Bangkok Viewed from Down Under

Distressing images from Thailand continue to lead the evening news in Australia. The stories here focus on the midair u-turn made by Australia’s prime minister when he learned en route that the summit meeting he planned to attend had been canceled.

What I see, looking at the TV footage, is that the latest clashes between protesters and army happened just a few minutes from our place. Even though Jip and her caregivers assure me that they’re not affected, it’s difficult to watch these events from afar.

Perth is lovely, and our good friend has been a great host for the past few days. Yet in many ways I'd rather be back in Thailand at the moment.

Big Face Loss

The Thai government suffered a major embarrassment this weekend when protesters shut down a summit meeting that was to have gathered leaders from around the region. This meeting had already been canceled once before out of the fear that it would be interrupted.

Three nights ago, the same group of demonstrators, most commonly called the red shirts, blocked key intersections around town, snarling traffic for hours. I got several phone calls at work from people who urged me to avoid my usual route home. They said the mob wasn’t violent, just inconvenient. After staying at the office a little later than usual, I took an alternate way and found the streets nearly empty. Word had gotten around.

The stated goal of the protesters is the “return of democracy to the people.” That phrase seems to really mean the return of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has been living in exile since being ousted in a coup over two and a half years ago. He visited Thailand briefly last year, but took off again when it seemed the courts were about to find him guilty on corruption charges. For the past few days he has been rallying his supporters via videophone.

On Friday afternoon I headed from work to the airport for a previously scheduled vacation in Perth, Australia. Our office was among the few that didn’t have the day off. Thursday evening, thinking it could encourage people to celebrate rather than protest, the government had declared that Thai New Year would start one day earlier than planned.

Many roads remain blocked, but highways to the airport were clear. I confess that while waiting in a slow check-in line, I glanced around now and then to be sure there were no red shirts preparing to shut down outgoing flights. (The yellow shirts, supporters of the current government, did just that about four months ago.)

But it appears the red shirts had their sights set on the summit meeting rather than the airport. Watching the news here in Australia, I feel discouraged that Thailand remains so divided and directionless regarding its political future. Both groups of protesters during the past six months have been good at talking about what they don’t want, but it’s unclear to me what they do want, other than simply to hold power.

Reason Number 788 Why We’ve Got a Pretty Sweet Deal Going Here

I’ve been sent to the provinces for work reasons twice in the past two weeks. My job description rarely includes responsibilities outside Bangkok: in three years, I can count the number of trips on one hand.

Each time, I’ve had a spare hour or two between meetings, or while waiting for transportation back to the big city. My hosts could have found me a quiet corner where I could do some reading or plug in a laptop computer. But they never have.

Instead, they’ve always steered me to nearby massage shops. Further proof that this country has its priorities in the right order.

Mango and Sticky Rice Season

Our reward for putting up with the hottest weather of the year is the best fruit of the year. Mangoes, rambutans, mangosteens, and longans, are just a few of the delicious possibilities that start showing up in the markets around now. I noticed some good-looking mangoes for sale on the streets about ten days ago.

Jip decided to stick to some adage she learned in childhood about mangoes not being ready until April 1st. But I couldn’t hold off that long. Probably they’ll only be around for about ten weeks. Assuming I take a day off now and then, that means I’ll only eat about fifty servings of sticky rice and mangoes before they’re gone. No time to lose!

Giving Blood

Yesterday I gave blood for the first time in Thailand. I used to be a regular in Seattle. For whatever reason I hadn’t gotten into the habit here. Then last week at work we got an e-mail asking for donations of blood type O, which I share with most of the people in the States, but which I’m told is relatively uncommon in Asia.

The smooth process at the donation center, which made Seattle’s system look amateurish by comparison, impressed me. And the place was packed. Afterwards, someone explained that it’s a popular activity among Buddhists, who see giving blood as a way of making merit. Perhaps that explains why, in addition to offering donors the usual cookies and juice, the center handed all of us a Jatukham medal when we were finished.

HHH

Long before returning to live in Thailand, I’d been told to check out the local chapter of the Hash House Harriers. I thought of it a non-competitive group of sports-minded people who like mixing entertainment and exercise. Their self-description is a “drinking club with a running problem.”

Until three days ago, I’d never joined them on their Saturday afternoon outings, mostly because soccer has taken up enough of my weekend free time. But over the years here, running has become increasingly important to me, so I e-mailed the contact listed on the website last week. He was planning to drive out to the starting point for that week’s run. We arranged to meet up.

“You look too fit to be a hasher,” he said when I got in the car. I admit I was surprised to see a number of beer bellies when we joined the others. My presence also seemed to bring down the average age considerably. But thanks to a clever system for making sure everyone starts and finishes around the same time (a “hare” goes out ahead and marks a trail, complete with several false lefts and rights, causing the front runners to cover much more mileage than the folks at the back), fitness and age don’t really matter much.

What does really matter to this group isn’t entirely clear to me yet. At first glance, the brand of humor and the post-run beverage of choice would be right at home in most college fraternities. But as my website contact pointed out while we drove, everyone takes something different from the group. For me the fun came in spending an hour or so following back alleys and cutting through forests that otherwise I would never have seen. The hasher’s Thailand is not the tourist’s Thailand. My first hash won’t be my last.

Party Animal

I said I’d be home late because I was going to one of the very occasional gatherings of people in Thailand who also graduated from my college. Jip said, “What time are we leaving?”

Not wanting to put her off (it’s so rare that she’s interested in an outing)—but double-checking so that we didn’t end up leaving as soon as we arrived at the party—I reminded her that she wouldn’t know anyone. “No problem,” she said, “You can tell me about them before we get there.”

When the host greeted her by name, Jip was instantly at home, sticking out her hand and asking after his wife. She remembered her name from the short briefing I’d given her in the taxi. Jip was equally smiley with a handful of other people who approached us. One of them, a visiting professor from the college whose presence in town was the official excuse for the get-together, turned out to know a former neighbor of ours in Seattle. Pretty soon Jip was off to the races, trading stories about the neighbor and sounding as if she had known this professor for years.

I suspect that what attracts Jip to an event like this, or to the reunion last year of her college classmates, has more to do with the way she sees herself than with the people she is likely to encounter there. She may feel that she belongs to an educated layer of society that is different from the one her caregivers come from.

That sort of class consciousness is very common in Thailand, although it never seemed obvious in Jip when we lived here before. Nowadays, it’s not unusual to hear small prejudices and politically incorrect comments slip out of her. Like many people with a chronic disease, she has less and less use for the filter that keeps most of us from telling others what we’re really thinking.

After spending so much time with the same three women every week, and grumbling about the kinds of things they find interesting to talk to each other about, maybe Jip is simply starved for more intellectual conversation. Which would also explain why lately she’s been anxious have people come to read to her… in English only.

Shoulder Pain: Update

Yesterday marked the third Saturday in a row when Chutima has visited our apartment and worked on Jip's shoulder. During the nearly three years we’ve known this woman, she has given Jip massage a few times. But we never thought of what she did as accupresure. Jip has now decided that she qualifies.

Whatever you call it, the complaints about pain are way down. Jip’s pitching arm, recently too stiff to throw, is once again tossing strikes when she does her daily ball throwing exercises at the standing frame. After our two failed attempts to get her some relief, I was afraid we were going to have to declare “strike three” on our search for a solution to her shoulder woes.

Musical Barometer

During this season it’s too hot to go very far on foot. People in Thailand are much more likely to take a taxi or a tuk-tuk than to walk. But when I am caught out on the hot streets in March, April, and May, I take comfort in the hum of the cicadas. The rise and fall of their song reminds me that some day the rains will return.

Jip swears that their volume corresponds with the barometric pressure. For several years, the tightness of her legs has been a reliable way to predict the weather. So when the cicada noise gets loud enough to drown out normal conversation, and Jip’s legs began to feel jumpy, we know it won’t be long before the rumble of thunder comes our way.

“Glass Shadow” and “Stairs Monkey”

Studying a new language is especially fun when it leads to seeing an old idea in a fresh way. Two examples:

Just as in English, the word for “glass” in Thai can mean both something to put in a window and something to see your reflection in.

But what if you want to distinguish a pane from a mirror? In English you might insert the adjective, “looking.” In Thai you tack on the word, “shadow.” If you say that you need a “glass shadow” in order to shave your whiskers, everyone will know which kind of glass you mean.

Likewise, distinguishing “stairs” from “ladder” (the same word) in Thai is easy. To be certain everybody knows you’re talking about the latter, add “monkey.”

How Does Your Garden Grow?

In our pretty-good garden on the balcony is an accidental papaya tree. Probably it started as a seed that blew in on the wind. Everything seems to sprout here, no matter how much care (or neglect) you put into the project.

The Thai way is to grow plants in pots rather than beds. Even the huge permanent displays in front of public buildings really consist of hundreds of separate plants, each in its own pot. I read somewhere that people do this so they can move plants easily to higher ground when floods come.

Despite the wet and the heat, killing plants here seems harder than keeping them alive. Whenever we’ve had plants that look close to death, I’ve revived them by giving them a severe haircut and popping them into a new pot. In no time they’re thriving again.

The next step in my Thai gardening education will be figuring out which plants are pleasing to which spirits. I gather that certain species are thought to bring good luck, or to combine well with others to protect us from harm. If I ever re-arrange the pots on the balcony, I notice that the caregivers put them all back again the next day. Once or twice a new flower I’ve brought home has simply disappeared without a word. Time will tell if the papaya gets tossed out before it bears fruit.

Khao Sam Roi Yod National Park

A couple weeks ago, as Jip and I were coming back from a nice visit to Jip’s mom and grandma, I re-noticed some silhouetted mountains jutting up between the main road and the sea. Jip told me that the range and the national park surrounding it are known as “Three Hundred Peaks.” When I mentioned the place in Bangkok, I found that it’s well known among birders.

So I went back there on a scouting mission this past weekend, looking for spots where Jip and I could check off a few species. (Jip can identify most local birds by ear.) I arrived at the park entrance by bicycle and explained my quest to the rangers. They were excited to help. After asking about her wheelchair and her vision, they recommended a marsh with a boardwalk built out into it. They said it’s not far off the highway and attracts a mix of shore and inland birds.

I look forward to detouring there some day when we’re back in the neighborhood. This weekend, the boardwalk was too far to bike to. Instead, the rangers steered me to a beach they said I might enjoy for the trail that climbs to a well-known cave. From photos they showed me, I wasn’t too impressed, but I didn’t have any better ideas.

A map at the trailhead starred the standard nature-trail attractions: 1) big tree, 2) interesting orchid species, 3) spectacled langur… Wait. How could the mapmakers be confident enough of where this monkey-like creature would be sitting that they could mark its location with a star? Sure enough, when I got to number 3 on the trail, I looked up to see several pairs of little sunglasses staring down at me. No sign of a chain or rope keeping the critters there. No trash cans or similar buffet on offer. Must simply be a favorite hangout.

Phraya Nakhon Cave surprised me too. The pictures showed what seemed to be a small temple framed by a shallow depression in a cliff face. It’s common in Thailand to turn caves into Buddhist shrines.

Instead I found a huge goldfish-bowl-shaped sinkhole, more like a stadium than a cave. Because it’s open at the top, letting in a few hours of light every day, plants thrive there. Plus you’ve got your stalactites and stalagmites and echoes and… of course… a tasteful pavilion built in honor of the visit paid there over a hundred years ago by King Chulalongkorn. Naturally.

Catch Your Breath

I had just arrived home after work when a neighbor called. She had planned to visit us that evening, but wanted to ask, “Do you need a few minutes to catch your breath first?”

I didn’t. Her question made me realize that in this country I almost never do. We live in an unhurried place.

Jip's Bookshelf

Jip and I got back yesterday from visiting her village. While we were there her mom asked me to go through some of Jip’s old books. Anything we didn’t want to keep she planned to give away to the local high school.

What a wonderful reminder of who Jip used to be! I found lots of stuff about Buddhism on those shelves, but also Growing Up Catholic; The Tao of Pooh; Rumi, Poet and Mystic; Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind; The Power of Myth; A Christmas Carol; and even Waterbuffalo Theology.

Then came the anthropologist section—Cry the Beloved Country, Roots, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Gandhi: An Autobiography, Cathedrals and Abbeys of France, and Peoples of the Golden Triangle. I recognized the rebel nurse in titles like Blood and Guts and Our Bodies Our Selves, which sat next to The Manual of Gynecologic and Obstetric Emergencies. And of course the conservationist shelf—Rachel Carson, lots of writings by and about American Indians, and The Complete Birder.

My throat caught when I came across A Sand County Almanac. That book was very important to me in my 20s. Everything looked different to me after reading it. I remember preparing to lie down in front of bulldozers to prevent any further destruction of the American wilderness.

I had wondered what happened to my copy. Probably I brought it with me when I first came to Thailand, then passed it along to Jip, thinking it would speak to her too. Re-reading it now, I confess to feeling a little discouraged, wondering if our species is going to make it. But I do smile thinking of how a book inspired by a Wisconsin farm came to be part of a fascinating Thai-English library in a southern Thai village.