More on subsistence

It's been niggling for a while—there's a certain degree of universal lackadaisical attitude that just doesn't quite sit right: it's not really lazy so much as accepting.

Panang was instructive on this front: as I expected to see throughout SE Asia, the scooters were all hopped up and at least half the cars had mods. If an establishment had any glitz or glamour, it was proudly displayed as blatantly as possible. Frankly, it felt much more familiar than most of what I've seen in Thailand, where it's hard to distinguish between a million-dollar gold store and a little noodle shop next door unless you're looking directly into each. Panang had a drive to tweak and modify and improve and rake in approval; Thailand just doesn't. And that's where it seems lackadaisical.

Basically, if something stops working, fix it. Otherwise, don't mess with it. You have a basket on the front of your bike—why would you want one for the back of the seat or around your knees (besides holding a map, drink, or grocery bag)? (And yes, the knee-area basket with map clip will be one of my purchases next time I get to Panang.)

A house, oy, is a framework of bamboo poles with cement and tile walls, and every time something is added—running water, sewer, electricity, cable, DSL, drinkable water—it's clapped onto the outside. If it's removed, it's cut at a convenient place and stoppered. If it's reinstalled, a new line gets run. It's just how things work.

Very, very rarely, a kid will chop his bike—I've seen three. Sure, there are stickers and flashy wheels, but those are on maybe 5% of all bikes and appear regardless of the driver's gender. Otherwise, nothing gets modified until it's too broken to use.

Driving to and through Krabi reinforced this point. It's about three hours by minivan, of course in the back where the AC is dead and the ride is sufficient to jar fillings loose. But whereas the drivers coming back from Panang made every rest stop and fuel station, then charged a hundred baht for a misspelled departure card, this guy reminded me of stories I've heard about driving through the mountains in China—flat out, on the phone, gesticulating, passing on blind corners on turns already not more than a lane and a half wide.

It's a beautiful drive, too, passing around the most ruggedly mountainous parts of southern Thailand. It could also be construed as a drive through horribly impoverished areas, but there isn't the shame and guilt—these are subsistence farmers, who have been farmers for generations, inheriting half the family plot (at best) until it's now a postage stamp with a cow that grazes alongside the road, staked by the ring in its nose, while the farmer watches traffic and time pass by.

And it's not the listless blankness of the grubby toddler sitting in the middle of a street in Bovill, Idaho, who's given up on entertainment or stimulation and simply sits in the dirty street until it's time for more mac-n-cheez with some hotdog (if times are good).

It's not the stare of the bum who resents your good shoes and clean clothes, house and address and job (or whatever opportunities he misses having or thinks he would have).

It's the stare of someone who knows their needs, knows those needs are met, and is content with the manner in which it's accomplished.

Krabi is a bizarre mix of traditional and tourist cultures. It has enough infrastructure to exist on its own, inland and away from beaches and karst formations, but it happens to be a gateway to even more glorious and dramatic beaches and karst outcroppings than the postcards of tropical Thai paradise suggest.

It's the suited Ivy League grad stepping into his investment/engineering project in Wyoming if the locals didn't resent Harvard for living and simply saw him as a different person with different needs without the class judgment and envy built into our culture, or the Ivy Leaguer stepping into a dive bar in Lovelock, NV, and not passing judgment on the usual crowd of irregulars.

It's a commercially-developed street lined with big box stores that wrap around a centuries-old temple, and bronzed statues of mythic figures holding up stoplights in the next street over from the slum. And all without judgment or criticism, without the burning, bitter drive to reach or prove you've reached some fabricated and likely self-induced standard of living or conduct or accomplishment. In Thailand, there is a sense of satiation. There is a sense of enough, and that having enough is okay.

Picture the kid who drains the entire pitcher of Waffle House Pure Imitation Maple Syrup and says, “Gimme more!” to the waitress—what vehicle does his dad drive? How often and under what circumstances does that change?

Call it greed, or maybe jealousy paid forward; some form of ostentation designed to be seen and noted as a significant accomplishment.

In the “Real Thailand,” or at least “real” according to some guidebook editor, otherwise known as places where you might stop for a half day of touristing or are grateful for not having to stop, such ostentation is as foreign as the blond hair that attracts curious little petting fingers.

Maybe it's the buddhist core of Thai culture. Maybe it's part of developing from the third world.

But as soon as I started to write, “In Thailand, such pretense and ostentation is unknown,” I flashed to my first day in country, when my boss said, “In Thailand, it's all about appearances. As long as you look good, you're set.” We were in the mall, shopping for cell phones, and he waved at the girl behind the counter, who was playing on an iPhone.

“Check out this girl on the iPhone.” He said something in Thai. “Yeah, she sleeps on a mat on a dirt floor, but she's all jeweled up with the iPhone. That is Thailand, right there.”

Maybe I can revert to my standby scapegoat and point out that the girl who grew up in the city grew up with access to an extensive array of television and advertisement, while the satellite dishes in the subsistence sticks are neither universal nor even a generation old. So it's a waiting game, and I would pose this question:

Assume it's a matter of tradition v Westernization; the nationalistic pride and drive that's kept Thailand sovereign throughout its history v the inherent drive, disquietude, and unslakable greed of a capitalist economy; the shriveled farmer sitting on a table surrounded by piles of durian v the girl in the cell phone shop—assume these are the forces at work. After thousands of years of independence, how many generations will it take for the eyes peering out from the shadows to fill with want and desire for the ease and glamour streaming in through the soon-to-be-universal satellite dish?