Citizen Dog 2004

Pod is a country boy who travels to Bangkok, drawn by opportunity but met with the wary tap of fate from his Grandmother, who warns that life in the city might literally grow a tail. He finds a modest place to call home and starts work in a sardine cannery, caught between cramped shifts and the odd, slapstick danger of urban life. The ride to work comes on the back of a motorcycle taxi, the driver long ago turned into a kind of urban legend—almost a zombie after a day of rain and a helmet left forgotten on the shelf of memory.

On a sweltering day, the cannery’s assembly line misfires in a way that changes Pod’s life: he cuts off his index finger, and somehow the severed digit ends up inside a can that is trucked away to a nearby grocery store. What follows is a peculiar, almost ritual search as Pod buys can after can of sardines, hoping to locate his missing finger. His persistence leads him to a mysterious, bouncing can, and when he pries it open, he finds the finger nestled inside. In a moment of odd practicality, he presses it back onto his hand, and the sensation feels reassuring—yet deeply unsettling.

The mystery only deepens when Pod discovers that the finger he found isn’t his at all. During a lunch break, he spots his own finger on a coworker who is about to pick his nose, and in a quick, comic reversal, he rips it away and gives the man the other finger in return. That coworker is Yod, a bright, stubborn friend who becomes a surprising ally in Pod’s quest to fix what’s broken. Deciding he’s not going to lose any more fingers to fate, Pod leaves the cannery behind and finds a new rhythm as a security guard in a bustling office building—a city within a city, full of the hum of tires, chatter, and the constant drift of people.

There, in the office maze, Pod meets Jin, a maid whose life centers on a strange white book written in a language she longs to understand. The book seems to have fallen at her feet when she was still in the countryside, setting her on a path of deciphering symbols and seeking meaning. Jin’s world is colored by obsessive-compulsive tendencies that push her toward order, cleanliness, and a ritual of small, perfect steps. Pod finds himself drawn to her steady presence and quiet intensity, and he yearns to be closer to her, even if the city’s chaos keeps pulling them apart.

Inspired by the audacious stories around Yod and his own “empress” girlfriend—a couple who once reportedly consummated their romance on a crowded bus—Pod musters the courage to invite Jin onto a bus ride. But Jin, cautious and wary of crowded spaces, declines, explaining that the crowds leave her with a rash and a sense of disarray. This moment deepens Pod’s resolve: he quits the guard job and becomes a taxi driver so he can ferry Jin to work and, more importantly, be near her when the city closes in.

As their bond grows, Pod’s feelings bloom, but Jin’s attention shifts toward a figure she reads about in her white book—a man she imagines as Peter, an environmental activist who died in a protest in Washington, D.C. The image of this Peter—a symbol of environmental idealism—sparks Jin to action. She begins collecting plastic bottles with feverish dedication, assembling them into a towering mountain that looms over the city. Her new, activist life becomes a public crusade, drawing her into protests that demand a ban on plastic and a future she hopes to share with Pod.

Meanwhile, Pod’s taxi runs bring a gallery of oddball passengers into his backseat. A little girl with a sharp tongue and a habit of smoking and playing video games, accompanied by a teddy bear that seems to swear, drink, and toss out whiskey—until the bear is discarded—gives Pod a window into a surreal, comic side of life in the city. Another passenger is a man who can’t stop licking things, forcing Pod to improvise solutions to keep things clean. Across these journeys, Pod’s connection to his grandmother—who has reincarnated as a gecko and warns him still that he’ll grow a tail if he stays in the city—hangs over every street and alley.

Jin’s path leads her to a public rally where she finally confronts the man she believes to be Peter, only to learn that his real name is Andre. The white book is revealed to be an Italian gay romance novel, a surprising twist that unsettles Jin’s activist certainties and drives a wedge between her and Pod. Crestfallen, Jin decides to leave Bangkok behind, and she tells Pod that she must go away for a while to rediscover who she is without him.

Pod, left to his own devices in a city that seems to pulse with new possibilities, eventually realizes that country life has slowed to a crawl compared with his city adventures. He returns to Bangkok, where a startling revelation awaits: nearly everyone around him has grown a tail, except for him. The city embraces him as a celebrity of the strange, while his longing for Jin remains unsatisfied and persistent. He climbs toward a symbolic plastic mountain, searching the skyline for her, and when he finally reaches the top, he finds Jin waiting, her doubts about their future melting in the face of his earnest confession and kiss.

Months pass, and the mountain becomes a backdrop for a quieter, more intimate future. The lovers plot a life together: Jin, now a powerful businesswoman running a plastic company into the ground, marries Pod and they prepare to welcome a child. The story closes on a note of playful prophecy—through a long line of reincarnated animals, Pod believes his child will someday be his grandmother, a reminder that love, memory, and the strange, winding road of life can loop back on themselves in the most unexpected ways.