Inside a kitchen, a migrant worker from Myanmar slams balls of minced prawn meat into a mixing bowl. The technique gives the prawn cakes their signature bounce. A few steps away at a frying station, a young chef cooks up morning glory in a three foot-high wok flame. Over at a dining area, a Thai waitress banters with customers — largely a mix of expatriates and tourists — in halting English.

It is 5.30pm on a weekday. The dinner shift at Paak Dang, a riverside restaurant in Chiang Mai, Thailand, has just begun.

Paak Dang, which means “red mouth” in Thai, is known for serving authentic Thai food and its speciality seafood dishes. The restaurant is staffed by a motley crew of ex-offenders and at-risk youths who would otherwise have poor job prospects due to their lack of employable skills.

Among them is 24-year-old Nattapong “Nai” Wongsa, the former head of a notorious gang in Hot, a rural district in southern Chiang Mai. They peddled yabba — a party drug that comprises methamphetamine and caffeine — and frequently got into fights with rival groups. 

“My men would do anything for me, and beat up anyone that I didn’t like,” he recounts. “As long as I gave them enough yabba.”

The drug was Nai’s main source of income, but it also caused his downfall. In 2017, Nai was arrested in a sting operation with more than 100 grams of crystal methamphetamine and 200 yabba pills in his possession. Eight years and an equal number of stints in prison later, he left his hometown and joined Paak Dang as a waiter, resolving to keep on the straight and narrow. 

“Without Paak Dang, I would surely be in a jail cell,” he says. “Now, my life is good because there are no more problems.” 

The restaurant is the brainchild of 51-year-old Singaporean K-Lin Lim, a former junior college economics teacher. She contends that the routine of restaurant work helps keep her young employees out of trouble. 

“Here, work ends at midnight and all that’s left to do is have supper and a beer with your colleagues,” she says, adding that most of the city’s bars and clubs are closed by the time they leave the workplace.

Read on to discover the crew's inspiring journey. 

The two-hour drive to Nai’s hometown, Hot, takes K-Lin to a world away from the buzz of Chiang Mai’s restaurants, hotels and malls.

Here, there are flowing rivers, snaking roads and a towering pine forest. Small spots of heat-induced fires on the horizon signal the end of the cold season. But beyond that, not much is happening. With a lack of businesses and job opportunities, it is easy to see why youths turn to crime. 

Here, illegal jobs like drug peddling have become attractive alternatives to farm work. This is fuelled by the area’s proximity to the notorious drug-smuggling region known as the Golden Triangle.

Over a home-cooked lunch of larb moo (raw pork cured in lime and chilli) and freshly harvested mountain rice from the family’s paddy fields, Nai’s grandmother, Giangkham Tuitiam, tells K-Lin about Nai’s troubled past.

Back then, the police would raid their home several times a month to search for her grandson’s drug stashes. Most of these episodes would end with Nai in handcuffs. “I was always worried over when the police would come knocking on our doors again,” says Giangkham. 

“When he was selling drugs, I never saw a single baht from him, “ says his mother Sukanya Wongsa. “Now, he sends home 4000 baht (US$113) each month.” 

While optimistic about Nai's future, his family is fearful that his past may catch up with him.

“Please take care of him,” says Giangkham to K-Lin. “I still fear that he will mix with his old friends again.”