Changes. The City. Joey.

The city had changed. The massive broken-tooth skyline, the gray pall that hung over the immediate horizon; how much deeper tonight than before? In the distance the long pale gray and yellow lines of the overhead roadways looked like spilled rice-noodle, the jets that slipped by overhead every 2 minutes sounded like the city falling down. Joey remembered Bangkok when he first saw the city in 1978. Even that late in the story the city was half the size it is now. 20 years ago it was still a relatively poor city. There was money here now. And there were people here searching for that money. Farangs (Westerners in Thai parlance). Big Farangs. The Corporations had arrived in Thailand.

Joey sat looking out over the smoky skyline from his 12^th floor balcony. It never stopped moving, it moved like a huge, slow prehistoric ridge-backed animal. Like an stegosaurus 25 miles long. It grew, it died, it grew, it moved and changed accent from this point to that point. More glass, less glass, this years architectural abortion or last years fright-in-glass-and-steel-and-concrete. You could get lost in the same bloody street one month after you’d been there because they’d probably already bulldozed the street and built an office block or condo.

It was bigger than New York, where he’d come from several years ago to pursue a "career" in Asia. He came after the dreams had started. He’d come once, the first time, passing through, in 1978. That was when The Bug got to him, some people just have to be over here, they get that urge. They don’t sleep well at night in their native cold climates; in their dreams they can feel the heat and smell the mildew in the air, feel the sun on their skins, see the gold of the "yort jeddhe" spires. In their dreams the charcoal braziers burn old teak wood and cook spicy, heavily scented foods and the sound of temple bells and chanting monks may be heard.

Some people get the new bug for Asia now: Money.

Joey was here before that particular bug was well known.

He reached for another Singha beer from the bar refrigerator, changing his mind at the last moment and grabbing a small bottle of Coke instead. The beer had been becoming a little too frequent of late. That was both easy and common here. The heat, you know? He flicked the top off the cold bottle with the end of his plastic cigarette lighter. The bottle-top flicked on the balcony railing, span and flipped out into space catching the glint of the very, very weird looking purple-blue-yellow-red setting sun. Looking to the west Joey could see the layers of smoke and gas and steam moving in their alien rhythms. He’d read the other day that this was now the worst air pollution in the world. Joey was almost proud of that fact, sometimes it was almost pretty he thought. So was the world’s worst traffic, it had a perverse beauty; as does all chaos thought Joey.

The sun was setting. In another hour this would look an awful lot like the opening scenes of the futuristic cityscape in the movie Blade Runner. Down on the street, the set and scenario of that movie had escaped into the real world. The crowds and steam and sweat. The modern high-tech mixing with the damp and dark old teak timber and the temples on almost every corner, the dried fish frying next to a stand selling CDs and electronic gadgets along side the old noodle stalls. 100 year old statues of The Lord Buddha under 140 foot high neon signs and groups of yellow-robed monks walking in single file down a small street as very modern silver and black cars pass by. The weirdness IS Bangkok.

A light knock came on the door to the apartment behind Joey. He got up and shambled across the room to the door. Peeping through the spyhole he could see the unmistakable cutoff leather vest with bikers colors that only Dave would wear in such a city. He could see Nung and Kringjai behind him in the hallway, behind the jacket displaying large lettering - "Hedonists - Bangkok Chapter". Between the words was a picture of Donald Duck lying unconscious next to a bottle of whisky.

The "Hedonists" was a very heavy motorcycle gang that rode around Bangkok and resided only in Dave’s imagination. Dave was crazy enough to ride a 1,100 CC chopper in Bangkok and wear "bikie" colors on his back. Enough simply to be riding a bike that big in Bangkok’s horrific traffic - he looked mean, looked the part. But Joey knew that Dave was as gentle as a lamb and a very kind guy. He took care of his friends, watched out for the people around him. He spent far too much of his income on other people, mainly his many Thai friends who were not so fortunate as to have well paid work. When Dave worked - he was very, very well paid. His friends would stand up for him anytime, anywhere. He got respect, he had respect.

He’d picked up work in S.E. Asia fixing mobile cellular telephone signal towers. The work moved around but Dave based himself in Bangkok. He missed his old biker gang back home in the 70’s, so he created the "Hedonists". The clubs roll-call still sat at one, Dave; but Joey was a bike-less honorary member. There were other members, imaginary members who rode imaginary Harleys along side Dave’s chopped Yamaha. People would hear him having conversations with them at the traffic lights, often in Thai.

Joey opened the door and Dave, Nung and Kringjai walked into the room uttering greetings. Nung was Dave’s wife, Kringjai his brother-in-law. Nung and Kringjai put their hands together in front of their faces, bowing slightly to Joey, saying "Sawasdee Khrup Poo Yai Bahn".. this was the required Thai greeting to a senior and the "Poo Yai Bahn", or boss of the house. But Kringjai and Nung had huge grins on their faces and had already started giggling before finishing the sentence. Calling him Poo Yai Bahn was done in humor as they know Joey as their equal.

But Joey was the boss here; his wife Julia had left him and what she called his "weird lifestyle" 2 years ago. They’d had no children. Joey had stayed alone this last 2 years, still trying to come to terms with why he could not hold down a relationship. He seemed unable to fall in love.

He liked a lot of girls, but he could not find that deeper feeling. Was it the weirdness? Had it started to get to him now too? His career had gone nowhere in that last 2 years, but he was still very, very content to sit there in Bangkok and wait to see what happened. He’d been waiting like that for 2 years. But he’d stayed active, still studied language regularly, kept social contacts and was still polite and well-groomed; Joey was hanging in there.

Nung was still giggling, quite loudly now. Nung giggled almost all the time with little prompting, not out of nervousness but simply because she found most things in her day to be amusing and funny. Just winking at her or pulling a face could put her backwards off a chair in a fit of laughter. Nung was not your average Thai person. A retro/throw-back/psuedo-hippie/26 years old covered in beads and tattoos and previously in the habit of hanging out with a certain Thai biker gang.

That’s where Dave had met Nung, at an outdoor party thrown by a local biker gang a year or so ago. Dave had taken a beating that night from several of the boys that Nung rode with after he had attempted to interfere with Nung and her then-boyfriend’s domestic fight. Interfering in any other persons fight is a very, very dangerous thing to do in Thailand. It is anywhere, but in Thailand you’d best be actually related to the people you are involving yourself with; otherwise let it be. Take that advice well.

Dave had taken a deep gash to his left side and was bleeding heavily. The sight of so much blood had induced panic at the party and all had fled - except Nung. She’d bundled Dave onto the back of his own bike and ridden it herself to the hospital with Dave strapped to her back with rubber pulldowns. Nung is exactly 5 feet tall. Nobody knew how she got the bike rolling with Dave semi-conscious on the back - her feet don’t reach the ground.

Joey went back out onto the balcony with the others trailing him there. Joey was not rich, but he cared for his living space in a way that you could feel, the balcony was comfortable and you could tell that Joey spent much time there. He’d lived in Bangkok for about 10 years now, working with a variety of NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations) in the region as translator or cultural advisor.

He had a nice contract at the moment, running for 6 months with the Lao embassy and several US Scientific bodies who were doing some research in Thailand and Lao. Joey spoke, read and wrote Thai, Lao, Burmese and Vietnamese, and of course, English fluently and spoke in several other languages passably. He’d joke that his only talent was that he could pick up a spoken language in a few weeks but that he’d never get anywhere because he wasn’t interested in the political tinkering and shenanigans required to advance yourself in the field of NGO work. But for now the money was good, 6 months contract, Bangkok based office hours.

Joey sat back down with his bottle of Coke, the others seating themselves in the cane chairs around the table, all looking to the horizon, the sky-line. The sun was right on the horizon now, behind the buildings in the distance. The lights were coming on all over. The red and purple glow made it look like one of the oil rigs out on the Gulf had gone up in flames. They heard loud bangs in the distance and there were a couple of dull flashes a few seconds later. Dave muttered "not another bloody coup is it?". Joey looked to the horizon and turned his ears this way and that. There was another bang and Joey said "naah, just the Chinese firing up crackers for some festival again". Dave often wondered how it came that Joey seemed to be able to easily tell the difference between fireworks and firearms in the distance. And when it was firearms you could hear, how come he’d say stuff like "that sounded like an old AK to me"? Sometimes Dave wondered if NGO work was always just offices and government-aid/assist stuff.

Kringjai had already taken three cans of beer out of the refrigerator and put them on the table in front of the others. Joey’s visitors were hot from the 3-up ride on the 1100. They all reached down, sat back popping their ringpulls and took a long pull on the cold beer. There was something magic about drinking cold, cold beer after riding a motorcycle in what is the worst possible traffic you could imagine. There was something magic in just coming from a walk on the soi and living to tell the tale some days, let alone drink a beer.

It wasn’t just that the laapchang driver on the corner might have a gun and a 5,000 baht contract on you. That would be the least of your worries. If the smoke and filthy air don’t get you, or you don’t get run over by a speed-freaked 10-wheeler truck driver or bus, or if you don’t just die of THE stress, or maybe food poisoning or Bangkok Belly, or Giardia. If none of that gets you first, it’d be possible you’d be around long enough for somebody to take a cheap drive-by shooting job out on you. Or around long enough to know how to avoid that sort of thing. It’s a big city, lots of canals, the rice-paddy is just out the back you know?

Joey was happy here, but he occasionally dreamed of finding a way, finding an excuse to move down to Koh Samui or some other island down south. Dave glanced over at Joey and said "hey, I bet your happy now you got that contract, eh?". Joey put his bottle down, "yeah, but how about you, how are you going with work these days?". Dave replied "Oh, I have a couple little jobs coming up down in Malaysia, putting up a couple of antennas for their cellular network, just really backing up their own guys. They’ll do all the real work, I just watch ‘em and check ‘em".

"How’d you go on that big Motorola contract you reckoned you might score?" asked Joey. Dave pulled a face and said "Oh wow man, that really sucks. Shit that was so fucking close". He paused and looked at the skyline mumbling something inaudible. "I’d have been setup for the next 10 years over here. Big salary, big penthouse on Sukhumvit, company car and driver, the friggin’ works mate!". Dave sat back and frowned with the top half of his face while he maintained a huge grin on the lower. He did that often, called "the look of irony".

"Just missed that one" said Dave. "Guess I’d never fit into a big corporate office anyway. You know, it was these damned packaged farang bastards again, same species have done you out of some of your work lately. God damn it! They shit me, the job went to some wanker a few years out of university with some bloody business degree or some such wank. He doesn’t even like it here, I’ve met him, he’s a total waste of space". "Wife and kids and shit, usual package?" asked Joey. "Yeah, you’d think at least these pigs would start getting more professional women over here working but that’s just part of the same problem. Bloody ‘jobs for the boys’ is what it is. Like some bloody big Boys Private Club is what it is!" said Dave with a sneer. Dave really didn’t like what he called "The Clueless Suits".

"Packaged farang" was what Dave, Joey and half of Thailand’s expat community called the westerners who arrive here on a lucrative corporate package deal complete with mobilisation/demobilisation expenses, full rental allowance, car and driver, maid and cook, expensive international school for the kids, extra cash to keep the spouse happy, increased salary and "away from home" allowances and bonuses.

The average packaged farang made a rental allowance slightly higher than the present "salary" that an NGO was paying Joey; the total package for the same job may be as much as 4 times what Joey was paid. These were the new "experts". Somebody, somewhere figured that if you pay more money you get better quality. As the billions and billions of dollars of aid money got sucked up by the parasitic corporations and suits, some people were just now starting to wonder - "who are these people we’ve allowed over here, and where IS all the money going anyway?".

Joey, Dave, Nung and Kringjai - and many of Thailand’s local and expat community - had been feeling this way and thinking this way for a few years now. They believed that somebody who is dedicated to the task as opposed to dedicated to the income generated from the task, is simply going to do a better job. Many Thais were now beginning to see this too, and so agree with such "weird" ideas about "less is more".

Dave had missed out recently on a lucrative contract with Motorola Corporation to maintain a customer service office in Bangkok. He had been on the short-short list. He used to be the only one on the list a few years ago. "Look" said Dave, "good technical, scientific and management staff were real hard to find in Asia until pretty recently. And there was not a lot of bloody money to be had by either governments or private mobs to attract them.". "There were some good people here already, ten years, twenty years ago" said Kringjai.

Dave looked over at his brother in law and said "man, we’ve been through this one how many times?". Kringjai grinned and Dave went on. "Those that were here 20 years ago, even 10 years ago were mainly here because they simply wanted to be in Asia. Something beyond just money attracted them. Nobody came here to bloody work who didn’t simply want to be HERE".

Dave put his can down and slapped the table top lightly with his hand. He looked at Joey and said "People had their fields of expertise, or lack thereof, and almost all were in Asia because they HAD to be in Asia. They were hooked into Asia, caught-up, addicts".

"Hey, you don’t have to convince me mate" replied Joey. "You know I’ve lost work to the corporate boys in suits too in the last few years. Even the NGOs are starting to hire up big through corporations. They used to go out and pull in a lot of sub-contractors on their own. Now they often go to some big corporation to "manage" the project with them. The NGO can get more money by simply associating with the big names." Joey paused but Dave saw that Joey had that "about-to-hang-a-rave" look on his face and waited. So did Nung and Kringjai, they could see it coming too.

He started to speak again. "The big money is getting involved in the whole development scene and now folk like you and me are getting overrun and superseded by these nice young men in their nice gray suits and ties. Good god above, how can those silly arse-wipes be stuffed with getting around fucking town in a fucking suit and tie sitting all fucking day in their goddamned, fuck-it-they-shit-me air-conditioned fucking cars and getting no work done anyway because they spend all day sitting in the fucking traffic and … and … oh shit! you got me started again you bastard!". Joey was smiling, but his eyes looked troubled.

If you wanted to wind up Joey, talking about "packaged Farangs" was sure to wind him right up, all the way up. Dave had struck Joey’s raw-nerve-end, his soft spot. He meant to. He was in that kind of mood today, and besides, he’d not been able to stop thinking about the "change" for weeks now. Happy but seriously wanting to have a good heated debate or argument or just a good old whinge and complain session. Dave had to do this to get it all out of his system less it fester in there and make him go nasty.

Joey went on… "There was not the money or the career openings to want to come here for those reasons alone 10 years ago. For a long time past now, if you wanted to earn good money and wanted to move ahead in your career you stayed where you were in the US, UK, Australia or wherever. You certainly did not throw it all in and jump ship to Singapore or Bangkok."

"Then came the economic revolution. The shift in emphasis, in power. The slight fall in Western economies and the more than slight rise in the Eastern. In under 10 years countries like Thailand had gone from a perceived backwater to a perceived economic power to be dealt with world-wide. But these new guys are turning up out here now with no idea at all. They come without any Thai language at all and then don’t try to learn it. They have no regard or interest in the local culture. They do not and cannot understand how closely the Thais wear their religion to their heart. They just miss the whole point here, and for that they will fail surely. In the end mate, they’ve got to bloody go.

These people don’t need that shit. Those big corps are all thieves and con-men. Look guys, I’ve seen them working, met them all. It’s all bullshit. It’s all fucking US and Australian and Japanese aid money and nobody gives a shit any more. It’s just rampant spending and no control. I’ve seen multi-millions of dollars literally thrown in the shit-can, no bullshit!"

Joey stopped and grabbed his coke, he looked agitated. "Sorry mate, didn’t mean to wind you up that much." said Dave. "That’s OK buddy, I was just thinking about all that shit this afternoon; and you know how it winds me up - don’t you?". "Mmmm, sure, sorry" said Dave.

Joey often referred to it as "The Wastage". He claimed that there was vast corruption amongst international corporations dealing in contracts based on international aid money. Bridges, Government Technical Assistance, big dams, billions of dollars of work involved. He said that the corruption started way up high and carried right down to the lowest levels - the "packaged Farangs". That was the level Joey saw every day. That was the level that Joey was learning not to like very much.

They were in his eyes inefficient, ineffectual, selfish and greedy. He’d seen it as low and petty as a fax machine being taken home permanently from an office by a farang "boss". Staff having minor pay cuts to cover the expense of the bosses gold-weekend. Vehicles commandeered every weekend for social outings. Office staff and equipment constantly being used to produce the bosses private work. Without concealment and without any fear of accountability for crimes. Without even perception of the actions being a crime.

Joey knew damned well these were indeed crimes. Theft, misappropriation, misinformation and tampering with account books. Huge business lunches at the best hotels every day, weekend resort rendezvous, junkets all over S.E. Asia. Even the simple theft of the fax machine that he’d once observed; such a machine would cost the equivalent of 6 months income for an up-country rice farmer and such was what irked Joey so.

Joey stopped talking. Dave looked over at him and sighed. Nung said "stay cool Joey, you cool man, they go away in the end, you see it happens, always happens". "Sure" said Kringjai, "just like the rest of our history, different farang come, stay and then go. Then they stay away some time. Then they come back again, different this time. Then they go. You read the books, you see then. This happens for all history before, why you worrying now for it eh?". "Oh shut-up Kring" said Dave. "Fuck you man" said Kringjai laughing, "you too" said Dave laughing back at him. They always pretended to hate each other and have arguments, but they loved each other dearly in reality. And Nung loved them both, she loved Joey too. These were good people, Nung knew that and she felt a lot safer these days in this company than not so long ago. Hanging with those bikers had nearly cost her her life a few times.

"Really man, we do need experts here you know" said Kringjai. "Yeah, I know that Kring, but what I am saying as you bloody well know, is that we used to get devoted expats here now we just get money-sucking parasites!" replied Dave. "Whatever they are, we need them now and will need them for a few more years. Then we will just get rid of them, like I told you before, like we’ve always done for hundreds, thousands of years. Nobody has beat us Thais yet, you know that". Kringjai was very, very proud of his country, as were almost all of his fellow country-men and women. Proud of the simple fact that Thailand had never been colonised, never been taken over in a war.

"Kring" said Dave, "we all know that these regions need development, need assistance. And I know that means bringing in expertise from overseas. It’s just that… oh hell, it the world really like this now? That it’s all got so complex we don’t really know what’s going on any more?, It just seem like the only thing anybody really cares about it money now."

Joey sat there. He was smiling slightly and Dave had started talking to Nung about some domestic issue or another. Kringjai looked over at Joey and wondered what was really inside his heart. He knew some stories about Joey being up on the border, near the rebel fighting. Some Thais he knew in the army had been up there fighting. They reckon some farang had come to teach them how to setup and use the dreadful white-phosphorous bombs. They’d said how they’d been amazed by this farang soldier. He’s spoken, read and wrote fluently in Thai AND Lao AND Burmese and they’d said that he’d picked up the local Karen dialect in a matter of a week or two. They described to Kringjai a farang - it had sounded an awful lot like Joey. He’d discussed this with Dave. Dave had said he’d wondered sometimes because Joey seemed to know stuff about guns and armies. But Joey said that just came from stuff he read in the course of his NGO translation work. But still, his friends wondered. You just don’t ask those sorts of questions of people down at "street level" over here. You just don’t ask.

Joey watched the lights of the cars on the overhead road systems in the distance. He was quite silent. The others were talking. His mind drifted off into the night as it did sometimes. The others ignored him now, they knew him well. He’d not talk or move again now for half an hour or so. It was weird, but he just drifted off sometimes. Inside his head, Joey sometimes longed for the days when almost everyone he met here was "out on the edge a bit". Those days were gone now.

He thought of the false and misleading ally that money had proven to be in his life and how it always seemed to be his own heart that was the constant and reliable ally, it never let him down. He thought of the old monk years ago explaining to him up in Burma that what he kept in his heart was for all time, the "things" of this world simply transient entertainment’s. Joey wished these "new" people would think like that. Joey continued to drift - thoughts of total anarchy floating through his mind. Was that to be the only way? the only real answer? Anarchy? Sometimes Joey almost felt certain that this would be, should be, the direction the world would eventually take. When all the "low" people got sick of the "high" peoples lies. Anarchy? Anarchy! Thought Joey.

Now there was money here. Lots and lots of money. Aid money. Come ‘n’ get it big boys! But steer clear of Joey, Dave, Nung, Kringjai and ALL of their friends, they’ll all just try to mess with your stuff, you know?