Land of Rhapsody: Chronicles of a CEN survivor

By Peter Moylan

Peter Moylan of lower-middle-class stock, was English, Catholic, a suburbanite, an ex-altar-boy and had been deprived of love as a child. He'd wandered through early life, lost and bewildered until in his forties, a climax of mammoth proportion led to his imprisonment. A chance meeting with a masseuse/prostitute years later on a sub-tropical island in Southeast Asia initiated a two-week liaison of warm, intimate and passionate, objective love that finally and ironically cured him of his suffering.

Inspired by real events, Moylan has created a novel and a female character of mixed race, Pene', to help convey the topsy-turvy journey to his 'place in the sun'. Land of Rhapsody tells the story of a love and trust between father and step-daughter in sharp contrast to the 'locked-out' existence of the author's own childhood and the 'love for sale' offered extensively on the island.

Narrated by Pene', life on the island is seen through the eyes of various characters including the permanent and temporary inhabitants of the home cum guesthouse Peter. his partner, Fiona and Pene', his step-daughter occupy there.

Described by many ex-pats as the most uncompromising, candid and accurate book set in Thailand to appear in recent times, Land of Rhapsody gets to grips in no uncertain terms with Childhood Emotional Neglect and Identity as well as making sense of the much misunderstood, fascinating and deeply rooted differences between cultures of European origin and a wonderfully unique state in Southeast Asia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Moylan
• Release date: May 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224227365

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

I think it must have been the first decision my dad made or maybe the second if you count choosing Edmund after the mountaineer, Edmund Hillary, who in 1953 with Tenzing Norgay conquered Mount Everest, as his ‘confirmation’ name that showed outwardly who he was, not a boy next door but interested more in freedom than in being accepted. He was someone who fitted acceptance into his freedom, not someone who fitted his freedom into acceptance. A boy next door might have even thought it brave of Dad and wouldn’t have made it himself, thinking he’d have too much to lose. In any case a boy next door probably wouldn’t have been asked to make it.

The boy of eleven on the steam-train was my dad, and the year was 1959. He was leaving home; his trunk having been sent on before him. A mixture of contemplation and trepidation occupied his mind – he was wondering what awaited him at St. Augustine’s and would it be like the fictional Linbury Court of Jennings fame and reminding himself not to stick his head out of the window. His mother, Stella, had been a theatre sister and worked with a prominent surgeon, Hamilton Bailey, whose son had been decapitated by sticking his head out of a train window on his way back from the school where he boarded.

The alternative after failing his eleven-plus exam had been St. Egbert’s College in Chingford (demolished in 1974) not far from Wanstead in east London where Dad, his parents and his brother lived, close to the border with Essex. Many of his friends were bound for St. Egberts; both schools were private, fee-paying and run by Catholic, clerical orders but St. Egberts was the more established by far and Dad would not have boarded. Having listened to episodes of a series on the BBC’s Home Service, Children’s Hour radio broadcast called Jennings adapted from the book series by Anthony Buckeridge, one including a pillow fight, Dad chose to board at St. Augustine’s.

Today, over fifty years on from Dad’s first school-bound, steam-train journey, we live together, the three of us, myself, Pené, my mum, Fiona and my dad, Peter on this island nation called Sayamtia in Southeast Asia where I was born. Our house is of traditional style, a largely wooden structure on stilts with a sizeable, high open area at ground level. A pair of large, gold painted, concrete, mythical birds resembling chickens, known as hongs grace the forecourt and a massive bamboo plant (Dendrocalamus giganteus) dominates the plot of land to the rear which my parents bought shortly after buying the house. My real dad was Sayamtian, his name was Jai and he died in a motorbike accident when I was four; I have only a vague memory of him but my dad, Peter, knew him. Jai worked as a tutor, teaching Electrical Engineering at a college in Tayapat, a coastal resort town across the Bay of Sayamtia, east of our town, laid-back, Ha-cham.

I attend an International school which is fee-paying and generally considered the best school in our area; I’ve always been a keen student and get a lot of help from my parents. Mum’s subject, her degree, was in sociology and Dad, although only studying to GCE ‘O’ level standard at school in England, is a good teacher and communicator. I speak Sayamtian and English as does my mum but Dad has very little Sayamtian although enough to aid his teaching programmes sufficiently. Mum and Dad both work as English Language teachers but Mum is only part-time now that we have the guest-house. Dad works at a junior school where he provides pupils with a grounding in English Language and Mum takes smaller classes of last year (6th Form) students at a secondary school.

Our guest-house enterprise was brought about in response to the drastic strengthening of the Sayamtian thabo against other currencies including the UK pound. Dad says that changed everything; there were places, he said, hang-out style beer bars, you could go to and meet all kinds of other Watams. As well as some who’d been here for a long time, there were some who came and went, some just passing through; some were flush and others hanging on by the skin of their teeth but generally all spoke freely and as a result conversations were often interesting and sometimes instructive. Those hang-outs are now closed, the few Watams that remain in Ha-cham from the early days and those that have since arrived, mostly live here and as Dad sees it, play the inward-looking, ex-pat game; boys next door who cling to their image and their superficiality.

For the last year or so, we’ve all had to work a lot more and have our house altered to provide a further bedroom. As the venture has become more successful, we’ve recently employed a cook/kitchen hand, who lives in a modern bungalow next door but two and is a godsend! She, Dtoy, had worked in a beer bar on one of the many satellite islands off the mainland of Sayamtia and while there, met her Watam, a German from Leipzig, who’d bought her the bungalow along from us and a substantial plot of land in the village in north-eastern Sayamtia from where she originates. In every town, everywhere, my mum says, there are places where men can go to throw money away and have a good time doing it - Sayamtia is known internationally as a holiday destination that caters extensively for such men and the places they go to mostly, are beer bars. White foreigners of European descent are referred to here, very collectively, i.e. broadly and narrowly as Watams; an acronym for Walking ATM’s.

My mum’s parents have split up and both live in England; they never visit but Mum and I are in contact with grandma Norrie. My dad’s parents have died but we still keep up with Jai’s parents who live about twenty-five kilometres south of us in a coastal town called Han Hua. I love my mum and my dad and they love me; I really feel it, especially from my dad. Our visits to my grandparents are enjoyable and seeing them is a comforting reminder to me of my paternal roots. Between them, Mum and Jai raised the money to set-up Dar and Yi (as I call them) in the production of coconut oil which they’ve turned into a lucrative business, selling to individuals on the beach and supplying local, retail outlets on a ‘sale or return’ basis.

When not being governed by the military via a coup of which there have been at least ten since a so-called democratic system was introduced some eighty years ago, Sayamtia is run democratically although there is a royal family who are known to be extremely wealthy and protected by a strongly enforced ‘lese majeste’ law and an equally strong military allegiance. In the deep south a religious/political group, the DSRPG, are constantly trying to gain control of that region, ceded to Sayamtia some hundred and twenty years ago in exchange for part of a neighbouring country which belonged to Sayamtia at that time.

For some years now, the group have been involved in an armed struggle because they want to retain their indoctrinating, religious/political, administrative and legal system which includes their coercive control of females, that they were, until about ninety years ago allowed by the Sayamtian government to run in parallel with the Sayamtian system. The conflict has turned into a war of attrition and become a guerilla war training ground for Sayamtian troops but at great cost in lives, life-changing injuries and income from tourism as the whole region at the southern tip of Sayamtia, much of which is coastal and covers three districts, is a no-go area.

CHAPTER 2

Among my friends are a few like myself, of mixed race but usually it’s the father who is of European or non-Sayamtian extraction and the mother who is Sayamtian. White skin is much prized here especially by women; per capita, I think Sayamtia has the world’s highest sales of skin-whitening lotions and treatments! Women want to resemble a Chinese doll rather than a sun-kissed, peasant farmer. I am lucky in this respect although many, originally from the northern regions where it’s generally cooler, and others of mixed Sayamtian and Chinese extraction, often having settled in the capital, Thetkrong, have skin naturally whiter than Watams.

Along with a tall or at least, not short, slender body, this juxtaposition of white skin and oriental features including a long neck and a straight back is seen as the most elegant and alluring of images and a guarantee of success. TV adverts and soap operas (apart from the servants and the ‘baddies’), feature people of this description exclusively. Dad says that this, ‘everyone’s equal’, ‘wokeness’ and ‘it stands to reason’ plus much of what Watams consider ‘good manners’ type stuff, are Watam conceptions and among the first things you have to abandon when trying to figure out the Sayamtian mindset. For the Watam, he says, when you live here, those kinds of concerns, are lifted from you. He doesn’t agree with those Watams who recognise the gap as being so great and in any case culturally uncrossable that trying to bridge it is a waste of time but rather thinks that understanding it and accepting it, is worth the trouble!

There are many public holidays here honouring family elders i.e. parents, grandparents & old people generally, children, the royal family (the king’s birthday is fathers’ day and the queen’s birthday, mothers’ day) and Buddha but for the Watam it is important to understand the religious belief system of Sayamtia because not only does it play a large part in Sayamtian bonding but in the Watams’ eyes, it is illogical when applying the Watam mindset to it. The oldest known belief system is animism (belief in spirits) and so it was in the region now known as Sayamtia at the time of the arrival of Buddhist monks from India, believed to be as early as the third century BCE. They are thought to have arrived on a proselytizing mission in the time of the Indian Emperor, Ashoka – what happened is not unique to Sayamtia nor to Buddhist monks and attests to the strength of animism.

One can only assume that the Sayamtians were impressed by the monks, their purity, their steadfastness and their humility, proclaiming them to be truly holy and allowing them to settle, adopting their faith albeit not in the supernatural but in how best to live life; as their ideal. Buddhism is independent of any supernatural belief system (religion), it is a code, a path, for the individual to follow in order to best conduct him/herself and cope with the human condition, avoiding all unnecessary desire and subsequently, suffering. It does not seek the repudiation of other spiritual or philosophical viewpoints thus allowing the tradition of animism in Sayamtia to remain although theoretically, running contrary to it. The bit that sticks in the Watams’ throats is the monks’ intercessory function, both on the street and in the temple. The performing of rites on the street on behalf of the brethren effectively in exchange for alms (seen by the faithful as symbolic giving) is in order to grant the spirits of their deceased relative’s or friend’s peace and sustenance in the spirit world. The clerics are provided with their remuneration and sustenance from this exchange, and the givers obtain spiritual credit which they believe will make their earthly, as well as ‘beyond the grave’ or reincarnated lives better.

Many Watam’s in Sayamtia refer to the monks as the spiritual mafia – every morning, early, they are to be seen almost everywhere throughout the kingdom followed by a carrier on a motorbike, motorbike with sidecar or even a pick-up; barefoot, trudging the streets. Along the way, often at a junction are groups of followers with their alms awaiting their personal connection to the spirit world. The carriers are usually relations of the monks and get a wage from them plus most of the goods (usually food and drink) which they in turn keep, donating some to their neighbours.

Alms collected on the street, given by envelope to individual monks in the temple or outside for services such as blessing a new home or car, funerals etcetera belong to the performing monks themselves and may include the head monk. Alms donated, mostly money, at the temple on the special monk-days go, via the head monk, into a temple bank account, these deposits and how the money is spent being supervised by a four-strong group of lay persons. The funds from this account are intended for the maintenance, improvement and general upkeep of the temple. Contributions are generally more in the way of alms, particularly money, at the temple during the four days per month (monk-days), the dates being set aside in advance and printed on all calendars and in all diaries nationally, than on the street and spiritual credit to the donors is thus accrued.

At temples where Buddhist nuns reside, lay women can, during these periods, stay overnight; they must wear white and, as well as meditating, usually help the actual nuns with temple housekeeping duties and/or collect temple-stamped envelopes which they later distribute for people to place money in and take to the temple either to give individual monks performing a rite or to place in the collection box for temple works. This staying-over is attractive to women who have the time and the belief that it will serve them well regarding their spiritual credit.

Then there’s the annual ‘big day’, always in November but not a fixed date when, in the grounds of the temple a large congregation gathers bringing provisions, clothes, gifts of all descriptions and money for the temple upkeep. Some of these offerings are then given to those lay people working at the temple full-time and the rest are wrapped often with coins inserted and, in the afternoon, thrown out to the congregation or sometimes just displayed on trestle tables and the congregation queue to be handed a parcel. The day is twofold in that one part is an opportunity to gain spiritual credit by giving to the people and the other an opportunity to gain further spiritual credit by giving to the temple fund and has a festival style feel often with music, country dancing and a raffle in the evening.

My mum says, if you think of the history handed down from generation to generation, the illiteracy and lack of education still prevalent, the insular nature of the nation, the empirical evidence i.e. what Sayamtians have been able to ascertain from what they’ve witnessed and the context, particularly the strong notion of the power of what Watams might refer to as lady luck, (even military conscription is determined by a lucky dip) it all makes a kind of sense. Throughout the nation there are men whose business it is to obtain and supply commemorative coins (by way of permanent renting - buying and selling such wares would be contrary to Buddhist practice as it is seen in Sayamtia) or pendants, often working from pop-up tents. These are minted or produced depicting a particular monk from a particular temple who, it is believed by many, will bring luck to