Wan di, wan mai di (part 13)
On a good day I'm quietly zapping on my computer in the condo. Suddenly my wife enters: 'Come to grandmother's office because there is a foreigner, a farang, who wants to rent a condo for a few months. He says he's from Germany and you speak German, don't you?'
Yes, yes, but what do I have to do with it? She looks at me urgently. Okay okay. I'm going. I can see him from some distance. A tall (almost six feet) German, wearing a black hat (the feather is missing), in his late forties, dressed like a backpacker and on the floor a large backpack, a small suitcase with all kinds of things to take pictures and a leptop bag.
Hi, I'm Rainer, he says. My name is Chris, I tell him. A basic conversation develops to explore each other. Dogs would call that sniffing each other.
Two failed marriages
Rainer is from the Frankfurt area, is 48 years old, has had two failed marriages, is now single, has a 17-year-old daughter who lives with his last ex (a Colombian beauty, who has four children from four different men) lives in Germany. His mother is suffering from dementia and is being cared for by his older sister.
He has traveled quite a bit around the world (especially to poor countries where the economic prospects are not bright and the women are therefore eagerly looking for a foreign man to avoid the misery in their own country) and has absolutely no intention of going again to marry. He now has a girlfriend from the Philippines 20 years his junior (who hopes Rainer will marry her) who currently works in Dubai as a maid/housekeeper for a wealthy family.
He also knows a number of Germans who live and work in Thailand. One of them is married to a Thai woman and has a restaurant in Hua Hin that mainly serves German dishes (Rotkohl, Schweinebraten, Knödel). He comes there every now and then when he has had enough of Thai food.
Rainer lives by the day
In all the four months that Rainer spent in Bangkok (with a short holiday break to the Philippines around New Years, to tell his girlfriend that marriage is out of the question, and a visa weekend run to Cambodia) I have not been able to get an exact impression how he finances his life.
He left at the end of April with the promise that he will certainly be back in October. He put some of his things in a suitcase and it is now in my condo. So he is sure of himself. His story is that he buys silver and jewelry in Thailand (mostly on the cheap markets, in small shops, especially in Khao San Road), which he then sends to a (Turkish) friend in Germany (this friend is his new husband). Colombian ex).
That friend then sells the products directly to the consumer in Germany (also online) and the profit is split 50-50. Hardly any hassle with income tax, VAT and the like. Apparently this way of working brings in enough euros to spend about six to seven months in Thailand and the remaining five to six in Germany. I haven't heard him about the future (dreams, money, retirement). Rainer lives by the day, almost like a real Thai. Who then lives, who then takes care of you.
An old backpacker?
I can be brief about his spending pattern in Thailand. I just don't know but from what I see (shabbily dressed, always a baseball sleeveless shirt, army print half-length shorts, flip-flops, little use of deodorant so my wife doesn't want him in the condo, but quite a amount of Leo beer so that he could always skip breakfast) he spent very little.
After the first meeting, we helped Rainer with anything and everything. For example, my wife arranged for him a blanket on his bed in the rented bare condo with his grandmother, as well as a TV.
She took him to the phone shop in the Central when he had problems with the SIM card and his cell phone. We gave him our password on the internet so that he - sitting outside - had free wifi with his tablet. I gave him a ride to Petchaburi when he wanted to go to Hua Hin for the weekend (to eat some good German food and take a picture with a bunch of monkeys) and we used to take him to a relatively cheap restaurant in the neighborhood where they have western dishes such as steaks and hamburgers on the menu.
He really appreciated the latter, because every now and then he got tired of Thai food and longed for fries or mashed potatoes. It wasn't that far from the condo so he could find his way after the first time.
On April 30, Rainer flew back to Frankfurt via Cairo (the cheapest one-way ticket he could get). But he's coming back. I know that for sure.
Chris de Boer
The condominium building Chris lives in is run by an elderly woman. He calls her grandmother, because she is both in status and in age. Grandmother has two daughters (Doaw and Mong) of whom Mong is the owner of the building on paper.
Another movie played in my head while reading this story. Seems like a globetrotter for whom permanent living in his own country is too expensive. Hence his travels to the cheaper countries. Doesn't seem to have a permanent job (and no interest in it either) and thus tries to enjoy life in his own way.
Apparently he's had enough problems with women. Would it have been the same on a professional level? What would his occupation have been?
Well written.
as you describe this gentleman we also have some here in chiang mai.
indeed for many farangs life in the homeland has become a life of poverty,
but many Thais mistakenly think: farang hep money yeu yeu.
a thai with a secondary vocational education and a job certainly does not live poorer than his european counterpart
As we are used to from Chris, beautifully and realistically written.
I also know of a few cases that have been floating around on Koh Samui. How they pay for their lives is a question mark, but the least of my problem because I usually walked wide around them.
His jewelery story rattles on all sides as it has little chance of getting through the checks every time they are sent.
If the 3-year visa in Cambodia becomes a fact, these gentlemen can all go there. I don't think Thailand will regret that.
Another wonderful story.
Why will this man have problems. He lives his own life and does not need money from anyone else.
Well. He's back again and fell for the wrong Thai woman again. His relationships are short-lived because he categorically refuses to pay or support a woman. Sometimes I feel sorry for him. But he doesn't want to listen to my advice either.