The Little Things

I sat on the bus, bound for Bangkok after a weekend getaway. My clothes were spattered with blood. As I often do while traveling, I read to pass the time. The novel was called ‘The Cellist of Sarajevo’. One of its main characters is a sniper whose life depends on noticing “The small things that are not small things”.  I found this ironic, in some small way. That one quote from a book about the Bosnian conflict could so accurately describe the tropical island of Koh Samet -- and how I’d gotten to this point.  

In the south

Many people know that I’m a big picture person. When I arrived at the island’s pier that is what I took in: expansive beaches and crystal water. As the pick-up truck taxi bounced over speed bumps, I noticed verdant hills rising from the shore line. After lunch I decided to see more of the island.

As is common on the Koh Samet I rented a motorbike. One of the most glaring challenges I’d expected was driving on the British side of the road. But, I put my mind to it and it was second nature in no time. I headed for the south; the most beautiful part of Koh Samet. Most of the roads on this part of the island are far from paved. At times I was  amazed to be driving over such rough terrain in, essentially, a Vespa. Still, it was fun and the views were breathtaking. The parts of this afternoon came together to form a cohesive whole.  After weeks of close quarters and grueling schedules at my organization’s field projects this was just what I needed. I resolved to return to the southern tip of the island to relax the next morning.

 A Southern Koh Samet Freeway

After returning to our north-end resort I had dinner with the other interns. For the first time in a while I felt like I had energy. I set out again the next morning, low on gas from yesterday. After looking around, I saw that many local families were selling bottles. I stopped at the first place I saw.  My bike's tank full, I hit the gas and took in grandeurous beauty that is Koh Samet. I felt unstoppable.

Too unstoppable, in fact.  I’d failed to notice the little things - such as the speed bump advancing towards me at 50 KPH. At the last moment it became a somewhat important detail. I slammed on the breaks; the bike stopped. I, however, kept moving until my face was inconveniently stopped by the pavement.

A good Samaritan put me back on my motorbike and told me to go to the clinic. With blood streaming from my nose and multiple abrasions, I again hit the gas.  It turned out the clinic was closed on Sundays. I returned to the resort and cleaned up. Then I set out again. I was intent on reaching the island’s southern shore and wasn’t about to let a little thing like blunt force cranial trauma stop me.

Land's End

I reached my goal. Though I only stayed about 30 minutes once I got there. It was well worth it. I was the last of my group to leave the island that day. The small details of my time there formed a larger experience that I did not want to end.

 I sat on the bus physically beat up, but mentally rejuvenated. I’d likely have a scar, but that was ok. It’s just another detail, a reminder that the smallest things can tell a story. That big picture of a weekend, or a life, is informed by its events. By the little things that are not little.      

Just So You Know

Earlier this week my university’s international studies coordinator emailed the people on my internship program. Many had failed to turn in their mandatory reports, including the other USC intern at my organization. My coordinator was annoyed; he made this abundantly clear in the email.

He also seemed to think that some interns were not taking enough cultural risks. The other intern was rather peeved that the email was so direct. But, it made me examine my own behavior.

Instead of simply parting as I could anywhere else, I pride myself on getting to know where I travel.  My coordinator urged students to lose themselves in a neighborhood and discover as its streets unfold. I did that two weekends ago.

Actually, I got a bit more lost than I’d have liked. I stupidly assumed that I could walk from Bangkok’s Silom district to the Grand Palace. I got hopelessly lost. However, along the way I saw discovered a new side of Bangkok. On winding streets near the river I meandered past old wooden households in front of open canals. This was the essence of the city before the development of the late 20^th century. Five hours later, I arrived at the royal residence too tired to see the Emerald Buddha temple. But that was ok. I’d already seen many local temples. My USC counterparts had not.

My coordinator also opined that you have not truly seen a country until you’ve been invited to a native’s home. Incidentally, I was. After teaching English at Huay Sala School, the English teacher took us to dinner. He told us that he would be happy to have us as guests in his home amid the rice paddies. He also gave us his contact information. Unfortunately, I did not have time to follow up.

Still, I wondered if I’d gotten out of my comfort zone. I only saw so much on my walk because I was suspicious of taking a taxi. This isn’t because I’ve heard horrible stories about Bangkok cabbies. Eastern European drivers would rip a foreigner off. I’ve stayed at friends’ apartments in the region as well.

I haven’t taken a hired motorbike, eaten street food, or made much of an effort to learn the language. The last is odd. I usually pick up languages quickly. Thai is one of the harder tongues I’ve encountered. But, I can’t help but wonder if there’s something else at work. I’ve been to over 40 countries. Maybe, I’m starting to view myself like the children at some schools my organization sponsors view me:

‘Here one day; gone the next. Why is it worth the effort’?

 That doesn’t mean I’ll stop traveling. It’s good to get a wakeup call every once in a while. My coordinator’s email may have annoyed some others. For me it was a reminder: Never be too set in your ways. Never become too jaded.  

From Head to Toe

I travel a lot. Obviously, this means I have to adapt to different cultures. I’d like to think I’ve gotten rather good at this. However, Thailand has presented more of a challenge than many other countries.

Most of the differences are simply amusing. They remind me of why I travel. Only in south-east Asia would you see signs telling metro passengers to give up their seats to Buddhist monks.  At times, it can be almost surreal to see warnings that forbid durian in the subways (complete with picture of the fruit and superimposed red X) right next to signs which causally say no smoking.

Other differences are more serious -- and more problematic. Thai Buddhism places importance on covering your legs.  From my outsiders perspective, having to wear long pants in 30 degree heat while up-country sometimes seems impractical. Still, I’m sure there’s a reason why traditional Buddhists believe it’s important. Members of many university groups we accompany wear short pants. The villagers do not seem offended.  Acquaintances told me that the average Thai won’t get up-set if someone breaks a taboo; especially if the offender is a westerner who is unlikely to be aware of its existence.

Still, it pays to be as culturally sensitive as one can. In my experience, Thai culture does demand strict adherence to traditional norms in certain situations. In Bangkok, no one really cares what kind of pants people ware.  Yet, on my first attempt to visit the Grand Palace I was turned way for wearing shorts. I returned the next day in proper attire. I stood in the rear of the stunning Emerald Buddha temple, not wanting to risk showing my feet to the altar while sitting. In return, a guard yelled at me in Thai.

  He may have taken issue with the physical location of my head.  This aspect of Thai culture has given me some trouble before.  On one sponsor visit, I attended a student presentation in a local school library. The visitors sit cross-legged on the floor while the students present. I’ve hated sitting on the floor ever since kindergarten. This was the second time I’d seen the presentation, and I was tired. So, I sat on a couch in the corner. My supervisor’s boss came over and physically pushed me onto the floor. A Thai-American intern later explained that this was because my head was much higher than those of the sponsors and high-ranking school administrators. This is considered disrespectful in Thailand.  I’m still trying to understand this concept.  After all, the students were standing. Their heads were higher than mine!   

Up-Country

I was happy to return to Ban Huay Sala School.  We were with the 17-year-old son of a Korean donor, who wanted to show the students how to make kimchi and take pictures. Kuhn San Hun, the school's  head English, teacher told us that he wanted us to give an encore English lesson. I agreed, but knew it might be hard.

I’d asked to go up country again to observe teacher trainings. No such trainings materialized as my departure date arrived. As we set up our lesson plans the next day, my supervisor announced that I was to attend a training at another school.  

 As I said goodbye to the students, they seemed happy that the other interns would remain, but were disappointed at my departure. Surprisingly, so was I. I’d only spent a few days teaching here. It was the closest I’d come to making an impact.

 I boarded the van, watched the fields roll by and  thought about letting the students know they could come visit me when they got a bit older. Then I thought better of it. When I was around 14 I went skiing in British Columbia, and took tropical vacations in the BVI.  It occurred to me that most of them would probably never leave Thailand. Its  improbable that people from such different cultural, linguistic and socio-economic backgrounds could make any kind of connection. I’d like to think we did.

I only stayed at the teacher training about 45 minutes. Obviously, the training was in Thai; no one was sent with me to translate.

 The local English instructor  gave me and a visiting American teacher a ride back.  He told us that our visits to schools do work in that they really make the children want to learn English. The visiting teacher said she’d been told to teach English by my organization, as the local teacher watched best practices. The only problem that she happened to be a literature teacher!  “I don’t know what they’re thinking” she said.  “Frankly, I think it’s insulting to the teachers and the children.”

 It’s better than nothing. Although both English teachers I saw on this trip speak well, others can’t even hold a basic conversation. The question still remains: Why wern't we sent to a school were the faculty’s English level is a problem?

I did teach English the next day. The students were happy to see me. But, they seemed a bit jaded. In the month after my organization’s program started they’d seen a virtual parade of westerners tour their school. In older projects, the students practically ignore our continued visits.

 Later that day, a younger intern was trying to figure out what benefit learning photography could be to the villagers. I had to break the news to him. “He’s the son of the village’s sponsors” I informed him. “The benefit is his family’s continued sponsorship”.

 We attended a tree planting the next day. Villagers receive 40 baht (about 60  U.S. cents) per tree toward capital in their micro-credit bank. We bounced over dirt paths through the rice paddies until we finally arrived at the site. I’d expected the villagers to regard our presence as interference. They couldn’t have been more welcoming.  At one point, an old woman came over and cut open my tree’s plastic root lining. “She is 80 years old” a translator told me. In an odd way she reminded me of my grandmother, who taught me to garden as a child. We worked as a team until lunch.

The villagers served us on reed mats under older trees. The Koreans demanded the villagers bring their lunch to where we left our van. But, they are the ones providing the 40 baht per tree.  We eventually convinced them to walk to where we had stopped planting.

This was likely my last trip to Buriram. I am going to miss it. The trip encompassed the best of what my organization does for rural villagers. But is it  enough? Is it counterproductive?  Or is it effective NGO work?

You decide. 

The Two Cambodias

In a similar vein to the previous post, my second trip to Cambodia showed how different the same place can appear on two separate visits.

I originally went to Siem Reap before the beginning of my internship. I thought that my company would never pay to send me to their projects there. That is exactly what they did.

There were a few differences in the itinerary. First off, we traveled by van. This meant we had to pass through the infamous Cambodian border town of Poipet. Think of it as the Khmer Tijuana: a dirty border town rife with corruption. It is also where most blue-collar Thais go to gamble. As one frequent traveler put it “Poipet rhymes with toilet for a reason”. 

Other travelers’ stories of Poipet were so horrendous that I previously choose to pay a high air fare, rather than attempt to cross through Poipet on my own.

The stories did not disappoint. The Cambodian border police, however, did. We successfully argued our way out of paying visa the officials off to simply give us a Cambodian visa. Then, they discovered that I had no more visa pages in my passport. After a 15 minute argument and 500 Bhat ‘fine’, they finally agreed to stamp it on an endorsements page and let me in the country.

I later found that the government was even more depraved than I’d thought. Those in power rely on donations from other countries for the majority of governmental income.

Fortunately, the rest of the trip went much better. We rousted ourselves the next morning at 4:30 for a different perspective of Angkor Wat. I enjoyed watching as daylight broke across the temple.

We also got the chance to sample some of the real Cambodia. Our company took us out to the villages. We bounced across dirt roads to remote villages and met the locals. Previously, I had only seen the center of Siem Reap. The differential was amazing as I took in the countryside of Cambodia’s second poorest province.

When I arrived in Siem Reap the first time, I settled back in my remorque and decided that the city and it’s immediately surrounding vicinity were unlike anything else. My second trip made me check my premises. I’m not only talking about my visits to Cambodian villages. After spending weeks in rural Thailand, the town which once seemed so exotic looked downright western. Before, I never really questioned the fact that shop owners spoke some English. I took it for granted that the restaurants served western food and, above all, cheese. Now, Siem Reap looked more like a tourist trap, albeit still an enjoyable one.

Returning to the theme of perspective’s influence on travel, my most recent adventure in Cambodia shows the pivotal role one’s viewpoint plays in forming one’s opinions. I’d been to the same Cambodian city twice. Once, as a American tourist newly arrived from America; the second time, on a business trip for a Thai NGO. The buildings were the same. But, I saw two different places. A city or country may be just as you have read of, or seen. Yet, there is always more to its picture, painted by the experiences you’ve had -- or more importantly--those you have not. 

Lessons From The Veranda

The half-way point of my internship found me up-country again. We were shadowing a group of Singaporeans as they attempted to develop products that villagers could produce. The other interns and I had seen most of the communities before. I began to get excited for the next leg of my journey: two weeks with a family in Karachi’s upscale Defense district. 

 Still, I learned a lot that time in rural Thailand. Most of it at the local Cabbages and Condoms Resort.      

After long days of re-visiting villages, I’d sit on the veranda that was the resort’s restaurant. I brought a book along with me: ‘Instant City’ by David Inskeep. The work was fascinating. It examined the science of urban migration through the history and politics of Pakistan, connecting diversity with prosperity. The book laid bare the stories of families as they attempted to rise amid sectarian violence. I read much of the tome with a dropped jaw. It was a gateway to another world.

Then the author sited Los Angeles as the American mess-of-sprawl most like Karachi.  At first I was insulted. This was odd, as I often complain about LA. More importantly, I didn’t understand what he was talking about. True, the demographics of both cities changed as they grew.  But, the LA I knew had no chronic problems with housing; nobody pulled out AK-47’s when there was a dispute. The traffic signals worked, and the stairs were one precise height.

View from the veranda

One of my fellow interns joined me on the veranda one evening. Her family came to the U.S. as refugees, fleeing the Khmer Rouge. They settled in Long Beach. I know this part of LA for an irreverent opera company that occasionally performs in the hold of the Queen Mary. This was not her Long Beach.   

 Her family had to settle one of the poorest parts of LA. There, she told me, violence and overcrowding were more common place. Uncertainty seemed to be one of the few constants. “Sometimes I feel like we have to live with this kind of …fear” she reflected, telling me that it is difficult for refugees to overcome being consigned to poorer areas.       

Unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done about it. I’m increasingly convinced that there is no realistic way to eradicate poverty.  In either city, migrants simply must go where they can find a place to live. Pashtun refugees cannot simply relocate to Karachi’s Clifton, any more than the Cambodians could to Palos Verdes.  The other intern wanted to return to America and find a solution. “There’s so much to do there, first” she said.

I wasn’t convinced. Karachi still sounded worse. People in South-Central LA have basic utilities… or at least I think they do.  One thing was certain: The Los Angeles the other intern described was not ‘my’ LA. Maybe Inskeep’s comparison is exaggerated. Maybe, in a sense, I am living in my city’s own Defense.

The same evening, the Singaporeans joined us for dinner in the restaurant. We began to discuss their country. They agreed that the strict observance of law I’d noticed on my visits were key to the country’s success. It even played an instrumental role in uniting the country, which also used to be somewhat divided along linguistic lines. However, they also told me of some of the country’s relatively more ‘shady’ areas, less known to foreigners. In one month I would see Karachi with my own eyes. But one question remained: Which Karachi would that be?

Night had come and the restaurant staff had long since gone home. I was still seated on the veranda. Whatever my experiences in Karachi would be, I knew they would coalesce to form the beginnings of my own view of the city. In that sense, maybe the two cities are not so different. I rose, and like so many in any neighborhood of either city, looked for the best way forward.

The Importance of Being Happy

After one month in Thailand I’ve had some time to grow somewhat acquainted with the Thai cultural mindset. One outstanding aspect is the importance that many Thai’s place on emotions. In my experience, most Thais will not openly tell you if they are disappointed. However, if something makes them happy you will definitely know about it.

This goes beyond social pleasantries. During sponsor visits to villages, Village chiefs would often make a point of saying how happy the visit made him. This seemed be more than just “thank you for coming” or “I’m glad you could make it”. Translations ran more along the lines of “He’s glad that you came because your visit makes him very happy”. Apparently, no further justification for the visit was necessary.

I saw the same thing when I taught English at Baan Huay Sala School. The head English teacher was very concerned that our lesions “make the children happy”. Whether or not they actually learned something seemed to be a secondary consideration.

Admittedly, the English teacher could have been assuming that the children would learn. After all, the term lesson implies that learning will occur. The teacher also taught those children in the past; in Thailand, seeing is believing. Many rural Thais won’t invest in a new enterprise until they see that it works for their friends. The village chiefs may have taken it for granted that a donor would want to see the village he was sponsoring. Maybe, the sponsor’s main reason for visiting didn’t require mentioning.  

 Perhaps I've just gotten used to the Slavic world, where complaining is the order of the day. The Thai way might not be bad at all when you think about it. After all, who doesn't want to be happy, right?