This is how we count the days. June: the Germans come to the Island—football cleats, big T-shirts, thick tongues—speaking like spitting. July: the Italians, the French, the British, the Americans. [...]
Ma says, 'Pussy and elephants. That's all these people want.' [...] She always says this in August, at the season's peak, when she's tired of farangs running all over the Island, tired of finding used condoms in the motel's rooms, tired of guests complaining to her in five languages. [...] We're having a late lunch, watching television in the motel office. The Island Network is showing Rambo: First Blood Part II again. Sylvester Stallone, dubbed in Thai, mows down an entire regiment of VC with a bow and arrow. I tell Ma I've just met a girl. 'It might be love,' I say.
www.granta.com/extracts/2074
Rattawut Lapcharoensap was born in Chicago in 1979, raised in Thailand and now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 'Farangs' is his first publication.