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.

Songkran in the South

Rumor had it that Chiang Mai’s way of celebrating Thai New Year would get pretty wet. So I fled to the South for a traditional Songkran with Jip’s mom. In her village the three-day holiday revolves more around monks, blessings, and family than around throwing water. You can get as wet as you want to, but if you say you don’t want to play, people respect that and let you pass without a splash.

Life there is lived in the open air. Most jobs in Ban Krud take place outdoors, most transportation happens by cycle, and the beach exerts a strong pull on locals and visitors alike. Even though it’s the hottest time of the year (temperatures have been around 40C/100F), we spent our days sitting out front of the house to see who was passing by, or cooking in the outdoor kitchen—you can’t have a ceremony in the village without a feast afterwards.

Downsize

Chiang Mai’s population is between 5-10% as large as Bangkok’s, depending if you count the whole metropolitan area. The tallest buildings are under 20 stories high, and those are rare. The skyline resembles Rapid City’s.

Not everything here is on a scale smaller than the capital’s. The city sits in a valley between mountains. These peaks are high enough to have much lower temperatures at the top than at the bottom. Looking down at Chiang Mai from Doi Suthep, the tallest one, you see many, many more temples than malls. They’re so plentiful that yesterday with a friend I toured nine wats in a single afternoon. All of them were within three city blocks of each other.

It’s lovely to have nature and relative serenity so close by. I can be at the trailhead for many of Doi Suthep’s hikes in just a few minutes by taxi (actually a roaming, shared pickup truck—private taxis are uncommon). Recently I went out for a run in the foothills and within 20 minutes of leaving my place had seen a dozen deer.

This northern sabbatical will be a nice chapter.

How Was I Supposed to Know That Closing Time Was 8pm?

Or maybe the masseuse had a fight with her boyfriend this morning and was still mad?

Whatever the cause, the shortened, brutal quality of tonight’s massage caught me off guard. I mean, I know I’m basically a wimp, and I know that Thai massage is supposed to hurt now and then. But it’s not supposed to leave bruises. Or maybe that’s just how they do things up here in Chiang Mai?

This week I find myself asking often “Is it me or them?” Such moments were common in 2005 when we first returned to Thailand. But in this case I didn't expect to feel confused. In Bangkok I averaged a couple of massages a month.

At the shop tonight they could have told me up front that we’d have to stop early. She could have eased up when she saw me grimacing. A few more signals could have been flashed to let me know that we were through (it’s the only time I can ever remember when the session didn’t wrap up with a light clap-clap-clapping of the hands together on the spine).

But as I say, maybe they do things differently up here in Chiang Mai. Lots to learn.

Up North

Being newly arrived (two days ago) in Chiang Mai brings to mind that great long sentence from Stuart Little, which describes a drive in the countryside where “the back yards were bushy and worth finding out about, where the streets sloped down to the stream and the stream flowed quietly under the bridge, where the lawns ended in orchards and the orchards ended in fields and the fields ended in pastures and the pastures climbed the hill and disappeared over the top toward the wonderful wide sky.”

Cows are wandering around in what might as well be my back yard—fields just a few hundred meters down the road. People are speaking a dialect I can’t catch—until I ask a question, when they answer in central Thai. Even though it’s the hottest month of the year, I don’t feel as sweaty as I usually do down by sea level.

But this season the weather in the north has a downside. Dust in the air blows in from areas nearby that practice slash-and-burn farming. I don’t notice any breathing problems, but going barefoot inside the house tells the story—even though I sweep the floors every day, the bottoms of my feet are black in just a few hours of walking around.

Traffic rarely crawls in Chiang Mai, and sometimes moves quite fast. Trying to cross a road at one point, I spotted a gap in the cars coming from my right, as they always do in Thailand. As I began quickly making my way to the other side, I surprised a family on a motorcycle that was putt-putting along in the wrong direction. They honked, just in time. I felt the breeze their passing made as we missed colliding by millimeters. Lots to get used to here.

Perhaps I should ask the chickens how and why they cross the road?

What Do You Call What’s Happening in Myanmar?

Some kind of something has been moving forward with increasing momentum during the past several months in Myanmar, but it’s hard to know exactly what to call it.

Some would say it was “progress” when both Thein Sein, who has been country’s president for about a year, and Aung San Suu Kyi, who last month was elected to Parliament, met with Hilary Clinton on December 1st. Others use the word “transformation” to describe the recent steps toward democratic rule, even though when Suu Kyi was asked a few days ago to rate Myanmar’s democracy on a scale of one to ten, she said, “On the way to one.”

The Economist quoted one of the “reform”-minded ministers as saying, “There are 60 decision-makers in this country: 20 have seen the light, 20 are asleep, and 20 are waiting to see which way to jump.”

An especially big hurdle in the way of “real change” is a constitution that makes sure the military dominates Parliament. Maybe the most realistic moniker for what’s going on is “new era”—a time when lots of work will need doing so that the elections of last month aren’t just a tactic to convince Western nations to lift the years of economic sanctions.

Call it “movement”? Call it “makeover”? Whatever you call it, everything new over the past year could disappear in a heartbeat.