Backfire

So to those religiously (Christian) or festively minded :-), Merry Christmas :-). I hope you had a great day, spent time with your friends/family, and ate dinner together ;-)! My Christmas was really nice. Some friends and I ate Chinese food, and we exchanged gifts while the restaurant customers looked on with amusement. When I won a 'Hello Kitty' pillow in the gift draw, everyone in the restaurant cheered :-). It was a great memory :-).

Now, New Years is here, and I wanted to take the opportunity to jot down a couple of lists. I'm not sure how it will go over :-), but I figure after 1+ years in Bangkok, I needed to write a couple Top 10 Lists :-P. In my notebook I have scribbled down some ideas on my top likes and dislikes in the new hometown/country. I wanted to write them down on the blog, and examine why they irk/excite me :-).

Being an enthusiastic, eternal optimist, I think I want to end the year on a positive note with a post Monday or Tuesday, so today is my top 10 dislikes in the City of Angels/Thailand. This list is not all-inclusive, but these are at the top. They are in no particular order, just how they came to me... I will try to keep the harsh words (invective) to a minimum.

Ok, with no further ado, here we go:

1. Straws - Do you guys ever go to 7/11 here? I got an email a while ago from a reader that was surprised Bangkok had 7/11s. Americans are sheltered :-P. Yeah so, like probably most people in Bangkok, I go to 7/11, and am consistently exasperrated by the young Thai people that work there. My problem is the straw, and now that I mention it, the plastic bag too. Every time you buy a drink, the cashier always provides you a straw and a bag with that drink. You can request that the straw/bag combination be kept, but I assure you, most people will just look at you quizzically. Thereafter, they will put the water bottle and straw in your bag, like you didn't even tell them that it was rejected. I need to be more forceful, "No, I do not want that straw or that plastic bag!!!" Lol, instead I get it anyway, along with one plastic bag and straw for every bottle of water I buy. Ayyyyaaaa :-).

I was hoping to read something on the Thai involvement in the climate change summit last week in Norway, I was crossing my fingers that Prime Minister Abhisit might agree to corral the workers at 7/11. I'm still waiting.... I wonder how Prime Minister Abhisit drinks his bottled water?

2. Pollution- Ok, this one is overdone, and well-known. People around the world are generally familiar with Bangkok's pollution and traffic problems. I just want to put in my two cents: the afternoons are the worst :-(. If you want to get from one place to another between 3:00 and 7:00p.m., I'd advise bringing some hand sanitizer, facial cleanser, and/or a gas mask. The pollution from the factories (I live not far from an industrial center :), the traffic, and the local lady grilling her chicken will rock your world. She is always smoking, that chicken lady...

3. Planning- So maybe if there was like some kind of plan (not sure if people would follow, but you can try), the pollution problem could be mitigated. Maybe the amount of cars could be limited, pollution controls could be enacted, or we could just all agree to ride bicycles. That's just a thought, but I think the Thai in charge would smile, nod their head, and move quickly to the Mercedes parked outside, instructing their people to avoid the 'climate-change crazy' at all costs.
Btw, who's to say that even if plans were enacted here, people would follow the rules. I don't know what the exact aversion is to thoughtfully planning government projects, but I suspect one problem might be actually enforcing the (any) law here. People don't think the rules apply, or they have enough cash on hand to know the rules don't really matter. Have cash? Go ahead, break the law. How many rich drug dealers or child molesters do you read about in Thai jail?

4. BTS (The Bangkok Skytrain)- Here's a Thai 'planning' case in point. I am just going to say this first, "I do not like the BTS." You can quote me :-P. Lol, I do want to point out that I think the mass transit idea is excellent. Ultimately, it has to be the solution when addressing an already overcrowded city, dealing with a burgeoning population. I think it was a great idea! The issue with the BTS, however, is that it's not in the hands of planners. Case in point, my boyfriend and I were going to a restaurant near Wong Wian Yai two months ago, and we rode the Rot Fai Fa (Skytrain). The time was around 6:30 p.m. so the cars were packed (uncomfortably) with people (is that a banana in your pocket). About two stops prior to our exit, the train came to a halt, and didn't move for 25 minutes! The air-conditioning became warm and stale; people were coughing; kids were crying, (a gay nightmare) etc. I asked my boyfriend why we were stopped, and he said that the planners for the project didn't realize that the skytrain would be expanded, so they didn't build two adjoining tracks at some stations (even though they had plans for many other BTS lines all over Bangkok 10 years ago, (sigh)). That means that one train will have to stop while waiting for others to pass at the point where tracks actually run parallel. He said sometimes people wait a long time.

"Don't worry," he said smiling, "they're buying five more trains next year so the problem should be solved." "What about the other lines, are they building?" I asked. "There's no news about that, but the new trains are supposed to be really beautiful." Then, he winked. Indeed.

5. Thai lines (queues?)- I actually first noticed this on the BTS my first couple days in Thailand. Many people did not wait in a line when boarding the train. If you were standing there waiting for the next car, a Thai person might just slip right in front of you to board and get a seat. At first, I thought it might just be a couple rude people, but the more I looked, the more I noticed it --- Impatience is everywhere. It doesn't matter how many people are waiting, no one really stands in line. I've seen it in the convenience stores, waiting to purchase my Oishi green tea (bag and straw included). I've also seen it while my friend drives, everyone cutting in and out of dense traffic, no one staying in a lane that is waiting; thereafter, huge traffic jams piling up. Maybe someone can enlighten me on this, but I still can't understand why a line or queue is so strange to the Thai (I saw it in China too btw).

I've seen the rules at BTS Stations in English and Thai, encouraging people to wait in line, away from the fronts of doors, so passengers can easily exit the train. It sounds nice in practice, but no one follows these rules (Number 3 :-P), so they generally use a bullhorn and whistle to corral Thai people in some form of order during rush hours. I've seen that alot lately, the whistle is used extensively to herd the masses. It might be just me too, but I also noticed something else about the Thai people that don't wait in line: they're the ones always carrying a Siam Paragon shopping bag or driving their shiny black Mercedes. Maybe I'm just sensitive though.

6. Thai consumerism- If you haven't noticed it, the Thai like the 'good things in life' and those usually involve something they can have. The hi-so people who are lucky enough to enjoy the 'good things' usually love to flaunt it too. I cannot begin to describe this lifestyle of Thai people or their 'culture,' so I invite you to read the numerous magazines in Bangkok centering on the Bangkok hi-so. It's definitely different from the average Thai living in the city; I don't think the hi-so Thai ride the bus.... Anyway, their pictures and their social events (the new Hugo Boss collection, Prada Opening, Burberry coats, etc.) are quite beautiful and extravagant, making most Thai people who read comment excitably. It makes me a bit squeamish. Not because it is so Thai, but because it is so human. Everywhere I go, people want to live in 'luxury' and they want to look like a beautiful actor/actress/rich person. The issue is that only the rich people usually get it, and it usually comes to second/third generation moneyed families. This might not be so much Thai, it's just that it's everywhere else I go. Maybe this is a disappointment not about Bangkok/Thailand, but about my travels? Maybe it's a problem with me.

7. Bangkok Post- You might wonder why I read about these hi-so people and their lifestyle? Well, I have to say that I mostly find it in the Bangkok Post magazines. Actually, I can find all kinds of articles about the newest hotels, the hottest play spots, and the newest products that will make my skin glowing white on the glossy pages of the Post. All of it sounds and looks so lovely, so happy, and so utterly fake, that I cannot honestly take seriously much of what I read from the Post's 'serious news.' Maybe I'm jaded, but the stories and opinions I find in the paper are often slanted greatly in favor of the moneyed. That might have something to do with Post ownership. Then again, everybody has their opinion and might disagree with me. Maybe the yellow shirts think the Post is too harsh on them. I am just going to say that I am not a huge fan.
I will say this, if I ever need to find a hotel in Bali or where the 'fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra is,' I can usually find that news in the Post.

8. Ceremony- Wow, this is getting long. Ok I'll try to shorten this one. Every time I seem to go to a ceremony in Thailand, there has to be a part during the festivities where we honor the person who has the most money or who has some form of government power. Take a recent honor for the teachers day. We had a ceremony at my last school that required all students to honor their teachers. I thought that sounded like an interesting idea, but it was kind of disappointing. When I arrived for the ceremony, I saw that the 'owner' of the school was placed in a form of golden chair to sit at the front of our large auditorium, and all students were required to spend most of the ceremony waiing and kneeling in front of her, providing her various forms of offerings and flowers. I'm not sure what that really had to do with teachers, and I thought it was kind of strange. Then again, maybe I was jealous :-P.

9. Ethnocentrism/Racism- I've written about this before, but I can't get over how many people base their opinions on skin color. Yesterday, I walked by some students that commented on my intense 'whiteness' and went on to talk about how to get that 'white.' I also saw an African-American male lose out on a job opportunity because people thought he was from "Africa." A couple months ago, I also heard a story from my Thai friend about a school principal that could not get over the color of a South African fellow he hired to teach English. "You're lucky," the principal supposedly said, "you must have only gotten white blood and very little of the black in you." That is just wrong. I love how the Thai people often tell westerners that we need to understand their ways better and to accept cultural differences (the way they accept and understand South Africans :-)). That is interesting and important (for many reasons), but there are some things I just can't accept. Some things really are just wrong.

10. Foreigner laws- Ok last one. I'm running out of steam :-). The Thai people are always pleading for westerners to attempt greater understanding of Thai culture and practice. That is quite interesting to me, especially when I evaluate the laws applicable to foreigners living here. We can't own property. We can't own a majority stake in a business. Loans and police treatment are different for foreigners, and there is no insurance protection for foreign children born here. Those children, moreover, are not granted Thai citizenship even if they've never lived anywhere else. They might speak Thai, feel Thai, and love Thailand, but they are still considered 'outsiders.' I would like to point out that none of these laws encourage foreigners to attempt greater understanding of the Thai culture and people. In my opinion, they just create resentment and further divisiveness for westerners living here and those looking in to Thailand. That might be the idea behind the laws. If so, ok.

I have also heard that the laws are used to protect the Thai people and the Thai way of life from foreign influences. Ok too, but then how do you explain the Chinese people who arrived here over five or six generations. Those people, for the most part, seem to be doing pretty well here (See Number 6 and 7 :-P), and their culture has most certainly infiltrated ideas and lifestyles of the Thai.

Ok, I'm going to leave it at that for today. Next time, I want to talk about the top 10 positives I've encountered over the past year here. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Merry Kwanzaa. Sorry if missed one by the way, you're welcome to tell me :).