I hope all Trader readers had a very Merry Christmas and you have sufficiently recovered to face a bright and prosperous New Year.

This year, of course, Christmas celebrations were almost a non-event because of two lots of bar closures due to the Thai general election. I’m guessing bar owners must have been livid, having to shut up shop with the town finally full of cashed-up punters. According to the Bangkok Post of 15 December, “The ban is to prevent canvassers from entertaining voters at drinking sprees before they go off to cast their votes.”

If that is the case, I can’t personally see why the bars should not be able to reopen immediately after the polling stations close. But … ours is not to reason why.

Because of deadlines for submitting this article, I can’t report on how successful or otherwise the Christmas period in Pattaya was this year so I’ll have to recount a story from a previous year. The following is an edited extract from the hilarious book A Fool’s Diary, scribed by yours truly, describing a full year of expat living in Pattaya. Pathetic free plug or not, let me relate a tale from the ghost of Christmas past.

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the sois,
All the creatures were stirring, including katoeys;
The piglets were hung o’er the spits with care,
In hopes that the punters soon would be there;
The Hostesses were resplendent, all dressed in red,
While visions of sugar-daddies danced through their head …

My apologies to Clement Clarke Moore for that desecration of his splendid poem. All that aside, Christmas Eve convinced me this is not a good time of year for the pig population of Thailand. Every bar worthy of the name put on a party, the centrepiece of which was most often a very unhappy pig roasting over a spit.

The punters were out in force; their numbers only matched by the mass of coloured balloons tied to everything resembling a fixture. And the girls? The Bar Hostesses may not fully understand the significance of Christmas in its traditional sense, but that didn’t dampen their enthusiasm. Red ‘Santa’ caps and short red skirts were the fashion of the moment and ‘Melly Kitmart’ replaced their usual greeting of ‘Hello Sexy Man’.

By midnight, the explosion of popping balloons meant the long night was drawing to a close. I had been sitting at a beer bar talking with my long-time friend, Nok, having a great time drinking and playing games. But that all came to an abrupt end when one of her old ‘customers’ turned up on his motorbike. She rushed out to greet him then quickly returned to the mamasan with the cash for her bar fine. As she retrieved her handbag she gave me a smile and a conciliatory, “Sorry, I have to go,” knowing full well I would understand. Now sitting unattended, I could only watch as she slipped out into the night.

… She sprang on his bike, to her friends gave a whistle,
And away they both flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ’ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”

The following afternoon I awoke with a mission in mind. The good thing about Christmas Day in Thailand is all the shops are open, affording me the opportunity to make some post-last-minute purchases. Over the past week the department stores have been crowded with conscientious farang doing their Christmas shopping in the traditional way. I prefer to shop after the event to avoid the crowds and take advantage of the many heavily-discounted bargains available.
This year I only had to buy one thoughtful gift for my long-suffering tee ruk.

I had already assured my beloved that I’ve learned my lesson from last year when my gift of a 1,000 baht phonecard was received less enthusiastically than expected. I tried to explain it was a practical gift, something she could utilize every day but, apparently, it was not ‘lo-man-tic’ enough. I was given the impression the only thing less appreciated would have been if I’d paid her parking tickets.

So this year I had to come up with something romantic, or at least clever. I thought of calling my mate Robbie for advice but then remembered the debacle over the birthday present he gave his own girlfriend. (He had his bum waxed.) No, I had to buy something big, wrappable and expensive-looking. In the past, before wrapping any non-convertible gift, I would spend a little time removing the price tag. I didn’t want the recipient to know how much I paid (or didn’t pay) because ‘it is the thought that counts’.

In Pattaya however, the female recipients of my rare gifts often survey the item as if looking for the price tag. And when they don’t find one, they come straight out and ask me how much it cost. To Westerners this behaviour is rude, but to Thais it is perfectly acceptable. I’m used to it now and have devised a cunning plan. I have a set of my own blank price tags and can set my printer to print out any amount I want on the small labels. For instance, say I purchase a gift for 300 baht, I remove that tag and replace it with one reading 1,300 baht before wrapping the item. When she receives it and checks the price, the lady merely thinks I was stupid for paying too much rather than being the Cheap Charlie that I am. Works every time.

So what did I finally get for my beloved primary care giver that year? A 26,000 baht DVD player, a 12,000 baht Breville toaster oven, a 10,000 baht steam and dry iron plus a 6,000 baht non-stick wok. Needless to say she was speechless, but the hospital staff were very nice and the doctor’s fine stitch work did not even leave a scar. No chance of a repeat of that this year, even though I was surely tempted by the automatic washing machine.

On that note and while I am still in one piece, I’ll wish you all a Happy New Year.

It is difficult to admit, at this late stage, that my wife can’t cook. We had been cohabitating for almost a year when I found out. I discovered her buying my evening meal from a street vendor and confronted her as to why she wasn’t cooking it herself as usual. Caught red handed, she confessed that she always bought my food from vendors because, she sobbed, she couldn’t even boil rice.

“But sweetheart, we have a nice kitchen and you’ve been cooking delicious meals for me for the past year,” I countered. Not so, apparently. She said most of the time she would simply sneak the prepared food in while I wasn’t looking, store it in that part of the fridge not reserved for beer and merely heat it up when I was ready to eat. She always made sure to mess up a lot of pots and pans and fill the sink with dirty dishes to give the illusion she had been slaving away over a hot wok.

I told her that was impossible because all Thai girls are taught to cook from a young age by their mothers. She agreed this is generally true but, in her case, from the age she could walk she went to live with her father and missed out on her mother’s teaching during her informative years. Just my luck, I thought, to find the only female in Thailand who can’t cook! It did explain why her family kept weekly telephone checks on her once we moved in together.

I thought they were concerned that I was treating her well when, in fact, it was to see if I had found out yet and thrown her out. Of course, I’m not that type of person and would never do that. Now that I had found out the truth I simply scolded her for deceiving me, cut her monthly allowance and confined her to barracks for a few weeks. Nothing drastic.
The relevance of this will become apparent once I explain I have a neighbour, Dan, whose Thai wife can cook. In fact she is an excellent cook whether it be Thai or Western food.

Along with a couple of other farang friends, Dan and I often sit out front of our local store in the evening to take in the twilight with a few cold refreshments. It is all very pleasant, but for Dan it also coincides with his dinner time and therein lies the problem. We would all be sitting, chatting and sipping when, from his home a short distance away, his wife would emerge carrying – or should I say balancing – plates. She would bring them out to her husband and place them before him. Sometimes they would contain pork chops, gravy, vegetables and a piping hot cob of corn, sometimes fried chicken drowning in her ‘special recipe’ barbeque sauce with mashed potato, peas, fresh bread (pre-buttered) or sometimes it was a large bowl of her delicious stir fried Thai chicken or pork with vegetables and rice.

You can imagine how the rest of us feel as we watch this unfolding before our very eyes. I don’t think there is an English profanity left in the dictionary we haven’t used to describe him as he eats his aromatic meals in front of us. Once his meal is finished, his dutiful wife reappears and removes the plates to his gratitude and satisfaction. In his defence, so he says, he could eat his dinner at home but then he would miss out on our riveting conversation. Instead of sitting in front of the television he prefers to sit with us and eat … and gain massive face while doing so.

Naturally, I could not allow this brazen attempt at big-face-up-man-ship to go unanswered so, in the privacy of our living room, I approached my darling. “Do you see what they’ve been doing, showing you up like that? All the neighbours are talking and you are losing face by not taking care of your husband in the same way. Are you going to let them get away with it?” I demanded.

“Where is the remote?”

It was thus left for me to hatch a cunning plan. Two days later I went grocery shopping on my own, returned home just before lunchtime and got to work in the kitchen. When everything was done I carefully explained the strategy to my tee ruk who responded with the Thai words meaning ‘clinically insane’. Nevertheless, it was too late to turn back now and I was certain my revenge would be sweet.

That evening, Dan and I joined our little group as usual and when I felt the time was right I sent my tee ruk the pre-arranged signal via my mobile phone. A few minutes later, she emerged from our home at the head of a procession of three local children she had coerced into helping with the dramatic effect. Each was carrying a silver tray – the type used for making offerings to Buddha – laden with food.

The first contained a plate of sliced roast lamb, peas, carrots, sprouts and a large potato cooked in its jacket; the second held the cutlery, salt, pepper, mint sauce and crusty bread rolls with saucer of butter; on the third rested a bowl containing a large piece of hot apple pie drowning in steaming custard, while on the last tray was the piece de resistance; a bottle of Australian red wine, a corkscrew and one crystal wine glass. As the farce progressed and the procession found its way to our table, I felt the only thing more theatrical would have been if Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries had been playing in the background.

The laughter and jeers from my mates said it all and the Thai witnesses thought it was fantastic. My tee ruk thought I was crazy but even she eventually saw the funny side. Since that day I have tried to organise it again but my darling informed me, in no uncertain terms, that a repeat performance would not happen in this lifetime. Apparently, carrying a heavy tray was too much of a strain. Never mind. Had we kept up appearances?

Oh yes.
Was it worth it?
Oh yes.

What follows is an extract from the final chapter of the latest humorous book, A Fool’s Diary, by that incredibly sexy man Neil Hutchison.

The book takes us through a year of expat living in Pattaya, culminating with the New Year celebrations.
“New Year’s Eve has arrived, proving once again that time flies when you’re having fun. I take a moment to ponder the year that has been; the experiences I’ve had, the people I’ve met and my personal life, in order to gauge my success or otherwise. Considering our current world is being run by lunatics, I am happy to be here in fantasyland watching, at a safe distance, the machinations of the world’s brain-dead political masters behaving as if they were a pile of dung beetles fighting over a morsel of dung.

What about adhering to the resolutions and promises I made myself just twelve months ago? Well, I am still in good health but my finances have been sorely depleted. Paraphrasing a well-known Biblical expression, ‘It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven’. If that is indeed true – and there is no evidence to dispute it – then I have a BIG chance of making it through those Pearly Gates. At least, if I am excluded, the reason won’t be for failing some heavenly means test.

That brings me to the people I’ve met in Pattaya over the past twelve months, most of whom could be described as living either on the edge of reality, the fringe of legality or the brink of morality. Some seem to have been on a mission to relieve themselves of worldly possessions well before undertaking that final journey. After all, what is the good of having money if you don’t spend it? A problem arises because none of us are really sure when our ascension to celestial paradise will occur, and, although it may be a lot of fun, living a hedonistic lifestyle every day could, in fact, reduce our life expectancy. Wine, women and good food may take their toll on the heart and arteries. Most of the guys I know find it difficult to strike a balance. We (yes, I include myself) have trouble leading a lifestyle which is less likely to result in premature heart failure, a stroke or cirrhosis of the liver.

But I think and analyse too much. Perhaps the best way to enjoy life is either by being as dumb as a doorknob or the wisest of the street-wise. I’ve met some guys who are so stupid it is a wonder they ever survived to adulthood. They are so gullible they believe everything they see, hear and read. And you know what? Their world is rosy and they have a wonderful time. They will enter a bar, meet a girl who professes her deep and undying love for them, give her a wad of money to help with her family’s ‘problem’ and leave happy, believing the girl really did fall in love with them after only five minutes. They sleep like babies.

I’ve met other guys who are so clever they out-con the con artists, out-lie the liars and out-smart the smarties. They get the better of anyone who tries to get the better of them and, they too, have a great time. They will go into a bar, meet a girl, profess undying love for her and promise her the world. Once she thinks they are the greatest thing since McDonalds introduced McSomDtum to the menu, they take her for a (free) ride. They too, sleep like babies.

Then, there are the rest of us – the walking mediocrity. Stuck between the optimist and the pessimist, we know too much to be truly happy in fantasyland but too little to survive in a pool of sharks. We are the ones with a B-minus average in the classroom of life. The fool sees everything as white. The wise man sees everything as black. All we see is grey. Unlike the doorknob, we know better than to believe everything we see or hear and we won’t accept everything at face value. We don’t know enough to reject everything we see and hear and are perpetually wondering whether, this time, it may actually be true. This time it really may be the ‘best price’ or maybe this time she really does love me. We are stuck in a world of uncertainty. Maybe she is; maybe she isn’t. Maybe it’s true; maybe it’s not. And we don’t sleep.

In Pattaya, the danger of being the eternal fool is that you will eventually run out of money and a penniless fool is as welcome in this town as a fart in a spacesuit. Rich fools we love, poor fools we send packing. The danger with being eternally wise is that you will eventually become too cynical. When the opportunity of a lifetime does present itself you will reject it simply because it sounds too good to be true and you are too smart to fall for that one. Sometimes we can be too clever for our own good.

So where do we draw the line? Many foreign men in Pattaya enter relationships with a level of trust higher than it should be. Others fear entering a relationship because they are certain they will be cheated or it will cost them too much money. Like a fool, I think most people are basically honest but like a cynic, I don’t trust any of them. That is my humble end-of-year advice to those of us who want to enjoy this town without being burned. But then, I’m too smart to be totally stupid and too stupid to be totally smart. Stuck in the middle again.

6:00pm: As the sun began to set on a dying year for the last time, I made myself ready to go out into town for a night cavorting at the innumerable parties being prepared. The love of my life doesn’t like crowds, the noisy parties and fireworks so opted to stay home. She informed me she wanted me home before midnight for kao dao. I told her I didn’t understand, so she repeated the words slowly, then once again loudly. That did not work so she left me to work it out for myself.

Thirty minutes or so of checking through my library of Thai-English dictionaries resulted in kao either meaning ‘enter’, ‘him’, ‘her’, ‘rice’ or ‘white’, and dao meaning either ‘star’ or ‘turtle’. Trying all the permutations and combinations, the only ones making any sense were ‘turtle and rice’, ‘white turtle’ or ‘white star’. I couldn’t work out whether I was supposed to eat it, play with it or worship it.

Seeing my confusion, my darling eventually provided some further, somewhat crucial, information. She said they were English words, not Thai. While mentally assessing the need to confess there are many English words I don’t understand as well, she explained that, as midnight approached, she wanted me home beside her for the ‘kao dao’ [count down], and illustrated her point:

“Ten … nine … eight …seven …”