Bangkok Old Hand Page 9

  In Asia, the labels would sometimes even be genuine.

  Pretty soon, people started feeling uncomfortable if they didn't have any labels showing. Back on the school bus: "Oh, hey, lookit Bobby; boy, what a moron. He doesn't have one label showing!"

  Now lesser-known manufacturers felt they could climb on the bandwagon, borrowing some of the designer- label cachet simply by sewing things on the outside of their products. You started getting just about any name appearing on clothes. Like my Chiang Rai trousers: I think they were "Ralphs", or something. One local brand-name that has stuck with me is "Male"; I've spotted this one any number of times while reading labels on the buses. Funny thing, though: it normally appears on bosoms and bottoms which are patently not male. The converse of this would be if I were to paste a sign on my rear end saying "Cutie Pie".

  At the same time the number of visible brand-names proliferated, the labels themselves got bigger, as well as more prominently displayed. Now we were seeing eight- or ten-inch-square patches positioned right in the middle of the back.

  The importance of the actual name on the label seemed to be diminishing — just the fact that there was a label was the important thing. On the buses I came up with sightings such as a young lady's big floppy shirt which was decorated with a couple of dozen different manufacturers' labels. Then there was the guy wearing a fancy net T-shirt which had a label, I swear, sewn on the inside, but he'd worn the shirt inside-out—I could tell by the stitching. How tacky. Or maybe he'd just left home in a hurry. The whole phenomenon reached its sublime expression in one specimen I spotted: a large blank square sewn dead-centre in the back of one girl's shirt. You could add whatever name you wanted.

  Anyway, the names on most of the labels were so obscure, by this time, that it was difficult to see how they added any particular status to the wearer. It seemed to me we were but a short step away from proud banners proclaiming "Gloucester Green Charity Shop" and "Mac's Almost New".

  I guess the big design houses started to see the same trend. For, according to my observations, the label is going to ground once more. Maybe we'll have to go back to judging the quality of an item of clothing by its cut and fabric, by the elegant simplicity of its design, and so forth.

  In the meantime, there are just enough labels still around to help me pass the time in traffic.

  Back on the No. 15 bus, where this story started, my eyes settled on a rather shapely derriere, one that was snugly clad in a pair of slacks. On the rear pocket was a label reading "Snoopy and Woodstock". Something in the innocent incongruity of that label on that background caused me to slide my eyes away and look at my fellow passengers, wondering if they had noticed my interest. But then, why had the label been put there, if I hadn't been meant to read it? Full of righteous indignation that anyone would deny me the pleasure, I snuck another look at Snoopy and Woodstock and environs.

  What was I doing trouserless in Chiang Rai? That's another story.

  17 JUST ANOTHER MYTH

  Ham can't get no satisfaction, no matter where he goes for a massage.

  Life is short. This profound thought came to me the other day on Jomtien Beach as I watched a European tourist being contorted into knots and pummelled unmercifully. Yes. indeed, I mused, life is short and there were so many things I hadn't yet experienced. I'd never wrestled a crocodile, for example, and I'd never been mugged. I'd never broken a leg, and I'd never had a massage. Sure, I'd had ladyfriends who'd squeezed my shoulders and rubbed my temples. I'd had my fevered brow stroked and my nose tweaked. But, to judge by what I was witnessing there on the beach, I'd never had a real massage.

  The patient or victim or whatever he was suddenly shrieked in an accent I took to be Germanic, and his eyeballs rolled about in his sun- and pain-blotched face like panicky raisins trying to escape a suet pudding. His masseuse, a perhaps deceptively pleasant looking lady of some 30 years, probably took his cry for an expression of joy, because she then pushed the heel of his left foot a bit closer to the back of his head, and from where I sat three metres away I could hear the snapping of tendons and, who knows, maybe even bones.

  I waited till the masseuse had had her way with the fellow, and then, moved by a journalistic passion to know, I went over to ask him what he'd thought of the experience, figuring it had to be something akin to the pleasure you feel when the dentist stops drilling your tooth.

  "Ja, ja," he told me, bobbing his head in a cautious, experimental sort of way, his voice expressing more enthusiasm than his head-bobbing. "Iss goot. Better even, ja, than one time in Hamburg with Olga the Famous One. Donner und Blitzen!"

  He told me I should try it; I owed it to myself. And so I'd heard from others — massages are good for you. They relax you; they improve everything from the circulation to the disposition. And in Thailand they're cheap. It was then or never, I decided. It couldn't be as painful as it appeared, or they wouldn't allow it to be practised in public, right there in front of children. Or so I reasoned. Anyway, the German had not been exactly Mr Fitness himself, and I dared say I would fare better. So I hailed a passing masseuse. On what basis did I choose that particular woman? Maybe it was a certain slender charm she displayed. A suspicion of frailty, perhaps. She told me she charged 100 baht for half an hour, and when I made reflexive sounds of "Paeng! Expensive!" she immediately offered to throw in an extra 10 minutes. I made haste to waive this privilege.

  Before I could change my mind, I found myself stretched out on a Snoopy and Woodstock blanket. Surely, I thought, an inappropriate bed for a dose of torture like the one the German had suffered. I was mildly alarmed to learn that my masseuse's nickname was "Uan", which I thought meant "strong" or "husky". (Subsequently I've been told it means "fat". And here I'd always thought I was being complimented). But her arms looked positively frail. And before long I concluded there was no cause for alarm, as she undertook a course of pushing, prodding, pulling and gentle kneading that made me feel good just because it was nothing like the ordeal for which I'd steeled myself.

  I learned there were two varieties of masseuse on the beach at Jomtien — those who paid local agents for the privilege of plying their trade, and those who winged it each time a gendarme hove to, which was frequently, at least that day. I had a wing-it model, which meant that I was given regular respites while Uan and her basket of soothing unguents took off to blend in with the crowd. She also managed to gouge me in the eye with her thumb, once, while she looked all around for trouble.

  To the extent I felt at all relaxed, it could be attributed mostly to the protection I was enjoying from the endless procession of other masseuses — You want massat?" — and vendors of carved elephants, tables, sunglasses, loud shorts, somtam, and coconut oil. But then my protection gave out.

  'You buy gai yang, barbecued chicken. Is good." A hearty voice right up there in my ear jarred me out of my reverie.

  "No. blast it!"

  Excruciating pain. It seemed to originate in the small of my back and hurtle up my spine to explode at the base of my skull. As soon as I said to the gai yang vendor, "Ah, wait! Let me think about that", the pain eased for a moment. Then it flared again. "Okay, okay. Give me gai yang. Sticky rice? Yes, yes. Please!"

  Abruptly the pain disappeared; a rhythmical kneading and rolling of my back and neck muscles soon induced in me once again a relative calm and sense of well-being.

  "Good girl. Is cousin. Number one gai yang."

  "Really?" I replied. Somehow the news that Uan was related to the vendor didn't startle me.

  Neither was I surprised to learn that Uan had other relatives on the beach, and pretty soon I also had a plate of somtam and an enormous pair of shorts decorated with pink octopuses tripping the light fantastic in purple top hats. (A token spike of pain had expedited the decision as to which hallucinogenic bit of beachwear had been made just for me.)

  Aside from a lot of somewhat perfunctory poking and squeezing of my major muscle groups, the "Traditional Thai Physical Massage" (as distinct, maybe,
from a spiritual massage?) centred around efforts to make as much noise as possible with my joints and sinews. Whenever Uan did manage to elicit a snap or pop from some part of my anatomy, she would stop and look smug, waiting for my approbation. I had a hard time enthusing, to tell the truth, and I fear I disappointed her sorely. Even when she brought out what was obviously her set-piece, where she methodically yanked on my fingers one by one, actually getting some of them to leave their sockets with audible reluctance, all I could offer was a lukewarm "Oh, yeah. Dee mahk; very good, I guess." I thought about how my mother used to tell me not to crack my fingers because then the knuckles would get big and I'd never be a concert pianist. And she'd been right, because I never was.

  "Fin-it; okay?"

  "Okay."

  "Good massat, na?"

  "Um. Yeah."

  I lay there, cold chicken and weird clothes all around me. When I thought about it, I could say I felt relaxed. Sure. Relieved, anyway. Cautiously, I moved my arms and legs, extending them, flexing. I arched my back. So far as I could tell everything seemed to work, and my knuckles weren't noticeably bigger than they had been before. Now that it was over, in fact, I supposed I could say I felt good.

  I gave Uan her cousin's chicken and rice as a bonus, and she went away reasonably happy, even though I failed to be as blissed-out as she figured I ought to be.

  "Excuse me," came a voice from behind me. "I couldn't help noticing you were having a massage. Could I ask... What was it like?"

  "Magnificent," I told the greenhorn, a player of loud rock 'n' roll tapes on the beach against whom I had earlier been secretly fulminating. "Aside from one woman named Olga, back in Montreal, I've never experienced anything like it. You owe it to yourself."

  In truth, however, I had been disappointed. Surely there was more to it than that. After everything I'd been told.

  I had heard about Wat Po, back in Bangkok, of course, and its reputation as a centre of training in the techniques of traditional Thai massage. In fact, I had asked Uan if that was where she'd done her apprenticeship. But she'd said no; her cousin in Sattahip had taught her everything she knew. Probably on one rainy afternoon, I thought to myself, perhaps unkindly. But could it be there was still the experience of a real massage to be savoured?

  At Wat Po, the prices are written in both Thai and English, but the alert customer will see that the prices aren't the same in each language. When I remonstrated, fairly gently, I was told there was more of me, as a farang, and thus it was only right that I should pay more. Thinking then in fairness they should post a rate scale based on the number of square metres of surface area to be pummelled, I nevertheless coughed up what they asked — 120 baht per hour — and was directed to a small room where I could change into a pair of loose pyjama bottoms.

  The large room where the massaging was to take place was equipped with 20 or 30 beds, most of them occupied by masseuses and carcasses. All along the back wall the yellow- and orange-painted room was open to the afternoon sun, which lent a cheerful air to the proceedings.

  The lady they assigned me was built along the lines of a rice barge. You could believe they kept her in reserve especially for outsized farangs like me. She would've also come in handy if you needed any rampaging elephants subdued.

  It was essentially the same routine I'd been treated to on Jomtien Beach — maybe Uan's cousin in Sattahip had learned her stuff at Wat Po. But the difference was that this lady had an authority that Uan had lacked. More than any difference in skill, she was twice as strong as Uan, and maybe three times. She flopped me around as though I were a piece of meat on a cutting board. There was art involved, though, because none of it hurt. And, as Uan had, she seemed to feel that the success of a good massage was to be found in the amount of noise you could coax from the carcass at hand. When she got around to dislocating all my fingers, she looked at me proudly, as if to say "There you go, you great ungainly farang, you. Not for nothing did I study for 15 years at the feet of a master."

  The hour passed quite quickly, though—more quickly, I thought, than had the half hour on the beach. And I did feel relaxed. What the massage had to do with it, mind you, was an open question. After all, I had been lying around largely inert for all that time listening to the wop-wop of the ceiling fans and the languid chatter of the masseuses. I figured I would have felt refreshed even without the massage.

  So what good had it been? There had to be more than this to massages; what was everybody always talking about, anyway?

  My friend Stack Jackson recommended a therapeutic institution called the Shaking Heaven Physical Massage and Social Club. "You want a massage?" he asked me. "They'll give you a massage."

  At the same time, Stack shared some health advice circulated by the American Embassy in Bangkok. They mentioned that there were institutions in the city where the masseuses employed certain unorthodox techniques that could be hazardous to your health. That's if you considered, for example, dropping dead in your tracks unhealthy. It seemed that many of these ladies thought their clients enjoyed the rush they got from having the arteries in their thighs blocked for a time, and then suddenly released. Maybe this was fun, who knows? But it also occasionally proved quite fatal to people with blood clots. And then there was the little twisting manoeuvre with the head, designed no doubt to produce much fine snapping and cracking and thereby impress the customer no end. Sometimes these seekers after peace and health had had their necks dislocated, which was neither healthy nor particularly relaxing.

  So what did my buddy have in mind by recommending one of these establishments? I asked. No problem, he told me. You just tell them: "Don't block my femoral artery, and don't dislocate my neck."

  The Shaking Heaven resembled a middle-range hotel, at least until you got to where you met the masseuses. I found myself with a few other men in a large room on one side of a big window. We had to stand there while a bunch of pretty women all decked out in party dresses sat in bleachers and looked us over. Finally, one of them indicated that she'd chosen me; I don't know why, probably it was my new shirt.

  I had to pay the manager a fee — considerably more than I'd spent at Wat Po. The lady then took me up in an elevator to a room with a bath and a bed and a TV. Certainly there was more privacy than there had been at the temple. All in all, it looked like a very professional setup, and I was beginning to feel confident I'd finally get the real goods.

  We sat on the bed, and she stroked my brow, tweaked my nose, and said, "No want massat, na?"

  Evidently she had also read the US Embassy health warnings and, taking me for a level-headed guy, had to think I didn't really want a massage. On the other hand, I wondered, what would we do if I didn't have one? There was the TV, but I wasn't much of a one for TV. And I'd already paid a goodly sum, and entertained fond hopes of finally getting my money's worth.

  "You want video?"

  "No, no," I replied. "I want a massage."

  After all, this was a massage parlour, wasn't it? And I was in search of peace and health. But she appeared disappointed, somehow.

  The next thing I knew, she'd unwrapped a heavy metal device from a length of electrical cord and plugged it into the wall. I shuddered. I was sure I'd seen one of these items in a movie, when some scruffy Turks had been encouraging a couple of blokes to help the police with their enquiries. Then I really shuddered, as she switched the device on and brought it into contact with the soles of my feet.

  For the next few minutes she went over me with that thing. The casual observer might have thought she was trying to press a victim of St Vitus' dance with an epileptic flatiron. After she reckoned I'd had enough of that, she poked me here and there in an experimental sort of vein, maybe to see if I was still ticklish, and then yanked on all my fingers, one by one, nodding with satisfaction every time she coaxed a nice snap from one of them. I had come to see this was somehow the essence of what it was, this thing they called a "massage".

  So there we were again, on the edge of the bed, as she
continued to tug gently on a finger, gazing at me expectantly, no doubt wondering why I wasn't giving more evidence of being blissed out.

  "Oo," I said. "Ah," I added, hoping this would make her feel better.

  "You want more?" she asked.

  Yes, I did, I thought sadly as I got up to leave. Is this really all there was? Massages simply weren't everything they were cracked up to be.

  18 STAGEFRIGHT IN RANGOON

  Who says Rangoon is boring?

  I was in a bar on Patpong Road in Bangkok, and I waive the usual disclaimers about being engaged in sociological research.

  I was with visitors from out of town, and we were standing close to the bar in a pleasant sort of beery haze. My friends, I noted, were paying not the slightest attention to me, as I explained how normally I never came to joints such as that one. Their gazes were fixed on the stage behind me. Normally used to bounce up and down upon by a horde of lovely go-go dancers, this large rectangular platform was surrounded on four sides by the bar, at which pressed an avid audience of mixed foreign nationality, three deep.

  But what was this? I half turned. Surely not. I turned all the way. But, yes. Definitely. There were a man and a woman performing together something I had always considered rather a private activity. Right up there on the stage. I was darned; or so I said. "I'll be darned," I said, as the couple stood up, somehow contriving to do this in such a way as not to lessen the intimacy of their relationship. There were cheers.

  Over on the other side of the bar I could see a smattering of wives and girlfriends, as rapt as any of the men. One robust type was particularly enthusiastic. Her husband (there was no doubt that he was such) looked less keen. "Jaundiced" would have sprung to mind, in fact, had I been asked to describe his general demeanour. She grabbed his shoulder and pointed. He nodded glumly.

  I watched the fellow on the stage as he assumed position number 23, or thereabouts, and I wondered at his stamina. I wondered at his ability to perform at all, under the circumstances. There had to have been 200 people in attendance. Surely the woman's job was easier.