Nasiadai Posted January 8, 2004 Report Share Posted January 8, 2004 A call from Bangkok My telephone rings. The secretary says there is a call from Bangkok. A lady wants to talk to a certain Mr. Charly and that can only be me. It is my girl from Bangkok-Thonburi. I hear her voice and her picture appears in my memory: her bright black hair, her dark almond eyes, always laughing, her marvellously beautiful face with regular features and the pointed nose which shows her Malaysian descent, with her voluptuous female form taking my breath away by merely thinking of her. ?Charly, can you come back in February as you promised? I am waiting for you. I miss you ... ? ?Yes, I?ll come, I bought the ticket already.? "Oh, Charly, that?s great! Please come quickly, I want you back ... Do you remember the Sunday afternoon we spent together on the banks of Chayo Praya and on the green grass of Sanam Luang?? Of course, I do recall! I see us both lying down on the lawn of the Sanam Luang. Not far from us two football teams are playing soccer in the sun, which was slowly sinking low on the horizon. We got a sharp Som Tam with Kauniau from a peddler and so enjoyed our togetherness. In front of us there is the impressive scenery of the Wat Phra Kaeo with the golden Chedi, the red-green step roofs of the temple-buildings, the multicoloured decorated marble Prangs. The sight of this scenery is an unforgettable experience. It is the veritable royal palace for lovers. ?Charly, are you still there?? Yes, I am listening to her chatting and my thirsty soul sucks in each of her words. Is there something which is more tormenting than this horrible distance separating us? Is there something, which is more agonizing than this suffering which rises up in me, cruelty mingling with lust? This bittersweet feeling which makes me melancholy many nights, robbing me of my sleep. Modern ways like the telephone and email are not much good and so I am forced to endure the tyranny of substitutes whilst waiting for the next holiday. Some minutes later I leave my office and approach the desk of the secretary. She grins scornfully at me. ?Charly, you told us that you have been to the Tunisian island Djerba in the Mediterranean Sea but now I think that was all lies, you have been in Thailand instead!? With an unhidden curiosity in her face she asks: ?Come on, tell me who she is and what was it like being with her?? My face reddens and I look quite embarrassed because I am revealed as a liar, but after some seconds I recover quickly and begin comparing these two women. In the distance in Bangkok there is my dreamlike female being with her charm, her smile, her cheerfulness and great beauty; and in front of me there is this ugly and masculine grey wench in her trouser-suit, with brunette grease strands of hair, smelling of a repulsive tang of perfume and cigarette stench. She seems to me as a Katoey, the surgeon?s scalpel slipped several times when operated. Without answering and without a further thought I pass her with a silent and superior smile. Bakwahn Hamburg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted January 8, 2004 Report Share Posted January 8, 2004 Oh, when worlds collide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carew66 Posted January 8, 2004 Report Share Posted January 8, 2004 They're only skins. Stuff underneath y'know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Singhaman Posted January 8, 2004 Report Share Posted January 8, 2004 A good one, Charly! Although I have never seen any green gras at Sanam Luang. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfinkz Posted January 8, 2004 Report Share Posted January 8, 2004 "Although I have never seen any green gras at Sanam Luang." ________________________________________________ The grass is always greener on the other side... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nasiadai Posted January 9, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2004 English is not my mother tongue. I learned it at school which is some 30 years back ? So, my English skills are ? well, how can you say? School English. During the last years I have written some (short) stories about my experiences in Siam in my mother language; and I am not being immodest when I state that these stories lay claim to a certain literary standard. I worked hard on them. In the course of Christmas time I tried to translate the shortest narrative of my little anthology: A Call from Bangkok. You could see me sitting in the university library of my home town Duesseldorf for many hours working with the best and most extensive dictionaries I could find in the Anglistic department. But nevertheless, many of my (German) formulations, idiomatic expressions and long and complicated sentences are difficult to translate, to put into the right English words. Far away from being a professional translator I cut this story short and I changed some sentences and made them simpler, so that I was able to translate them. The result of this revision is that this story lost some of its subtleties of language and therefore lost in literary quality. But nonetheless I hope you enjoy the story. There may be some grammatical and syntactical mistakes as well as some linguistic clumsinesses; please apologize for that. Some reactions of my German readers of this story: Nearly all of my female friends and acquaintances were indignant and uttered words like: ?unbelievably misogynistic? and similar words ?and with an offended accent: ?Now I don?t like you any more, Charly!? Most of my male friends had a broad grin on their faces und murmured affirmative words. Charly alias Bakwahn Hamburg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted January 12, 2004 Report Share Posted January 12, 2004 English is not my mother tongue. I learned it at school which is some 30 years back ? The part that makes me curious is where your TG learnt her English, Herr Charly ? Her conversational tone seems to have been lifted straight from a Mills and Boon novel. I certainly dont want to imply that all Thai women struggle with conversational English - far from it - but I find them to be pretty down to earth and to the point, often to the point of being rather blunt. While they can certainly play us like a violin, I'd hesitate to describe them as overly 'romantic' - your mileage may differ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nasiadai Posted January 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2004 Ok, dear Artview, you put some questions. Here are my answers. 1. You ask: " ? where your TG learnt her English??" She learned it at school and later in some English courses in Bkk-Thonburi. 2. You state: "Her conversational tone seems to have been lifted straight from a Mills and Boon novel." Sorry, but I have never heard of and never read a "Mills and Boon novel". But I think you mean that her English is too elaborated and what she expresses is too "romantic", because ? as you say about Thai women in general with my explicit consent - you "find them to be pretty down to earth." Ok. That might be. After more than 11 years of experiences with Thai females and girlfriends I can say that I found the whole palette of emotions and attitudes: from cool calculating to pure romanticism. Of course, Thai girls are more often calculating or are even "rather blunt". But why? We stay in their country for some weeks only (normally) and the girls never can be sure that we (the farlang men) mean our relationship to them seriously But are western girls different? Every western woman considers very carefully with what kind of (western) guy she undertakes the journey into the country of romanticism! Why should Thai girls behave differently? Charly alias Bakwahn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Hippie Posted January 17, 2004 Report Share Posted January 17, 2004 Let me offer some advice here...QUIT FUCKING AROUND AND GO NOW!!!! Who cares if she is lieing or not! This could be the real thing, and you need to get there and sure things up! Go now and enjoy the illusion/reality of it all! Deny youself nothing for tomorrow you might be dead! God I need another trip to LOS ASAP! Been 2 weeks already! "...Is there something which is more tormenting than this horrible distance separating us?..." No, there is not. Except maybe the agony of wondering what she is thinking and doing...is she o.k.? hungry? sick? does she need something you/I can provide...? I know this feeling. "... Is there something, which is more agonizing than this suffering which rises up in me, cruelty mingling with lust?..." No. "...This bittersweet feeling which makes me melancholy many nights, robbing me of my sleep..." I haven't had a decent night's sleep since Christmas... again, I can sympathize "...Modern ways like the telephone and email are not much good and so I am forced to endure the tyranny of substitutes whilst waiting for the next holiday..." Nothing beats being there...the cruel part for me is, I work for an airline so I can go anytime for free or near free if I want. The pain is, I only get 22 days leave a year...so near, yet so far. Have gotten quite creative in getting extra time off though! Great post! And get going now! Your love awaits you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Central Scrutinizer Posted January 18, 2004 Report Share Posted January 18, 2004 OH, Don't you airlines guys get trade days? (At my airline we did/do) 10 days every 90 days you can trade off (unpaid to you) to other fellow employees where they work for you and get the pay. And the 10 days you do not have to reciprocate back to the employee who worked for you. Plus you can do 10 trade days where you DO have to pay the day back within 90 days by working for the other employee who worked for you. So in fact we could get an extra twenty days off every 90 days. 10 paid back/10 without pay. You line these up with your normal two days of a week and you can see we were able to get some serious extra time off each year. (40 days extra over and above your regular yearly vacation time. 20 paid/20 unpaid.) I believe your airline has this option doesn't it? At least a friend of mine who works at your airline (as a ramp rat) can do this too. Maybe your classification can't? And the 20 days a year unpaid only comes out you losing 3 weeks pay. Easily made up in overtime pay when you can get it. I used to work most paid holidays for the doubletime and a half pay. Cent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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