RAMKHAMHAENG SECRETS (PART ONE)

Last Saturday night I was at a chic party rubbing shoulders with the upper echelon of Bangkok expat society. No need to put on that face - there is an upper echelon, you know, and but for a brief moment I was in it. I'm not talking about the mere mortals who grace the inner-city embassies or the attractive but ultimately flighty members of BNOW. I mean the real movers and shakers. It was during a lull in the conversation that one of these Bangkok blue bloods asked: "How did you get good at Thai?" And this is what I told them.

Back in 1995 I had been in Thailand for five years and was at a level of Thai that was acceptable, but not brilliant. How could I get better at the language? I decided to study Thai at university.

I chose Ramkhamhaeng University because there were a lot of graduates at the office, and they seemed to be pretty hard-working, smart people. Ramkhamhaeng is the world's largest semi-open university, with some 300,000 students learning out of textbooks and/or in classrooms. Anyone with a Grade 12 education can study there, but it's not quite as easy as it sounds. Every Thai knows the saying: "Ramkhamhaeng University: Easy to enter, difficult to leave." I know that sounds like a Twilight Zone episode, or that there should be the warm smell of colitis rising up through the campus air. What it really means is getting a degree from this university requires discipline and time management, something I certainly didn't have a lot of back in 1995.

I was the first Westerner ever to apply to study at Ramkhamhaeng and it was news at the time. I hadn't really started in TV so I was fairly anonymous - as much as a 186cm tall, bald-headed, big-eared farang can be in this country. But the university was proud to have me, and I was excited to be there. On the day I applied to be a student and received my student ID card and purchased the textbooks, I walked out feeling like I was on top of the world.

When I opened the textbooks, I came crashing back to earth.

There is a subject in first year at Ramkhamhaeng that all Thai students fear. It's called English 101. It's all that really interesting stuff in English, like how to conjugate verbs and the 12 tenses of English plus conditional tenses and - I know, I've lost you already. Just the thought of that subject scares the living daylights out of every first year student, back then and even now.

Except for me.

I was probably the first student that went into the final exam without ever having opened the textbook. I breezed through the 100 questions and left early, while every other student had looks of constipation on their faces as they ploughed through that killer test.

There was another mandatory first year subject, but the feeling towards this subject was vastly different. Students giggled at how easy it was. That subject was Thai 101, or basic Thai grammar stuff they had all learned since they were toddlers.

Except for me.

I will never forget the day I opened the Thai 101 textbook for the first time and saw the myriad rules and regulations governing the Thai language. I felt betrayed. I'd always been told there were no rules to Thai - no tenses, no plurals, nothing but nice, easy one-syllable words. You could put words in any order as long as you smiled or performed a delicate traditional Thai dance as you spoke.

Suddenly I realised this simply wasn't true. Suddenly I was confronted with 16 different ways to refer to oneself, another 14 or so to refer to "you" and the most difficult thing of all, the Royal Language used specifically for the monarch. And I was expected to know all this!

The Royal Language scared me the most. It was difficult enough to remember "walk" as dern. Now I had to know that it was praratchadamnern as well. Granted, it was lovely to the ear, but like a plate of rotten somtum, the knowledge went in one end and out the other. Nothing stayed in my brain.

As examination day drew closer, I had the sinking realisation that I wasn't going to pass TH101. What a terrible loss of face this was going to be. Here I was, the apple of the uni's eye, their first farang studying there, and I knew I was going to fail. You must believe me - I had sleepless nights planning ways of getting out of the test, like stepping in front of a green bus on Srinakarin Road. I didn't want to kill myself, but I would have been happy to be critically injured.

I started to hate myself. The idea of studying Thai at university level was crazy. I wasn't smart enough to do this! I should have spent my nights doing what every other expat does in this city; frequenting Patpong bars, pursuing an ultimately unfulfilling cross-cultural relationship, or even sitting in the audience of the latest Bangkok Community Theatre production. Anything was better than being inside the pages of the TH101 textbook!

One week before the exam I had a call from my friend Taweesak, who worked at the university.

"So how are you feeling?" he asked.

I could no longer hold back my feelings. "Terrible!" I ejaculated.

"Why? What's happened?"

I went on to explain. "It's this subject TH101. I can't remember it! One week to the test and I'm gonna fail, Taweesak. I'm going to look bad, and everybody in the whole country's going to know the truth that I'm actually pretty stupid and - ."

Taweesak was laughing by this stage. There is nothing quite as infuriating as a laughing Thai in a moment of crisis, but before I could berate him, he said: "Relax. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Here at Ramkhamhaeng, we have a special way to ensure you will pass your subject."

Being the cynical soulless Australian I am, I immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion. "How much? Do I put it in an envelope? And how do I get it to the teacher?"

Taweesak laughed again. "No, nothing like that. I'm going to make you do something I'm sure no foreigner has ever done before. But it will make you pass. Just meet me outside the statue of King Ramkhamhaeng tomorrow at midday."

And with that, Taweesak hung up.

I am going to reveal to you, dear reader, what I had to do to ensure I would pass, just as I did last Saturday night to my little circle of hi-so expats desperate to hear what happened next. But alas, we are at the end of the page. The thrilling climax to this story - which involves me embarrassing myself during a clandestine meeting at midnight - shall be told next week.

In the meantime, does anybody know of another hi-so party I can weasel myself into?