#Isaan#Pattaya#Thailand#disillusionment#opinion
(Well, they flock to Pattaya so they must do! Eeer, no, think again!)
I was there recently – in the Isaan, sitting round the family “bonfire”, drinking and merry-making with the Isaanese, and my father-in-law, a keeper of many buffaloes, made a coughing appearance, then stooped off to lie on his chair and cough his life away. The fatal liquids are astir and his heart can’t clear them…but he’s of a ripe age to be reapered-off...............
He it was who sired eight kids, and then – when his first wife died, in her thirties – he sired another three, giving his first family a clear view to oblivion. He decided not to support those first, eight children. Such a clear view it was that fifty per cent of them died fast. None of his kids from the second family are dead. One got a degree, and the other two are healthy livers.
There they were all joking and saying I could pay for all the beer we were drinking. I told them, yes, in the next life. I said it hard, too.
I don’t like the Isaan folk. I shouted out to each and every one of them that I apologised for having a brain. You see, I’ve seen them giving rice whiskey to kids. I’ve seen a happy little girl turn into a bloated, parentless, fed-on-fast-food aberration. I’ve seen their babies blighted by ignorance from the word go.
And I hate it. I really do.
My father-in-law made a conscious decision to abandon eight children, and no one tells him he’s a shit. The little girl, abandoned by mum and dad, who once danced for us, is so unhappy. And no one gives a shit.
These people, with their buffaloes chewing in the background, are getting drunk yet again, and a phone-call (or I’ve gone mad) has been made to tell my son-in-law, the one denied all access to his own seven-year-old son, to buy the harmful, fast food for my partner’s two-year-old granddaughter. It’s bought, I’m furious, and I’m determined to let them know their ignorance is unacceptable. I spout. My main line of reasoning is simple - a grown-up body is not the same as a baby’s. Certain food harmful to adults is very, I repeat very, harmful to children.
I’ve been fighting a losing battle for months.
For example, you know as well as me that M150, Red Bull, coca cola, and coffee contain caffeine, and if babies imbibe, they sleep less, and those drinks probably engineer hyper-activity of the moronic sort….but these folks in the Isaan can’t capiscono.
And worse.
Like the northern guys and gals from Manchester, Hull, Grimsby, Blackestpool, and the like, who cannot comprehend architecture, never having seen Florence, Sienna, Amelia or Gubbio, these Isaan folk who live and think right down in the earth, cannot understand any fucking thing. Even when I ask them to Google the relevant, they tell me Google is full of contradictions. Yes, contradictions which can be thought through or used to kwai in the muck.
The Isaan is full of buffaloes and people not using their brains, ignoring the obvious, getting ill and dying because of their own folly, or the folly of others, but they’re all here, and there, sitting around, scratching their heads if you tell them anything that needs a bit of thought, hating you if you state the obvious about them and their families. How can the unschooled think? Why do the unschooled pose as such die-hard dolts who prattle they know, they know, while sitting around ignoring the obvious? Why does an appalling mother always want to hear she’s great? Why does a karaoke madam not understand she’s living off the proceeds of prostitution?
The Isaan folk are leading these lives, and they seem completely unaware of what they are leading. That’s a fitting conclusion because if you are unaware, how can you be aware?
When next your path crosses an Isaanian’s, in Pattaya, or up in the darkest muds of Buriram, beware. You’re up against people who are often laughing mad and prating stupid. Don’t be fooled into thinking these friendly folk are the salt of the earth. Don’t be fooled into investing money in them. They are out to tell you, indirectly, they are here in this life to ignore the life they see. Few if any go beyond the stall, and so many of them ruin their children’s lives at the drop of a hat, at the splat of a cattle-pat! And remember Thai law doesn’t protect children, and the village bobby is probably screwing the local mamasan.
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