What a coincidence. In the very same week the temple known as Wat Phra Dhammakaya was under scrutiny over its abbot’s behaviour, your columnist was himself experiencing his first full day of being frocked.
I’ve spent the last week learning how to tie a monk’s robes properly and no, it is not because I have been ordained as a monk. That experience I will save for later this year. In the meantime, your columnist of many talents is about to return to the small screen … playing a monk.
I have a new-found respect for men in saffron. Tying up those robes is difficult enough; keeping them in place requires an effort currently way beyond my capabilities.
This story begins more than 12 months ago when my accountant came rushing into my office, jittery and breathing quickly, chortling: “I just had the most amazing phone call!”
“We got a tax refund?” I asked, looking up from a very worrying set of figures threatening me on my desk.
“No … it’s a TV production company. They’re making a sitcom and they want you to act in it!”
“I would have preferred a tax refund,” I answered.
It turns out my accountant, a wonderful woman of otherwise indeterminate age had I not a copy of her ID card in my files, is a rabid fan of Thai comedy shows. She would do anything to see her boss in one.
These are programmes that foreign viewers may take a little getting used to, thanks to the barrage of bells, whistles, whoop-whoops, teedle-teedle-teedle-teedles and boinggggggs that pepper every millisecond.
Thai sitcoms are unashamedly slapstick. Imagine putting the Three Stooges along with Laurel, Hardy, Abbot and Costello in a room the size of a modern Thai studio condo (ie, three x two metres). Throw a wig and lipstick on Laurel and there you have a Thai sitcom.
I said no to the offer. My accountant didn’t speak to me for a week.
Skip to the end of last year and I was contacted again. This time I agreed to see the producers. The sitcom was about teaching young people how to lead proper lives, they told me, so I wouldn’t have to do cartwheels or have cream pies thrust into my face.
“We want you to play a monk,” the producer told me. “A farang monk.”
To my surprise I hadn’t been chosen because of my good looks or professional acting abilities — they just wanted to save money on the hairdressing budget.
For the sake of my accountant’s peace of mind, I agreed. The production team then went off shopping the project to potential sponsors — and disappeared without a trace. I can’t imagine why, with the likes of Andrew Biggs in a starring role!
In January the project was resurrected. I would be required on the set in three weeks.
My first phone call was to Rambo, who works at my local gym and was my personal trainer in a failed experiment back in 2011.
Rambo resembles a crab, thanks to bulging biceps way out of proportion to the rest of his body. For a brief moment he was the arm-wrestling champ of Thailand before somebody even more crustacean-like stole his crown. “Rambo, I need your help,” I said. “I’ve got to build up my right shoulder and arm muscles. They will be seen very soon on national TV.”
“Great! I’ll make up a programme for you on upper-body strengthening.”
“Upper right-hand-side body strengthening,” I stressed. “My left arm can go to hell.”
Rambo laughed nervously. “That would make you unbalanced.”
“So what’s new? Just do it or my next call is to Fitness First.”
Rambo ultimately talked me into both sides and we did a little bit of muscle work before the first day of shooting, at a very picturesque temple nestled on a bend in the Chao Phraya River in Pathum Thani.
We only see monks after they are dressed. Have you ever watched as a monk carefully gets into his three separate saffron robes? If you have, then shame on you; surely that’s a sin.
Putting on robes requires a lot of twisting, curling, kneading, looping and knotting. It is a task one has to do for oneself … unless you are a clueless farang with no hope of getting it right.
The monks at the temple helped me out on day one. “Take off all your clothes,” the abbot instructed. He looked me up and down (before I undressed), then added: “Keep your underwear on, but if you were a real monk you’d have to take that off too.”
There is a base piece of cloth, something like a sarong, that goes around the waist and is tied with a rope of sorts. Then there is a shirt-like cloth that goes over one shoulder, exposing the right shoulder and thus ensuring Rambo will pay the rent for the next few months.
The final piece is the killer. That’s the one that requires the twirling and wrist action I sorely lack. Did you know a monk has a rolled-up end part of the fabric that acts as a kind of steering wheel for the whole outfit? It’s tucked under his left arm. One pull of it, and the whole outfit hugs the body. Trouble is, move too much and the steering wheel unravels, as I discovered all too often.
To complicate matters further, there are different ways of wearing the robes depending on whether you are inside or outside the temple, among others. There was another mitigating factor. Being a little bigger than the average Thai, the three saffron sheets were hopelessly small.
Nevertheless, we got it done, thanks to two abbots and one other monk. Everything stayed in place.
For exactly 30 minutes.
It turns out Janet Jackson and myself finally have something in common other than weight issues; we both suffer from wardrobe malfunctions resulting in an exposed nipple. Crew members said I looked “serene”. They were mistaking “serene” for “rigid”, for the slightest movement threw the entire ensemble into disarray. I kept unravelling in the most uncomfortable of situations and in front of the most people.
Make-up and costume crews on Thai movie and TV shoots are predominantly transgender, and I was lucky enough to have one on hand who worked out how to tie it properly.
She was able to tie me up quickly and efficiently, at the risk of sounding like someone out of 50 Shades Of Grey, and was on hand whenever things started to droop — like in the main chapel towards the end of the day.
There was a scene where I had to sit meditating under a giant statue of the Lord Buddha, under the hot lights of the set, trying to look pensive when suddenly my robe started unravelling … again.
“Cut!” yelled the director. “Fix his robes!”
My little assistant immediately ran up to where I was sitting. The director shrieked: “No! Women are not allowed up on the dias!”
“I’m not a woman,” my very diligent helper announced in her sweetest voice.
There were other minor hiccups; a crew member had to explain to startled temple goers that the big farang monk eating dinner at 6pm was just an actor. Temple visitors often waied me when they saw me; I had no idea how to react.
Such is my auspicious return to the small screen.
It has been a great learning experience, not just in tying monks robes, but in comedic timing and working hard. I am looking forward to seeing how it comes together; now if only I could get my accountant to calm down and get back to work. n
