Muay Thai: Boxing on the Border

Someone very close to my heart, with whom I spent a great deal of my time during my first weeks back in Mae Sot, read my blog, Back in the Saddle and indignantly demanded to know just what was so dull about it all.
It’s true. I can’t believe I could have forgotten about the highlight of my first week back, of which my friend so kindly reminded me.

I had only been back in town a few days with my friend and former neighbor, an Australian journalist, gave me a call early one morning. "Jen," he said, sounding desperate. "I need your help."

Actually, he didn’t really need me that badly. He needed my Australian neighbor and wanted my help in convincing him to go along with his crazy escapade. When I heard the plan, I was highly enthusiastic. Given that I hadn’t even had a coffee and it wasn’t even 8am yet, that’s quite a feat.

When I lived next door to the Australian journalist, I often tagged along after him, like he was my big brother, or like I was some kind of caped side-kick. We had a lot of fun together, often sharing one last beer in the early hours of the morning as the monks in the monastery across from our house were beginning their day and we were ending ours.

I don’t remember how it was that he first got interested in Muay Thai, or Thai kickboxing, but there are lots of events in our area. Kickboxing on the border takes on a particular flavor, as there are often highly emotive fights between Thai fighters and fighters from across the border (in which, more often than not the Thais win) and also between Muslim and Buddhist fighters. I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed going to the fights. For one thing, it was a chance to see some of the Thai soul laid bare. It’s like looking into an animal’s mouth while it’s roaring, staring at the crowd at a fight. There are housewives in middle-class attire, with their children propped up against the ropes sweating in the heat and screaming their hearts out for one man to beat another man. It’s easy to lose yourself in the press of the crowd, let your sweat become your neighbor’s sweat, your voice become the voice of the crowd. It’s dark and the only light are the fluorescent lights strung up around the ring, all the people in the crowd like moths to the flame. As my neighbor went off to photograph, I never felt alone. It was too easy to get lost in the experience.

The more I went, the more I learned. My friend was following the story of certain boxers affiliated with a local school. At first we didn’t know their names. We called one "Pink Shorts," and another, "Ali." Sometimes we got right up close next to the ropes, other times we hung back on the fringe, betting beers on the fights and taking in the big picture. I got to recognize not only the fighters, but also the muscians who play the traditional music before the fight, and the announcers who wore huge aviator glasses and never hesitated to say annoying, embarrassing things about the white foreigners attending the match. One night, with a female friend, the announcer, who sounded quite drunk, made a point of calling the audience’s attention to the fact that I had left my seat and was proceeding to the bathroom. That’s right folks, the white girl is going to pee. "Good luck with that!" he called to me in Thai while I gritted my teeth and made my way through the seated crowd.

Someone from the boxing school called my journalist friend up early on my first Tuesday morning back in Mae Sot. What he understood from the conversation in Thai was that there was a big fight coming to Mae Sot and it was going to involve some foreign fighters from Canada and the Phillipines. There was some kind of press event going on and the white fighter wasn’t going to be able to make it, did he know anyone who could possibly put on a kit and stand it? He made it sound like some kind of photo shoot with my neighbour taking the photos. The problem was that he couldn’t think of anyone to do it. Apparently all the boys we know in town are terribly scrawny. So he called me, to enlist my help in convincing my new Aussie neighbour to be the poster boy for some white kickboxer from Canada.

The photo shoot was in the afternoon and since I was still unemployed, I joined them, hopping in the back of a pick up truck with some Burmese fighters and flying down the highway with the wind in my hair. The truck took us, to of all incomprehensible places, the Mae Sot Central Hill Hotel, a luxury resort at the end of town. "Perhaps it’s a pool side photo shoot," I thought to myself smiling. "Maybe all these muscled boys are going to get all oiled up and we can all jump in the water afterwards…"

But we were taken inside and lead downstairs to the conference room. The room was filled with long tables covered in white and staff were filling up water glasses with iced water. We were given chairs in the back corner and left to wonder what was going on. At the front of the room, behind to podium was a large poster in Thai and we worked out it was advertising the fights, which were to be telecast on the World Boxing Channel. This is rather a big deal, especially for a small town like Mae Sot.

Several other clues soon led us to believe that this press event was not some private photo shoot, but rather a somewhat large-scale press conference. And before anyone could have any second thoughts, the boxing coach was giving my friend a pair of tiny satin boxing shorts and taping up his hands.

He came out of the changing room wearing nothing but the little boxing shorts and looking a little shy. To make things worse, one of the boxers decided he wasn’t wearing the shorts properly and proceeded to hike them up even further, revealing more leg and looking decidedly uncomfortable. By that time, though, they had already put boxing gloves on him, so he was unable to adjust and I’m afraid I was too busy hiding behind a pillar laughing to be much help. I think you can see in the picture just how much fun I was having.

Before things got rolling, he posed with one of the fighters and one of the biggest boxing promoters in Thailand. Then he got up on stage with the rest of the boys and with the panel of delegates slated to speak at the conference, including the governor of the province. For the next hour, while they all made comments about the upcoming fight, he had to stand there, holding his hands up, trying to look fierce.

I took some pictures and tried not to giggle too loudly during the entire event, but it was somewhat difficult, particularly when the speeches were finished and the journalists swamped the stage with their cameras, microphones and video cameras.

And it’s true, it was the highlight of my week. That’s one of the great things about life in Mae Sot. So often dull, but now and again so wildly, weirdly unexpected.