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| Meeting the parents - June 16, 2006 | | Date Created: Jun 16, 2006, 09:24 PM |
We had gone to fairly great lengths to procure tickets to the Royal Barge Procession, which was the highlight of the 60th anniversary celebrattions of the king's accession to the throne. We'd made plans to go with a friend and co-worker visiting from Sweden, and I had been looking forward to witnessing a bit of history.
Plans change, however.
At the very moment, in fact, that the hundreds of oarsmen were snapping digital photos of each other in traditional costume before they jumped into gilt ancient barges that date to a time before Bangkok existed, I was standing at the foot of a hospital bed in the intensive care unit of Ubon Ratchathani Hospital with a surgical mask on, wai-ing to a naked man who happened to be the most skeptical and imposing person I have met in all of Thailand in spite of his emaciated condition.
Prae and I received word late on Saturday night that her father had been admitted to ICU. This was no great surprise: He'd had prostate cancer nearly 10 years and had been bed-ridden for the most part since January with -- from what I could gather from Prae -- cancer that had metastasized to his bones. Prae has been back and forth between her hometown of Ubon Ratchathani, about 500 miles from Bangkok, at least half a dozen times in the past six months. Typically, she goes by overnight train, which she claims to like because of the sleeper berth that can be had for less than 10 US dollars, but I suspect it is her inherent thriftiness, which I am only beginning to adopt out of necessity. This time we flew on an early-morning flight, booked just eight hours before it was to leave. In the U.S., this sort of booking would be greeted with a thousand-dollar price tag and a snotty request for a death certificate from the airline, because, of course, sick people do not warrant any sort of last-minute discount, while dead bodies do slightly, if you provide the right paperwork. In Thailand, the price for two one-way tickets and a return for me alone is just under $200, no matter what the reason or the timing, with no questions asked.
In less than 12 hours from now I am flying back to Ubon on a mission that is sadder, yet filled with what I see as relief, for a price even lower, and yet I still had to provide no official evidence of death.
Prae's father passed away today shortly before 3 p.m. I am afraid I have what some may see as a rather callous view of death. I believe that when a person is diagnosed with an illness that is fatal and untreatable, the best thing that can happen for him and for his family is that he goes as quickly as possible. I have wrestled with this view since Dad's death, and I have found myself at times desperately trying to take back the things I said to him when he lay unconscious in the hospital bed when I held his hand for the first time since I was a little boy and I told him that it was OK to let go for his sake and ours. I have felt a guilt, in retrospect, for shooing him out the door, and I felt callous, because, after all, in the great scheme of things, we are all fatal, as a good friend named Don Pricer told me before he died. I spent more than a year doing a story on Don, a retired Air Force colonel who had flown in the China-Burma-India Theater during World War II and who was a subject of my story simply because he was dying of bone cancer. Why rush things? Don wound up living a year and a half after being diagnosed with just a month or two more -- so long, in fact, that my story on his fatal illness ran before he died. He got a kick out of that, the hard-headed military guy who refused to go.
Prae's father has been very much the same. In January it was inconceivable that he would get better or last much longer, and he has been in intense pain since then, being shot full of morphine that has seemingly had no effect. But he had something in his mind that he needed to stick around for. Prae's youngest brother and his wife have had some troubles -- exactly what I'm not sure of. But his financial situation is not steady, their marriage is not the greatest, and their son was a particular favorite and a particular worry of her father. Who would be this boy's protector if he were to die? I sometimes wonder too if he wondered what would become of his two daughters. One is a single PhD candidate at Thailand's most prestigious national university, and the other -- will heresy and the insolence of youth never cease? -- is living with a farang in Bangkok!
That Prae and I are in this relationship is a situation I have rarely questioned -- and if so for different reasons -- but from her family's standpoint, it is something that borders on the unacceptable and moreover the embarrassing. The fact I am not a millionaire does not figure into it, and that is something for which I have the utmost respect for them. But the fact I am a farang -- a Westerner -- is the sole point here. This conservative Chinese -- second generation Thai -- family does not go off marrying its daughters to farangs. They may not be wealthy by farang standards -- even if they are well-off by Thai standards -- but their little girl, no matter how inconsequential she is because she is a little girl, does not go off living in sin with a Westerner and his uncouth ways of shaking hands and speaking frankly.
When Prae got the call on Saturday about her father's condition, we debated whether I should go with her. In her culture, if I am to meet the parents, it is tantamount to asking for her hand in marriage. I had been hoping to learn more Thai and at least have a conversation with them the first time I met them. In her father's state, I never wanted to go to be the unwanted guest while the family kept up its six-month 24-hour-a-day vigil. But then she started to explain to me why she had never been close to her father, that in Chinese families, to be a daughter was the equivalent of being a toilet: Daughters are worthless and are brought up to belive they are such. She has always been in the shadow of her five brothers, and this and her tears as she explained this, made me finally understand a little more why it was that she said she loved this man because he was her father but for few other reasons.
I think it was that admission on her part -- one of her few, each of which I take careful note of and cherish, as she is one who keeps her secrets in many ways -- that made me realize it did not matter what her family thought of me being there; I needed to go last week to be there for her and show that I was there for her, regardless of what her family might think of me. I was going in, at least, with having met her sister and two of her brothers.
So we flew out there on the 6:30 a.m. flight last Sunday, and her brother, Hoar -- whom I had met on two occasions before yet mistook for his older brother, Lim, because he'd been awake all night and looked several years older than his 36 -- picked us up at the airport. We drove straight to the hospital, where everyone spent most of the next 36 hours.
In the waiting room of the ICU, I met two more brothers, whose names I still have trouble remembering, because they aren't Kevin or Bob. And I met her mother. I realized during my elevator ride to the third floor that I had not practiced my wai nearly enough and that shaking hands upon meeting is still too ingrained into me. But I stepped out of the elevator and gave the best wai I could do, my hands together at about chin level, a short bow, and a "Sawadee khrap" to her mother. I realized then that Prae had not done a very good job instructing me what to call her mother or telling me the names of her remaining brothers and sisters-in-law. Later, it was discussed that I could call her mother "Mrs. Ung-Udornpakdee," which she thought uproariously funny, or the Thai word for "Mom," which even though it was Thai, I did not feel entirely comfortable with. We settled on "Khun Maai," which means roughly "Mrs. Mom." "Khun" is a standard title of respect, which is the equivalent to "Mr." or "Ms." or "Mrs.," yet it is used even more often. Almost all Thais at work call me "Khun Ralf," for instance.
The doors to the ICU were closed, and to go in required changing into hospital slippers that looked far dirtier that the sandals I wore. It also required a mask to prevent the spread of germs.
Upon our arrival, there was great discussion between Prae and her mother, and even though I could not speak Thai, I had a pretty good idea of what was being discussed. "It's all right," I said. "I understand. You go in, and I'll wait outside." I waited very uncomfortably outside, with one brother whom I had not met asleep on the couch and Khun Maai sitting staring at me, both of us wondering what to say. Prae has told me that the only two words of English she knows are "coffee" and "pizza," and my Thai has gotten only so far as to say "Please mind the gap between train and platform," which at any other time is quite the icebreaker. It is said over the loudspeaker at every subway stop, and typically when I say it to Thais, they laugh and laugh and don't mind me for only knowing how else to say "Where's the bathroom?"
This was different. (However I was able to use the latter phrase with her mother on a later occasion.) So I pulled out my book, which I was hoping would earn some points, because it is an English translation of a Thai historical novel and has the title in Thai on the cover -- I thought at least they'd think I was interested in Thai culture. Then again, they are Chinese-Thai, or Thai-Chinese, and I have no idea exactly what that means.
One thing I found that it means is a the very sense of hospitality that I was futilely hoping my presence would not provoke. As content as I would have been to sit patiently and read my book all weekend long, being there in case Prae need my moral support, her family would not let me be, despite the communication difficulties. I went off on numerous errand-cum-sight-seeing missions. In doing so, I got a feel for Ubon Ratchathani and came to the conclusion it is the Dayton, Ohio, of Thailand.
Geographically and climate-wise there is nothing to recommend about the small city. It is not near the coast, and it is not in the mountains. The city itself is nondescript by Thai standards. It has your typical three-story buildings that have a business on the ground floor and residences above. Prae's family's own house is that way, in fact. I never did go inside during my 36 hours there, however. Previously, Prae has told me that one reason her mother has been hesitant to have me visit is her housekeeping habits. Apparently even in the best of times, she was too busy with the family construction business to care much about housekeeping, and since her husband has been bed-ridden, any proclivity she did have for keeping house has fallen by the wayside in order to focus her attentions on taking care of her ailing husband. Hard for me to say, not having been closer to the inside than briefly meeting the rotweiller named Jumbo on the chain near the backdoor. (I stayed a foot past the end of the chain, just in case. Prae was astounded to hear that we in America train our dogs to be friendly to everyone -- "What's the point of having a dog?" she wondered, she herself a dog lover. In my own mind, I wondered what she would think of Sophie taking up two-thirds of the bed.)
So I saw the exterior of Prae's family home, and I saw the exterior of her brother, Hoar's house, which looks very nice and resembles much more that which I as an American would call a house. It was gated and had a yard I did not see -- we were there only to pick up a car, and although I was told I'd be staying there, later, for reasons only a fluent Thai speaker could know, it was decided I would stay in a "mansion," which is another name for a cheap hotel. I might have felt put off by this, but I think there was a valid reason for this that had something to do with the air conditioning not working in the guest room, and it would have been a loss of face if I were not comfortable. Additionally, his house was across the city from the hospital, and the mansion I stayed in was maybe 50 meters from the hospital -- and, incidentally, it was brand new and extraordinarily comfortable -- made more so, I might add, as a Kircher, in that it provided me a bit of escape from all that family togetherness.
On my second day in town, I went to visit two of the apartment buildings that one of Prae's brothers whose name I forget built. I am going to get into trouble with this forgetting of names, but I simply do not know what to do about it. It took almost a year of my dating Prae to remember whether her hometown was Ubon or Udon, and I still mix them up sometimes, and she now gets mad at me when I do. I take that to mean there is a certain rivalry between those from Ubon and those from Udon, but I do not know more about it than my suspicions allow me to speculate.
I later went to the equivalent of a Home Depot with her brother Hoar, who is probably my best friend of the bunch. This place, whose name I do not know, because unlike in Bangkok and in Phuket, Ubon does not have a reason to put signs in both Thai and English, is much more like Home Depot than the HomePro or HomeWorks I am accustomed to in Bangkok. It very nearly comes close to being Home Depot, although the materials it carries are very strangely different from those with which I am familiar. All of the buildings in Thailand start with reinforced concrete. There is very little wood in them compared to our houses. And so the warehouse carries all sorts of concrete products, and the store carries all sorts of products that involve concrete construction rather than woodworkers' tools. I have often marveled at how very different the sounds are on a Thai construction site compared to a U.S. construction site. You tend to hear hammer drills and grinders quite often, but nary a circular saw or nail gun.
Hoar took me to a construction site after the Thai Home Depot. He, like his brothers and father, is a structural engineer, and he runs a general contracting company. On this day, he had a meeting with a client for whom he was building a "resort" -- a four or five-bungalow hotel along a highway leading into Udon. Strangely enough, I had met the architect who designed the place while in Bangkok, and I saw him there on the site. My biggest impression of the worksite was the crew mixing concrete, and I have to admit that as nice as it may be to get to build what you want where you want to in Thailand, seeing those guys mix the concrete, it made me glad that there are uniform standards to which contractors must be held in the U.S. They threw in some sand and some rocks and a bag of cement and some water, and when it looked something like concrete, they poured it into a two-wheeled cart, wheeled it over to a two-story mold, and bucket by bucket began the pour into what ultimately will be a column on a pergola. I would not want to be around it in the event of an earthquake.
While I was going all over town on these errands that were designed to show me a good time, I found out I was having one. It was the first time I had been in a car that Prae was driving, and I was impressed at her driving and talking on a mobile phone, which is de rigeur for a Thai. She could do it with an automatic or manual transmission with equal facility, I noted with approval. If you have ever seen the movie with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner called "Romancing the Stone," you may remember a chase scene where a drug dealer casually gave them a tour of his hometown in Colombia as they were being shot at. He pointed out his relatives houses and friend's businesses and where various people were born as they frantically bounced along. This is how I felt during my drives with Prae through Ubon. It is obvious her family is well-connected in Ubon, merely from the number of people's houses and businesses she was able to pointy out having some connection to.
I found myself liking her hometown very much -- much more so than I should, perhaps, because, as I say, there is very little to recommend it. But that sense of home and place that my brief tours conveyed was somehow very alluring and comforting.
What is even more likable about the town, however, is its food. Whether it is a result of her family's hospitality or that the town really is this culinary Mecca, I was full until Wednesday from the amount I ate on Sunday and Monday. It has for some reason fantastic Chinese food, and I must have had a dozen steamed Chinese buns, filled with everything from bamboo shoots to roast pork. The town is also known fort its Vietnamese food, which is more than can be said for anywhere I have been in Vietnam. I have likened that situation to food in Cuba: To get the best Cuban food, one must go to Miami. In any event, Prae and I were able to have one meal on our own, at a friend's Vietnamese restaurant, which was fantastic. Her friends who met her there were too. One friend was of Chinese heritage and beautiful -- not just because she said I was much more handsome and fit than in pictures. And her other friend was so attractive that out of reflex I asked Prae if she were married. That question earned me a sharp kick.
On Sunday night, Prae took me to a night market, which had all sorts of stalls and carts of delicious-looking foods, but Prae has an eye for these things, and she told me that no one there had anything good, so we headed off for another place. As we were leaving, I happened to run into a woman I work with at AIT, which was a strange coincidence, being nearly 500 miles from Bangkok. I have to admit -- and this is terrible -- but whenever I do see someone I recognize, I sort of pat myself on the back and think to myself, "See? I'm not your typical American. They don't all look alike to me!" I do still joke with Prae though, when she asks if I remember someone, and I invariably say, "Oh sure, dark hair and brown eyes, right?"
We left that night market and had unbelievably good noodle soup with Vietnamese sausage (which is surprisingly like bratwurst) on the street elsewhere in town.
Most of our time and meals took place in the waiting room at the ICU though. These meals came four or five times a day, and what family knew English kept asking if I were hungry. I learned that an unacceptable answer to this question is "No." I know from Prae that Thais do not eat when they are hungry; they eat often enough in fact that they never could possibly be hungry. Rather, boredom, a social event, or a simple hankering causes them to eat. And so, I am trying to learn to say in Thai, "Well, I could eat something," even if I am not hungry in the slightest.
Her whole family was camped out in the waiting room with a complete supply of meals throughout the day. I arrived Monday morning and was made to eat a fruit that looked like a banana to me but I was told was not (nor was it a plantain), a chunk of Vietnamese sausage, which comes wrapped in about 12 layers of banana leaf, and a Chinese steamed bun that contained a pickled egg and roasted pork.
During these times at the hospital, her brothers and their wives and children would come as well. Her nieces and nephews were terrified of the farang, which I thought was very strange. They looked and stared at me as if I were an alien. I kept telling Prae that none of my nieces and nephews would think it strange to see an Asian, so what gives? She did not have an answer, but I find I have a lot of ground to cover before I win the hearts of this toughest audience to date. One niece in particular, who is about 4 and who has a reputation of being very outgoing -- in a superstore if someone gets in her way, she'll just belt him in the back of the knee or thigh. With me, however, we rode in a car together, and when I was not looking at her, she could not take her wide eyes off me, this grotesque, white, hairy man with round eyes, I guess. She kept saysing to her parents, "Gluay farang!" ("Scared of farang!"). She never did come about.
Who did come about, I think, anyway, was Prae's mother, as much as she could. I think at least she now has a face and a personality on which to cast judgment. And Prae's father too, we were able to meet just before I left for the airport. I don't know how the permission came about, but Prae told me to put on a mask and go into the ICU to pay my respects to her dad. I went in, and his bed was surrounded by two brothers, her sister and her mother. Her father was awake. Seeing him there on the bed reminded me of Dad's body fighting for life at the end. The body continues to function out of stubborn habit.
I had on a surgical mask, and I wai-ed first to the monk who had come from Bangkok at the request of the family. And then I wai-ed to her father. He looked me in the eye, and held up his right hand to wai back. He struggled with his left hand, which was on the bed, and Prae's mother told him it was perfectly all right to wai with one hand. I have absolutely no idea what he thought of me, but I am glad I was able to meet him even under the circumstances, and I hope he was too. |
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