My experience of most Asian cities follows an established
pattern. At first there is the thrill of expectation: all that humanity and
culture cooking under the pressure of intense cohabitation in the heat of the
tropical sun. Even on the airport shuttle bus, I still feel ready and willing
to embrace the hellish traffic, the constantly unreliable public transport and
the cryptic dance of bartering as a sign that here in this land, it is still
possible to lead the simple, the authentic, the deregulated life.
Sooner or later though the grain of my nature asserts
itself, and I am faced with the incontrovertible truth that cities drain all my
energy. Naturally inclined towards observation, reflection and empathy, I
sorely need downtime to process the torrent of new impressions which cities
present. Without this, each looming face on a potholed pavement, each
motorcycle horn or hawker's cry falls like a hammer blow on already bruised and
broken skin, and slowly but surely I am beaten down into a numb and ragged
stupor.
...which is pretty much how I felt when I left Kathmandu, in
desperate need of some downtime among the jungled karsts and lazy rivers of
northern Laos. But international airports are seldom located in sparsely
populated areas of outstanding natural beauty and so my only real option was to
connect from one maddening metropolis to another. Like it or not, I was headed
for a layover in Bangkok and felt duty bound in spite of my city fatigue to
explore its sights.
Two days is not enough to get a handle on a city and its
occupants, especially if you are already battling fatigue and wading through
the broiling heat and thick humidity of the early rainy season. No. The best
one can do in such circumstances is to plunge into the torrent of impressions
with eyes wide open in the hope that some few encounters, by virtue of their
gravity, will linger long enough to aid reflection.
For my part, whenever I think of those days in Bangkok, one
encounter in particular stands out as a kind of metonym affording some modest
insight into Thai culture. Whether my conclusions are accurate or not, I will
leave to the judgement of those who have a more profound understanding of the
country and its people.
Day one in Bangkok began early with the search for some
sunglasses to replace the sorry fragments of cracked plastic and super glue
that my current pair had become. En route to the Golden Mount, I spy a rack of
sunglasses outside a shop and cross the road to spin the display stand. As
usual, my only criterion was to find a pair that were cheap enough for me to
bear their loss when I eventually stood on them, as I inevitably would, yet of
sufficient quality not to fall apart in a high wind.
Soon enough I found some that would do and entered the shop
to pay. As I did so, two things instantly struck me, the first being the
welcome embrace of the near omnipresent Bangkok air con -- ruthlessly efficient
and instantly refreshing. Less welcome however was the realisation that the
only other merchandise on offer here was the tackier end of the Hello Kitty
range. From floor to ceiling the orange walls were full of shelves stacking the
kind of kitsch and lurid polyurethane accessories that would make even the most
girlie of Japanese schoolgirls wince.
There followed a moment's hesitation in which my masculinity
seemed to deflate like some Hindenburg wrecked upon the thorns of Kitty's rose
garden. Puffing myself up, I approached the teenage girl behind the counter who
was already flashing me a mouthful of expensive corrective dental work in place
of a smile. The sunglasses, she informed me, were actually on sale and 100 baht
cheaper than the advertised price -- a most welcome little victory for my
pocket given the countless times I had been overcharged in the past month.
Sadly however I was not able fully to savour this triumph, for now that I had
increased my proximity to those elaborately caged teeth I found myself staring
into a set of milky blue eyes, the peculiar lustre of which seemed to suggest
an origin beyond our solar system.
'Contact lenses', it suddenly dawned on me as I unfroze and
handed over the note. 'Of course: nothing in this shop is real, but a
comic-book homage to all that is cute and kitsch.'
But just then when I thought I had her pegged, she goes and
changes shape. Raising her hands in response to my khop khun krap, she
clasps them together in prayer front of her face, closes her eyes, and bows
with such consummate grace and gravity that I am genuinely moved by the
gesture.
Frequent visitors to Thailand will no doubt be able to state
this in far better terms, but it seems to me that wrapped up in the heart of
this simple encounter lies a kernel of truth about Thai culture. Time and again
I saw grace and gravity cheek by jowl with a wacky exuberance and certain
fondness for all things kitsch. Turn on a TV or radio at any moment in Thailand
and you stand a good chance of catching either a solemn rendition of the
national anthem, during which you are expected to drop what you are doing and
stand to attention, or an advert in which the familiar narrative of problem -
solution is punctuated by kitschy cartoon jingles. Seriously, adverts in
Thailand are all muted trumpet and bugle fanfares. And if anyone should fall
victim to a banana skin, you can be sure their fall from grace will be marked
with a glissando upon one of those sliding whistles.
My purchase complete, I continued on my way to the Golden
Mount, using my GPS to guide me through delightful old-style Bangkok
neighbourhoods -- all alleyways and canals. More than once I was led to
question the onward path as the device blithely urged me onward through latched
iron gates and into narrow concrete canyons in which sleeping Thais lay strewn
around on hammocks and mattresses, their limbs contorted as if dropped from a
great height. But in the end it was a journey worth making, if only for the the
sight that greeted me as I made my final approach to the temple. Near the
entrance at street level, a group of kids were dressed to the nines in
traditional Thai costume, even though they were karaoke-busking to what sounded
like the losing entries to Latvia's quest for a song for Europe. After the
events of my morning, I saw something familiar in this curious prospect, and so
joined the thin crowd of listless onlookers to marvel at the wondrous
juxtapositions... In the background a teenage girl in emerald Buddha green was
performing a slow and elegant swan neck gesture while out in front, a fat
little boy in a golden jacket bounced around the stage screaming flatly into a
cheap microphone.
An encounter in my book worth more than a thousand golden
Buddhas.
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