Bangkok Expat Mama

Frustration and Motivation

(Commenter TC: Please read the P.S. at the end of this post!)

Sigh. Let's see, where have I been for lo, these past three weeks? Plenty of cool and interesting and noteworthy things have been happening, but two main obstacles have prevented me lately from posting regularly.

Reason #1: Technical. My online ISP is the Telephone Organisation of Thailand, which provides excrutiatingly slow connections when the server's working...but it often isn't, making even the slow connection seem amazing by comparison. Very often I'll flop down after a long, productive day of romping around Bangkok and/or mommying, and the munchkins are tucked up cosily in bed, and I'm positively brimming with anecdotes and opinions to share...only to discover that I can't get online. Henh.

Of course I could still draft a post in word-processing mode, then post it later when the server's up. But I nearly always forget that option. Instead, wind taken out of my bloggy sails, I settle down to watch a pirated DVD or catch up on the stacks of reading awaiting my eyes. Not bad alternatives, but I ought to flex my writing muscles a little more often, no?

I've whinged on enough about TOT over recent months that readers might suppose, as I've got a personal vendetta by now against this poor, beleagured agency, that I should simply change ISPs. Well, it's not as simple as changing accounts. I've tried, and because TOT is a friggin' government agency, it only Scroogeishly doles out phone line concessions or whatever to private sector competition like True, KSC, and Buddy Broadband. The result is that at this point, no other ISPs can service my otherwise innocuous little subsoi in outer Sukhumvit. Dammit. I've called and called the other companies, begged and beseeched them, but they can't get a new phone line for my current address. Until we move in about four months, we're stuck with TOT and we're stuck with paying for 24/7 service but only enjoying roughly 10/4 service. So that's that. End of.

Reason #2: Mental. I've felt a little bit "Feh! Why bother?" lately at the end of days dotted with blog-worthy encounters of the Bangkok weird. (Believe me, this blog's fallow periods do not signify that life in the Land of Smiles has become quotidian. Perish the thought! Rest assured, you can still spot motorcycles here carrying, for instance, four family members, a computer monitor, and two chickens.) Nay, my blog seems to be suffering from a wee existential crisis.

Like, what is the point of Bangkok Expat Mama (BEM)? Lately it feels all over the road. But for which audiences am I writing? Have I described enough B, or is there too much E, and what about the M? Does the M part seem smarmy or charming, considering not all of my readers are parents? And where is the whole enterprise heading, anyway? I started the blog as a way for loved ones back home to see more of expat life here, but 18 months on, my most frequent commenters and visitors have proved, in fact, to be lovely people whom I've never met but who found the blog through Net searches. So...part of me feels slightly deflated that many of my fave, longest-running homies in the world still have no clue about my life (nor curiosity about other cultures -- or, to be fair, the time to investigate). And the other part of me enjoys entertaining strangers from hither and yon, especially when the blog helps people find information they need. (Readers have sent emails on quests ranging from bringing pet kitties into the Kingdom to hiring a baby car seat on Thai holiday, from hotel recommendations to recipe searches. I comply to the best of my ability.)

Call it a period of bloggy ennui. But just when I was poised to let the dang thing languish even further (i.e. yesterday), an email appeared from an assistant editor of the online component of National Geographic Traveler. She might mention my humble blog in a piece she's working on about Bangkok. Well, I declare! Suddenly a modicum of blog resolve has eturned: I'd better get crackin' on quirky Bangkok stories, restaurant shout-outs, traveling tips, etc., or else my 15 minutes of cyberspace celebrity might slip by. If I let the blog head south, the NG editor might change her mind and, Brahma forbid, mention The Lost Boy instead! (Well, I could deal with that cuz he's a good guy.)

So stick around, ladles and germs. Things could get interesting round here...

(Commenter TC: One of my dearest friends here runs the BAMBI [Bangkok Mothers & Babies International] website. [See Life in Thailand links in lefthand column.] Last week she told me that they've been having technical glitches while changing domains and doing all sorts of impressively complicated computer-y tasks I don't really grasp. She expects the site, at a new address still TBA, to be up and running next week. Meanwhile, good luck on your hunt for domestic help. I suggest checking Craigslist's Bangkok website; the notice boards at Villa Sois 33, 49, and 55; and newsletters for the large international schools in the area.)

The Wisdom of Douglas

(Himself [tall guy] does obligatory tank pose along with his boss [less tall guy] and boss's driver, Khun Suprien [guy in blue shirt]. They were disappointed to miss out on the dancing camouflage-clad damsels!)

I bumped into this kernel of wisdom last night:

"The major problem -- one of the major problems, for there are several -- one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarise: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarise the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

And so this is the situation we find: a succession of Galactic Presidents who so much enjoy the fun and palaver of being in power that they very rarely notice that they're not.

And somewhere in the shadows behind them -- who?

Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?"

Huh. A timeless passage, n'est-ce pas?

Actually I should say that this excerpt bumped into me, because I've been reading a bit of "The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" before going to sleep every night for the past few weeks. It's called "Ultimate" because this hardbacked tome comprises Douglas Adams's entire series of fantastic science fiction-meets-political-satire-meets-social-commentary-meets-sheer-comedy in 832 very heavy pages.

Despite loving every line of this literary gem, I occasionally start to nod off mid-read, in which case the anvil-like book drops -- smack! -- onto my face, thereby scaring the tar out of me and restoring a state of utter alertness. Oh, well, then I just read a little bit longer until feeling sleepy again; after all, who could rest without knowing if -- nay, how Ford and Arthur are going to outwit the natives of Golgafrincham?!

(BEM visitors who prefer parenting stories, recipes, life-in-Thailand tales, etc., will see their patience rewarded with imminent posts on chocolate cake, the new airport, and moving here with kitties in tow.)

See Dick Run

Betcha you're bracing yourself, due to the title of today's post, for an anti-Cheney polemic. Well, you can relax. I'll save that for another day. (What's fun about kicking someone when he's already down?)

No, today's blather addresses the minutiae of childhood. Little things, every day, magnify how my children's upbringing differs radically from mine and their Ohio-reared father's. Some of these things are delightful -- respectfully wai'ing elders upong greeting them, for instance -- and some make me wistful, such as our neighborhood being too trafficky and too concreted-over for the kids to roam, Tom Sawyer-like, and play kick-the-can and dart from friend's house to friend's house until suppertime. I have fond memories of doing things like that. Running around with my pack of buddies made me feel independent and capable, although I'm sure our parents were frequently (and discreetly) checking to make sure we hadn't started a bonfire in the Pettits' backyard or covered the Polins' car in shaving cream.

Lots of nifty, pleasant little pro's compete with the con's. Yesterday, Nathan had a stumper of a letter assortment for our game of Scrabble. He came up with "wat" on his own. ("Wat" is Thai for temple.) Now, when I was seven, I had no idea that any faiths existed beyond Jewish or Episcopalian, much less other languages' terms for their houses of worship. At Nathan's age I was learning "cat" and "ball". He's learning "soi" and "manao".

Of course, kids growing up in their home countries also can experience diversity, especially since the self-conscious but over-due emergence of a "multiculturalism" zeitgeist in the early 1990s. If a family and/or community remain complacently homogenous, however, young minds might develop a narrow view of the world...just as a bonsai tree, intentionally constricted, grows into a stunted shape.

Oops. Legions of bonsai fans, including BEM, consider the trees to be utterly charming flora. Strike that simile.

For third-culture kids, awareness of different beliefs, languages, and socio-economic circumstances is necessary and naturally come by. A dynamic mix is the norm. These kids become comfortable with differences and seem to take less heed of them. Does it really matter to my white-bread Alec if the Sikh kid sitting next to him in the sand pit is wearing his ritually-never-cut hair bunched up in a large topknot? Does Alec's trimmed hair offend his Sikh neighbor? Neither kid would glance twice. Alec only cares that Dev created an awesome sand castle, around which he's letting Alec push his trucks. See? Buddies for life.

Now if only we could give today's world leaders a healthy dose of "third-culture kid" perspective...

Cheer up, Cherub

It never fails. No matter how much my progeny might be whining, no matter how beastly hot the day may be, no matter how many things might be malfunctioning in our new (nightmare) flat -- no matter how hopeless life on this cruel floating marble might seem, a message in uniquely nuanced English, of which there are many in Bangkok, always can cheer me up. Maybe for just a moment between whines or blasts of traffic fumes, but a moment of cheer is better than wall-to-wall crankiness, no?

"Smoking, sleeping, and making loud noise are prohibited in this room." --sign spotted in the men's room at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club. (You may ask, why was BEM lurking about in a men's room? Progeny had finished pee'ing but had commenced throwing sink water all over each other; BEM had to enter the loo and disengage her boys before the floor got as slick as a UVA fraternity floor after Bid Night.) Per the RBSC's directive, you guys had better be sure you don't break wind with too much authority in there.

"You call me a cocksucker like it's a bad thing." --T-shirt logo worn by the young man who very kindly gave me his seat on the Skytrain when I was carrying heavy shopping bags. I plopped down, settled the bags, looked up to thank him, and -- whoa! -- stared right into the word "cocksucker". Methinks this considerate fellow had no idea what his shirt was broadcasting to the world.

"Beware of your belongings!" --sign at various Starbucks branches. Aaaaaagh, my purse is eating my hand! Awright, awright: I concede that someone at HQ must have clued in recently and changed the signs to say "Be aware...", but the original signs sure were cute while they lasted. Ouch! Watch out for that carniverous laptop!

"Poo Milk Cafe" --restaurant in Khon Kaen. Surely "Poo" (Crab) refers to the owner's nickname; or perhaps this place has patented a delicious crab-n-dairy concoction. Hmm.

"Taffy's Hairy Pie Club" --erm, an establishment on Sukhumvit Soi 22. So...whaddya think goes on there?

"Shaggers" --establishment in Jomtien Beach. Subtle, eh?

I seem to have segued from funny signs to strange place names. It's a Pandora's box, really. More on this soon. Meanwhile, watch out for your belongings -- those wallets can be sneaky things.

Sleep, Read, Sleep Some More

It's that time of year again. Pedro has taken the boys up to Surin, which lies about a 6-hour drive northeast of Bangkok, to see the Annual Elephant Round-up. Hundreds of mahouts bring their elephants every year to bond, network, share trade secrets, compete at football and tug of war, and re-enact military processions from the ancient days when elephants served in battle. The preceding list applies to mahouts AND their beasts. I'm sure that these noble, wise giants remember each other from attending year after year; they communicate among themselves while their human masters/trainers/companions are catching up at the same time. So it's a win-win for all.

This is the third year that Pedro has taken Nathan up there, but the first time that Alec has demanded to go as well. "I'm going to Surin, too. Me, too. I'm big now!" he proclaimed last week. He's old enough now to know when he's missing out on something, and as you might recall from an earlier post, he's certainly more keen on bonding with Dada these days, so we decided he could go, too...

...which meant that suddenly this weekend opened up ahead of me, like a great yawning maw of borrowed time to fill with whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted -- no schedules, no obligations, just me, me, meee! My mind was spinning with visions of sleep, sleep, and another helping of sleep; getting a facial; getting a foot massage (or two, if feeling truly decadent); reading on the opium sofa (see BKK Digs photo album in righthand column); reading in bed; reading at chic cafes; and reading my little brain out, period! Glamorous, eh?

So far the break has proceeded pretty much along the lines I'd hoped. Just a couple snags along the way. I stayed in pyjamas until 2pm yesterday: The horror! How slatternly! There has been much reading, loads of it, and yes, I indulged in a relaxing foot massage yesterday at the Soi 33 Wat Po branch and then again today (!) at Phunnee on Sukhumvit, near the Villa...

...which led to another treat I allowed moi-meme. A few steps away from Phunnee is a 20-year-old secondhand book store I've never entered. If ever there was a good time for a spontaneous book browse, this was it. After much dipping in and out of volumes (good practice for next Sunday's massive used book sale at the Neilson Hayes Library) and some pleasant bargaining with the proprietor, I left with Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's "Heat and Dust", Marian Keyes' "The Other Side of the Story", Woody Allen's "Getting Even", and a 1-week-old "Hello", all for 530baht. (For scale, a new "Hello" costs about 320baht at Villa.) So "ha!" to Distri-Thai, the distributor that marks up overseas publications to extortionate prices.

The major deviation from my plan, which included luxurious hours of shut-eye, was that I stayed glued to the computer until (gulp) 3am last night. After laughing my arse off at a pirated DVD of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" (the Best of Carson disc) until about 11pm, I made the mistake of checking "just a couple blogs" before bed...and then got sucked into the Google vortex of looking up names from my previous lives, like high school, college, graduate school, old neighborhoods. Doh! Note to self: Next time I conduct a "This is Your Life" a la Google, I must do it when the sun is shining. I mean, 3am?!

What spurred me on, one name leading to another, was partly knowing that no one needed me to fix breakfast or help put on a toy Bob-the-Builder toolbelt when the sun rose, and partly that so many of the former classmates and neighbors I looked up are succeeding fantastically in the outside, regular world (i.e. John Dickerson, alias "Dickie" back in his Elmo days; Brittain Stone, the nicest guy at the Hall; Sheba Crocker, who terrified me at field hockey, etc.). Happiness for them segued to envy and then to pique at myself for not following through on the career fantasies I had expected, long ago, to make real. I was going to be editorial page editor of the Washington Post! I was going to be a Dorothy Parker, minus the tragic personal life! Take the publishing world by storm, and all that. Classis mid-life crisis. I know, I know, how do you make God laugh? Answer: Have a plan. Life is funny like that.

Along those lines, I hadn't planned to attend tae kwon do this weekend. The big idea was to abandon schedules and obligations. But after sleeping in until 11-frickin'-30am (what did I expect, after bedding down at 3?!), playing hooky was not an option. My gut led me right with this decision. Kicking, jumping around, and sparring for an hour got my blood moving and reminded my body that this is daytime, that means we are awake now. Bodies must be awake if they intend to read away the rest of the day!

Unexpectedly, sparring went well for the first time, ever. Relatively speaking, that is. I felt less scared of getting accidentally zapped by someone's foot or fist, more focused on tapping the target (i.e. opponent's chest protector) with my own foot or fist. I realized today that my legs are longer than most of the women's in the class, so I should make use of that length, tap them and slide away before they can get close to me. Hm. Interesting.

Well, enough about me. Must go call my boys before their bedtime in Surin. It's weird to think that at this time we're usually lying across Alec's bed, reading bedtime stories. Right now exactly. I can't wait to hear about their adventures with the elephants in Surin. But until tomorrow afternoon, I will continue to sleep and read and...no more Googling people!

"Where Are You Pranning to Eat Runch?"

...Which is a perfectly normal thing to ask a friend after finishing up tae kwon do at 11:30am. But for some reason, when my buddy asked me that yesterday, a realization hit me like lightning: Not only have I become completely used to "L" and "R" sounds being interchangeable here, but also the resulting whimsical turns of phrase still tickle my funnybone.

And that's a good thing, considering every day I hear my name pronounced as Rye-rrr, Liar, Rye-ell, and Lion (the last one because in Thai language, when a word's last consonant ends in "L", it's pronounced as an "N"). The last name? Sin-lahd Warrr-ter. Of course I manage my own mangling of many Thai surnames, to wit: Srisrirungsimakul (as in Nuttaporn S., a writer for Guru magazine). At least everybody on all sides seems humored by the others' attempts to say everyone's names properly! Generally my Thai friends and acquaintances appreciate my attempts as I do theirs.

That being the case, I'd like to share a few choice examples of how pronunciation of English here can yield amusing results:

"Thank you for frying with us; we hope you had a nice fright!" -- extremely gracious Thai Airways flight attendants

"Crap your hands! Come on, everybody! Let's crap!" -- various LIttle Gym leaders, encouraging the tykes to...defecate on their hands, or clap along with the fun music?

"Daily Section" -- What, a newspaper? No, the sign above the area for milk, yogurt, butter, etc., in the Villa supermarket

"Ah! Crub Grow!" -- enthusiastic taxi driver while driving past a popular nightclub called "Club Glow"

"It's the house on the light." "You mean near a traffic light?" "No, ON the light." "Near a street light?" "ON the light. You know, where it IS. Not the reft, the light!" -- friend giving me directions to her new house

My pronunciation of Thai probably sounds even funnier than these examples. Thai language has five tones (middle, low, high, rising, and falling), and even how short or long one stretches a vowel can change a word's meaning. Thus my true intentions are often more discernible by context than by linguistic accuracy. I can never be quite sure that a query such as, "When will mango season begin?" won't sound like, "Has your toaster oven broken wind on Tony Blair's tulips?" 

 

Long-haul Travel Primer Part II

Circumstances That Can Mitigate Stress on Long-haul International Flights

1. Remember the earnest, chatty American dude that I had pegged as some sort of zealot? Well, he turned out to be merely friendly (either that or he sensed my fear) and, after the initial conversational phantasmagoria, settled himself into his own movies and reading material for the (16-hour) remainder of the journey. Thank Brahma.

2. Let me describe Thai Airways' (hereafter referred to as TG) jet for their new non-stop service between Bangkok and New York's JFK. First, the plane is new and scrupulously maintained. Boarding this bird, passengers probably feel the same giddy reverse-schadenfreude one feels when entering a brand-spankin'-new car: oh, the possibilities! I mean, it even smells new.

And don't get me started on TG's Economy Class service on this route. It was superb. It was my most comfortable, least torturous international long-haul flight EVER. Not only do the seats tip back a little bit more than any economy seat my tushie has ever graced, but also the seat part slides forward a bit. Until you sit in a seat that performs this small wonder you might not realize how truly sadistic and rapacious are the airline executives who toss ergonomics research into the circular file for the sake of squeezing three more rows onto a plane. I say, let the seats tip back, dammit!

Also, the food and entertainment options are better than not bad. More on that below.

3. Satisfying grub. The chow in economy was uniformly scrumptious, at least the options I tried. I've forgotten by now most of what I ate during the trip to the States and back; all that's left is the memory of my delight at tucking into some gorgeous meals and gratitude not to be treated like a cretin for -- gasp! -- slumming it back in economy. Often the food looks unappetizing or, worse, looks OK but then tastes horrible. Not the case on these TG flights. Dining well during a 17-hour trip boosts one's morale a great deal.

4. Due to TG's abysmal marketing techniques (read: apparently consisting solely of billboards in Bangkok), this express flight between Bangkok and JFK is often not full. To savvy travelers, that means potentially snagging a neighboring seat for stretching out during the flight. Well, durned if BEM didn't manage to do just that, there AND back. (I was particularly crafty on the return: My 4-seat row already included three men; the row in front of mine had only one woman, next to the far aisle. I moved to the empty aisle seat ahead of mine and when it turned out no one else was seated there, the free neighboring seat was mine, all mine, ha HA! That, my friends, was a key snag.) Omigod, what a difference that made. What long-haul heaven to feel even remotely horizontal for hours at a time. It shouldn't feel like luxury to promote healthy blood circulation to your brain, man. It should be a right of all long-haul economy passengers everywhere.

4. I flew equipped with copious amounts of moisturizer. Lots of it. Slathered it on at frequent intervals during the looong flight. Saves your face from feeling like it's gonna fall off by the time you arrive 12 time zones away from your origin.

5. I came armed with loads of magazines, ranging from political and cultural commentary to utter rubbish, i.e., the New Yorker, the Economist, the International Herald Tribune, "O", Australian Women's Weekly, Hello!, New Idea, Star, and OK!. How could anyone get bored with such literary yumsters lying about?

6. Well, occasionally my eyes did weary of reading. And when that happened, there was TG's trusty in-flight video entertainment, which even to us lowly economy passengers was offered on-demand (major score!) and covered an impressive array of genres. Me, I chose "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", which was a real tickle and proved to be even better than expected (I read the book after my hip niece Michaela, age 13, recommended it), and 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", which was a must-see as it stars Mos Def, Sam Rockwell, and "The Office" alum Martin Freeman. Well, the film suited my half-crazed state of mind at the time. I loved it! On the return, I went for golden oldies: "West Side Story" and "Saturday Night Fever". The music selection is also diverse. I listened to mesmerizing Arabic songs, trying to pick out the words I could recall from studying it 13 years ago.

See, that's all we beleagured long-haul travelers need: neighbors who mind their own business; yummy vittles; two seats for sleeping and overall health; moisturizer; good reads; fabulous flicks, and enchanting tunes. Is that so much to ask?