Christianity is cheaper.

I laughed inappropriately the other day when I was at the interview of one of the first believers in a Pwo Karen village in the mountains near he border of Thailand and Myanmar. I laughed because they said the main reason why they became Christians was because it was cheaper than being animist. I'd slipped back into a Western mindset and was expecting an answer that revolved somewhere around the guilt/sin paradigm and some deep repentance, so this just caught me off-guard and I giggled.

It makes sense though. Animists have to frequently sacrifice animals to appease the spirits and so when this became too much of a burden for them, they turned to Christianity because it didn't require any animal sacrifices, and instead taught that Jesus was the already completed perfect sacrifice. 

After this, I heard my pastor was recount his experiences in Borneo sharing the gospel with an unreached tribe there. He sat quietly and talked with the headman of the village who was mainly fascinated with the idea that they would no longer have to sacrifice an animal every morning in each corner of the village for protection, as their shamans taught. By the next morning that village had become followers of Jesus. 

So is turning to Jesus out of economic need a bad motivation?

I don't actually think so. In Hebrews 9 the Bible makes a fairly big deal about how Jesus 'offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins' (v14, NLT) and superseded the OT laws of animal sacrifice, where 'the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow could cleanse people's bodies from ritual defilement' (v13, NLT). I think it's just the way the Gospel is preached in the west does not emphasise the sacrifice of Jesus as anything more than a symbol, perhaps dealing with inner conscience, because we don't practice ritual sacrifice as a lifestyle. So we read it as a historical, almost symbolic story and skip over the blood, gore and money that it takes to procure animals. But it was important to people in the time of Jesus who still sacrificed in the temple in Jerusalem. And the Bible is relevant to all people, through all ages, and quite conceivably, God knew there were tribes to whom it was very important to hear that Jesus replaces actual, physical sacrifices even today. 

So can we preach something like this? 

Turn to Jesus, because it will save you all the expense of all those bulls/goats/chickens you sacrifice to spirits who give you lesser protection than the Son of God who died once and for all your sins/curses?

Sure! Why not? As long as we don't leave it just there, I think it's as valid as any other explanation of the Gospel.

How to do an exorcism of a house

I think every missionary in an unreached country, especially those with animistic rituals, needs to know how to do an exorcism. It's not something you're usually taught to do in church, but it'll come in handy when needed, so I will write a plain step-by-step manual later for what has worked for me so far.
But first, some background.

Jesus traveled through all the cities and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And wherever he went, he healed people of every sort of disease and illness. He felt great pity for the crowds that came, because their problems were so great and they didn't know where to go for help. They were like sheep without a shepherd. He said to his disciples, "The harvest is so great but the workers are so few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send out more workers for his fields." - Matthew 9:35-38 (NLT)

This was part of our bible study tonight on Matthew 9. It struck me that this was the summary of the ministry of Jesus that Matthew 9 had been giving glimpses of earlier - a ministry that included this:

When they left, some people brought to him a man who couldn't speak because he was possessed by a demon. So Jesus cast out the demon, and instantly the man could talk. - Matthew 9:32-33 (NLT)

It reminded me of something that stood out to me during my last class on spiritual warfare - that Matthew tended to just clump exorcisms as part of the healing ministry of Jesus. It showed how commonplace it was for Jesus to cast out demons, and also that there were probably a lot to be cast out, including ones causing illness. Yet when we read that passage about the harvest being great, normally I think of it as applying to evangelism; that we need more missionaries. But in the whole context, Jesus was sharing the Gospel, healing and casting out demons. He pitied the people because they had spiritual and physical problems, and as one person in my bible study pointed out; when he looked at the fields to be harvested, in that chapter it was not just an unreached village waiting to hear the Gospel, it was the paralyzed, the sinner, the sick, the dead, and the demon possessed.
So now, as we are to be more like Christ and to carry on the ministry of Jesus, then should we not also be sharing the Good News, healing the sick and casting out demons? It was pointed out to me in my class that we are reasonably comfortable with the first two, but usually prefer to ignore the latter. Yet if you make some quick calculations, let's say Jesus only cast out one demon a day (as Matthew seems to be trying to give us a snapshot of Jesus' ministry so it must have been a regular enough part of it); then in his 3 years of ministry, he then may have cast out over 1,000 demons, not to mention possible multiple castings like the legion out of the man at the Gerasene tombs. So why should we ignore it today?

Back to bible study, my friend was sharing about how he had visited a guesthouse in Mae Hong Son where a demon had been banging around in the roof all night and he couldn't sleep. He even had recorded the sound of it on his phone. Previous occupants of that room had also mentioned it to the guesthouse owner. It sounded like metal banging, but the roof was all timber and nothing was up there. He came back to Chaingmai, but the spirit had followed him and was banging in the roof of his home now. Every creak and bang was causing him fear, and he was exhausted from lack of sleep.
When he spoke to his Thai neighbours and landlord, they had a name for that type of spirit. Seems it is a common affliction, but I felt outraged that it dared to bother my friend, who is a Christian.

So we went over to exorcise it. Keep in mind this is only the second time that I have ever done it, but it seems to work, so I'm sharing it with you, because I hate seeing people, especially Christians left captive and afflicted. So finally I come to the steps, here they are:

1. Pray and declare out loud the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. God is the creator of everything on heaven and earth, the seen and the unseen, and He certainly has the power over this spirit.

2. Ask God to bring to mind any sin or thing that needs to be dealt with. If something comes up, repent and deal with it. Everyone in the room should do it, usually on their own, but sometimes people need to confess out loud.

3. Get some oil and anoint the corners of the room, while praying over it declaring that this is now holy ground and part of the Kingdom of God so the enemy has no power in it. I tend to claim that part about everywhere we place our feet becoming part of the Kingdom of God (originally applied to Joshua in Joshua 1:3). Basically, you're consecrating the place to God. No, I don't know if the actual oil is necessary but we as humans also like rituals and visual signs for our faith, so I do it. If you don't have oil, I'm sure God will listen and act just the same.

4. Have communion together. This was taught to me the first time I had to do an exorcism...I was a teenager who knew nothing about it but a friend was in trouble and I had 10 mins on the phone downloading Spiritual Warfare 101 from another friend whose parents were involved in that ministry as I walked to my troubled friends' house. Basically they said exorcism is all about declaring that Christ is Lord, and communion is one of our strongest symbols of that because it is the body and blood of Christ, the ultimate sacrifice that conquered all. So we had communion with chips and ice tea (or last time, coke).  There's often no time to hunt up some grape juice/wine and wafers, but God understands.

5. Clean out the house of items that may have bad spiritual ties. No you do not have to toss out everything. Both times that I've done it, God has brought a very specific newly acquired item to the owner's mind, and it's been confirmed by their significant other. So just toss it out.

6. Command evil spirit to leave in the name of Jesus. This last time, while the others were praying, I addressed it directly saying, "Spirit of fear, or whatever is banging around in my friend's roof, I command you to leave in the name of Jesus. You have no power to be here as he is a child of God, so go now. Take any other minions or whatever you may have brought with you and leave this house immediately." Or something of that sort. As I was speaking, I could feel my tongue turn to lead and I stumbled on my words and my mind blanked temporarily, and then I thought 'oh no you don't!' and kept going. The hairs on my arms stood up and I felt a chilly prickle. As I continued to command it to leave in the name of Jesus, the prickling subsided, and until I could say reasonable confidently, "It is gone."

So that's it, I know the bible mentions some need fasting and prayer, so that may come up. It also is better I think to do this with a group of believers. Also, both times it has been a demon afflicting them from the outside - banging around, and in the first time when I was a teen, holding my friend down physically at night; but they were not manifesting or showing any form of possession. I think with those, it would require some deeper healing perhaps, so these steps are simply for an on-the-spot exorcism of a house. Hope it helps you, and remember - Jesus is Lord and all authority is his (and so indirectly, ours).

Therefore put on the full armor of God,so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. - Ephesians 6:13 (NIV)

Evangelisation in Thailand

People in Thailand come to Christ only 6% through missionaries. The other 24 % is through pastors and the other 70% through church members.
However only 4% of the church members are involved in further discipleship, leaving church growth slow.
- Ajarn Yuttasak Sirikul, call2all 2013

Location:ถนนห้วยแก้ว,Chiang Mai,Thailand

Be careful what you study

This semester I am taking a class called the "dynamics of religion". It covers all the experiences of the supernatural in different cultures and world views, including folk religions, witchcraft, ghosts etc.

Since starting it I have been woken twice by hearing a female voice in my room, a strange one in the morning , and in the afternoon a young friend calling my name, but both times no one was there. That same young friend was also staying with me, and she twice heard someone call her name but no one was there. 

My young friend did not know what I was studying till after she heard these voices. I don't know what it is, but talking to Thai people, it seems this is a common experience and they advise to not answer and to not turn your head. In fact at least every second person here in Thailand believes that they've seen a ghost and the amount of stories and evidence here is wild, huge especially compared to my western experience. 

So I was a little unnerved and I was home alone. I got into bed and opened my bible, finishing off my reading on the end of Jeremiah and the beginning of Lamentations. As I was reading, it struck me that I served a God who raised and destroyed empires, like the fall of Jerusalem. A God who could crush a pesky ghost like a gnat. And on that note, I fell soundly asleep.

Pattani Central Mosque

Quite crazily, we co-incidentally arrived in Pattani on the day that the whole province gathered to pray for the flooding in Thailand, totally ignorant of this fact. As busloads of Muslim children began to unload, we started wondering 'What in the world is going on?'
Al Jazeera and Reuters reporters also put in an appearance, sharing some tips with us and showing of their gigantic camera. Thanks to their presence, we were allowed in to video wherever we wanted.

There is such a thing as a free lunch!

Today, 7:15am we started rolling down the road to the deep south of Thailand. Along the way there were many military checkpoints but I was too sleepy to care as the soldiers peered into the car. Anyway, they always waved us through. When we arrived we met our contact, a Thai Christian. They were very nice, but obviously scared. Our discussion about places that we would like to film went like this:

Me: Main mosque?
Contact: Oh no, they don't allow it. Too dangerous. They don't like foreigners. Not even non-muslim locals are allowed in.
Me: How about just from the street outside?
Contact: Oh they will come out and ask you what you are doing, and catch you.
Me: How about a Muslim village?
Contact: That's the most dangerous area around here.

Then he told us the news was warning about a likely car-bombing this week. Around this time I realized that unless we found another guide, we were going to be very short on footage. So we contacted someone else and they graciously canceled their work for the day to take us around. First stop, the fearsome main mosque.  As for being covert, my student W stood on the barrier in the middle of the busy road in front of it, taking video (which turned out to be mainly a view of the powerlines anyway). Then we went inside and the Imam introduced himself to us and took a photo with W. My other student T walked around to the women's side and terrorized the poor ladies in hijab with her camera, making a couple of them even pose on the stairs for her. Two college girls shared their snacks with us. One asked me if I was a Muslim. I replied that I am interested (in their culture) which seemed to be alright. One of them invited us to go to see their university. She was actually studying to be a teacher in Islamic studies so we interviewed her.
The Imam also wanted to be interviewed but he had to go to a wedding first so we didn't have time.  After prayers, another man just leaving the mosque invited us to lunch, saying 'I will take care of you.' I thought it would be nice to have lunch with him, but actually it turned out that his wife already had lunch for him at home and so he just paid for us all and left! So hospitable!
Next stop, we followed the student to visit her Islamic university, where T's exclamations over the location of the toilet echoed throughout the university mosque. In the library, the librarians showed us around, including posing with books of the local Jawi script. T was surprised to find that she could understand it being read out loud, but not in written form (it's a form of Malay but using Arabic script, whereas the other Malay languages have used Latin alphabets). I had to repeatedly rescue W from walking into gender inappropriate areas while filming. Finally we wrapped up, said good-bye to our new friends and shed our head coverings. I sent W off to practice video at a local market while T took a nap in the car. The Muslim presence is definitely stronger here, it's almost like a different Thailand. The military presence is also quite heavy, with soldiers on quite a few corners and barricades made of barbed wire, sharpened stakes and tyres on the road.
At dinner I made a mistake reading the Thai on the menu and accidentally ordered roast pork. Luckily the waiter just looked weirded out rather than offended and I quickly switched to roast beef. Reflecting on this rather surprising twist of events during the day, I can see that if most Thai believers share the same fear of Muslims as our first contact, then they will never reach out to them or have friendly experiences. No doubt, there has been violence and terrorism in this area, but it seems to be a case of the 10% of fanatics ruining life and relationships for the other 90%.

Chiangmai is flooding

It has been a very extended rainy season and it seems that the dams and river ways have had enough after this last two days of nearly non-stop rain. At 3:30pm, this was clear. I drove through here at 5pm and this is what we saw.

Along the river banks people had crowded to take photos and marvel.

And of course, what is a good natural disaster without a snack of dried squid on the side?

Teaching Scriptwriting.

So I step into a new part time role, teaching with Wycliffe's Project Video. My first assignment: Teach scriptwriting to the Karen at Chrestos Mission in Mae Sariang.
I had no idea what their previous ability or experience was, though I knew they had written a script already. When I arrived there, after a leisurely beautiful drive through the countryside for several hours, I was impressed with the quality of their set up. Secretly, I was also thankful that I did not have to sleep on  a camp bed under a mosquito net as well.
I had been nervously about trying to fit what was usually a week's worth of teaching into a couple of days, especially since I would be teaching cross-culturally (some spoke English, some spoke Thai, all seven spoke Karen). I had pared everything down to the bare bones meaning, and what was necessary to communiate. Words like 'protagonist', 'catalyst' and 'normality' all needed to be translated. I began teaching in Thai and had to end up reverting to English simply because the specialised words used in media are beyond my current Thai lexicon.
Then amazingly, somehow we finished the teaching in one day.
The next day I sat and we went through the script that they had already written. It was an amazingly powerful redemption story - a poor mother has to give up her girl child to a richer friend to raise, then the child scorns her when she gets older. The rich mother then casts out the child, saying 'If you do this to your own mother, what will you do to me!'
However, they had spent about 25 scenes setting up the child's back story, and the first confrontation only happened in scene 26, then the movie was over by about scene 30.
Now, we had a dilemma. Was this just the Karen way of story-telling, to spend endless time on details and introducing characters? I had already heard from someone familiar with the Karen that they did like to show everything. Or was this just novice scriptwriting?
At this time, I was really wishing that I had more of a background in Ethnoarts and cultural research. We did ask people who were Karen or had spent a long time working with them. One of the funniest answers I heard was from Win, another Karen guy who does already do media. He said in Thai,"This long script has nothing to do with the Karen culture. It's because they're just used to making Karaoke music videos."
So we did adjust the script, to make it, in their words, "More power."
I want to go back just before they begin filming in November. We still haven't really taught them about reverse angles, crossing the line and telling a visual story!

Praying over Thai Missionaries

Quite hilariously, I went up to pray for one girl during a time of blessing the ethnically Thai Ywam staff, and before I knew what was happening, someone began praying over me!

Location:Soi Suk Samer,Cha-am,Thailand

Inheritance- Ywam conference

Ywam Thailand is increasing by 40% every 2 years. To deal with these Phil Porter has proposed 4 directions based on the style the Israelites took the promised land.
1. Develop many leaders, especially Thai leaders.
2. Release the new generation
3. Increase the sense of family
4. Remain connected and fight for each other.






I'm proud that Ywam Thailand staff is at least 50% Indigenous staff.

Location:Soi Suk Samer,Cha-am,Thailand

Anti-trafficking Concert

A while ago I went to my first Thai concert in the 700 stadium in Chiangmai. It was a last minute free ticket, thanks to my house-mate Heather, in return for driving her and the kids from her ministry, Taw Saeng, to the concert. The concert was co-sponsored by the Australian Government to increase aware of human trafficking and there were some pretty disconcerting videos interspersed throughout.

The line up included pretty big names from Thailand and Korea, and was very random in musical genre. They had even imported Katie Miller-Heide and we rocked out to her singing John Farnham's song 'You're the voice.' Here's some samples of the other bands.

Lounge/Jazzy ETC

Hip Hop band Thaitanium, which I've decided I like.

And of course, Superstar Korean band 'SuperJunior'

It was quite surreal to be at an anti-trafficking concert with kids who were at high risk of being traffiked. The concert was similar to any that I may have gone to in Australia to raise awareness about this issue, but as we stood there in the rain together, I realised that it was now so much more than just an abstract cause.

Songkran 2554

No, I do not have the date wrong, that is the year according to the Buddhist calendar used in Thailand. And to celebrate the turning of the year, a national water fight! Why don't we do this in Australia?!
Chiangmai is the acknowledged centre for water play and it is the hottest month of the year. The inner city shuts down, the moat roads are crowded with pick-up trucks full of delighted children (and adults) throwing icy water on passersby, even a group of monks squirted me! So armed with a super soaker I waded into the fray of celebrations, crossing from one side of the city to the other, re-filling my gun from the dirty moat water and hoping I didn't end up with any infections afterwards.
It's just an amazing time where everything pauses and returns to childhood. And the best thing is that Thai people smile at you AFTER you soak them.

Thapae Gate

Somtum (papaya salad) in the making

7-11 adaptation

7-11, considering that it's just a chain of convenience corner stores, has such an amazing impact on quality of life in Thailand. Having a 7-11 in your muu baan (village) immediately ups it's status I feel. Not only can you buy junkfood, alcohol and ice at 3am, you can also pay all your utility bills there, recharge your phone and even pay for a plane ticket. Think of how much these last services mean for the remaining large numbers of people in Thailand who have never owned a bank account or credit card. It's impressive how much 7-11has adapted.
And on top of all this, in this country that doesn't really believe in providing public trash bins, you can always reliably find a bin outside 7-11.

Pic of the week

A prayer walk around Wat Ched Yod- place of 16th C Buddhist convetion.

Location:Chang Khian Yu Yen,Chang Phuak,Thailand

Who is my neighbour?

Today I went to visit my other neighbours. About 500m down the road from my house is a Shan slum. It had a rickety wooden fence around it and the houses are made out of corrugated iron. The children are riding their bikes and playing on the dusty earth. I've assumed it's Shan before even though I've never been into it, because most of these kind of slums are filled with Shan people who have escaped from the oppressive military regime in Burma and work for around $3-$6 a day as construction workers in Thailand. As a result of their work, they often move around from construction site to site, and so they just bring their families and build these slums near their work. However, this one has been there for at least two years now and one guy we spoke to today said that they would stay there. So it's become a way of life.
I see the workers out every morning waiting in blue trousers and shirts by the side of the road. They are waiting to be collected for their jobs, and it's common here to see twelve or more crammed into the back of a ute on the road. I have never actually spoken to them in the one and a half years that I've lived here, perhaps because it's easier to ignore the poverty when you don't have an answer for it. I saw this very clearly a few years ago in Jakarta, Indonesia when I went to document evangelism in desperate slums that were right next to luxury malls. I heard Indonesian Christians who had lived and gone to church right beside these slums for all their lives say, 'We never knew this poverty existed' after they had prayer walked with us through the slum. After that experience, I still occasionally wonder, 'Where are the poor around me? Is there a blind spot in my 'garden'? (The garden is my euphemism for the area that God has assigned for me to take care of - I can't save the whole world, but I can tend my own backyard). Essentially, I'm the guy in Luke 10 asking 'Who is my neighbour?' and I never want to hear back from God 'It's the one you left by the wayside.'
So I spoke with Lydia about it a couple of weeks ago. Lyds is working with the 'Meeting Point' which is a YWAM ministry for Shan people in Chiangmai. Her assignment with them was to go and survey the different Shan slums around Chiangmai so that the ministry could plan their work. So she offered to come with me to visit the slum down the road from me. Also, the main actor from our Shan film, Sai Sai, moved to Chiangmai a week ago and we asked him to come along too. That was a very good move as Sai Sai is so affable that he opens doors everywhere.
Today the three of us walked down from my house carrying plastic bags filled with women's clothing to give away. My plastic bag was filled with clothes left behind from friends who had moved away and couldn't fit everything into their luggage limit. I wasn't really sure what they would make of the farang styles. We walked in through the opening in the wooden fence and saw a few children, but only one guy around. We said 'My song kha' which is hello in Shan and then that pretty much exhausted all the Shan language I know so Sai Sai went on to ask the survey questions. The guy told us that the head guy was not at home but pointed us to other people that lived one row further into the slum. We passed a woman bathing her baby in a plastic bucket and stepped into a skinny alley between the shacks.

Sai Sai stood in an open doorway and chatted away merrily explaining what we were doing. Lyds practiced her Shan that she's been learning with a young guy in the alley. I hid behind them both after answering the usual question about exactly what was I racially (they always guess Korean), and peeped into the one room houses. Cardboard was piled in the gaps between the roof and wall, probably to block the wind. I'm sure everyone could hear everything though. They slept on the floor, but did have electricity. It would be cold at nights, since they only had one layer of iron around them, and I know that I've been chilled sleeping within my cement walls.
I think that's why the lady who took our bag of clothes asked immediately if they were winter jackets. Unfortunately I know that it was mainly light summer clothing in my bag. I don't even have a winter jacket for myself here (my mother made me give my warmest jacket to her at Christmas as she's going to Antartica). I may try to get some jackets though and go back with them.
Sai Sai felt like it would be good for us to build trust and recognition by wandering around the slum for a bit so we walked around and kept talking to people. One middle-aged man was in his blue overalls speckled with paint, obviously his profession. Lydia asked Sai Sai to ask him if he was married. Sai Sai seemed a little bit reluctant, but in the end he did ask it. There was this awkward moment and then he sort of giggled nervously and shook his hands. Sai Sai had to quickly explain that Lydia was only asking because of her work with children, but the man still scurried quickly back into his room. Perhaps he thought he had better escape before the farang proposed to him.
There were over twenty families in that slum. When we reached the end of it there was an open space of dirt between piles of scrap material where kids were playing. One lady had told us that the kids didn't really go anywhere in their free time because it would cost money to take them out on excursions so they just played there in the slum. She suggested that if we were to start a children's program the weekend might be a good time as the kids had nothing else to do. I was surprised to see the towering over the kids' playlot the back of buildings (like the pink one) that I recognised on my street and realised that the slum extended much closer to my house that I had originally thought. We really were neighbours.
Today, the phrase 'Good Samaritan' is in common use and is a positive expression, but I think back in the day in which the parable was told, it would have sounded like an oxymoron to Jesus' listeners. But Jesus used that most ordinary of people, a Samaritan, to express the concept of being a true neighbour - the one who has mercy on them.

The Shan Outreach Centre has a website at http://www.shanoc.com/en/home.html

Chiangrai Motorbiking visit

Fending off a slight cold, I got on my motorcycle pretty soon after returning to Thailand because I received a text message at 3am saying "COME the baby is here." It was sent by Jeow, my Thai - Karen friend who had basically been camping on my couch in March last year. Then I had gone to India for a month and when I came back, I found that she was married and in the countryside of Chiangrai. Surprise! So now the baby had also been born prematurely by a month, another surprise!

Tara is pretty healthy, fat and sleeps a lot as you can see. Jeow tells me her name means river and she didn't know it sounded like an English name too. Two birds with one stone I reckon.

On the way back I stopped at the Charin Resort, a mecca for pies which I've been trying to find for a while now, but kept missing it before. Thanks to the careful instructions of Lydia, I found it, ate a banana cream pie and bought two more to bring back for others. Then I had to figure out how to strap them to my bike without squashing them. I also was parked next to a beautiful custom built chopper hybrid and felt pretty dodgy on my obviously unwashed motorcycle with the handgrip being held on by tissue paper because it kept sliding off.

I did get caught riding in the mountains at night because it took me so long to strap those pies down, but the sunset was worth it on the way.

The Luxury of Celibacy

Not long ago, my back ached, my side was sore (from being pummelled by a kickboxer – but that's another story) and basically, I needed a massage. However, it was getting late and the reputable massage parlour I frequented was closed. Outside the next parlour a lady sat, calling “Maaaaaaaaasaaaaaaaaaaaaage” to all passersby. Just her strident voice was off-putting, but it was open still and I was desperate.

As I walked up she was pre-occupied flirting with a Western man ('farang') and signalled a smaller, older lady to tend to me. I changed into the classic thai fisherman pants and lay down on a mat. Weirdly, the older farang guy came and lay down on the mat next to me. He was from Holland and initially thought that I worked at the massage parlour (later I realised he probably had wanted to hire me). After answering his continued questions in a non-encouraging way, I revealed that I was a missionary in Chiangmai, at which his eyebrows shot up and he said in heavily accented english “Wow, that is a surprise!” The conversation petered out as I began talking with my masseur in Thai and he walked away muttering “I don't understand”.

My masseur was from Isaan province, which is one of the poorest in Thailand. She was tiny, and dressed in a singlet and daisy dukes which made her look younger, but she was over 50 and had a daughter my age. She had worked in a reggae bar in town (the same reggae bar where I was kickboxed incidentally) for two years, but got sick of being on her feet all the time so had signed up for a two week massage course and now here she was massaging me (which didn't really inspire confidence). She wanted to get out of the massage shop and work for the hospital. Her son had finished studying but hadn't found a job while her daughter had a Norwegian boyfriend and lived 3 months at a time there. Lot of life information exchanged over massage.

Meanwhile, a fairly good-looking, somewhat drunk 20-something English boy had come into the massage shop and he was being massaged behind a screen by a 23 year old Thai girl. When he was done, he kept saying “She's beautiful, she deserves better than this” and asking “How much to just cuddle with her for the night? I don't want to have sex with her, she's beautiful, I just want to cuddle!”
Immediately the sharp voiced masseur at the door said, “3000, 4000 baht!”
“You don't understand, I don't want to have sex, I just want to lie here and cuddle. How much to just stay here the night.”
“You stay here all night can not, this is a shop. You have sex with her here 1 hour – 1000 baht. Or you take her with you all night 4000 baht.”

On and on it went with the boy protesting innocence (he also borrowed money off the Dutch guy) and finally leading the girl away 4000 baht poorer. I wanted to really believe that they were going to 'just cuddle' all night. It was a nicer thought than realising that I had just seen someone sold for only $130 for a night. Apparently all massage shops offered sex on the side. My masseur was telling me she was too old to go with 'guests' like that anymore so she just did thai and oil massages. I was so tense from watching all this that I'm not sure her pushing and pulling had any effect on my muscles. Then it got even weirder.

The lady with the nasal voice began asking the Dutch man, “You are a man, you know man-feeling. Why is it that man don't like me? I always talk with them, she never talk, only sleep. Man talk with me, but then when they come in she wake up and they say 'I want her.' Only talk with me, man don't want me. What is wrong with my body, my face?” It seems like body image and low self esteem issues were common to all women – teenage virgins or hardened prostitutes.

The Dutch man was trying to tell her that she needed to “be a little more sexy, put on a show a little.” To demonstrate how to put on a show he did a headstand in front of a very startled passerby. The masseur was sitting on the steps wrapped in a black shawl and he began teasing her about being “like a muslim” and pulling the shawl over her head. “Show a little more cleavage,” he said.
“But I am shy, I like to cover up.”
“That won't attract men.”
I was just passing them leave the shop and from her perch on the steps she looked me full in the eyes and asked “Why is it 10 men talk with me, but only 2-3 want to do something with me, 8 with her? Sometimes I try to do happy ending, but the man stop and say they can not with me. They say I am nice girl. I talk with them. What is wrong with me?”
What a question! So I sat down and tried to come up with something in Thai.
“Pi, you are beautiful too but I think it has something to do with spirit inside the heart.” My thai was very faltering at the part about spirit because I haven't really learnt abstract religious words like that, so I'm really not sure she understood. She did catch the part about heart though, “Yes, it hurt my heart when they not go with me, I feel bad.”
There is one word that catches this whole feeling in thai and so I said it “Noi jai, right?”
Noi jai literally means little heart – or to be made to feel small and worthless.
She was so eager in agreement, “Yes, yes, noi jai a lot! Everyday pain...”
“Then why don't you leave and find other work?”
“I can earn much money here, I have two daughters to take care of and my boyfriend is dead. Elsewhere I earn 6,500 in one month, here I can make 8,000 baht in 10 days. But I have been working here same time as other girl, one month only and she make so much more money.”
The Dutch man put in his two cents, “You need to touch the customers more, don't be afraid of them, the others are here.”
“Yes, yes she never talk but always touch client, I never touch only talk. Thankyou, I see now, I need to touch more.” Her face showed enlightenment and while I was in total disbelief at what I was hearing. I could feel she essentially wanted my input on how to become a better paid prostitute and I wanted to re-affirm her self-image without encouraging that!
So I tried some thai style logic. “A good boyfriend is looking for someone who looks like a 'rep-roy' girl, and acting like that won't attract a good man.”
'Rep-roy' is not just nice, but dainty, neat, feminine and perfect in one word.
“Yes, I don't look rep-roy now,” she said so softly and sadly that I couldn't believe it was the same strident voice I had heard earlier.
Just then the English boy passed the shop carrying a bag of snacks, but clearly on his own.
“Hey you, where is girl?!” Her voice cut sharply through the night.
“She's gone, so I'm going home to Harmony house,” he said nonchalantly, naming a guesthouse down the road.
“Gone where? Where you leave her?! You buy her all night.” Her voice was getting aggressive now.
“We did it once, and then she just took off into the next room, and I was alone so I'm going home.”
So much for wanting to believe in 'just cuddling'. There was a quick intense interchange in thai between the two older masseurs, who were confused. My masseur thought she might have gone into the wrong room by accident. I was getting the picture that this girl was an airhead.
“You want me to bring her back? I'll go find her and bring her back,” he helpfully offered. He soon came back with her in tow. She embarrassedly explained that she had gone to the bathroom.
“Well, do you want to come with me to Harmony House? It was so quick you know...”
She laughed and grabbed his cheeks, then walked into the shop and grabbed more condoms. Then she drank a cupful of an anti-pregnancy solution and went away with him down the road, with his words floating back over their shoulders, “we got at least 4 more times tonight!”
The Dutch man looked at me and said, “You must treat women right, sleep with them one time ok, some men hit a girl, and 4 times all night is not right.” Slightly unusual moral standard I thought, but said instead, “they have no protection.”
I asked the masseur in the shawl, “How do you know if this is a good person or not?”
She said nothing but just rubbed her fingers together in the international signal for money.
“Some man not nice, hit girls.”
It was now 1 am so I took my leave, “Pi, save up and get out quick ok?”
“I am saving,” she said, but her face looked resigned.
As I walked away her figure hunched over in the covering black shawl was imprinted on my mind. Hours later I realised I hadn't told her the truth because I couldn't verbalise it then. The reason why men couldn't take advantage of her was because deep down she hated it, and they could feel that even through their lust. She still had tatters of self-respect that were being shredded further everyday.
Lastly, as I treaded my way out through the mud I passed the English boy demanding that the Thai girl hand over what she had in her pocket – the condoms. “Take medicine, ok?” was my last quiet words to her in Thai as I walked past into the night.

Partnership for the Northern Thai