Friday, September 30, 2011

On growing up

It's interesting to find myself on the eve of a trip home. While I've been hearing that the only way I'd get out of here is in a body bag for a good 14 months (and if that's what's getting straight to my ears, imagine what other people are hearing), there was a definite resistance to a homecoming fortified with 'and then what?'
The interesting part is that after enough months of fighting to be here and make it work, fighting to let go of the illusion of safety and security, fighting to get up and going on my own swollen ankles, tearing up at the thought of my dog and telling people 'it is just me, on my own, just me, no, just me,' to keep from crying at the thought of fishing with Dad, Dottie's steaks with a peacock serenade, sitting on the sofa with Mom, listening to Darrell's music, after ages of being ready to drop everything--EVERYTHING--to catch the next flight home if only I heard 'here's how to move ahead and reconstruct a life' instead of 'you're killing us with worry so get your stubborn ass home you ingrate!' after that hurting and enduring and yearning, I realize that there was also much growing.
When I left, I was very much 18, having spent the intervening decade in/around college. There was never a break from the seasonal lifestyle going back to, oh, kindergarten. There was never a need to figure out how to go about establishing my own nest when there was either school or the place I love and revere and had the fortune to grow up exploring.
Now I'm in a different place. I'm not out to build a nest, certainly--'hmm, do I go toOman or Peru?) but I realize that the place I think of as home is not anymore. Much as I dislike the thought of some punkass dude with jackhole friends living in my room, much as I wish I could babysit the dogs and snowblow Mom's driveway, that's not the reality of my life anymore. One day I hope it will be again, but for now I need to be where I am, occupied as I am, trying to find out who that I critter is and what it's after.

There's the idea of the Neolithic rite of passage being a lonely crawl through a dark cave with the gods raining fire and misery.
Well, here I am on the other side, and ain't no way in hell I'm going back through that to get to where I thought I was, or imagined I wanted to be. Something like that.
Regardless, how wonderful it will be to revel in the illusions and dreams, and then how wonderful to get back to the concrete reality I know through my own creation.

Sent from Candid the iPad

Thursday, September 29, 2011

On Glossing

It's been an eventful while since anything of events made it up, so here's the overview:

I

There was a job offer. It was for a lot of money and involved teaching music to G3-6. There was no program in place, and the curriculum was up to me. They would pay my airfare there and back, provide housing and utilities, and I would be teaching and living in what I would've considered standard conditions before coming to Thailand--just imagine having separate cooking, sleeping, and studying spaces! Electricity and a computer with a projection system in the classroom!
But I turned it down, and I have felt relief ever since.
I was applying for a job elsewhere and a recruiter plugged me into this one.
During the interview, the principal could not say what she wanted beyond a world-class music programme, whether vocal, instrumental, Western, Arabian; no idea what she wants except it should be absolutely excellent. When I asked for clarification of "furnished accommodation" and "standard classroom" she seemed exasperated, and when I asked for clarification of "some keyboards and boxes of percussion things" she got snappy.
The contract listed salary, duration, an airline flight upon successful completion, and a housing provision. When I asked things like, "What is the teaching load and class schedule? How many students per class? What materials are available?" it took a full week to get a reply, and that came with an email to the recruiter on the lines of, "after the head of primary took so much time to answer the questions, I expect that there is an acceptance of the contract."
Which I never gave. The recruiter took, "I'm interested in the possibilities, but I'm still curious why the salary is relatively low, what the teaching schedule would be, and what materials are available" as "I accept" and passed that on to the school.
At the same time, I read nothing actually good about the school--the best anyone had to say is that they pay on time. And the vitriol was vile enough to be immediately discarded--seized assets, house arrest, overnight deportation, contracts changed on a whim, all sorts of fun stuff that is easy to find and easy to attribute to inexperienced teachers expecting life abroad to be just like it was in college.
My gut didn't like it.
My head wouldn't be overruled--it was a good paying gig and a short entry into the ME, where I'm looking for my next job.
But it was at a school I didn't trust with a principal I wasn't keen on in a country I have no interest in visiting with expectations for greatness but no idea how to get there,
And the safety measure of sending all possible money out of the country because everything can be seized if someone decides not to like you and complains to a well-connected daddy.

At the same time, I'm starting to do better, physically, and have a doctor who has been all the way in out and around and through me, and finally what she's doing seems to be taking effect.
I have a zero-pressure job--my own motivation and professional self-respect far exceeds my professional expectations in the workplace.
As much as I dislike it, I know the culture well enough to get around and keep myself fed.
Next term, a relatively short one, stands to be pretty easy. And maybe for once it's time to listen to my body and instead of pushing for the next goal, the next thing, stop to get caught back up with myself.

So it's not that I'm thrilled about staying in Thailand, it's that doing so is the easiest, lowest key, hassle and pressure free choice, and maybe by now I've earned it.
The job offer sounded like anything but.
And at the 11th hour, when Mom said, "I don't know why you think that if you don't take this job there won't be more in the future," it clicked and resonated all the way through, and I sent a letter of declination rather than the scanned copy of a signed contract.

II

I'm coming home for the semester break! Departure is October 1, return on the 23rd. REJOICE!

III

I was invited to dinner at a former student's house, She is a freelance graphic designer, married to a bank manager, with a daughter in the 9-11 range. Very upper crust folks, with a beautiful house they've owned forever and remodeled a couple of times.
Fascinating.
When you pull through the gate, the white coarse-sand driveway leads to a parking area near the patio or straight into the covered parking, under the house. Right, the house is on stilts high enough for a Thai person to walk under, or a normal sedan to park under with room for the trunk to open.
Why the stilts?
Because it floods. Every year. And the "foundation" level is about on the flood line with just enough draft left over to keep out most snakes (jury's out on the crocodiles--they were caught a few blocks away).
Up a flight of steps littered with flipflops and broken-backed shoes to the door, which is white-painted teak and slides accordion-style open and closed with a latch for a padlock on the outside and holsters for a large wooden plank to secure from the inside.
A great number of idols and busts stand sentinel around the entryway--the standard pictures and carvings of great monks and various kings--plus the typical fetishes to bring fortune, fertility, and virility (elephants, phalluses, actively copulating carvings, all presumably made under the great auspices and blessings of a powerful monk or brotherhood).
To the left are more ill-fitting doors on ancient hinges, whitewashed, that lead to mystery rooms where Westerners are not to trod, presumably Gramma's room and the Buddha Room (Buddhists have a separate room for prayer/meditation, usually). To the right and up a step--the floor is thick teak polished smooth by ubiquitously bare feet and riddled with cracks and joints large enough to make for some really cool games with a friend under the house (or during a flood, if you stock up on pebbles ahead of time)--are the primary living quarters, with separate rooms for Dad and Ma/Daughter. Each room has a sliding screen door to the main hall and screened windows to the outside, theoretically keeping 'skeeters out. (Side note: having been in Alaska when the blood patrol was dense enough to serve as a living coat on your back, I can confidently say that the concentrations of mosquitoes here is nowhere near the same, but the smallest jungle-grown Thai bloodsucker is about 150% larger than what I would've called a damn big mosquito before I came here.)
Each room has a mattress on the floor and an armoire/cabinet and a light next to the bed. That's all.
The living area has a refrigerator on the left a few steps from a hutch with coffee, tea, and a hot water pot (in Thailand, pump-top electric water heater pots are as prevalent as ants). Behind the fridge and next to the hutch are the bathrooms--on the left, a traditional squat pot with an urn for rainwater and two hoses--one with a backside nozzle and one with a showerhead. On the right is a western-esque bathroom with a hot shower, toilet, and sink (we are in the hi-so realms, in case you forgot or didn't notice the full-sized refrigerator).
Opposite this wall is the sitting/TV area. It's a nook with a frame for another wooden door which has been removed and presumably folded under the house. On one side is a TV/DVD on a little stand full of picture books and old school books, and on the other is a handful of pillows. This is where everyone--Kidlet to Gramma--reposes in slack-jawed comfort.
Outside the doorframe is a wooden porch fully covered by the roof, which extends to the left to wrap around the side of the house opposite the road. On the road side of the porch are the other bookshelves in the house--these full of design magazines.
Around to the back of the house, the porch opens onto a pond and has conveniently placed buckets of pellets to scoop and throw to the ravenous catfish and river-filter fish. Lots of coconut trees, fruit trees, green bursting everywhere.
And here, on the back side of the house, is the kitchen. It's an open-air deal on the wall outside the bathroom, with walls on two sides. A table has six chairs around it, the only such devices in the house (not counting the toilet).
Everything is low, even for me (I love it). Frosted glass doors under the counter slide open to dishes, all of which are tiny--in Thailand, you have one big plate mounded with rice, and then there are many small dishes of whatnots from which everyone nibbles. There's an actual oven (the first I've seen in country) with the manual still in it, on a pan with the paper label still attached. Next to this is a microwave which appears to sometimes see some use--again, very high-so. There's a workspace and a sink with a draining rack in the corner. On the pond-side, there's more drainage areas, the spice rack, and the burner area, dropped even lower, with a single propane unit that belts out about 65000 BTUs at full bore.
The spice rack has rock salt, sea salt, pepper, fried garlic and shallots, chili paste and powder and flakes, palm sugar and raw sugar and white sugar, tamarind paste and some tubs of something you can't identify but don't really want to.
Next to this is a tub with bottles of fish sauce, oyster sauce, vinegar, lime juice, sweet pepper sauce, and soybean oil.

We'll be having pop-ee-yets (eggrolls), and the setup is on the table: a plastic tub of filling, a stack of wrappers, and a little bowl of egg white. Stuff, roll, and stack. Great fun. Then fry in a special pan set aside for always holding oil, which takes about 30 seconds to heat up on the wok flame.
A deep, plastic bowl appears with a dense 'fro of greens: lettuce, something like sorrel, mint, basil, other basil, parsley, and celery sprigs.
To eat the popeeyets, wait until they've cooled enough to hold, then cut into knuckle-length chunks with kindergarten-style safety scissors. Wrap the chunk in a leaf of something, stuff it with more leaves, and spoon on some vinegary sauce with crushed peanuts (as close to my dearly-missed peanut sauce as I've come in Thailand). As a palate cleanser, just eat the veggies.
On the one hand, everything is fresh and crisp and in the best possible conditions to be phenomenally delicious. On the other, it's damn fun.

IV

Photos of the house to come, along with another story: I was invited to cook farang food. It was the first time I've used a kitchen since the bike wreck 53 weeks ago.
After carefully detailing menu requests, I decided on meatloaf with fried potatoes and gravy and a wilted spinach salad with honey mustard bacon vinaigrette.
And then they reminded me that it's the Vegetarian Time, somewhat like Lent, when Buddhists can't eat meat.
So there was some last minute juggling, but the best I can say is that Gramma left rice on her plate to finish the fried potatoes, and Pa told me I was welcome in his home anytime as long as I was cooking.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

MOVIES!

A quiet drive through town

This one is even less eventful, but it's a look inside the classroom


Saturday, September 24, 2011

The thing about my experience here is not that it's taught me how to tap into resources and tricks to draw and stretch more from those resources than I would ever have imagined possible, not that I'm much more confident in my ability to survive just about anything, not that I've proven anything to myself or anyone else, it's that there's no way in hell I want to be in a similar situation ever again.

So I'm getting pretty ready to get out.  Like, very ready to drop everything.
And here comes a job.  Teaching music to kidlets in a developing music program in a wealthy nation.
A salary with room to save and accommodation furnished in the Western sense; a ticket there and back at the beginning and end of contract and for every summer vacation in between.
Ostensibly, fantastic gig.
But it's in Kuwait.  That was never one of my possible, let alone desirable, destinations.  It's not a place I would want to explore without great incentive to go there (like getting paid).  If I saw the job advertised, I wouldn't apply.
When I was in Penang and couldn't walk down a block without at least two couples averting their faces and covering their noses with hankies (even through the burka), I decided that an islamic culture is not for me.  (Which is bizarre given that after reading the Quaran, the abiding impression was of acceptance and forgiveness in the beauty of the Creator and creation.)  But I'd make an exception in a few cases, namely Oman, Qatar, and maybe UAE, teaching college English on an established syllabus.
Which is what I applied for without realizing I was sending my materials to a recruiter, who directed me to the Kuwait job.
Again--how cool to teach music to kidlets, now that I've learned the lessons that lead to the position I'm in now.  So I look it up online and there is nothing positive anywhere--the absolute best claim, among stories of changed contracts, cut benefits, horrible management, living in slums, lies and misdirection, the best thing I read was that they pay on time.  But okay, I can disregard the vitriol as someone who faced greater challenges than they were expecting in places they didn't know could be challenged and reacted poorly.  I can imagine it quite easily--it would probably be therapeutic to  write such things about my current employer, but I would never get over the guilt as such an act wouldn't do anything worthwhile for anyone in the long run.
So first comes an interview: the lady is a busy Londoner who's made time and assuages a number of my concerns about the management: she doesn't breathe fire or antagonism.  Still, she explained that she wanted music to be a publicly conspicuous part of the school, but she couldn't say what sort of music she wanted--"you know, performances.  The kids performing."  So what materials are there?  "Well, I'm not a musician, but keyboards and boxes of percussion stuff.  I really couldn't say, because I'm not a musician."
Then comes the contract: basic salary, basic accommodation, government insurance, summer vacation, and your kid gets a 50% discount in tuition.
Such a contract would've brought me to Thailand, but in fact I have one detailing hours and duties and expectations and evaluations and I still got broadsided.  So I want to know what ages and classes and expectations and evaluations and accommodations and conditions and materials and curricula and coverages and generally a contractual description of the position offered.
A week after the interview, I had some confirmation that the conditions are as a naive westerner would interpret: 20 contact hours with 4 syllabi in a classroom with a computer and AV setup, an actual apartment with a kitchen and sitting space and bedroom and curtains, and a guilt-trip note about the amount of time and effort I've demanded.
Really?
So it's a ticket out of Thailand.  It's an entre into the middle east.  It's a sizable paycheck.  But is it worth it?  It's music with kidlets, happy singing time, but at what cost to the spirits?  And what toll would that take on the body?
Yes, I really, really, really want to get out of here.  But at the same time, especially as I stop paying attention to the number of superfluous steps I take, I wonder what it is that people see in Thailand.  Are the drinking and drugs and jungle/beach raves really that great?  And as frustrating as it can be in practice, would the "mai pen rai?" culture with nothing at stake be such a bad thing for me for a few months?  Especially with the baggage the position carries.
Still, that money for teaching music to kidlets....
But at what cost?  

Sunday, September 18, 2011

On flooding and disasters

There's an odd byproduct of living in a relatively rural area--and traveling through some of the truly destitute parts of a developing country--is that when I see pictures of the flood victims in Pakistan, with people who've set up tarps over cots with blankets and piles of tarpaulin-packaged possessions, I think "why isn't there a vendor table?" and then, in response to the commentator, retort that there are extensive communities all over this area who lead contented lives with even less than that--a tarp roof, a sarong-style wrap for the day that doubles as cover for the night, and a little, roll-up table of trinkets or foodstufs for sale. They lead what could be called scavenging or hunter-gatherer type lifestyles, collecting fruits and greens from the local forests, fishing for protein, and seem completely contented.
That's one of the big lessons: happiness lies entirely within the approach to life, not the appointments thereof. And as much as you can intellectually recognize that, it takes confronting someone thoroughly destitute and desperate by western standards and realizing that they are perfectly happy and pity your for your burdens and attachments as much as you pity their lack thereof.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Things unseen

There was an interview. I insulted the potential employer by asking for explanations of "apartment" and "fully furnished."
Kitchen? Cooking utensils? A table and chairs PLUS a separate place to sleep on a bed with springs? Hot and cold water and a kitchen sink? Curtains?
HOT DAMN! I haven't seen those since I last saw prime rib!

And today's writing has me thinking about things I miss: potato being a staple starch, pancakes and waffles, bacon, salami, multi-grain bread with decent jelly and butter--butter period, peanut or almond or dairy butter--toffee, anything requiring an oven (it seems the only ovens in Thailand are in the pizza joints, so there are no brownies, fresh cookies, fresh bread, roasts, anything requiring indirect heat; there are boiled hunks of meat, and I dearly love parboiled intestine with fresh liver, but a meatloaf would be divine), chocolate (decent chocolate melts in the average daytime temperatures), did I mention potatoes?, or anything from Latin cuisine. And by that I mean anything from Tierra del Fuego to northern Spain: give me robust flavors slow cooked into legumes with little bits cut from big hunks of meat and I'll show you happy); cheese around here is processed at best (Asians and lactose, this population density and tropical festering with a dairy farm), and a "Sandwich" is slices of crustless white bread toasted with sweetened condensed milk. Yes, it's tasty, but even in my current state--especially in my current state--I would crash waves of solid Asian crowding aside to get to a Quizno's sub, let alone a decent French dip.
And then there are the creature comforts.
I live in one of the more exclusive and luxurious places in town. I have a mattress that's somewhat softer than coconut husk on boxsprings on the floor, a desk with a television and cable that sometimes works, a minifridge, a sawhorse for my clothes, a hot water heater that costs slightly less to run than the AC unit, and a shower curtain. Otherwise, if I were to want shelving, curtains, cupboards or cabinets, or any sort of organized storage beyond the luggage I came with, I would have to buy it. Likewise, I provide my own cleaning devices, supplies, and activities, my own towels and sheets, take my own garbage to the streetside bin, all for only slightly more than it would cost to rent a house without any furniture or fixtures from a shady woman who speaks no English and is trying desperately to fund a new neighborhood all her own by overcharging farang who don't know any better. Or I could move to a place with bare concrete walls and tile floors a ten minute walk from a ten minute mototaxi ride to campus. Rent for that would cut 20% off my current rent+utilities.
When I came, it seemed like being thrown into a rough Motel 6. Now I wonder what I would do if I actually had storage room or a cooking space. And curtains. Curtains? Tres bourgeoise!
After what it took to get to where I am, it scares me to think of what I could tolerate with a kitchen and easy chair to come home to. Curtains to sleep behind.
Would a mattress Americans would call hard have too much give for comfortable sleep?
What would I do if there was a different space to read, write, sleep, and eat?
It's been a year since I've operated a vehicle, and just as long since I've operated a cooking device (beyond a water boiler, which is to say: I've had enough soup for my lifetime, thanks). What would I do with such complications? With shopping for raw ingredients?
What would I do with a washing machine?

Funny: having learned to recognize all that I have here, which is quite a lot--trustworthy landlords, a quiet and safe building, windows with glass panes that open and close (one of which has a screen), a mattress softer than coconut husk, AC, hot water, a real toilet (even if the rim and lid aren't attached), a relatively safe and extremely convenient commute, a fridge and TV, a three-pronged outlet for my computer and internet that works a good 60% of the time--I've forgotten how to deal with many of the things I once considered an inherent component of daily life. Just imagine having a kitchen, how much time must be spent preparing and cleaning, how much money must be spent on spices and staples for a cupboard, what it would take to assuage the after-school hunger currently squashed by any of the dozens of carts on the walk between work and home.
And some of these places talk about leasing cars.
Lease a car? Something so huge and valuable? In a foreign country?
Here, a motorbike is 2 years' salary, a car the investment of a decade, and I'm a living testament to the driving conditions. What would it be like in a country that advertises "aggressive driving" as normal and accidents as customary?
Granted, I dream about the WRX, my blonde beauty back home, and those dreams rarely involve sticking to 55. But that's on American roads around American drivers, who are so paranoid of the law they drive as if St Peter were next to them and actively passing judgement.

But here goes.

I've decided that if an offer comes in, I'll go for it. My rationale is that nothing I'm looking at seems to be any worse in terms of working or living, and the pay increases by at least 300% with greater potential to improve working, living, or salary compensation by a considerable margin.

Keep good thoughts comin'
They may not be obvious, but they're very, very important

On thinking

In a previous life, it would've bugged the hell outta me. I was buying a handbasket of groceries at Carrefour, including a small sleeve of CDs and a necktie, each with a magnetic security device: the CDs had a button looking thing that sat like a bow on top of bisecting loops of wire, and the necktie had the same sort of device plugged through the loop on the back.
Each register is equipped with a shiny, round gizmo that looks remarkably like the security device, save that where the button tied to the CDs is convex, the deal on the register is concave.
Guess what happens when the two meet.

So it was nearing my time to feed and sleep, which corresponds surprisingly well with the time the deli food is offered at greatly reduced prices as the employees wrap up for the night, which is to say, it's the end of anyone's shift.
And the girl at the checkout has to call a manager for help. There's this thing blocking off the barcode on the necktie!
The manager shows her how to mate the button and its release.
True, heartfelt amazement on the checker's behalf. The manager does not seem frustrated or exasperated in the least.
We go through the bottle of coke, baggie of soup, baggie of pork, baggies of fruits and veg, and we get to the CDs. There's this thing blocking off the barcode!
Wait for the manager, who with no visible impatience shows the girl how to connect the button to its release, then how to unwrap the wires holding it to the CDs, then scan the discs and toss them in the bag. No apparent frustration or exasperation.

I figured it was an example of someone whose intellectual prowess couldn't drive her much above checker level. But then a coworker was bragging about his kid: at 18 months or so, old enough to walk and say a few words or names without reaching full sentences, the kid is the only one in the age 1-5 daycare who knows how to operate a doorknob. The other kids haven't been taught, and trying it out simply isn't done.
What to say....
No, how to say it without saying it....
um, uh....

Okay, on the one hand this culture operates under values and customs completely alien to mine. Which is fine, and I do my best to respect.
On the other, this is exactly why it's hard not to laugh when farangs ask me why I haven't hooked up yet.
Maybe it's another sign that, thus far, I'm the only person in Thailand who finds it humorous to respond to "Poot Thai, dai mai" (can you speak Thai?) in Thai, with, "No, I'm a foreigner, see how white? Of course I can't speak Thai. When I say horse it sounds like dog, when I say tiger it sounds like shirt, when I say cave it sounds like sleeping mat."

3 steps to beautiful

1)
So I tell myself, "boys will be boys" and do my best to be patient, but it's really, really nice in the classroom with 45 girls and only 13 boys--so quiet, respectful, studious, engaged, and manageable. Even when they're doping off, it's something fairly reserved and quiet--homework for other classes, some sort of art project, sleeping, doodling, or just staring outside. If one of the boys does get rowdy, he gets knocked into place right quick. And realizing it's as dangerous as a newly-transferred Catholic priest saying "I love my altar boys," I'll first say I mean nothing by it, but I love having girls in my classes. Especially ones with strong personalities.
In my 2 G4 classes, I have one with a small handful of kids whose grades have slipped below 90%, one with 20% failing completely, one with 6 boys and one with 10 girls (out of 40 students in each). It goes straight across, right? The ones failing outright are the real jackoffs in the boys' class and the ones who've slipped are the handful of boys in the girls' class.
Except it's exactly opposite: the boys' class can cogitate twice the information in any given period, and I can poke fun if someone misspells something or flips terms--"I am ten year old" or "I live with my Mother, Father, and Olivia" (Olivia helped us learn about family members). In the girls' class, it's still a matter of finding the one or two correct answers and praising the heck out of 'em.

There's an easy explanation, blatant at morning assembly. One of the homeroom teachers is the typical Thai sort of whispy and softspoken, beautiful woman.
The other is a little older, a little heavier. She has the breadth and assurance of a Persian cat, but with a muscular stoutness that gives her a stride like a bulldog--maybe a little bit pigeon toed, but you're not going to say anything for fear of getting completely destroyed by any retribution. But then, she's Thai, so she moves with the grace and ease of an open-water fish: not the flitting sort of jittery reef fish, but the fast and powerful grace of a bluefin, or a blue shark without the predatory nature.
I tiptoe around one because she's beautiful and that's what I do. I tiptoe around the other because I'm afraid that my existence will somehow insult her and she will squash me.
Guess which class has which homeroom teacher.

2)
A few nights ago, I was walking home later than usual and the free aerobics class was going on in the parking lot outside the stadium next to school. The group consisted of a couple dozen ladies of solid middle age, most of whom would be considered somewhat pudgy or plump in American pop culture. Not necessarily flabby or excessively jiggly--nobody's spandex was cutting off circulation, waistlines were still concave, but the curves were robust.
And it was beautiful.

3)
The concept of true beauty struck: after growing up in a culture where thinness and a low number on the scale are paramount, then spending a year with my ribs visible through a not-so-tight fitting shirt and my weight somewhere in the median range of the tubbier 4th grade class (and here I make the distinction between robust and tubby in kids who grow up eating and drinking the worst of the west with pastimes that include cartoons and video games), the best I can say is, FUCK SKINNY!
On the one hand, there's a grain of relief for me when a masseuse says, "your legs are so strong for being so skinny!" On the other, give me sixty pounds and I won't have to ration the number of stairs I climb for fear of tapping myself out before the end of the day.
Who do you trust your kid to: the person who collapses with a missed meal, or the person with enough energy to try to burn off extra meals?
Which is the other part of why I laugh when people ask why I haven't hooked up yet (see below).
So as I sit here with peanuts on my left and fried pork skin on my right. Give me 60 pounds--almost enough to bring me to the minimum military entrance weight--and I'll give you someone with energy to spare on things like happiness and enthusiasm. Give me 80 pounds and i'll show you someone who's either burly as hell or can burn energy on wanton activities like gallivanting through a classroom.
But get below robust and I'll show you someone whose body is stressed. Show me anatomically knobby knees and I'll show you someone whose greatest physical investment is in the body breaking itself down to keep going. Look into the eyes of someone with jutting ribs and you'll see what happens when pain and discomfort turn chronic.

So I'll reiterate: FUCK SKINNY. What's truly beautiful is depleted with the body. The only attractive thing is the model's jetsetting salary, but who wants to deal with the Ferrari crowd at the expense of the ability to live? No thanks, pass the bake-sale brownies, please. In fact, I'll take the plate.
(Add to the list of things I haven't seen since prime rib: brownies, girls whining about weight and waistline [maybe I don't understand, and thank god for that] decent cookies, home-baked anything.)
Henceforth, that's the goal: not climbing mountains or running marathons, but having the padding to be comfortable.

Moments

A small victory

At the little market store where I go for a weekend treat of Coke and potato chips, I just about floored the checker when I not only had a member card, but I could recite my phone number (which you input when you don't have your card) in Thai. It was the first time I've been able to do so despite being well familiar with the numbers (the difference between receptive and active knowledge being that I can hear numbers and understand them, but to recite one without the proper inflection is essentially blowing a linguistic raspberry, and a ten-digit phone number feels about like sightreading a piece of music that utilizes limbs not customarily associated, let alone coordinated, with one another).
It's not much of one, but at this point I'll take and run with any victory that comes my way.

On... something.

Repairs had to be made on the flagpole. From what I could tell, the top section had to be replaced. Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to what happened and how. This is one of those things you learn not to question as a farang: the present reality is that the flagpole needs fixin' and if you're able to find someone who understands your repeated queries of "what happened to the flagpole?" the most careful response still might make someone look bad, so the best thing for the local to do is say, "dunno, dunno" and the best thing the farang can do is let go of such confounding queries. Don't ask about what they plan to do about it, either. Here is the present; this is reality; accept it and like it enough to not make a fuss, okay?
So there were six guys working, three on the ground and three on the top floor of the admin/elementary school building, right outside the G6 classrooms. It's a good thing Thais have no concept of awkward, conspicuous, disruptive, or awareness of shame: a westerner would've been about crippled by the thousands of staring eyes.
After much screaming, getting tangled in the tree providing a shady workspace and a drop of under ten feet, the pole was lowered with fraying ropes. There was more shouting and students appeared carrying desks they slid under the pole after it was hoisted back up, this time by the vice-principal standing at the beheaded end and displaying his considerable physique in a singlehanded deadlift.
There was a great deal of shouting and many trips to a truck parked in another zip code--don't know if that says a lot for the driver or not much at all for the workers--before the new headpiece was produced, then a great deal more shouting to get more desks. Once the pieces were lined up, they were welded together (remember that there are thousands of young eyes plus the teachers and administrative staff, not to mention the workers themselves, and nobody's wearing so much as sunglasses), tested, and hoisting commenced.
Problem: remember that tree that snared the pole on the way down? Well, they're still under it, in the same fall line, and the pole is ten feet longer.
Delay hoist.
Lasso tree, drag limb out of the way, leave Worker T to hold the rope while the other two with the vice-principal get back to helping hoist the pole.
Laugh--universally--as Worker T beats the others to the pole while not letting go as the limb swings back to position.
Eventually determine that the VP is the only one stout enough to hold the limb back.
But now there's not enough muscle to hoist the pole enough for the guys on the third floor to pull it up with their ropes.
Considerable shouting as one of the guys from the third floor runs downstairs to help hoist. If they get it up above the limb, the guys remaining up top will be able to at least hold, if not hoist, and then the VP will be free to help hoist again.
Which almost works, except that once the pole clears the limb and the VP lets go to run upstairs to help hoist, everyone is getting pretty tired and the pole goes crashing back into the tree before VP can get to the top floor to help hoist.
More yelling. The guys who've sat in the shade to watch are called to the top floor to help.
The extended flagpole is too long to fall all the way down, but now it's stuck in the tree.
Meanwhile, all academic activity has stopped. The show is just too good. And then the rope snaps.
someone runs back to the truck. More yelling and flights of stairs before the pole is re-harnessed and the end of the new rope is back with the guys on the 3rd floor. But they couldn't get the rope out as far, so they need people on the ground to hoist.
Three new people run down and the VP takes pole position to hoist.
It is tremendously exciting and there is great laughter as the pole passes vertical and the workers and VP jump aside as it falls into the building.
Even more laughter when it ends up back in the tree.
Two hours after the project started, the flag is hoisted.
Long live the king.


On Muscles and Memories

I went for a massage in a place I've never been, an off-track and very local sort of place: three cots along one wall, each cot wide enough for the Brunhilda-sized woman currently sitting on one to sit and massage an only slightly-less robust person like the woman currently wincing and groaning while Brunhilda tries to connect the poor woman's knee with her opposite ear, each cot padded by a thin coconut husk mattresses under what I would've called beach towels if I didn't know them to be the local form of a heavy blanket, and a pillow. On the opposite wall, a TV blares the news and fans circulate un-conditioned air.
I walk in and there's a kerfuffle of shouting and my fate walks out from the back room: a lady with buzzed brown hair on an oversized head, the body of Brunhilda, but the stubby legs and digits of someone born somewhat askance.
On the one hand, it was an interesting session because I now have enough Thai to get through the basic biographical questions, and I realized that after 16 months of living in a non-English speaking part of the country, I understand the language and can communicate with it about as well as I would be able to if I went to Germany having learned only the numbers. Whether it's a matter of the commonalities of western or differences with eastern languages, it came as quite a surprise how little I've learned in that time, especially with the amount of work and sense of accomplishment therein.
It was also an interesting massage because she did not go, "Skinny farang, better lay off." She attacked, and as is typical, was surprised that legs so skinny could be so strong. It was impressive, though, as muscles strained and stretched and sweat broke out, and I was the one doing nothing but get a massage--she was doing the work.
There was a bad moment, though, when she reached the right foot. It's had a pretty rough go of things lately--first the pinkie toe sacrificed itself to save the ipad from a tile floor, and by the time that swelling had gone down enough to fit into my normal work shoes, that ankle had blown a pretty substantial edema which had pretty well subsided--along with the residual multi-hued bruise--by the massage. I didn't think anything about it until she grabbed the foot and did a deal somewhat like wrapping the pinkie toe around to meet the inside of the ankle. Everyone--the masseuse, Brunhilde, the lady groaning with pain as Brunhilde hoisted her by one ankle while wrapping the other thrice around places it should never reach, and most especially me--was surprised by a loud noise reminiscent of a rather large firecracker set off just down the block. The masseuse jumped back as far as is possible for someone sitting crosslegged (fine, she jerked her arms back), and asked, very meekly, if it hurt. I replied, with surprise to equal her timidity, that no, it did not hurt. She held up the foot and we all watched a hematoma spread. Really, it didn't hurt, and it hasn't swelled, it just went POP in a big way.
A surprise came when it turned out to have been a 2 hour massage. I've never submitted myself to more than an hour, but the lady whose prenatal conditions would've earned her the American career path of Goodwill, at best, had worked smoothly and intensely enough that I hadn't noticed.
THE CRAZY BIT
After the massage, during which I had my turn of bizarre contortions and wrenching stretches of the sort that drew screams from my neighbor (if I had a lady like Brunhilda trying to tie me into a knot, I'd scream, too), I didn't even think about it until I was halfway up the staircase to my room and realized I'd been taking the steps two at a time. This was my custom from time immemorial until the first month of Thailand wiped me out, and, like reciting my phone number, it was a sad sort of cause for celebration--great, I can do it, but how unfortunate to celebrate such a basic act.
Still, I'll take anything I can get.


On Survival Phrases

One of the things language books should have on the front cover, right below "Where is the bathroom?" is how to say "Occupied!"
And you would think that the head of the (Thai) Mattayom English Department would be able to realize that a bathroom is locked for a reason based on the intestinal fireworks coming from within, or distinguish a farang's "WAIT! WAIT! NO! OCCUPIED!" from what a student might say in the communal bathroom abutting the teacher toilet, but I'll bet a whole lot she'll never forget what she saw when the sixth key finally proved to be the right one.


XYZ

When I buy my breakfast, the guy who collects my money has gray hair, gnarled and leathery hands that look delicate next to feet perpetually scruffing around in flipflops, a green apron with coins, 20s and 50s in one pocket, 100s in the other (most financial transactions in this country involve a till of either an apron or a plate for coins and tupperware bin for bills), jeans or something of similar nature that have bleached and ripped and darned and mended and bleached and ripped to the indefinite style and shade of his hair, and one of two longsleeved shirts in similar condition. His teeth give the impression of post-armageddon picket fences, and they are on regular display: if he's not running full-tilt to take care of a songtau load of tech school students wanting syrupy tea with deep fried pork on sticky rice, he's smiling and laughing, and his eyes never lose a bright flash--they're the universal deep Thai brown, but they stick in the mind as bright green or the flash of sun-on-snow blue. I usually think of him as the offbeat uncle--there's a ma and pa team, each in early midlife, a crew of kids of indeterminate relation, and an uncle sliding down the backside of midlife.
So ma whips up my pau lau--a handful of maple-like leaves probably collected from her yard, a few slices of liver, spleen, intestine, bowel, and tongue, and a couple ladlefuls of the cooking stock (she knows I'm not big on the cubes of congealed blood, so she gives me extra segments of intestine) and, and....
And I just realized that I'm sunk. If there was an ihop across the street, I would go there to douse my homesickness in synthetic maple syrup and pasteurized butter byproduct but I would keep on with the pau lau (which you say like the pow in "POW-WHACK" if Batman was falling off the building, and Lau as in "allow" if you were timidly asking "is this something you'd al-low?") as regular breakfast.
So ma passes over breakfast and I pay Uncle Lou and leap--almost literally--at the chance to cross the street with almost no traffic. Halfway across, I hear, "aey aey aey, youyouyou!" Usually I avoid acknowledging these because if I did want to go for a ride on the taxi/songtau/ripoff express, I would seek it out. But this was coming from the breakfast crew, so I turned around as soon as I was reasonably clear of traffic.
Uncle Lou is running out into the street. When he sees that he has my attention, he plants his feet in the male's universal stance and lifts his apron with one hand. He's shouting something, and I'm thinking he's snapped and I'm going to see something I really, really could live the rest of my life without regretting even conceiving of, but in the nano before traffic starts blowing past and honking at him, his free hand starts wiggling up and down and I realize he's in the middle of a lane of commuter traffic, shouting "HEY! Your fly's down!" at the farang.

Monday, September 12, 2011

On bathrooms

I'm not sure where I stand on this, metaphorically, but I'm very glad to be on the outside, physically. See, there aren't any doors on the Prattom boys' rooms, so you get a sometimes unfortunate view, especially since the urinals are on the facing wall.
The first few times I saw a lineup of boys hiking up their shorts to pee out one of the legs, I was thinking, 'so THATs what you do when you don't have a fly...'
But then I realized that they do have flies.
And come to think of it, the songtau drivers who pee in the roadside bushes do so from the... Customary pose.
So one wonders. What happens between being ten and it being funny to pee out your shorts and being twelve and smearing the walls (not even writing, just smearing)?

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Saturday, September 10, 2011

An economic forecast

I will be the first to tout my economic ignorance and inferiority associated therewith. Despite that, I am going to speak as an economist in reaction to Obama's speech of this morning
.
Americans have an idea of themselves as an industrial superpower. We like to think that we can make the most and it will be the best of anything in the world. At one time, this reflected reality. But not so anymore.
To whit: say it's coming up on one of the annual parties, and this year is our year to host the company across the street. Last year, their spread included a seafood buffet and top-shelf booze on every table with all the beer you wanted to wash it down, and an out-of-town band with a hot singer plus a ladyboy crooner. There is no option but to meet that precedent; this year, the party will cost 10,000.
In America, you make loyalistic and patriotic appeals to raise the money. You sell wrapping paper and brownies and advertising space and do your best.
In Asia, you divide that 10,000 by however many employees you have, round to the next hundred, and dock that amount from their pay.
In America, most insurance is based on long-term treatment and care. Cheap accident coverage is the student's alternative.
Here, if you have an accident you're covered, but as soon as there's a greater, longer term expense, you're on your own. Long-term care is a family concern; why would a workplace want a sick/crippled/handicapped worker when there are thousands of other people, generally with equal qualifications, available for the same post?
Plus, in this collective-based society, the workplace ranks just below the family. While the family is the heart of the unconscious and instinctive mind, the workplace is the seat of social consciousness. Bettering the family is an act as unconscious as stepping back from a precipice to keep yourself from falling off; doing something to make the family look bad is as contrary as slamming your face in a car door. Conversely, whatever the family says, wants, or needs is accepted without question or thought. The workplace isn't quite as sacred, but it is approached with the same mindset: what the boss says is law, and what the company asks is given without question. The bosses know this and operate with the company's best interests in mind, despite the possible effects on individual employees. I'm too embarrassed to list the examples that come to mind, so I'll just say that I rarely even think, "And you're okay with that?" anymore. And that's in a relatively cushy school job.

In America, there is high regard for the individual. Each and every person matters, and one screaming bearing can stop the works. Here, that screaming bearing is subsumed and the wheel keeps spinning.
Not to mention environmental concerns--not that they wouldn't care with the right context, but when there are people pouring cleaning solutions on a hunk of machinery held in a bare hand, then arc welding on the sidewalk without masks or anything to keep sparks from flying onto passers-by, you don't worry about what might be affected at the far end of the drain pipe. Whether it's someone stitching together salvaged jeans, circuit boards, industrial products, or raw materials, raw material is more precious than an individual person, and until Americans adopt that idea, their products are guaranteed to cost more.

What we can offer that seems to occupy a unique niche is realizing innovations, i.e. Kennedy's challenge to get to the moon by the end of the decade. Americans are tremendous tinkerers completely discontent with most everything. We approach the world looking for loopholes and flaws to exploit or explore. Legos and erector sets are fundamental parts of childhood; a childhood without Lincoln logs and wooden blocks is like a baby deprived of milk (formula, breast, bovine, or otherwise). In America, a kid who builds a Lego model without making cool emendations--the palm tree on the spacefighter or the bristling gun pod, extra engines or superfluous wheels--is as rare as the Asian kid who alters the one design for which the blocks were intended--it doesn't matter if it'd be cooler or easier or better or safer or faster or anything, if it's not as directed, it's not happening. No, scratch that example (but I like it so I'll leave it): the Asian kid who tweaks with a lego model is as rare as the American kid must follow each sequential step exactly and never thinks of which block might come next. America's strength is the malleability of concepts and adaptability of production.
Let some factory in China worry about shaving down the cost of the plastic handles for razors--that's what they do best. Let the global-scale mining and inevitable environmental disasters happen elsewhere. Is the gamble on eventual profit really worth the amount of bellyaching and litigation?
Instead, get back to the design and production of innovations. Instead of investigating new mines or new overseas markets, figure out how to make a new generation of battery in an old steel mill, how to produce better car frames at the textile mill, how to make a 400% energy return at the mine.
When I left America, ambient patriotism and pride was on a steep wane--the American dream was asleep, as it were.
Something else I've learned about Asia is that the American dream is alive and well elsewhere in the world. Hopefully it wakes up in time to catch the worm.

VIDEOS!

Just in case I've missed direct notifications, here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/nakhontuba
Very rough, very dirty, and I hope very representative of things here.

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Thai Cowboys

Videos to follow....

On headaches

Thai people don't take anything straight. Black coffee means a premix of 5% instant coffee, 60% sugar, and 30% creamer (with preservatives). Wine drinking is refined to spritzers, usually with a stick of sugar, of the Bacardi Breezer ilk. The plainest chicken you can find is boiled in tamarind syrup; pork or chicken can sometimes, rarely, if you know exactly where to look, be found in straight fried form, without extra spices or breading. Even then, the person doling it out will squirt/ladel in sauce as naturally as checking a zipper. A d even if you make enough stink to send that back and get a new, plain piece, the bag it comes in will already have a little baggie of chili sauce or fish juice.

So it came to tonight's party, when it was our turn to host the faculty from the tech school across the street. We had four entrees with twelve sauces and at least as many people ready to leap to your assistance and save you from putting the wrong sauce on the wrong item; you might not be able to taste anything after the shrimp curry, but at least your taste buds won't be assaulted by lime juice on your shrimp or fish sauce on your chicken. There were jugs of beer and litres of a locally distilled spirit. There was Thai style cowboy dancing(more on this in a moment). It was a good time.
And then I was trying to leave and found myself surrounded by a group of thai Prattom teachers, mostly the guys who work very hard to cultivate the appearance of being tough badasses. They had just filled an ice bucket with beer and mixed a brandy. Suddenly it became very important that I have some.
Very important.
A big matter of face.
Walk off and I snub them while making myself look like a weenie.
In America, this is a matter of ego and stupid. In Thailand, even if it's stupid, it has the severity of, say, a DUI back stateside. You do not mess around when this much face is at stake.
So I figured I could make everyone feel good and myself look good if I finished one of the proffered drinks, and a brandy spritzer seemed the lesser evil, so I took the glass and downed it.
Know how sometimes, say when you're chugging milk from the carton in front of the fridge at midnight, you get surprised by the milk actually being bad but don't realize it until the third big glug?
It was straight rotgut.
There was a lot of cheering.
I had some WEIRD dreams, and there is an angry something trying to fight its way out of my skull.
And somehow it's still a winning situation. Come Monday, I'll feel okay and my coworkers will all be impressed by Scrawny finishing the brandy meant for the table, not a single drink.
And boy does that do wonders for my head....


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Friday, September 9, 2011

On the voting public

It was interesting to listen to Obama's speech this morning. About all there is to say about that is here's hoping.

What I found notable, though, was the level of discourse. Most of the speeches I've heard were during his higher-rolling campaigning days, before the crippling realities of an elected office tempered otherwise great ideas and hopes. This was also the era when our President was "goin' nuculer" on our language.
On the one hand, it seems incredible that someone with notoriously poor speech, so universally regarded as poor of speech and tongue a word for mangled grammar was coined from his name, could not just win the biggest popularity contest in the country, but win re-election and hold popular esteem in the process.
On another, these supporters are the same people most responsible for the propaganda and slander to cripple anything a center or left-leaning person tries to accomplish. Okay, yes, I have a relatively soft heart in terms of social issues and tend to lean leftward, but my biggest gripe is the blind acceptance/criticism--from BOTH sides--of a person or proposal associated with a specific ideology. Rejecting an idea because it came from a conservative has roots in the same soil as rejecting a job application because the last name is Latino or cavity searching anyone with dark skin. It's all a degree of discrimination--in some cases, there's a purpose and a reasonable use, but blind acceptance and universal application is a dangerous, dangerous place. It seems bizarre to decide not to accept an unaired idea simply because the speaker is of a particular bent, yet many who have biased themselves against Obama supported Bush.
Wouldn't you think that if you're going to blindly reject an idea, it would be the one delivered in poor-to-grotesque language?

And here's where I was headed: there's a considerable population who like the idea of the President being an average person of the sort you'd meet in a bar or coffee shop. For this population, Palin and Bush were great candidates. Erudition is actually a handicap with this crowd--it's a sign of bein all high-faltuin and edumacated, and that's a BAD thing. To follow this thinking, the President of the United States of America, the leader of the free world, should be a small-town farmer or factory worke, the sort of guy whose world extends as far as the state fair if his prize hogs have a good run.
No thank you!
True, I like the idea of being able to sit and talk with anyone for whom I vote or has been chosen to represent me in a public arena. But I sure hope that if I ever were to meet such a person, I would come away feeling considerably inferior; not that I want to be belittled, but impressed by the scope and acuity of thought, the refinement of speech and interpersonal communication I encounter.

Part of my initial support for Obama was based upon his level of discourse. How great to have a candidate who sounds like his cranial density is neural, not osseous.
But now, after realizing the realities of political pressures, Obama's discourse has been compromised, too. Instead of delivering a nice speech with refined arguments and support threaded with notable quips, his rhetorical flow had frequent interruptions to explain implications and emphasize points already heavily weighted by their context.
Granted, I wouldn't expect his predecessor or many of his opponents to make a speech of equal elocution, but how sad to see the drive to stupidity elevated even that far.

Kidlets

Here's Mattayom. Note the kid with an inhaler (usu peppermint and menthol with some additives-Thais fetishize these things, all ages and classes) dangling from his nose.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

On technology and hype

A zoo in the midwest, acting on an April fool's gag, gave its orangutans ipads. First they introduced the ipads from outside the compound, then passed the devices inside. The technology was an immediate success with the youngsters, who evidently love the interactive books. Keepers haven't left the ipads in the cages for extended periods out of fear someone will get frustrated and rip the gadgets to shreds (would that be therapeutic to watch?) but plan to do so once they come up with an orangutan-proof case (which I want, once it's out).

On the other hand, after a month of trying, I have not been able to communicate even a basic lesson to my mattayom kids. Maybe, if I'm especially patient and prime them with the answer in two or three explicit and detailed examples, 1 of the 60 kids will get something out of it, which is to say, one of them might stop saying, "ipad, ipad, ipad!" and recognize that there's an image on the screen and it's of a recognizable place (I've been working on "where are you going?" using photos taken around town--I'm gong to Swensen's, Pizza Company, Carrefour &c, but the kids almost never identify the picture, even after I say, "I'm going to... Swensen's!" They parrot back whatever I say, but without the lightbulbs of recognizing that place in the picture).

On the one hand, there's huge potential for jokes, and if the students could understand such mockery, I would love to throw it at them. Yes, I have sunk to the level of wishing I could mock students, and no, I feel no compunctions about it whatsoever. I think what tipped it was the class that spent the last five minutes of class saying, "fuck you teacher, thank you thank you." Or maybe the ones who followed me down the breezeway saying, "Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!" which is even funnier than "Harry Potty!" There comes a point when being twelve and stupid is not an excuse: you KNOW better, even if your hormones are raging.
But such jokes are the easy way out and sidestep the actual issue.

How sad is it that there is so much hype around the ipad--technology and the affluence surrounding it--that these kids can be overwhelmed to the point of underperforming orangutans?

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

On packaged meat

INGREDIENTS: pork trimmings 100%, backlast 100%, sodium nitrate, water, salt, sodium phosphate, sodium chloride, sodium nitrate, sodium erythorbate, colorings, preserves, spices: notto excess 15%. SIC.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

On placement

One of the Mattayom classes just finished a health unit that culminated in posters, one of which features pictures of breast-feeding. Its placement almost convinced me there's a sense of honor and irony here--on one side, a boob is halfway covering up a pentagram scrawled on the wall, and a nipple on the other side is spouting a couple branches of a swastika (both preexisting graffitti).

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Saturday, September 3, 2011

Thai cowboys...

Hat Yai's Hat Day, whatever that is, involves the only horses I've seen in Thailand.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

On Royalty

Photos of the king and queen are everywhere--billboards, banners, government offices, town halls, official businesses, unofficial businesses, every classroom, every school, every shop, every major intersection and over crossing and under crossing has one or both of them proudly displayed in a frequently-changed format.  
Everybody loves the king, and he was a grown man and reigning monarch in time to play with Benny Goodman and a youngish Duke; he was well established by the time Satch came through Siam.  And he's still on the throne today--five generations later, roughly?
Information about his reign is pretty easy to come across, but not so much the queen.  
Queen Mum looks, in the billboard/banner images, to be a lady of the hat generation.  She has the rich, dark hair of modern technology, and she wears conservative Thai clothing, but she could easily wear five hats during any engagement and each would be appropriate and striking. 
So I'm in Had Yai, walking toward the train station, when I come across a blissfully empty street--easy crossings are not to be taken for granted, and I lunge into the road.  
To be confronted by a military officer in full dress regalia including a sword he's rattling at me.  And then I realize that both sidewalks are lined with pedestrians, pushing forward and staring but not setting a foot in the road.  
I pull out Brutus, thinking something interesting is brewing, and four traffic police cars roar through, probably doing a hundred down the city street.  Then there's a hum and people push forward and a Lexus sedan goes through, followed by a handful of Benz saloons, an ambulance, a Land Rover with a forest of antennae and a Thule box, and a smattering of civilianized military vehicles.  
Boy I sure saw someone, right?
Just for kicks--really, who wouldn't?--I follow the stream of people a couple blocks, and run into a Spanish expat who I've seen a few times, always holding an animated debate with herself.  
"Do you go to see the princess?  I think maybe I go but am not Islamic.  Now is Buddhist with the praying, but soon is Islamic in the building, and I think I not get in.  Maybe if I go down here first I find someone, someone who will let me in and be Islamic for me because I am not one of them, no, not Islamic, will you see the princess?"
Hmm, the princess is here, who could miss that?
A couple of blocks down, the armed officers hold back a surprisingly calm and quiet crowd--I really, really wish I could make a similar number of seventh graders make so little noise.  There's a band in white uniforms, and a tent across the street on the other side of the intersection, and a lineup of shaded chairs in front of an elevated platform on which sit lotus-legged figures in saffron robes.  This is the Buddhist portion of the proceedings, evidently.  
Need I mention the number of farangs in attendance? (The seƱora had taken off in the opposite direction and disappeared).  
It certainly helped having a foot or so on the average, aged, wrinkled and bent Thai in attendance  Some of the younger generations came up nose-high, and by the time I stopped the one six-footer in the crowd came directly in front of me, otherwise standing with my back to the building, my view had only the one obstruction.  
A gentle, rhythmic chanting comes from the tent--maybe pavilion would be more appropriate: four metal posts with a tarpaulin roof and open sides--until eventually the band kicks into something peppy.  Lackeys swarm the pavilion and form a colonnade up the steps of a building I had not noticed for all the pomp: a brand new branch of the Islamic Bank of Thailand, only two blocks from the branch outside the train station and a five minute ride from the main branch. 
First comes a youngish guy in a painfully white and crisp uniform, carrying a double-tiered umbrella/parasol--picture two oversized lampshades made of royal purple silk on a ten foot pole, a watered-down version of the ones shading elephant-riding kings of yore.  Presumably, this keeps the Princess shaded and radiant and free of bird poop, but as soon as the glaring white uniform slips through the wall of silk-gilt dignitaries or bank managers or whatever they were, the parasol is all I can see of the procession until the colonnade collapses itself to stand at ease in the shade.    
A brief digression to politics--why the heck would the Royal Princess of Thailand be at the opening of another branch of a bank?  
Remember that this is Thailand and she's the King's daughter so everybody loves her.  But this is also Southern Thailand, where there's been an Islamic insurgency carrying out bombings and beheadings and all such fun stuff for a goodly number of years.  Had Yai is north of the worst of it, but a few years ago the prince's caravan was attacked down south, and there's been a big upsurge of violence this year (side note: it is not a good idea to look up terrorist attacks and bombings when it turns out there have been quite a number in the town where you happen to be).  
So a new Islamic Bank is a good thing, as is goodwill and friendliness between Bangkok Thais and Southern Muslim Thais.  And even if she's not the King, the Princess is part of the royal family so everyone loves her, Buddhist or Muslim, and how nice that she's here.  
Eventually, the colonnade reappears, this time leading to the Lexus.  People begin filing out of the bank, and I somehow have a view of most of the procession.  An odd hum builds around me: it’s not so much a murmur as the Thai version of July 4th “ooh-aaah!” a chest-heavy anticipatory whine that sounds more like begging--an American would follow this sound with, “pleeese?”--until the parasol reappears at the same time a man in a yellow tropical shirt--batik fish and turtles--walked up and pulled Brutus down: NO PHOTOGRAPHING THE ROYAL FAMILY!
And I noticed that nobody around me had cell phone cams or other devices up--remarkable!
And then the Princess appeared, and it explained a lot: while the queen's banners show a woman of the hat generation, the princess's thinning hair, smile lines and general heft make her a perfect candidate for the Thai version of Mrs. Clause.  And she's the Princess.  
Right, when did the King take the throne?
And if he had kids at a reasonable age, that makes them how old?  
Oh, right.  Interesting.  
So I got to see the Princess of Thailand, who's of an age to be on the waning end of a (western) political career, and her bearing and appearance gave me the overriding impression of--dare I say it?--a jolly elf of European folklore.
What I take from it is a question of succession.  It's one thing for Charles to give the throne to his kids, but the Thai situation is closer to Victoria still reigning, with the complication that face is everything here, and once something becomes a matter of having, keeping, or saving face, ain't nothin' in the world that can no-how make no one back down.  It'll be interesting to see what plays out over the next few decades.