Initial observations of Bangkok, and Thailand in general

It may be a cliché thing to say that travel, or the act of travelling, opens our eyes.  Perhaps it doesn’t open our eyes, so much as allows our minds to react differently to what we see through our eyes.  In the comforts of home, of a normal repetitive routine set among familiar surroundings, we are not obligated to observe, to compare and contrast, to struggle to understand the most simple of tasks.  When we deliberately put ourselves out into another part of the world, in a place where the customs, language, and ways of thinking are different, often incomprehensible, then we are forced out of that unconscious state of "normality" into a state of learning.  We are again children, watching those around us for the smallest cues of right and wrong, of polite and rude, of praise and censure.  And we, again, SEE rather than let our surroundings slide by us in a blur.

After more than a week in Bangkok, and now in Chiang Mai, Thailand strikes me as a unique combination of reverence and practicality.  The reverence reveals itself in both the casual way faith is inserted into daily life and their respectful, almost worshipful, attitudes towards the people who lead their country.  In any meandering walk through the city, I encounter holy trees wrapped in a filmy rainbow of fabrics, ornate temples where chickens cluck and stray dogs wander freely, and spirit shrines painted in reds, whites, and golds, carefully placed so that they aren’t overshadowed by the house or business that erected them.  Lit incense burns in small metallic bowls tucked away in the concrete nooks of random street corners.  And shopping malls set aside special prayer rooms for anyone to use. 

An example of a holy tree, seen as protecting the land around it. 

Spirit shrines, for the spirits of the departed. 

Another manifestation of the Thai collective mindset of reverence is the way the Thai people regard their King Bhumibol and their Queen Sirkit.  Perhaps it is propaganda with statues and ornate framed pictures of the royals at various stages of their lives peering down upon the masses and the blockage of their particular Wikipedia page in Thailand in case anything negative is said of them.  However, I think it goes deeper than that, as evidenced by a calendar depicting King Bhumibol’s face set in a benevolent expression I spotted tucked away in a corner of a dried fruit stall.  It is so different from the way the American people view the leaders of our government, with a healthy dose of cynicism, doubt, and dissent as if we’re afraid to ever be completely satisfied.  And it is even different from the way the British seem to view their monarchy, as odd but beloved members of their extended family, the crazy aunts and uncles we all love to gossip about.  In Thailand, the royals seem simultaneously adored and elevated beyond mere humanity.  And yet this reverence is so ingrained and un-self-conscious as to render it almost mundane, a simple but integral piece of a Thai person, on par with the seeming contradiction of the entrepreneurial practicality also present. 

Picture of King Bhumibol.

It sometimes seems as if Thailand is a country of shopkeepers.  Perhaps this is more evident because we are tourists and more inclined towards purchasing little souvenirs to remember our travels by.  However, we have visited both the tourist traps and markets where not another single person toted a giant camera at their side.  We’ve enjoyed the bountiful a/c of modern super-malls hawking haute couture, squeezed through the narrow dark passageways lined with mesh bags full of panicked frogs, and purchased fried chicken from a makeshift eatery built on the back of a motorbike.   It seems all you need is a folding card table to own a shop.  Add a propane stove and a couple plastic chairs tucked underneath tarps and a restaurant is created.  And lacking all that still hasn’t stopped people from selling their products on the doorsteps of their wooden shanties steps away from the edges of railroad tracks.  It is a country where life can be grueling difficult but that doesn’t stop the people from making the most of whatever they possess.   

Khlong Toey Market

The two qualities of reverence and practicality should be contradictory, but these states of mind seem to fold together so seamlessly here, creating a fascinating new whole.