Studying abroad alone could be tough. Even without considering the difficulty of the course itself, my study in the US has been quite challenging, especially in the financial aspect. Everything here was so expensive compared to back home. I felt upset every time I did my monthly budgeting. Housing, food, tuition, and transportation, they all added up to a frightening amount.
So, I started taking a part-time job.
It was a medium-sized Thai restaurant just about fifteen minutes from my dormitory. All the employees there were all Thai, and they immediately hired me as a waitress for a simple reason - being able to speak both Thai and English decently. Although I was the youngest there, I fit in easily, and everyone welcomed me as the ‘little sister’ of the team. It was one of those rare occurrences where when the management claimed that they ‘work together like a family,’ they really meant it. The loneliness of being in a vastly different cultural environment bonded us, and we always looked out for one another.
Overall, it was a really good workplace. The pay was not bad, and I also got paid extra with some free Thai meal every shift. The food was far from authentic (my mom would faint if she saw the chef put broccolis and carrots into green curry), but the part where we crowded into the kitchen and chit-chatted over a hot meal together before the shift started was what I looked forward to the most each day. It was a little wholesome moment that reminded me of my family back home.
There was one extra task that I needed to do each day before the meal, though.
On the far corner of the restaurant was an old wooden shelf holding a small doll of a boy wearing a traditional Thai costume, this deity was called Kuman Thong. The word Kuman Thong meant a golden boy. The practice of adopting Kuman Thong was a very old belief dating back hundreds of years, and somehow it still survived until today. Ask any Thai person you know about this, and you might hear an interesting anecdote.
Kuman Thong’s origin was quite morbid, as expected. In the past, dead foetuses of children who died while still in their mothers’ womb were roasted and dried by a practitioner of black magic to create a Kuman Thong. Through a specific ritual, the spirit of the stillborn babies would be invoked to possess these dried corpses. The owner could then adopt them and worship them, feeding them food like a real child.
Obviously you couldn’t use stillborns to create Kuman Thong now, so people opted to use dolls instead. Still creepy, but it definitely resulted in less grave-robbing if I had to guess.
People believed that the Kuman Thong would bring luck and prosperity to any household that took good care of it. My grandmother also adopted one at her home in Bangkok; she had always had it ever since she moved there sixty years ago. One of the stories she would tell me all the time when I was young was about the one time she forgot to turn off the stove before going to bed. She told me that she had a bizarre dream that night where she saw a small child dressed in traditional Thai outfit running in her house, giggling like he was trying to show her something. She felt like someone was pulling her leg, then woke up to the smell of a burning kitchen. Luckily, she was able to put out the fire very quickly, and until today, she still believed that the Kuman Thong came to warn her about the fire in her dream.
Noi, the owner of the restaurant must have held the same strong belief as my grandmother. I had never met her, but our manager told us that she was quite superstitious. Apparently, she came to the US with almost nothing but somehow managed to buy the restaurant at a very favourable price. Not only that, a famous food blogger came in a few years ago and left a good review, resulting in the business picking up very quickly. Noi credited all these lucky events to the power of the Kuman Thong. Therefore, it was crucial for her that we treated the Kuman Thong with utmost respect. We had to treat it like a real child.
I was never the person who would believe in these supernatural deities. But in Thai, we had a phrase saying ‘if you don’t believe in it, don’t disrespect it.’ That phrase was something I lived by all my life, so when the manager asked me to take a small plate of food to the Kuman Thong, I complied.
“Kuman Thong, the dinner is ready. Please enjoy.” I murmured to the doll as I placed the tray of food and a glass of red Fanta on the shrine. Yes, red Fanta. As absurd as it may sound, Kuman Thong’s choice of drink was apparently strawberry soda. People used to offer the Kuman Thong blood in the past, but not anymore. It was a common agreement that since the red Fanta and blood were both red, they should be an acceptable substitute.
It was just a normal day for me. I completed my daily ritual of offering food to the Kuman Thong and went about my day, getting ready for the restaurant to open at six. It had been raining all afternoon without a sign of stopping, so I expected it to be one of those slower days.
Around fifteen minutes to six, the first customer showed up. They were a family of three consisting of a father in his late thirties, a tired-looking mother, and a young son dangling in her arms. The child was about three or four, which was the worst age to be out in a public place. Most of the time, they were not old enough to learn to behave properly in public, but they were not young enough to be confined to the child seat for the entirety of the meal either. I glanced at my manager, Namwan, who returned me a look that said, ‘go deal with them, please.’
“Good evening, sir. I’m afraid we won’t be opening until six.” I said politely.
“We understand, but can we just wait here? I have a reservation at six under Jim. We planned to go to the park before coming here, but you know…,” the father gestured to the pouring rain outside. “So we are a little early.”
“Of course.” I led him and his family to the reserved table, right under the Kuman Thong’s shrine. “We’ll let you know when we’re ready to take your order. Would you like some drinks meanwhile?”
“Yes, just water,” the father said.
“Daddy, can I have a coke?” the boy asked as his mother placed him on a chair.
“Fine. Water and a can of coke then,” the father gave in.
The kitchen was already busy even though no order had come in yet. The chef was thawing the meat and cutting vegetables, while the kitchen hands were busy preparing spring rolls fillings. I squeezed past them to the fridge where we kept all soft drinks. There were some iced tea and lemonade soda, but no coke.
“Are we out of coke, P’Namwan?” I asked the restaurant’s manager, who was wrapping spring rolls nearby.
“I told you to refill it last night, didn’t I, Lek!” Namwan shouted at one of the kitchen hands.
“Sis I’m so sorry, but I forgot!” he shouted back.
“This guy!” Namwan sighed deeply and then turned to me. “Fah, can you please go buy some from the grocery store near the bus stop? Just take the money from the cash register.”
I didn’t want to go outside in this weather, but someone had to do it, and it was better if I did it before more customers arrived. Since everyone else was busy, I decided to take one for the team. I grabbed the umbrella and started walking.
The store was just two blocks away, but it took me almost twenty minutes to return. I bought two packs, which turned out to be heavier than I had anticipated, especially while trying to balance them with one hand while holding the umbrella with the other. Despite my best efforts, my apron was soaked and I couldn’t stop trembling. This chilly weather was something a person from a tropical country like me could never get used to.
By the time I came back, the restaurant had become much more packed. A big family arrived without a reservation, and Namwan was busy rearranging tables and chairs to accommodate them. I quickly changed my apron, grabbed a can of coke, and walked over to the first family.
The mother and father were engrossed in a conversation about politics and weren’t paying attention to their son. The boy had climbed onto his chair to the Kuman Thong’s shrine, and to my horror, he was drinking from the glass of red Fanta meant as an offering. Noi would be furious if she saw that.
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry but please don’t drink from that.” I tried to stop the boy, but I hesitated to touch other people’s children without permission. The father eventually broke away from his conversation and looked at his son with an annoyed expression.
“Jacob, get down from there,” he commanded.
“But I am thirsty!” the boy whined. “Where’s my coke?”
“It’s right here. I’m sorry it took a while,” I apologised.
I took their order, but before I left, I decided to remove the food tray from the Kuman Thong’s shrine as well. Less than half of the soda remained in the glass. Jacob had also eaten the small fish cake and rice that were offered to the Kuman Thong. Although I didn’t believe in the Kuman Thong, I still thought it was quite disrespectful for his parents to let him do that. I brought the tray back to the kitchen.
“The kid at table 14 ate the offering,” I told my manager. “Should I refill them?”
“What kind of parents let their child eat from a random shelf?” Namwan complained as she handed the long list of orders to the chef. “Yeah, we should refill that. But first, Fah, we need 12 extra champagne glasses for table 2. There are some in the dishwasher but probably not enough. I’ll look for some more in the storage room…”
More customers kept coming in, and I was so busy I forgot to refill the offering. An hour or so passed, and I was helping a customer with his receipt when Jacob’s mother approached me at the counter with a hysterical expression on her face.
“My son is missing!” She screamed. “I-I took him to the bathroom, and I got distracted from a call. He didn’t come out, so I went in to check, b-but he wasn’t there!”
This was definitely something above my paygrade. I called Namwan over, and she consoled the panicking mother while sending some of us to look for the boy around the restaurant area. I was sent out to the balcony. The rain had not stopped, and the wind was blowing cold droplets of rain into my face. I started shivering almost immediately.
Our restaurant was on the second floor of a four-storey building. The storage room and the bathroom were only accessible through the long balcony outside. A flight of stairs led down from the balcony to the parking lot. I saw Jacob’s father walking around in the rain, calling out to his son. His yelling was swallowed by the sound of the heavy rain. There were many cars parked there, but there was no sign of any other human.
I went into the bathroom, just to be sure. Obviously, it was empty. According to Jacob’s mother, she was waiting for him in front of the bathroom, so there was no way she wouldn’t have seen him leaving. Jacob might be able to fit into the small window if he tried, but I doubted he could reach it.
As I was about to leave, I heard a faint giggle.
“Jacob? Come on out, your parents are looking for you,” I said, turning around. Nobody was there; I must have confused the sound of the rain for a child’s giggle.
For the storage room, it was harder to tell if someone was there at the first glance. We didn’t clean it as often as we should, so it was all dusty and full of junk. Employees’ lockers were located on one side, several boxes of unopened dry ingredients on the other. Broken chairs and tables were stacked near the corner of the room, with cleaning supplies scattered all over. There was only a single lightbulb in there, and it was not very bright.
At first glance, there was no one there.
Then I heard it again.
It was the sound of a child laughing, and this time, I was sure of it. The giggling sound was soft and belonged to a boy around Jacob’s age. I was very spooked by this point.
“J-Jacob? Are you there?”
“He’s not here! Just me!” a boy’s voice replied, and I froze.
He replied to me, in Thai.
Suddenly, my eyes caught a movement in the dark corner of the room. I believed I saw a small head, covered with black hair in a traditional Thai top knot, moving into the shadow and disappearing. Remembering how Jacob was blonde, I screamed and slammed the door closed, hitting my back against the balcony’s railing as I backpedalled the hell out of there.
When I returned to the restaurant, Jacob’s father was back from his futile search. He was soaked wet and defeated. Jacob’s mother was crying hysterically. The police arrived shortly after that. From their whispers, it seemed they were considering Jacob’s disappearance as a kidnapping case. I gulped and turned to Namwan, who was biting her nails anxiously.
“P’Namwan, umm… does any one of us bring a child here?” I asked.
“What are you talking about?” Namwan asked. “None of us have any kids. And even if we do, P’Noi would never allow us to bring them here.”
“I-I see,” I murmured.
“Did you see something, Fah?” she asked, suddenly becoming attentive. “You should tell the police if you saw anything strange.”
“I don’t know if I saw what I think I saw.” I glanced at the Kuman Thong doll on the shelf. Namwan followed my gaze and gasped quietly. She then disappeared into the kitchen and came out with a refilled glass of red Fanta and a plate of food.
The police watched in confusion as Namwan brought the plate to the Kuman Thong shrine, but she didn’t seem to care. She pressed her hands together and started to pray in silence. As I watched her, I also called out to the Kuman Thong in my mind and asked him to help find the missing child.
Not even ten minutes had passed when one of the policemen ran into the restaurant.
“We found him!”
We could not believe our eyes as another policeman walked in with Jacob cuddled in his arms. I didn’t get a good look at him because he was quickly carried away to the ambulance, with his parents rushing behind. We all had a big collective sigh of relief, but then the policemen started to look very serious.
“We found him in one of the bathroom stalls. Apparently, he never left,” the policeman said. “You guys did check the bathroom right?”
“Countless times!” Namwan insisted. “Both his parents went in to look for him, almost all of our employees went in. Even one of you guys went in when you first arrived, remember?”
“This is really strange.” The policeman scratched his head. “How did none of us see him during the two hours he was missing?”
“He must have been playing with Kuman Thong. Perhaps the Kuman Thong didn’t want his playtime to be over yet…” one of the kitchen hands murmured. Namwan turned to glare at him. After all, she didn’t want them to think we were a bunch of superstitious crazy people.
Although it was still unexplainable at the time, the police accepted their win and left. My life resumed its normal routine. We never saw Jacob’s family again, which was understandable. I wouldn’t want to come back either if I were them. I still thought about them and the weird encounter in the storage room from time to time, and I brought it up with Namwan one day.
“Actually, a policeman dropped by a week after that,” Namwan said. “You weren’t here since it was not your shift. He came to ask if we had seen any suspicious individuals that day. They suspected that something emotionally traumatic happened to that kid.”
“Why did they think so?” I asked.
“Because the boy wouldn’t speak to anyone after the whole ordeal. His parents said it was like he was a different person. When he finally talked, he spoke in a language they didn’t understand. His diet also changed; he wouldn’t eat anything except pig blood curd. They were pretty spooked and concerned, it seemed,” Namwan handed me the tray. “Anyway, take this to the Kuman Thong, will you?”
I looked at the tray. The glass was filled with coke this time, and the food offering was not Thai food, but a small portion of mac and cheese and two pieces of chicken nuggets.
“Mac and cheese?”
Namwan shrugged nervously. “Well, I just think that, maybe he might prefer this…”
We never heard from Jacob’s family again. Noi still refused to move the shrine from its original place. Therefore, we just tried to avoid seating families with young children near the Kuman Thong’s shrine nowadays.
If you’re reading this, please make sure to remind your children to behave when out in public, especially when you visit a Thai restaurant.
Otherwise, the child you take back home might not really be yours.