Essay by Marc Schiffman
Mai Ben Rai in a Very Noisy City
I’m sitting on a plastic stool at an outdoor food stall on Sukhumvit Road, eating cal-man-gai, a Thai dish made of chicken slices, savory rice, and a clear broth. A row of makeshift tables and chairs line the roadway this noon and every noon.
Employees from nearby office buildings occupy most of the tables. The conversations, all in Thai, are loud but not boisterous, just loud enough to rise above the din from the elevated Skytrain; the thrum of orange-vested motorbike drivers shuttling passengers down sidestreets; the roar of an occasional tuc-tuc, a three-wheeled caboose with a raucous two-stroke piston engine.
Of course there is the bumper-to-bumper traffic, just feet away.
Tomorrow I move to a new apartment, my eleventh, because in the empty lot across the street they’ve started pile driving, which continues 16 hours a day. A gigantic machine pounds steel poles into the earth in order to create a solid foundation for the upcoming structure.
This kind of project will last many months, if not a year or two, and no sort of comfort (alcohol or sex) or device (weak-assed ear plugs) can squash the daylong racket.
Sooner or later, you learn: It is simply best to pack up your belongings and move on. And that’s the truth. Save your sanity, I say, although often I wish I had the Thai’s attitude toward noise: Mai ben rai. Whatever, it will pass.
• • •
Over the past eight years in Bangkok, I have moved ten times. For my first two years, I battled street noise, construction, and sleeplessness. In bed, I experienced lulls not as moments of relaxation but with deep-seated anxiety, anticipating the next assault.
Unable to write, alone in my apartment’s lift, I’d kick the elevator door in retaliation for the interior hammering happening one floor below. I’d confront the front desk staff, yet the construction deadline would be continually pushed back despite what they told me. It’s the Thai attitude: Never say I don’t know. So a date is created to save face for all parties.
I slept five hours a night at most. My own writing deadlines fell farther behind.
Eventually, I fell ill with fever and headaches. At the hospital, I had to be given intravenous fluids for three hours. By the time I was hooked up to an IV, I knew I had to make a change. Like Lazarus, I woke to a fresh resolution, the importance of self-preservation.
• • •
I have an article due, but I can’t work at this outdoor table on Sukhumvit in the hundred-degree heat. I pay my bill and go to a nearby restaurant instead—where a two-year-old is walking around in her super-squeaky, super high-pitched sneakers. I leave.
An hour later, I’m in The Huntsman, a basement restaurant that’s usually deserted this time of day. The television volume is muted, the chair and table are solid, the staff friendly. But a downtown law firm has rented half the restaurant for an office party this afternoon. Even as I try to concentrate through the patter around the buffet, dropped dishes, an inquisition about the overcooked roast beef, I know writing here is a lost cause.I move on to Chu’s Coffee, where they show silent movies on the TV screen: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd. There’s music from overhead speakers; coffee machines grind in the background. Nonetheless, the Internet is free, and most of the other patrons are lost behind computers or reading newspapers on one of the wicker couches.
I order a coffee and a slice of carrot cake. I work well for hours.
• • •
At 9 p.m., I take a taxi to Bang Khae to watch the illegal car races. I meet my Thai friend Apple. In her bones, she loves speed and is one of the few women I know who has raced. She is slight, barely five feet tall and a hundred pounds.
It’s a short course with a dangerous U-turn about a half-kilometer ahead. Apple nods at the blue-and-red-striped BMW turbo and opens her palm to show me the 500 baht note. I take the bet. The opponent is a yellow Camry whose rear end is jacked up, exhaust muffler off, the driver a heavyset teen.
“Let’s double it, darling,” I say.
Apple laughs. “You’re a dangerous man.” She nods at the BMW and Camry waiting to do battle.
Standing between the two cars, a teenage girl drops her hands, tires squeal, and the engine thunder rolls in all directions. Lights in apartment buildings snap on. Windows are opened, and people gaze down at the street.
The BMW turbo takes the U-turn without a hiccup. The Camry skids but stays on course in the back stretch, as the BMW crosses the finish line. Pretty soon, everyone disappears.
Suddenly, the eeriness of the deserted street bothers me. I feel light-headed, disturbed by the silence. I’m ready to clear out when Apple taps my shoulder. I hand her 1,000 baht.
She smiles and says in Thai, “See you next time, sweet mouth.”
“Let’s go for a drink. It’s still early.”
“Okay. I know a place not far. Good music and food.” Apple tucks the money into her jeans. “I’m buying.”
“I’m easy,” I say.
“Don’t I know it.”
• • •
Hours later, inside my apartment, I weave among boxes, suitcases, and a military duffle bag. Tonight I will sleep on the stripped-down mattress with the fan on high.
I walk out onto the eighth-floor balcony. In the construction lot, the pile-driving machines are silent. Corrugated sheet metal shacks have been built in the lot to house Burmese and Khmer workers, cheap labor, who work from dawn to dusk and longer, seven days a week, for pittance wages.
Off to my left, the karaoke club, lit nightly by colorful bulbs, has opened its doors so that music flows into the neighborhood. The bass is hard, driving the sound, so that even shut windows cannot muffle the beat.
I feel calm. I’ve begun to comprehend how to move within the city’s rhythm. The noise is, in truth, an aria of life and hustle, and when you learn how to navigate among the notes, skipping between them, riding them like a surf board, ducking down below their rising crescendo, Bangkok becomes a being of grace, luminous in her song.
A man stumbles outside from the karaoke club, microphone in hand. Two other men follow behind, attempting to drag their friend inside, but he pulls away. He looks up at the starless sky and sings into the microphone.
Art Information
- “Tuk Tuk Parked Out by the Market” and “Big Market on the Street” © Eric Molina; Creative Commons license
- “Bangkok Night” © LuxTonnerre; Creative Commons license
Marc Schiffman has published short stories in the Xavier Review, Literary Review, Greensboro Review, Sycamore Review, and other literary journals and reviews. He has lived in Japan and South Korea and is currently living in Thailand.
When asked if he would change anything about himself, he replies, “I’d give more and take less,” and, instead of being a writer, he would be a “pilgrim/traveler/itinerant golfer.”
