Its monsoon season in Bangkok, and Im living on a diet of Menthol Cigarettes and bananas, doing a crash course in English teaching. Im there in the monsoon season because I’d heard the cost of living in Bangkok was a bit lower, and I wasn’t too flush with cash.
It’s three weeks into the course, money’s tight. Im living in the cheapest room I could find that wasn’t actually infested, or semi submerged. The flat is at the end of a long street full of hookers and street food barrows. Every morning for three weeks ive shaved meticulously, dressed myself in clean, pressed shirt, pants and tie, shouldered my bag, and walked as slowly as possible to the metro station at the other end of the street. I walk slowly, because if I hurry I arrive at the station soaked in sweat, and get death stares from the cool, dry locals forced to crowd around my dripping armpits on the train.
My leisurely pace down the footpath (or in the road, when the high voltage cables and bird carcasses descend below my shoulder height on the sidewalk), makes me easy prey every morning for the touts and prostitutes, who know my face by now, and are familiar with my polite smiles, and patient head shaking, but still insist on harassing me anyway, in their good natured teasing way. Even at 7;30 in the morning, the strip is bustling, and by the time I get to the station ive been offered oil massages, spa baths, oral sex, and fried chicken.
Every night I watch AlJazeera, the only TV Channel the crappy set in my room will show. The news is full of financial crisis, unsecured mortgages, fiscal disaster. The US is on a head on crash course for recession, Europe is going broke, banks are threatening bankruptcy. The world seems to be diving into financial chaos, but George Bush looks more coked up than ever.
My prospects of living the good life as an English teacher in asia aren’t as rosy as they were when I arrived in the city a month ago either. Ive already set up a few job interviews, and inspected several apartments in the suburbs, and its becoming clear that despite the low cost of food and booze, rents are high, and wages are low, even for Farang. Staring out the smeared window of a fourth floor flat yesterday afternoon, at the bleak smog ridden city, and doing the math in my head I had come to the certain conclusion that I would not be able to sustain myself, and keep my sanity on the wages that I was being offered.
I ask the agent at my next interview about placements outside Bangkok, and he shakes his head. “if you live in the country, sure, your rent will be lower, but wages are much lower too.” I know he’s right. Ive been combing the internet for rural teaching positions, and the wages offered are pathetic. “In coastal areas, the parts of Thailand where a person really wants to live, competition for jobs is fierce”, he says. “The job market in Phuket and the islands is swamped with travellers, and many of them have extensive teaching experience already”.
Tuesday afternoon’s classes are great. Instead of wading through grammar exercises, and brain busting class prep assignments, we are given the chance to teach some real students. They are 25 Burmese refugees, residents of a nearby shelter run by a western NGO. They are a mixed bunch, some only kids, some well into later middle age, but they are all friendly and excited to be learning English. After a general meet and greet session hosted by our instructor, they divide into small groups and we trainees do our best to impersonate confident professional English teachers.
My group consists of four kids, all teenagers by the look of them. They are smiling and attentive, and my nervousness quickly fades. One kid is quite a fluent English speaker already, so I interview him and ask the others to take notes for a quiz afterwards.
His name is Joe, he tells me, and he is eleven years old. Joe has one eye and a ragged scar on his temple, but he is confident and cheerful. I ask him about his home in Burma, and he tells me he cant remember much because his family fled violence in their country when he was only 3 years old. Since then he has lived in camps, shunted around by political whims and the machinery of western aid organisations. His family are trying to get to North America, Australia or Europe, but the waiting list is very long.
“What do you think of Bangkok?” I ask.
“This is a great city” he says happily, “it’s very clean. But there are not many jobs for us.”
He tells me he is very happy to be an English student.
“Speakers of English language are at the top of the list for immigration” he says. “Im learning more every week, and I teach everything I learn to my father and my other children.”
“Your brothers and sisters?” I ask.
He nods and the other kids laugh.
“What about your mum, is she learning English as well?”
“my mum is still in Burma” he says seriously. “she is a teacher and she is in prison.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I ask him what he wants to do when he is grown up.
He reaches out and shakes my hand earnestly.
“Very soon I will move to America and be a rich man like you!”
The kids yelp with laughter and Joe and I grin at each other.
