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| The Mall in Korat. If you can't read the sign well,it says, "Kingdom of Pleasures" |
Saturday at 8 am my Thai counterpart dropped me off at The Mall. Saturday night she left me there. She said she would pick me about around 4:30pm. So around 9pm I started to worry. I gave her a call. And because she's Thai and didn't answer her phone, I assumed she'd been in a fatal car crash. I called her six more times.
Things that might be considered desperate/borderline stalkerish to you or me (e.g., calling six times in a row, liking every one of my Facebook posts since 2008) to Thais, are not at all desperate. So when a Thai does not relentlessly call you to ask if you've eaten yet, the only logical explanation is her death.
At 9:30pm I gave up, and found a hostel, grumbling about how much this little trip to the mall was costing me. Before going to bed I tuned into the local news in case they were doing a story on the tragedy that had befallen my counterpart.
The next morning she calls to say she had had phone troubles but later I heard her say to a friend she forgot me. I thought I would be mad but my counterpart is really good to me. She doesn't make fun of my Farang accent and she doesn't call me fat; she's not very Thai. So as with Thainess, you take the good with the challenging; you appreciate the boundless generosity and try to shake off the sharp criticisms. And when your friend, who doesn't fit the national mold, forgets you at the mall, you appreciate that she didn't call you all day to ask when you're going to rice, and try to shake off being left at the mall. (And as a fellow flake, how can I really stay mad at one of my people?)
Now enjoy a different kind of trip to the mall:
