A Traditional But Not Your Everyday Clinic Visit

Lek, one of Jip’s nursing school classmates, lives near me. I check in with her now and then because she has the same disease Jip had, which is quite rare in Thailand. Recently Lek asked if I would accompany her to the traditional medicine clinic in the neighboring district of Saraphi.

Many such clinics, built and run with Ministry of Public Health funds, are attached to public hospitals in this country. Government officials recognize that for most people here the first line of defense against illness is Thai traditional medicine. Western treatment often gets used a last resort, only after herbs, massage, and spiritual techniques haven’t worked.

The two of us drove in circles through beautiful fruit orchards until we finally found the cozy little building. We didn’t have an appointment but didn’t need one. The clinic sees about 20 patients a day, most on a walk-in basis. Lek wanted to know what its staff would say about her symptoms. She expected the massage therapists would be helpful.

In the large open reception area, Lek registered and went through the clinic’s initial exam. First, a nurse asked if Lek could clasp her hands together near her shoulder blades. Later I heard that in yoga circles this maneuver is called the Cow Face Pose. You raise one arm, then bend it so your elbow points towards the ceiling and your hand drops behind your upper back. The other arm’s bent elbow points at the ground while its hand comes up near the shoulder blades. Lek couldn’t do it.

All the conversations at the clinic between patients and nurses were public. There was no curtain. After giving up on the Cow Face Pose, Lek laughed. The rest of us in the room joined in.

Even after living here for many years, I’m not always sure how to interpret laughter in Thailand. Sometimes it means exactly what it means in the West. Other times, Thais laugh because they’re embarrassed. Or angry. Or because the situation is so uncomfortable that they don’t know what else to do.

The spirit of laughter at this clinic seemed to be, “What did you expect? People come here because they want to get better, not because they can already do everything healthy people can do.” A few of the staff had unusual health conditions, but nobody acted shy about it.

The next measurement concerned Lek’s “wind.” I pricked up my ears. Jip’s grandmother used to battle wind problems.  For Grandma it was a catchall complaint about breathing difficulties, occasionally involving dizziness, chest pain, stomach gas, or fever. Both fainting and sunstroke could also fall into her definition of wind illness. Its causes varied widely: from bad odors to stress to karma. Sometimes Grandma would suddenly develop what everyone learned to call a “wind attack,” which left her weak, dizzy, and needing immediate attention.

At the Saraphi clinic, they check wind by tapping on the abdomen in four places while the patient is lying down. Lek’s nurse shouted a wind score across the room so that everybody could hear it. Again we all laughed. I didn’t know what criteria they used to assign a number, or what they considered average or acceptable, but I learned low scores were better than high ones. Partly based on Lek’s wind number, they recommended she receive a specific kind of herbal massage. That was the whole of her exam. No blood pressure cuff, no bathroom scale, no thermometer.

When Jip worked as a health researcher with refugee women in Seattle, many Western docs asked her to explain “wind illness” in detail. They were confused by the wide spectrum of symptoms that their immigrant patients assigned to this term. Newly arrived from Asia or sometimes East Africa, very few of the women could speak English. Their translators didn’t offer a more precise English phrase for wind, maybe because like Jip they had grown up hearing about it from many of their older relatives. Jip eventually did a study on it, and published the results.

I ended up getting a massage too. My first plan had been to happily sit with a book and wait for Lek. But she said, “As long as we’re here…,” and I thought, Who needs a reason to get a massage? Besides, the others in the room looked like they wanted to watch the foreigner do the Cow Face Pose and to know my wind score.  Soon they led me off to see the chiropractor for “general maintenance.”

My session finished first. I returned to the lobby and saw the staff had set up a screen and projector. It looked like they were expecting a big audience. I guessed it was some kind of community event. A bus pulled up in front. Out poured a dozen foreigners on a study tour—Americans, Europeans, and Mexicans—accompanied by a professor from Chiang Mai University. The head nurse welcomed them with a short history of the clinic, while the professor translated. I stayed in the back row and waited for Lek.

One visitor asked why Saraphi staff didn’t wear uniforms. The nurse’s answer suggested that everyone at the clinic felt more comfortable without them. The professor said in English that no uniforms made the patients more relaxed. I whispered “and staff, too” to the visitor, remembering how Jip disliked wearing a white outfit and a starched hat. The professor noticed my whisper—she laughed and asked if I wanted to help translate. I was pretty sure she was just joking, so I only smiled. I didn’t want to make her mad. Anyway, her English was much better than my Thai.

A few minutes later, the questions turned to the clinic’s initial exam. The nurse demonstrated the Cow Face Pose and explained about the wind check. The visitors looked confused. When the professor struggled to clarify wind illness in English, I smiled again—of all the topics they could have raised, it was the only one I felt qualified to talk about!

So I slowly raised my hand and volunteered to say a little more, based on the information I remembered from Jip’s study. This time the professor seemed genuinely grateful for my extra words. Perhaps now many of the study tour participants will expect to encounter it in their Asian patients when they return home.

Lek showed up just before my words got me in too much trouble. She and I gracefully exited before anyone asked either of us to do any more translating. We both felt great.

Power Cut

The lights went out this evening in the southern Thai village where Jip grew up. I was visiting her mother. We had been putting our feet up, watching a bit of TV. Mom suggested that I walk across the main room and check out the front window to see if other houses had power. They didn’t.

As I groped my way back across the room, it dawned on me that the phone in my pocket can become a flashlight. The beam revealed a large scorpion crawling slowly across the floor where I’d just walked.

Mom reacted casually. I froze in my tracks. She said, “I’ll fetch a kitchen knife.” Evidently she planned to cut the scorpion in half. Somehow the scorpion figured out her plan. It scampered.

When Mom returned from the kitchen she saw she was too late. Then she looked at my spooked expression. “Don’t worry,” she comforted, “It’s only the tiny ones that can kill you.”

Retrace

On the outside of an old letter I found the address of the Chiang Mai house where Jip stayed briefly as a researcher 23 years ago. Recently I passed though that neighborhood, a rabbit warren of little sois where house numbers have no rhyme or reason.

I walked around the ancient community, armed only with an envelope that read “7/1, Soi 2, Thippanet Rd.” Lots of helpful people scratched their chins and pointed, saying it might be “around that corner” and so on.

In one dead-end soi I met a woman who had never seen a Soi 2, but said she would ask the postman the next time she saw him. She took my phone number. That kind offer happened about 45 minutes into the search.

I re-traced my steps, planning to head home. It was getting dark. Expecting a shortcut, I headed down a soi I had passed earlier but not entered because it was labeled as “Soi 6, Wualai Rd.” A grandma swept her driveway behind a gate. Two noisy dogs told me to go away, but on a hunch I decided to ask anyway.

She motioned for me to come closer and I shouted my question. “Twenty years ago?” she smiled. She waved her neighbor over.  The two of them talked. The neighbor looked doubtful but agreed to be my chaperone on an expedition to look for “Auntie.”

After two twisty turns, we found Auntie on her porch. She hollered down to us that her address was “7/2, Soi 2, Thippanet Rd.” I knew from experience that 7/1 isn’t always next door to 7/2. Auntie encouraged me to take a look anyway—though she couldn’t understand why I didn’t just phone for directions. The chaperone wished me luck and headed back to her own place.

I carried on a few more steps around yet another corner, and there it was. As the crow flies, the weathered old wooden structure sits only about 300 meters from the house of the woman who said she could ask the postman. It had taken me about 15 more minutes of walking to get there.

Even before I saw the blue plastic sign displaying the numbers “7/1,” I had no doubt I had arrived at the right spot. For anyone else it might have been unremarkable. To me it looked astonishingly like the classic two-story Thai house in the South where Jip grew up.

Conundrum – a book review

In 21st century Thailand gender switching isn’t rare. Per capita, more Thais than Westerners identify as something other than what they were born. Pop culture here validates the numbers: TV and movies are full of transgenders. And many many foreigners come to Thailand for sex re-assignment, making this country number one in the world for this kind of surgery.

Gender identity has made headlines here recently because a candidate for Bangkok governor courted the “third-sex” vote. Also, Thai universities have been debating whether or not to allow ladyboys to dress normally—in other words, as women—when receiving their diplomas. Until now, Thai graduates who were born as men have had to line up with men, wear male clothing, and accept a sheepskin printed with their male name. Universities have come down on different sides of the question over the past few months.

A singer on “Thailand’s Got Talent” created a stir two years ago with a dramatic change in voice register midway through a song. Part of what’s fascinating about the clip is the enthusiastic reaction of the crowd. As the vocalist reveals her deep baritone, audience members instantly back her (him?), swaying along with the melody, and merrily flashing the thumbs-up sign.

These news items swirled around in my head as I read an old title by one of my favorite writers, Jan Morris, who was born as James. She transitioned in England during the 1960s and published Conundrum in 1974.

Her written account describes her confidently achieving what she calls the “fulfillment of my life’s desire.” She never doubts that she has always been female. Even though she had succeeded as a British man—serving in the military, fathering five children, achieving a fair degree of fame as a journalist—she nonetheless felt trapped in the wrong body.

Thus she began, at age 35, “one of the most drastic of all human changes, unknown until our times, and even now experienced by very few: but it seemed only natural to me, and I embarked on it only with a sense of thankfulness, like a lost traveler finding the right road at last.”

Reading the book forty years after it was written, I wondered how many of the Thai transgender I encounter feel a similar confidence.

It’s certainly unfair of me, with no personal experience in these matters, to question people I don’t know from Adam. When they cross my path here in Chiang Mai it’s usually because they are working behind counters in places where I shop. The impression given by many of these striking young specimens is one of play, or at least experimentation. They seem to share Morris’ delight in her identity, but lack the thoughtfulness that lies behind it. It’s difficult to imagine most of them ever saying of their decision what Morris says of hers in the opening chapter:

I believe it to have some higher origin or meaning. I equate it with the idea of soul, or self, and I think of it not just as a sexual enigma, but as a quest for unity… a dilemma neither of the body nor of the brain, but of the spirit.

Of course countless factors play into how people see and present themselves. I don’t pretend to understand others’ journeys. I won’t even try to touch here on the questions asked by Thai women who transition to become men. I also don’t know how to think about Thai men who dress and act as women but prefer to associate with gay men.

Just the same, fresh from finishing Conundrum, I can’t help pondering the Thai take on transgenderism. According to one Thai friend, it’s seen here less as an existential dilemma than a financial one—those hormone treatments aren’t cheap, and they’re not covered by the national health scheme. Somebody else suggested to me that the importance placed in Asia on external appearance motivates many transgender. In other words, they’re fascinated as much by beauty as by identity. And peer groups play a large role—one study found that over half of all ladyboys named friends as their primary influence. Evidently the increased attention and improved self-concept that result from a gender switch justify the tough stuff: risk of rejection by family, hassles at the hands of officialdom, and physical suffering for those who go the whole distance and acquire a new set of genitals.

Despite the many struggles they face, it’s safe to say transgenders in Thailand are well tolerated, perhaps due to a common belief that all of us have shared those orientations during past lives, and will do so again in the future. Yet tolerance isn’t the same as acceptance. Some Thais privately feel that past-life sexual sins explain being born transgender or gay.

Some anthropologists note that in Thailand people see men and women as being more similar than most other cultures do. Positive social attitudes towards the feminine have traditionally been expressed in language and rituals. As transgender numbers increase, so will general approval.

Writing in Conundrum, Morris herself appears to feel satisfied, or at least amused, by the many different cultural reactions to her transition:

I found response of English gentlemen ever more agreeable, enlivened always by that instant flicker of amused attraction which every woman knows and no man can quite imagine. Frenchmen were curious, and tended to engage me in inquisitive conversation, nearly skirting the issues with small talk until the moment came for a swift oblique dart to the heart of things—“You are married, yes? Where is your—er—your wife—your husband, is it?” Italians, frankly unable to conceive the meaning of such a phenomenon, simply stared boorishly, or nudged each other in piazzas. Greeks were vastly entertained. Arabs asked me to go for walks with them. Scots looked shocked. Germans looked worried. Japanese did not notice.

Government Official

One night during our bicycle trip through Myanmar, an educated, English-speaking Burmese woman joined us for dinner. I’ll call her Thiri. She is around 30 years old, fluent in English, and well-acquainted with the region.

Her fiancé is a captain in the Burmese Army. He is based in Karen State, and sometimes is involved in patrols that end up in armed conflict with Karen soldiers. This conflict has lasted longer than any other ongoing war in the world.

Thiri introduced us to her fiancé as a “government official.” Even without using the words “Army captain,” she seemed embarrassed about his status, as if worried that we would judge her for being involved with him.

He comes from central Burma, where his family wasn’t among the well-off. His parents saw an opportunity to improve their lot when their son became of an age, in 2001, to join the military. Soon he was chosen in a competitive program that sent him abroad for four years of special study—one of language and three more of computer science.

The two of them are what Thiri termed “lovers via Facebook.” They have rarely been together alone, they see each other as few as a handful of times per year, and when they part each time they simply wave goodbye. She told us they have never considered physical contact, not even a handshake.

The captain speaks English much less fluently than Thiri does, and at first appears shy. He and I sat next to each other at dinner. Eventually we had some limited conversation. What he chose to talk about was landmines.

“This is where the mines are,” he told me, pointing to a smartphone that displayed a map with place names in English. He zoomed in with his fingers to a spot close to the Thai border. I didn’t recognize the names, which probably were smallish, even temporary, villages. The number of internally displaced in that part of Karen State has historically been very high.

“This is where they shoot at us,” he continued. Had his English been better, he might have been saying what his body language was saying: “I’m at risk when I go to these places of being killed in any number of ways, for the reason that my country is fighting against a group that has never wanted to be part of it.”

It seemed clear that he didn’t feel his was a cause worth dying for. He may have been hoping that some among our group could suggest a way that he could get out of his commitment to the military. He has now been part of the Army for about a dozen years. Because he was given special training requiring payback, he owes another 30 years.

Thiri later told us about a male cousin of hers who hopes to escape his military commitment through a drastic scheme. The cousin and his girlfriend agreed that she would tell the police a false story about him refusing to marry her after they had sex in a hotel. They paid a friend of theirs to testify as a “witness.” The cousin is now serving two years in jail, after which he hopes he’ll be dishonorably discharged. To him this outcome is better than remaining a soldier for the rest of his working life.

Thiri said that she and her fiancé would never resort to anything so extreme. She even suggested that the military is likely to change along with the country, and that he might help to ensure that the change takes the right direction. He made no comment.

Return Trip

My first journey to Myanmar took place almost exactly two years ago, not too many months before the government began making noises about opening up the country. It was fun to compare the before and after.

This time we didn’t see any of the harsh propaganda posters that in the past occasionally appeared on billboards. Commercial advertising seems to have picked up. Traffic has thickened, allowing passengers plenty of time to study the roadside ads.

In teashops and other public places we now saw plenty of photos of Aung San Suu Kyi. Two years ago they were hidden inside people’s homes. Often now she is pictured alongside her father, a hero to the Burmese. He was assassinated when she was a toddler.

In Yangon we heard lots of talk about high prices, especially for lodging. The walls surrounding many private residences had sprouted coils of razor wire since my first visit. The inn where we stayed early in 2011 now goes for three times the price, and has no vacancies until 2014.

ATMs are now sprinkled around, international banks are becoming well represented, and the ultimate symbol of easy consumerism—the 7-11 store—is due to open several branches very soon. Meanwhile, in many small shops operating out of the front of family homes, shelves are full of goods from Thailand.

Outside the capital, the country seemed almost underpopulated. In areas where I would have expected to see more people—along the seaside, for example—we passed endless agriculture. In one two-hour stretch I don’t think we passed a single tree that wasn’t a rubber tree.

Some things hadn’t changed. The country’s time zone, like India’s, remains a goofy 30 minutes behind Thailand’s. Two-wheeled traffic is still prohibited in the capital. And Shwedagon Pagoda is of course as lovely as ever.

Study Tour on Two Wheels

Here is our daily routine on a wonderful tour with Partners Asia of pastoral bicycle routes and bootstrap community-based organizations (CBOs) in southeastern Myanmar/Burma:

Wake up early, breakfast at the hotel, bike alongside rivers and among rice fields until noon, lunch at roadside restaurants, meet with inspirational community leaders about the kinds of work they’ve been doing without any outside help, rest, repeat. Pretty ideal schedule!

Our visits to CBOs in Hpa-an, Karen State, strive to create relationships built on common understanding. We discuss issues of concern to Myanmar people, and how those issues can best be addressed. None of the CBOs has met with Partners Asia before; they may not even have existed six months ago. We likely couldn’t have arranged permission to get together openly until the very recent past.

The first stop we make is at a converted three-story shop house that has become home to a group I’ll call the “Direction” Charity (not its real name; in this still very repressive country, it’s not clear whether talking to outsiders may be harmful to CBOs). Direction is a mutual assistance organization that has taken on several diverse challenges since its beginnings.

Initially Direction’s charter centered on providing money for respectful funerals. Collections were taken up to ensure that everyone, regardless of family circumstances, would be given a proper cremation. This effort funded even the construction of a new crematorium.

Later the organization tackled the lack of a local blood bank. Rather than store refrigerated supplies for possible transfusions, the group arranges so-called “live donations”—a donor’s blood is used immediately. Such a system bypasses the problems of cold chain, transportation, and storage. The CBO created an accurate and constantly updated database containing willing donors, their blood types and HIV status, and reliable contact information.

Direction proved effective with both initiatives. It then moved on to the education arena, where the community had identified a problem affecting a substantial majority of its children: dropping out of school and/or failing to pass the final, all-important high school exam.

Particularly in Karen State, which borders Thailand, many young people leave the country in search of opportunity. (The major crossing point is about 100 miles by road from Hpa-an.)  Myanmar’s failure to educate the next generation may compromise the success of the country’s current opening-up. Direction began offering free after-school enrichment classes for final-year students.

We watched two groups of 50 kids each sit in classrooms at the shop house. Written on the whiteboards were complicated arithmetic problems. Our visit was the first time foreigners had dropped by the CBO. The volunteer teachers stepped aside as we fielded questions from the students.

The next day we met a few of the Direction leaders, along with several other Hpa-an educators and a handful of businesspeople, who had banded together in late 2013 to form a CBO focused on improving educational facilities. This group funds improvements at area schools lacking such basics as tables, blackboards, and bathrooms. In three months it has outfitted seven schools, using donations collected locally. Direction gets its funding in a similar way—essentially door-to-door campaigning, appealing to neighbors’ sense of their duty to share with those in need.

Will Partners Asia ever make grants to either of these organizations, or to a large monastery school we visited, where the head monk appeared to be one of the region’s major power brokers? Right now it’s hard to say. Trust would need to be built up. Both the grantee and Partners would need to understand better why the other exists.

What’s clear is that any connection going forward between Partners and the CBOs of Hpa-an will revolve around local people who are leading projects that already have a successful track record. Partners’ support only furthers ongoing work; it never initiates. CBOs that have concrete plans and know what they need to achieve their goals stand a better chance of collaborating with Partners than do groups that wait for the government or international aid outfits to propose an idea or a project.

Good Enough

This is a story about one of those days when I mostly had no idea what was going on. In Thailand I have lots of those days. At first they used to bother me. I became angry at the country and its people because I wasn’t completely in control. Gradually I learned that I don’t have to understand 100% of what’s happening here. About 20% is usually good enough.

The story begins at a restaurant on the edge of town, where I joined a few Thai friends one evening. These folks go way back with me—they had all studied in Seattle during the early ’90s. Now and then we get together here to chat. We switch back and forth between languages. When I don’t laugh right away at their punch lines, they patiently tell the whole joke again.

This time one of them brought along a friend, Da. I had never met her before. She sat at the other end of the table and spoke very fast Thai. I hardly followed anything she said, but I didn’t ask her to repeat anything because I didn’t think she was really talking to me. At the end of the evening, I wasn’t sure she even knew my name.

Later I got a call from another old friend, Tik. Tik hadn’t been at the dinner, but she knows Da. She was calling to say that Da had invited me to her house for a meal on Monday. I was a little surprised that Da didn’t call me directly, but I knew she didn’t have my number, so it made sense that she would ask Tik to do it. I said I’d be glad to come.

On Monday I called Tik to ask directions to Da’s house. Tik said the dinner was on Tuesday. I didn’t say, “But you told me Monday!” because I know that plans sometimes change. It was even possible that I had heard the date wrong, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t. Instead I just said that Tuesday wouldn’t work for me, because I had guests arriving from the States. Tik said, “Oh, no! How can I tell Da?”

To me this problem wasn’t too difficult—just tell her. Yet I sensed Tik was worried about informing Da that I couldn’t join the meal. I knew that Da was slightly older than Tik, and I guessed that Da’s social status was slightly higher. In Thailand these things matter. No doubt the situation involved potential face loss, that most delicate and puzzling aspect of Thai decorum.

I said I would tell Da myself—just give me the phone number. Tik did. Before I had a chance to call, my phone rang. It was Da. She must have gotten my number from Tik. She said I really had to come over. I said I had guests. She said I should bring them. I said there would be five people altogether. She said no problem. I said we didn’t have a car. She said she would pick us up.

The whole thing was starting to seem pretty strange to me. I couldn’t figure out why a woman who hadn’t really even said two words to me in my life was now insisting that I and four non-Thai-speaking strangers should join her for a meal. The only thing I could guess was that I had something she needed. I had no hint what that something might be.

All five of us went to her place. It turned out she had invited many other people. We all sat down together at a long table. Delicious home-style food was already beautifully arranged. At one end sat my guests, next to a few Thais who could speak pretty good English. I sat at the other end, wondering when someone would provide a clue about why we were there.

The clue never came. It wasn’t a matchmaking event—everyone but me was already paired. A request to tutor somebody’s nephew? Nope. The conversation stuck to food and travel and the usual complaints about increasing Chiang Mai traffic. Even after we rotated seats for dessert, nothing emerged that qualified as an excuse for our presence.

My guests were pleased. “You sure know some nice people,” they said after we returned home. That was the confusing part—before we arrived, I hadn’t known those people any better than my guests did. I know them now. Or at least I know them about 20%. Which I suppose is good enough.

More on Chiang Mai's Charms

Nice to live in a place where

Sunflowers stand tall in the middle of town

Library entrance evokes botanic gardens

Rice fields flourish on the edge of town

Weird "Buddha's Hand" fruit grows alongside the hiking trail

Classic Celebration in the South

Once upon a time there lived seven half-bird, half-woman creatures known as kinnaree. Because they were gorgeous, and excelled at cheery singing and dancing, they became tempting targets for hunters. These hunters prowled the forests in search of wives suitable for handsome princes. Ordinarily the harmonized movements of the kinnaree kept them safe from capture, but Pran Boon, the most famous hunter of all, was able to lasso one of the kinnaree with a magic noose he borrowed from the Naga of Chompoo Chit.

So begins the story behind a traditional southern Thai classical dance known as the Manora. People sponsoring events in the South sometimes hire a troupe of young flexible dancers to bend, leap, and twist their way through a performance. This morning in Thung Song district, Nakhon Si Thammarat province, a merit-making ceremony in memory of two parents provided the excuse to put on the Manora. The parents in question were the father- and mother-in-law of Jip’s older brother. I went along to the ceremony—as is so often the case here—honored to be invited but without many clues about what would happen.

My first surprise was the size of the gathering. I knew that many neighbors would be going to the temple in the morning anyway, because the family had decided to hold this rite on the same day as a Buddhist holiday. What I didn’t expect was a standing-room-only crowd, including several local politicians, at 7 in the morning. It seems that the parents had been well known, having had some success with the two major local products, rubber and fruit.

The performance was also a big draw. People had arrived early to get a good seat. I was told that the dancers came from quite a distance away. Their reputation for discipline and professionalism preceded them. Carrying their impressive costumes from a pickup truck to a makeshift dressing room behind the temple, they looked casual and a little detached, in the way that teenagers will when they know they are good at something.

A trio of musicians began warming up. The steady backbeat of conversation among the spectators faded to nearly nothing, replaced by the sound of cymbal and drum. Suddenly, a solo spurted from an oboe-like instrument, silencing the crowd completely. Out of a small door at the back of the open-air wat, seven kinnaree swooped into the room. We all stared first at their wings, which appeared to be weighty enough to pull them over backward.

As if anticipating our fears, the creatures arched into rainbows, gymnastically pointing their bellies at the ceiling while both their tails and the tips of their pointed headdresses rested lightly on the floor of the temple. They held these poses for several moments. Then they somehow straightened up again without using their hands, which were tipped with curved fingernails several centimeters long.

Manora, the captured kinnaree, married Prince Suthon. Her wings were taken from her. The couple lived happily until the day the prince was called into battle. Jealous court advisers told the prince’s father that to ensure victory, it would be necessary to sacrifice his daughter-in-law to the gods. Manora agreed to the idea, requesting only that she be allowed to perform a final dance for her husband’s parents, wearing her full costume. She performed gracefully for a few minutes, but then took a few running steps, unfolded her wings, and flew back to the land of her sisters.

We all applauded. I thought the show was over. But soon the hunter reappeared on stage, flanked by two other men in sparkly attire, each holding a microphone. This ensemble, accompanied brilliantly by the oboe, set about teasing the VIPs in the front row. I quickly understood that the only way for a targeted politician to stop the good-natured ridicule was to stand, smile, and slip a large bill into a pocket of the hunter’s outfit. The audience, knowing the drill well, hooted each time.

Food, photo opportunities, and more laughter concluded the morning. An elderly aunt represented the parents’ generation with suitable seriousness. Everything ended happily, just as in the story of Manora, who was reunited with her loyal prince after his long quest to find the land of the bird people… a dance for another day.

Road Trip

Aung San Suu Kyi just wrapped up her first trip outside Myanmar in 24 years. For most of that time she was under house arrest; when she wasn’t, she worried that she wouldn’t be let back in if she left. For her latest look at the outside world she traveled next door to Thailand. The bulk of her six-day journey was spent visiting Burmese refugees and migrant workers here. Most estimates suggest that the number of paperless people from Burma living in Thailand is over two million.

At a Bangkok forum on the economics of the region, she stole the show with a frank assessment of the investment prospects in Myanmar. She was wise and graceful, generating lots of goodwill, even as she bluntly told investors that for now her pariah country needs education and institutions lots more than it needs business.

Reform in Myanmar remains quite delicate, as democratization is bound to be anywhere people are used to solving disputes by pulling rank. Add in a ton of ethnic diversity, and a tidal wave of new outside experts who are suddenly swamping the country with their advice, and you get a spicy stew. As The Lady noted, “I sometimes feel that people are too optimistic about the scene in Burma. You have to remember that the democratization process in Burma is not irreversible.”

ASSK travels again on June 13. Among other places in Europe, she heads to Oslo, where she’ll formally accept the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in 1991.

Hiking on the Edge of Town

About the only thing better than having nature on the doorstep here in Chiang Mai is having a hiking club to enjoy it with. So far I’ve taken four outings with a revolving group of nice folks who enjoy perspiring up the many steep trails on the edge of town.

The people who come out early in the morning for half-day treks on Wednesdays and Sundays generally were born outside Thailand, or at least in other parts of the country. A few qualify as Chiang Mai veterans—twenty years or more.

They bring interesting stories with them. “I’m here to train Muay Thai” [Thai kick boxing] said both an Indian-American from New Jersey and an Irish dude, on separate occasions. “I fly helicopters for Shell Oil out of Borneo,” explained another guy. “I work six weeks on, six weeks off. Chiang Mai is the closest nice place to build myself a house.”

We saunter past colors and critters that are new to most of us—mushrooms, millipedes, berries, anthills, and orchids. Now and then somebody takes a stab at identification, but mostly we just enjoy the open forests and the occasional views back toward the city. Along one section of trail the route is marked by cloth that might once have been orange monks’ robes. Are we being told that the path leads to a temple? That we’re passing through a meditation zone? Nobody is sure.

Sometimes several tree trunks end up growing together into goofy shapes that would be equally at home in an amusement park. We half expect to hear Jack coming down the beanstalk. In that spirit, we notice monstrous snails everywhere. Somebody said they’re native to Africa—in Thailand thanks to yet another pest-control scheme gone badly wrong.

We arrive back at the parking lot before lunch, giving us plenty of time to fritter away the afternoon on the Internet.

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.