Bangkok, Thailand – February 12, 2000
I was at Chatuchak Weekend Market when I realized that I had a desperate need to own a Pikachu.
The handsome, rotund, yellow Pokemon beast smiled at me from every table. I had been admiring him since last July, when I saw a comic artist buy one for his three-year-old at a comic convention. And now that I saw Pikachu everywhere in Bangkok, he looked like an old friend. I thought that perhaps I would prefer Pikachu’s company to that of the invisible boyfriend that I had invented in Indonesia, for the benefit of the couple-oriented group that I was in.
Sadly, Pikachu was much too large for me to go carting around Southeast Asia. I had to bypass my true love and settle for a small plastic keychain Pikachu, who now decorates my daypack. I wasn’t too sure what I would do with a larger Pikachu anyway, when I got home. I’m not in the habit of keeping cute stuffed things around the house.
I had taken the #3 bus from Khao San Road to the Market. It took ages and of course the bus wasn’t air-conditioned. A beggar got on the bus and all the Thai passengers stiffened and looked away – some things are universal.
The ticket-taker hadn’t even asked where I was going – she knew my fare should end with the Market. It was obvious. I was “farang,” and like all the other foreigners, I could only be going to one place on the #3 line.
According to my guidebook, “farang” is a Thai-language-bastardization of “Francais.” Clearly, the guidebook knows more than I do about Thailand but I personally believe that “farang” sounds a lot more like “foreign” than “Francais.”
I got to the market at around 9:30am and had a good long look around before the crowds arrived. It was chaotic and large – more of the same stuff that I could buy on that runway of backpacker’s fashions, Khao San Road, as well as all kinds of wooden chopsticks and textiles.
By noon, the backpackers and farang started to show up. The Thai customers were also out in force and I could barely move in the heat so I got on the air-conditioned Skytrain and headed back downtown, where I spent the afternoon trying to find souvenirs but ultimately buying nothing but Pikachu. Peek-at-you. Peek-at-chyou. I get it. Sorry, took me a while.
The Khlong water taxi brought me back to backpacker-land. I never thought that all those piercings would be a welcome sight, but in Thailand, they are as familiar to me as McDonald’s.
