The Beginning

What you're going to read is based on my true story. He was my miracle that rarely happened, chose to happen with a particular person and once happened would never happen again.

I met him at Chatujak Weekend Market on one Saturday in July 1997. I was with friend while he was shopping all alone. My friend and I were just loitering there. We stopped at a souvenir shop. I found an item in a basket. I liked it so I reached my hand to pick it up. Another hand picked up the same item at the same time. We automatically dropped it to let one another have it before stealing a look at one another at the same time. Before me I found a handsome guy. He smiled at me and I smiled back before we moved on to different sections.

Chatujak Weekend Market is popular with tourists. It’s one of our famous tourist attractions. Full of hundreds shops, the place is large and complicated. I often found myself walk back to the shop I left 20 minutes earlier. But things were not the same the day I found a man who would become my first boyfriend a month later.



An hour later my friend told me she must go home. Tired, I agreed. While we were waiting to cross the street, I saw him again. This wasn’t usual in such a very large place with ten thousands after one hour went by. He’s standing on the opposite pavement waiting for the green light to cross the street with a big crowd. Among hundreds faces we could recognize each other. The green light was on. We walked past one another. Suddenly, I heard some voice behind me asking to go through the crowd. The voice was closer, and closer and there he was – walking by my side.

I had a crush on Italian guys because of their look. But having an Italian boyfriend was not my expectation. He’s from Venice and ran a jewelry business in Bangrak, which is a prime area of business in Bangkok. On 14 February many couples go to Bangrak District Office to get a marriage certificate registered there because Bangrak means where love happens.

I was 23 and he was 38. We walked and talked like we had known each other for many years. He wrote his name and number on paper. I did not have a cellphone then so I gave him my fixed line number with a little hope that he would be connected because my sister (second mom) was connected to the Internet 24/7. His handwriting was terrible and I read his name as Frawco and I had called him that way since then even when...

A month later I became his official girlfriend. We talked about many things, particularly my work. I told him I disliked it and I was annoyed by my boss who paid attention to the definitions of ‘to’ in my memo and made me revise it about 20 times before coming back to the original version. He would get a position for me at his company or his friend. He would send me to a cooking class. He was planning to introduce me to his family in Italy.

One particular thing I liked about him was he told me where he was going and who he was meeting. I didn’t ask him to, but he chose to do it of his own free will. But our relationship didn’t go far. We broke up in a stupid way three months later.

He accused me of having an affair with my boss after the man made a female co-worker call me for an urgent job. My boss was going to attend a meeting in Indonesia and he wanted me to prepare reports in English for him. I was just 23 and still on probation, so what should I do? I went to the office and worked until 9 pm. There’s no OT payment and I dared not to ask for it.