Welcome to Issue #5 of the Bangkok Gazette. It has been a busy month for the staff here -- in addition to researching local politics and rural life up country, we also moved our corporate offices. The staff is pleased to welcome Mo to the writing staff -- her comments are embedded below in brackets--please check out her mini-essay on Chuwit. Hope you enjoy the latest edition. Bangkok Gazette Staff. The New Commute: Mo and I have been taking Thai Language Classes every (weekday) morning from 9am to Noon over the past month. I am the only westerner in my class (the rest of the students are from Japan) which is cool because they don't speak English so if they want to talk with me then they have to speak Thai. As a result most of the students live in the central business area nearby the school. Many have never traveled on a "mini-bus." What's a mini-bus? A mini-bus is a seemingly Vietnam Era (the floors are wood) "short bus" (half the length of a school bus) made by Mercedes. It is green in color. Riding on one of these during rush hour is a bit like riding with 60 of your "closest" friends on a rickety sled that has a WWII prop engine underneath (bone rattle) with a very aggressive driver (probably either on speed or on gallons of Thai "energy drinks.") These busses zigzag madly through traffic and at the same time packing in as many passengers as possible. The drivers make more money the more passangers they have. Once the fear subsides, it's kinda fun. Did I mention that these busses are fan cooled (ceiling fans) incredibly hot ah the fumes of rush hour. Fortunately, I do not have to take the bus all the way to class, as I transfer to the Sky Train (a monorail-listen up Seattle) that is pretty cool and very fast (above the traffic!). I'm fascinated by these busses actually. There is the driver and then there is the Bus Nong who is usually either a small youngish man or a female (usually a "Tom" of varying age (Thai word for Lesbian from the English Tom-Boy-FYI they have 3rd and 4th sexes here in Thailand...)) who jumps on and off of the bus lets passengers on and off and squirms through the crowd to collect the fares. A sign with a cartoon of a man with a baseball hat on says that this Bus has passed the upgrade inspection and can now charge 3.5 Baht (8 cents US) instead of 2.5 Baht (the old price). The Bus Nong also keeps the money for the gas for the bus hangs outside of the bus warning traffic that big green bus daddy is coming through. A drawback of the bus is that I am easily 3 inches taller than the roof of the bus (I feel like a giant). Also, there are lights and wires and metal railings hanging down so I have to be careful about my hair getting caught in something (a fan!) or knocking myself out when we, poorly shocked, go careening over a bump. I now consider commuting to be more like a competitive sport and have noticed that my strength, endurance, and balance have all improved over the last month. A very inexpensive health club. Goodbye Starry Place: Hello Samsen Court! Though it was sad to leave the Starry Place - we are very happy to be the most recent residents of the Samsen Court Complex LLC. Samsen Court is two buildings, each with about 10 apartments sent back off of the road. There is a common compound that includes a pink and aging swimming pool. The Complex was built in 1964 and as you can see from the photos not much has changed around here since then. We do love the "mod" Thai furniture and the rusty homey feel. It is much nicer for us, as there is a kitchen (two gas burners hooked up to a propane tank) so I can do some cooking. I saw our first house gecko hanging out / hiding under the rice cooker the other day. Was glad to see him because he can eat the impossible to get rid of "micro ants" that appear at random in our apartment. It is quiet here (except for the chickens, motorcycles, ice-cream man, and "playing/screaming" kids) and it's green and it feels cool and breezy. Khun Yaay, the 80+ year old apartment manager, is really nice and she runs some kind of Buddhist Friendship Center (don't know what they do) on the ground floor. She thinks that I might be the re-incarnation of Christopher Columbus. She watches "Dharma TV" the 24 hour Buddhist network (all day long). [In sorting out various arrangements with Khun Yaay (means grandmother) over the past month, I have been exposed to quite a variety of Dharma TV. It mostly seems to be high-voiced children singing peppily about the virtues of mother-father-teachers-monks (irritating) or extremely mellow sounding sermons that are accompanied by fantastically surreal brightly-colored and sort of floaty "animation" (soothing if somewhat freaky). And one time there was a picture of the top of the Buddha's head with pulses of light coming out of it for assisted meditation. Very weird. - Mo] On our 3rd day here, we noticed that some of the workers had taken down the badmitton net in the little bit of grass that is in front of our apartment and that they had set up some tables and chairs and some mats along with a 34inch TV hooked up to an equally large and loud stereo system. It was Khun Yaay's Son's 55th birthday party. Ate some food (fish wrapped with fresh veg and very hot fresh chili peppers in some kind of leaf), drank some beer, ate a piece of cake with a delicious 100% Butter Frosting, and listened and watched the staff and friends of Khun Yaay's Son sing karaoke (songs of hardship, lost love, homesickness, dangerous men, dangerous women, pickup trucks and never ending traffic jams). We found out there are two other foreigners who live here. Tom is an American from New York and he's been in Asia for 40+ years. He told a long story (not really a story) that ended with the line "and then she said 'what do you mean you don't remember me? I slept with you last night and then you make me look at slides from your trip to Nepal'....mumble...mumble....Lost Weekend....mumble....mumble...ha ha ha." Thai People Made me wear a Cowboy hat two weekends in a row and then took pictures of me. In January, Maureen and I made two trips up to Isaan (northeast Thailand) which is like a combination between Central Illinois and Appalachia. Flat, dusty, poor and very rural in a farming kind of way. Trip 1: Maureen was in the Peace Corps in the Isaan town of Chumponburi. We went up (on the train 5 hours) to visit our friends Pi-Jum and Pi-Kiat for the weekend, bringing Nutella and a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label as gifts. Time moves at a different pace in Chumponburi so a proper narrative is difficult to construct. Click on the image below to see the video. Went to a Teacher Appreciation Day Ceremony (aka Wai Kru Day) (on Sunday) - Monks splashed the teachers (and me) with some water. Lots of inspirational speeches and a smiling pig's head on a plate. We met a former student of Mo's at the Wai Kru Day who is now a teacher, she invited us to come back to her village to have some lunch and to see her eucalyptus trees, her land, and her cows. (They dusted off a cowboy hat that was hanging on the wall for the viewing of the land). Sutat's mother in law pulled out her big book of photos of "farangs" (white people) and had a picture with her and Maureen when Maureen was a princess in the Eel Festival 10 years ago. [And in the fun facts I never knew until now category: having lived in Chumphonburi for two years I always thought that eel (harvested from the irrigation canals and the rice paddies) was a specialty from all over Isaan. But no. In fact it is a local specialty that local people relish but that many people outside of the immediate tri-county vicinity think is kind of gross. Huh.] In the fields, in the water, a man was "fishing" by swimming in the water with a long net and then scaring the fish into the net by whapping the water with a metal pole. As some of Sutat's cows had leaches on their back legs I was concerned for the fate of the man. (hope he got some fish!) We also had lunch in a Khmer Village (red rice!) and saw a 95+ y.o. betel nut chewing grandma walk over from her home, stand and chat for a bit, and then in a somewhat slow but very smooth motion go down into a full squat position and chatted with her friend some more. Amazing. [And then she stood up from the squat in one smooth unassisted motion - I can't even do that now!] Pi-Kiat is a good cook so for breakfast on Saturday, he made fried fresh water eel, and a boiled curry chicken (very fresh chicken) with noodles, and sweet and sour vegetables. [He is also very proud of his fruit trees. At one point he pulled down fresh tamarind pods for us to try and another time he brought down coconuts, cracked them open and handed them to us with a straw.] All weekend I was wondering if I would get to drink the Whiskey with Pi-Kiat. It was Sunday night and it was time for us to go to Buriam for dinner and to catch the train. Next thing, I know I am in the back of a pick-up speeding through burning rice fields with a mini cooler of ice and soda water some glasses and some pillows and another teacher from the school named An. Oh yeah the box with the whiskey is with us too. As An is the youngest, it was his job to open the bottle and mix the drinks. In Thailand, they put a little plastic filter thingy on the top of the bottles to aid in pouring (so that all the whiskey won't spill out if it topples over or if it is clumsily (drunkenly) poured. When An tried to open the bottle, the top of the bottle somehow broke and the plastic filter fell into the bottle. Bad. 1). Broken bottle top and glass 2) No pour/spill control for the moving pickup. After stopping for some more soda water, (Maureen and Pi-Jum were in the front of the cab), and after An lost the top of the cooler, An taught me the Surin (the province in Issan we were in) expression: if come to Surin and not drink whiskey than you are the dog of Surin. Then I taught An how so say "this whiskey is so smooth" and "I won't have a hangover with Johnny Walker because it burns clean." We ended with an amazing Chinese meal for all of us (Mo and I picked up the tab $9), and I learned that you can bring a half consumed bottle of whiskey with a broken (really really sharp and jagged) top into a restaurant and the beverage assistant will keep mixing you drinks. Trip 2: The following weekend we flew up to Khon Kaen (about 8 hours away by bus) to visit Mo's Anthropology Professor and to visit the village where he did his first field work in the 1960s. The village was going to perform a "soul tying" ritual in honor of Biff and Jane (professor and Mrs. Professor) and we were invited to attend as well. We arrived in Khon Kaen to find out that the Khon Kaen International Marathon was to be on Sunday Morning. After settling into the hotel, we went down to the Hotel restaurant to eat with Biff and Jane, their son Nick, a thai post-modernism scholar [who wore camouflage pants!], and one of the worlds leading authorities on orchids. The house band played Ruby Tuesday. The Kenyan national marathon team's cornflower blue track suits looked very nice against the pale green decor of the restaurant. [Later we noticed that the Adidas approved slogan for the marathon was "Impossible is Nothing" - which is either an amusing mistranslation or very very profound, depending on your state of mind.] The next morning we got up at 5am in order to make it to the village by 7am for the feeding of the Monks (the start of the ceremony). Fortunately we had time to stop at the "Amazon Adventure in Coffee Shop" located in a gas station complex and get a jolt just as the sun was coming up. [Seriously, this place had better coffee than you could find in some entire states.] We arrived at the village and they were busy getting ready for the ceremony, laying down mats in this covered but otherwise open village meeting hall, and bringing out food and plates. Once we were all settled the town's Spiritual Leader gave a talk followed by the feeding of the monks and the blessing of the food. Next the Spiritual Leader sat in a circle with Biff and Jane and Nick and chanting blessed them with water. Next, he tied a piece of string around each of their wrists. He chanted some more and then all of the villagers got some string and came up to them and tied strings around their wrists. I guess that Maureen and I were honored guests because we both we swarmed by the village ladies with string hanging from their ears. They took the strings and rubbed them across our wrists, chanting all the while. It was unexpected and a little bit freaky. Once Maureen assured me that they were blessing us rather than chanting "Satan, Satan, drink his blood" I felt much better and was actually quite moved by the ceremony. [They held one of these ceremonies for me in Chumphonburi at the end of Peace Corps so I was somewhat familiar with the ethos behind it and was thus able to offer reassurance.] The string symbolizes your soul being tied to theirs and you are supposed to wear the string until it literally rots off your wrist. I still have mine on, though most Bangkok Thai's assume that I have a Thai Girlfriend and have just returned from meeting the folks. [After the ceremony and lunch, Chris and I were both made to wear cowboy hats for the sightseeing promenade through town.] Movie Review: It came in darkness (with dark intent) a.k.a.Squidspaceman? (1967?): The movie follows a simple formula. 1). a 15 minute long title sequence with "teenagers" dancing to the "hip sounds of today" Strobe lights! Stop action animation. Groovy. Next some songs on the beach a la Beach Blanket Bingo. A shoot-out at a coal mine (many killed). The dramatic landing of a meteor. A scuba trip. More singing. A hardly authentic sea gypsy dance/ritual and then lots of people get vaporized! A village burns followed by a 45 minute chase scene (on foot) with a possessed being (possessed by the soul of a giant space squid born of the mysterious meteor) shooting green poorly drawn "lasers"? from his eyes. Sunlight and "an ancient garbage can lid shield" save the day! Amazing (though the film could be shortened by about 45 mins). [Yeah, it was really long. And while the sea gypsy "ceremony" was certainly interesting, I suspect its anthropological value may be quite minimal.] Election Bonus Pack: For those that haven't had enough Election Action over the last few months, the Gazette Staff has a brief summary of hot items from the Thai General Election coming up on February 6th. High-Tech Vote Buying runs rampant (take a picture of your ballot with your camera phone and receive 500 baht!) Thousands of bumper stickers of the Democrats were seized and destroyed because they used a quote from the King about corruption (I assume pointed towards the ruling party) as it is inappropriate for the King to be used to sway voters in an election. [However, the Democrats claim that they never ordered the stickers and that the entire thing was a frame-up by the ruling party. They have filed a defamation lawsuit too. Exciting!] Would you trust this man? Not only does he look crazy but as Thailand's richest and most "outspoken" massage parlor tycoon he has a lot of amazing ideas and opinions that truly are best expressed in the sledge hammer environment. [OK, I promised Chris I'd give you all a short summary of Chuwit, the crazy-sledge-hammer man's, career. The beginning of the story is murky at best. Flashback two years. Chuwit is your average obscenely wealthy "massage" parlor tycoon living the quiet life in his mansion with gold-plated fixtures and champagne fountains. Then he may or may not have bought some land in the infamous "Soi Cowboy" lane of Bangkok's Sukumvit Road. Then he may or may not have leased the property on that land to other people even thought the current establishments may or may not have had continuing leases. Then he may or may not have hired some people to go in the middle of the night and destroy those establishments with a bulldozer and some backhoes (thereby effectively "nullifying" those leases). And perhaps hiring some soldiers or some off-duty policemen to supervise the destruction. It is all very confusing. Then he may or may not have fled to Australia in the ensuing police investigation (he claims he was on vacation. Or something. It's complicated.) So the next thing you know his name is all over the papers and TV and people are calling him a criminal and a pimp and worse! And so he thinks, what have I been paying bribes for all these years? The system is broken! This will not stand! Hey, we've all been there. So he does what anyone (with a death wish) would do, he returns to Thailand and calls a press conference and tells everyone that he's been bribing the police (who are now investigating him - the nerve!) and he's going to name names. Or rather, not names, but name the initials of the police stations and the initials of officers (all the way from police general to beat cop) whom he's been paying off 'lo these many years. Of course since the locations of his various entertainment establishments aren't exactly top secret (being as they are covered with flashing neon lights) it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together, so soon the pretense is dropped and he just names names. A total media frenzy ensues. He basically dares the police to kill him (and seriously, it's amazing that he's still alive). He also claims at one point that the police kidnapped him (I'm unclear on this part. It's complicated). He exposes jailhouse bribery (5,000 baht for a plate of fried rice!). He has his own one-man show (no really). At one point the employees of one of his establishments plays a soccer match with local police. A commission is commissioned. An official inquiry ensues. Heads roll. And the Thai public LOVES it. For two reasons. First it's immensely entertaining -- as public scandals go. Second, everyone in Thailand has to pay off the police at some point or another (and often regularly). So they can relate. It's on a different scale, of course, but they can see Chuwit's point. Sort of. So Chuwit decides that his future lies in public service. And so he sells off his businesses (on the condition that no one loses their jobs - what a guy!), forms his own political party and runs for Bangkok Governor. And gets 15% of the vote. So the leader of the rapidly declining "Chart Thai" party takes note and asks him to join them and take his message of "power to the people" to the streets of Bangkok for the national election. Hence the sledgehammer. Which he carries everywhere these days. And while the wisdom of this particular campaign strategy is yet to be determined, no one can deny that it has brought a welcome note of craziness to an otherwise boring and (depending on your point of view) somewhat depressing election. By the way, the poster reads: "Eliminate the swindlers, Expose the hidden evildoers, don't cower or fear 'influence.' Our opportunity to speak the truth of our conditions."] Election Quiz: The first person to correctly guess the age of the candidate below will receive a (Bangkok Gazette Tee-Shirt).* (Click photo for larger version). *Supplies of Bangkok Gazette Tee-Shirts are extremely limited and may be substituted for any other alternate prize deemed "appropriate" by the gazette editors, their advertisers, and their staff.