"Jai Yen": cool heart

Dear Friends,

In my post of 2 weeks ago, I was talking about what a safety-minded dame I am, even in the context of having quit my tenure-track professorship to move across the world to Bangkok.  To follow up on that theme, I seem to be the only person in Thailand who cares much about traffic safety.

People here don't use seat belts.

Vehicles here don’t even have seat belts, except in the front seat.

Not even on the school vans.

When I am in a taxi with others, I will ride in the back so as to be able to talk with friends. But when I am by myself, I always take the driver rather aback by climbing into the front seat to sit with him--the shotgun seat is the only one with a seatbelt.  

Likewise with bike helmets.  When I tried to buy one, I couldn’t find one large enough for my head; they were all in children’s sizes (and one store wouldn’t even sell me a bike mirror, insisting that they were only for children).  I have to have a sense of humor about the fact that my eyeglasses are “Barbie Doll” brand.  That and “Hello Kitty” were the ones that would fit my teeny tiny little head. If I couldn’t get my western hips into a Thai accessory, that would be one thing, but my head?? When I finally found an adult helmet and bought it, it felt so cheap and useless that I ended up borrowing an American one from a colleague who wasn’t using hers.  (Side note to my mother: yes, “bike helmet” is on the list I am compiling of things I’ll ask you to bring me when you come to visit this winter)

This brings me to the next surprising thing: Americans, Brits, Canadians, and Australians all seem get off the plane and say “Woo Hoo!  No more of those pesky safety standards!” I’ve grown accustomed to seeing entire Thai families all piled onto one scooter, kids balanced complacently, everyone having a good time.  But I still do a double-take when I see all my colleagues riding scooters, bicycles, and even motorcycles without helmets.  Then again, the result is that there was a helmet available for me to borrow on a long term basis, so I’m benefiting from this.  I suppose that everyone who is drawn to international teaching has a cowboy or cowgirl streak to some degree, but mine doesn’t extend as far as riding without a helmet or a seatbelt.  

My friend AK, who has traveled extensively in India, gave me the excellent advice that when I am a motor vehicle passenger and I find myself alarmed by the driver’s total non-adherence to traffic laws, I should try to think of myself as being in a chase scene in an adventure movie. That way, I can try to enjoy a death-defying ride instead of just being terrified that I’m going to be one of Bangkok's many traffic accident victims.

To be fair, I haven’t experienced anything like the kind of life-threatening journeys that she described (and don't wish to do so).  I’m always just bemused that Bangkok drivers, as a matter of course, will turn a one-lane road into a two-lane road by driving on the shoulder, or drive in the oncoming lane for half a block or so if it’s convenient.  You get the idea.

Here’s the amazing thing: as congested as the traffic is in Bangkok, and as idiosyncratic as the drivers are, nobody honks.  It is considered rude.  I live in a gated neighborhood, and on occasion I have rung my bike bell when approaching the gates, when I get the impression that the guards haven’t noticed me.  I have been in suspense one too many times about whether the gate is going to open or whether I’ll need to brake suddenly, but I’m reconsidering this practice.  I’ll need to check with a colleague more familiar with Thailand than I.  What is practical at home may be deemed terribly aggressive here.

Regarding the astonishing combination of bad traffic, eccentric driving, and no honking, one of the values that Thai culture highly esteems is jai yen, to have a “cool heart.”  It helps maintain the smooth workings of daily social interaction if people avoid feeding their hot-headedness, or, to give a literal definition, hot-heartedness (jai ron means “hot heart”).  The flip side is that this can lead to passive aggressiveness, or conflict-avoidance in other unproductive ways, but on the whole, I’m a big fan of the concept, and trying to be a novice practitioner.  To have a cool heart--it’s a good goal.

Another Thai cultural attitude that I’m trying to adopt is that of mai pen rai, which translates as “don’t worry,” or “it doesn’t matter.”  It’s an expression people use to shake off disagreement or aggravation.  Thais are famously tolerant, and part of this is that they cultivate an un-begrudging approach to engagement.  The attitude is that most things aren’t worth getting upset about.  Again, there can be a downside to this mentality (some things are worth getting upset about), but there’s a lot to be said for it.  

In closing, I’m attaching some photos of myself, from a friend’s birthday celebration.  This is a group of my coworkers, and we are out at Nest, the rooftop bar at LeFenix Hotel (and in the blurry shot, looking up at the mirrored ceiling of the elevator).  

And here I am with my buddy AG (fellow newcomer, Psychology and Creative Writing teacher) at the school’s “Welcome Back” party.

It was at a swanky hotel--ice sculpture of the school’s logo and all. The woman in the photo is Sudha, the Deputy Head of School, who hired me, so I’m a big fan.  

The Belated Photos from the Last Post

Bangkok's decoration in celebration of the Queen's Birthday

Alleyway in Chinatown

This is a Buddhist Temple, but you can see the Daoist influences in the Chinese figures in the front rows of the altar below.  In the back row, the Buddhas are arranged both to tell a story, and also to align with the Hindu astrological days of the week (the two "extra" are Rahu and Ketu). A visitor to the wat then makes an offering into the bowl that matches the figure who is in the position of his or her day of birth, so I made an offering in front of the "Friday/Venus" figure.  I appreciate what an inclusive religion Buddhism is.

River View from Hotel

In case you were wondering whether "anything goes" in Bangkok, apparently there are some activities that are discouraged in taxicabs, as you can see from this sticker.

And to my friend DE, who asked for a picture of me eating a scorpion, it'll be a long wait.  But here are some photos of fried insects for sale. The opportunity to take photos of said bugs was also for sale, which makes you know it was for tourists  

Signing off from Krung Thep,

Fiona

Krung Thep: "City of Angels, Great City of Immortals"

Dear Friends,

Bangkok's official title, in Pali and Sanskrit, goes on for quite awhile. I just gave the first few passages of its long name above; the abbreviation "Krung Thep" is the Thai name for the city.

I’ve been here for 3.5 weeks, which is hard to believe in that it seems both like such a short time and such a long time.  Asians are comfortable with paradox, and I suppose I’m embracing that mentality.

Monday will start the 3rd week of classes, which is a wildly misleading number.  The first day of classes was Thursday, August 7th, and then the we got a 4-day weekend, because the following Monday was Mother’s Day (in honor of the Queen), and Tuesday was the Queen’s birthday.  So the term started with a 2-day week followed by a 3-day week.  This is a civilized system.

Most of my colleagues went off traveling over the holiday, but I myself went to city center Bangkok, to be a tourist.  My school and neighborhood are in the boondocks of the city, which makes for clean air (in a notoriously polluted city) and a serene environment, but also for a feeling of isolation.  One can get astonishingly good rates on gorgeous hotel rooms, so it isn’t extravagant for a middle-class gal to go stay for a few nights in a 5 star hotel in what is technically her own city.  I will try to make a point of getting into Bangkok proper for a night or a weekend at least once a month, so I don’t get too narrowly-focused here in Min Buri (the district where the Ruamrudee International School is located).

I am having trouble synching my Android phone to my Mac computer (you’re getting the theme, right, that tech issues are not my strong suit?), so until I get that figured out, I can’t upload the photos that I took over my holiday.  My friends therefore will have here the “thousand words” and not the “picture” that ideally substitutes for them, in the famous formulation.  

I had contacted a Facebook friend who is a longtime Bangkok resident, LR, to ask if he would like to meet in person, while I was staying in his neighborhood. He and his girlfriend invited me to join their Saturday excursion to take another couple on a tour of the tea shops of Chinatown.  

It was so great to meet new people, to hear the insights, tips, and suggestions of Bangkok denizens (the two men were American and German, respectively, and the two women were Thai), and to make some friends who have nothing to do with my job.  

I’m especially sorry not to be able to attach the Chinatown photos here, but I’ll be in Bangkok for several years, so there will be other opportunities.  It was total sensory overload, in a great way (unlike the shopping malls, which are total sensory overload in a jarring way).  

When we took a break from the crowded streets in a delightful, air-conditioned, quiet tea shop (our third on the tour), I brought out my hand-sanitizer, as I habitually do, and offered it around.  The two women and the American each took some, with surprised gestures of “Oh, you do that? How quaint.”  The German just laughed good-naturedly and declined, saying that I was new to the country, and would soon learn not to worry about such things (after getting sick once or twice).  

I definitely seem to care more about sun protection here than anyone else does,  but that can be the case elsewhere, too.  In Arkansas, people thought it was so peculiar that I always wore a hat to protect my skin that they would ask me at night, or indoors, why I wasn’t wearing my hat, since apparently that was such a thing for me.  People considered that to be a deep eccentricity of mine, and commented on it constantly.  I still seem to be the only person around who wears a hat (those of us with Irish and German ancestors fall somewhere on the spectrum between vampire and albino, and therefore can’t be cavalier), and I daresay I’ll continue to be someone who also pulls out the hand sanitizer.  For all that my new friend anticipated my developing a devil-may-care attitude to match his own, I’ll emphasize the word “new” in the above description.  He doesn’t know me very well!  Germ protection,  skin protection, bug spray . . . I try to be prepared.  

Which brings me to my next point: I did register with the State Department’s “Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP),” so that they have all of my contact information in case of emergency.  (Everyone should do this when traveling abroad:  https://step.state.gov/step/).  Three years ago, RIS was closed for 5 weeks due to bad flooding in Bangkok, and the school evacuated all the teachers to the beach for that time.  People taught their classes via the web and made the best of a weird situation.  Should anything happen that would require me to leave town, I’ve been assured that the school would handle everything. And should I find myself feeling unsafe and thinking that regardless, I should take steps on my own, I live near the airport and can hop a plane to Singapore, or wherever, and sort out from there what my next move should be.

A dame who always ventures forth with sunscreen, a hat, and antibacterial gel isn’t one to take serious risks, even though she’s enjoying this great adventure of living abroad.  

During my downtown Bangkok weekend, I stopped in to one of the English-language bookstores (the only part of the mall that I truly enjoyed), and gleefully perused the “South East Asia” shelves of the Travel section.  In mid-October, I have to attend an IB training workshop in Jakarta, and I was happy to realize that it takes place the weekend before our week-long October break, so I can stay in Indonesia with my plane fare paid-for and enjoy a real visit before returning home.  (When I mention this to co-workers, every single one responds, “So you’ll go to Bali?”  Message received; I guess that’s the thing to do.)  It felt so exciting to be reading about all the places to which I will travel during my time here in SE Asia.

And to return to my point above about hotel prices, one can do these things on a teacher’s salary, here.  Stay in great hotels, go on international trips, head to beach resorts on every long weekend, take taxis everywhere, eat out as often as one likes, get massages/foot rubs/pedicures on a regular basis, etc.  It’s a strangely luxurious life, yet one that is sometimes combined with a vexatious absence of Western comforts--clothes dryers, hot water heaters, and in my case, an indoor kitchen!  My townhouse’s big drawback is that it has a traditional Thai kitchen in a nook out the back door. I insisted that the landlord put in a glass door, to seal it off from bugs, etc, and he seemed surprised by the request.  The newly installed door does make it much better, but all the same, it’s hard for Westerners to imagine such a thing: a lovely, clean, modern, new home without an indoor kitchen.  It feels like camping, except with a roof over my head.

When faced with such things, I’m trying to adopt an open-minded perspective: “Oh, that’s one of the ways they do things here?  How interesting!  I did come half-way around the world to try new things, so it’s good, in a way, that I’m not just reproducing familiar experiences.”  Sometimes it’s an effort, and I have to work my way out of what can be my default mode: “This sucks. Why don’t they do things the right way, the real way, the way we do it back in America?”

Because it’s a different country/culture/continent, and I’m here to expand my horizons. And boy, am I ever!