在僧侣的洞穴内

Parting from Thailand

Article and photos by Paul King

和尚在洞穴内。

我从冷杯Singha啤酒中喝了一口，然后听乐队。Yui坐在鼓手前的凳子上，穿着一双高跟鞋和紧身的Jean裙子。像许多泰国女性一样，她瘦，很有吸引力，长长的头发。在舞台的橙色和黄色灯光下，她的青铜橙皮似乎闪耀。当她在原声吉他的弦和节奏上轻轻唱歌时，她轻轻地将麦克风握在嘴唇前。当我听时，我设法抓住了一些单词。

“Khru保罗，”声音说。I look over, and it is Mon. Her hair is cut in a short crew cut, with the tips bleached blond, and she is holding a fresh pitcher of Singha.

“你会和我们一起出来吗Say Yestonight?” she says, smiling. “We’re all going when we get off work.”

Behind her, the guitarist drops into his solo, and the drummer crashes down on the cymbals. Mon leans in to whisper to me over the music.

“Yui will be there,” she says.

“Oh?”

“K a,” she says, pouring more beer into my glass. “She told me backstage that she hopes you’ll come.”

“她这么说？”

她说：“考虑一下。”

As I'm about to take another sip, I feel a hand on my shoulder.

“Nong保罗，”声音说。我立即知道是谁 - 这个镇上只有一个人称我为弟弟。

“嘿撒尿Sid,” I say, employing the familiar family term. As he sits down, I can smell the whiskey on his breath.

他说：“我想我会在这里找到你。”“我来找你。我妻子今晚不在，所以我喝醉了，唱着卡拉OK。来吧 - 每个人都在等待。我们希望您唱“乡村道路”。您的声音如此好 - 确实就像约翰·丹佛（John Denver）。不，等等，不是那个……“想象？”怎么样？你可以唱歌，不是吗？”

Before I have a chance to respond, Sid grips my shoulder and begins rocking back and forth, singing in poorly intoned English: “Ee-mah-jin onn duh pee-punnnn…”

我的手机响了，我伸到口袋里拉出它。虽然我真的不想回答它，但我瞥了一眼屏幕，看到它是Jaemsri。突然，我觉得突然的当务之急。我的代理泰国母亲 - 退休的英语老师非凡的人和著名的法官在整个泰国南部 - 对她有一定的东西，只是吸引并需要注意一个人。无论是和我在一起，她的前学生，甚至是格王的市长，都是如此。

我翻开电话。

“嗨，妈妈，”我说。

“保罗，”她说，直奔往常。“您现在需要回家。和尚来了。”

“What?”

“和尚，”她说。“我从山洞里告诉你的那个。请，与爸爸和我一起取得绩效。您即将离开美国回家，您需要祝福他。”

像往常一样，她甚至在我有机会争论之前就挂断了电话。

I look at Yui up on stage, and feel a pang of regret. Then I turn to Sid.

“I’m sorry,” I say to him. “I can’t tonight.”

他看上去很狂热。但是，当我将几乎全杯啤酒推向他时，他的脸略微变软。

“好吧，”他说，拿着杯子。“明天晚上。”

我点点头。然后我从酒吧起床，进入黑暗。

* * *

When I pull into Jaemsri’s driveway, she and her husband (my “Dad”) Cherdchai, as well as a few neighbors, are sitting on chairs and sofas around the veranda. An older-looking monk in orange robes, with spectacles and a shaved head, sits on the largest sofa against the side of the house.

“Paul,” says Jaemsri. “You’re just in time. Come and have a seat.”

当我接近和尚时，我以泰国的方式敬重wai。跪下，我将手放在额头上，将手掌放在一起。然后，我靠在低头的弓上，将额头和双手朝向地面上，然后重新跪在地上，然后重复waitwice more.

“肯，肯！一位邻居说，显然印象深刻。当我起床并坐在Jaemsri旁边时，她笑了。

“This is my son,” she says to the group, full of pride. “Just like a Thai man.”

“Has he got a girlfriend yet?” says another of the neighbors.

“No, and he’s leaving soon to go back to America. He’s going to make every girl in Trang cry.”

At this, everyone laughs, including the monk. It’s a rich, authentic laugh, and his eyes shine.

“He will go back to America?” says the first neighbor.

“是的，” Jaemsri说。“在一周内，他将回去。在我们和我们在一起近两年之后。”

“And what will he do when he goes home?”

“他要写书！”Jaemsri说，微笑着。僧侣好奇地眼睛，然后转过身对Jaemsri说些什么。当他说话时，她的眼睛亮了。然后她转向我。

“Did you understand what he said?” she says to me in English.

“I’m not sure,” I say. The monk speaks Thai quickly, and uses the regional dialect of the south, which is difficult for my Bangkok-trained ears to catch.

她说：“他邀请您在他的山洞里和他在一起。”“你必须去。在去曼谷的路上。你会做的a lot优点。”

在我有机会回应之前，她转向了和尚。

她对他说：“他很想来。”

我吞咽了，僧侣看着我，微笑。

* * *

The monk’s cave is in Phang-nga, a province about two hundred kilometers north of Trang. Dad drives Mom and I up Highway 4, the main artery that goes up the western Andaman Coast. I watch as endless groves of rubber trees pass by outside the window. Glimmers of sunlight pass through the leaves, falling down like dust on the hood and windshield of the car.

When we turn off the highway, we begin to ascend among rolling green hills. Up above, the sky is a brilliant blue, with only a few wisps of clouds. Outside, we pass a slowly moving motorbike, hitched to a wooden sidecar carrying two large tanks of propane. The driver’s face is burned dark from the sun, and between his lips hangs a small bamboo cheroot, its tip glowing red against the dark mahogany of his skin. Other than him, there is no other traffic on the road.

We turn onto a dirt track, and as the car rumbles along among the pebbles and the dust, I see a large sign up ahead with the headline,国王je下的皇家法令。在下面，有很多我无法捕捉的小型印刷品。泥土轨道倾斜并进一步弯曲，直到我们看到一个大的石灰岩悬崖笼罩着前方。

“就是这样，” Jaemsri说。

Cherdchai parks the car in a small, grassy clearing at the foot of the cliff. About twenty yards away, cut into the rock, there is a staircase that climbs its way upward.

As we step out of the car, the monk appears, seemingly out of nowhere, holding a broom and smiling. Peering out from behind him is a small boy, perhaps about the age of nine or ten, with a shaved head and wearing his own orange robes. He is what is called a纳恩，或一个新手 - 一个小男孩，他住在寺庙一段时间以学习僧侣的方式。当我将背包吊到肩膀上时，他好奇地眼睛。

“好吧，” Jaemsri说，我转向她。她的眼睛里有眼泪，她俯身拥抱我。

“We will always love you like a son,” she says. “Come back and stay with Dad and I anytime.”

“谢谢你，”我说，我自己的眼泪在醒来。“为您为我所做的一切。”

我在额头上亲吻她，然后转向切尔奇。他微笑着伸出手。我接受它，倾斜，给他一个拥抱。

“Okay, okay,” he says, laughing and patting me on the back. And then in English: “See you again.”

他们回到车上，我看着他们从驱动器中拉出，灰尘和灰尘在黑色四门后面的云层中飞来飞去。就像我遇到的大多数泰国人一样，他们在再见上并不大。也许在一种文化中，轮回并在一生中一次又一次地相遇被认为是理所当然的，确实没有这样的东西。

我转身面对僧侣，他站着盯着我。

“Teacher,” whispers the little boy to him, pulling lightly on his robe. “Where’s big brother going to sleep?”

老大哥？I think, and the monk grins widely.

* * *

The monk has his living quarters in a small house at the foot of the cliff. He invites us inside, where he has prepared a wok full of steamingpad see iwnoodles. He says nothing, but his smile lets us know the meal is for us. I thank him, and the boy and I help ourselves. After we finish, I wash the dishes and put them on the drying rack next to the sink. Then I turn and face the monk, who stands sweeping his small living area. He smiles again, and says something to the boy in rapid-fire southern Thai.

“Okay,” says the boy, pointing outside. “We go up.”

I look at the monk, who simply nods, and goes back to sweeping.

我们回到外面，男孩继续前进。我将手提箱滚动到草地上，将污垢滚到楼梯的脚下，然后抬起头。楼梯沿着悬崖爬上我所看到的，然后他们转弯并继续前进。我的大背包在我的背上，我开始前进，一次将手提箱吊起一个楼梯。

当我到达第一个着陆点时，小男孩站在那儿微笑。

“Nueaiyang?” he asks.累了吗？

“Yes,” I say, stopping to lean my weight against my suitcase and wipe sweat from my brow. “Is it much farther to the top?”

“不，”他说。然后他冲上楼梯，好像是在嘲笑我。

I continue the rest of the way, grunting and sweating, until we reach the wide mouth of the cave.

“Take your shoes off here,” says the boy, kicking off his sandals before entering. I do the same, and follow him in.

When I step inside, I feel my bare feet sink into something soft and smooth. I look down, and on the ground is a coating of clean, white sand.

“和尚把它从海中抬起，”男孩简单地说，将脚趾扭成细晶粒，然后前进。

该洞穴高宽，并用沿天花板运行的电灯泡照亮。不过很快，随着我们扭曲和弯曲的路，灯泡消失了，唯一的光来自前方的蜡烛。男孩向光走，我跟随。

我们走进一个带有小祭坛的房间。坐在它上，以及燃烧的蜡烛和乔斯棍子，是一张图像reu-see—an old hermit or anchorite, unique to Thai legend. Seated in a meditation posture, with his long white beard and gentle eyes, he looks serene and full of wisdom. In front of him sits a small canvas tent, pitched upon the sand. The boy unzips the flap door, and motions for me to put my bags inside.

“You’ll sleep here,” he says. “There’s a bathroom back near the entrance, if you need to use it.”

I nod, and put down my bags. After he scampers off, I strip out of my clothes—making sure to keep the tent between me and the prying eyes of the hermit—and put a towel around my waist. Grabbing a bar of soap and some shampoo, I head back through the cave, to a small bathroom fashioned inside a natural opening in the rock. As I expected, the shower is just a large barrel of cold water with a pail. I dump some water on myself, lathering and rinsing, and feeling the chill of the water against my skin. By the time I make my way back, the little boy has returned, and is lying inside the tent.

“你在干什么？”我问，在毛巾下面拉了一条短裤。

“I’m going to sleep here with you,” he says.

“Umm…”

“I wouldn’t want you to sleep back here alone. It’s scary back here, and I don’t want big brother to have a bad dream.”

“I think I’ll be all right,” I say, ducking under the mesh flap of the tent and zipping it closed, before stepping over him to the empty sleeping bag. Lying down, I take out a flashlight and my copy of Paul Theroux’s大力神的支柱, before beginning to read.

“嘿big brother,” he says, sidling up next to me. “What are you reading? Can you read it aloud to me?”

“It’s in English,” I tell him. “I don’t think you’d understand.”

Undeterred, he continues to stare up at me expectantly, and feeling his eyes on me, I put the book down. For a moment, I stare up at the canvas of the tent, thinking what a bizarre situation this is.

After a while I turn and look at him. He is still staring at me from inside his sleeping bag.

“嘿,” I say. “Would you mind if I called you ‘Short Round?’ Or maybe just ‘Shorty?’”

He seems to think about it for a moment.

“I don’t think so,” he says. “What’s it mean?”

我告诉他：“有一天你应该看一部很棒的电影。”“叫Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom。那部电影中的男孩被称为短轮，他看起来有点像你。他与坏人打架，然后跳出飞机，甚至可以开车。”

As I tell him this, his eyes go wide.

“哇，”他说。“Wow。”

“I know,” I say. “It’s incredible.”

我们沉默了，我凝视着帐篷前瓣的网眼。蜡烛在祭坛上闪烁，隐士无聊地盯着我。

“嘿，老大哥。”

“What’s that?”

“You can call me Shorty. I don’t mind.”

“Okay. I will.”

“谢谢。晚安，老大哥。做个好梦。”

“Goodnight, Shorty. You too.”

* * *

In the morning, the two of us walk back down the long staircase to the monk’s quarters at the foot of the cliff. Today, Shorty leads me around to the far side of the house, where there is a garage surrounded by tall grass. The monk is standing out in front, and he motions for us to help ourselves to some fried fish, curry, and rice set out on a small table. Shorty and I sit down and help ourselves, eating in the early morning sunshine. After we finish, I take our plates and wash them out with a nearby hose, before putting them in a bus pan sitting by the back door to the house. When I turn back around, the monk is standing right in front of me.

“Can you drive?” he says. It is the first thing he’s spoken to me since my arrival yesterday, and the first thing I’ve been able to understand.

“Um,” I say. “I mean—yes.”

“很好，”他递给我一组钥匙。他走到金属车库门，俯身，双手握住手柄。他以强烈的向上拉动，将门打开，露出了一个崭新的丰田福特纳（Toyota Fortuner）。

“Okay,” he says. “You pull the car out and I’ll close this up behind us.”

我点头，如他所说。

A few moments later, I find myself sitting in the car with the two of them—Shorty in the back, the monk in the passenger seat, and me behind the wheel. Up above, the sun is already high in the sky, shining down through the verdant canopy of the trees.

僧侣说：“转到这里。”“而且您将一路走，直到我们拿起通往苏拉特塔尼的主高速公路。我会告诉你什么时候接近。”

这样，他闭上了眼睛，似乎立即入睡。我看着后视镜。Shorty在后排座位上伸展出来，还享受了早晨的午睡。

Shaking my head, I put the car into gear, and pull out onto the dirt track.

* * *

I drive for about forty-five minutes with both hands on the wheel, feeling like I’ve been entrusted with precious cargo. Neither the monk nor Shorty wear seatbelts, which makes me anxious, despite the fact that this is a rather normal occurrence among Thais. Still, I wonder what might happen if we were to get pulled over. It would certainly look bizarre, and I figure it is probably illegal—a youngfarang盖伊（Guy），没有任何适当的泰国或国际驾驶执照，为旧僧侣和新手提供司机。但是我意识到这可能是mai pen rai，没有什么可担心的。车上的老和尚的存在将确保任何警察都会以其他方式看待。

I think about this for a moment—how the entire fabric of the Thai society is affected, and made warmer, by a population that has a deep reverence for its elderly, and especially for those whom they consider to be wise, even holy. How different this is from back home, where wisdom and grace are not valued as qualities in and of themselves, but only when tied to financial might or political power.This is why people like the Dalai Lama have to be born in Asia， 我认为。Because if they were born in America, they’d never make the news.

“走这个出口，”僧侣说，把我从我的畏惧中抢走。我合并到外坡道上，经过几回合后，我们进入了Tha ngiw医院的后门。

* * *

After parking the car, a doctor in a white coat meets us at a small service entrance at the back of the hospital. He and the monk chat briefly, before he turns to me and shakes my hand, speaking in English.

“欢迎，”他说。“我是Tha Ngiw医院主任Thongdee博士。进来，我们为您换衣服。”

当我们穿过入口时，一名护士带着一对磨砂膏接近我。在她身后是一扇摇摆的木门，潮湿的水分，泰语和英语上方都有标志：
อบตัวสมุนไพร
草药桑拿

“Put those on, and meet us back here,” says the doctor, before he, the monk, and Shorty go off down the hallway.

The nurse opens a door to a small changing room, and motions for me to go inside. I close the door, change into the scrubs, and fold my clothes into a small pile, before walking back outside. A few minutes later, everyone reappears, wearing identical scrubs.

“Okay,” says the doctor, opening the door to the sauna. “If you get too hot, or you feel faint, just let me know.”

我们进去，坐在潮湿的木凳上。我坐在矮个子旁边，僧侣和医生坐在我们对面。在我们之间的地板上有四个水桶，每个水桶高约一英尺，都充满了不透明的深棕色液体。护士跟随我们在里面，将水倒在一桶热煤上。有一个响亮的嘶嘶声，新鲜的蒸汽充满了房间。另一位护士似乎拿着一个托盘，她递给所有人一杯红汁。我喝了一口。它很甜，但是有轻微的酸味。

“Roselle juice,” says the doctor. “Full of antioxidants.”

He puts his bare feet into one of the buckets of dark liquid. The monk and Shorty do the same, and I sit there, wondering if I should follow suit.

“That,” says the doctor, motioning towards the bucket in front of me, “is a solution containing the essential oils distilled from the wood of a specific kind of tree, indigenous to the south of Thailand.”

医生看着沉默的和尚，然后回到我身边。

医生说：“僧侣几年前开始在他洞穴外的丛林中种植这些树木。”“很久以来，我们就知道这棵树中的油是可以用来打击癌症的强大顺势疗法药物，以及促进整体健康。在我们知道这一点之前很久 - 他就知道。”

我将右脚的脚跟浸入深色液体中，对其进行测试。它很热，但否则感觉就像是普通水。慢慢地，我将两脚放下。看到这一点，和尚微笑。

“About a year ago,” says the doctor, “there was a woman who came to be treated here. She was very sick with breast cancer, and the doctors at Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok had given her one month to live. When she came, it was clear why they had given her such a prognosis. She was very weak, and could barely walk. But we managed to treat her here for eight weeks, before she left and went back to Bangkok.”

Shorty’s feet make a splashing sound in the bucket, and the steam hangs in the air like a veil.

“You mean she was cured?” I say in disbelief.

“Completely healthy,” says the doctor. Then the monk says something to him in southern Thai, and they both grin.

“He wants me to tell you the best part,” says the doctor, chuckling. “As this woman was leaving the hospital, the monk handed her an envelope containing two hundred铢。At first she was confused by the gesture, but the monk said to her, ‘When you get back to Bangkok, I want you to use this money to get a taxi to Siraraj Hospital. Just stop in there briefly, and go see your old doctors. Tell them thanks for all their help and advice, but you’re doing just fine now.’”

Upon hearing this, the monk grins, before the two of them exchange a few more words.

“He says,” explains the doctor, “That he wishes he could have seen the look on those poor doctors' faces. When they saw that woman, they probably thought they were seeing a ghost!”

然后，僧侣在大腿上用力拍打医生，他们两个爆发出令人难以置信的笑声。

* * *

Back at the monk’s quarters, we eat a simple dinner of shrimp fried rice, before washing up and heading to bed. I make my way back to the tent, and read for a few minutes by flashlight. It isn’t long before Shorty reappears, sidling up next to me once again.

“你今天玩得开心吗？”他说。

I put my book down on my chest, and stare out at the candles flickering on the altar.

“I don’t know if I would call it fun,” I say. “It was interesting. I just don’t know what to think of it all.”

肖蒂什么也没说，但他似乎在听。

“I studied biochemistry in college,” I tell him. “And from what I learned there, I should be comfortable dismissing the kind of medicine the monk and the doctor practice as a bunch of nonsense. And yet…there’s something about them. Maybe it has to do with their good nature, or their sense of humor, but whatever it is, they’re both very charismatic. I imagine there must be a lot of people who find them strange, and I bet that for everyone out there who believes in them, there are probably plenty more who want to discredit what they do. But one thing’s for sure – they’re impossible to ignore.”

Shorty仍然保持沉默，好像促使我继续前进。

“I guess the thing I find really strange is that, in spite of all my background knowledge, and my upbringing – there’s a part of me that can’t help but believe.”

我低头看着肖蒂（Shorty），他滚到他的肚子上，然后将自己抬到肘部。

“是的，”他抬头看着我说。“僧侣知道大哥甚至在你到达这里之前就是一个信徒。”

我凝视着他。

“你在说什么？”

“That’s为什么他把你带到这里。”他说。“他只会把他知道会相信的人带到这里。”

His words take me aback, and his voice seems to echo in the damp silence of the cave.Who he knows will believe…

“但为什么？”我说。“我的意思是，这是一个很好的荣誉。但是，无论我是否相信 - 下周我要回美国。”

"We know,” says Shorty. “But you’re a writer, right? The monk said that after you went home, you would write all about this. And that maybe one day people might read what you write, and it might help them to believe, too.”

听到此消息后，时间似乎放慢了速度。这个男孩的话就像一个钥匙，在我里面解锁了一些东西，直到现在，我只有模糊的直觉就在那里。然而，正是这种模糊的直觉引导了我来这里，这些年来，我愿意将自己脱离家乡和家人。我回想起我离开的时候，以及我如何以为我可以将所有人和所有人都抛在后面，并在没有所有对文化的繁重期望的情况下重塑自己的意愿。而我所有的时间都在这个地方hadremade me, I suddenly see that the transformation had never been of my own doing. It had always been Thailand, working on me slowly and imperceptibly, like water works upon a stone. And now, underneath all my rough and unfinished edges, a nascent form or shape was beginning to appear.A writer?我仍然不舒服与他人谈论这些愿望，更不用说将自己称为公众的作家了。但是，经过多年的外国舌头搏斗，乘汽车出租车和运河船驾驶曼谷，在泰国南部的阳光下烘烤，我比过去更相信自己。也许这是泰国对我的伟大礼物，或者我为自己向她开放的回报 - 能够质疑我是否曾经被告知生活中可能发生的一切可能都是错误的。也许我开始敢于想象自己的生活不仅有可能，而且是唯一值得努力的事情。也许，就像一个在泰国南部丛林中击败癌症的女人一样，我拥有的最有力的事情就是我自己真正相信的能力。

“So when you write about us, make me really handsome, okay? And really strong. And I want to drive a car, like the boy fromIndiana Jones。Maybe you can say that I drove us to the hospital at two hundred kilometers an hour, when we were being chased by bad guys…Okay, big brother?…don’t forget about us, because we’ll miss you…we’re really gonna miss you…”

祭坛上的蜡烛烧毁了，我可以感觉自己滑了。帐篷下面的沙子对我的身体感觉很好，我开始怀疑这是否是一个梦，是否所有这些都是梦，我在安达曼海的底部睡着了，盯着海浪。

It won’t be long now, I think, as a Thai sunset cascades down through the blue.

您正在回家。

The author in the monk's cave before his return home.

毕业于2009年特拉华大学化学学位后，保罗·金moved abroad to Thailand, where he lived, studied, and worked for three years. He returned home to the US in 2012.