Long live the King
All over this country are pictures of the beloved King and Queen of Thailand. In the room I’m writing from alone, there are three of the couple. My Thai culture instructor, Sue, explained to us today that one must never say anything bad about the king, because we all love the king. The king is beloved, no one can ever criticize the King. I asked, if no one is allowed to say anything bad, how do you know that everyone really does love the king? What do we think about our King?
The King is on all the bills and coins, next to the shrines, in the subway, on the buildings, everywhere. The queen is sometimes with him, sometimes on her own.
People wear orange wrist bands like the yellow LIVE STRONG ones that say LONG LIVE THE KING in both English and Thai. (Still haven’t figured out where I can get one.)
At first I absolutely hated this, but I’m warming up to it. The king is politically insignificant, really just a symbol of national pride. I wish we had a symbolic king, instead of a truly despotic president who has usurped our democratic throne. I’d like to get one of those orange wrist bands, and maybe make an American version in red white and blue saying “Impeach the King!”
SEX STOP GLOBAL WARMING
I promise the proof in picture will come soon, you have to believe me for now. All over downtown Bangkok, there is a common piece of stenciled graffiti: SEX STOP GLOBAL WARMING. That’s right, SEX STOP GLOBAL WARMING.
The first thing that comes to mind is a general truth that if we spent more time enjoying non-polluting activities, or what some would call un-productive activities, such as sex, time with friends, drug use, etc. there would be much less energy used producing products.
The second thing that comes to mind are the five lanes of traffic beneath the sky bridge I’m walking on, including cars and diesel-burning ‘tuk-tuks.’ Maybe to stop global warming, more people should use the excellent public transit in this city, or live somewhere that doesn’t require 24-hour air conditioning…
…Or not fly across the Pacific Ocean just for kicks…guilty as charged.
Night and Day
I take back every time I said that jet lag is crap. I’m not sure if I’m 11 hours earlier or 13 hours later here, but I know that I want to be awake at night and sleep in the dayime.
Maybe this is why I came to Thailand, because I wanted something starkly different than home. I’ve found it! On the questionnaire the school gave me, when asked why I wanted to study in Thailand, I said to get out of my comfort zone. It worked… I feel a little bit confused and a little bit alone, just from 36 hours without any real conversation with someone who speaks my language as their first. It feels good.
I took the metro for one stop yesterday, at a cost of 15 baht = $.45. I could have walked to my destination but I wanted to check it out. I’ve recently been in Atlanta, New York and Washington, DC, all of which have pretty good public transit. The quality of the metro here puts them all to shame. I think I’ll take a trip all around town today on the train. On top of being exceedingly clean, modern, and fast it has air conditioning.
All packed up (I hope)
The international date line really messes with my head. The West coast is earlier than the East coast, Hawaii is earlier than the West coast, but some how when you go far enough west, it’s all of a sudden later instead of earlier.
Why does this matter? I’ll be flying, technically, for two days, and since I’m determined to write something each day during this trip, this will be my last chance (unless Tokyo Narita, the airport I’m transferring through, has free wireless, which it probably does) to get online until Friday.
Never got the extra battery and memory cards I wanted to have for my camera, thank you USPS. Other than that, I’m confident that I am materially prepared for the trip. Psychologically, who knows?
This trip will be a lot of things for me, among them four weeks of TESOL training, ten days of pure vacation and most importantly, six weeks outside of the USA.
Here is a selection of the advice I have received:
DO NOT:
Get suckered into the gem smuggling hustle. You will get ripped off. (guide book)
Have sex with proffesionals, because 50% them have HIV. (Paris)
DO:
Go see the musical elephants up North (Kenny)
Get a tailored suit (Janet)
Buy gems to bring them back and make money (Paris)
I’m late a flight!
