We walked up the hill and back down on the other side where we came in a beautiful valley, in the valley a small lake with a rock covered in gorgeous green, green and more green everywhere around. As we walked further down I noticed on the right in the bushes a little cabin. I had seen this once before. Now there was barking shortly a member of Kadhow's 'family'. Apparently there was someone home.
As we walked along, we saw the owner, standing there with a razorblade and was shaving himself, he stepped outside to see what was going on. Kadhow was on his 'practice' belt. "Aah, nice exercise," the man said in somewhat broken English and stuck his thumb in the air. I nodded at him and walked on with my dog. We walked about an hour through the valley and the hills.
On our way back we walked past the cabin again. There were two incredibly beautiful, spotless white, chickens under a size cover which was basically the roof of the 'shack'. On the floor, in the mud, a couple of old rice bags and on the bench in front of the cottage was the owners dog.
The owner, who later introduced himself as Khun Wang (Khun here means Mr. or Ms.), asked me to come and sit under his roof. My first reaction was to skip the invitation. However Kadhow was very interested (and actually deep down inside me too). So we decided to take the offer anyway.
We sat down on a bamboo bed / mat and I promptly was offered a Rosella iced tea in a broken white cup. More than friendly. Yet from a Western perspective you still you think for a moment whether this is responsible to drink. Immediately I pushed that thought out of my head. It's great nonsense. Kind of like bring your own syringe needles for safety as you might end up in a hospital. There's just nothing wrong with this country and we could learn something from the healthcare here. That is genuine care. People talk one another sick (and a lot of money is making by this). So I sat there with Khun Wang with the cold tea in a 'not so clean' cup.
Khun Wang did his best to make himself understood in English Hats off! Which also went not bad. It seemed like two 'people with disabilities' in English, one a little bit worse than the other, but who certainly understood each other at an emotional level. An amazing experience!
I looked at him slightly confused. He smiled at me with the teeth he still had in his mouth. In the gaps between his teeth, some white rice grains which he ate for breakfast, just before he came out of his small ‘back room/storage/ kitchen / bedroom '. He wanted to explain me his wealth.
"You sure must have a Thai wife," he asked me. I denied that. Well that was quite good, he said. Almost all foreign men came to Thailand for a Thai wife he thought. Usually old men who wanted to marry very young Thai woman. So I belonged, in his eyes to a minority and that, he thought was very good. Yet he told me that Thai women very often were beautiful and sweet. I had to pay attention to it in another life he told me with a grin.
Khun Wang had no wife and no children. That was a burden he would rather not have. He had several girlfriends and, as he said furthermore, those girlfriends had him. Freedom, happiness and no obligations. It was always fun with each other and if it was not any more than you saw each other again some other time and then it was fun again. There were more than enough children already in Thailand. He said he is lazy and that ‘care’ was, if you were goanna do it good, a pretty heavy challenge. He enjoyed his own wealth and the worldly offers surrounding him which he took advantage of only if he wanted too. With a smile on his face he wished me luck with the parenting and care of the children that I had under my ‘protection’.
Why my head was bald, he asked me. I told him that it started as a joke some 15 years ago. Nice story, he said. But you know, I think you're just lazy too. And again he laughed. Look he said, I have my own pond full of fish. Do you think I sit down and catch them? Sometimes I go to the market and buy a fish. I meet people, have some nice conversations and if they aren’t nice any more than I come back here. No hassle on my mind. Sometimes someone comes with me and if not then it is also quite O.K.. Other people do fish here sometime. I think that's all good too. Sometimes they pay me something, but to go and fish myself ... I prefer to enjoy the view.
So in my opinion you are also lazy and that is why you shave your head. You don’t have no further worries about how you would look. and you shave your. We are "Same, same but different" and there was that smirk again.
He went into his 'lounge' and came back with a sturdy bunch of 'Dragon Eyes' (Longan). Tropical fruits that are currently growing in abundance here. "From my own land and trees," he said. For you. Way too many. I ate some of them and wanted to give the rest back, I thought he needed them for his own consumption. He wouldn’t take them, "take them for your beautiful European wife," he said to me. So I took them home.
After about twenty minutes I got up to leave. He asked me again to come back and to have a chat again. Good for me to learn Thai and for him to master his English. The dogs were apparently getting along too. Now that I was 'friend' I was always free to walk around on his land anytime and always welcome in his ‘house’ to talk.
Sure that I do that. Who knows, maybe I’ll take some participants in one of our programs to come along. Khun Wang will let you experience how you can be very simply happy with 'nothing'. Do you really wish for more ...
Frans Captijn
Host / Catalyst / Talenteer at Captijn Insight
Captijn Insight: “Catalyst in your process to new sustainable flow. Whether you are an individual, couple, team or an organization.”
captijninsight@gmail.com
