Mr. Tomyam

Tom was raised in a hectic Bangkok restaurant, ran by his large family. In the evenings he would help out and use his wages for cinema trips to watch the latest martial arts movies. One evening when he was alone in the restaurant, as he was preparing his favourite dish, a foreign gentleman raps on the door. Soaked from the monsoon rain, he asks Tom if there is anything to eat. Even though the kitchen was already closed he offers the man a bowl of the soup he had just poured into the hot pot, they silently sit together slurping from enamel bowls. The foreigner was an Italian who recently arrived in the Thai capital to open a restaurant. After he finished the bowl and he exclaims that it was the best soup he ever had. “What’s your name”, he asks the boy. Misunderstanding the question, Tom replies: Tomyam…