The dining room was smaller than the rest of the rooms in the house that Malee has seen. Other than the large wooden table in the middle that could seat about 10 persons, there weren’t much in the room. Malee spoke to the lady besides her and was told it was only the dining room…

After walking through several narrow streets and avoiding dog poo on the uneven road, Malee eventually reached her hut in front of the dumpsite. It was barely standing in the wind and dust as if she had left that morning. Puddles from the morning heavy downpour were still visible on the road and, as Malee…

Mary too, Malee noticed, became more relaxed. She grabbed Malee’s hands and walked towards the gate. She halted in half-way from the house to the gate, as if she had seen something she wasn’t expecting. Malee followed her eyes to a spot at the far corner of the garden where a man and a boy were pulling out a tree from the ground. Malee recognised the man as the gardener who took away her cart.

To Malee, the person standing at the entrance looked strange. She was tall with her skirt cut from the left leg till it exposed part of her skin all the way till her upper thigh. She was also wearing a tight t-shirt with a deep slit in the middle. On her hand, she wore plenty of bracelets and several stones on her fingers and on her neck, hanged a beautiful gold necklace. She looked like an actress from a movie rather than in an actual living person.

Once Mary had left the room, and the door has been closed, George turned his face towards Malee. “Where are you from?,” asked George. “Far from here,” replied Malee with a straight face, hoping she would not have to admit she practically lived in the dump site. She doubted someone like George would understand the…

The story, in brief, is about Malee, a poor, uneducated girl, selling fried potato snacks in a broken pushcart around slums in modern Bangkok and how she rose to become the partner of the richest, most desirable man in Thailand. Along the way, she had to endure not only the wealth, and the class divide but also her family background.

“You! How can you say such things to our Mistress? I should give you a tight slap,” shouted the housekeeper and then bowed to young master still rolling on the floor. “I apologise young master, I will kick her out…”

“Wow!,” whispered Malee to herself as she squeezed her body through the wooden door. It was so thick and heavy that she doubted she could push it open herself.

“Bring her to the staff kitchen and give her someone to wear.” said the housekeeper to another lady. “I will see to young master and someone clean up here.”

Malee, which meant “flower” in Thai language ,  shouted at the top of her voice as she pushed the cart in the heavy downpour. The rain, which started early morning, had not subsided, and she knew in her heart everyone would sleep in their homes with their families. Her arms were aching from having to push the cart in the wet roads overran by the muddy water, and she felt her throat swelling from having to shout to be heard over the rain. Her clothes, handed down from her mother with hand stitches all over, were flipping against her skin in the wind. Her brother on her back was still sleeping, or perhaps he was too tired from crying from hunger.