The Taco Stand

To stop himself from binge drinking so early in the afternoon, James opened a taco stand outside the bar. The small open bar was a teacher hangout, mostly because the large bottles of Leo beer were 20 baht cheaper than in the other pubs, but also because the name of the place itself reminded them of the absurdity of their otherwise dreary profession.

It had become fashionable in the last few years for Thai business owners to use English words on their signs, even if nothing else was written in English.  Happy Coffee, Nice Bear Ice Cream, Cupcake Cuddle, and Joy Burger were among the favourite local hangouts.

May, kind and soft by nature, renamed May’s Bar to Warm Heart. She had the sign installed with a thick cover and had an unveiling party complete with free barbecue and beer. When she removed the cover, she was greeted with loud laughter. “Worm Heat” was emblazoned in a bright orange against a pink background. She couldn’t understand why the farang were laughing but assumed they were happy and so laughed with them. James and the other underworked teachers like him, spent most of their afternoons at “The Worm”, drinking cheap Leo and rehashing conversations from the days before.

On one particularly sweaty and dull Thursday, James proposed his idea of setting up a taco stand. May, bored and hungry herself, shrugged an approval. “You pay. No problem.”

The next day, James arrived with a rectangular grill, a bag full of meat on skewers, balls of dough, a large bowl of pico de gallo, limes, and cilantro. He’d made a sign complete with visuals. “Worm Tacos. 1=20 baht 3 for 50 baht. Pork or shrimp”, created a facebook page, and told his students they would earn extra marks if they liked and shared it.

Word of the tacos spread fast and girls from the neighborhood schools came in small, shy groups. Many a picture was posted that first day, “V” gesture on one hand, taco in the other. The girls were also motivated by talking to the farang himself as he had three desirable qualities for girls that age: blue eyes, a full head of “yellow” hair, and a slim figure. But beyond the pull of social media and crushes, the girls found they actually liked the strange tube-like food which was spicy and easy to eat. It was a taste foreign to them but with just enough of the familiar.  The school boys, too, eventually goaded one another into joining in. And it goes without saying that the expats in the bar gladly traded the stale crisps and peanuts for a few.

Everyone was happy with the arrangement except for one. The Roti Man had been making roti for five years and there had always been a crowd waiting for roti with curried chicken or the sweet ones with Nutella or condensed milk. But for two weeks, nearly all his customers had drifted up the street to the farang bar. He sent his son to buy three, which terrified the young eight year old. The Roti Man took the bag and his change without word and went into the toilet. He came out seething with equal parts anger and pleasure and began to plot his revenge.

He first tried changing his roti to roll ups. He sold 3 for 40 baht but people just ridiculed him. He then appealed to national pride and put up signs in Thai that read, “100% Thai products” but took them down when someone pointed out that Nutella was not a Thai product. After a month with profits nearly cut in half, he implemented his final plan.

James, meanwhile, was being spiritually fulfilled by his new local fame. The expats started calling him, “Taco Jim” and consulted him for culinary advice. The bar girls flirted, and he had more than 500 likes on his facebook page. Everywhere he went, people smiled and gleefully shouted, “You, you!! Taco! Taco!” He was even making a little money, half of which he gave to the orphanage, to “build up karma”.

But there weren’t enough tacos in the world to protect him from the Roti Man’s revenge.

The Roti Man’s son had followed James for three days. The Roti Man listened intently to every bit of the minutiae of the single man’s life but only asked questions about the butcher. When he was satisfied that he knew exactly which butcher the boy described, the Roti Man gave a rare smile and retrieved some cash that was hidden in a Nutella jar in the back balcony.

The next day was relentlessly sunny. The Roti Man was eating the first (and usually best) roti of the afternoon and happily imagined the results when James did the same with his own products. However, on this particular Tuesday, James had had a big staff lunch at an Isaan restaurant complete with whole fried fish, sausages, grilled chicken, papaya salad, and enough sticky rice to stuff a sofa. James was so full that he would have rather gone to bed than go to The Worm and serve teenagers.

As it turned out, his first and last customers of the day were two girls, Fon and Gift, aged 12. Their deaths were so sudden, so dramatic—a gasp and a paralyzed collapse—there was no doubt that the cause lay half eaten in their clutched hands.

James, unsure of what had happened, but completely certain that the Thai legal system would not look upon him favorably, fled and was in Malaysia within a few hours. May, certain of her own guilt, went to Bangkok. The ex-pats moved to another pub, The Kitten Star, down the road and ignored the frosty glares of the neighboring shop owners. The Roti Man and his son dug a deep hole in their back garden and buried a small tin box. And the butcher, quietly and without smugness, enjoyed a portion of the Roti Man’s monthly profits for years to come.

Natural Remedies

Exactly one month after she retired from her post as Customer Service Representative, Jill packed a bag and moved to southern Thailand. Co-workers and relatives had always thought Jill the type to potter about in a garden and watch TV with a cat or two on her lap. For the first month of her absence, the shock led to a great deal of speculation about her motives for the emigration.

“Maybe she went for one of those sex change operations. She never seemed to have a boyfriend and she does have that short hair style.” “Nah, she’s probably got herself a hot young lover. Kudos to her!” “What if she didn’t have any savings and is a drug mule. I saw something like that on ‘Locked up Abroad’.” “I hope she doesn’t go to jail. Thai prisons are horrible!” Because of Jill’s lack of interaction on any social media, the chatter eventually moved on.

For the first year, Jill lived as most people would assume an ex-pat who had moved to a sunny, seaside town would live. Her hair grew long. Her arms and legs got tan as she drank 2:00 p.m. beers. She ate soft-shell crab and whole seabass steamed in a garlic-chili sauce and many a fried shrimp cake. She read books in the courtyards of the local temples and strolled aimlessly in and out of the daily markets. At night she often drank with other ex-pats, mostly men her own age who amused her by flirting with young girls their granddaughters’ age. She even started smoking again and found it surprisingly easy to remove the shackles of the last 30 years of diet and exercise.

Her first reaction when she learned that she had had a minor stroke while walking on the beach road wasn’t regret or resignation or even fear, but rather a dread of getting around a town with uneven sidewalks and no elevators with a half a body that was barely functioning. Not to mention using any of the public “squatter” toilets.

She stayed in her rented room on the third floor, pink curtains drawn, A/C and BBC at full blast to drown out the noise of the tuk-tuks and motorbikes below. In the evening she removed her sleeping gown and showered quickly to avoid looking at her useless left arm or her own reflection. May, the owner of the house, brought her packed lunches and bags of chopped fruit. She invited Jill to lunch in the garden downstairs but Jill feigned a tiredness she wanted but didn’t really feel.

On the fourth day, May arrived with a large mortar and pestle and a plastic bag. “Stay in room no good. We fix you arm. Come.” Jill followed vaguely aware she was still wearing the sleeping gown that reminded her of a Hawaiian Mumu. After a slow descent down the stairs they emerged into the garden and Jill immediately felt swallowed by the hot air. She lifted her arm to shield her eyes which made May smile, “Arm ok. No problem.”

They sat at the round concrete table under a mango tree and May placed the stone bowl in front of Jill. “We pok pok. Make arm strong same me.” May removed things from the bag, did a bit of cutting and whacking and made a pile of whole garlic cloves, tiny red chilies (“you like spicy?”), galangal, small purple onions, chopped lemongrass, and a handful of herbs. She opened a small plastic container of shrimp paste (“from my hometown. The best one.”)

With a sly smile, she handed Jill the pestle. “You pok pok.” and made a motion that would be comical to most adolescents but entirely confounded Jill. “I can’t.” May placed her tiny hand around Jill’s and showed her the angle and force she needed to use to both pound and grind. May let go and Jill continued, the rhythmic pounding creating a silent mantra that banished all thoughts. Though Jill didn’t have an entirely firm grip, she was surprised that after 20 minutes, she had been able to pulverize the contents into a dizzyingly aromatic paste. Sweat ran down her face and neck and her arm felt like jelly. ‘The old girl’s not entirely dead after all’ she thought as she stroked her arm with her good hand. May took the mortar and ten minutes later brought out a bowl of gang kua gai and a bowl of rice.

For the next month, Jill followed May’s regime of walking the 170 steps of Monkey Hill in the morning, buying ingredients at the market, and pounding a paste. Jill learned to make other pastes: namya, choo chee, green, panang, and the one she had the most affinity for: sour curry paste. May gave her what she assumed was high praise, “You cook same Thai grandma.”

Though her right leg dragged a bit and she still had difficulty with tasks like writing and doing up buttons, the gap between the abilities of the two halves of her body had lessened. She felt like celebrating and ventured to the ex-pat pub. The small group seemed surprised as if they had assumed she’d gone back to the West or worse.

Blowhard Bob as she silently referred to him, launched into a lecture about the lack of any qualified medical professionals outside of Bangkok. She couldn’t seem to hold onto his words and felt a sudden panic that perhaps the damage to the verbal/language part of her brain was worse than she thought. She noticed a silence and looked up to see everyone staring at her. “I’m sorry. What was that?”

“What are you doing for treatment? You’re not letting those assclowns in Hat Yai near you, are you?”

“I haven’t been going to the hospital.” She heard gasps. She heard a “Good on ya.” Then she heard herself, “Actually, I’m fine. My limbs work and my brain isn’t any foggier than usual. You see,” she paused smiling at the group, “I’ve been making curry.”

The Cooking Lesson

Tim and Mandy were immediately drawn to the little restaurant in the old part of the city. The pink walls, giant chandelier, and wooden tables were all a nice touch, but it was mostly the stacked cases of Tsingtao in the corner that sealed the deal. The place fit their criteria: a small busy place with no English menu. Small and busy meant that locals liked to go there so it was likely good and cheap and though they didn’t speak much Chinese and could read none, they had an inherent distrust of any place that would translate a menu. It was as if the English itself might flavor the food with its Western blandness. And after all, weren’t they here to immerse themselves into the culture?

A nervously smiling waitress cleared a table, gave them menus, and stood and waited for them to order. All attempts to say and pantomime “a moment please” were futile. A Chinese waiter has the patience of a Buddhist monk and will wait placidly even if the other tables are showing obvious irritation at the wait.

Tim and Mandy, coming from countries of exaggerated customer service, felt pressured and looked at what everyone else was eating. From the cursory glance, it appeared to be a Sichuan place, a blessing while eating, a curse while digesting. They pointed at a whole fried fish swimming in a dark red spicy looking broth, a plate of vegetables, and Mandy pulled out her cheat sheet to order some gan bian tu dou, aka. Sichuan Fries. They ordered the four beers in Chinese and quickly enough plastic glasses, the warm beer, and a snack of pickled mushrooms were brought to the table.

When they were about six beers in and had devoured both sides of the fish save the eyes, the chef came out to greet them. He shook their hands, gave them each a cigarette, and said a few unintelligible words. This was enough to make Tim and Mandy feel they had found their special spot in the vast and unfriendly city, so they made the restaurant they affectionately called, “The Sichuan” a weekly haunt.

As they became a little better with their Chinese and a little braver with their choices (“absolutely no offal. The name says it all.”), the chef also became increasingly friendlier. He brought them small glasses of bai jiu, the lethal lubricant of most social gatherings and small dishes to try. He occasionally sat with them to test out his English and though all became braver with their second languages, the best they could manage was names, hometowns, age, and jobs.

Mandy became obsessed with the idea of asking Yutong (as he was now known to them) to show her how to cook a dish, maybe a simple one like gan bian si ji dou, or dry-fried green beans. She practiced how to ask, chickened out a couple of times and finally one Friday night emboldened by pre-dinner drinks, asked the great master for an impromptu lesson.

The smile that erupted on Yutong’s face told Mandy that she ought to have asked ages ago—that it was a final step in cementing the relationship—like asking a scientist to share his life’s work. The pride that can only come from someone saying, “Show me how you do it.”

Yutong mimed and spoke in that special mix of English and Chinese indicating that they should wait until 9:00 when the crowd had thinned out. He even brought them a complimentary plate of dumplings and 2 beers, having become familiar by now the quantity and swiftness with which the young couple could consume food and drink.

When Mandy pushed open the swinging saloon like doors, she encountered a scene she had not thought possible in a modern, second tier city. Thick black grease coated every vertical surface like stucco; cockroaches waddled from side to side, a rat scurried out the door, seeming to sense the discomfort of the foreigner. Unlabeled bottles and tins were stacked on makeshift wooden shelves and silver bowls of spices were lined up next to the woks. Vegetables in baskets hung from the ceiling still had soil clinging to them. Piled in different parts of the counter were slabs of pork, beef, and chicken, their blood comingling upon the floor. Fish lay motionless in basins on the floor staring blankly at the dim light bulbs above. Mandy gasped and Yutong smiled wider as if it to say, “Yes, I know. It’s spectacular, isn’t it?”

Yutong’s teaching style was much more teacher centered than the young ESL teacher was accustomed to. Using one shallow ladle, he put dark oil in to the wok and at lightning speed, dipped the ladle into the silver bowls of red, white, and brown powders. Chilies, vegetables, and meat seemed to make their way in from nowhere and all was stirred together with that familiar sound of metal on wok that people know all over the world. He poured the hui guo rou onto a plate and together they emerged from the narrow kitchen and Yutong gave Mandy the dish to present to Tim. Feeling a little blinded by the bright lights, she managed a smile as Tim dug out a huge fork full and put it in his mouth.

The demonstration had lasted 4:20 but its effects on Mandy were to be much longer and far reaching. Later that night she recounted the dozens of health code violations, including the use of the recycled oil—something they had heard rumors of but didn’t quite believe, despite the fact that many restaurants put unopened jugs in their front windows as a sort of advertisement.

After the cooking lesson, Mandy was no longer able to dine in small, cozy local restaurants, opting instead for cooking at home. With one major source of practice eliminated, Mandy and Tim’s Chinese faded and disappeared all together. When their contract finished, they were asked why they didn’t sign another. “Can’t stand the heat.”

Dog Days of Winter

The scuffle outside the grooming shop between the cocker doodle and the poodle occurred a few weeks after the New Year. This year, the second dark moon signaling the beginning of the Spring Festival came earlier than usual. So in this particular January after the requisite cleaning, mass exodus on buses and trains, twenty-four hours of fireworks and feasting, the citizens of the large Northeastern Chinese city went back to work and back to routines without the benefit of a changed season.

The rejuvenation that everyone expected as a result of the long holiday had actually only happened in the giddiness of anticipation and preparation of the big event and was deflated and killed by its passing. What was left in the wake among the flattened tissue lanterns and piles of firework residue was a social landmine of animosity. Every person’s body ached to the marrow with shivering. Most spaces not filled with human bodies were unheated, and eyes were rubbed raw by the constant upkeep of charcoal fires and walking amongst the bus fumes, and no one could quite remember the exact shade of blue of a summer sky.

On this day, the sun hadn’t made its usual sepia appearance in 13 days. It was the kind of day where normally quiet bookish girls fogged up their glasses with their own vitriol if bumped into on a bus. Grandmothers, who just three weeks ago gave smiles and money to the young, beat each other senseless with rice bin shovels at the local RT Mart. And children content with on-line gaming for four months suddenly began convulsing for want of any sensation other than the overstuffed internet café chair.

Wedged between a make shift store selling Nike and Adidas shoes and a bakery selling cartoon cakes was the dog grooming shop. A year before it had been a shop selling salted duck products. And a year before that it had been a fruit and vegetable stall. But with the growing middle class came large super market chains like RT Mart and enough disposable income to buy Western fast food like KFC as well as accessories like brand name watches and pets. Prized possessions that are subjected to the wear and tear of walking two inches from the city’s pavement need regular maintenance. Needless to say, the grooming shop was more profitable in its first month than the little restaurant and produce stalls were in an entire year.

Usually the sounds of revolt coming from the bath-resistant hounds at the grooming shop weren’t audible over the car and bus horns of the busy street. The only passersby who noticed were dogs who seemed ready to burst from their leads to save the day or at the very least, investigate what the fuss was all about.  But today a small circle of on lookers were gathered outside the shop and in the center was a syncopated chorus of four, ranging from a high pitched human voice to a low baritone growl. The barking of the two recently coifed, lathered, and dyed canines followed their irate owners’ shouts like a bee-bop quartet.

A man in his 40s wearing the uniform of the newly rich: dark trousers, button down shirt, and fake Rolex watch could barely contain the wrath of his poodle and its flaming orange ears. Whether it was the genetic inferiority of the cockerdoodle or its obvious superior cuteness, no one would ever know. The owner of the fuzzy brown dog had dressed it much like herself—with layers of quilted fabrics better suited for covering windows than humans or animals. She was short and compact and unintimidated by the man in front of her. They yelled at one another, the primeval anger taking them back to accents and dialects unintelligible to the onlookers and one another. It was unclear what was wanted as no damage to the dogs or their recent pampering had occurred.

People stood around them in varying degrees of gaping. Retirees back from playing chess in the park seemed amused and philosophized to one another that the frivolity of the scene demonstrated the country’s emergence from its recent dark ages. Others, closer to the dog owners’ ages, chose sides and shouted encouragement, seeming to understand the inherent insults, but not able to articulate them later that night  when they came  home. But most just watched, happy to have an excuse to not continue on to whatever task awaited them.

Just as the owner was about to come out and put an end to the bad publicity, the kind of randomness that could only happen in a country of two billion people, that statistically had to happen in a country of two billion people happened. The noise was all encompassing, barely intelligible, like static but alive. As the sound reached its crescendo, all could see that it was a large truck carrying dozens of mangy, flea-bitten, street battered dogs who had heard the argument and wanted to add their 2 RMB. Whether these beasts wanted to support and defend or tear apart their groomed cousins is anyone’s guess. The truck came to a stop at a light a few meters ahead of the shop. In that moment the two pets either were unable to remember or actively shrugged off their chains of pampered domesticity and broke free of their owners and ran. The old philosopher men recounted the story the next day to a rapt audience and described the brief joy on each of the dog’s faces as they bounded in their freedom next to the truck.

The light turned green and the driver, a young man dressed in worn army trousers and flip flops despite the freezing temperatures, flicked his cigarette into the street. And with one fluid motion and a smirk opened his door, grabbed the two pups’ collars and threw them into the back where they disappeared under the legs of their new large friends and the one little pup’s orange ears faded in the distance.