Language Re-Learning in Europe

Now and then in Thailand someone asks if I can speak French. I answer, “Oui,” and then manage one or two reasonably understandable sentences before Thai starts pouring out. It’s as if the lobe of the brain where my college French lives has been overwritten by the more recent efforts to learn a new language.

Thai is now the default second. Kick-starting the former tongues requires lots of concentration. These past two weeks, luxuriating in France and Spain with three separate batches of close pals, I was never sure what was going to flow from my mouth. (photo: John Beach)

It was surprising how quickly the old vocabulary flooded back. Most everything I read on signs in France made sense to me, and when shopkeepers addressed me I always knew what they were talking about. Whether or not I could reply quickly was another story, but with each passing hour I got faster—to the point where I sometimes asked myself how I would have said the same thing in Thai.

Of course I never got beyond a paragraph or two before I started giggling. French seemed like a play language, something designed for Barbie dolls or tea parties. I knew I wouldn’t need to use it for long, so I felt it was fair to have fun with it. Unlike in Thailand, where everyone can tell at a glance that Thai is not my native tongue, in France I was assumed to be fluent until I opened my mouth. The people I spoke to there had only a second or two to adjust themselves to someone mangling their language. I let them know right away that they were dealing with a tourist by overdoing the accent.

Non, je ne regrette rien. Vive le français! Vive la crème brûlée! Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Visit to the Rest Room Between Flights in Turkey En Route Europe for a Fun Reunion with Old Friends

It looked from the outside like a men’s room. A sign outside the door read “MEN.” But the security guard at Istanbul Airport questioned me suspiciously as I moved toward the entrance.

Soon I knew why. Just inside the door, piles of shoes were scattered about. To the left was a large open shower stall, with faucets placed around knee height. The thing I really needed, a urinal, was nowhere to be found.

Then I looked to the right and saw the prayer rugs. Men were resting all around the edges of the large room. It was not a restroom. I backed out, past the smirking security guard, to continue my search.

Biking in Bangkok

Especially since the recent political troubles have been making headlines internationally, people have written to ask if I’m in any danger when I go out and about in Bangkok. Short answer: no. Personal safety ranks higher here than in most American cities. A longer answer: the biggest Bangkok danger isn’t protests. It’s the unpredictable behavior of motorcycle drivers.

They snake around stopped cars and buses without really looking to see whether the lane they’re entering is really open. They create their own lane where none existed before, or use sidewalks as shortcuts. Luckily I’ve never had a really close encounter, but at least three of Jip’s caregivers have been hit while walking.

Recently a new category of road and sidewalk danger came to my attention. I had set out on a borrowed bicycle to ride though the neighborhoods surrounding the ministry where I work. The plan seemed worth the risk—I expected to stick to mostly quiet streets. My aim was to find a place we might move to that would offer most of the advantages of our current apartment, together with a shorter commute and a cheaper price tag.

The flaw in the excursion was my assumption that bicycles should follow certain traffic rules. For instance, it seemed to me pretty basic that I not ride facing oncoming buses. Yet many bicyclists I encountered were choosing to do just that. For some reason I had never noticed this behavior as a bus passenger. Now, as a fellow rider, it seemed to be happening every few minutes.

All of us might have managed to share the road if Bangkok had such a thing as a dedicated bicycle lane (you’re thinking, “he’s dreaming what?”). Without that luxury of extra room along the shoulder, somebody had to give way. It was always me, especially because many of the riders coming at me turned out to be a rider and a passenger, making them doubly wobbly.

Another unwinnable faceoff: pedal-driven broom sellers. These folks make their living by riding into small lanes and back streets, hawking large objects that surround them as they ride. I assume accidents must happen, considering how much of their vision is blocked by their wares (see the pic at right). Several of these people were coming my way as I rode around town, and I always found a way to let them pass. I that doubt any of them ever saw me.

At one stage I looked over my shoulder and saw rain clouds gathering. By this time I had already decided to return to where the bicycle really lived. The looming downpour made speed even more critical. The wind picked up. Little bits of dirt and straw that had been sitting quietly, minding their own business, suddenly began gyrating. They gave no warning. The unexpected dust devils became even bigger hazards than the unexpected head-on bicycle traffic. It was like riding into a sandstorm. I closed my eyes, praying that a broom seller didn’t appear when I opened them again.

Miraculously, I made it to the bicycle’s true home unscathed, minutes before the rain broke. My dreams of bicycle commuting, however, had suffered a severe setback.

Brits vs. Yanks

Even though this time the World Cup isn’t being played on the same continent as Thailand, and even though the games begin pretty late for people who work a regular day, everyone still seems to be fully informed on the morning after. I haven’t been hard core enough to stay up for the games that finish here shortly before the sun comes up.

With one exception. An invitation to join the lads from the old mans’ soccer league was too good to pass up. The match was of course the U.S. vs. England. The place was the Londoner Pub. At our table were four Yanks, two Thais, and a Turk who had gone to college in Louisiana. We were surrounded by about fifteen big screens and five hundred Englishmen. The owner’s son stopped by our table to offer his condolences. He also guaranteed us a protective escort in case the unthinkable happened, and the English side lost. At least that’s what I think he said. His voice got lost amidst the drinking songs, which became progressively louder as kickoff approached.

Technically Bangkok pubs aren’t supposed to serve alcohol after 2am. For this occasion the rules were skirted by requiring that everyone buy drink coupons before 12:30, followed by an announcement at 1am that the pub was officially closed. Nobody left the premises, of course. The event had simply become a “private party” at that point, no longer admitting new “guests.” I gather that at various watering holes around the city, beer after 2am is poured from tea kettles into teacups as another way around the regulations.

Probably you already know about the English captain’s nifty goal in the first five minutes of the match (pandemonium at the Londoner Pub) and the English goalkeeper’s “Hand of Clod” howler that evened the score (shocked silence, followed by a teenybopper-style scream from an excited American fan who was taking a big risk). From that point on, all of us at our table pulled our heads a little lower between our shoulder blades and sent up prayers (answered, thank god) that Wayne Rooney wouldn’t upset the delicate sense of cease-fire that had descended upon the room.

“Dying for a tie” described both nationalities, though each group meant something different by the phrase. The Brits appeared to have collectively lost years off the end of their lives. Meanwhile Yanks were thinking that the final whistle couldn’t come soon enough.

In the end we all made it out of the pub alive.

Summer School

For a while it seemed that everybody here was either really agitated or really depressed about Thailand’s troubles. Around that time, the middle of last month, when things were at their most explosive and the international press was updating standoff stories every few hours, the U.S. Embassy offered to evacuate employees’ family members.

Nobody I know was nervous enough about the situation to accept the offer, which expired today. I did hear a rumor that some international school kids, at risk of failing their finals, had successfully begged their parents to send them away. The program, known in official State Dept.-ese as “Authorized Departure,” demands that the evacuees return immediately after the offer expires. Pity the students who thought they were off the hook. Sounds like their plans for the rest of the month now include summer school.

Generally speaking things are again calm, at least on the surface. A curfew that lasted about ten days, and got progressively shorter as time went on, has now ended (though a state of emergency is still in force). The newspapers are now dominated by stories about politicians talking to one another rather than communicating through the press or via speeches.

Of course it’s just a lull in the action. No doubt a nasty plot is being hatched somewhere out of sight, and cells of people with narrow agendas are regrouping, and the military is scripting its reactions for what to do when the elections don’t turn out right.

Let us pray that all of the leaders associated with the recent conflicts also spend some time in summer school. The craziness of the past few months turns out not to be unique in Thai history. Dead ends, snipers, even arson on a grand scale have all appeared before in the long-running drama soap opera that is politics here.

Thus far I’m not convinced that the lessons of the earlier episodes have been absorbed. Last week Thaksin was formally accused of supporting terrorism, a decision that seems to play right into the hands of his well-paid spin-doctor squad. Coming up are debates about the current flawed constitution, and about lifting the ban on participating in politics for more than 100 members of dissolved parties. Compromise on those controversies will be much tougher now than they might have been before recent events, but looking back at the many examples in Thai history of following the middle way may help move things forward this time.

On a positive note, more than 10,000 volunteers, most of them young, turned out last weekend for a city-sponsored clean-up of the protest sites. Perhaps if the people lead, the leaders will follow?