A Belgian living in Thailand fell in love with a Thai man he met in Pattaya and decided to live with him by helping him pick up rubbish.
Even today, many years later, he helps his friend's family in Singburi province by collecting roadside waste for recycling.
He never returned to Belgium, where he has a son and a tourist agency.
A journalist from the newspaper Daily News who was driving along the Asia Highway saw a foreign man collecting rubbish and wanted to report on it.
He stopped and spoke to Willy, 61, from Belgium, who said he had been in Thailand for six years but did not yet know how to speak Thai.
He said that he did not have a Thai wife, but that he had a Thai lover.
In fact, the family was 200 metres away in the woods and he took the reporter to meet them.
There was the Cheuasuwan family, parents Ping and Pranorm and their son Chertsak, 32, loading a cart with bags of leaves used to make fertiliser, worth 35 baht (0.98 euro) a bag.
Chertsak says he met Willy three years ago in Pattaya while he was working there.
They started a relationship and when Chertsak returned to live in the Khai Bang Rachan district, Willy did the same.
Location of Khai Bang Rachan in Singburi province on a map of Thailand.
Willy told how his Belgian family pressured him to marry a woman and give up his gay lifestyle.
He did so and had a son who now runs the family tourism business in Belgium.
Willy came to Thailand six years ago and has never left.
While they were talking, Willy had a minor accident, injuring his face on a parked car (see video of the interview below).
It took some time to stem the flow of blood.
Ping, the father, said that Willy was a hard worker who liked cleanliness and order.
He helped with all the household chores, such as washing clothes, dishes and sweeping.
In addition, he helped to collect discarded bottles and other rubbish from the roadside and sell them, sometimes earning up to 1,000 baht (EUR 27.93).
Willy used this money to pay the house expenses.
Everyone in the village knows him.
His son first tried to stop him because he was embarrassed, but now he lets him.
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Video of Daily News report on Willy
See also :
He falls in love with a Thai woman and loses everything, a "normal" love story in Thailand
Source: ASEAN Nows
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