I began life in the village—Amphoe Khukhan, Ban Laem Thong—just over a year ago, arriving May 16, 2020, after an 18-hour drive from Chiang Mai.

I did not intend to stay very long. Frankly, I was escaping. When I got to Thailand January 16, I had zero idea that the world was about to be turned on its head. Within two months, everything was fucked. My flight to Vietnam got cancelled, everything was Dominoes going forward.

After an excursion to Koh Samui to escape the reality, I came back to Chiang Mai simply knowing there is no escape—and neither anyplace in the world, as was becoming evident—so I might as well, at least, be in a place where I’d come to know some people. So I bided time and made the best of it in a cool apartment designed and built by a Swiss architect expat guy who owned the place.

Warunee Aumpronopmallee “Yui” was hunkered down. Thai news, like all news globally was…

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed—and hence clamorous to be led to safety—by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. — H.L. Mencken

The problem is that you deal with morons on Virtue Media and their purpose in life is to guilt and shame you.

It is all it’s about and they are mentally retarded. They’re dismissed. Too stupid, for both you and I.

…I got to the village after a 1,000 KM drive and was mildly shocked. The girls and mom—Chili (11), Wasabi (10), and Jon—were living in squalor. Not squalor-squalor, but certainly and for sure: something, up with which, I could not put.

And that fact of reality changed the course of my life, for better or worse, like a proper marriage. And I took that 2-room shack to a proper home with 4 bedrooms, large kitchen, 2 bathrooms, and nice sitting room in 2 1/2 months, 12-14 hours per day, 7 days per week, 100% village labor 3-4 guys every day, where I sourced all supplies directly, often hauling them to the site myself.

It stands as the thing in my life I’m most proud of, after building that company from a bedroom to 30 employees, way back. Unfortunately, I never wore a wank sock mask, so the amount of virtue that accrues to me is severely limited.

That picture was taken after the house was mostly done late last June, but I was in Pattaya getting my Visa all done up so I can be here as long as I want, easy. From right to left, my girls, Chili and Wasabi. They’re 12 and 11 now, and I know very well hormonal shit is going to cascade going forward. In such a short space, they will transform from silly girls to young women.

But also. In the whole last year I’ve been around them, they have not said one single cross word to me. Not one. They are impeccably respectful. And of course, they should be and that is a natural order. They are children and in Thailand, they seek not to make more of—or glorify them—beyond what they are.

It’s healthy for everyone.

To each and all, in its time.

A few months back, Yui was quizzing the two in maths and was appalled. They could do simple stuff like 1+1 and 2×2, but couldn’t add, subtract, multiply or divide large numbers or multiples of large numbers. In essence, they had no idea how to break down a problem and solve it.

Even though the village school is a mere 500 meters down the village road, she looked.

It’s a ways away, 10 KM or thereabouts, and there is transportation. It’s sort of like a government-private school hybrid. For the two girls, about $1,300 per year, plus uniform costs.

And how did Yui sell that to me?

“English teacher: he farang, America.”

And that’s the story to date.