“Here, you let me play..” he said as he grabbed the neck and tugged gently.
I pulled the guitar back towards me and tried to remain calm as a rage started to burn in my chest.
“Hey man, what the hell do you think you’re doing? I’m playing a song and you try to grab MY guitar from me in the middle. That’s just rude man. It’s really fucking rude, do you have any idea? Huh?”
The Thai guy was nonplussed. “Here let me play, I play now, give.” His thin hands reached again for the guitar.
“No way, if you want to play, you wait until I’m done and then you ask, not just grabbing and demanding,” I looked in the man’s eyes, “Otherwise you’re a rude fucking man, just a rude man, you understand?” My temper was starting to slip out of control.
The Thai man’s eyes narrowed and he said again “Give me, I play.”
I felt a confrontation coming on, a scared voice in me told me to just give the guy the guitar, I ignored it and stayed on the dangerous ground my self righteous anger demanded.
“No, you’re a rude fucking man. Why should I give you my guitar? It’s mine and I’m playing a song, or I was until you tried to grab it. That’s just fucking rude man.” My voice was starting to show a little of the anger I felt.
The Thai man saw it and recognized the word fuck. He may not of understood the whole content of my sentence, but he understood the meaning. His own sense of’face’ in danger now, he stood up.
“You..me…Thai box now.” He made a kick towards my head pulling it back before it was in a real threatening position. There are three facets of Thai life that define it. First is a sense of fun, second is maintaining face, and third is respecting the position of those above you. This situation had quickly escalated to a contest to see who would lose face.
“You, kickbox with me, now, come on.”
I started to play my guitar again. “No, I don’t want to kickbox. I want to play my guitar. Don’t you get that?” I felt a little fear in my gut but refused to acknowledge it. I’d heard plenty of stories about foreigners who were stupid enough to get in fights with Thai people. As soon as a single blow was exchanged every Thai within seeing distance jumped into the fray, usually killing the stupid tourist. You don’t fight with the Thai’s, not if you have any kind of a brain.
I was in a bit of a tough spot. I refused to lose face myself. I saw the attention of the fifteen or twenty Thai’s around the bus station shifting towards the bench I sat on.
“I’m not going to fight you. I’m going to play my guitar.” It was the only way I could see out, I didn’t know how to resolve anything without one of us losing face which could inspire an attack on me. The Thai’s look down on public displays of anger and I hoped the guitar and the music my plucking fingers were again producing would keep the attack from happening.
“Yeah, okay,” yellow shirt said, ”We see what happen, hey, you watch out.”
He walked away and joined a group of seven or eight of his friends and stood in a circle with them. Speaking and gesturing towards the bench, the group walked away. Every once in a while one of the guys would turn their heads to look at me. I tried to give them a carefree sort of grin unless it was yellow shirt, in which case we would glare at each other for a moment.
‘These guys are gonna jump me and take the guitar’ I thought,’ I’ll either get beat up or killed in the next 45 minutes.’ I considered whether to get up and leave or to let the tourist police around the corner know about the guy. Both alternatives involved losing face myself and I’d already been stupid enough to allow myself to get angry and show it.
Instead I sat on the bench playing the guitar and waiting for the attack I felt was imminent. It was a nervous game. My guitar playing went on automatic and my concentration went to tracking the movements of the gang of young men using my peripheral vision. After 20 minutes or so, yellow shirt, moved within range of the bench, the two of us continued to exchange hostile glances. He moved closer. I set the guitar down, adrenaline pumping through me. Here it comes.
Yellow shirt stepped within a foot of me. Both of us had our faces set in resolve and our eyes locked on one another’s.
“Can I play guitar now?” The intensity was still there, my first reaction was to say “fuck no!” but I remembered my own words. “… if you want to play, you wait until I’m done and then you ask.”
Feeling trepidation I said, “Sure, here you go. You okay?” Surprise was quickly replaced with mistrust on yellow shirts face.
“Yeah, me okay…okay you?” He took the guitar and sat down next to me on the bench.
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
Yellow shirt sat down and began to play. His hands were much more nimble than my own. He played a sort of classic rock meets flamenco and started to sing a song. His voice wasn’t terrific, but he carried a tune better than most Americans. The song he was singing was a Thai song, which coincidentally I had been taught the week before when I was camping on the island of Ko Lipe. I actually knew the words, it was a song about a traveler who finds himself far from home and misses the people who love him. It was a song about hope and never giving up. It was a sad and beautiful song.
I began to sing counterpoint to Yellowshirt on the chorus. “O hi no hi, chang tom te hi, nam the lo de lai…long lim”
Yellow shirts eyes flickered with surprise. He smiled as he played the rest of the song, our voices finally complementing each other as we found the correct range to sing in. A small crowd had gathered around and listened as we finished the song together.
“…Yang mei liang lao, e mach mai, hai… kun ha.”
A smattering of applause filled the open-air bus station. Yellow shirt turned to me.
“How you know Thai song?” the hostility was gone.
“I like Thai people and Thai music,” I told him, “My name is Chris.” I held out my hand.
Yellow shirt took my hand firmly.” My name is Pi… very nice meet you… Creeese.”
For the next half hour Pi and I serenaded the two girls working inside the ticket window. The other men around laughed as Pi made suggestive comments to the girls and the entire atmosphere of the place was light. Suddenly though, Pi, got serious “Creese, when you leave?” “Four” I suddenly realized what time it must be.
“Come….” Pi took off running with the guitar, I followed after grabbing my pack. On the backside of the station a double decker bus was pulling out. I hadn’t even known there was a secondary station; you couldn’t see it from the bench. I looked at the clock, ten minutes to four. The bus was leaving early.
Pi jumped in front of the bus, waving the guitar. The bus stopped and the driver came down, checked my ticket and loaded my pack in the lower compartments. Pi handed me the guitar and walked me to the door.
I climbed up the steps and looked back to see a half dozen Thai people waving at me. I waved and called goodbye out the still open door.
“Goodbye Creese,” Pi called out to me “Nice meet you.”
Dagooze and The Bataks
The ship landed about 30 miles from Medan.I was a bit worried about coming to Indonesia in the midst of economic and political turmoil. Malaysians, Europeans, and even the American Embassy in Chengdu, China had warned me against coming here. I’d read up on the problems in Aceh to the North and Java, Sulawesi, and Ambon in the South. I had heard about the graft, greed, and corruption that were rampant throughout the country. I expected to run into problems with customs just like the Canadian I met in Thailand told me he had.