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I’ve been thinking about Asia and all she’s given me.
Yes, she. I’ve read plenty about how personification of place is a bit of a no-no in travel writing, but do you know what? I don’t necessarily agree. I think it depends on what kind of writing you are talking about, your relationship to the place and also the window you use to view the world. My window teaches me that all people and things are related and and have effect on each other, relationship. To think that we can be a traveller, and therefore exist on the outside of the things, people and places we experience seems a bit, well, absurd. Everything you do changes you. Are you the same person who graduated from secondary school? Or left your parent’s house to live on your own? Very likely not, but that is not just because of the passage of time. It is because of the things, people and places, ie. the actors, that you have come into contact with. Things, people and places all push change and growth, even the bad interactions.
My parents raised me from a baby to young adulthood. I went to university to begin my transition to adulthood, and that’s when Asia really became a big player in my life. Actually, it didn’t even start that late. When I was quite young, my parents went on a trip to Hong Kong and Bangkok. When they came back they brought me Chinese preserved plums in little papers that I knew I would taste again at their origin. When my Mother said, “You’d really like Thailand“, I knew she was right. How, I’m not sure, but between that experience and my childhood obsession with all things Japanese, I knew Asia was calling me.
I enjoyed my time as an undergraduate and even though I was living in the moment and had no idea who I was yet or even much about what was happening in the world, I always had an eye on Asia. I knew she played a role in my future. That knowledge gave me confidence in some respects. When I saw other early 20 somethings obsessing over boyfriends, I never wanted to get deeply involved in case I got pulled in to a relationship which would lead me to question my call to Asia. I did have boyfriends, but never serious until I met one particular person who insisted that he also wanted to travel. I thought, well…OK, we’ll see how it goes. At the same time I was thinking:
{but I have this Asia thing I have to do so, I’m not expecting this to last}
We are still travelling together and now dragging our son along for the ride.
When I first got to Asia I felt like I’d come home. For someone who doesn’t have a home town, that means a lot. I remember falling asleep in my tiny Hong Kong guesthouse with the TV on. I couldn’t turn it off because it was the familiarity of the Cantonese speaking that was lulling me to sleep. Asia was letting me know that I’d arrived where I was meant to. That I had some connection or reason for landing on this continent. Had I been here in another life? Why was it so familiar?
Over the years I have travelled in many parts of Asia. She constantly calls me back to the point that I feel homesick for her rather than the way in which homesickness usually works. She has taught me tolerance and and how to save face, not only for myself but for others (which also comes back to you, by the way). She’s given me experience with building houses and other people’s immense acts of kindness, like when I got on a bus to the wrong airport when I was headed to a job interview. I missed both the flight and the interview time, but one person phoned both the airline and the interviewer for me, changing my flight and explaining my mistake. The bus driver then let me stay on the bus after we’d arrived and took me to the other airport. I wish we could remember to treat our foreign visitors as well as I was treated by strangers.
Asia has also shown me how very easy life is for some and not for others, how dysfunctional the relationship between the two is, and how important it is to find a role in this dichotomy. She’s shown me how our material things really are that and not “essentials”.
On buses in her highest mountains, she has taught me the value of life and how fear can be confronted either with worry, faith in a higher power or fatalism and that whichever one you subscribe to makes it difficult to understand those who subscribe to the other. Also in those mountains, she’s taught me the importance of water and a hat to keep the sun off when I nearly fainted, young and silly, when tramping without enough preparation.
She’s taught me about personal safety with men hiding in toilets, earthquakes, sticky fingered backpackers, centipedes and snakes. So many snakes!
And she’s fed me. Oh how she’s fed me! She’s shown me how to fill my belly with simple bread and cheese, not to mention how good that cheese tastes when it is so difficult to find. She’s taught me to associate the scent of durian with happiness. She’s gently built up my chilli tolerance so that I could experience all the other wonderful flavours involved in local dishes. In Japan, she showed me how to also enjoy the opposite, no chilli, subtle flavours. And she was with me when after a couple of decades of vegetarianism I began to eat seafood. Thanks goodness, because if there is one thing that is done well in much of Asia, it is seafood.
Perhaps most of all, she has taught me to be a mother. I had no experience with teaching people under the age of 16 until, somehow, I ended up working in a bilingual kindergarten. My students, usually adults, were now all under the age of two. As it turns out, my son came home from Thailand at that very age. How many mothers are lucky enough to get a little hands on experience before their children arrive? It was a gift. It was a gift that helped me with the best thing that Asia has given me, my son.
So, for me, Asia is the being who has opened her arms to me, wrapped them round tightly but let me know when I needed to learn something until finally helping me to wrap my own arms around another little being. I came of age in Asia.
Could I have learnt these things elsewhere? Of course. But in my case, Asia was my teacher, my mentor, my Shantiwallah.
We’ve had the most beautiful day at our local Songkran celebration. My son, who is three years old and too young to remember last year’s celebration, was so excited but didn’t really know what was happening as we walked from the car towards the noise. He even looked a bit nervous as we entered the crowd and asked to be picked up. So, to give him something to focus on, I asked him if he’d spotted the big Buddha yet.
“There he is! He’s yellow!”, he shouted.
He took the offering very seriously and watched intently as we poured water with flower petals over the Buddha. There is something about a toddler stood in a wai that just chokes me up, but I tried to concentrate on what I was doing. Come back, Monkey Mind.
As we collected some food and chai yen we realised that Poom still hadn’t noticed the water pistols. But when we settled down on to our blankets, his little friends approached, soaked to the bone and donning tubes full of water. I started to regret not bringing one for him when a friend said she had a spare one. Here we go, I thought. But, really, he just wanted to play on the playground so off he went. 10 minutes later he came back saying,
“People spraying water. Not do dat! I told them, not do dat!”.
So we told him it was OK and that it was fun, a blessing. His eyes travelled back to the previously offered weapon and then it clicked.
Super soaker in hand…the rest is dripping, sodden, history.
On the balcony in Bangkok
One year ago today your Dad and I walked in amongst teak houses in thick air to hear laughing, crying, and women giving instructions in Thai. We sat and had a cup of tea and talked about your first months and looked at baby photos of you. We wanted to jump up and find you, but we knew that this was our chance to get all the details we could about you. So we sat patiently and asked. When did you sleep? What did you like to eat? She told us you were a cheeky one, and she was aboslutely correct.
One year ago today we saw you getting your blue plastic shoes on to hop in the car with these two strangers that you now call Mummy and Daddy. You had little idea of what your new life would be. Later you took a nap in the air con and you must’ve felt that kind of cold for the first time. We wrapped you in a sarong and placed you in the wooden hotel cot. And when you woke up, you were wary but happy to eat rice porridge and fresh mango.
The next day you really started to understand that everything had changed, and you cried a lot. We finally put you in the carrier on Daddy’s chest and you immediately calmed down. You were enveloped in the warmth of Daddy on one side and Monsoonal breeze on the other, guarded from rain by the covered balcony. You both watched the tuk tuks drive along the road below.
Later we became busy with trips to embassies, consulates and hospitals. Document after document was gathered, stamped and turned in until the government authorities at the court told us they were happy for us to take you home. We went to a cafe, relieved. You still love going to cafes.
At the airport, Daddy and I were nervous. Would you cry the whole way to New Zealand? We had fun in the airport trolley, but then it was time to board. People tutted and rolled their eyes when they saw you and other children as if no children should ever be allowed on an aeroplane in case they cry, but we know that aeroplane trips are special for children, especially one like you. It was an aeroplane that brought you to our home in the Pacific. You had a one-way ticket. And you barely cried at all! You enjoyed your infant meal and had fun playing with the Thai Airlines flight attendants. But, most of the time you slept on either my chest or Daddy’s.
At home, we felt a bit guilty for bringing you from the warmth of Thailand to this cold place. The first time we bundled you up you just stood there as if you didn’t know how to move under the weight of all those clothes. We slept on the floor in your room so we could all stay warm and check on you if you woke up confused. You were much happier (as were we!) when the summer finally came and you got to discover sand, buckets and spades at the beach…and ice cream!
You’ve always loved the park even though you cried the first time you stood on grass. You were not so sure about the swing at first. You’d go back and forth a couple of times until you got a strange, greenish look on your face and we took you out. Then you’d ask to go back in. Eventually you fell in love with it and we spent a lot of time pushing you “Small” and “Big!”. You also started to climb. And even though you were intimidated at first, now you will climb on anything you can reach.
Hello goat!
One year ago today I wondered what you’d think of your goofy parents. It turns out that you like to make silly jokes and be cheeky just like us. Three sanuk-ers in a pod!
One year ago today we all thought we loved each other, but it is nothing compared to what we have now. Every mountain we’ve climbed has woven us more tightly together. Even when you throw your best display of two year old rage in the supermarket or break your cup because you can’t have juice in it, you go for your nap and I sit and think about how much I love you. And when I can’t make the tea for you clinging to my leg after you’ve been ill, I just dial the pizza place so I can spend the time with you instead. One takeaway here and there can’t hurt, right?
And one year ago today, I was already planning your party. I knew you’d make friends (I could just tell) and I couldn’t wait to have them over to play and eat cake and celebrate your day. Happy One Year Day to all of us, but especially to you for making our lives so incredible.
Waiting for the bread dough to prove
I’ve travelled to visit family and to move my life to a new country. I’ve travelled to build houses or present at conferences. And, I’ve travelled just for the sake of it. Travel to see what there is to see. But I’ve never travelled with such purpose before. Packing involved thinking ahead to what one person could carry in case the other one had occupied arms. It involved guessing what sized clothes I need to bring for a person of whom I had no idea how big he’d got. Does he need shoes?
Bangkok! We can get everything there. No worries.
Now that I am sitting in a taxi all of those preparatory thoughts fall behind. Driving through the big posh areas of Sukhumvit and Silom with all the trendy girls with nail polish and tourists taking photos of giant golden spirit houses only to enter the old towns in the West of the city. It’s like slipping into a comfortable blanket. People are doing normal things like bathing children in buckets, disassembling jackfruit and pounding som tam. The other Bangkok is fun, but I love this Bangkok. I feel comfortable and at home here and we usually stay out here in old teak houses cooled only by fans and sips of nam manao. But not this time because this time we are travelling with purpose. We’ve rented an “aparthotel” in Lumpini with a swimming pool downstairs and a kitchen and cot in the room. We wanted all three of us to be comfortable.
The taxi driver, my husband and I team up as we enter the narrow sois and try to spot the tiny, handpainted, sign for the orphanage. There it is! I tell him, “We can walk from here, kaaa” “No problem”, he says, “I can take you there”, and we finally stop at the end of the driveway. My husband told me in the taxi that he felt nervous, but I hadn’t felt that until now. Looking at old Bangkok calmed me, but now we have stopped moving and all I can hear is a bird and some clinking dishes as someone in the neighbourhood is washing up. We have to straighten our legs, stand on them, and go and meet our son.
I almost catch a glimpse of children playing as the director warmly greets us and takes us to her office. We are offered a drink and a biscuit as we talk about so much in so little time. We want to know what his routine has been so that we can keep that comfort going for him. She shows us a stack of photos and other little things and puts it all in a giant folder for us. 20 months of life summed up in a tiny parcel that we will carry home. We ask a million other questions and are happy that we have written down the answers because we already know that we are not taking anything in any more. It’s time to go and she wants us to leave quickly so that the children don’t confuse us with the volunteers who come and go. Our son has been prepped to know that we are forever…if forever is and understandable concept to an under two.
As we enter the sala one boy shouts out “Hello!” but they all seem to be moving in a blur as we try to spot the one who is coming home with us. The director jokes that we must identify him before we are allowed to take him home. As we haven’t had a photo since his first birthday this might seem impossible with all these little pairs of eyes looking at us, some children cosying up or showing us toys. But then I see a little boy sitting on the floor as his carer puts on his blue Crocs. He is looking and pointing at us. He knows it’s us and we know it’s him. He walks a little way, hand in hand with the carer, until someone picks him up and puts him in against my body. My mind switches locations and I am picturing those little kiwis we take to give to students in other countries, the ones that clip on to things and don’t let go. He is a limpet with eyes on me, so close. He’s just looking. We expected crying or pushing away but, no, just looking. Someone says “Mama, Mama!” and then points to my husband and says, “Daddy!” and his eyes flit to and fro until the director ushers us out to the taxi.
The taxi affords us a good amount of time to check each other out until he finally starts crying and then changing from one person to another. Holding* a biscuit calmed him but he never took a bite. He liked looking out the window, just like us, but in between spotting interesting things he started to cry more for what was missing. “Kaw thort” I apologise to the taxi drive for the noise. “Mai bpen rai”, no worries, he says back and I think about how lucky we have been with both drivers today. And then it dawns on me that we are about to get out of the taxi, at our hotel, as a family of three.
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*He held on to that little biscuit until it finally fell apart in the bath at 7pm, and when we opened his hand half of it was still in there.
camaraderie.
The other teachers and I stuffing down some lunch in between building sessions on the Habitat house in Pak Chong, Thailand. The students are sitting at their own tables because, well, it would be uncool for them to sit with us now wouldn’t it? Yeah, whatever. We all know who the cool people REALLY are.
(besides a bad photo)
The first person to answer correctly gets a chocolate fish.
Why haven’t we got a word for this in English? Memories, feelings, strong emotions are washing in so quickly it’s overwhelming. I could almost be knocked over by the intensity. This one little kaffir lime leaf that fell off as I was planting up the tree looks like any other leaf. I would expect it to smell green, like a green leaf. But it doesn’t. It smells of putrid but delicious durian and sweating at 7am over a noodle soup breakfast from a one-table stall. It smells of trying hard to get the tones right so I can get salt in my lime juice rather than plain and sickly sweet like they serve to farangs. Here in my head I am eating kaeng kiao wan kung and realising that I’m looking at a cooked grasshopper that was unfortunate enough to sit on the wrong sprig of holy basil, and then suddenly not feeling hungry anymore.
Another sniff. A conversation about how to avoid deadly centipedes and snakes on an island with no electricity. I smell salty air that suddenly sparkles as an entire school of silver wrigglers lands in our little boat on the confluence of the Mae Nam Chan and the Andaman. The small size of this fisherman’s craft suddenly seems woefully inadequate for this journey. Nervousness. A bus hurtling down a potholed road, skidding past another bus smashed and smoking. I no longer feel the heat in these situations as I’m focusing on being alive in the place we are headed to. Making life-preserving plans for dinner.
I fold the leaf until it cracks and inhale. Yet another Thai woman is asking me, “Eeeeeeeeeeg, Oh-kaaaaaaaay?” when I order the vegetarian option. They use the same phrase all over the country to make sure you are not vegan. I love the care in their voices and the lesson that your choice wasn’t available if it doesn’t show up at your table after half an hour. They just didn’t want to say, “No” to you because it’s offensive. Next time I’ll know.
Citrus, lemon, lime, green, intoxicating. This scent taught me that smiling when you are angry can get you very much further than showing your dismay. That I should never “break the egg” inappropriately and let the first trade of the day be an honest one so nobody loses face. Try not to stare as the stall is beautifully blessed by touching it with the money. The scent of this leaf almost makes me want to cry when it reminds me of this. I always suspected green things could cause emotion. This must be how.
I’ve planted this tree so I can remember the place that has formed so much of my being. All the years of to-ing and fro-ing through Thailand and all the lessons I’ve learnt. Much of that was in my 20s, when you think you know who you are and later you find out how utterly and tragically clueless you were. And later, speaking with major mistakes, laughing with the other khanom jin customers as we share from the giant basket of herbs, building houses in the countryside and learning by walking in markets and smelling things like shrimp paste and lime leaves. I owe a great deal to Thailand.
Thailand doesn’t know this, of course. Thailand is just a country. How can a country know how it has affected someone? How can a country know that when someone far away on an island in the Pacific catches the scent of a kaffir lime leaf it will cause them to rehash experiences and analyse what they mean? It doesn’t matter really. Only to me. So, I’m planting this tree that has leaves full of Thailand.
Ever spend more time trying to remember your thousands of passwords than actually typing real sentences?
Anyway…
I luxuriated today in hanging out in the room watching Thai cooking shows while I did the washing I had piling up. I hate having to do washing all the time, but I hate carrying too much for no good reason too.
Then I took a stroll to find a better internet cafe and ended up coming out at Sumen fort on the Chao Praya river in the late afternoon light. This area is becoming so cool with local young Thais opening their own cafes. I bought some cool arty postcards. I’ve sent the usual Thailand ones way too many times so I was glad to find these.
I’m going to amble back in a minute and hope to find some good eats on the way. On my first day here I discovered a huge market within the grounds of a big wat near my hotel. There was lots of activity including monks raising money for a wat in Christchurch! Unfortunately the table was unmanned and so I didn’t get to talk to anyone about it. I had some great Khanom Jin there, spaghetti-like noodles with a fish-curry sauce and huge piles of fresh beans and herbs on the table for you to rip up and add. I love the stuff.
Then last night I couldn’t resist buying a corn on the cob from a smiling woman who I managed to speak Thai with. I can’t believe I’ve practised enough in the last ten days that I could understand everything. I think she enjoyed the interaction as much as I did. I especially enjoyed the grilled sweetcorn at 15 baht ( about 45yen or 40-50 US cents).
Once again my coins are running out at the ol’ net cafe!
I’ve just got bak from a trip to a waterfall with no water and so they’ve decided to go off to one that is an hour away. After an exhausting weekend “off”, I’m knackered and so am staying behind to do some blogging.
We had one night away in Nakhorn Rachasima and spent most of it ferrying people back and forth from the hospital. One of our team members was bitten by a dog and is now on a course of rabies injections, another didn’t bother to tell anyone that she was in pain because sh hadn’t pooed since we’d arrived (5 days ago!), and the lasty one had been having diarrhea since we’d arrived. Moral of the story kids…drink more water, and for gods sake tell someone if you are ill so we can advise you and you don’t end up on a drip in the hospital! All are doing well now.
The house is also coming along swimmingly. It’s almost finished in fact which is very satisfying.
I want to post some photos. but the electricity is really flickering here so I don’t want to lose this post. Stay tuned!To keep you entertained until then, here is the truck I’ve been driving round in to carry bricks and also the site when we first arrived. Wait until you see what’s happened since then.
Tomorrow is the last day and we will get to dedicate the house so we are very excited.
I am now going for a nap before dinner so I can enjoy our last real night here since we’ll be leaving at about midnight tomorrow night for Bangkok.
I’m reviving this poor old neglected blog. Or at least I’m going to do my best! I’m off to Thailand and Laos in just two days (actually one if you count my day in Tokyo beforehand) and I can’t get my head around my presentations. I’ve pretty much finished two of them, but the third one is glaring at me from it’s little minimised box at the bottom of my screen. I wish I’d said that I would only do two, but it seemed like three was the only option.
The first ten days of my trip will be in a little place called Pak Chong in northern Thailand where two other teachers, me, and a group of students from my college will be building a house with Habitat for Humanity http://www.habitat.org/ap/ . I’ve bought my workgloves, have packed my old cross-trainers, and am ready to go.
After that, I’m going to spend a couple of weeks in Bangkok. I can’t wait! Bangkok, despite the pollution and all the other bad things people point out, is actually one of my favourite cities in the world. And it’s exciting how quickly things are changing there. Our favourite vegetarian cafe, which was once just two foldable tables on the side of a street has slowly blossomed. Just ten years from eating with your feet by the sewer to this http://www.thaivegetarianrecipes.com/. May Kaidee now has a cooking school and guesthouse. But thank god she’s still making my favourite mango, warm coconut milk, and red sticky rice pudding.
Finally, I’m off to Laos for the first time. I’ve always wanted to go there and we just never quite fit it in. I’ll be working with Teachers Helping Teachers and giving presentations to local Lao teachers of English. They can’t really afford to go to the big international conferences and so this one is being brought to them by a bunch of really cool teachers who are volunteering their time, efforts and money. www.geocities.com/yamataro670/tht.htm I’m really looking forward to having a good look round Vientiane. We’ve already been offered a tour of a coffee plantation.
I really can’t procrastinate any longer. Gong he fa choi!
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