Scary Movies

OK, call me a wimp. I can’t handle movies like “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood.” It just doesn’t work for me when the bad guy spends most of the movie murdering, and we spend most of the movie shivering.

I saw both flicks in a futile attempt to stay current with American culture. (Somebody in my book group, which mostly consists of people from the U.S., suggested that we should all subscribe to People magazine). The movies didn’t help. Afterward I felt more out of touch than ever.

I could see why they were nominated for awards—they were put together by people who know what they’re doing. But when you strip down the plots to their essentials, they seemed to me no better than your basic horror movie. If that’s what resonates with the American moviegoer, then maybe I’m better off being out of touch.

Ironically, the week before “No Country” won several awards, the Thai equivalent of the Oscar-granting academy announced the winner of the best movie of the year in this country. Its name in translation is “Love of Siam.” The plot centers on two teenage boys exploring whether or not they’re in love with each other.

Family History Tour

Jip’s older brother’s wife suffered an unfortunate motorcycle accident in Jip’s home village. I took the bus down to visit her in the hospital. Jip’s younger brother and his wife had driven there the day before.

The three of us traveled back to Bangkok together. On impulse I bailed out at Petchaburi, about the halfway mark. I knew Jip had gone to middle school there, and through the bus window I’d admired a hilltop palace that’s visible from the main road.

The palace turned out to be a very cool spot—crawling with monkeys, and full of many more attractive buildings than I could see at first. I roamed a couple hours, then decided to head for the nearby coast. Even though I’d never heard of anyone going to this beach, I figured it’s hard to go too far wrong when it comes to the Thai seaside.

But it wasn’t a good sign when the first bit of scenery I came across as I walked along the sand was a dead dog. Things got a little more dubious as I realized that the buses had stopped running and that a hotel I’d been pointed to turned out to be the rent-by-the-hour kind. Jip wasn’t too happy when I called to say I wouldn’t be home till the next day. Frankly, I wasn’t either.

Shortly after a mediocre sunrise the next morning, I left the coast and was home in time to spend most of the afternoon with Jip. When I told her which beach I’d detoured to, she surprised us both by sounding pleased: “My grandmother was born there.” Maybe my instincts aren’t so bad after all.

Khu Gam

I still say there are few better ways to tap into a culture than through its epics. Somebody at work mentioned a movie that sounded like it fit that description. Khu Gam (literally, “karma couple”) has been called Thailand’s Gone with the Wind.

The story line, based on a famous Thai novel, follows a classic mismatched lover formula. A Japanese navy officer, part of the force occupying Thailand during World War II, falls for a Thai woman who is not only already committed to someone else, but fiercely committed to the underground movement to free her country.

You can guess the rest. Its Thai-ness, I suppose, comes from the way the heroine and the other patriotic characters in the story try to neutralize their aggressors by blending with them rather than overpowering them. Some would say that martial-art-like approach explains why Thailand, unlike all of its neighbors, was never colonized.

Click here if you just have to know how it ends. I plan to check out one of the dozen-plus film versions, or perhaps the musical. Probably I’ll skip the 26-episode miniseries.

Updates

Here is the rest of the story about a few things mentioned here recently:

· Cracks in the tarmac at Thailand’s biggest airport made for a big story when the place first opened. That news has disappeared from the headlines since the former airport reopened to relieve some of the domestic flight traffic, and since the coup government left office. Let’s hope that scare was overblown in an attempt by the coup leaders to embarrass the prime minister they ousted.

· At work we tried to interest Gates Foundation in partnering with us on some big-money ideas that would have doubled our budget. Those conversations never took off, but we’re optimistic that one day the seeds we planted will blossom.

· Learning Thai is still a two-steps-forward-one-step-backward kind of process. But my morning Thai lessons continue, and every day I’m able to tune in to more of the conversations swirling around me. Some advanced vocabulary is simply a stitched-together combination of basic words (medicine + numb = anesthetic; touch + horoscope = to hit it off together), so the more I already know, the easier it is to guess what I don’t know.

· Laughter is increasingly common around our place. Jip and her caregivers know each other quite well by now (no turnover for six months). When she’s relaxed, her funny side trumps her fussy side. I plan to take advantage of the stability to make a trip or two to the States this year.