Tarmac Troubles

The runways at the country’s newly-opened showcase airport may be cracked. Depends who you ask. I went to a discussion at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (motto: “You don’t have to be foreign and you don’t have to be a correspondent”) to listen to some local authorities.

I knew I wouldn’t hear “the truth.” Already the country has lost face. The blame and spin phase still has a long way to go before it peaks. But I was interested in the Thai way of dealing with the press.

Somebody asked how far back the alleged problems could be traced. (Planning for this project began forty years ago.) Referring to the possibility that corruption had led to corner cutting when the runway’s foundation layers were laid, the answer was, “I don’t have to tell you which administration was in power then. Everybody knows that.”

That kind of indirect response struck me as different from the American style of throwing mud. But when a German questioner wondered why not bring in international experts to fix whatever is wrong, the same speaker leveled his gaze, changed his tone, and made it crystal clear that he thought the credentials of Thai engineers were second to none.

What will happen next? To minimize the chance that faults at the new airport will cause an accident, most likely the former one will reopen. Some flights will land there while parts of the new airstrip are repaired. Unfortunately, it’s too late to mend the damage done to the national pride.

No Secrets

In some countries I’ve visited, people have stared and pointed at me because I look different. Here in Thailand, it’s generally no big deal when a farang (foreigner) passes by. Sometimes I hear Thais talk about me, when they think I don’t understand, but mostly I get lulled into thinking I’m blending in.

An exception is with merchants. I’ve been asked if I want what I had last time—at shops where my only previous visit was months beforehand. Or consider the dozens of motorcycle taxi drivers at one end of our street. They take several passengers a day to various government buildings in the neighborhood. But I’ve only ridden home with them a few times since we’ve lived in this neighborhood. Usually I’d rather walk.

One night last week I was tired and it was late. I caught the eye of one of the drivers, a guy I’m sure I had never seen before. But he must have seen me. As I got on the back of his motorcycle, he called out the name of our apartment. So much for invisibility.

Change Just One Letter

Jip’s physical abilities had been stable for a long time. Then recently she began having trouble gripping with one of her hands. She could still eat on her own, but she struggled when brushing her hair.

It spurred me to call upon a doctor whose name I had come across while doing some Internet searching a while ago. This woman appears to be the neurologist most interested in studying Jip’s disease as it appears in Asians. She has published several articles suggesting that a uniquely Asian version may exist.

I showed up at her clinic without an appointment and without Jip, but she generously agreed to see me. We talked for half an hour. She was very easy to know, and seemed interested in Jip’s case. I ended up offering to chat with any spouses of her patients who might be confused or angry or wondering about what might come next. A guy from across town has already called me, and we’ve agreed to meet for lunch some day.

As I got ready to go, I asked the doctor if there was anything she would advise us to try that we hadn’t already. I didn’t have any expectations that she would have a miracle cure, but I thought she might suggest a treatment or diet. Instead she said, “in your wife’s case I recommend meditation.”

Which of course Jip already does. But the point is that no doctor has ever mentioned it to us before. Medication, yes. But never Meditation. I appreciated her avoiding what must be a temptation in her profession to tinker with small symptoms, or to talk about experimental therapies that in our case have always turned out be false hopes. It was very refreshing. Yet another reason why I’m glad we came to this country.

We’ll Get There When We Get There

I prefer public transportation over driving because I can get some reading or some language study done instead of getting stuck behind the wheel in traffic. Bangkok offers lots of options for getting around, some of which are world class, definitely much better than what Seattle had to offer when we lived there.

My favorite of these options is the bus. It’s not the fastest or the cleanest or the quietest, but it does have a few advantages that the Skytrain, river taxi, subway, shared van, and canal boat cannot claim.

For one thing, it’s dirt cheap. Going pretty much anywhere in this town on the bus costs less than fifty cents. I’m talking here about the high end, air conditioned, most-everybody-gets-a-seat brand of bus. You can pay less and breathe fumes.

Fares are collected by so-called bus hostesses, who seem to me remarkably cheerful considering the repetitiveness of their jobs. Perhaps they enjoy the conversations with the drivers, or the music that is sometimes playing on elaborately wired speakers throughout the bus. The polyester uniforms worn by these bus hostesses often have a strange sheen that comes from having been ironed too aggressively.

If you were the stereotyping type, you could even say these women are representative of Thailand—they’re easy going, they’re cute, and they’re dressed as smartly as their budgets will allow (one won my heart the other day with her Chicago Cubs ankle socks). Their first priority doesn’t seem to be climbing the career ladder. The adventure offered by a life on the road, with its interminable backups, followed by quick bursts forward and sudden swerves, satisfies for now. Tomorrow will take care of itself.

Bombs Come to Bangkok

Jip and I had a few fine, slow days before and after New Year’s. We set no goals and therefore had no trouble meeting our targets. I got out of town a couple of times, once together with Jip to the farm that our friend Therese invited us to once before. It's a place we both feel comfortable and relaxed.

The peace was shattered when bombs went off simultaneously in Bangkok, early on New Year’s Eve. Jip claims she heard explosions. The best reports I’ve read say that all told there were eight bombs. Each was detonated remotely in a different part of town. These places were not as crowded that day as they are typically, because many Bangkokians had gone away for the weekend. Yet three people were killed, and roughly thirty more were hurt.

Nobody has taken credit for causing this misery, though plenty of analysts have been willing to explain it in ways that serve their interests. We already knew which groups in the region don’t like each other and why (those who lost power in the coup, separatists from the south, the police, Al Qaeda—take your pick), so these events are like sharpening stones for people with axes to grind.

To me what matters is that a certain innocence seems to have been lost here. Bangkok joins the ranks of cities worldwide where people think twice about going out. Violence has happened here before, certainly, but on the whole the place has always felt safer than places I’ve lived before. Crime is rare, walking anywhere anytime is taken for granted, and large scale feuding of the kind that makes international headlines has seemed like a problem reserved for other countries.

I have no reason to think that explosions will now suddenly become common, or even that I should or could take extra precautions. Yet it saddens me that some people think spreading fear in this way is a good way to advance their cause. Especially because it won’t. No message was sent really by this act. Or perhaps countless messages were sent. Because no one has claimed the bombs, we’re all free to assign our own reasons for them, thus fanning the flames of our own personal fires. Quite a shame.