Hats Off

I usually have little trouble with children. They know their place and I know mine. In rapscallion moments I have been called a ‘dinosaur’, a ‘mountain’ and things in Chinese I have not the wit to translate. Over time I have acquired a twelve year old stepson, whom I think the world of and, in my folly, I attempt to teach creative writing to a group of 11+ years olds, once a week. I also volunteer in Cambodia, frequently in schools with young children, and visit homes of impoverished Cambodian children. However, those children, no matter how monkeyish, ebullient and gibbering they appear to be at times, are not the issue here.

Some days past I was on a working holiday, in Cambodia. I was giving Art talks and reading poetry to students in Siem Reap, as well as visiting the aforementioned impoverished children who, incidentally, were all tucked away down barely beaten paths in the most rural of rural places in the Cambodian countryside. They smiled their dirty faced and most glorious of innocent smiles to me and I reciprocated, while simultaneously trying to dash coconut water from out my drowned beard - with thanks to one village parent who had organized fresh coconut juice - straight from the coconut. 

No, it was not the charming children in the rural villages, nor the insistent but nevertheless endearing children in the towns with their baby milk scams, that had me all wound up and virtually fuming at the ears, but one singular urban child. He was a Malaysian tyke whom we had brought with us. He was a jackanapes of a male child, who had, perhaps somewhat reluctantly, accompanied his mother on our saunter into heaty and dusty Cambodia.

The fun had began on the plane. The boy’s voice could be heard above all others on the silver cigar tube slicing through sufficiently fluffy clouds of South East Asia. It was heard right up to the moment of disembarking and through into customs and into the baggage hall. That unmistakable demanding and simultaneously whinny voice was no less silent while we waited for our transport to whirl us away to our hotel. Joy upon joy upon joy - we were to be staying in the same hotel, which rapidly became hot hell.

Other guests complained. The boy was given a warning to be silent at night while other guests wanted to enjoy the peace of Siem Reap and soak up the Angkor atmosphere. To no avail. I kept my distance, not wanting to be drawn into remarking upon that individual’s behaviour, unfortunately, fate decided otherwise.

Our small group went shopping in the local day market. We trundled the lanes, browsed the stalls and lit upon a stall selling material goods - T-shirts, shirts, blouses etc etc ect. Being somewhat tired due to my size in a hot country, I sought to rest on a chair opposite. My good friend was on one side of me and my wife was occupied buying goods for us both. The chair on the other side of me was empty save for my wife’s hat - exactly like mine but a tad smaller and brown. I had bought both in John Lewis before departing to live in Malaysia, eight years since at a cost of￡35 each.

The child, who was rapidly becoming someone out of a Hilaire Belloc Cautionary Tale, was continuing his obnoxious behaviour with no respite. Nerves were on the point of fraying, teeth were grinding and all thoughts of Buddhist philosophy had flown back to Angkor Wat and Bayon. The child then did something quite unimaginable. The frowning, grumpy child, awash with his own thoughts, and giving little thought for others, grabbed my wife’s hat from where it rested on the chair and threw it onto the dusty, dirty floor. Without a moment’s consideration, my right hand clipped the back of the boy’s head as my wife’s hat touched the filth of the ground.

My friend leaned across and whispered “Good, I have been wanting to do that all day”. The boy stood stock still. His lips trembled, but no sound was emitted. He stood, inwardly sobbing, for some seconds, then moved to the comfort of his mother. From behind her, he screamed at me “I’ll, I’ll, bash you”. He had not learned a lesson, but I had - not to allow myself to be in such situations with obnoxious small boys ever again. Now I have to practice Right Thought and Right Action even harder than before. My life journey continues.