Memoir: A Thai
Newsroom
by Shane Stay
Thailand in
the early 2000s was certainly a time to remember
if not for the great weather, relatively stable
economic flow and the drunken German bureaucrat,
leaving a bad image for anyone named Fritz, who
passed out on Patpong Road, dropping all his
money for the taking. I was in television news at
the time, writing, reporting, taking frequent cat
naps. I was working on a story of a dyslexic
Cambodian that stole a Thai car and tried to
drive it to Phnom Penh in reverse, but wound up
just outside Istanbul. He was arrested for
speaking the wrong language; it’s an ongoing
story; he’s still there screaming at his
white rice and dancing the ritual Khmer classical
ballet whenever he uses the bathroom. The Turks
want to send him back to Cambodia but FedEx
insists they don’t put humans in packages.
As 2001 past,
we in Thailand came to a new crossroads as
Thaksin Shinawatra seized control of power; he
became the nation’s Prime Minister and the
newsroom’s annoying uncle. As he controlled
the country, and dined with the world elite, he
still found time to tell us what to do. We
immediately felt the burden of his leadership
when unknown surveyors began coming into the
newsroom, some of which forgot to wear underwear.
How might I know that? To be quite honest, they
told us. We weren’t used to this kind of
conversational small talk but we adapted the best
we could as we knew they’d be reporting
directly to Shinawatra; none of use knew his
taste on underwear, though I’d guess
he’s a boxer man, and we didn’t want to
offend him.
These
surveyors were everywhere, watching our every
move; they were literally on top of us every step
of our day and I know this for a fact because I
was typing at my desk and one of them dropped
part of their Gang Dang onto my shoulder. Imagine
that, hovering right over me as they ate lunch! I
always knew what Rungthip’s surveyor had to
eat because when Rungthip would bring a report to
my desk Pad Thai, Eggplant and white rice would
be in her hair! “How can I work like this?!”
I asked of my supervisor. He wanted no trouble
and advised me to keep pepper and soy sauce at my
desk.
Luckily, I had
some contacts with other journalists in the
international scene. But I soon discovered they
were as unhelpful as my superior. Paul, from
Reuters, told me to keep a pit bull under my desk.
Debbie, who was from CNN, and had a habit of
changing the subject, asked me to retrieve her
medical ivory powder from elephant tusks for her
sore knee and Ishtar, from Star TV in India,
asked me if I could get him some cheap beach
front property on the coast of Hua Hin.
And our salary!
I could have made more money retrieving coins
from a fountain.
So you can see
where my frustration, and the frustration of
others like me in the newsroom, was coming from.
On top of this, we heard speech after speech
about how Shinawatra came from nothing and made
sandwiches to get to the top. “I’d like
to make him a five-knuckle sandwich,” I said
to Rungthip.
“Oh, you
and you’re American humor!” she would
bray, as Gang Dang dripped from her hair to her
dress.
Since the
September 19th coup of 2006, and the ousting of
Shinawatra, things have gotten back to normal, a
little. A few of my old colleagues are back, the
weather seems better and for some reason there
are more drunken Germans laying around, dropping
change from their pockets. As for me, sure times
were difficult in the past but I am on my feet
again, waiting on word from the Grameen Bank
about my loan. Cross your fingers!
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