Gay Boy Thailand

Diary: Thai boyfriend budget

What does it cost to keep a Thai boy running? Here is what I spend on mine.

Fixed cost:

Allowance 2000 B a week 8000 (approx)
Grandmother’s pension 3500
Montly dental job 1500

Total 13 000

The allowance used to be 1000 when he was in Ramkamhaeng University but since he changed to Rajapat College it isn’t enough. He was broke by Thursday so I decided to adjust the allowance accordingly, having checked what he spent on transport and food.
I increased granny’s pension from 3000 to 3500 B a month due to higher living costs. (Don’t listen to Thaksin saying inflation is low).
The dental job is a monthy adjustment of his braces. He has six months left now of the two years it will take. Total cost for fixing his teeth will be 80 000 B. Most of this is now paid for.

Variable expenses:

School fees and books are a few thousand each semester.
A trip home to Anyburi is 1000 B return incl. tuk-tuk to the village since there no longer is any bus.
Clothes: He gets new ones for New Year and Songkran, and when needed. He also buy clothes using his allowance.
Hospital or doctor bills – not much recently.
Field trips with the school, usually two a year a 1000 B each.
Entertainment: Since I doubled the allowance I no longer give him anything extra if he wants to go to Freeman etc.
Food: He pays for his meals from his allowance. I pay for groceries for the household. We eat most meals out anyway. If we are together I pick up the bill. If he is by himself or with friends he pays for himself. (I have never gotten into the habit of buying half a dozen of his friends dinner.)

Average monthly fixed plus variable expenses should be at least 15 000 B. Maybe around 17-18 000. (Whoops! This was more than I had expected).

The allowance, granny’s pension, his education, the dental job – everything was my initiative and decision. They haven’t asked for it but it is better to take control of the finances than to wait as silent resentment builds up – because they DO expect that I will “take care”. I am after all rich compared to them.

The granny pension makes it possible for Chalerm to study instead of slaving away in the Anyburi Chicken Factory for the same amount to support her.

The dental was needed. His front teeth were all over the place. He had eight (8) teeth pulled as there wasn’t enough space for them. Four wisdom and four corner teeth. Not only will he look better but also avoid problems later.

His education isn’t strictly needed but I want to give Chalerm this. He is a bright fellow and he is happy to continue in school. He is the first and only in his family to get university level education.

In addtion there are one-offs due to my soft heart… such as the CD player (2000 B) and the digicam (9000 B). But those are optional. It is my own fault that I like to spoil him.

On the plus side the dental saga is over soon and once Chalerm has graduated he will hopefully make money for a change.

Q & A added

>I suspect that 8000/month is way more than most university students >would have

Yes it is. Most upcountry students live 3-5 to a room in Bangkok and have little money.

>Still, with no rent to pay, what does he spend 2000 a week on?

Transport alone is 700 a week. He spends 50-100 a day on food.
With hindsight I could have raised the allowance to 1500. Now he has a surplus if he is careful. He is buying his uncle an 800 B mobile phone from his allowance.

When I met him he was frugal but I am afraid the years living with me has influenced him. If he sees me go by Skytrain and taxi it is hard to say he should sweat on the 5 baht bus. Daily transport cost in Bangkok, and somewhat more expensive food, is the difference between now and when he lived in Bang Na.

>As a diligent student, I don’t suppose he’s out every night.
No. He had a phase when he was fascinated by Bangkok nightlife but it seems to be over.

>I don’t wish to be rude, but why are you paying for granny ? Doesn’t >his family operate in the usual Thai way - grand parents live in the >family home and look after the grand kids while parents are at work ?

Granny lives alone. She has no more grandchildren to look after, and her grown sons and daughters have all moved away from the village. Getting them to support her has always been a problem, not least with Chalerm’s father.

The designated person to support the grandparents in old age was Chalerm. There was a lot of pressure on him to quit school when he was a teenager to get a job instead. I took Chalerm away from the village and the grandparents. I could not do that without compensating them, they were too old to work by then and had been patient while Chalerm got “unnecessary” education in Anyburi.

I had to do something to help the family. The granny pension is what I do. Sad tale requests from the stepmother and the rest are ignored.

>do you both expect him to get a job when he graduates ?
Yes.

>The alternative - a young guy with time on his hands and disposable >income - is a potentially dangerous proposition.
Agreed.

>Do you both expect a reduction in his allowance if he is earning ?
We haven’t talked about that yet. I certainly expect it! Maybe we will do it the Thai way, with me taking his paycheck and giving him money as he needs it (which will inevitably be more than the paycheck anyway). But graduation is still three years away.

—
>Another question is, what your friend is doing on the chat channels?? >Hopefully he ist not running into troubles, as it was the case with Bia >(aka Linda)!!

Hehe you have a good memory re Bia. Chalerm is mainly chatting to Thai friends online. Sometimes he chats with cyberspace admirer from abroad but they are hit by “block” when they start taking dirty to him. At first I worried about his online activities but I don’t anymore.

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Diary: Handymen, computers and neighbours

We have a local version of the Mac-Windows war in our home. I have used Macintosh for 20 years. Chalerm was used to Windows from school and from Internet cafes. The Mac left him unimpressed and he badly wanted a Windows computer instead.

When Chalerm had a summer job earlier this year I agreed that he could use the money he had earned to buy a 2nd hand PC. I had resisted appeals about trading the Mac for a PC, but if he wanted a cheap old PC to keep in another room I thought “up to him”.

So now we have two computers. He was not supposed to have an Internet connection for the PC (”only for game and homework”) but suddenly a cable appeared under the door. He had began using the built-in modem, which I considered a waste of money since we already were paying for broadband for the Mac. But I didn’t put my foot down since this arrangement stopped the daily fight over who got to use the Mac. I wanted to use it for time-consuming writing, photo editing or web surfing. He wanted to use it for chat channels, which seemed to take forever. I gave in (again).

Two Internet connections resulted in two ugly cables running from the living room where the phone line was, to respectively my Mac corner and the PC in the guest bedroom.

Chalerm got a bit ahead of himself yesterday. In an effort to clean up the cables on the floor he had invited the handyman of the building, a combined security guard, carpenter, plumber, air cond repairman and washing machine installer. He is also an electrician. I didn’t know why the handyman suddenly came, and asked Chalerm. The plot was revealed - to install phone outlets where the computers were.

I put an end to that. I told him that he must kindly consult me before any such schemes. What Chalerm didn’t know since he had not asked, was that I have thought for a while to switch to wireless broadband for the apartment. Then there will be no need for any ugly cables on the floor or running on the walls, only a box near the original phone outlet.

Chalerm had never heard of wireless. I have asked a friend who lives upstairs if we can come and have a look at his wireless setup. Chalerm wanted to go yesterday, but the neighbour was asleep when Chalerm came home at 9.15. Today Chalerm was out eating and called me 10.15 pm. Could we go to the neighbours now? I told them our farang neighbours are working people and get up early. After 10pm we should not disturb them. For Thais, who like to call and visit at any hour that suits them, this is of course a novel concept.

The moral of the story is: if the handyman comes, ask what is up.

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Chalerm returns

He called at noon. It was one short ring, a signal that he was out of money and wanted me to call him back. I did.
- Where are you? asked Chalerm.
- At home. Where are you?
- BMA.
- You are in Bangkok?
- No. I am in Petchabun.
- Really? When are you coming back?
- Not say.
- Ok. See you later. Bye!
- Bye!

He was not in Petchabun. The phone line from Petchabun sounded like short wave radio. This call was quiet and clear. BMA meant Bangkok Metropolitan Authority, an acronym Thais sometimes used for the capital.

I was just about to go out. I had things to do. I had to pay for water, electricity and the phone in the apartment, plus give films to the lab for development, plus eat. I realised that Chalerm had called because he wanted me to be home when he returned. But I could only play along with this opposite-speak for so far. He could arrive in five minutes or in five hours. Was I supposed to sit and wait for him regardless?

I called him back.
- I am going out now, I said. – I have things to do.
- Up to you, said Chalerm in a short way. – Finished? He asked.
- Yes, that was all, I said.
Obviously I was expected to wait for him regardless.

When I came home two hours later he was sitting behind the computer, hiding with his head low behind the monitor and not saying anything. He was hoping I didn’t see me so he could startle me again.
- Hello tee rak, I said.
- Hellooooooo, screamed Chalerm.
He got up from ran towards me. He jumped up and put his arms around my neck and locked his legs around my waist. This was quite a power-hug.
I carried him like this towards the bedroom. I put him down on his back. Kiss kiss. Snuggle.

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Diary: Mixed singnals?

A friend who had read the blog said today that what Chalerm had said on the phone to me was cold.

The words were cold for sure, but I don’t think Chalerm meant it. Chalerm has this habit of saying the opposite of what he feels. It is a kind of a tease, but also a typical Thai way of hiding his feelings. At first with Thai boys this reversed speak could make me confused. By now I have become used to it, but I never will like it. I much prefer to hear that he misses me than the opposite. The difference between real and fake negative speak lies in the tone of voice. The fake one is in a slightly higher tone and it is somewhat exaggerated with a hint of the theatrical.

Chalerm doesn’t normally say anything about his feelings. It is almost as if he thinks it brings bad luck. So yesterday on the phone he denied any longing or indeed any plans of coming back to Bangkok. Only later in the day did I get a text message saying ‘Missss you Kissss”.

He doesn’t normally speak about love either. But sometimes he can send me romantic messages by the mobile phone. He sends these messages even if he is in the house. He just can’t bring himself to say it out loud.

Chalerm is a romantic person. He wants to love. He wants it to be real and true. He wants to give himself completely. But based on Buddhism his friends will warn him not to get too attached to me. Don’t get too dependent on things or persons, said the Buddha, because nothing lasts. His friends also probably told Chalerm that the farang could not possibly be serious. Three and a half year later we are still together and I don’t think Chalerm is listening to that kind of advice anymore. Some of it is based on envy anyway - why should Chalerm be the one with the rich farang? His friends back in the village have dubious motives for what they say but Chalerm hasn’t always seen that.

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Diary: A phone call from Petchabun

- Hello?
- Hello.
- Where are you?
- Petchabun. Where are you?
- Silom Complex. When will you come back?
- Nek week.
- So long time.
- Maybe I … (noise on the phone) … ear.
- Next year?
- (mumble) … ear.
- Britney Spear?
- Disappear.
- No. You can not. I miss you too much.
- Not care. I have home Anyburi.
- Your home is here.
- No. I have home Petchabun also. Have two home. Not go Bangkok.
- The fishes miss you.
- Fish?
- Yes. They are fine now.
- Oh. I not lie. They can dead.
- If you say that they cry.
- Can not see. If fish cry in water.
- Come home soon.
- Not come.
(pause)
- Finish?
- Ok. Finish.
- Bye!
- Bye!

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Diary: A message from Petchabun

Miss you. i come back home soon. take care by
CHALERM KISSssss You

I received this message in the morning from a phone number I didn’t know. Yesterday when I was going to sleep I felt he was thinking about me, missing me. This was around midnight. He had gone to Petchabun Friday to visit his aunt, who by the way is his legal mother since she presented the baby to authorities in the abscence of Chalerm’s real mother.

He will return to Bangkok sometime next week. I haven’t gone up to the villages to visit him as he was grumpy for a while. I don’t get much out of visiting the relatives anyway but it is interesting to see village life unfold. And the scenery is great.

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Diary: Aquarium mystery

This fish tank Chalerm bought is behaving strangely. It was leaking for a week and I mopped up around it every day. But yesterday it stopped. No leak. Today it was dry around it.

How spooky. Does it leak or does it not? I refilled the aquarium with a bottle of Minere(TM) from the 7-Eleven so it was full again. Then it began leaking once more.

This means the leak is quite high up, near the top. Maybe I can get a tube of silicone and fix it. But I guess I can’t do that while the fish are in it.

Speaking of the fish. It has been a week now and there are no fatalities in the tank. Phew! I was getting tired of fishing up dead ones.

Chalerm is still with granny in the village. I suspect he is bored but he feels obliged to keep his grandmother company.

Yesterday he was in a better mood and said he missed me. I like to hear that. He will be upcountry for another week before he returns to Bangkok when Rajapat college opens for a new semester.

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Diary: Home alone

My bf is still upcountry. I tried to call him yesterday but he was in a bad mood. We had a problem with the phone line, he could hear me but I could barely hear him because of clipping and noise. I told him to speak slower and louder but he got tired of my repeated questions and hang up on me. Oh well… it must be six months since he last hang up on me. It used to be every week.

Chalerm’s behaviour has improved a lot compared to what it could be in the beginning. He is slowly growing up. This is our fourth year. The first year was adventurous and had ups and downs. The second year was difficult. He had his coming-of-age crisis, he moved to Bangkok, failed at university, the grandfather who had raised him fell ill and died, plus various other problems that occurred at the same time. The second year was when I doubted the wisdom of seeing him anymore. But I felt he still had feelings for me. He was like that 13-year old girl I have compared him to earlier, someone who is hurt and confused and bloody impossible to be around, but who still is sincere.

The third year was a lot better. His life settled down as he moved from campus and in with me. His mood swings stabilised and he became more mature. The fourth year is ever better again. He gives a lot of affection and he is sensible when we discuss things. Of course we have our bumps but nothing like it used to be. Chalerm seems to realise (possibly told by his friends) that his position in life is not bad at all. He is grateful for what I do for him. To a Thai boy there is no clear distinction between the material and the emotional side of a relationship. If I love him I should take care of his needs. He sees this as a two-way obligation. If he gets a well-paid job, he says optimistically, he can give me money because I am his husband.

Chalerm has bonded strongly with me and built his life around me. He is young and I am his first long-term boyfriend. He trusts me to always be there for him. He takes for granted that I will never hurt or betray him. This makes him open up and expose his heart. If he had his fingers burned in earlier relationships he might have held back more.

People wonder if a relationship with someone half my age can be real. Sure it can be real, but as the older party I must expect to be a mix of lover and father figure. This is the key. If I had expected only to be his boyfriend it would not work. It would not work with someone his own age either. Chalerm likes white men. Not Thai boys. I can tell from the naughty pictures he saves on the computer.

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Diary: A leak

Chalerm has gone to Anyburi to visit his grandmother. I miss him terribly. This is strange. Am I addicted to him? I haven’t missed anyone like this since I was a kid and missed my mother when she was away.

I spoke to Chalerm today on the phone. He said I can go to Pattaya so I don’t have to sit home alone. I said I am not sure. I could go but money flies when I am in Sin City.

The aquarium is leaking. So this is why there was often water around it. Poor Chalerm has tried to hide this from me. This explains that guilty look on his face when I asked him one day where the wet mess came from. He has bought a leaky fish tank and is hoping I won’t notice.

But now I have noticed. With customer service being what it is in Thailand I don’t expect anything good will come from going back to the fishmonger in the soi and try to get him to honour the “warrantee”. Not after three weeks, anyway. Maybe if we had done it the same day.

I looked at other thanks in a shopping mall. The first tank was 350 B. 990 baht can get us a bigger and nicer one. I consider buying a new aquarium and putting it up so Chalerm can be surprised when he comes back.

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Diary: Happy fish

Three days later and the new fish are still alive.

I don’t think it is any golden touch I have that Chalerm doesn’t have. What probably happened was that the aquarium has stabilised after 2-3 weeks, with the right kind of bacteria now living in the water.

When I bought my aquarium in Farangland the seller was strict. She said I had to set up the tank first, put in water and pebbles and then wait. Next I could put in plants which she gave me from an established aquarium, containing the correct bacteria. After all this and still more waiting, I could get a few fish. This process took a week or two.

I had forgotten about this procedure and I can’t imagine the fishmonger in the soi advised Chalerm to do it the slow safe way either. So Chalerm brought home fish and plants and everything at once, and disaster followed.

Reading about aquariums on the net I realise ours is overcrowded. But that is too late to do anything about, we will have to change the water frequently and hope for the best.

It is nice when the fish tank works. The fish swim happily around. Chalerm gives them food and counts them every morning. We had no more defections since the plastic top came on.

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Diary: Aquarium update 2

I went to the fishmonger in the soi and bought five zebra fish (10 baht per fish) and five tiger barbs (five baht per fish).

I felt some of my old interest in the aquarium hobby come back as I bought the fish and released them in the tank. I let the plastic bags with the new fish float in the tank for a while, then mixed water from the tank with the water in the bags to let them get used to their new environment. They were disoriented and stressed at first but calmed down quickly. Chalerm predicted their imminent death but I hope not.

The tiger barbs are fun to watch since they are so naughty.

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Diary: Aquarium update

3 fish are now alive. The two bottom-feeders and another one. I have spoken to my boyfriend about buying more and he thinks that is ok.

Today was Chalerm’s last day of exams this semester and he will have a couple of weeks off. He might go to “Anyburi” to spend the holiday with grandmother and the rest of the clan. I consider visiting him there but I should not stay too long. It gets boring for me in the village.

Chalerm says we can instruct the maid to feed the fish if we are away.

When I had an aquarium it was a large one - 200 litres. His is 10 litres maybe. The dirty little secret is that a big aquarium is easier to keep than a small one. This has to do with water quality, which is easier to get right in a larger tank.

I will buy some more fish and see how it goes.

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Diary: Survival of the fittest

Chalerm’s aquarium project is not going well. Of 23 fish he has bought, first 13 and then 10 more a week later, only four are still alive.

Some died because they jumped out of the water – which again has to do with the top cover that “someone” sat on and broke when setting up the aquarium. Others have gone belly-up without explanation.

Chalerm got a new top cover so at least we no longer find fish on the floor in the morning.

I bought my aquarium when I was Chalerm’s age. I did it the farang way. I went to the library and read all the books about aquariums that I could find. Chalerm is doing it the Thai way, which is do it first and find out how later.

I suspect the Bangkok tap water is to blame. I have offered Chalerm to fill the aquarium with bottled water but he didn’t want that.

The aquarium crisis is a sensitive issue in this house. I am not allowed to interfere or offer my overbearing farang advice. Chalerm had taken five of the biggest fish out of the tank one night and I woke him in the morning, pointing out that in the small bucket the fish were going to the surface, gasping as they do when they are short of oxygen. Chalerm said he did this deliberately to kill them. He looked angry when he said that so I believed him.

It turned out his anger was not a case of fish murder impulse, but annoyance that I poked my nose into the affair. Soon the fish were back in the tank. He had taken the big ones out because he feared they ate the smaller ones. He points to bite marks on fins as evidence.

The only fish to do well and prosper in the aquarium are two bottom-feeders. They are fish with a vacuum cleaner mouth and they eat the algae that grow on the inside of the glass.

I wonder if I should quietly buy some zebra fish. They are the easiest to keep. Scientists use them as the watery equivalent of lab rats. With an 80% casualty rate the first two weeks our aquarium is the survival of the fittest.

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Diary: A low-tech future

A friend of mine has gone digital and gave me his old film camera, which he doesn’t use anymore. It is a Canon, a small rangefinder with a fixed 40mm lens.

Call me a Luddite if you want, but I get just as excited holding an old camera in my hands as any of the high-tech-multi-mega-pixel ones. Thank you Mr. You Know Who You Are, I promise to put it to good use.

One of the wonders of the Internet is that I can type in the name of the camera in Google and up comes not only fan clubs for this kind of camera, but the original manual too. Got to love that smug expression on the model’s face.

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Diary: Crime and punishment

My boyfriend “Chalerm” met a thief yesterday. He had gone to a video rental shop to return some movies he had rented – nowadays he is into soppy Japanese dramas. When standing on the pavement speaking in his mobile phone, a Thai guy came by, snatched the phone from Chalerm’s hand and ran off with it. This happened at 11.30 pm.

Chalerm went to the police. They wanted the thief’s name and address. Chalerm didn’t know that, but witnesses to the crime said they knew the guy’s face and what soi he lived in. The police told Chalem to go and ask neighbours for the name.

Chalerm was weary of doing this as word of his snooping might get back to the thief. I agreed. Walking around in the soi asking questions is the job of the police. We don’t know what kind of person this thief is but presumably he is bad news. If the police won’t investigate it isn’t worth the risk for Chalerm to do it.

This marks our 3rd stolen mobile phone. The first was my own phone, which I had given to the grandparents in the village once Chalerm had moved to Bangkok. They had no landline and were hard to reach. Someone walked in and stole the phone from the house one day and Chalerm gave them his own as replacement, which again meant that I (after a suitable waiting period to mark my dissatisfaction that I had not been consulted about any of this) bought Chalerm a new one.

Next someone stole Chalerm’s phone from out of his bag at Freeman disco. I am not sure if the replacement was the same phone that was snatched yesterday or not, as Chalerm keeps changing the handset every six months by trading it in for a newer model. I make up for this consumerism by using my worn Nokia as long as it works. It is now five years old.

Chalerm is in Maboonkrong to buy yet another phone. I didn’t give him any money when he went to MBK this morning, he will pay for it out of his allowance. Luckily I haven’t spoiled him with 40 000 baht phones. He buys them 2nd hand for a couple of thousand baht.

Chalerm was told to go back to the police station Monday morning but I don’t see much point in doing that. I think he has seen too many Thai soap operas on television. In those programs the police will come in force at any hint of a crime and catch the bad guy. Reality is not like that.

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