by Dr. Iain
Corness
One of the Captains at Shenanigans Pub is a petite
Thai, Salimporn Chulert, known as Sai. She is a small woman with a big
heart, who exemplifies some of the characteristics that has made Thailand
the country it is today. It is a tale of some sadness, some hardship, but
above all a tale of acceptance of one’s lot in life, and the work put in
to improve that lot. For the Sais of this world, there are no fairy
godmothers.
She was born in Kanchanaburi, the eldest child of
three. Her mother made ice cream and looked after the children, while her
father wheeled his ice cream cart around the streets, to eke out a living.
Unfortunately, he was not a well man and died when Sai was only five years
old.
Sai did go to the local school, but only until she was
12, when she left to work as a maid/nanny for a Thai family. She worked
there for three years, seeing her mother and her own brothers one day a
month, and giving her mother 50% of her salary, as miniscule as it was.
Sai was no overindulged teenager. Rather the reverse.
When she was 15 years old, her life took a new
direction. “I got an ID card. I can get more money.” So the still very
young girl went to work in a fruit canning factory as a tally clerk, where
she worked for the next three years.
There was also another change in her circumstances at
that time. The government had provided schooling opportunities for those
who had left school early, and she would go to school every Saturday and
Sunday. “It was like a High school, and I went there until I was 19
years old.”
The next momentous event in the weekend scholar, week
day tally clerk’s life was a young man from her own village who came to
work in the factory. They were workmates from similar backgrounds, leading
to the decision to get married. She stopped the weekend school and settled
into being a working wife, very shortly becoming a working mother, after
her daughter was born.
However, there were problems beginning to occur in the
marriage. When Sai was 24 she called it quits, and they went their
separate ways. “I felt happy that I could do my own life,” she said,
but there was much more to her decision than was known at the time. She
was pregnant, but kept the information to herself. “I was happy that I
was going to have my son, but two babies were too much babies!”
She moved to Nakhon Pathom where she worked in a gift
shop until her son was born, and then went to Bangkok looking for similar
work. This was not easy, but worse times were to follow. Her younger
brother, to whom she was very attached, had an accident and was
hospitalised - paralysed. Sai returned to Kanchanaburi, where she stayed
at the hospital for six agonizing months to look after her brother, all
the while hoping that he would recover. He did not.
The responsibility of all this fell to the eldest
daughter, in the usual Thai fashion, and after her brother was discharged
she arranged for him to be nursed at home, while also looking after her
mother and her own two children. This was not a high point in her life.
“It was the worst time. I had to take care of everything.”
Looking for a better job that might pay a little more,
some friends from Supanburi had contacts in Jomtien and she came to the
Eastern Seaboard to work as a cook’s assistant in Jomtien. It did not
take Sai very long to realise that her inability to speak English was a
drawback. “If I can get English, I can get a better job. Very important
in Pattaya.” So with the little of her monthly salary that was left,
after she sent money home to look after her mother, her children and her
brother, she bought an English text book. “I tried to learn English
every day, every day!”
Her self-taught English improved to the point where she
was able to look for a job as a waitress in the tourist belt, and her
chance came up with a position at Shenanigans. She seized it with both
hands, and became one of the hardest working girls there. She was no
stranger to hard work and considers that this was a turning point in her
life. “The best time in my life was the first day I started working at
Shenanigans,” she said with feeling.
Twelve months ago she was promoted to be a Captain, and
every customer in the bar knows the small powerhouse dressed in the black
shirt uniform who seems to be in every area of the bar at the same time.
Sai doesn’t walk, she scuttles and bustles!
Of course the everyday problems of raising her children
and looking after her mother and brother are still there, but the
financial stability of her employment and her innate frugal nature means
that everyone who depends upon her is receiving benefits. She has even
saved enough money to start a small asparagus farm in Kanchanaburi, which
will not make a fortune, but will help family coffers.
She still learns English from her book, “And
sometimes I ask Beautiful (the other Captain) if I don’t know the
word.” She is a committed Buddhist and does her ‘Tam Boon’
regularly, and obviously accepts the tenet that ‘all of life is
suffering’ but it should be endured for future good.
She insisted that I include her thanks to two people
who have helped change her life. “First I thank Kim (Fletcher,
Shenanigans Landlord) for giving me the job here, and second I thank Bill
Hurd, who helped me to get this job.”
Sai, we all hope that your life will get better every
day from now on. You deserve it.
