Confessions of Hong Thong victim

There are a lot of ridiculously funny and uncomfortable things that happen to me here.  Most of them involve a bathroom, insect, or language-based misunderstanding, but sometimes there are those gloriously awkward situational gems that just need to be blogged about.  Here's mine from this week:

Earlier this week, my village took the dreaded karaoke bus to the beach.  I've written about this joyous form of transportation before, so I'll spare you the details, not to mention there is no real way to describe the surreal event that is the karaoke bus.  But here is a picture of one of the buses to give you an idea of just how "magical" it is. 

I wasn't lucky enough to be on Santa Bus,
but don't fret! They all have some strange airbrushed art.

This time we left at 9 p.m. for an overnight journey to Koh Samet, an island in the Gulf of Thailand.  Twelve hours of Thai karaoke and two busted ear drums later, we made it to the beach, where we boarded a private boat for our 35 minute journey to the island which was, you guessed it, equipped with a KARAOKE machine!  Yay!!

If you've never been to Thailand, you've probably never had everyone point and yell "FARANG" at you, or refer to you as "the Farang" when you are sitting right across the table from them.  Side note: It also means "guava" so I like to make a funnies with my co-workers when I'm eating guava.  "Farang gin farang," I say.  This means "farang eats farang."  I think it's funny.  And so do they.

Mostly, I hate the word - and sometimes it literally makes my skin crawl when I hear it - but there are rare times when I find it funny: like when I'm the token farang with a group of Thais and I get to point at other farangs and yell "FARANG" and everyone just dies laughing. 

So this is what I spent most of the day at the beach doing.  Hanging with my Thai girlfriends talking about the sunbathing farangs.  And before I knew it, the day was over and we headed back to the boat. 

By this time, most of the men had polished off a few bottles of Hong Thong whiskey and were already enjoying the on-ship karaoke machine.  One of those men is someone I always see and usually talk to at community events.  He's about my age and I've noticed he watches out for me, ie: he protects me from the drunk people and the overzealous folks who might happen to get a little too excited about the resident farang.  And I'm very thankful for that.  He has always been nothing but kind and proper and still remains that way. 

However, on this particular day, he may have had a wee bit too much whiskey. 

When I got on the boat, he busy singing karaoke, but motioned for me to sit down in the front row of seats.  So, stupidly, I went ahead and sat down.  And when I did, he began to serenade me with a song about how I am 31 years old but still very beautiful and then professed his love for me.  In front of the entire boat.  Everyone I work with and many of the important community leaders were watching.  I didn't really know what to do, so I just sat there, smiled, and said thank you. 

And then he presented me with an Angry Birds flashlight wand thing.  Normally, I would have preferred flowers, but the flashlight wand was actually pretty cool.