Nam tuam means “water floods.”  It is rainy season in Khrungthep and while that in and of itself is quite usual, given the significant rainfall we’ve had in the mountains to the north, the entire Kingdom has been experiencing a slow-moving flood.  First the Chiang Mai area, then Sukhothai, then last week Ayutthaya.  Now Khrungthep is beginning to see the very high waters.  And on a day when it rains heavily, that water – already challenged by an inadequate drainage system and a low elevation – has nowhere to go.

Late afternoon I had coffee with Kazu one soi down from my apartment.  It started raining while we were there and already the water was ankle-deep in some places by the time I headed home.  Standing on the corner trying to figure out the best way to cross the water, dozens of large cockroaches were emerging from the cracks in the pavement and around the utility covers, fleeing the rising tide.  Especially funny (or not) was the way they were running up my pants legs, trying to get to higher ground. 

A few very un-Buddhist flicks of my newspaper sent them flying, to the amusement of three young ladies sitting in their nearby restauran, watching the goings-on.

By the time Tawn finally arrived home from work about 8:00 he told me that the street was flooded.  “Oh, sure,” I said, unimpressed, “it floods every time it rains.”  He insisted that I should go take a look at it and it was indeed much more flooded than I remember previously.

As I arrived on the street, the air was heavy with the smell of gasoline as the sidewalks (those that weren’t flooded) were filled with motorbikes that had stalled in the water.  Owners tried to repair their engines, while others grabbed a bear or two from 7-11 and chatted.  One car had stalled out in my condo’s driveway and the guards were trying to help the owner as he waited for a tow truck to arrive.

Water was running more than 30 cm deep (about 1 foot) and the lower sidewalks (next to the street) were under water.  Thankfully many of the businesses nearby have a second, higher sidewalk in front of the buildings.  So I went around the adjacent buildings, trying to capture some of the images of Khrungthep struggling with what is likely just the first in a wave of floods.

A view from the third floor of the neighboring office bulding shows the extent of the flooding.  The “no right turn” sign is located on the curb of the lower sidewalk, now completely under water.  Telephone boxes become islands.  

Dozens of motorbikes wait out the flood.  Some of the braver (or higher) ones took to the streets, others just waited patiently. 

Despite the large number of people stranded, there was no anger or frustration.  Tawn reported many people laughing and having a good time, office girls taking off their shoes and gigling as they walked along the sidewalks.

One vendor, selling steamed corn from his bicycle-powered cart, worked his way down the street, selling to those standing around.  The catch: to buy an ear you had to wade out to him!

When Tawn was crossing the street he got near the curb but couldn’t tell where it was.  “Sister,” he cried out to a passing pedestrain, “where’s the edge of the sidewalk?”  She replied that she was standing just on the edge and held out a hand to help guide him up.

Thankfully, Tawn had a pair of flip-flops in the office – many Thais shed their nice shoes and instead wear flip-flops around the office – and so he used these on the trip home, carrying his shoes.  He reported that at the Skytrain station, announcements were being made to kindly remind passengers to please wear their shoes while in the station and on the trains.

This was a working weekend.  With a very large project for my job, I spent the better part of Saturday as well as part of Sunday working.  In between, though, Tawn and I managed to catch two movies, which I’ll talk about in a moment.

Outside of that, there were two other significant events:

Event One: Festival Found

I found out the that World Film Festival of Bangkok will be taking place October 11 through 23.  There is an interesting history here because Bangkok had a film festival for a dozen years but then five years ago the Tourism Authority of Thailand decided that Bangkok needed to become “the” film festival of Asia.  Scrapping the existing staff, they brought in advisors from Beverly Hills and for a reported US$ 4 million plus, have produced a series of glitzy festivals that have been all style, no organization and no substance.  One writer for the Bangkok Post was so upset at their disorganization that last year, less than a week before the start of the festival, he wrote a scathing article pointing out that the organizers had yet to release the schedule of films to the press, the public, or the cinemas showing the films!

Kriengsak Silakong, a francophile Thai who has long been involved in the local film industry, started working the The Nation newspaper to create a competing festival, described by the same Bangkok Post writer as a contrast between “the infamously rich [festival] in January run by tourism people [and] the poorer one in October run by film-loving people.”

The Festival does indeed prove to be quite good from both a programming and an organizational standpoint.  Tawn and I went to one of the cinemas to buy advance tickets and discovered that that cinema could sell us tickets for any of the shows at any of the three venues (all at competing cinema chains) from their box office.  The festival also capped tickets for any show at 100 baht (the “official” festival had tickets running from 140-200 baht with no discounts), 50 baht for students.  Plus, we discovered at the box office, we could buy a pack of five tickets, get a sixth free plus five coupons for free popcorn good at any of the cinemas. 

Here is a selection of some of the films I’ll see:

• Paris, je t’aime – A host of international directors from Wes Craven to Gus Van Zant to Alfonso Cuarón each helm a segment about love and the love of the City of Lights, arrondissement by arrondissement.
• The Banquet – Xiagong Feng’s epic-scale story of murder, betrayal and revenge in the Five Dynasties period, starring Zhang Ziyi and Daniel Wu.
• Sanctuary Rhapsody – Supucksarun Suwonnapraprad’s film about a girl who tries to enter the world of men, finding it more foreign than she imagined.
• The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros – Auraeus Solito directs this coming-of-age story by Michiko Yamamoto about a 12-year old gay boy growing up in the gritty, crime-filled slums of Metro Manila, and his crush on a policeman.
• At the End of the Journey – Director Tanwarin Sukkhapisit’s story of a teacher who hides his feelings for fear of losing his job, until one day a young man enters his life and slowly opens his heart.
• I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone – Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang returns to his hometown of Kuala Lumpur in this meditation on connection and disconnection.  After being robbed and attacked, Hsiao-kang, a homeless Chinese man, is rescued and taken in by some Bangladeshi workers. One of them, Rawang, lets him sleep beside him on an old mattress that he had found on the street. Later, when Chyi, a waitress at a coffee-shop, meets Hsiao-kang, she is filled with lustful desire. As Hsiao-kang slowly recovers, he finds himself caught between Rawang and Chyi – as well as Chyi’s female boss.
• Iklimler (The Climate) – Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan helms and stars in this story of the unspoken reasons that relationships collapse.  Isa (Ceylan) is a dowdy university professor inattentive of his younger TV business wife Bahar.  Both are lonely figures dragged through the ever-changing climate of their inner selves in pursuit of a happiness that no longer belongs to them.
• 12:08 East of Bucharest – This Romanian comedy about conflicting versions of history, set in a small village outside Bucharest, sixteen years after the revolution that ousted Ceausescu.   On the anniversary of that historic day, the owner of the local TV station invites two guests to share their moment of revolutionary glory.  One is an old retiree and sometime Santa Claus, the other a history teacher who has just devoted his entire salary to his drinking debts. Together, they will remember the day when they stormed their town hall shouting “Down with Ceausescu!”  But phone-in viewers dispute the claims of the heroes, who may have been boozing in the bar or making Christmas preparations rather than rebeling in the streets.
• Feast of the Goat – Based on the best-selling novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, Luis Llosa tells the story of Urania Cabral, a beautiful, kind, intelligent and independent Manhattan lawyer who, after an absence of 30 years, returns to the Dominican Republic to face the horrifying circumstances that altered her life forever when she was a teenager and Rafael Leónidas Trujillo a.k.a El Chivo (The Goat) was the iron-handed ruler of this country.
• Closing night offers a rare treat – a screening of Battleship Potemkin, the 1925 silent classic by Sergei M. Eisenstein about a Russian naval mutiny in the city of Odessa that is a standard text for film students everywhere.  This is presented with an added soundtrack by the Pet Shop Boys, proving to be a very interesting addition to this significant black-and-white work.  IMDB link.

One especially refreshing aspect to this programming is that Thai independent features and short films are given good visibility.  The “other” festival was notable for its exclusion of Thai films, a source of much complaint by the local film industry.  It would seem the Tourism Authority is more interested in having foreigners come here to shoot their movies than to support the local movie industry.

Event Two: Visa Run Dilema

As I come to the end of my one-year Type B Non-Immigrant Visa, I’ve spoken with my lawyer about renewing it.  Unfortunately, Thai embassies and consulates in Asia are reluctant to issue such visas and he has suggested that, short of returning to the United States, I should go to a consulate in Australia or Dubai.

My visa expires November 28, the day my parents are set to arrive for a visit.  I’ll have a ten-day window of opportunity before then in which to make a run.  The question is where and how – spending money on an airplane ticket is a distinctly disheartening prospect and I’m not keen to burn up miles on an award ticket, either.

Stay tuned for more updates on how this situation will be resolved.

Event Three: Planning for Visitors

With several sets of visitors queueing up for arrival in November and December – the first week of December may see as many as ten visitors including my parents – I’ve been working to pull together itineraries and make hotel arrangements.  The challenge is in getting a trip to Chiang Mai planned.  There is a gala flora exposition opening in November for three months and this looks to be the big event in Thailand over the winter.  Plane tickets and hotel rooms are filling up and I’m trying to find a place for us before spaces disappear!

Finally, the Movies

Tawn and I did have time for two films this weekend:

Cars

Pixar animation’s John Lasseter helms its latest animated treat, this one a little less compelling than all the others.  Perhaps it is because I just don’t care about cars all that much, whether or not they have voices and facial expressions.  But there is great detail in the filmmaking and Pixar films comes across as such works of art, in comparison to what we see released from many other studios.  Only Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli (“Spirited Away“) seem to equal the craftsmanship, and it is well known that Lasseter is a long-time admirer of master Miyazaki.

Voicing by Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt and Owen Wilson is strongly acted and there are enough subtle jokes (the insects in the tumbleweed town of Radiator Springs are little Volkswagen Beatles with wings) to keep you entertained even as the film runs about twenty minutes longer than necessary.

Films from Pixar are always of especial interest to me because my aunt Sandy’s brother-in-law Mark works at Pixar.  We begin to hear buzz of the films more than a year in advance and although he can’t say much about them, it is fun to hear about concepts and then finally see how they play out – so far, always successfully – on the big screen.

Reinas (Queens)

Starring five of Pedro Almodovar’s leading ladies, Manuel Gomez Pereira’s Reinas is less a story about gay marriage and more a story of the mothers of the gay sons who are going to participate in Spain’s first gay marriages. 

The range of characters is rich and neurotic, with very strong acting.  The stories are themselves a bit too simply drawn and become a tangled mess, sometimes winding up just a little too neatly.  But there is a lot of heart and it is an enjoyable film. 

One thing I particularly appreciated, something we see too little of in the United States film industry, is the appearance of actresses of a certain age who look to be that certain age.  Wrinkles and sagging busts lend so much authenticity to the characters, who all carry themselves with such dignity, whatever burdens they are struggling with.

Carmen

Date: Saturday 7 October 2006
Performed by: Aida Gomez Flamenco Ballet, Spain

Choreography by: Aida Gomez

Based on the opera by Georges Bizet (which is based on the book by Prosper Mérimée, this ballet perfectly expresses the complex, sensual passion of the Andalusian Carmen.  Set in Seville at the end of the 19th century, Carmen challenges Manuelita to a fight outside the tabacco factory where they work.  Instigating the fight, she is aressed by Don José, the Chief of Police and Manuelita’s fiancé.  Carmen seduces Don José, however, and he lets her escape, resulting in his own demotion and arrest.

Some time later, Carmen is at a tavern where she is to meet Don José.  The bullfighter Escamillo appears and she is captivated by him.

The story intensifies and soon, at the bull ring where Excamillo is fighting, Carmen meets Don José and decides to end their affair by returning the ring he gave her as proof of his love.  He is enraged and as the spectators cheer Escamillo, Don José stabs Carmen with his knife and kills her.

Without a doubt, this was one of the standout shows of the entire festival.  The combination of precise technique, masterful coreography, vibrant costuming and stark lighting made for a peformance that married the familiar themes from Carmen with the energetic rhythyms of flamenco. 

After a half-dozen rounds of enthusiastic bows to an appreciative audience, the dancers performed an encore accompanied only by their own clapping, the intensity of the clapping seemingly mirroring the rising beat of their hearts and they stomped through their expressive steps. 

His Excellency the Spanish Ambassador to Thailand presented bouquets of flowers to the four principals on behalf of the Princess Sister. who was in attendance.

Go take a look at Tony’s blog.  He’s a very creative artist and talented photographer who comes up with these funny doctored movie posters featuring himself.

The one on the left is of course from the pulp noir movie, Sin City.  Very violent but in a cartoonish way.  Bruce Willis at his very best.

The other one was a spoof of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, a teenage comedy about the munchies one gets (wouldn’t personally know) after smoking too much weed.  It was notable for its 21st century casting (multicultural). 

The spoof was used for Tony’s blog coverage of his 21-day trip to Thailand.  Lots and lots and lots of pictures.

One of the things I like so much about spoofs is that they require as much creativity and thought as the original, if not more.  They can be both highbrow and lowbrow at the same time.

Issan Air

Speaking of spoofs, I’d like to announce Thailand’s latest airline, Issan Air.  Here’s what you need to konw to appreciate this site.

Issan is the name of the Northeastern region of the Kingdom of Thailand – Tawn’s father’s home town is in Buriram, well inside the region.  It is a primarily agricultural area and subjects in other parts of Thailand often use Issan people as the butt of their jokes.  They are the hillbillies and rednecks of the Kingdom, as it were.

Now, the flip side of this – just like the flip side of the sterotypes of Southerners in the United States – is that Issan people are known for their gracious hospitality and tasty food.  In fact, many of the dishes you may associate with Thai food (som tam – green papaya salad; gai yang – grilled chicken; khaaw niaw – sticky rice; laab – ground pork salad) are quintessentially Issan. 

Throughout Khrungthep, office workers flock to small Issan restaurants for quick, refreshing, tasty lunches.

Someone out there with a great sense of humor has developed a pretty comprehensive website complete with nicely-doctored photos showing the great service you can expect aboard Issan Air, based of course in Ubon Ratchathani!

While the airplane logo looks similar to the now-defunct Independence Air out of Washington Dulles, the pattern on the tail of the Airbus is very typically Issan.  Not to mention the fashionably Northeastern models pictured to the right.

Best of all, in the Service section of the website, there is a comprhensive listing of the food services they offer on their flights.  No surprise at all, som tam is at the very foundation of their inflight menu. 

The thing I’d like to know is, do they put the large stone mortar and pestle in the front galley or in the rear galley?  I’d think weight and balance would be a definite concern with one of those heavy beasts aboard.

Maybe they put it on the cart and as they roll down the aisle, they pound fresh batches of green papaya salad for passengers.  “Whoops, sorry sir.  Watch out for the splashing fish sauce!”

Anyone going to do a trip report on them anytime soon?

So I’ve come out to my colleagues at Bangkhonthii school.  Not my original intention, but…  Story below:

Only a half-day of class at the school in Bangkhonthii, because Ajarn Yai declared a teacher’s seminar in the afternoon to learn more about how to teach English, my understanding being that I would better understand the existing curriculum so I can bring the teaching I’m doing more into alignment with it.

Tod was unable to join as he had to go up to Chiang Mai with his parents. which ensured I’d have full opportunity to practice my Thai in spades.

The morning session was punctuated by an event providing interesting cultural insight:

We work in a classroom with two large tables, ten to twelve students around each table.  When I’m checking homework and giving feedback to individual students, I usually sit or kneel next to them.  This way I can see their face and can use that as a tool to help evaluate the extent to which they’re comprehending me.  If I ask “khawjai, mai khrap?” – do you understand? – they’ll invariably say yes whether or not they actually do.

Sometimes there is an empty chair and I can sit in it, other times I just kneel next to them, which gets us on eye level. Upon seeing this, Ajarn Yai came into the classroom and told me, in English, that she didn’t want me kneeling in front of the students, and then proceeded to lecture the students about treating me with the same respect as any of their Thai teachers.  The edict: they are to either get me a chair from elsewhere in the room or vacate a seat so that when I need to sit next to someone, I can sit in a chair.  The entire class was them made to apologize to me, twice.

The cultural insight: In Thailand, everying this about vertical levels: the head is the highest part of the body, literally and metaphorically; the foot is the lowest.  In a hall, the king/monk/teacher/parent sits on a raised dias while the subject/layity/student/child sits on the floor.  So I understand that kneeling next to the children, even though it brings us to eye level, also could be interpreted as a “lowering” of myself to an undignified level.  At the same time, from a western perspective, I’m thinking, “mai ben rai” – no problem.  I’ve learned enough, though, to not protest in situations like this that “it’s okay.”  I’m in Thailand, playing by the Thai rules, and if Ajarn Yai thinks

The seminar

After lunch, about 1:00, all of the teachers at the school (five) plus the directors of three other schools in the area and two additional teachers, convened in the main office.  Ajarn Yai spoke of this being a great opportunity to learn, about how thankful she was for her volunteers, and then gave me a jasmine garland – a sign of respect of appreciation.

Then, the teachers took turns asking me questions.  At first the questions were relatively easy and appropriate to answer, based on my experience.  “How do you find Thai children’s behavior?”  “What obstacles have you found to their learning English?”  “What techniques have you used in the classroom?” – remember, all of this is in Thai with only a bit of translation from Ajarn Yai.

As we progressed, though, the questions exceeded the orbit of my solar system of experience and knowledge: “How do you compare learning styles of Thai students and Western students?”  “At what age do Western students start independent study?”  “What skills would Thai students most benefit from?”  “How would you go about teaching leader and guide skills?”*  “What techniques would you recommend to teach them those skills?”

(*I must clarify that I think “leader and guide” in this case didn’t mean leadership skills, but rather skills that would allow them to either become tour guides or show people around.)

It finally reached a point where I had to politely remind everyone that I have no previous experience teaching children and, unlike them, have no professional training.  It would be out of place for me to offer my thoughts on some of those questions because I don’t have the necessary professional experience.  They seemed to understand that but the questions continued nonetheless.

Along the way, four additional peo ple arrived, one of whom is the local representative of the Department of Education. 

In the end I agreed that as I came up with techiniques, games, or other activities that were particularly helpful for the children at Bangkhonthii, I would work with Ajarn Yai to write them down so they can be shared with other schools.  Additionally, to help the teachers work on pronunciation, I would make simple digital audio recordings of their main textbooks so they could burn CDs for the schools.

The other thing that came up, is that the other schools want to be able to expose their students to farang as well.  So I think in December when my parents, aunt and uncles are in town, we’ll come down and use that as an opportunity for the other schools to send a limited number of children over.  We can pair everyone up and give them an opportunity to speak with the farang.

Out on the Mehklong

The seminar ended shortly after 3:00 as the rain started to fall.  The guests went to their cars and Ajarn Yai told me that she’d like me to join her and the Bangkhonthii teachers for aahan tallay – seafood.

It was at the conclusion of this meal, enjoyed on the banks of the Mehkhlong River as the sun set, when I came out to the teachers.  It wasn’t my intention to do so; I’ve responded to inquiries about my personal life using the word “fan” to describe Tawn, the gender-neutral term that roughly translates into “significant other.”  Thai is one of those languages – Chinese is another, I think – in which the third person pronoun is gender-neutral.  So a person can go a long way without being too specific.

But one of the teachers inquired about my fan and asked, “Fan kong khun ben phuuying?” – Is your fan a woman?  I paused for a second and in that second weighed my options: I could either tell the truth or I could lie.  Thoughts that crossed my mind:

• Unlike a friend in Singapore who is a teacher, my livelihood is not at stake here, nor is there any legal prohibitions to be worried about.  Culturally, Thais are generally more accepting of different lifestyles.
• I performed a commitment ceremony in front of my family, exchanging vows with Tawn and making a lifetime commitment.  If I put the fear of others’ disapproval ahead of that commitment, what does it say about the commitment?
• Finally, I’ve been volunteering for several months and have made enough progress and been seen as valuable enough (with Tod as my partner in this project) to be made the guest speaker at a seminar.  If that contribution can be undone with me just sharing the gender of my fan, then there is little value I can add for the children in the long run anyhow.

So I ran through all that in a split second and then responded to the teacher, “Mai chai.  Fan phom ben phuuchai.”

It was difficult to gauge the reactions: shock, disbelief, embarrassment, thinking that I maybe was just confused in my use of Thai.  Nothing outright confrontational (that wouldn’t be very Thai, now would it?) nor any rainbow flag-waving support.  I think – think being the operative word – Ajarn Yai was trying to explain to me that people can have a “phuen sanit” – dear friend – but that is different from a fan. 

So I’m out to my teaching colleagues.  There is a three-week break before school continues and I think Tod and I may go down there once during the break to work with the teachers on pronunciation.  We’ll see how it plays out; more updates in future posts.

Food for Thought

From the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition weekly email newsletter, this quote from Elizabeth West:

“When man invented the bicycle, he reached the peak of his attainments.  Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man.  And (unlike subsequent inventions for man’s convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became.  Here, for once, was a product of man’s brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others.  Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle.”

— Elizabeth West, Hovel in the Hills

Ah, I forgot to add a comment and a picture from my trip to Bangkok Hospital!  When I received my parametacol – Tylenol by any other name – from the Bangkok Hospital pharmacy, I noticed that the pills have the hospital’s logo stamped on them.

My first question to Tawn: “I wonder how much that cost me?”

Presumably they order so much of the drug that getting their logo stamped on a generic version of it is quite reasonable.  Still, it is an odd sort of branding.

Ramayana

Date: Sunday 1 October 2006
Performed by: Kalakshetra Theatre, India

Choreography and Production by: Rukmini Devi

Sunday evening Tawn and I caught the fourth in our series of performances at the Bangkok International Arts and Dance Festival, and walked away very impressed.  The show was Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic attributed to the poet Valmiki, and it is considered part of the Hindu canon.  Because of Indian colonisation of Southeast Asia, this story of a prince whose wife is abducted by the demon king, figures prominently in the literary histories of Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Malaysia.

The troupe of twenty-eight dancers were very skilled, a combination of martial arts, ballet, acrobatics and pantomime.  The vocals and music were provided by a group of six performers including the nattuvangar (the percussionist who sets the rythym for the entire performance) and artists performing the violin, flute, and mridangam.

One thing that I had always wondered about was the wavering, continuous pitch that underlies much South Asian music.  Finally, I learned that this musical phenomenon has a name – jivari – and is traditionally provided by a tambura (tanpura), sitar or veena, although these days a synthesized version is available and was used last night.

Things went much more smoothly at this performance than the one of Friday night.  People were on time and seated promptly.  Being a Sunday night might have been one reason, but another was that this show was attended by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri, the 51-year old third child of King Rama IV of Thailand.  Princess Maha Chakri is extremely beloved by the Thais, much more so than any of the other royal offspring.  She has managed to be a very populist princess, widely considered to be her father’s intellectual successor:

In addition to having earned a doctorate in Educational Development, she speaks fluent English, French and Mandarin Chinese and is studying German and Latin.  She plays several instruments, teaches history at one of the military academies, and is involved in numerous academic, research and social causes in the areas of science, technology, education and foreign affairs.

She gained a lot of notoriety during the 60th Anniversary celebrations earlier this year when she leaned out of a doorway of the balcony on which her father was addressing the hundreds of thousands of well-wishers so that she could snap some photos of the crowd.  He noticed her doing this and turned around and rubuked her!

Before the performance yesterday the audience stood as she entered, her anthem playing, and as she passed, the men bowed and the ladies curtsied, deeper and with even more sincerity than is usually the case.

If the next monarch of the Kingdom was to be chosed by popular election, no doubt the Thai population would select Princes Maha Chakri.

First off, thank you to everyone for their well-wishes over the past few days.  Tawn and I are both in much better shape, thanks to the miracle of pain-reducing medication and – more importantly – anitbiotics.  The illness resulted in a gap in reporting, so there is much to share over the past week:

Suvarnabhumi Opens

Incredibly, despite a coup happening two weeks before, the new Bangkok International Airport opened on Thursday the 28th.  As predicted, operations were a bit messy that first day.  Markus and Tam returned from their vacation in Germany and Spain, and arrived on Lufthansa’s first flight into Suvarnabhumi.  Here is a chain of text messages I received from them.  The first message was sent just as the plane pulled into the gate.

• 13:50 – Good afternoon.  We’re the first LH flight to land at the new airport.  Let’s see how long immigration and baggage will take…
• 14:01 – Well, we’re at the gate but there’s noone to open up.
• 14:03 – Actually, the jetway can’t reach the plane.
• 14:50 – So there was some safety switch on the jehway that they had to flip before it could move.  Now we’re waiting for luggage – it’s been 45 minutes since we pulled into the gate.
• 15:00 – Someone from Lufthansa just came by to inform us that the luggage has arrived in the terminal, but they can’t find it – “it” being some 300-odd bags.  She said all airlines have been experiencing the same problems today.  Can I be a guest contributor on your blog?  This is too good to pass up!
• 15:11 – Luggage has been arriving very piecemeal.  About ten bags every ten minutes.
• 15:37 – The line for the bus [you take a bus to the remote transportation terminal to pick up taxis, city busses, etc] makes the old taxi line seem tame and organized.
• 15:48 – Looks like the taxis are actually departing directly from the terminal, but there is no effective way to queue people.  So there are 3 parallel lines, which aren’t really moving much, since people seem to enter them from various points.
• 15:58 – Both Tam and I just got interviewed by separate camera teams.  Channels 3 and 11.
• 16:09 – Hard to believe, but we actually got a taxi, but I think it was mostly luck.  I’m sure there are people who got in line for taxis long before us who are still waiting.
• 16:24 – Our taxi driver just told us he waiting in the taxi queue near the bus terminal for 100 minutes.  When we drove past just now, there were at least 100 taxis waiting.  The problem is, there were not nearly enough taxis coming to pick up arriving passengers.  At the old airport, there was always a line of taxis waiting.  Here, they were trickling in way too slow.  There are cars parked along the entire length of the airport, watching the planes take off and land.
• 17:02 – We’ve just arrived home, just over 3 hours after touchdown.  In the past, I’ve made it in less than one on a good day.

Markus’ friend Peter arrived the following day from Germany and reported that things were running quite smoothly.  Chalk these up to opening-day butterflies.  The taxi issue sounds like the most serious one.  Local media was reporting that up to an additional 10,000 taxis would be identified to work at the airport.  Previously, taxis that were old or not immaculate had been denied a permit, part of an attempt by the government to break the mafia-run taxi operations that had existed at the old airport.

Inaki Urlezaga is one of the foremost Argentine dancers and his company, Ballet Concierto, came to Khrungthep this week as part of the 8th Annual International Arts and Dance Festival.  Tawn and I were particularly looking forward to this show as we both enjoy tango performances and this intersection between ballet and tango was much talked-about.

The performance was in two acts, very different from each other.  The first, titled Pulsaciones (“pulsations”), was a ballet with music and choreography by Vittorio Biaggi, designed to showcase movement and the technical prowess of the dancers.  The second, titled Destiny Buenos Aires, was choreographed by F. Fleitas and M. Morassut and was inspired by Inaki Urlezaga’s life (a little bit of shameless tribute).  Starting with a dark stage and audio that suggested departing airplanes, suitcases rolling on the sidewalk, and traffic, it is meant to evoke the image that even through his busy travels, Inaki always return to Buenos Aires.  This second act is the showcase for the tangos.

Critiquing this performance requires me to address it at two levels:

At the first level, the technical execution and overall impact of the show, the dancers showed great skill and control and the coreography was impeccable.  Perhaps due to jet lag, but several dancers kept missing their marks.  Not in a wildly amateurish way, to be certain, but when you have three couples performing together and the coreography is meant to by synchronous, when one dancer is moving a split-second after the others, it is distracting.

Perhaps the best way to describe it is that the dancers’ obvious talent and the stunning coreography – and a really well thought-out use of lighting – didn’t always come together at the same time; the case of the parts not always being more than the sum of their whole.

Speaking of the lights, one of the drawbacks of these festival shows where there is only one performance is the unfamiliarity of the team with the lighting systems.  There were at least a half-dozen very noticeable mis-cues in the lighting scheme.  A bit bothersome when the wrong lights woud come on, halfway across stage from where the dancers were!

The second level of critique is of the house management of the Thailand Cultural Centre, or the event’s organisers, or both.  I’ll fully acknowledge the facts that this show was on a Friday night and about a half-hour before the show it started to rain; the cultural centre is located on Ratchadapisek Road which is both a major artery out of the city and also a hub to a lot of the entertainment venues (legitimate and less-so) that Khrungthep’s men flock to on the last Friday of the month – payday.

But the handling of late arrivals was unacceptable.  At showtime, 7:30, almost half the seats were still empty.  The house manager made the decision to begin the show on time.  The result was that for the first 22 minutes of the performance, a nearly-constant stream of people were being seated.  We were on the aisle in the front third of the main floor and the distractions were intollerable.  So much so that finally, Tawn flagged down a passing usher and ordered, “From now on, you will bring no one else in.”  The old ladies sitting behind him were impressed with this uncharacteristically, but necessary, display of anger.

Sadly, this was at 22 minutes into the first act.  The first act was only 25 minutes long.  When the act came to an end and the crowd applauded, the cutrain came down and I said to Tawn, “This is when they should have seated late-comers.”  Then the house lights came up and the intermission countdown clock came on!  The second act was only marginally longer – 30 minutes.

Overally, the evening was a bit of a let-down.  We had paid 3000 baht for our two tickets – about US$80 – for only 55 minutes of performance, which had some forgiveable technical problems as well as some really unacceptable house manageent ones.  All in all, not the best use of our money and time.

Tawn spoke with one of the event’s organizers during the intermission and she sympathised and said it had been the cultural centre’s house management that made the decision.  True or not, we’re going to send a letter to both the festival and the cultural centre, expressing our disappointment.

Bangkok Hospital

It has been a while since I’ve been to a hospital in the United States – the last time was a visit to St. Luke’s hospital in Kansas City after my grandmother had some vascular-opening surgery on her legs in March. 

Most of the time when I went to see my doctor, I’d just go to his office near the medical center on upper Castro street in San Francisco. 

My impressions of hospitals in the US are shaped in largely very antiseptic, 1970’s era, flourescent dimmly-lit, images.

The hospitals here that I’ve been to – presumeably not representative of the public hospitals kingdom-wide – have been really nice.  Even some of the older ones like Bangkok Hospital look more like malls or hotels than hospitals.  A selection of experiences from our trip there on Thursday:

• We valet-parked our car.  Not an expensive option, but a complimentary service offered free to all customers.
• Upon arriving at the front door, one of several nicely-suited employees approached us to help point us in the right direction.  No need to feel confused or overwhelmed here.  We were walked to the main registration desk.
• The main registration desk looks like a hotel but several employees work on the outside of the counter so that it is more personable.  Tawn has been a patient at this hospital since childhood so they just checked him in.  I filled out a brief form in my language of choice and was entered into the system and given an ID card – professionally, digitally, and instantly printed out with my name, number and a bar code on it.
• We explained what we wanted to see the doctor about and were entered into the system and given queue numbers kind of like a visit to the DMV.  From there, we went to the appropriate department – in my case, general medicine.
• There at a central counter a nurse approached us, already had my record pulled up, and asked me to go with her to take my vital statistics.  I needed to use the restroom, which was on the other side of the main lobby.  When I asked where it was, one gentleman walked me all the way across the lobby so I wouldn’t get lost.
• In the main lobby, there is a stage set up with a pianist playing.  A coffee shop and small stores surround a fountain, looking like a small mall.  The main pharmacy/payment desk is located here, too.  There was also a lady with a cart, offering free bottles of water and bananas to anyone who needed a healthy snack.
• When I returned, I was brought into a small room where weight, blood pressure and temperature were taken.  Afterwards I went back to the waiting area, which seats about 120 people and has a pair of televisions and newspapers in both Thai and English.  Les than two minutes later, my number – 110 – flashed over the door to one of the examination rooms and the nurse invited me in. 
• Here’s where things were different than my experiences in the US.  This examination room is also the doctor’s office, so he was already there, sitting behind his desk.  There was no long period of waiting in silence, sitting on the examination table, as happens with nearly visit to a doctor in the US.
• The doctor was very comfortable to deal with.  He spoke English well although I had Tawn clarify a few points along the way in Thai just to make sure we were all on the same page.  In about ten minutes we had discussed the symptoms, done an examination, and had a preliminary diagnosis.  He prescribed some antibiotics and asked me to have blood tests done just to rule out dengue fever.
• I went to the lab, which was in the same waiting area, and had the blood drawn without any delay.  The technician said that preliminary results would be available in one hour.
• Sure enough, an hour later I was able to meet with the doctor with only a few minutes’ wait, and he reviewed the results and confirmed the prescription was correct.  He asked me to call back the next day for final results of the blood work or if I had any questions.
• We went to the pharmacy, which is where we also pay for the services.  Again, there are people working on the outside of the counter who enter your patient number in the system which then triggers the pharmacy to begin pulling together your medications. 

All in all the experience was very pleasant and worthwhile.  Here were the costs as they appeared on my bill – which was printed in English since that was the language I selected as being my preferred language.

• Medication – 7 days of antibiotics and 7 days of paracetamol – 1250 baht
• Lab services – blood drawing – 969 baht
• Molecular lab analyis – 2000 baht
• Nursing charges – having vitals taken – 143 baht
• Physician evaluation – meeting with the doctor – 600 baht

All told, only 4,961.70 (US$ 134) for the experience.  Contrasting this to the US, even with my medical coverage from my employer, if I had been ill and wanted to see the doctor I would have potentially not been able to get an appointment for that day.  If I had gone to an emergency room I would have suffered a penalty charge plus had possibly a lengthy wait.  Medications would have cost at least that much, based on what I’ve paid for antibiotics before.  Lab services would have cost much more, based on my experiences.

After dinner with Markus, Tam, Pune, and Markus’ visiting friend Peter last night, Sunday morning has gotten off to a relaxing start.  Tawn has suddenly “discovered” YouTube – particularly Sukeban Deka (“Delinquent Girl Detective”), the new movie version of a a Japanese television show that Tawn watched in his youth.  The story – basically a high school coming of age story crossed with Luc Besson’s 1990 spy thriller La Femme Nikita – is based on a manga.  Clip from the movie.

For dinner last night, I did most of the cooking, ably assisted by Tawn and Tam.  The menu was compiled from various San Francisco cook books and included:

• Red wine vinagrette-dressed mixed greens with breaded goat cheese cakes
• Tamarind paste-marinated pork tenderloin with an asian pear spice sauce and mango chutney
• Cajun spice shrimp (from the Cook Eat Cha Cha Cha cookbook from the Cuban restaurant in SF)
• Fresh ripe mango with sabayon

Both Tawn and I have managed to catch ill, both with different bacterial infections.  There was some concern on my part initially that I had malaria because of fever and aches following several mosquito bites earlier in the week.  Upon learning about my preliminary diagnosis, the doctor at Bangkok Hospital asked if I had been travelling outside of Central Thailand.  When I replied that I had not, he assured me that I did not have malaria and blood tests confirmed that diagnosis.

There is a slight possibility that it is dengue fever, although that seems unlikely, too.  For the time being, and unspecified bug is the culprit and is being treated with a course of antibiotics.  The fever and aches continue although are somewhat lessened with paracetamol (known as acetaminophen) inside North America.

The trip to Bangkok Hospital, my first experience with the Thai medical establishment, was an interesting one.  I’ll write a bit more about it in the next day or two as my strength returns.

Convenience and cost usually weigh out in the decision of what to eat for dinner: fast, inexpensive, and nutritious food is readily available at corner restaurants and food vendors throughout Khrungthep.  I’ve sat down and calculated it, and most of the time I could not make a dinner for two for the same amount (about US$ 4.00) that I can get two servings of rice and three side dishes from a local gap khao (literally, “with rice”) vendor.

However, sometimes I go ahead and cook at home just because I enjoy doing it and because there are some things that I can make at home less expensively than if Tawn and I went out to eat them.

For example, Sunday afternoon at Central Food Hall I found a pack of two marinated New Zealand steaks for only 77 baht ($2.10).  Along with a some salad greens, I had a nice pan-fried medium-rare steak salad.  With a glass of cabranet-shiraz from Australia, it made a very satisfying dinner.

Yesterday I made use of a loaf of pugliese that had been sitting in my refrigerator for a few days and had become a brick:  it became panzanella, Italian bread salad, with tomatoes, cucumbers, grilled chicken breasts, and a red wine-balsamic vinaigrette.  Served with a side dish of garbanzo beans pan fried with rocket, it made for a simple, flavorful dinner.

But after a few days of this fancy western food, I’m craving some tom yum goong and pad khao!

This afternoon after my Thai tutor session, Tod and I met to discuss lesson plans for the classes in Bangkhonthii.  It is his idea that we should start back at the very beginning, reviewing the alphabet and the basics of phoenetics so that the children are better able to read.  While the “point” of us being there is to increase their skill and confidence with conversation, when they can’t read what’s on the board, it slows the entire process down.

Additionally, we’re in agreement that we need to find out from the principal what exactly is happening during the regular English instruction.  That way our efforts can be more complementary rather than operating off on our own tangent.