Samsara

Sex, Religion, and the Death of a Forest

David Adams

Samsara: From the verb root, samsri: "passing through a series of states." Envisioned as a cyclical affair in the Buddhist religion; a wheel of existence. Birth and death. The changeable and unsatisfactory nature of the world. The state from which liberation (nirvana) is ultimately achieved.

Inspired by the true story of the Thai monk, Pra Prajack Khuttajitto.

FIRST DRAFT

This manuscript has not been edited by an outside professional. Your feedback on grammar, content, style, and plot structure are requested before it goes to press.

Copyright 2002 by David W. Adams.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Contact: Institute for Cultural Ecology * P.O. Box 991 * Hilo, HI 96721. info@cultural-ecology.com.

Introduction

In 1927, Hollywood filmmakers Ernest Schoedsack and Merian Cooper braved malaria-filled forests to capture some of the earliest live footage of Northeast Thailand. At the time, few farangs (westerners) had penetrated the heart of the pernicious jungle that spanned from the coast of Vietnam, through Thailand, and into Burma.

Cooper would later go onto make Hollywood classics such as King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, and The Quiet Man. Still, he regarded Chang--the story of Thai man against nature--as his finest work. Little did he know that he filmed a doomed forest.

Rice is the only crop.

Should it fail,

the little family will grow hungry

. . . Oh Buddha help to protect the crop.

Cooper’s subtitles tell the plight of a solitary family living deep in the Thai jungle. In front of his bamboo hut, Kru the Farmer conducts an evening head count. He takes stock of his wife, two children, the family monkey, a watchdog with pups, and a water buffalo. They stand united: an island of humanity against an endless forest. As the last rays of the sun filter through the canopy the buffalo is secured, chickens penned, and puppies carried to an elevated house. “Tigers like dog meat,” our filmmakers remind:

. . .and they like it young and tender.

Kru’s wife pulls the ladder and severs the link between humans above and wilderness below. With the family secure, the dreaded creatures of the night begin to stir: a sun bear with cub emerges from the cavity of a deadfall, a porcupine with extended quills lumbers carelessly across a clearing, a monstrous boa constrictor begins his sinuous evening journey, and, in cue with
villainous background music, the tiger stalks his unseen prey.

Tiger-the bully of the jungle . . . Cruel . . . bloodthirsty.

With the approach of the tiger, Kru’s water buffalo breaks free and flees to a nearby river. In a rage, the tiger follows. "For such is the law of the jungle . . .”

Death to the weaker, food to the stronger.

The death of the family water buffalo leads Kru to declare war on the Thai jungle. Consulting the elders at a nearby village, he explains his mission to rid Isan (Northeast Thailand) of fearsome beasts. “Last night the tiger took my buffalo,” Kru laments. “Many leopards prey upon my stock. One leopard I slew. But there are tracks of more. Give me many men O Chief. To help me.”

The council allocates village men to help Kru conquer the jungle. Wiry battalions dig pits, construct snares, and set camouflage nets. Banging loudly on brass gongs, they herd the animals toward their traps.

Drive them out brothers, Drive them O brave men, O strong men.

Monkeys watch from above as a boa constrictor is pulled from its den and clubbed to death. A leopard tumbles into a pit and is gunned down. Finally, a tiger is chased into a net. A man takes aim and fires two bullets into its chest.

We be mighty hunters Kru.

. . .a fellow hunter boasts.

With the defeat of wilderness, Kru turns his attention to the netherworld. He fashions a bamboo dream catcher and hangs it over his rice paddies as protection against wayward ghosts. The day of the rice harvest arrives to Kru’s small corner of Isan. He and his family head to the field on this, the most anticipated morning of the year.

But alas . . .

Trampled . . . Trampled!

A chang . . . a giant chang!

Wild elephants. Chang.

The lone beast that Kru has yet to conquer lays waste to the family farm. The distraught farmer returns to the Council of Elders to plead his case. “And coming through the jungle O wise men, everywhere I saw tracks of chang, it must be that the Great Herd has returned--the dread destroyers are once again on the warpath!”

His plea is met with laughter and scorn. No one believes the Great Herd has returned. In Hollywood fashion, the elephants arrive to ransack the village. Chaos ensues. Houses are destroyed as men and women flee the compound.

“In answer to the jungle’s challenge--they build a huge elephant trap or kraal.” The surrounding jungle is set ablaze. Disguised as moving bushes, the hunters usher the herd towards the trap.

Out swords! Out spears. Out O brave men. Help us Lord Buddha!

In mass, the Great Herd is forced violently into captivity. “Our troubles are over Chantui,” Kru says to his wife. “We’ve killed the tigers . . . and the leopards. And when the little Chang grows up we will make him work for us . . . yes--all is well. Praise Lord Buddha.”

Cooper and Shoedsack’s final, if not haunting, observation:

Never completely victorious,

never completely defeated . . .

such is man’s fate in the jungle so he fights on . . .

For first was the jungle.

Always will be the jungle.

From the beginning until the end of Time it stretches . . .

the Unconquered . . . the Unconquerable.

This is a story about how the descendants of Kru

conquered the unconquerable: about humans versus nature—

sex, religion, and the death of a forest in Thailand.

Part One

1

February 10, 1991

Get your ass out of Bangkok!

This city isn’t Thailand; it’s hell.

If you stay you will be ripped off or worse.

Just get on a bus and get out now!

Tate McNeil shared the epithet he encountered above an airport toilet. His two friends, Red and Adelaide Greg burst into punctuated laughter--as though a big guy going to the bathroom were the punch line. Gunnar Ray, features writer for the Bangkok Times, listened attentively. His query on how three Australians ended up in the VIP box of Thailand’s kickboxing championship had led to a story.

Tate finished the remaining eight ounces of his Singha beer. “So you some kind of airplane gunner?” he said to the reporter.

Gunnar sighed. He had been in this cockpit before. “No. Just a guy named after his Norwegian grandfather.”

“So if I tell you how I ended up here,” Tate continued, “that means you’re me new mate. And you can’t be tellin’ nobody else about it.”

Gunnar clicked off his tape recorder. He had yet to reveal that he worked for the Times. His assignment was to generate a special interest piece on kickboxing champion Khun Taktan. Taking a story off the record would do little for his assignment. He stared up at the lengthy Australian, sighed, and agreed to the terms. “Mates.”

Standing next to the Thais in attendance, Gunnar felt statuesque, even somewhat muscular. At 5’10 inches tall, 165 pounds, he seldom looked up to anybody in Asia. Next to Tate and his mates, however, his physical prowess diminished. Tate hovered five inches above him and had tattooed arms twice the size of his own. Gunnar had been in Thailand so long that the sensation of being next to such a physique unnerved him. His sharp, prominent nose--a feature scarcely noticed in his homeland, earned him the greatest of praise in the rice fields. His high cheekbones and blondish appearance made him a fair-skinned beacon in a sea of black hair and brown eyes. The Thais gravitated to him; pulled by the mystique of distant lands and a journey they would know only through his colorful stories. When on assignment in remote villages, he was often told he resembled the English soccer players displayed on posters. But when he spoke, he established that he was more academic than not. He was fluent, polite, and ultimately sympathetic. He had mastered enough of the Thai language for his dry, circumspect humor to be enjoyed by all.

Times sportswriter Gary Simons usually covered the bloody bouts featuring kickboxing champion Khun Taktan. For unknown reasons, however, the fighter had personally requested Gunnar Ray for the match. The twenty-six-year-old reporter knew little about the sport. Thankfully, a fight program tipped him off that boxing was measured in rounds, not quarters.

Two months earlier, he had interviewed villagers who suffered from strychnine poisoning when an unregistered gold mine released toxins into a nearby stream. His story on a province-wide tree-planting effort in Chiang Mai had earned him national acclaim. During his three years at the Times, the young writer had quickly made a name for himself. But, as his editor reminded him when handing over VIP tickets to the match, “Kickboxers sell newspapers. If Khun Taktan wants you to cover his fight, then you do exactly as he tells you.”

Gunnar could never have imagined that his newfound acquaintance with the Champ would blossom into a friendship. Equally improbable was the notion that he would call upon that friendship to save an endangered forest in Northeast Thailand and villagers threatened with relocation from their ancestral lands. An activist monk by the name of Ajahn Piko was already organizing a resistance to the government’s scheme of evicting poor villagers, clearing the forest, and planting eucalyptus for export to Japan. The monk had penned a letter to Gunnar Ray announcing a protest and calling on the reporter to publicize his cause. The government’s relocation plan went by the name Kau Jau Kau--Land Distribution Program for the Poor Living in Degraded Forest Areas.

Overseen by a bureaucracy first assembled to prevent communist insurgency in the 1970's, the end of the war threatened to dismantle an entrenched power structure. Forest reserves became the new targets. Five million villagers (ten percent of the country’s population) that happened to live in or around the reserves were scheduled for eviction. For Gunnar Ray, rubbing shoulders with the nation’s most-recognized athlete would not go un-rewarded when it came time to publicize the plight of poor villagers and the threatened forests they lived in.

Tate continued his story, a tourist oblivious to the woes of native Thailand. “So I gets’ me self here from Nepal three weeks ago, a few days before these pukes show up. So I get off the plane and find one of them little holes on the ground they call toilets in this crazy country. I’m pissin’ in that little hole by me ankles and see that message written plain as day on the bathroom wall . . . you know, about getting my ass out of Bangkok. Anyway, I paid no attention to it and took a taxi to Sukhumvit road. I headed into a nice hotel bar to have a drink before looking for a place to stay. That’s when I met this sheila. She just reached out and grabbed me by the arm as I sat at my barstool. I’m thinking, 'hey, this is my kind of country.' She was kinda pretty: lots of make-up, long eyelashes, and full lips. So she invites me home from the bar, she does.

Now you gotta understand, I was in Nepal before this and sick for a long time. You know, had the three-month shits mate. I’m still sick. If I lose five more pounds I’ll have Feed the World looking after me. There were no women in Nepal either. I mean I saw women, but they refused to even walk on the same side of the street as me. Hindu thing. So like I said, this Thai woman with caked on make-up seemed like the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Tate’s friends again broke into loud, embarrassing laughter. Behind him, a pair of Thai executives cast incredulous looks at the proud storyteller.

“As we go into her house, a shopkeeper smiles at me. She just stops her sweeping and smiles. I didn’t think much about it and went right in. Nice place too. Gal had lots of money . . . not what I expected. Pictures of her parents and three brothers hung on the walls. She wasn’t in the photos, but she had her own album that she wanted me to look at. We spoke mostly in hand signals and the thirty Thai words I knew. I studied the language before coming to Bangkok. The only book I could find in all of Katmandu was a pocket-sized read called “Making Out in Thai.” It’s a phrasebook mate--but one printed in 1969 during the Vietnam War when you Americans were bombing the hell out of the Viet Cong from Thai air bases.

Anyway, me entire language book is based on helping some pomp American soldier pick-up a Thai prostitute for a reasonable price. I can ask a store clerk for extra large condoms but I can’t even get a waitress to serve me a glass of water because of this book.”

“Unless that waitress happens to be a prostitute!” Adelaide Greg smiled. He gave Tate another smack on the shoulder.

Red howled in agreement.

Tate continued. “After I asked this girl all of the questions in the phrasebook that don’t have to do with sex, warts, or supporting the war effort, she waves at me to follow her up a flight of wood stairs. Next thing I know, I’m sitting on the bed in her room. She pops in a music cassette and here we are alone and I can’t even pronounce her name. So me missy lights a candle and places a long pillow in the center of the bed. You ever seen one of these things? They’re five foot long and look just like a soft penis!”

“A pildo . . .” Greg added.

“Aye!” Tate agreed. “Bloody pildo mate! So she tells me using hand signals that I’m on the left, she’s on the right, and the pildo is in the middle. My heart starts beating like crazy as this girl slides her hand down the stuffed penis and places it on my hand. I close my eyes and count from ten to one to calm myself. I start thinking about how your Magic Johnson just announced that he has AIDS and shit like that."

"It's getting better all the time!" Greg howled.

"Aye. So she yawned and kicked a leg over the pildo. Did I tell you about the women in Nepal mate? I thought to myself: 'Remember Magic Johnson: if she wants to play ball, keep it on the court.' I looked into her eyes and told her: ‘that pildo better stay between us missy!’
Testing my Thai language she said, "Khun pen puu chai . . . Chan pen puu chai duay."

I understood the "Khun" and the "Chan" parts of her sentence (“I” and “you”). And I knew I had heard “puu chai” before, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what it meant? I nodded my head in agreement and said: 'I puu chai and you puu chai.' Her eyes lit up. She thought I approved of whatever she said. Her foot crossed over that pildo and rested on my shin. So I reach into my back pocket and fish out my phrasebook. 'Here's puu ying,' I said smiling. The book showed a Thai prostitute wearing a cut T-shirt. I pointed to it and said, "You puu ying." Taking the book, she sighed and flipped through it playfully, somewhat knowingly. She turned to the back page where the American stud is shaking hands with his newly purchased "puu ying." She tapped three times on the photo of the man. Then she said: ‘Him puu chai. Me puu chai duay.’

I paused for a moment and thought through her words. I looked past her painted eyes to her wide neck.”

“Tell him Tate!” a drunken Red grabbed at him.

“Bloody Adams apple mate.”

“You’re kidding . . .” Gunnar said.

Tate wiped off his chin in a manly gesture. “’You're a puu chai!’ I said to her. ‘You’re a bloody man!’ I grabbed this girl by the arm and it was like grabbing onto a bull’s rump. Have you ever been fishing for salmon and hooked into a lingcod? That’s what it felt like. I had me a lingcod and I had to get the hook out quick. Then I realized: ‘Hey, this guy could kick the living crap out of me with arms like that.' I jumped out of bed and sent that bloody pildo flying three feet in the air. I get’s me backpack. As I’m leaving the apartment I look at the photo of the three brothers hanging on the wall. ‘Just one of the boys eh?’

So as I’m leaving, I hear her sobbing in the living room. I go back in and tell her no hard feelings. That’s when she opened her purse and pulled out some tickets to a boxing match.”

“Tell him Tate,” Greg placed his arm around the shoulder of his friend. “Tell him who your missy is!”

“Khun Taktan mate! I was in the same bed as the kickboxing champion of the world!”

Gunnar’s eyes lit up. Visions of Tate on the cover of a tabloid paper surged through his mind. “Jesus Tate!” Gunnar said, shocked. “The guy is built like a brick shithouse. You really couldn’t tell?”

“Hey. I grew up on an outback-station herding cattle. Guys don’t dress up like women where I come from. It’s not like this crazy country where you see them on every corner. It never entered my head.”

Gunnar looked around nervously to see if anyone sat listening in. “I suggest you keep that story yourself,” he said, impressed by the tale. “There’s a reporter from the Bangkok Times lurking around here and he’s just itching to write a feature on Khun Taktan .”

“Aye.”

Gunnar continued. “If it makes you feel better, it happens all the time. German tourists take the “lady-boys” home thinking they’re the cock of the walk. Usually the “girls” have been on hormone pills for years. No offense Tate, but Taktan is still as manly as Thais get--makeup or not.”

“Well . . . Taktan and me are mates now.”

2

“In the green corner, weighing seventy-one kilograms and with a record of twenty-seven wins and three losses, tonight’s challenger, Parsit Sunkorn.”

The stadium crowd applauded politely: a few courtesy hoots and hollers showed they considered Sunkorn a worthy opponent.

“And, in the rose corner, weighing seventy-three kilograms, with forty-four wins and no losses, the Kickboxing Champion of the World, Khun Taktan.”

Hysteria!

Screams circled the arena like a thundering tornado. A satellite orbiting the equator registered the collective cheer from fans gathered around television sets. The Champ lowered her silk hood to reveal brown eyes rimmed with no-streak, racing blue Revlon eyeliner. On her cheeks, she went with a peach foundation. The transvestite turned kickboxer circled the ring and blew kisses into stands. If she were a mere publicity stunt, three of her former challengers would not be permanently disfigured: one with a shattered jaw, a second with a manmade harelip and a third with a collapsed nostril. And if she were feigning a lifelong desire to have her penis lopped off, she would not have applied three times for plastic surgery only to be refused. Khun Taktan was indeed a woman trapped in a kickboxing champion’s body: one who happened to beat the hell out of the opposite sex for a living.

As Taktan circled the ring, her ponytail bounced playfully from one muscular shoulder to the next. A pink gown adorned with rose petals and bright red lace covered her washboard stomach. When she wore a dress and heels, she knew a peace that passeth understandeth. In the ring, exposed for the world to see, she felt misplaced. Few in the audience knew the depths of her inner struggle; how far she would go to realize her dream of being a Revlon spokeswoman and Paris model. Still, the signs of stress were there. On her right shoulder, she wore a tattoo of a venomous snake severed in half by the protruding teeth of a human skull. Atop her dresser drawer, estrogen pills sat in wait. All she needed to realize her dream was a sympathetic doctor, an anesthesiologist, and a serrated knife.

Gunnar Ray, columnist at the nation’s largest English language newspaper, scribbled pre-fight observations in his notepad:

Tattoo: skull w/snake between teeth (see Freud).

Forty cross-dressers cheer behind the Champ’s corner.

Arena smells like an armpit (Why does Taktan want me

of all people, to cover his kickboxing match?)

Gunnar’s weekly column focused on religion, the environment, and travel. For one night, however, he would pretend to care about kickboxing transvestites and whiskey guzzling fans. At his editor's insistence he would, “generate a story worthy of the front page whether he liked it or not.” Sure, he had heard about Taktan--the most recognized athlete in the entire Kingdom. Who hadn’t? The international boxing community also knew of her greatness. With a single, ferocious, punch, she had punctured the eardrum of Chinese karate champion Wei Fu Nan in a “friendly” exhibition match.

Taktan circled the ring with twelve long stem roses in her hand. One by one she hurled them into the audience. She tapped her challenger on the shoulder and presented him with a flower. Sunkorn gripped the stem with disdain and dropped it to the mat. The insult ignited Taktan’s womanhood. Her painted nails penetrated the leather of her glove. The elbow that had detached a man's retina three fights earlier began to quiver. She picked up the flower and returned to her corner. Behind her chair, thirty of Bangkok’s most beautiful katuhys (transvestites) blew kisses from the stands. Taktan politely bowed and acknowledged her fan club--many had taken the night off from a cabaret show to lend their support. He turned his back and hurled the final red rose over his shoulder. The “lady-boys”--as Thai’s called them in broken English--fought like a pack of wild dogs to retrieve the champion’s favor. Taktan’s trainer waved a towel behind his head to prevent cheap perfume from irritating his eyes. The Champ sighed as the scent reached her. She longed to leave the ring and run wild with the pack.

With tape recorder in hand, Gunnar Ray left Tate and friends to seek “on the record” informants who might offer insight into Taktan’s world. He paused when he reached an effeminate man coddling a Yorkshire terrier. The unusual sight of a Thai with a pet dog was a story in itself. “May I ask how you know Khun Taktan?” the reporter asked.

“Look at my eyes,” the man answered, petting his terrier. “Can’t you see that we wear the same mascara? I’m his makeup artist Darling.”

Gunnar flashed his press credentials. “Is there anything you can tell me about the Champ that is newsworthy?”

The man's eyes followed the contours of Gunnar’s chiseled face to determine if he was friend or foe. “The relationship between a boxer and his make-up artist is sacred you know. But I can tell you we no longer use graphite to color Taktan's eyebrows for a fight. A year ago an opponent landed a punch on one of the half moons I created. The next six blows painted Taktan's forehead and cheeks with extra eyebrows. The newspaper photos upset him so much that he refused to talk to me for a week!”

Taktan's personal manicurist, overhearing the conversation, added the newsworthy observation that Taktan wore pink nail polish instead of his usual red when the numbers of the month and day added up to fourteen.

Pulitzer Prize winning stuff.

Taktan completed the pre-fight ritual. He kneeled and prostrated himself three times to the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Catty Kung Fu music filled the arena as the two fighters touched gloves. The Champ bobbed and weaved. Seconds later, a flurry of blows brought the crowd noise to a crescendo. As the fighters unlocked, any last hints of this being a ‘gentleman’s sport’ were gone. Taktan delivered a front kick to Sunkorn’s stomach. The challenger responded with a wild hook that missed Taktan’s chin. Taktan countered with an elbow that snapped Sunkorn’s head back.

Gunnar returned to Tate’s side. “Did you see that elbow?” the Australian yelled.

“This is my first kickboxing match,” Red added. “How do you think Taktan would do against a black belt in karate?”

“Already been tried,” Gunnar answered without emotion.

“And?”

“Punctured his ear drum. All that wu wei stuff--soft overcomes the hard--cost the Chinese champion hearing in his left ear. Like I said: brutal.”

Round Three: Taktan erupted from his chair and kicked Sunkorn in the right thigh. With each blow, the crowd cried out “whoa” in celebration of the contact. The challenger retreated to the ropes. Bad decision. Taktan had a habit of breaking body parts on ropes: bones, teeth, cartilage and spirits. He unleashed left and right body kicks. Next, he hit the challenger with a straight jab to the head. Gunnar closed his eyes. Tate and his friends yelled louder than the Thais around them. “Crack!” The sound of Taktan’s elbow connecting with Sunkorn’s forehead reached into the upper seats. The eyes of the stunned challenger turned to glass. He collapsed on the mat. The katuhy section erupted in cheer. Concussion. Stitches to follow. Victory and still champion: Khun Taktan.

With blood on the mat, Taktan's bodyguard snaked past the cheering fans and tapped Gunnar Ray on the shoulder. "Off to interview the champ," Gunnar said with a hint of pride. "Pick up the Bangkok Times tomorrow if you want to know what he has to say about the fight."

Outside the locker room, Gunnar joined a hoard of Thai reporters waiting to interview Khun Taktan. What strange underworld had he been summoned into? He tried to get excited about meeting the most colorful persona in the entire Kingdom. However, the beating he once received from by a bully in front of thirty screaming ten-year-olds had vanquished his interest in pugilism. Taktan entered the hallway and answered a few brief questions. His bodyguard grabbed Gunnar by the shoulder and pulled him forcefully through the crowd and into the locker room.

The door shut and Taktan and the reporter stood toe to toe.

The twenty-eight year-old Taktan had two years on Gunnar. The reporter initiated the bow in respect for his senior status and the fact that next to the King, Khun Taktan was the most recognizable face in the country. The fighter smiled politely then hopped onto the massage table. In a single motion, he whipped off his shorts and wrapped a towel around his waste. The champ's masseuse entered the room and worked his muscular shoulders with steady thrusts. Gunnar sat pensive. He remained uncertain as to why he had been singled out. After ten minutes of bodywork, Taktan raised a hand and dismissed his masseuse. Gunnar Ray and a half-naked man remained alone in the room.

“Do you know why you are here?” Taktan asked in Thai while propping up into a sitting position.

“Only what my editor told me,” Gunnar answered. Your manager called the Times and requested that I come to the fight and interview you for a special interest story.”

“That's right. I can’t speak English, but my manager can. I told him I wanted a reporter who could write about me as a human being and not a sports animal. I trust the Times. Your editor Steve Barker recommended you. My manager translated the article you wrote about the villagers poisoned by an upstream gold mine. I want you to write about me with the same compassion that you wrote about the villagers . . . make me a human being; let my fans know that I am suffering."

An ingratiated Gunnar Ray smiled with the knowledge that his voice had reached the echelon of the Thai sports world. "But why not contact a Thai language newspaper?" Gunnar quizzed him. "The Times targets farangs and Thai college students forced to read our paper as homework."

“The Thai papers don't take me seriously. They showcase me like I am some freak put on this earth to entertain them. I want to teach them a lesson. Anyway, they will pick up the story once you have published it. I know and trust your editor. He covered some of my earliest fights. He helped convince the world that I was for real: not just some dress up queen with a lucky punch.”

Gunnar Ray felt himself tumbling into a world not of his own choosing. “As you already know," the reporter explained while pulling a pen from his shirt pocket. "I'm not a boxing specialist. I will try to be sensitive to what you tell me, but to be honest I don’t know much about the Thai sports world.”

“My decision is about freedom, not athletics. That’s why I want you to cover this.”

Gunnar waited for an explanation. Khun Taktan reached behind his head and untied an elastic band. Her hair unfolded to her shoulders.

“So what am I to share with the world?” the reporter asked.

“My real name is Weera Intira,” she said in an effeminate voice. “I’m from Udon Thani Province. You know. Isan.”

The champ reached into a pink fanny pack and retrieved a letter with the Bunrungrad Hospital emblem on the front. She pushed the document toward Gunnar. The reporter scanned the letter for discernable words. Taktan covered his face to hold back tears.

The lack of spacing between Thai words and the medical terms used made the letter difficult for Gunnar to read. "Some kind of rejection letter?" he mused, placing the paper on Taktan 's half-naked lap.

The champ looked up briefly and let out a muffled bawl. “Read it,” she said sniffling.

“I can’t,” Gunnar said, discouraged. “I can speak Thai better than I can read it. It will take me fifteen minutes to get through this letter and I still won't understand the technical terms.”

The reporter began his study of the language during his first trip to Thailand. He memorized a pocket-sized dictionary and lived with Thai villagers outside of Ubon Ratchathani. For six months, he studied under a farang monk at a forest temple during the days and returned to the village at night. At the temple, he discovered the full potential of harnessing the Buddha's teachings to help the environment. In the village, he became proficient in the spoken Thai language.

Taktan snatched the paper from Gunnar’s hands. “It says that the doctors won’t cut my damn penis off!”

Gunnar cringed: unsure of whether to take this as good or bad news.

Seeing the lack of understanding on Gunnar’s face, Taktan reached behind his back and whipped off his towel. The shocked reporter stared wide-eyed at the naked man. “It’s this fucking penis that makes me cry,” Taktan pointed. “Nearly everyone in my fan club had theirs cut off years ago and here I am prancing around the ring with a man’s penis attached to me.”

Perhaps sportswriters were used to coming face to face with the male organ. Taktan’s display, however, caught an anxious Gunnar off-guard. He shuffled through makeshift notes to avoid eye contact.

“This is the third rejection letter I’ve had in six months. The doctors say there could be emotional scars that may not heal if I remove it.”

Gunnar looked up. “Penis regret?”

Taktan continued to stare at his unwanted appendage. “I have to sleep with this damn thing in my bed every night. That’s an emotional scar. If they cared about my emotions they would just cut it off. But what they really care about are the threats my sponsors are making behind my back. They’re afraid if I cut it off I will lose interest in kickboxing.”