New Neighbors

On the street just over from ours, in a house modeled after ours, our new neighbors have move in with a big bang.

On the day that they moved in, guest for their house warming party started arriving at about 3:00 P.M. The partygoers arrived almost inclusively in new pick up trucks, with a sprinkling of cars and of course the ever present motorcycles. Soon they had all the streets in the subdivision blocked with a narrow one way path in the middle of the street. Except….on their street which they had completely blocked off with a tent. There in they had set up a complete field kitchen.

I have witnessed this street blocking on many occasions though through out Thailand. They think nothing of it. All those living on the other side of them are denied entrance to their homes with their vehicles, but according to my wife no one ever complains about it. That’s just the way things are done.

For some reason most of the guest have to walk around the block after they arrive and peer into the other houses. It was funny when they walked by my place, and would catch a glimpse of me. Without failure, the first one that spots me would poke the others in the group and proclaim loudly “farang”, repeating it several times. It’s sort of like being on display at a zoo. What is really funny though is when I acknowledged their presence. They had no idea how to respond. Most often they would just grin real big which is the normal Thai response in any situation in which they feel awkward. I often have fun with this in many other situations.

Back to the party. All is fairly quite until just about dusk. Then the music started. It is loud, non-ear pleasing in tone and goes on and on and on and on. Shortly there after they apparently had an open microphone completion of some sorts in which the other neighbors and I had to endure all the guest giving their rendition of their favorite song. It was not pretty. At about 10:30 I finally retired to my bedroom turned on the air-conditioning placed the television volume on high, making an attempt to drown out the residual noise.

So what do I find when I leave for my walk at 5:50 AM the next morning. The street is littered with beer bottles, all sorts of plastic bags and four drunken men sitting at a concrete table that they dragged up from somewhere. They still have full water size glasses full of amber liquid and are talking loud to each other in slurred voices. When I return an hour later they are still going at it. Guess they were going to make a day of it.

Can’t wait until they sell all the other vacant homes in the neighborhood and we can do it again and again and again and……

Thai fact: In 2007 the average salary in Thailand was 8,368 baht per month or about $250.00 per month at the current exchange rate. Lots of poor people.