Bangkok Reflections, 2011 - part II

I’m sitting outside this morning at the Khao Sarn Starbucks which is tucked away off a side street from the main drag, where the tourists & travellers already browse the vendors’ various wares in a haphazard, groggy fashion. It would be nearly impossible to find this Starbucks if you didn’t already know where it was; and that makes it a wonderful location to get away & think... while you’re waiting for your suits to finish being tailored. To my left, sitting by the front door to the coffee shop is a white Siamese cat who is staring at me with its pale blue eyes. A few of its kittens gathered together, and as a group, they’ve now just strolled off around the corner.

Cats in Thailand are scarce, which to the uninitiated may seem strange. Dogs, on the other hand, are practically everywhere. It’s been an interesting observation that during this trip, the number of soi dogs (and their associated “kee ma,” or “dog crap” in English) both in Nonthaburi & in greater Bangkok altogether has been much lower than while I was living here—or even when I visited last year.  The two dogs on GES campus, Daeng (Thai for ‘red’)—who was affectionately called “Nipples” by the foreign staff, owing to her many pregnancies & the ensuing udder-like underbelly from feeding many pups—and her mate no longer exist. They apparently started biting people last year & needed to be shipped out. Rumour has it that the male found his way back to GES once, which required another relocation. I, for one, do not miss the mangy mutts: the campus seems much cleaner & more professional without them.

General Observations

The visit has been different for many reasons already this year. Rain in March is rare, however, we’ve had some pretty good downpours over the past few days—the type of rain you’d expect to get in June or July where waterfalls appear off of roves & arid streets look more like canals than places for cars. This hasn’t really happened in my experience before Songkran, the Thai Water Festival that marks the traditional lunar calendar’s New Year. Why is it a water festival? Well, usually, the second week in April marks the hottest, driest time of the year. Water & mud made from talcum powder are used to cool everyone down, and it’s generally a mark of friendship & goodwill to drench other people during the national celebration. 2011’s weather  is shaping up to be a definite exception to this rule of dry hotness.

Another quite noticeable difference is the way that this year’s foreign staff interact with each other and their demographics. There’s a surprising amount of family members comprising the faculty, either through marriage or through blood, which makes the single population very scarce. Also, it appears to be that the teachers don’t go out for supper together—either to Sombat’s or Rose’s—like we used to in a big group. People eat at home & generally do their own thing unless it involves a get together for playing board games or watching a movie over at the McLatchers’ place. The staff room this year tends to be only used for work & not as the GES “town square” where people gather to communicate & collaborate. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; just a difference from years gone by. I suspect that much of this is due to all of the pre-existing connections which trump any need to connect en masse with the greater group ...or maybe I’m just coming at a busy time of the year when finals are being marked & report cards being compiled. Y’never know ; )

Reconnections

I’ve been quite fortunate to have met up with several of my friends scattered throughout S.E. Asia in such a short amount of time. It’s been really great to catch up with old friends & swap new stories about life, learnings, struggles & hopes to come. As we all know so well, life’s pace knows nothing of respite: our stories grow and change from day to day and minute to minute without any need for us to push it along. The simple truth is that, through sharing stories, we remain interconnected; without this communication, the inevitable life-drift captures each of us with its tidal force and fractures our trajectories as we make our way toward the common ultimate end.

My first day back, I had an opportunity to sit down with a friend who’s living in Chiang Mai, serving and working with Compassion International. She’s recently had a change in roles within the office, working more as a copy editor these days than going out in the field with sponsors to visit the operating projects. Life for her is changing, and the future flux that she sees/feels makes her unsettled—you can see it in her face when she speaks. There is a struggle deep inside her soul, but one which she’s thoroughly equipped to overcome—you see that in her face as well. The foundation on which she stands is firm; she knows where her strength lies and the peace, the stalwart endurance, the faithful hope and the resolute passion produced from her faith in Jesus blossom forth with unmistakeable radiance amidst the shadowy struggle and the uncertainty of her current spot in life’s adventure. And as adventures go, she journeyed onward, back up to Chiang Mai the next day, ready to brave the next phase of her life, her work, her calling.

The following day, I spent the afternoon with another friend, Matt, who’s operating an orphanage in Siem Reap, Cambodia. He was in Bangkok for a short visit, part of which was motivated by gathering supplies for the orphans back in Cambodia. We met up with one of our mutual friends downtown who had recently moved back to Bangkok from living in Australia. Since her return, she’s opened up a clothing store in one of the malls with her sister & has plans on pursuing a Master’s Degree with her cut of the profit. Her face & her heart were filled with joy as we chatted over lunch, despite some difficult circumstances through which she’s weathered in the past few months. The life, the vigour & zest that she exuded was unmistakeable and even somewhat contagious! It was a vigorous joy that I have often missed in many of my daily interactions at work; a vigorous joy that is derived solely from the spiritual wholeness she’s received from the One who redeems all things. It was wonderful to watch her carry on as she did, and as we got up from the table to begin the next phase of our afternoon, she showed no signs of slowing down in the freedom with which she walked.

After flagging down a taxi outside of MBK, we hopped in & ventured off to Samsen, the Chinese district of Bangkok. Our mutual friend explained, between several random pauses where breathed the scent from a Bath & Body Works lotion she’d requested I bring from North America, that China Town would be the best place to get some beads for cheap that Matt would be taking back to Cambodia for the orphans to make necklaces with. All of the proceeds from selling the necklaces would go toward creating a college fund for the orphans under his care. As we were shopping for these beads, the three of us together in a crowded side-street, one Thai woman sandwiched between two blond haired, blue eyed white guys, floating upstream in a torrent of local shoppers all seeming to walk the other direction, he spoke about the developments in the orphanage & about his vision for whole-person well-being in the kids. Matt asserted that a lower child-to-staff ratio was paramount in providing stability and emotional health for the children’s personal identities. A sponsor had approached him to double the size of the orphanage provided that they first increase the number of children in the facility’s care, which caused a struggle in Matt, as he eagerly wants to help more children but needs to maintain the staffing ratios required for his vision. He went on to mention that he was drafting a proposal to this sponsor to see what could possibly be done. Amidst our tight-packed shopping walk & talk, we stumbled upon our third and final bead store. After a short conversation (half in English, half in Thai) with the shop-keeper about why we were buying beads and what would become of them, we struck a deal.

45 minutes later, the three of us together walked away with about 40 pounds of polished stone & plastic beads. We merged back into the stream of flowing shoppers, bulging bags in hand, and rode the commerce current until we spilled out of the tight side-street, only to meet a glacial wall of iron-hot traffic as far as the eye could see. With the wave of an arm, we hopped into a nearby taxi that was idling in the gridlock. Escaping the loud, hot, bustling street air, we transitioned, each on our separate paths, one last time through the communal, quiet & cool drive toward the Sky Train stations downtown.