The infamous case in the 1990s, when Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husband's (John)penis in Virginia, drew national attention and got a lot of laughs. For me, it was a case of deja vu since we had witnessed a similar incident in Bangkok when I was stationed there in the 1970s. The incident, which involved a duck, gave rise to a new joke in the Thai lexicon that lives to this day.
One morning at about 4am, a Thai husband came home from a night of carousing and jumped into bed. Soon, he was fast asleep. His wife, up to here with all his playing around, took a knife and cut off the man’s penis, then threw it out the window into the garden.
Of course, the man’s screams brought neighbors who whisked him off to the hospital. The doctor told the man’s neighbors to go back to the house, find the organ and bring it back so that he could try and re-attach it.
So the neighbors rushed back to the house, by now accompanied by news reporters and photographers. Searching the yard, they found that the penis had been scarfed up by a duck. What ensued was the neighbors chasing the duck around the yard, while the photographers took pictures. As a result, photos of the scene and the duck with the organ in his bill appeared in all of Bangkok’s newspapers. I personally saw the picture in the Bangkok Post.
From that day, a legend was born, and to this day, a reference to a duck will bring laughter to any Thai.
No comments:
Post a Comment