Take Me Home

Nakayoshi means “good friend” in Japanese, and it’s also the name of my favorite local pub here on the outskirts of Bangkok. On Saturday nights, Pop comes in with his guitar and plays cover songs – mostly Thai music.

Every once in a while he’ll pull out an obscure American tune from his songbook. Tonight, that was John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads.

Sitting on the stool with his guitar, strumming chords, singing into the mic, Pop hits the chorus and the place erupts. The sudden shock wave nearly knocks me off my seat.

Country rooooooads...Take me hoooooome!

To the plaaaaace...Where I beloooooong!

West Virginiaaaaa! Mountain mamaaaaaa...

Take me hoooooome…Country roooads!

I readjust myself on the chair and pan my head across the room. Win and Oy surrender their conversation mid-sentence and swing their pints left and right as they belt out the lyrics. Jum stands up and strums an air guitar he pulled out of his back pocket. Pla pumps her fist in the air, tapping the sky on beat.

I didn’t come from West Virginia, and I never saw mountains as great as the Appalachians, but I know home when I see it.

The first time I came to Thailand in 2007, I spent seventeen days in the suburbs of Bangkok in a place called Taling Chan to train Muay Thai at a gym called Kaewsamrit. One night after a grueling training session, I lay sprawled on a mattress in an otherwise empty room above the gym. I couldn’t sleep because it was hot and humid and a dying street dog was howling in agony throughout the night.

Eventually the sun started to cast an orange glow outside and I realized I had spent the entire night re-evaluating my life in America. On the surface, I had the house, the BMW, the money, the security. But I was spending 60-plus hours a week working for a home I barely lived in and a car I never drove. Every day I arrived at work, corporate America gnawed away at my soul.

That day, I promised myself that I would make Thailand my home. Seven years later, I bought a one-way ticket and touched down on Thai soil for good. Twelve years later and I am still here.

I’m not sure what “home” meant to everyone in the pub tonight, but it looked like they wanted to go back. As for me? There was nowhere to go, because I was already home.