Mr. Fred's Poetry Corner: "Manchurian Dream."

This new job allows me lots of spare time. Here's proof:

Manchurian Dream

I was alone the other day,
Describing things in my own way,
Then everyone’s favorite Manchu,
The glamorous Professor Dr. Fu,
He visited poor little me.
He was a sorry sight to see,
No little smile, no arching brow,
He was as stood before me now,
A shadow and an echo of
The Fu Manchu that we all love.

I said, “my friend! How good of you!
You have so very much to do,
Come in! That is if you have time,
I’ll get some snacks, perhaps some wine,
Come in and sit down by the heater,
And let me go turn down that speaker.”
He sat and looked down at the floor,
I thought, shit! I can take no more,
“Please tell me friend,” I took his hand,
“What’s up? I’ll help you if I can.”

He wrung his hands and shook his head,
And finally looked up and said,
“I’ve been so bad, and for so long,
And now it is the same old song,
Closeness of death, mortality,
It forces all of us to see,
The foolishness that was our life,
Did we bring happiness or strife?
Who wronged we and by whom were wronged?
You see? It is the same old song.”

“Dear Fu,” I said, “this will not do!
Long years of life are left in you,
In fact, my friend, if I recall,
You’ll last much longer than us all.”
“Oh! Cruel remembrance of those rites!
I sought escape from that cold night,
But I succeeded only too
Prolong the night. Oh! Stupid Fu!
Nearness of death, for you goes quickly,
I’m there forever! Or, damn nearly.

For I have made a long dark night
To hold my deeds up to the light,
Yes now, dear friend, I must explore
The things that I have done before.
The pain and death, can words express?
Yes, now, in old age I confess,
Old age! For me it is old ages!
I confess, these are my wages,
For all the evil I have wrought,
The cruelest fate is all I’ve bought.

All thoughts of England make me sad.
I made those Englishmen so mad!
And all the women, and the slaves,
I’m terribly sorry for the slaves,
The people that I killed return,
I see their faces and I burn
With dread, for sure when we next meet,
It’s me who will confront defeat.
I’m sorry now for all my wrong,
You see it is the same old song!”

“Fu, don’t put up so great a fight,
For who’s to say what’s wrong or right?
The things you did were yours to do,
No need to cry now, dearest Fu.
You were an instrument of doom,
And doom will all the world consume,
Yes with your help or now without,
So stand up with me now and shout!
I’m different now! I’m a new man!
And offer all the help you can.”

“So do you think that all will fade,
And cancel out the bad I’ve made?”
“Yes! Through the lens of greater deeds,
The so-called evil will recede,
And you’ve so long to recompense
The things that you have done come hence.
It’s up to you though, you old sod,
I’d still be proud of your score card.
Some things perhaps were importune,
But it was other’s misfortune.”

“Thanks dear friend! You’ve helped me see
That life’s not over yet for me.
I’ll take that snack now, and the wine,
I see now that I have the time
To give things to the world I’ve wronged.
Great gifts unique to me belong,
And rites I know that can impart
Great happiness to human hearts.
I’ll be a friend to all, no lie,
And hardly anyone will die!”

We Are the Krue Farang

We are the Krue Farang, and life is good. In most aspects, we are not like teachers at all, we are just accessories to the Thai teachers that we work with.

We cannot really talk to students. Even my Masters’ Degree law students miss most of the simple sentences that I say to them so slowly and carefully. The Thai teachers can talk to the students, and do, including about us, in our presence, even if we can understand a little, they know it’s just a little, and they can function as real teachers, at least they know a lot more than the students do, a teacher only needs to be a week or two in front of the students after all.

One of us said, it seems so long ago now, that his co-teacher told him that he was like a tape recorder, the teacher pressed play and he spoke the English words, and he found this attitude confusing and aggravating. But it’s true.

We are just accessories to the Thai teachers, and for them. We don’t participate in the real processes of education, grading, evaluation and counseling, not really, and we are not invited to the meetings, all because the language barrier is almost never successfully crossed.

But life is good for the Krue Farang, although it is an incomplete experience of what it appears to be, much like the kept woman is an incomplete image of a wife. But, the champagne is chilled, the flowers are fresh, the rent is paid and we are only required to be beautiful when called upon to do so. The rest of the time we must only smile and put in our hours, waiting to serve. Like the woman cares for her hair and skin, figure and nails, I bide my time reading and writing, I do love the so-called English language, really an archaic dialect of German onto which has been grafted most of Latin and French, plus a vast treasure trove of words from all of the four corners of the globe. Like the woman I wait patiently and try to be useful when called upon. Not called upon I retreat, I have learned not to step forward too frequently to remind people of their inadequacies.

We are the Krue Farang.

Thank you!

I'm getting some positive feedback, both on these pages and on others. I just want to say that it warms the cockles of my heart, and those of you who know me well know that my cockles always need warming.

Thank you all very much.

A Regular Perry Mason

There are three kinds of lawyers. No, not bad, evil and Satanic, really, there are three kinds of lawyers: 1) office lawyers; 2) book lawyers; and 3) courtroom lawyers.

I won't comment on the quality of my work, the statute of limitations has not run on everything, but for better or for worse I was a courtroom lawyer. I was there all the time. I did lots of trials and appeared at hundreds upon hundreds of motion hearings, not to mention bullshit hearings like name changes and even one "hearing to correct a mere accounting error." Plus all of the depositions, arbitrations, mediations. I was out there.

Now that I am on the Faculty of Law of a "Worldwide University," their words, not mine, I am surrounded by academics, Thai academics; most are in category two above, some in category one, I may be the only one in category three. It makes me even more fascinating. Not only am I Farang, but I am also a real-world-experienced lawyer. This means that I have seen the dark side of the law, like I have had to tell a client, yes, we lost, and yes, you will lose your house, and yes, you still owe me the rest of the money.

I feel about lawyering about the same as I feel about growing up in New York City: I'm glad it all happened, but please god don't make me go back.

Thrills, Chills and No Spills

Ramkhamhaeng has twenty-one campuses, and I found out today that if one of the Ajans wants to drive to one, they don't waste any time doing it.

BKK to Lomsak, Petchabun (that's Jason S's old stomping grounds), five hours including a long lunch stop at a gai-yang place, a real OG moo-bahn gai-yang place, that's the chickens from the yard, the big ones with the tough, usually tough meat, this stuff was pretty good.

This guy drove like I drove my taxi in the 70's, like anybody drove a VW Beetle, either full throttle, to the floor, or brakes jammed up tight. The car was a pretty nice Volvo, natural gas no less, fast anyway, who knew? What passing technique this guy has! On the main road, with a couple of lanes to work with, we passed everybody, we passed other vehicles like a skier passes slalom gates, left and right. My favorite was the smaller, two lane blacktop roads, where he would flash his lights and pull out to pass even if there was a car passing someone in the opposite direction at the same time. Get outta Denver, baby. That's four abreast on a two lane road with small shoulders and a combined, "collision" speed of about 100 mph, as close as you can get to two solid objects occupying the same space at the same time. Hey, we're law professors, we don't know from no laws of physics.

After lunch all three passengers were sleeping and he really poured it on, singing and whistling along to a Karaoke video, you read that right, semi-naked women on a video screen in the console.

We made it, I knew we would. This guy does it all the time, there are no marks on his car. You have to learn to trust your fellow man.

Remembering

I'm so pleased with myself any time that I remember anything. This morning I was getting ready to leave my apartment and I remembered to take my meds. I smiled and thought, that was really great.

Then I even remembered that I should take a map with me, and then I even found the map I was looking for. I could lose my head if it weren't for my neck.

Life's little triumphs.

How's the Weather?

Derek is right, but this was not the first time that I was honest to a fault. But note that I do get the face thing; I let them have a meeting where they decided to 'let me go;' and I did find them a replacement, I don't know how that went but I served her up on a silver platter. But yes, I should have told them I had to return to America because, well, you think of something.

So, on to Huamark, Bangkapi, my new neighborhood. My apartment is in between two universities, so there are students everywhere, many of whom are of course beautiful, so that's a good thing. It also creates a concentration of cheap, good eating opportunities that has to be seen to be believed, there must be a thousand. There are virtually no Farang; there are many Thai Muslims. But oh! the traffic.

I thought that I had been scared on motorcycles before, actually I'm sure that I have. Once, on a trafficless Monday in the Malibu mountains, I took a little fun ride on my 650. I knew the road was flat, and you could see what was coming on that section of the road, so I kind of let it out, let it really breathe, I was doing about ninety in third, engine at the red line, around this sweeping turn. I had my ass hanging half off the seat and the center stand was scraping on the pavement. I became aware that I was gradually moving towards the edge of the road, closer to the shoulder, which was gravel and only about seven feet wide, seven feet from the road to the cliff, precipice, whatever you want to call it, to a flying lesson is more like it. Yes, I was scared.

But riding to school, the short ride to school, is really scary. People, especially people on motorcycles, behave like they are infected with that virus from the movie, "28 Days Later." The virus that makes everyone frantically, insatiably homicidal. Yeah, like that, and some riders act like they are blindfolded besides. I hear it's much worse in the middle east but that is small consolation to me. I have no plans to go there.

School is, well, so far it looks like it can go one of two ways: either 1) the money will be good and I'll have tons and tons of free time; or 2) the money will be fantastic and I'll have plenty free time. That's some good options. My classes are very small, like two students, even Thai university students are afraid to listen to English being spoken in a classroom. But I'm lobbying the students, hey, I talk real slow, I like to really spell things out, no "hide the ball," I give easy tests and I'll tell you everything that'll be on the tests, nobody who shows up all the time will fail, come on, we'll have fun. It's all good; I'm very comfortable.

My apartment is on the twelth floor, I only hope that the original building permit wasn't for eight stories, that sh*t happens all the time here, they only find out when something collapses. It faces North-East too, that's always good when you are fifty feet from the sun.

Thanks for the comments.