Part 1, The Greed of Money. Isaan Thailand.

The other day I did a little lead into a story that involved a death, money, family betrayal and an angry farang. I have been so busy that I hadn’t had a chance to write about it. Well, here is the first chapter.

Now as we all know, money is the root of all evil. That is in any society but here in Thailand people will turn very nasty over money, and even if it isn’t a lot. The story has to go back a while so bear with me.

Many years ago when Noot’s father was a government teacher he took out insurance policies for his wife, mother, father and 3 daughters. When you work for the government you can get unbelievable insurance policies for your whole family. The insurance policy is a one off payment.

When Noot’s father passed away the insurance paid a sufficient amount to help the family through the hard period. Noot’s father took these polices out over 15 years ago and the money was deducted from his salary at the time.

Now we fast forward to Noot’s grandfather’s death. He passed away nearly two years ago at a good old age. He had been ill and in and out of hospital a few time so it wasn’t unexpected. The funeral rites were over 5 days. At a Thai funeral companies and organizations will bring floral wreathes and also an envelope that contains cash. Even the villagers will give as little as 20 Baht to the deceased family.

This money goes towards the expenses of the funeral, all the food, drink and so forth. Over the 5 days of the funeral rites in excess of 200,000 Baht was given to Noot’s auntie. Noot’s auntie told the 3 girls, Ben, Noot and Joom that 15,000 Baht would be given to each of them.

After the funeral was over and the cremation had taken place, the girls were given 3,000 Baht each. Apparently this was because the money that was left after the funeral was being saved for the 100 days rite. 100 days after someone dies they will have another ceremony. There was some talk between the girls about where had all the money had gone, but that was that. I told Noot not to worry. It was money you didn’t have any way.

Come to the 100 day rite. The money was virtually all gone. I didn’t attend this ceremony. Again I told Noot not to worry as it wasn’t money she had earned or really had, so forget about it. The girls did just this and moved on.

After the funeral, Noot had to go to the government offices with her grandfather’s death certificate to lodge the insurance claim. She did this and was told the exact date when she could go back and collect the insurance payout. This payout was for 100,000 Thai Baht. The beneficiaries who were named by Noot’s father were, Ben, Noot and Joom, the three daughters.
So for over nearly two year the girls had waited for the day to come to collect the insurance money. It was only when we were about 2 weeks away from the day the money was to be paid that some very interesting things started to happen. Noot’s auntie, cousin and great aunt started to contact them making some claims to the insurance money. This made Noot really angry and also at times she cried.

What her relatives were telling her she had never heard of before, until now. She couldn’t ask her father if it was true as sadly he was deceased. So one night I sat her down and we went over everything that was happening. I listened patiently, took notes and again told her not to worry too much. I told her to keep a cool heart and relax, try not to get upset.

I went over everything Noot had told me and what her relatives had said, they of course didn’t add up. It just wasn’t making sense. I then told Noot that I wanted to see her auntie, great aunt and her cousin to clear some things up. I told her to invite them to our house so it could all be settled.

In part two of this story I will go over what was said and who was telling lies and the manipulation being used that made Noot so upset, Noot finally told me what her relatives were saying. She hadn’t told me before as she knew how I would react. I don’t sit idle to threats and her relatives found that out very quickly.

All this will be in part 2 of this amusing story.

Brunty