Reflection

Time for the annual stock taking. We’ve just passed the four-year mark in Thailand. This chapter no longer seems new. We’re residents, not visitors. It’s hard to see how we could be in a better place. Jip’s cheerfulness is stunning. The caregivers keep showing up, rain or shine. I sleep very easy.

Just back from ten days in the States, I get to look at Thailand with fresh eyes this coming week. Transitions like these are good times to reflect on foreign-ness.

Surprises here are rarer and rarer. I don’t do double takes anymore when I see women attendants in the men’s room at the mall (and no more shifting uncomfortably as they clean around the urinals while I’m standing there). Barefoot bus drivers no longer faze me, nor the proudly overdressed Thai security guards. And alas, I’m sure I now take for granted much of the unearned privilege that goes along with being a white guy in this country.

Nowhere else would work better for Jip. When we were in Seattle, I wrestled with the pro’s and con’s of moving to Thailand. Four years on, I wonder what I was worried about. Looked at in hindsight, the decision is a no-brainer. If anything, we should have come earlier.