Laughing Man Taxi

It's 9:40 pm. I'm in a Lexus that won't start. It's blocking cars in the parking lot of my condo building. My plane leaves Chiang Mai in an hour. On top of this, I couldn't drive even if the car did start. Here in Thailand everything traffic related is the reverse of what it is in the U.S. so I don't drive.  And in any case, I don't have a Thai driver's license. Not that the latter matters too much since I suspect that many people who drive here don't have one either. But you get my drift.

However, mai bpen rai (no worries) as the Thais say. I'm not alone in the car. Mr. Pradit, the taxi driver, is repeatedly turning the key and grinding the starter. It sounds to me like we're out of gas. I say so. Mr. Pradit ignores me and keeps grinding the starter. Thai men, like males everywhere, do not seem to enjoy when a woman tells them that they are out of gas. A security guard approaches us, smiles, and tries to help start the car by shifting it into neutral and grinding the starter. No luck.

Mr. Pradit gets on his cell phone. Excitedly, he tells the person he is calling what has happened and what he wants. I know enough Thai to understand that he wants the person to come to where we are  and drive me to the airport in his car. I can hear the person on the other end speak Thai in a tired sounding voice. He doesn't sound too excited about coming to take me to the airport.

Mr. Pradit is insistent. Then he hangs up. "I call my brudder," he says, "to come take you airport."

"Mr. Pradit, I can just catch a songtauw (pick up truck taxi) down the street." I am concerned about how long it will take Mr. Pradit's less than excited brother to arrive to take me to the airport.

"No." Mr. Pradit says this as if I have just suggested something preposterous. It is a point of pride to him to get me to the airport by 10 pm, the time we had arranged. The security guard comes by again and calmly offers to help. Together, he and Mr. Pradit push the Lexus to the curb alongside the building and out of the way so that other cars can exit the lot. Before they start pushing, I offer to get out of the Lexus to make it easier to move. "No," insists Mr. Pradit again in a way that indicates that what I'm suggesting is absurd.

"Really, Mr. Pradit, it didn't sound like your brother was very excited about coming out late at night to take a strange farang (foreigner) to the airport. "How old is he, anyway?"

Mr Pradit says, "He two year older than me--72. He use to hold high position in government."

Mr. Pradit is my regular daily ride to and from the international school in Chiang Mai where I work five days per week. He also sometimes takes me to the airport. There is nothing on the car that identifies it as a taxi and there is no meter. All rides are negotiated. And Mr. Pradit is a bold driver even by widely accepted Thai "drive like a bat out of hell" standards. Think New York taxi driver and you get the idea.

Why do I ride with Mr. Pradit, you may wonder? Well, no taxis in Chiang Mai have meters. All taxi rides are negotiated. And unlike many taxi drivers, Mr. Pradit is extremely punctual and reliable. When he can't give me a ride, he takes great pains to arrange that his son will do so. Mr. Pradit is also remarkably kind. This probably is what I like the most about him. He has located obscure items in shops when I've mentioned offhand that I was looking for them. He's also helped me install light bulbs and water heaters in my condo. To top it off, Mr. Pradit is funny, speaks English well, and laughs a lot, although I notice that he's not laughing about this situation.

Looking at my watch, I see that it is 9:50. "Really, Mr. Pradit, I think I will get a songtauw." Just then, his brother pulls up-- in a Lexus. He nimbly jumps out.  Like Mr. Pradit, he moves and looks much younger than his age. Both brothers are very trim and stylishly dressed. Not appearing terribly excited to see us, he speaks to his brother and then asks me if I speak Thai. "Nitnoy kah (a little)," I say. After that, he converses in Thai only with his brother. I am whisked away in the brother's Lexus with Mr. Pradit at the wheel. We make what must be the fastest and most hair raising trip I have ever taken to an airport. I arrive at Chiang Mai International precisely at 10 pm.

Mr. Pradit is beaming. "See. I tell you I get you here on time! Make sure you tell Nat." For some reason, at this moment, after a race to the airport, Mr. Pradit is thinking about Nat? It must be another point of pride.

Nat, my fellow partner in adventure who accompanied me to Chiang Mai, knows Mr. Pradit. The three of us have taken taxi rides together on many occasions. Nat especially likes to tease Mr. Pradit about his driving. Mr. Pradit especially enjoys pretending that he doesn't hear Nat or that he doesn't understand English that well. When Nat and Mr. Pradit are together, they remind me of Laurel and Hardy. Taking my cue from Mr. Pradit, I too pretend that I can't hear and don't understand English that well when they are together.

Upon my return from travelling, during my first ride to school with Mr. Pradit, I ask if he was in fact out of gas that night. He tells me that he and his brother, after dropping me at the airport, went and got several litres of gasoline in containers and retrieved the Lexus that was out of gas at the condo.
"Your brother didn't sound too happy that night, no?" I ask. "No. He wasn't." Mr. Pradit laughs.

"But he didn't have any choice, did he? He had to come to help, yes?" "Yes. No choice." Mr. Pradit laughs again. Such is the nature of Thai family obligations. We ride the rest of the way to school in contented silence. Mr. Pradit seems pleased that I as a farang at least now understand this much about Thai culture. And that I have learned this lesson from him.

Winning and the Luck of Being Invited Back

Nat Hix has luck that borders on the supernatural. When I told an acquaintance that Nat always wins, he scoffed, "I'll bet he cheats". What this person didn't know is that with Nat's luck, cheating is completely unnecessary.

Even though he can't spell, Nat invariably wins at Scrabble. He also beats everybody at Monopoly, Backgammon, and Parcheesi. All board games as a matter of fact. How about electric games, you ask? What about Wii bowling, Xbox 360 tennis, or Zuma? Or anything else that involves a monitor?

Don't even think about it.

When you watch football games with him, don't be tempted to bet for the team he opposes. At the last minute, despite the fact that his team is impossibly behind, it will win with several hail Marys.

Our friend Steve hosts an annual Academy Award party. The gathering is black tie, has great food, and features a contest that involves selecting the winners in each of the Oscar categories. The person who guesses the most Oscar recipients wins. Steve warned me that he's always the champion of the contest. "I don't want to burst your bubble," I said, "but since you invited Nat and me, this is not your year. Don't take it personally. No one in his family will play any games with Nat with the exception of his son, a relentlessly optimistic young man who harbors the competitive hope that he will someday beat his dad at something."

Portrait of a lucky man

"Actually, I'm the one who always wins. I'm a pretty lucky guy," Steve smiled, clearly skeptical.
His optimism was short lived. A few days later at the party, as it became clear that Nat was going to win in all categories even though he hadn't seen most of the nominated movies, our normally upbeat and chatty friend grew quiet. When the party ended and we took our leave, all Steve could say was, "I used to be that guy."

Since Nat never loses, he does not understand the agony of defeat. Nor does he understand why people no longer ask him to join in any reindeer games. Surely people want to play a competitor who will give them a good game, says he. Yes, say I, but they also want to believe that they can win. Once they play you a few times, they realize they have no chance. It's no fun playing when you know before you start that you are going to lose.

Not convinced by my argument, Nat was later shocked to learn that a group of his buddies in Hong Kong had stopped inviting him to their regular poker games. Sure, he was still welcome to join them for drinks and dinner but poker? Cards ceased to be a topic of conversation when he was around. Shortly before we moved from Hong Kong to Thailand, he jokingly asked one of his buddies,
"Don't you guys play cards together anymore?"

"Sure," his friend shot back. "We just got tired of you taking all our money."

Nat couldn't believe his ears. "Connie," he said later, "I can't
believe they don't want the challenge of playing someone who will give them a good game." All I could do was roll my eyes.

Upon moving to Chiang Mai, Thailand, Nat made friends with a group of guys, both Thai and farang--that's Thai for foreign-- who invited him to play poker. This time, however, he asked me what
his strategy should be. It seemed he wanted to be invited back.

Ganesha: the god of luck

"Let them win once in a while."

"Oh, I can't do that. It's just not who I am."

"Well, after you win a few, excuse yourself and go to the
bathroom."

"I can't do that either. Guys want a chance to win their money back. And they don't like it when you disrupt the flow of the game."

"But you and I both know there's no chance they're going to get their money back."

"Yeah, but they don't know that."

I rolled my eyes.

Off he went that night to the poker game. But he returned uncharacteristically
early.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Well, I decided to play the usual way and as usual, I was winning.That's when the guys decided it was time to take a break and get some drinks at the corner bar. Apparently, it's Thai custom that
the oldest person pays when groups go out. I was the oldest. Everyone started ordering drinks. Guys who hadn't even been at the game showed up. And there was this special "buy two beers get
one free" deal so everyone was ordering two beers."

"Did you ever get back to the game?"

"No. I left while I still had money for the taxi. I paid a lot more for drinks than I won at cards."

"Sounds like they got their money back and then some," I said, somehow without rolling my eyes.

"Yeah, but you know the good news?"

"There's good news?"

"I'll definitely be invited back."

(This is a repost of an entry published about a year ago. It is an advisory to all of Nat's football loving/can't wait for Super Bowl XLVIII friends in America and elsewhere.)