a meditation on econimics, then. a maelstrom of have and have-not. im not sure if i've talked on this much yet but thailand is a world apart form the US. i just spent two hours or an hour and a half rapping to my new friend Japanese-American friend Larry from Wyoming about our situation as Haves in this world of Have-nots. and dramatically fitting young women selling silver jewelery kept apporaching us and trying to get some of our money, and i just couldn't resist--the first one, her little boy was with her, selling roses for ten baht a piece. i have no one to give a rose to in thailand! but he couldn't have been more than eight years old, working the streets at night... the next one, her child was on her back, he couldn't have been a year old, and she didn't say a word about him, didn't even show him til i'd bought a silver bracelet with thailand's elephants on it, when she bent down and wrapped him onto her back, and the third one (they all were young), she must have been nineteen, belly heavy with child, she was trying so hard to get a little bit of the money we make so easily as americans, and forutnately Larry helped her because i knew if i kept giving money more and more would come, and you can't solve the worlds problems by giving bits of money to victims of those problems, but at the same time each
separate
individual
case
of poverty and need is separetely individually heart-wrenching and demanding of your pity, of the one thing you, as a first-class citizen of the world, can surely do to rectify it: give money. i dont need the bracelets i bought tonight, i dont want them--i just thought it woudl be too humiliating and direct to refuse what these girls were offering and give them money directly... Larry gave the rose he bought from the little boy to his mother, and her face for a moment was a theater of conflicting emotions... i am sure that rose was on sale again-- what is the fine line between buying and charity? its a line thats walked and walked-upon in the night markets here. in the clink of loose baht in the cup of a man with no right leg, the eyes of the child laid behind the racks of t-shirts advertising beer and 'IM SHY--but ive got a big dick', the most crude decorations of a society these people know nothing about, aimed merely at the pocketbooks of those here for fun, for a few days or weeks in a tropical paradise they will then leave and forget--but this need is ever-present. its not something i solve with the patronage of silver bracelets or a few coins in the cup of a mother with no place to go with her two children, on a street thats not safe at night, her belly holding another-- how is it solved? i think you are like me, you are a citizen of the developed world, you have never had to beg for money on the street or go wtihout food for lack of money, or put off retirement becuase you cant financially plan next week much less the final years of your life--we are, and i really deeply want you to know this, financially rich. we're wealthy. we're loaded. we're every word available in several languages for rich. when I, as an American, imagine a poor person, what do i think of? an older house, a used car, a staticky television, TV dinners, spousal abuse. do poor Thai people have any but the last? do middle-class Cambodian people have those things? are we fucking rich? yes! we are fucking rich! does this make us happy? answer for yourself in your own heart. i wrote tonight in my journal about how much i feel i have to learn from these people, and how little i feel that i have to teach. what can i teach--English? they speak everything theyll need to know, and dont have time in teh day to give to studying more. philosophy? things are too simple to need that--one needs to survive, to provide the basics for living, before one can think of how best to live. the only thing i can think of is to spead the word about america as it is, or japan for that matter, about how life really feels in the richest countries, about how happy or unhappy people are there. about how meaningful or not our lives are. these things i think it woudl benefit Thai people to know, because all they know of our culture is the crass t-shirts they sell and the pirated music that comes from speakers in the night markets, and the overweight tourists who patronize their bars and young women. im sorry if this is direct, or negative, but its real. this is a learning experience for me, nad if you never get the chance to come here, id like you to have a taste of it. feel free to skip to the next journal entry if this is more self-examination than youre comfortable with, but im painfully in teh midst of it and want company. Larry was my company tonight, a Japanese-American from Wyoming, so close to ND/NE/wherever it is that im from, and we hashed and rehashed the whole issue over drinks, on teh corner of the night bazaar here, constantly being offered silver or silver-looking bracelets by girls with no choice other than to offer them, despite our best-practiced looks of disinterest. everything is cheap here, but it is their livlihood, it si cheap in the English language, in the first-world economic society, and not elsewhere. i met a guy today, Jade WangKlon, he's a painter. i think he has a delicate eye for color and line, and his paintings are better than almost everything i saw come from 30,000$ college training while i was in school. his 20x35 inch acrylics were 400baht apiece, the originals, or about eight dollars and fifty cents. i bought two. i asked him how long it took to make one, and he said a day or two. his easel was there, and itd obviously been the seat of many a painting... he said hed been painting for fifteen years. 400 baht a day-or-two. plus the time spent selling those paintings. youre talking about an income of 300 or 350baht a day, at best. thats 6.5o$ or 7$, around 700yen. thats nothing. i made that in my spare time at AEON, i spend that without second thought in any bar in any developed country in teh world. it is a day bent over an easel with an artist's touch to color and line for him, and more spent in midday heat in front of his paintings, hoping some tourist will feel theyre special enough to take home as a souvenir. strictly portraits of rural thai life and buddha images and the sort of thing youd want to remember as a tourist. there were no limbless beggars, there were no corrugated-roof houses. im sure if he has any artistic spirit under that technique, that the paintings he puts passion into never make his shelves, both because they wouldnt sell to foreigners and because he couldnt stomach selling them. but i bought a nice scene from rural thailand with some oxen and birds and mountains, and a well-balanced canvas of bamboo leaves at sunset... what is my point? im leaving you to draw it, friend. peoples lives are not the same worldwide. what we take for granted other people take at great labor from the hands of those who, like us, value it little. im not saying we are evil. im not saying they are pathetic. this is the situation. this is what the world looks like. is it what we want? is it beyond our control to repair? i absolutely say 'no' to the second. i told Larry, whos 60something, i'm too young to give up on it, to accept it as a damn shame, but one i can do nothing about. i can and i will do something about it, period. we can do something, as those in power. they cant do anything, they can scrounge and stretch whatever ability they have to the limit to try and inch up the ladder we're born miles higher on. they can do next to nothing. we can do something. will we? thats all for today folks. sleep well.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
fate and prostitutes
what is magic? is it possible to enter a zone when everything you do, every last breath adn chance encoutner, is charmed? yes. levi says yes. and the opposite is possible too. ive had both those kinds of days--but Chiang Mai is giving me only good magic. i dont know how to explain this; i claim to be religious in an unspecified sense but this is sort of a defined irrational view i have, that there are series of choices we make that are either good or bad in some unknown cosmic scheme of things, adn we cant really make mistakes, but once on a certain path or after making certain choices there are som ethat are good adn others that are bad... and you can feel it when you are making the right choices, sometimes its like youre swept up in that rightness and its carrying you--like the moment you catch a wave surfing and youre moving in sync with the wave, not giving any power but moving through it, part of it and using it... this is maybe too mystical. let me rephrase: i feel good. this is a nice place.
anyways, the train was.. um... there was this 56 year old thai woman who didnt speak any english who decided to make good friends with me, sitting across from my seat on the train and gesturing rapidly, none of which i reall yunderstood--but the main gesture of importance was two pointer fingers laid together... i took it as either 'girlfriend' or 'sex,' both of these important questions, requiring very different answers--so i just laughed with her and tried to sleep after it got scary. but it didnt stop--she stuck her legs across the aisle and was rubbing my thighs with her toe, or would rest her legs against mine after id move--the train was crowded so i couldnt really change seats--i stuck my legs across the aisle to be more comfortable, and she reached down and sort of scratched my bare foot with her nail, blinging clanging into my mind a lesson from AEON about how rubbing the inside ofsomeones palm when shaking hands means 'lets have sex' in some coutnry, maybe the phillipines... maybe it was all my imagination. or maybe she was a prostitute.
anyways, she got off at magical and ancient ayutthaya, a spot further blessed in my mind because thats where she got off. the rest of the trip, and there was a lot of it (about 15 hours), was uneventful, but uncomfortable even after the train cleared out a bit, trying to sleep. i had a greyhound night, one where there are about three positions that half work in the fucking uncomfortable seat youre in, anbd none of them work well or for long, so you halfwake out of half sleep and adjust positions hoping the part that gets sore in that position has had enough time to rest, and that youre not impinging on anyone elses space too badly, as they struggle through the same third-class public transportation dilemma. id wanted to take 2nd class, with a sleeping cabin, but they were all full. the difference was only 30 baht, or 60 cents. worth it, but they were out or the army-uniform-wearing fellow behind the ticket machine didnt like me too well. foreigner suspicions, im suspicious of my own suspicions after seeing my friends distrust japanese folks cuase they couldnt understand teh language, but because i could knowing the people were treating them fairly... anyways. im from a rich country and get to go back to it and dont have to stay here all my life sweating behind a tuk tuk wheel for 200 baht a day, so i think in the larger scheme i deserve a bit of it. im staying in a nice place tonight, 150 baht, theyre doing my landry, two beds and a window, not smelly, hot water, trekking trips leavin gdaily for bamboo river rafting, elephant riding, jungle hiking... love to go, but heres my dilemma.
heres the crux.
heres the A and not-B or vice versa of the day, possibly of the week or the whoel rest of the vacation:
first thing i did after i settled into the hotel was call Wat Ram Poeng, the meditation center here thats foreigner friendly and was recommended by that buddhist scholar fellow a couple days back at wat mahathat (ps! http://www.watrampoeng.org). i was hoping i could just come for a few hours a day, but they are hardcore and unrelenting. as a favor, it seemed like, as the bare minimum possible, i can stay there for ten days iwthout leaving, without writing, without reading, etc etc (read the website), trying to meditate 20 hours a day. the usual course is 26+ days. apparently 10 is the bare minimum, but because ive got some experience at wat mahathat and with zazen in CA, ten might be alright for me... but the dilemma is, is ten alright for me? do i wanna use ten days of my 30 in thailand for a meditation retreat? do i wanna cut off all contact with teh world and y'all and all that delicious thai food and fun treks on elephants backs and white sand beaches to eat rice porridge sleep on wood slats and meditation twenty hours a day? i guess i know what youre thinking the answer is, but i am really torn about it... its something ive always wanted to do, and what an amazing experience to do it here... something i can talk about the rest of my life... not like everything else i do here isnt also amazing and life-experience material... so im torn. im flip-flopping. im the fish out of water not sure if i wanna slip back in and be an average tourist and try to socialize and wring some meaning out of idility, or if i wanna be hardcore and wring meaning from myself and do something really difficult that will most likely be really rewarding and require some sacrifice on my part. to be honest, i really wanna do it. as i was thinking about it, i realized my biggest reservation was that i wouldnt be able to do it, and that that reservation in itself is total bullshit and all the more reason for me to do it. i dont wanna lose contact with everyone for ten days, and sort of wonder if ill be able to hack not really having conversations with anyone for ten days--- but, thats the draw of it. can i do it? im sort of over 'is it worth it?' -- im sure its all worth it, that no matter what i do ill be like 'im so glad i did that.' like i said before (did i say this before? i know i wrote it somewhere) every experience is valuable if you know how to find the value in it, and there are some paths that are better or seem fated, but they are all worthwhile and hvae good endings if you make those endings happen. ive thought for a logn time that to be a volunteer and really help people you have to already have helped yourself, and i dont know if im really there yet. i guess its a never-ending quest to be perfect, but i know i could be better than i am, and use that for the forces of good. plus, being idle all the time and just wandering gets old, even in a crazy totally foriegn country with all sorts of shocking and never-before-seen stuff. i need to be gainfully employed doing something. dont i sound like im gonna do it? yeah... but i promised Mie id correct the grammar on her pre-thesis paper, and would feel really bad after promising so many times to do it if i didnt do it... i think thtas the only thing holding me back. hope it can be worked out.
other interesting experiences today include: thai peanuts, which are purple adn soft, having tasty clear soup for 15 baht, coconut milk from the coconut, which is popular here, angry thai postal worker telling em they were gonna close an hour early and implyign that i oughta get my business finished up already, hanging out with thai police officers next to teh riverfront, eating the peanuts (well OK we weren treally hanging out together, but we were on the same set of benches...), being accosted by people wanting me to stay at their guesthouse upon leaving the train, the internationally-awarded Vienpiang suit store having its yearly grand celebration and being recommended by two separate people to me as a must-see, suits for 8000baht, top quality, today only low price, one singaporean man just stopped me on the street and started talking about it... he mentioned a novice initation session tomorrow too at the spot where we were standing--apparently 1000 kids are going to be initiated into the monkhood--so itd be an auspicious day to start the retreat at wat ram poeng, if i do it... getting a lesson from the woman at the suit shop, yes i went, about real and fake cashmere and silk, night vendors of all smiles and temperaments, new german friends, giving money to another single mother on the street at night, this one with a two year old and seven months into another baby... obviously nowhere to go if she was still out then. i felt so bad for her, rubbed her childs head (oh shit! i just remembered thats really rude here! anyway), we all smiled, he seemed really happy, i gave her the water i was drinking and 500 baht, which is enough to do some good things for them for awhile. i know i cant purify my karma with money, but im a softy. i feel guilty for not giving more, which is surely christianity and buddhism dancing in my heart. thats todays installment--if there isnt one tomorrow, there wont be one for ten days. but stay tuned! love and good wishes, in untold but substantial amounts, showering upon you unexpectedly in teh form of good or bad weather from overseas, from Chiang Mai Thailand--
good will comes welling uncontrolled up out of the earth
my last day in bangkok--its an interesting city, but i have to add--thank god. the heat and exhaust have been getting to me--but in spite of that, i saw some really interesting things today. i had that interview in tokyo the day i left (or, was supposed to leave), so ive been carrying around the suit i wore, and dress shoes i wish never to wear again, though theyre more or less brand new, and id intended to give it all to the first poor person i saw here (but now am thinking thats sort of a simplistic way of looking at it--what qualfies as poor? how do i know what a poor person is or looks like or does? by american standards, probably every Thai person ive seen since ive been here is poor...), but failed to do so for awhile, and since im going to Chiang Mai tonight, i decided it was time to dump them, rahter then pointlessly carry it all north. so in the morning i wandered over near a pier where the last couple days its seemed like the poorest looking people have been (people selling on the sidewalk, but they only have a few medallions or belts or used shoes--i have no idea how they make enough to get by. i guess they dont), and came on a band playing on teh corner of the market... there was a woman singer, and a keyboardist and man on a big harmonica and a girl with finger cymbals, and a drummer making the strangest sort of sluggish but ontime beats. she had a beautiful voice, and it all felt really natural and inspired. the front three girls all had boxes for donations... it took a moment for me to realize they were all blind. i think it was some kind of disease that had affected them all, becuase their eyes all looked the same when theyd open them-- anyway, the music ahd this really peculiar feel to it, and they all looked like they were so into it. and i realized they were improvising on or makin gup all the songs they were playing--someone woudl just start, and the other people would fall in, and shed start singing... i gave them a few hundred baht and my shoes. i left my suit shirt and tie wrapped in my belt a bit further on the same street. and walking past the walls of temple where i took meditation class the day before, a pretty young girl with two children asked me for money... her kids were sleeping, but they didnt look well off, and she showed me how much milk was left in teh bottle. i gave her the rest of the food i was eating and some money, and asked if i could take her picture, to remember. she smiled me the happiest smile. i have lessons to learn.
i went back to section five of Wat Maharathat today, adn did some more meditation in teh basement with Steven, the red-and-gray haired fellow who was there yesterday (hed asked whether buddhism had a creation story, it was the only thing he said during the whole talk yesterday, and Helen just told him it was irrelevant--the buddha said there was no need to think about that sort of thing, because it had no bearing on teh immediate problem, the extinction of suffering. i think he was abashed. i waited for her to tell the rad story i know about the buddha that illustrates that point, btu she didnt... so OK im going to tell it. sorry. here it goes: one of the buddhas followers, like Steven, was askign him those sorts of metaphysical questions, and the buddha told him he was like a man who'd been shot with an arrow, and before he would let anyone pull it out, he demanded to know who had made the arrow, and what sort of wood it was, and which bird the feathers had come from...). another red-haired american looking guy showed up later; he somehow seemed to me like an all-american football player (his shoes, outside the temple door, were printed with american flag and had come from old navy). it was so strange to see him sitting in half-lotus position trying to focus on his breathing.... but no stranger than Steven or I, i guess, or any of the other thai people there who were just learning.
anyways, todays session was so nice... vipassana seems a lot easier to do than zazen. i sat for forty minutes or so, then did walking meditation, and it felt really clean and fresh, and the time wasnt long at all... somehow sitting there i felt like this was more worthwhile than most of the things ive been doing for teh last stretch of my life... i left my job and everyone i knew in Japan to do volunteer work, but ive believed fora long time that you cant really help other people unless youre in a good place yourself, and i dont think i really am--i get frustrated iwth people much more easily than before, etc... so maybe this feels right because its a good first step on the road to being a really great volunteer, and doing what ive been trying to do for a long time, work for otehr peoples' benefit. teaching sort of did that, but (i hope) volunteering will be even more directly so, becuase no money will be involved.
anyways, after an hour and a half at the temple (including some chanting in Pali, which was interesting), i took a tuk-tuk (the three-wheeled cabs) to Wat Sakat, which is a temple built on the ruins of a temple that collapsed, and so sits on a little hill. i didnt expect much, but the hill has waterfalls and all this vegetation, and the stairs up are long, curling around the hill, with level points now and then with rows of bells you can ring... and once you get to the top, theres this huge golden stupa in the middle ofa rooftop with all these bells, and the breeze you cant feel on the streets blowing through and ringing them--and all of bangkok spread out in the four directions. such an open peaceful place... i wanted to stay longer, it was only open for forty-five minutes more or so by the time i got there... but i soaked it in as much as possible, and felt really bad for teh people who got there after it was closed. i met a couple from singapore up there, and verified that 'alamok' is a curse word in singlish (singaporean english), though they told me it actually comes from malay... they sort of reminded me of japanese people. anyways, im grabbing some sidewalk cafe thai food and heading for the train station--taking the non-aircon diesel train to Chiang Mai, which Steven (from the plane) told me is so rad, cause you just roll all night with the windows open and the breeze coming through, and the sound of the old engine chugging... its gonna be a 13 hour trip, but i cant wait. and my guidebook says Chiang Mai has all sorts of classes you can take on thai cooking, yoga, meditation, and lots of trekking tours to take.. i think its gonna be great. ill let you know. love and well-wishes- -
robot levi says 'standing, standing, standing'
so today was buddhism day i guess.... i actually managed to wake up early, had a rad breakfast (mango shake, spicy bean/greens salad, vegetarian lotus seed fried rice) downstairs, figured out how to use a phoen with the help of a friendly thai girl who ought to've been manning (womanning) her information desk at one of the many random events that seem to always be taking place (every night i walk through the central park and this university near it theres some concert or event happening, and always different), called Wat Maharathat to inquire about meditation instruction, got a positive answer for one o clock, so i took one of teh public trans. boats down teh river to bangkoks famous Wat Pho (the massive reclining buddha from Street Fighter II). i had a really nice moment on the river, watching these temples slide by and the multitude of different boats--some of them basically canoes with massive diesel engines strewn with flowers and driven by the elderly--and the sunshine twinkling from teh caps of the waves, fresh watered breeze on my skin... good stuff. i sort of wish someone was here to share it with me, but no one is, so ive got to share it with you. did you feel like you were there? hope so. maybe i can add a picture later, which will be worth more than these words but still not do it justice. anyhow, i disembarked amid the everpresent street market (there are seriously no streets here that arent markets. i think half the population is employed in selling secondhand books, buddha figures, amulets, pirated CDs and all sorts of indescribable possibly edible products), made my way to the temple... saw the buddha... which is fucking huge, that being the best and only phrase for it in english, forty two meters long and twelve tall, totally covered in gold, inside this massive hall barely big enough to house it... so much bigger than in the video game... the folks at CAPCOM had obviously never been to Wat Pho-- that said it was a pretty powerful presence. i stayed al ot longer than teh other folks, and actually went through twice, pausing the second time to rub gold leaf on a buddha statue and offer a cut unopened lotus flower to the buddha... i think thats such a profound symbol, a cut unopened flower... you know it has/had the potential for beauty, that it wont have it now that its cut, as a physical plant, but as an offering, a metaphysical being, its like the promise or hope for beauty or goodness not yet revealed--i took it as that promise on my own part, to do my best to break open the buddhahood resting inside. and i guess took myself up on that promise right quick--bought fresh mango sprinkled with hot pepper and spiced sugar and booked myself over to the other Wat (she said specifically on the phone not to be late), and after a confusing serious of partial-english speakers leading me around the temple, i found section number five and a couple nuns who could speak my language. i spent the next two hours talking to a nun about vippassana meditation and how its different from what i did in california, and about some basic questions i have with buddhist practice, and as an odd accompaniment to that serious sort of intercourse another nun was taking photos of us for their website (ill be famous! wat maharathat.com! maybe.), and wed occasionalyl stop and look as though we were on the brink of enlightenment for the benefit of the folks at home accessing through teh 'intranet,' such as yourself. anyhow, the method itself was interesting--i wont go into detail because (knowing whos reading) you either know all about it already or prolly arent interested. but at a certain point in walking meditation youre supposed to stop and just stand there thinking "standing, standing, standing." i couldnt help but smile every time i did it, cause i felt like such an inane robot. after a bit she took me downstairs to practice with some other folks just starting (there was a whole nother class going on in Thai), and after about twenty minutes of struggling through it, she cam eand got me and another american there (who id been shocked to see... walking down into that half-basement room and seeing this red-haired guy sweating out some sitting meditation i suddnely felt as though i was being sucked into some far east cult. and theyd soon poison me with avian bird flu for the scientific benefit of the community. but thats not the case! mom.). as it happened, today was the second saturday of the month, when an english speaking buddhist scholar comes to give a talk... we ended up being the only native speakers there, btu three folks from japan (whom i was happy to see, cause im halfhomesick for this place thats not precisely my home. though i guess i have more than one home now... and the place that oughta be precisely my home is in a town and state ive never been to... agk. its all just words.) and a couple guys from India and a Thai fellow (who cornered me after the talk and tried to instill his superior knowledge of buddhism into me) showed up too, and we had an interesting, informal (rambling) session of question answer an dlecture. i took some good notes, and asked some questinos thatd been smoldering on the back burner since i last really practiced meditation... a women there, Helen i think, who was there to help the visting scholar, was really interesting (moreso than the shcolar, im afriad to say), and answered me pretty straight with some unexpected answers. anyways, it was a good experience, and i got to wander around monks quarters and be for a bit on the inside of a monastery... i was surprised to see a few monks smoking, and the nun who taught me seemed kinda sleepy... but everybodys just practicing on the way. anyways, the scholar mentioned a place for foreigners to learn adn practice up north in the town ive been planning to go to, Chang Mai, so i guess Ill check it out when i get up there (maybe tomorrow on the night train or the next day). bangkok has already become too noisy and dirty and nonstop for me--and now that im here and can manage to find my way around and have reliable places ot eat and sleep and sort of understand life here, ive started to wonder just what it is im doing here. im not really that into just going sightseeing... so if i dont find a place to volunteer, i might as well do something else that ive been wanting to for a long time (since junior year of university in our eastern psych class), and live for awhile at a monastery... which will be a radical 180 from the chaos of street vendors and drunken europeans and three-wheeled taxis roaring outside this cafe--pulling me out into it--more tomorrow--
zapping the emerald buddha with toe rays
so--another long day! phew! I'm sleepy. but it was goodness all around. I woke up nice and late, the first full night's sleep in ages-- I think I slept ten hours, and took my time waking up and all. the main event today was the Royal Palace california australia Bangkok Thailand
out of the samurai and into the thai
day two: I wake up in narita airport, on the bench, having slept alright. strange dreams influenced by passing people with carts of luggage bound for all destinations worldwide, fluttering little bits of data. tried to cancel my phone, and though she assured me last night I could do it this morning alright, their system was down so I was entered into yet another nightmarish session of watching people toy with the fate of my pocketbook and ability to accomplish my desired task in a language I don't understand, seemingly idly tapping things into a computer, chatting about the results, consulting others (occasionally via telephone), etc... after half an hour or so, when I really should've been getting to the airline check-in, especially considering the high-priced results of my failure to do so in a punctual manner the night before, their computer magically started to work and I got it done, got through check out and all that without much of a hitch. in the terminal, waiting for our plane, I had my first taste of reverse culture-shock: a 40something gay man with a gut, and a retired teacher with an easy if somewhat grating laugh, both american, were chatting behind me about this and that, and I couldn't block them out! it was like my mind was locked on to their every spoken and grammatical nuance, determined to squeeze every bit of droll meaning from their sentences, despite the obvious lack of use in doing so. and I realized the flip side of the frustration I felt in japan at not knowing what was going on: the fact that sometimes you don't really want to know what's going on. I guess I-pods or cell phones or other electronic devices are the current solution for being stuck in one's present reality. I'd rather find a way to make that reality pleasant somehow, but the old lady and the dude, whose name is Steven by the way (he has more of a role to play in this little story), made that pretty difficult. anyway, we boarded the plane, and I was yet again locked on to the rapid and inane utterances of mr. steven as he directed non-english speaking passengers in the seat in front of me how to load their luggage in the overhead compartments...in english... before... he realized.... that his seat was in MY row. yes, in fact, he realized with a start that he was seated right next to me. chest pains. severe mental hemorrhaging. initiate pre-traumatic stress syndrome, level five. he sits down. his mouth opens. it literally doesn't close till we touch down in Thailand, five hours later, and even then, after having been regaled about several of his boyfriends, his refurbished car and apartment business, his dispassion for work and his numerous hilarious stories in Bangkok involving prostitutes and sex changes, he continued talking to me right through customs, hoping that his floated offer of a place to stay for tonight 'since its getting late and you don't want to be clubbed over the head looking like a lost tourist in Ko San road' would be accepted, but it was politely and firmly declined; quite aside from him being an older gay man inviting me to his hotel for the night (and having previously mentioned how 'some straight guys just try it and realize they really like it'), I couldn't have stood another minute of his chatter. the man needs a clone of himself to realize just what its like to be on the other side of that barrage of chatter, into which one may at times enter, but only to but cut off, outdone or ignored... no, I guess it wasn't that bad really. I just spent about 30 baht describing it to you, but I maybe learned some useful information from him, and at least got practice in dealing with such people, and again realized 'there are worse things than being alone' (a quote from a favorite musician of mine, connor oberst). anyway, got out of the airport, talked to a nice old british fellow on the long bus ride into bangkok, whose streets are totally flooded with cars, and motorcycles weaving through the cars, and people crossing wherever and whenever they want, in stark contrast to japanese people waiting at a don't walk sign despite there being no traffic in either direction. got to Khao Sarn (say: koh san) road, the famed street for cheap accommodations suited to backpackers such as myself, booked into a place undoubtedly too expensive at 800baht a night (about 15 dollars), since there are apparently alright places in the area for 150, but I was tired and it seemed like a good idea not to jump into the thick of this adventure too quickly. to my credit, I did buy and eat a bag of roasted grasshoppers tonight from a street vendor--big ones, too, like 3 inches or so in length, legs all twisted from the frying... but actually, they were pretty good, if a little crunchy. and oh my god! there are so many street vendors here with so much good stuff! fresh papaya slices, 20 cents each! whole pineapples sliced up, 40 cents! spring rolls! beer! yakisoba! crepes! grasshoppers! I stopped at a little vegetarian restaurant and wanted to eat everything on the menu--ended up with some citrusy (citrusy? gimme a break, I've been speaking more japanese than english the last few months...) yellow veggie and tofu curry, and a bottle of Singtau beer, brewed here in Thailand
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