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Hot Asian Guy

“I angry!” my bar boy friend and current love of my life, Noom, informed me.

Not that the scowl on his face wasn’t easy to read. When Noom gets pissed, the wise quickly cross the street to move out of his path. My reaction is to giggle. Or hug him. Or both. He’s so damn cute when he’s mad. When he feels the need to vocalize how he is feeling, it’s only make matters worse. His pronunciation of the word angry is even more adorable. But I always get myself under control, form my face into the appropriate scowl, and shake my head, a mixture of disgust and agreement over whatever justified his anger in the first place.

We were at the Sunday Night Market in Chiang Mai, down at the end of one of the side streets, and Noom had stopped in at a small stop and rob to buy a bottle of water. The old guy running the place tried to charge him the going price for a market night filled with touri. And Noom was incensed. Forgetting his entire cultural upbringing, he unsuccessfully tried to argue with the old guy. And then angrily stormed out, pissed at the world. “I Thai!” he wailed at me. Then in case I wasn’t getting it added as explanation, “I not Falang!”

All the Thailand guides, both print and on-line, will tell you the absolutely worse breach in etiquette in Thailand is to lose your temper and raise your voice (conveniently forgetting that an insult about the King – a vastly worse sin – can land your ass in jail). The guides go to great length to explain about face, sanook, and a bunch of other faulty reasoning to justify their warning and to ensure you never show your anger while visiting the Kingdom. Well, Frommer’s has never met my boy. If you want to see anger personified, you just need to see Noom when he feels he has been done wrong.

That night I led him down the street to water, hoping the next spot would offer Thai pricing so I could make him drink. Fortunately not too far away, just inside a wat’s compound, an old lady was selling bottles and slipped him one at the properly discounted locals’ price. But Noom was still fuming. I pulled him inside of the temple with the excuse I wanted to take a few photos. Really, I know Noom is incapable of visiting a wat without kneeling before Buddha and spending a few minutes deep in conversation with his god. And I trusted Buddha to calm the boy’s ass down. A few minutes of prayer worked its magic and we finished our night’s shopping with Noom in his normal happy, cheerful mood.

Hot Asian Guy

Back at the hotel, the indignity he’d suffered briefly raised its ugly little head again. He does tend to stew over perceived slights. With no Buddha available to intercede, I relied on my second best trick to liven the mood and started tickling him. Noom is extremely ticklish and dissolves into a hunk of laughing muscle. If he was a woman, he’d pee himself. (And if you want something to be indignant about, what a bitch it must be to be a woman and not be able to laugh without losing control of your bladder. Being a woman sucks worse than being Thai and not being shown proper respect from your countrymen.)

That wasn’t the first time Noom told me he was angry. Nor was it the first time I didn’t need to be told. Every time it has always been over the same thing: a fellow Thai not treating him in the manner Thais are supposed to treat each other. At least in Noom’s book. That always means he has been charged, or tried to be charged, the inflated Farang price for something. That it is my money doesn’t matter. Because when we are together my money is his money. He doesn’t get mad when it is me getting overcharged though. That’s acceptable. That’s Thailand. But watch out when he’s the one being gouged.

A lot of touri never know there is a double pricing standard in Thailand. They can’t read Thai, so the signs alerting locals to the lower price for Thais at admission booths all over the country never raise a flag. Frequent travellers to Thailand and expats are well aware of the two tiered price scheme. And it pisses a lot of them off. Personally, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t view it as being charged more but rather that as a local they get a discount. Seems fair to me.

As a touri, I have more money and can afford the higher price, which is often quite cheap anyway. And while I can somewhat sympathize with expats, I still get tired of their bitching about it. They had to know that they’d routinely be charged more than locals before they moved to Thailand. Right? Did they really think that would change just because they’ve lived in the country for ten years?

Hot Asian Guy

Though the double standard doesn’t bother Noom when it’s me paying the higher price, occasionally he’ll try and get around it on my behalf. Usually when it comes to an admission fee. He’ll try and buy two ‘Thai’ tickets. It never works. And he never gets upset. He just shrugs his shoulders as if to say, “Well, I tried, whatchya gonna do,” and that’s the end of it. When his rep is on the line, it’s a different story.

For years Noom always wanted to meet me at the airport when I’d arrive on a trip. I always put him off using the possibility of a flight delay or a long line at immigration as an excuse. I’d tell him after a long flight I just wanted to check in at the hotel, take a much needed shower, and catch a few hours of real sleep before seeing him. And he always accepted that. Truthfully, after a long flight and the start of my holiday the last thing I want to deal with is a pissed off Noom. And I know, thanks to the taxi drivers at the airport, that’s exactly what I’d get.

Flying back into Bangkok with Noom when we’ve been away has always proven to be a strain. His body tenses up as soon as we get in line for a taxi. By the time we get to the ‘where you go’ girl, he’s shooting daggers out of his eyes. He knows the taxi driver is gonna try and scam us. And just gets that much more angry when it happens. “He Mafia!” he’ll tell me, pissed, boiling, seething with anger as we’re led to the taxi. “I Mafia, too!” he’ll claim loudly enough for the driver to hear. Dunno if that is supposed to be effective, but it never seems to work. The stupid driver always tries to negotiate a fixed fare. Noom settles the matter in Thai, the words I understand enough to tell me it’s better I don’t understand the others.

Being scammed by taxi drivers at the airport used to piss me off too. It was an insult that they thought I was a first time visitor and would stupidly fall victim to their ruse. For a while I took great delight in playing a small version of Scam the Scammer, acting ignorant and asking a million questions when they announced a fixed fare to see how far I could get them to drive down the highway before turning on their meter. It never amounted to much more than a few baht, but I always checked it off as a win.

I used to take some revenge by not tipping those who tried to scam me, too. But I’ve come to realize, it’s pretty much a standard practice and not personal. And it’s never much in real money either. Their fixed fare is seldom more than 100 baht above what the metered fare would be. Now I just laugh, point, and say, “Meter.” And now I only hold back on the tip if the driver cops attitude about having to use the meter. But Noom takes it personally. And gets angry.

Hot Asian Guy

Around town is a different story. He doesn’t get angry over fixed fares, he just refuses the ride. Usually, because it’s just easier to do so, I let him handle flagging a taxi down and telling the driver where we are going. Catching a taxi in some areas, or going to certain others, always means a fixed fare. I’ve tried explaining this to Noom. And tried explaining I’d rather pay a few extra baht that stand curbside in the heat, humidity, and diesel fumes while he finds a driver willing to use the meter.

It’s taken a while, but he’s finally recognized the reasoning for the fixed fare if you want to go, for example, to Pratunam during rush hour. Which is pretty much anytime during the day. And even though it’s logic I’ve explained to him, now that he knows, when we hop into a taxi and agreed to a fixed fare, he explains it to me, “Too mut traffic.” Right. Thanks for that.

Even though he understands and knows that drivers picking up fares around Patpong at night have to pay extra for the right to do so, Noom refuses to pay their fixed rates. When we come out of a bar on Soi Twilight late at night, if I have my wits about me I make sure we head toward the opposite end of the soi. Then we can catch a metered taxi on Rama IV. Otherwise we have to trek through the streets of Patpong, down to about where Tawan is before we can catch a metered taxi.

I’ve tried telling Noom it’s late, I’ve been drinking, and I’d rather pay the extra baht than walk five blocks, but for him it’s the principle. So I suffer. And get a bit angry. Until I remind myself I’m on holiday. In Thailand. With Noom. I cant stay upset for long then.

We avoid the whole taxi problem by using the BTS a lot. Noom is frugal with my money and approves of public transportation. He tries to convince me to use the bus, but I always shoot back, “No. Limo.” He laughs. Message received. So in Noom’s world the BTS is always preferable to a taxi. It took several trips between the Nana area on Sukhumvit down to the Emporium via taxi and then the same trip by BTS to convince him the cost was the same. It wasn’t until I pointed out two fares were involved in the BTS ride that the math made sense to him. Now for that trip he always flag down a cab, and then patiently explains to me why it costs the same as the BTS during our ride. I’d hit the boy if I didn’t love him so much. But that’s about a well deserved bitch slap, not about being angry.

Hot Asian Guy

So Noom gets in a huff occasionally, whenever some Thai fails to acknowledge his rights as a fellow countryman. When that happens, I’m tempted to let him stew just to see how long he can stay mad. But as cute as he is when he is angry, I like him better when he’s his normal smiling self so I always end up doing whatever it takes to make his pain go away.

There’s a lot that pisses me off back home, but when I’m in Thailand, I’m on holiday and can’t help but have a good time. But on one trip I did lose it. I was the one who got angry for a change. And it was an unusual enough occurrence that Noom needed to find out why. I explained. He kept grilling me. I explained again. He wanted to empathize but couldn’t understand what I was upset about. Finally he decided I just needed instruction, “In Thailand,” he schooled me, “we no get angry.”

Ah, Got it. Right. And I’d thought that Thai double standards only applied to two tiered pricing.

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