Seeing Anew

Someone who knows what she’s talking about happened to cross my path, and together we visited a gorgeous old wooden temple near my place on the outskirts of Chiang Mai. It was empty. Yellow petals had fallen from a large flowering tree and covered the parking lot like snow.

My friend pointed out the unusual layout of the wat, and indeed once she said it, the arrangement of the various buildings did strike me as a little different. I might not have noticed otherwise. It struck me that I had a chance to move beyond my usual seen-one-seen-’em-all approach to temple touring.

I determined to be extra observant, in hopes that just maybe I would learn to tell my viharn from my ubosot. We started inside the main structure, pausing to admire carving meant to mimic the shape of the Buddha’s eyebrows (who knew?). I stared at the sloping ceilings as if I’d never been inside a wat before. Do the multiple tiers always telescope that way? I wasn’t sure.

There was still nobody else around. My friend seemed to be x-raying the eaves and gables, concentrating on how well the 20-year-old restoration was holding up. I tried to soften my eyes and pretend I was looking at a song or tasting a massage. Slowly the red lacquered columns holding up the roof began to glow brighter than I thought the limited interior light would allow.

Back outside, we circled a handsome open-sided preaching hall laid out in the shape of a cross. She explained that a sala is normally rectangular. Somehow I knew that before she said it. Perhaps adopting a new worldview isn’t so hard after all.

Every Day a New Insight

Here’s the Chiang Mai routine: Run, think, eat, write, think, read, eat, think, study, think, write, think, eat, sleep. The best parts of the day are the stare-off-into-space moments.

I’m talking about those little instances between activities when I get to see what my brain was doing while I wasn’t paying attention. Usually they only last two or three minutes.

While skyping with a friend in the States recently, I mentioned this luxury of daydreaming about nothing in particular. He replied, “that’s what most people here do when they’re driving.”

But I think he and I are really talking about two different things. These days I don’t space out in the same way as people who have a regular job, or people who take care of kids and parents.

Those folks’ minds are likely to wander toward to-do lists. Not only are they aware that they’re spacing out, but they end up jolted back to the here-and-now by some have-to.

My life in Chiang Mai is remarkably free of have-to’s. As a result I get gifted with insights that wouldn’t have come my way if I was working full-time.

Take yesterday for example. After I finished breakfast I just stayed at the table for a while, looking out the window at the neighbor’s tree. Or at least that’s what an observer would have said I was doing. In fact I was contemplating a new idea for a chapter in Jip’s book—a problem that had vexed me the day before.

Maybe the most valuable by-products of this sabbatical will be these big-picture ideas after breakfast. You all have my permission to slap me around if you sense that I’m taking them for granted.

Songkran in the South

Rumor had it that Chiang Mai’s way of celebrating Thai New Year would get pretty wet. So I fled to the South for a traditional Songkran with Jip’s mom. In her village the three-day holiday revolves more around monks, blessings, and family than around throwing water. You can get as wet as you want to, but if you say you don’t want to play, people respect that and let you pass without a splash.

Life there is lived in the open air. Most jobs in Ban Krud take place outdoors, most transportation happens by cycle, and the beach exerts a strong pull on locals and visitors alike. Even though it’s the hottest time of the year (temperatures have been around 40C/100F), we spent our days sitting out front of the house to see who was passing by, or cooking in the outdoor kitchen—you can’t have a ceremony in the village without a feast afterwards.

Downsize

Chiang Mai’s population is between 5-10% as large as Bangkok’s, depending if you count the whole metropolitan area. The tallest buildings are under 20 stories high, and those are rare. The skyline resembles Rapid City’s.

Not everything here is on a scale smaller than the capital’s. The city sits in a valley between mountains. These peaks are high enough to have much lower temperatures at the top than at the bottom. Looking down at Chiang Mai from Doi Suthep, the tallest one, you see many, many more temples than malls. They’re so plentiful that yesterday with a friend I toured nine wats in a single afternoon. All of them were within three city blocks of each other.

It’s lovely to have nature and relative serenity so close by. I can be at the trailhead for many of Doi Suthep’s hikes in just a few minutes by taxi (actually a roaming, shared pickup truck—private taxis are uncommon). Recently I went out for a run in the foothills and within 20 minutes of leaving my place had seen a dozen deer.

This northern sabbatical will be a nice chapter.

How Was I Supposed to Know That Closing Time Was 8pm?

Or maybe the masseuse had a fight with her boyfriend this morning and was still mad?

Whatever the cause, the shortened, brutal quality of tonight’s massage caught me off guard. I mean, I know I’m basically a wimp, and I know that Thai massage is supposed to hurt now and then. But it’s not supposed to leave bruises. Or maybe that’s just how they do things up here in Chiang Mai?

This week I find myself asking often “Is it me or them?” Such moments were common in 2005 when we first returned to Thailand. But in this case I didn't expect to feel confused. In Bangkok I averaged a couple of massages a month.

At the shop tonight they could have told me up front that we’d have to stop early. She could have eased up when she saw me grimacing. A few more signals could have been flashed to let me know that we were through (it’s the only time I can ever remember when the session didn’t wrap up with a light clap-clap-clapping of the hands together on the spine).

But as I say, maybe they do things differently up here in Chiang Mai. Lots to learn.

Up North

Being newly arrived (two days ago) in Chiang Mai brings to mind that great long sentence from Stuart Little, which describes a drive in the countryside where “the back yards were bushy and worth finding out about, where the streets sloped down to the stream and the stream flowed quietly under the bridge, where the lawns ended in orchards and the orchards ended in fields and the fields ended in pastures and the pastures climbed the hill and disappeared over the top toward the wonderful wide sky.”

Cows are wandering around in what might as well be my back yard—fields just a few hundred meters down the road. People are speaking a dialect I can’t catch—until I ask a question, when they answer in central Thai. Even though it’s the hottest month of the year, I don’t feel as sweaty as I usually do down by sea level.

But this season the weather in the north has a downside. Dust in the air blows in from areas nearby that practice slash-and-burn farming. I don’t notice any breathing problems, but going barefoot inside the house tells the story—even though I sweep the floors every day, the bottoms of my feet are black in just a few hours of walking around.

Traffic rarely crawls in Chiang Mai, and sometimes moves quite fast. Trying to cross a road at one point, I spotted a gap in the cars coming from my right, as they always do in Thailand. As I began quickly making my way to the other side, I surprised a family on a motorcycle that was putt-putting along in the wrong direction. They honked, just in time. I felt the breeze their passing made as we missed colliding by millimeters. Lots to get used to here.

Perhaps I should ask the chickens how and why they cross the road?

What Do You Call What’s Happening in Myanmar?

Some kind of something has been moving forward with increasing momentum during the past several months in Myanmar, but it’s hard to know exactly what to call it.

Some would say it was “progress” when both Thein Sein, who has been country’s president for about a year, and Aung San Suu Kyi, who last month was elected to Parliament, met with Hilary Clinton on December 1st. Others use the word “transformation” to describe the recent steps toward democratic rule, even though when Suu Kyi was asked a few days ago to rate Myanmar’s democracy on a scale of one to ten, she said, “On the way to one.”

The Economist quoted one of the “reform”-minded ministers as saying, “There are 60 decision-makers in this country: 20 have seen the light, 20 are asleep, and 20 are waiting to see which way to jump.”

An especially big hurdle in the way of “real change” is a constitution that makes sure the military dominates Parliament. Maybe the most realistic moniker for what’s going on is “new era”—a time when lots of work will need doing so that the elections of last month aren’t just a tactic to convince Western nations to lift the years of economic sanctions.

Call it “movement”? Call it “makeover”? Whatever you call it, everything new over the past year could disappear in a heartbeat.

Northbound

Ever since returning to Thailand to live in 2005, I’ve had Chiang Mai on my mind. Thailand’s second city has called to me for its manageable size and its mountains. At least once a year I’ve made forays there to stay in touch with old friends and to keep my ears open for ways relocating could work.

Next week that vision becomes real. My last day at CDC is this Friday. I decided not to extend the contract for another year. Even though I’ve enjoyed the work more than ever during the past few months, it’s a good time to move on. The combination I now enjoy—good health, financial security, and a total lack of responsibilities—is too rare to ignore.

So I’ll take a sabbatical in Chiang Mai. At least for the rest of this year, I don’t plan to work for money. Instead the plan is to finish the book that Jip began. I’ll also make time to volunteer, read, hike, and who knows what else.

Between now and 2013, I’ll figure out what kind of work to do next. Most people don’t allow themselves, or aren't lucky enough, to take plenty of reflection time between jobs.

Faster Higher Hotter

Mid-February often gets too warm for roadracing here, but I signed up anyway for my third half marathon in six months, figuring “how bad can a little heat be?” I knew I had a couple of advantages going for me.

First was a rabbit. My friend Kip, who generally runs about 20% faster than I do, sacrificed his own finish time in order to goad me into lowering mine. We agreed he would be the only one wearing a watch. At the halfway point, he said we were on track for me to set a personal best (later I wondered if he had really been telling the truth). A few kilometers later he said, "We're still on the pace… when we get to 16 we'll have 5 to go... let's just keep up the same splits and we'll make it."

I started to fade. People began to pass us. Kip said, "Just keep up with that guy wearing the blue shirt." My redoubled effort only lasted a short while. Realizing it was time for a new mind game, he said, "OK, only eight minutes before we hit our target time. How about we give it what we've got for eight minutes? If we make it, we make it. C'mon..."

My second advantage was a week of running in thin air and chilly sunrise temperatures. Earlier this month, I took a work trip to East Africa. I got winded there after just a few minutes—Nairobi sits more than a mile above sea level, and Addis Ababa is Africa’s highest capital at 7800 feet—but it was inspiring to be among the world best long-distance runners. They charged up hills at me, moving about three times faster than I could run downhill.

I knew that many of those same runners have been sweeping the top places at Bangkok events for the past few years. What I didn’t realize is that some of them weren’t really ready for February. Because it turns out that a little heat can be pretty bad.

An acquaintance of mine who usually treats half marathons like a warmup jog told me that he has been feeling wiped out ever since last Sunday's race. Another guy I know collapsed at the finish line. When IV fluids at the med tent didn’t revive him fast enough, he was taken to a nearby hospital for further observation. He found that four or five other runners had been sent there ahead of him. Amazingly, they were all Africans!

In the end, I crossed the tape in almost exactly the same time I had run in December. I felt lucky to have done that well. There’s no telling where I would have ended up without my secret weapons.

Can Valentine’s Day Get Any Weirder?

On V-Day this year in Bangkok, the government established a one-day-only 10pm curfew for under-18s aimed at preserving their virginities. Teens all over town seemed less interested in the government’s decree than in how many little heart stickers they could attach to their school uniforms.

Reducing Thailand’s steadily rising teenage pregnancy and abortion rates has perplexed policymakers, who were embarrassed earlier this year when their recommended answer to a question on a nation-wide university entrance exam was made public. The multiple-choice test asked kids what they should do when they felt sexual urges. These were the options:

A: Call friends to go play soccer
B: Talk to your family
C: Try to sleep
D: Go out with a friend of the opposite sex
E: Invite a close friend to see a movie

People just shook their heads when the “correct” answer was revealed to be A—soccer. With the exam board showing that level of savvy, maybe it wasn’t surprising to see river taxi and skytrain stops swarming yesterday with public health people standing around with free condoms… and appearing too shy to actually approach anyone with their loot.

Meanwhile, a delayed World AIDS Day observance, also scheduled for Valentine’s Day (December 1st was postponed due to flooding), featured the theme “Love and Rhythm.” The U.S. Ambassador spoke at the event, despite the Thai government’s being upset with her for not consulting them before sending out a text message about possible terrorism a few weeks earlier.

Ironically, shortly after her speech, explosions in another part of town were blamed on three Iranians. One of them blew off his own legs in the process. At press time it was unclear what their motives may have been.

Presumably they weren’t feeling sexual urges.

Big Stage

A friend and I took in a Broadway-style musical here. Everything about it—script, set, singing, staging—was way better than it had to be. A world-class evening. And I don’t even like musicals.

I agreed to go because the story was based on a Thai epic, Four Reigns, that Jip and I read out loud in English some time ago. At least I’d be able to follow the plot when the show started to get overly artsy or amateurish, I figured.

Man, did this show ever explode my assumptions. The performers stunned me with their striking voices and movements. The scriptwriters faithfully adapted the most important episodes from the book, and cleverly stitched them together at a swift pace that engrossed me for nearly three hours. Even the scene changes, all done flawlessly on a spinning lazy-susan section of the stage, gripped me every time.

I’m really glad I saw this really good show. Yet a part of me also feels a bit ashamed that I hadn’t expected it to be so great. Its excellence exposed a prejudice that surfaces from time to time about Thailand’s abilities. Somewhere inside me hides the expectation that “Made in Thailand” means second-rate when it comes to the theater and other goings-on that I grew up viewing in a certain way. The whole home-grown evening has me wondering what else I’m shortchanging around here.

Rinse Cycle

Bangkok is now mostly drained. Only a few low-lying neighborhoods await pumping out. But for lots of homeowners on the edges of the city, now starts the hard part.

Ankle-high muck in the kitchen! Mold in the walls! Trash in the street! Mosquitoes everywhere!

Schools just opened up again yesterday after being closed for more than six weeks. That milestone will reveal how many people ended up fleeing the scene for good. If Hurricane Katrina is any guide, some Bangkokians will have decided that somewhere else suddenly looks lots better than home stench home.

The people I know who are returning to formerly flooded homes are trying to emphasize the positive—“I never liked that old refrigerator anyway,” or “the place has been needing a good scrubbing.” But their expressions give them away. The famous Thai smile looks a little forced these days.

And who can blame them?

Like the colleague pictured here, they lived out of a suitcase for as long as two months. They managed to avoid drowning and electrocution. They’re about to spend a boatload of their own money and time on supplies and scrubbing. Even when they decide they’re done, their place will still look lousy and smell worse.

At least the waiting is over, and we’ll all be able to talk about something else for a while. Let’s hope it’s a long while.

Sound and Light Show

In Thai villages, lunar eclipses come with audio. The sound track accompanying the disappearing-reappearing act consists of fireworks, the banging of pots and pans, and lots of excited giggling.

As Jip’s mom and I sat out in the yard and watched the big round yellow cookie slowly get nibbled away, we listened to the kids across the street laughing as their parents tried to explain that “science” was the reason why the moon looked different tonight.

The kids claimed they knew better. In school they’d been told about the many holidays in December—surely this party must have something to do with one of them. You couldn’t blame them for connecting the events in the sky to Constitution Day, or the king’s birthday. It was taking place in prime time, at the same hour when the royal family news airs on TV. Why else the fireworks?

A salty breeze blew in from the gulf. Eventually lights switched off in the houses and in the sky. Just the normal night village voices babbled on until morning.

All Flood All the Time

Bangkok hasn’t hosted an Occupy Movement protest, but it has been occupied. Preoccupied, even. These past couple of months it’s been all flood all the time. At the beginning the first question people asked each other was “Are you still dry at home?” Everybody’s assumption was that the water would eventually reach most parts of the city. Not whether but when.

That prediction didn’t hold water, so to speak, but neither did about a million other guesses about where would be wet and for how long. Around the outskirts of the capital today, many densely populated areas are still inaccessible by car.  Now people’s first question is, “Can you go home yet?”

Two days ago, coming back from an out-of-town trip, I watched water swallow up the wheels of our bus as we drove the main highway in front of the old Bangkok airport. That stretch of road, only a few miles from my apartment, has been submerged for more than six weeks.

The building where I live ended up dodging the flooding, so I lucked out compared to many of my colleagues whose homes remain waterlogged. I wore high rubber boots on my way to work for a few days, but I really only needed them for parts of a block or two where regular shoes would have gotten swamped.

Up until recently, nobody knew when they left in the morning how or if they would be able to get home. That’s been the most frustrating part. Good information has been very scarce. Friends of mine who live with aging parents or pets were forced to make awkward decisions about when to evacuate, knowing that the time and effort of finding temporary housing might not end up being necessary.

It wasn’t like Hurricane Katrina in that respect. Some neighborhoods were spared. Others were inundated suddenly when barriers broke or were torn down by jealous neighbors who had been wet for weeks. In the dry areas, all signals suggested that the next day might be deluge day: people sold inflatable boats and life preservers from roadside stands, stores built cement block walls out front. The uncertainty has made it hard to concentrate on anything else.

Even at the height of Bangkok’s woes, about three weeks ago, it wasn’t clear how much longer until the water made its way out of people’s first floors and into the ocean. I went down to the Red Cross to volunteer. The chatter going on as we packed family-sized relief parcels suggested that maybe the need for the supplies wasn’t that urgent. What I suspect was really going on was that the extraordinary had begun to seem ordinary.

I really really really hope that Thailand doesn’t let itself get too used to this. If the weirdness we’ve been going through recently becomes the new normal, then we’re all in deep trouble. Today at least it seems safe to say that Bangkok’s 2011 flood response phase has given way to the recovery phase, and lessons-learned conversations are beginning to happen. Yet standing water still dominates the news and conversations, and there’s no guarantee that this year’s calamity won’t be repeated annually going forward.