Against All Odds

by R. A. Lang

  All the while we ate, I tried my best to be polite and maintain some sort of smile on my face. Frequently, they would shout ‘gam bei’, meaning dry glass, and we all had to knock back a small glass of 24% Chinese wine. Each time I put my empty glass back on the table, a waitress standing behind me would fill it back up.

  There is a Chinese proverb that goes as follows: “If you leave a social meal sober, you did not truly enjoy yourself.” As far as Chinese proverbs go, I had a great time. It was difficult to maintain anything like sobriety with the waitress standing behind my chair!

  Traditionally, Chinese people believe that it is impolite to talk too much while eating. A good meal was regarded as too special to be spoiled by conversation. Keeping reasonably quiet during the meal was easy for me because I didn’t understand anything they were saying, plus some of the dishes left me speechless in any case. Their interpreter made things even worse, while I quietly worried about what dish I would be presented with next.

  The Chinese had employed the services of the interpreter, but her version of English was new to me. I could understand some Scottish, but almost everything I said was lost in translation. Some normal things I wanted to say got wrongly translated into phrases the Chinese thought were hilarious. After that, they shouted ‘gam bei’ even more. I decided it was best not to say anything that could possibly be misinterpreted, but that didn’t always work.

  Once we’d finished the food, for want of a better word, I was driven back to the hotel. We pulled up a little short of the hotel, outside another building which appeared to look like another hotel. It was a Chinese massage place, which was four stories high. I was escorted to a changing room where I had to remove my shoes and use their flip-flops to enter the main building. After that, we went downstairs to change into clothes closely resembling pyjamas.

  I was given their largest size, but they still pinched a bit in all the wrong places, which made them not so comfortable after all. We were each given a private massage room and the cutest little Barbie to do the work. Mine kept trying to talk to me, but my Chinese was as non-existent as her English. Still, she never stopped trying to chat while beating the hell out of me with incredible speed. She continued doing that for a solid hour without even breaking into a sweat. Amazing, but so very true; I should have married her!

  Once my massage was over, my little Barbie took me to a huge room with large, reclining leather chairs in rows from one wall to the other. I arrived a little late due to my intense conversations with Barbie and the other guys were already seated, waiting for me. I was given an ice cold Chinese beer whilst I watched a Russian show that entailed girls in bikinis simply walking around and doing nothing else. It was as boring as it gets. Moments later, a new Barbie proceeded to give me a foot massage, and then another Barbie gave me a head and neck massage.

  I thought to myself, this is all part of my job. I shouldn’t fight it; I should just accept it like a man until it is three o’clock in the morning and time to leave.

  The next day, I needed to visit another company that would galvanise much of the steelwork being fabricated by the first company. Again, they took me to a restaurant after I had concluded my appraisal of their premises. This time it was to a different restaurant, but every bit the same style as the one the night before.

  Just like the previous night, everything I said was lost in translation, and some of the dishes were very difficult to swallow whilst trying to maintain an appreciative smile on my face. Fortunately, I was taken directly back to the hotel this time, so I could catch up on some much-needed sleep.

  After my first experience of Chinese hospitality, I took the early morning flight back to Seoul in time to collect my tickets for Singapore the following day.

  Arriving in Singapore late in the afternoon, I wasted no time in checking into my usual hotel on Orchard Street. I always chose the same hotel as they had a good choice of restaurants on the ground floor. The famous Orchard Towers nightspot was just across the road, but I was normally too tired to spend long there.

  The Orchard Towers was basically a building consisting of four floors of bars. Some bars had DJs and others had live groups, but all had the same in common: ladies, a lot of ladies. In fact, there were so many ladies, it made getting to the bar quite difficult, as the competition was fierce. There were Thai ladies, Chinese ladies, Vietnamese ladies, Indian ladies, Singaporean ladies and other nationalities; a perfect paradise for bachelors, or travelling men!

  Waking up in the morning after visiting the Orchard Towers was a painful experience requiring paracetamol and coffee, before removing any evidence from the night before.

  After my hard night in transit, I would take the 10am ferry out from Singapore’s Harbour Front for the one hour ride over to Batam Island, which is a part of Indonesia, to have a meeting with a Japanese company. I would buy a $10 US dollar visa upon arrival, which was good for a five day visit, before meeting the driver assigned to taking me to the office.

  My business was always completed the day I arrived, but I’d always plan the visit for a Friday so I’d also stay the Saturday night to try to get some much-needed rest before making my journey back to Singapore on the Sunday and then on to South Korea the same day.

  The driver would take me straight to their fabrication facilities, which was just half an hour from the ferry terminal, but the roads on Batam Island left a lot to be desired. They didn’t have curbstones along their edges, so it didn’t take long for the surface to break away, especially during the rainy season.

  At the office, the Japanese president always welcomed me in person. They had been contracted for the manufacture of large shell plates for oil and gas storage tanks to be erected in Qatar. My monthly visits were to conduct a document review for the release of a shipment of tank plates for the refinery, which included a physical inspection in the storage yard prior to shipping. The intense humidity in the summer months was very uncomfortable, but as a form of compensation, the president would always invite me to join him for lunch at a nearby Japanese-built golf course. He did this every time I visited him.

  Several big Japanese companies owned the private golf course, and the restaurant had been built in true Japanese style: both the president and I had our own personal waitress quietly waiting behind us in true Japanese style.

  To make it more comfortable for foreign guests, they had built a floor well under the table, like many of the South Korean restaurants had done, so patrons didn’t have to sit cross-legged. After we’d eaten, the president had his driver take him back to his office, before instructing him to drive me anywhere I fancied on the island for the rest of the afternoon.

  My first stop was my hotel so I could check in, leave my small case in my room and freshen up before going for a foot massage. I did this on every visit before driving around several beautiful island beaches like a tourist. The driver knew from previous visits that I was fond of fresh seafood and took me to an outdoor seafood restaurant so I could try their famous chilli crab.

  The restaurant was built half on land and half over the ocean. The driver planned to wait in the car until I was ready to leave, but I insisted that he join me. Inside, there were concrete tanks with everything imaginable to choose from. An Indonesian man who explained what was on offer escorted us around. I chose a mud crab, and encouraged the driver to choose what he liked to drop off for his family on the way back while it was still hot.

  The restaurant had washbasins dotted all over the place. The general idea was to eat with your hands and make as much of a mess as you wanted. Once we had finished, the driver dropped me off at my hotel so I could catch up on some much-needed rest, due to the Chinese hospitality a couple of days before.

  To help me with my permanent jetlag, I called the hotel spa and asked if Diana was available to visit my room. Shortly afterwards, little Diana entered my room to give a very professional massage. Half way through her massage she needed to wake me up to roll over and later wake me up again to tell me she’d fin
ished! I guess I didn’t need the massage after all.

  On this occasion, my return trip to Seoul was interrupted by an unplanned visit to Dubai to meet one of the suppliers we had there. Once I got off the ferry in Singapore’s Harbour Front, I had a six hour wait before my flight to Dubai on Singapore Airlines. To pass the time, I decided to pay the Raffles hotel a visit and have a Singapore Sling in their famous long bar.

  The hotel is a beautiful place to walk around, and the long bar was up a couple of flights of stairs close to an elevator. Entering the bar, I could see monkey nut shells all over the floor where customers had been, as was the custom. I ordered my Singapore Sling but it was simply poured from a pre-mixed jug. I complained and asked why as I wanted to see the usual cocktail performance. I was told that they only did that for television cameras.

  I arrived in Dubai the next day, and took a taxi to my pre-booked hotel. I always chose to stay in the same hotel for its comforts, convenience and large choice of restaurants. At the reception desk, a message was waiting for me from my office in Seoul, which detailed a flight to Qatar on the Wednesday. My wonderful project control manager thought it would be a good idea for me to visit the construction site in Ras Laffan because I was so close in Dubai.

  With the Tuesday meeting complete, I made my way to the Mall of the Emirates, where I liked the huge restaurant on the ground floor at the base of the ski slope.

  The menu covered most types of cuisine from around the world, so there was something to please everyone. Then came the spice and gold souks to occupy the rest of the afternoon. Due to so much travel I had learnt to fly very light and just travelled with a carry-on case. As soon as I arrived in a new hotel room, I would call laundry service and sign for the executive service so my clothing would be returned to me in just two hours. That way, I flew around from country to country with just a change of three sets of clothes, plus my toiletries in a zip-locked bag for the airport security checks.

  I spent three nights in dusty Doha before returning back to Dubai on the Saturday. From Dubai, I headed back to Seoul via Singapore due to my flights. After just two days back in the Seoul office, I took a fourteen hour flight to Amsterdam to spend another six hours in transit before flying back to Italy for a meeting. With just a one night stop-over in Milan, I headed back to Seoul with another six hour wait in Schiphol airport.

  During all my business trips in 2006, I needed to make several trips to Thailand to meet another contractor involved with the project. In February of 2007, a new wife entered my life. I met Wi in a salon in Bangkok on Sukhumvit Road, just a five minute walk from the well-known Nana Plaza. I got to know her well during my business trips to Thailand, as she was always the one who cut my hair when I visited the salon she worked in.

  Wi was the one I always chose to cut what was left of my hair each time I returned to Bangkok. Most probably due to her smile and personality, not the fact that she was the best stylist in the salon. With my crew cut, there wasn’t anything to style anyway.

  Every five or six weeks, I’d meet her when I returned to Bangkok and stayed in the same hotel. The purpose of each trip to Bangkok was to visit a large fabrication facility that was very experienced with fabricating equipment for the oil and gas industry, which was situated near the Cambodian border.

  Again, I travelled with a representative from our main Korean contractor, and I always endeavoured to make time to visit Wi; I was due for another haircut by that time anyway. I always remembered to bring Wi little presents from the airport duty-free shops, and we became very good friends.

  Whenever possible, I’d steer away from the usual restaurants my contractor invited me to so I could take Wi out after she’d finished work, often with one of her salon friends. That wasn’t always so easy with the hospitality of my contractor as there were millions of dollars at stake, depending on their performance.

  I had to cater to Wi’s work schedule, though. One week she’d work from nine to nine, and the next week she’d work from eleven to eleven. To the Thai people, holidays seemed to be something that only tourists had.

  Wi took me to traditional Thai restaurants outside the usual tourist venues, and as far away as possible from the smutty places in Bangkok. Being the daughter of a rice farmer, Wi hated bars with a vengeance. She wouldn’t allow me to pay the usual prices tourists became victims of either. She scrutinised every bill before I got to see it, and she didn’t hesitate to question any entry she didn’t understand.

  I learned not to take a Bangkok taxi to a well-known restaurant, because the driver could order takeaway food from behind the scenes and have his meal added to the final bill.

  This was especially the case with the tuk tuk drivers who persuaded unknowing tourists to go to particular restaurants. Later, they’d return for their commission of whatever the tourist spent. Many shops offered tuk tuk and taxi drivers a commission just for bringing prospective customers, even if they didn’t buy anything.

  For those who travel to Bangkok to take advantage of the sex industry, travelling from one venue to another by tuk tuk would result in a bill that’s at least twice as high as it should be. I have a love/hate relationship with Bangkok, mainly due to its darker side, which it is so popular and famous for.

  Nothing disgusts me more than seeing a hugely obese man proudly walking down the street with a tiny, skinny little Barbie doll that he had recently rented holding his hand. I am very well known in Bangkok to interrupt such romances and pay the girl to go home. That’s better than imagining what she’d have to endure later in the evening. The customer would often take personal offense and sometimes become aggressive, but the Thai doormen in the street all knew me very well and what I liked to do, and would have jumped in to protect me should the need arise.

  In February, I decided to leave the project I’d been flying around so much for because I had only contracted for the detailed design and procurement phase and returned back to Bangkok.

  Chapter 17

  Thailand

  In February of 2007 I returned back to Thailand so Wi and I could get married in her family’s house in Sakon Nakhon, near Laos. It took a forty-five minute flight to reach the area. It was a very green area, like everywhere in Thailand. There were miles and miles of rice fields.

  I was still officially married to Carolina in Venezuela, however, so we couldn’t formally get married. Instead, we married Buddhist style by having the all-day ceremony without signing anything. Wi knew all about Carolina, and she longed for the day I would finally be free so we could get married officially.

  We were well received at the airport by Wi’s brother and one of her sisters. We drove for almost two hours before we got to Sakon Nakhon where her mother and father were eagerly waiting to meet me for the first time.

  Wi’s father had already started cutting very fine sticks, very much like tooth picks, which were needed to form part of the flower arrangement that would later become the centrepiece of the ceremony. Other ladies in the village joined in to help with the plaiting of banana leaves, which would also become part of the flower arrangement.

  Wi, one of her sisters and I went out into the rice fields to a place where a certain type of white flower grew. We collected all we could find to add to the arrangement. Hidden inside the final flower arrangement was a small bottle of Thai whisky and a small bowl of sticky rice: offerings to Buddha. To drive around the rice fields, Wi’s father had handed me the keys to his brand new Toyota Hilux, purchased with his life’s savings.

  As I reversed out from beneath his house everyone was watching me. This freaked me out a lot and as I reversed very slowly, I backed into a concrete lamp post, which caused a little dent in her father’s back bumper. I could see the lamp post, but just as I touched the brake and changed into the first gear there was a little bump.

  I felt terrible as everyone rushed over to see the damage; it was so embarrassing. A few minutes later, Wi and one of her sisters jumped into the Hilux so I could drive them to where the flowers shoul
d be. As I was still in shock and total embarrassment for denting Wi’s father’s pride and joy, I drove over a little puppy, which was sleeping in the middle of the road. I love dogs so much that it ruined the rest of my day. I felt two little bumps and a squeak and that was it, poor little puppy.

  It must have taken a full six hours to complete the flower arrangement. Strands of white wool completed it, and it was my job to carry it up the stairs of their house, which was built on tall wooden legs as part of the tradition. I nervously picked it up and was surprised to discover how heavy it was. I couldn’t see the steps in front of me as I slowly made my way to the first floor. Luckily, I made it without any incident. I believe the flower arrangement weighed around fifteen kilos by the time it was finished.

  The last job was for Wi. She had to arrange the three hundred thousand Thai baht wedding dowry in a pattern on the floor in front of the flower arrangement. She rearranged the money three times before she was satisfied. After that, she added the finishing touch: a necklace and bracelet made of pure Thai gold. The jewellery also became part of the ceremony, along with the rings.

  Everyone in the little village was welcome to visit the house to see the dowry arranged on the well-polished wooden floor, which I thought rather patronising for the poor rice workers. Sandals and flip-flops filled the entrance outside their house as guests went in to see my offering to join the family.

  With all preparations complete, it was time to change into traditional clothes, which was highly amusing. I had to wear a sarong, which was something new for me. It caused a lot of laughs when the garment ended up around my ankles in front of Wi’s mother and sisters.

  Making and hand-printing sarongs had been Wi’s mother’s profession, and her sarongs were well known in that part of the country. She still had many left from when she used to make them, and the patterns and colours were beautiful. To wear it, I had to pull the loop, which was all they were, tight against my waist and fold the spare material back against myself and then fold the whole sarong down over itself. Because my first attempt failed miserably, they decided to cheat and allow me to wear a belt underneath the fold of the sarong so it couldn’t be seen. I didn’t like its colour, but didn’t mention the fact so as not to disappoint them.