other boy then explains if you leave the clippings on the floor and a rat eats them, he will turn into a replica of you.  Well, we certainly can’t have that, now can we?

I do pride myself in having a room that’s rat free, but this doesn’t seem to have any influence on the boys’ behavior.  Over the years I have noticed every single boy makes a nice neat pile of his clippings, but always assumed they were just being neat and tidy.  Silly me!  That’s the last thing most boys are, so why would they make an exception for their nail clippings?  Now I know why!

The other night, when out drinking with Princess and his Thai friend T, I learned something very interesting about the boys’ ability to understand English.  I’ve actually had hints of this in the past, but never before has someone actually come out and point blank said it.  A couple of examples that come to mind are one boy would continually ask me to speak more slowly, while another said he could understand his German friend but not me.

T was trying to explain what he does for work.  He has a technical job having to do with a subject I’m quite familiar with.  I saw this is an opportunity to have some meaningful dialog with the boy, which is important as most can’t muster up anything beyond simple small talk.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t going well.  T’s English skills are not too strong, and he did not understand much of anything I said.

Princess intervened trying to interpret for T what I was saying.  It was at that point T explained his English is not that strong, but he could understand British much better than Americans.  He told me we speak very fast and string things together too much.  He gave the example of “did you eat yet,” explaining we Americans will say didjaeatyet.

Princess chimed in with agreement, and added that even those in Europe and Latin America, that speak English as their second language, are easier to understand.  I jokingly said, “Well, if you think we are bad, try talking to an Australian.”  T laughed and said, “OH! I do not understand anything they say.”

On a more serious note I explained to the boys that they are learning what is referred to as British, BBC, or the Queen’s English, which is one of two English standards in the world, the other being General American English.  Within each are mild to strong dialects, such as Geordie, Scouse, and Cockney, or Canadian, African American and Southern American.  My attempt to offer the boys a bigger picture on the subject of English didn’t seem to be of much interest to them.  The only reaction I got was from Princess, who said, “I understand Americans because I around you a lot.”

That said, it was a bit of an eye opener for me.  All my life I’ve struggled to understand those with strong dialects, but never realized my own flavor of English could be so difficult to understand by some.  So for you General American English speakers, and those with a strong dialect on the British English side, speak slowly and try to select words more common with British English.

Photo Courtesy of Private Boy Movie

Now, before you Brits decide to chime in with your usual American bashing comments, I did some research and found these interesting details from Wikipedia.

If the British have any legitimate claim on the English language today it is that they wrote the book…literally.  And it is still in print!

English is a pluricentric language, without a central language authority like France’s Académie française; and therefore no one variety is considered “correct” or “incorrect” except in terms of the expectations of the particular audience to which the language is directed.

The impact of the English language globally has sometimes had a large impact on other languages, leading to language shift and even language death and to claims of “English Language Imperialism”.  English itself is now open to language shift as multiple regional varieties feed back into the language as a whole.  For this reason, the English language is forever evolving.

English, as a whole, is the third most natively spoken language in the world, followed by Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. However, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world, though possibly second to a combination of the Chinese languages (depending on whether or not distinctions in the latter are classified as “languages” or “dialects”).  While I did not see it stated anywhere it’s fairly obvious that of the non-native English speakers most speak the British English standard.

The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: United States (215 million), United Kingdom (61 million), Canada (18.2 million), Australia (15.5 million), Nigeria (4 million), Ireland (3.8 million), South Africa (3.7 million), and New Zealand (3.6 million) 2006 Census.

Another KAOS party is scheduled for Saturday 7th August, 10pm - 6am.  Expect a mixed crowd of queer fetish deviants and tekno party people of all shapes and sizes.

The other day Princess and another boy were hanging out in the room.  Princess went to do something in the kitchen and accidentally knocked some things over, making a big noise.  The other boy looked over his shoulder at Princess and said, “Meeeooowww.”  I asked him why he said that and his reply was, “Cat do.”  I said, “I know that is sound of cat, but why you do?”  He explained it means that the cat did it, not Princess…”cat do.”

I was at the Balcony Pub drinking with Princess and one of his friends the other night.  At some point this really cute boy walked in and sat at the bar by himself.  Both Princess and I noticed, with great lust, when he walked in, and didn’t try to hide our interest in him from that point forward.  We were seated outside, which meant having to turn around to look at the boy, and it was obvious to him how often we would twist our necks in his direction.

Photo Courtesy of Private Boy Movie

A little later the boy relocated to a table outside, and on street level, making it very easy to look at him from our elevated position.  Eventually, Princess started cheering the boy with his glass, and the boy would return the gesture.  This is how Thai boys let someone in a bar know they are interested.  After a few cheers, Princess asked the waiter to let the boy know he was invited to our table.  The waiter soon returned with the boy’s response, “I kreng jai him.”  In this particular case, that meant he was just being polite by cheering back and he was not interested in joining our party.

Princess said that it is quite common for Thais to “talk around” something and you are expected to know what it really means.  In other words, a lot of communication between Thais requires the ability to read between the lines.  I immediately understood what Princess was saying, but had never really thought about it in that way before.  It is actually no surprise when you consider this is a society that goes out of its way to avoid offending one another.  Thus, this method of communication is well suited to the practice of kreng jai.

As it turns out, Princess noticed the boy had moved outside to strategically position himself near a younger (20’s) farang, who was sitting one table away.  He had seated himself facing into the bar, which we originally assumed was for our benefit.  But after Princess pointed out what was really going on it was obvious the boy had positioned himself so he and the young farang would not have to do any neck twisting to make eye contact.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the boy was seated next to the young farang, whom he eventually departed with.  Just as well.  Princess also informed me that the boy was high as a kite on ice (methamphetamines).  After removing my rose colored glasses and taking another look I realized Princess was absolutely correct.  The boy was seriously tweeking.  But I digress.

This form of communication is second nature for Thais.  They are wired to automatically look for hidden meanings in conversation.  Thus, it begs the question.  Do they listen to what we English speaking westerners are saying with the same mindset?  Is it one of the reasons why we often encounter a miscommunication?  I wrote once before about how the boys would often communicate in a way that appeared as if they were expecting me to connect the dots.  It doesn’t come natural for me to examine everything spoken for its potential hidden meaning.  And it is one trick this old dog might not be up for learning.

I was visiting with a boy the other day that has worked in the bars for a very long time, both in Silom and Saphan Kwai.  During the conversation I asked if it was true that new boys have to give their bar a kick back, out of their tip, for the first few months.  This is something I’ve heard about from a few boys and one captain.  In fact, I’d been told this is most common with bars in Saphan Kwai, which is why I asked.

The boy was rather adamant in saying this does not occur at any bar, in Saphan Kwai or Silom.  He said what does happen is many boys agree to give the captains 50 to 100 baht per off if they will cheer them.  To cheer a boy means to get recommended. This, he said, is quite common, particularly with the newer boys.

I guess its no surprise to hear of this.  It certainly fits with what I know about the bar culture.  I’ve not been one to rely on the recommendations of bar staff, but I know some do.  No doubt it’s most common among tourists, as they are more inclined to believe captains and mamasans have their best interest at hart.

In reality it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference, as most boys are good if they want to be…even the bad ones.  As I’ve said time and time again, how good a boy is depends largely on your behavior, and how much he fancies you.  If a boy wants to buy himself an edge over his competition, that’s just good business.

Little Choices, the new gay bar in Hua Hin, is having its grand opening celebration this 4th of July.  The party starts at 7PM with a bar-b-que and an art opening.  The community is invited to enjoy a wonderful evening of art, wine, food and friendship, at the best little queer bar in Hua Hin.