#15: Where the Wild Things Are

Week 15, Thailand

ON A SIGN: for a particularly classy-looking massage parlour downtown, with the particularly classy-sounding name of 'Teen Smile Massage', there is a large list of prices. The regular at the top - Thai massage 350 baht; foot massage 200 baht; oil massage 350 baht. Then as you work your way down, things get interesting - oil massage with testicle massage 600 baht; foot and testicle massage 500 baht, sexy testicle massage 800 baht, happy sexy testicle massage 1000 baht. Maybe it's me: while imagining a 'testicle massage' all I can picture is a brutish Swedish woman named Helga manhandling my scrotum with iron fingers, and it's not a particularly pleasant image (in fact, it tends to make me sort of dizzy and nauseous and I usually need to sit down afterward). But different strokes for different folks, I guess.

So: it turns out that the reason I have had more trouble than Edie in getting a job over here is the Filipino Factor. Edie got a call from her boss Shane last week, who's also trying to locate a job for me:

HIM: So I'm trying to get your boyfriend a job at a school.
HER: Cool.

HIM: But, um...

HER: ...

HIM: ...Um, where's he from?

HER: Australia.

HIM: Oh, great, Australia.

HER: ...

HIM: ...

HER: ...Was there anything else you wanted?

HIM: No. Yes. Um.

HER: ...

HIM: ...

HER: What?

HIM: ... Um... What race is he?

HER: He's white.

HIM: Oh. Cool. That was all they wanted to know.

In a nutshell: my resume says that I worked for a couple of months in the Philippines, so all the employers immediately assume that I am, therefore, Filipino. They then assume that because I am Filipino, I am not white, and am thus only suitable for cleaning jobs. What a fucking circus. There are plenty of ads for teaching jobs which say, clear as day: NO FILIPINOS. IF YOU ARE FILIPINO YOUR APPLICATION WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED. It's pretty gross.

So I inserted a photo of myself into my resume and, of course, got offers for interviews immediately. I went to a job interview across town for a Catholic girls school and was interviewed, coincidentally, by a Filipino nun. She was tiny, no higher than my hip, a little hobgoblin who, when I told her that the school was probably too far to travel to each day, said, 'Maybe you should get your own apartment, then, over this way. Away from your girlfriend. Ever heard of abstinence?'.

And that, as they say, was that.

The job-hunting thing is a fairly depressing affair, generally, as job-hunting often is, but it was alleviated a bit last week when Edie and Aaron and I decided to hoof it into the jungles of Thailand a few hours north of Bangkok. Utterly magnificent: vines and butterflies everywhere, the long siren-like hoots and hollers of the gibbons in the jungle, massive waterfalls plunging into cold water - we swam at the waterfall that they used in the film, The Beach, which might mean something more to me if I had actually watched that film at some point. But I have now swum in the same water that Leonardo diCaprio once swam in. That's gotta count for something.

And we decided to go off on a jungle trek, unguided, for a few hours. That sounds hardcore but every time there was a rustling in the bushes near us, Edie would shout 'SNAKE!', Aaron would shout 'TIGER!', and I would shout 'AAARGH!' (people screaming scary animal names terrifies the shit out of me) and we would all pelt off at different directions into the jungle, and then have to find each other again. It's actually surprisingly nerve-wracking walking through a jungle in which there are known to be tigers and leopards and wild elephants and the like; even though they're extremely rare and avoid humans and all, and you know that you have a better chance of stumbling across an undiscovered civilisation of small blue men than a man-eating tiger, you can't help but silently plan out which way you're going to run when the roar finally comes and some massive bundle of orange and black and teeth is bounding toward you. My eventual plan was elegantly simple: hide behind Aaron. It's not often that I have the luxury of having someone taller than me to use as a human shield, and I planned to exploit that circumstance as far as possible.

But the walk was pleasant, the air was cool and there were monkeys swinging through the trees every so often. No shit: those are clumsy animals. They can climb better than I could, sure, but they make a hell of a lot of noise when they do it. A couple of monkeys swinging through the trees makes about the same level of banging and rustling as a charging bull elephant. Some lemur-looking thing crossed our path, too, scooting up a tree when we approached; there were deer with beautiful dark patterns across their throats wandering up the paths; a freshwater siamese crocodile paddled lazily down a stream. Too bad that not a single one of us had a camera, since Aaron's and Edie's were broken and I'd forgotten to charge mine. But now it feels like a secret: the day was fantastic and the three of us will be the only ones who knew what it looked like.

And the people we met there were so lovely; no public transport in the jungle so we had to hitch rides in the backs of utes going back and forth. Everyone would offer us a lift, go out of their way to take us where we wanted to go. It was superb. It was surreal waking up to the smog and grime of the city after being in such a pristine place but all things must pass, as George Harrison said (except I think he swiped that from the bible? Maybe?). And anyway we're heading off again, this evening, it being yet another long weekend (the Thais have something like fourteen public holidays per year). Back off to Cambodia to sail down the river and live out my Martin-Sheen-Apocalypse-Now fantasies. Be warned, extremely-obese-Marlon Brando! I'm on my way, and my axe is sharp!

Lachie