What is Thai for "Terrible Parents?"

Mehpaw Mai Dee: A Cautionary Tale

When I got off the plane, it was raining and midnight. The reaction among passengers was universal, communicated by gulped breaths and wide eyes: You have got to be kidding me. It was a sauna, and a hot flash, and a mild stroke all at once. My sweat glands turned on and turned off a year later. I was fifteen.

Thailand is neither Heaven or Hell but, depending on where you’re standing, it can feel like either or both at once. The people are warm, welcoming, and gorgeous. The landscape is breathtaking, from the misty jungles of the North to the white sand beaches of the South. Prices are affordable, and anything can be bought. The German men waddling through the streets with their stunning eighteen year old wives, and no less than two of my host mothers fighting cervical cancer speaks to the resulting industries. A Buddhist monk smokes a cigarette and holds a Coke, whistling when I walk by. Pad thai? Heaven. Pad thai with too much prik sauce? Hell.

In defense of the monk who cat called me, everyone cat called me. I blushed bright red (so cute!) and sunk into my seat while my host mother drove me to school on my first day. A truck full of young men had pulled ahead of us, and they were all hooting, pointing, and yelling at me in broken English. I was flattered, and offended, and absolutely mortified. After a couple of days, the novelty wore off and I learned to stare at the ground.

Joking with a fellow exchange student, we wondered what we would have to do to get this much attention in North America. We decided that we would need to be naked, and bright blue, and possibly Britney Spears. I signed autographs and posed for photographs. I shook the (limp and uncomfortable) hand of Thai pop stars. And this was still in my teenage awkward stage.

I once jumped from a moving tuktuk. Another girl bolted from a motorcycle taxi after her driver turned down the wrong street, telling her that he loved her and was taking her to his home. My fellow blue naked friend was assaulted by her host father. I can’t think of a single girl of our exchange district who wasn’t sexually assaulted (in a physical way). Boys fared better (only one had a drink-spike in a club). They departed the country with a plethora of stunning anecdotes, like the elevator conversation: “Hi. I am gay.” “…....” “I am a homosexual.” “…I have a bellybutton?”

Side note incredibly worth the journey:
Thailand has three sexes, with gay and transgendered men forming a loosely defined, culturally accepted third sex known as ‘gateuys.’ On a whim, or perhaps a lost bet, fellow exchangee Cale let us line his eyes and red his lips before a night at a club, where he sat down with a group of Thai young women: “I’m a gateuy, but I like girls.” They smiled coyly until one volunteered: “We’re lesbians, but we like gateuys.” He went home with two.
(Cale left the country with a god complex and a fungal infection. I love you, Cale!)

Which isn’t to say that there wasn’t fun for the girls. I doubt any of us regretted our journey, or would give it up for the world. There are so many bizarre experiences flooding through my repression-prone mind at the moment that I don’t know which ones to transcribe: the second degree sunburns, being wrapped in a twelve foot python at the water market (I was just trying to take a picture), or walking beneath an underpass when a man sprang up, five feet ahead, holding a knife. Elephants, everywhere, and too many fruit that I haven’t seen since and only know by their Thai names. Temples and ruins of former temples. Songkran. Palm trees.

And as my skin beads with dewy nostalgia and remember the endless, suffocating heat with a warm, content Thai smile, I have only one question to leave you with: What the fuck were our parents thinking?