Hit Me! Stories of Fighting - Pho and Thai Chili

by Yilen Pan

Usually after practice we'd all grab a bowl of pho from a local Vietnamese restaurant. It's good fighting food someone once told me and I can hardly disagree, except when you are three pounds overweight and have to weigh-in in a couple of days. In front of everyone - Jeffy, Big D, Leo, the Twins and Alex - was a giant bowl of "Order #1" pho, a steaming vat of beef broth with slices of thinly cut steak and other cow parts simmering above a fat wad of rice noodles. I on the other hand had the beef stew and French bread, though the French bread had to be left untouched and when the saltiness of the stew became too much most of my meal went uneaten. Leo and Alex were also overcome by the foreignness of their food and began poking at it with their breakaway chopsticks.

From the other side of the table Coach Joey's voice raised itself as it usually did when he was telling stories. This one was a classic:

"In Thailand man" he would always start with that, "In Thailand man the Thai chili is hot. Not like this shit you have here, like Thai chili is four to five times hotter or something." He popped a whole Jalapeño into his soup and gnawed on it. "It wake you up man, make you sweat and shit, the tip of the chili make your stomach hurt so bad."

Coach Jay would pipe in as if they had told this story many times before. "So one of our camp brothers, he was fighting and he was losing man" he said shaking his head. "We had a lot of money riding on his fight, but he gave up! First round he almost get knocked out! We had to slap the shit out of him in the corner to wake him up."

"In Thailand man, Thai fighter don't quit," said Coach Joey. He points to his nose, flat, unassuming, normal. "One fight I got elbowed and he broke my nose. My coach took a chopstick stuck it in there and straighten it out man, then I went back to fighting!"

"So we were like desperate man. He lost round two, lost round three and you can see in his eyes man he was done. My coach was yelling at him slapping him to wake him up" Joey giggled. "So we took his mouth piece and grind up the Thai Chili into it!"

Jay broke into laughter, "He woke up right away man, like his eyes lit up and he was angry! Spit started to come out the sides of his mouth and he looked back at us and we were like yea bro go finish.'"

"He knocked out the other guy in 30 seconds!" Coach Joey finished laughing with his mouth full. "He was so pissed man he come out of the ring and start swinging at us!"

The twins chortled at the memory. "Man we couldn't have been more than 12 years old..." they said.

The restaurant was closing down and my French bread still remained uneaten. It sat there taunting me until Jeffy snatched it up and began dipping into the rest of my beef stew. "Just helping you out" he said with a smile.

It was in the car that I really began to think about the story the coached had just told. I imagined a dimly lit festival in the middle of a small Thai Village. The smell of spent gasoline from the generators, the fiery aroma of pad Thai, papaya salad, meat on sticks charring over a coal fire mingling with the damp hot air. In the middle of the festival is a boxing ring and in it young teenage boys in fiery satin fight shorts kick, punch, elbow and knee each other. A crowd of gamblers, parents, families and passer-by's scream and shout as a punch lands or a kick smacks right up against the chest.

One boy is losing, the other is winning. When the bell rings the Kru rushes in and lifts the boy up by the shoulders allowing blood to circulate, air to infiltrate and his feet to rest for a few seconds. When the boy is placed back into the red painted stool a pit crew of sorts begins massaging his tiny shoulders, his thin legs and his bony chest. Water is poured all over him to wake him up, but his tiny frame leans forward defeated. He looks over at his mother in the crowd who is trying to hold back her tears, to his uncle who bet a hefty sum of money on his fight, to his teammates who cheer him on. He gets smacked on the side of his head.

"Do you want to win," the Kru asks. The boy doesn't answer to his Kru but to his feet. "Yes."

"Then fight!" says the Kru. The judge on the left smacks the canvas a few times to signal the ten-seconds-to-go mark. A younger boy pops his mouthpiece back into the young fighter’s mouth then scurries off back into the festival covering his laughter with his hands. There is Thai Chili’s ground into it, the seeds stuck to the sides of the mouthpiece. Fire erupts from the young boy's mouth and as drool begins to flow like acid down his chest the singed feel of chili particles sting his entire front side like a whip. He quickly realizes if he doesn't knock the other boy out he'd have to fight another round.

The bell rings as he stifles a hiccup. The round begins and the crowd yells incoherent sounds of encouragement. The band plays traditional fight music, picking up their tempo the drums beating faster and faster. The boy with the spicy mouthpiece fights with more desperation and less technique. Punches swing wide, kicks are unbalanced and uncoordinated. He chokes on his saliva and his eyes well up as if his nose were crushed. It's ugly, but he doesn't care. With his eyes closed he swings his right hand over his body and feels a sudden jolt.

Through his blurred vision he sees his opponent sprawled out on the floor. The crowd erupts and the ref rushes in to stop the fight. The boy he knocked out couldn't have been more than 12 years old, same as him.

I sat in my car thinking of the twins as kids with their wide cheeky smiles and immeasurable cunningness. They probably got slapped when they returned to the gym, but to them it must have been a victory.

Shit, if it works count me in.

Yilen Pan is an avid Muay Thai practitioner and amateur fighter. You can see him on Ask A Fighter providing some great content to the Muay Thai community.