AIE-YA! (Pimpmobiles and Baby-Pumping Hondas)

Naeglerian once mentioned something to me about elderly relatives and how they have an uncanny tendency to make clandestine deals in dark, cigar smoke-filled back parlors regarding matchmaking and ways to set up all the single, unaware younger souls of the family with other single, unaware souls of families of their friends. Tonight was very similar, except instead of smoke filling the air, we had twinkling sonatas by Beethoven and the occasional "AIE YAA!!!" being exclaimed in horror by one of my aunts. And instead of being in a dark back parlor, we were in a very stylish restaurant with more sushi, sashimi, souffles, seafood, pastas, pizzas, and tempura than you can possibly imagine (it was buffet night). Despite the slight discrepancies, it was still very much the same.


So tonight I went to The Banyan Tree Hotel around Silom with my dad to have dinner with a bunch of relatives on my dad's side of the family. We ate at this place there called Rom Sai (Thai for clear wind), where the serenely gorgeous garden views and gentle notes of the live piano and violin made for a very romantic setting indeed.

My cousin Paul, from Irvine, California, is currently on vacation here in Thailand with his mom. I've never met either of them before in my life and this is their first time back here in over 26 years. The cool thing is that he can speak Thai - and very well, too. He's 36, single, and basically fresh meat for my sneaky, surreptitious matchmaking relatives who can never resist a chance to play Cupid.


I was located smack in the middle of the long dinner table, and so I was granted the benefit of being able to zone in on both conversations going on at both ends of the table. To my left was Paul, my other cousins Mike and Mimi, and my dad. To my right, were the matchmaking "Elderlies" - my three aunts, uncle, and Paul's mom. Simply put, it made for a rather interesting experience.


On The Elderlies side, highly animated conversations in Thai and Chinese (Teo Chew, Cantonese, and a few Mandarin words here and there - so you can imagine the slight chaos) were thrown around like mad as my dear, sweet aunties fervently prattled and jabbered about every single possible topic you could think of:

-Laxatives. Paul's mom gave this rather animated demonstration (complete with flying hands and ready-to-pop-out eyes) on how pineapples are miraculous relievers of constipation: "It just comes right on out! YES! In the morning, when you go to the toilet, it'll just come sliding right on out!"

-Whether the crab that we were served was fresh or not. This involved a lot of sniffing, scrutinizing, and poking.

-Why American men are better than Thai men. ("American men go home after work everyday and take their wives everywhere they go! They're so good to them! No matter what, every single Thai man in the whole of Bangkok hits the clubs after dark and has sneaky, secretive affairs! They can't be trusted! Not a single one of them! Oh, but except for your father, Lynn. He's a good man.")

-Chinese opera shows on CCTV. Aunt #1 actually imitated the squeaky, high-pitched operatic wails, thus making a whole table full of Australian tourists next to us glance over and share a good laugh over that.

-The discovery of a new gold shop in Chinatown where the discounts are plentiful and the prices extraordinarily low. ("Aie-ya! That cheap, ehh??")


Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, very different dialogues were being held with my super funny, super kick-ass cool cousin, Mike.

Me: Your Porsche is so freakin cool. You wouldn't happen to be willing to lend it to me for a day or two, would you?
Mike: (ponders for a moment before replying) Fat chance, but I could pick you up from school in it.
Me: In the pimpmobile? No thanks, what will everyone think?


As for my other cousin, Paul, he's a little more traditional/conservative than Mike. His main goal in life is to find a girl to settle down and raise a family with before he turns 40. I feel bad for his future wife; he literally has a list of criteria that she's supposed to meet. He actually shared it with us in hopes that we might know of someone who happens to fit his so-called list:

She has to come from a good background (OK, this sounds normal enough).

She has to be a "natural beauty" (whatever the heck that means, but I think that plastic surgery is basically a no-no. This might narrow down his selection pool, but no harm done).

She definitely can't be a shopper or ever waste money on frivolous, petty little things (this basically rules out 99.99999% of my half of the species).

She has to be religious and go to church with him every Sunday.

She has to be at least 5'6 and no less than that.

She has to "take care of him" and be able to do domestic things like cook, clean, iron, blah blah blah.

She has to be willing to have his kids - ALL EIGHT OF THEM!!! (Holy freakin cow, we women aren't baby-pumping machines!!!)

She can't be materialistic.

And the final one that left me slightly irked was that she absolutely, most definitely cannot be a working career woman. She instead must stay at home, be a housewife and take care of the kids (all eight of them) for the rest of her days. Why, you ask? Because he's concerned that her having a career would inevitably lead to her having an affair and then divorcing him.


Geeeez!! Can we say paranoid much?!?? People have affairs for a wide array of reasons, but you can't say all working career women are inevitably bound to have an affair! And as for the domestic housewife thing, this isn't the stone age for crying out loud. Women don't toil away in the kitchen all day long anymore as their husband slouches in a beer-stained wifebeater in front of the TV hollering, "GIT ME MAH FOOD WOO-MAN!!!".


While Paul was prattling away listing all the various criterion of his poor future wife to Mike, my cousin Mimi and I conversed in secret:

Mimi: Too bad the Virgin Mary lived two thousand years ago. He could have married her.
Me: He doesn't need a wife. If he needs someone to take care of him like that, he should just get himself a personal maid.


Paul has never had a girlfriend or gone out on a single date throughout his entire 36 years of existence (gee, I wonder why). Viewing this as a rather dire situation, the whole team of Elderlies immediately whipped out their Cupid arrows and took aim:

Aunt #1: I'd like to introduce you to someone.
Paul: (gives a rather skeptical look.)
Aunt #3: But there's absolutely no pressure, you guys can just be friends and let things take their natural course and see how it goes. If it works out, great, if it doesn't, then no problem.
Paul: But is that possible? (said skepticism is raised a couple of notches) Can a man and woman really just be friends? Won't it lead to other things?
Aunt #2: Of course not! Men and women can most certainly just be friends.
Dad: Lynn has a lot of male friends from high school that she still meets up with whenever they stop by Bangkok, but she doesn't date all of them or anything.
Paul: (turns and looks at me like I'm the most unchaste and immoral of all females in the whole of Bangkok. Gee, thanks Dad.)


Mike is also single. However, unlike Paul, he enjoys and relishes in singledom. We all call him the playboy of BKK (formerly known as the playboy of LA when he used to live in Cali). Quite the expert in the dating field, he decided to lend Paul a few tips.

Mike: If you want to hook up with a good, wholesome sort of girl, why don't you try meeting some girls from your local church?
Paul: But not all of those girls are truly religious. They're just religious on Sundays and not the rest of the days of the week.
Mike: (a look that clearly screams "arghhh" flashes momentarily across his face)
Mimi: (whispering to me) He should become Amish and get himself an Amish girl.
Mike: (turning to me) You have a lot of English-speaking friends. You wouldn't happen to have any friends you could introduce to Paul, would you?
Me: Uhhh... (sheah right, are you kidding me?)
Mike: You could introduce some of them to me, too. (The cheekiest of grins flashes across his face.)
Me: Hah. Throw in that red Porsche of yours, and then we can talk.


Later, the males at the table started talking about women and how they're very much like cars. My God, and to think I actually share genes with these guys. Since I was talking to Mimi, I haven't the slightest notion as to how the heck that topic got started, but the analogy involved something about some cars looking really attractive on the outside but having a tendency to always break down (BMWs), and some cars looking not-so-great on the outside but having trusty engines that run all the time without fail (Toyotas and Hondas).

I think Paul the Priest said he likes Hondas. Can Hondas have babies? And if so, can they have eight?


I've said it before and I'll say it again - family get-togethers are rockin fun. Quirks and oddities aside, there was still loads of laughter and lots of funny, photo-worthy moments. But as for the matchmaking, all I have to say is that it will be a freaking miracle if The Elderlies actually succeed in matching Paul the Priest up with anyone.

But then again, as Mimi suggested, he can always hit the road and head to Lancaster, PA and become the first Asian Amish guy ever.



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