Teacher at international school asked the students in class: "Share your individual opinions regarding other countries' lack of food."
Student from Africa replied : "What is food?"
Student from Europe said: "What is 'lack of'?"
Student from America asked "What is 'other countries'?"
Student from China "What is 'individual opinion'?"
Student from Singapore: "Will the question be in the examination?"
Friday, 10 September 2010
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Personal Philosophy & Mai Pen Rai Krab
If you spend enough time in traffic jams in Bangkok you realise that the road isn't necessarily long, simply impassable, and yet, at the same time, that life is quite short. I've been thinking, in the back of taxis, about life and about building up a bit of a personal philosophy. I think it will form around the ideas of Michel de Montaigne who, in 1580, seemed to have a lot of things worked out. I think he died at about 45 which was a good long life in those days; so I have easily outlived him already.
I was thinking that we are born into all this: family, traditions, races, religions, nations, rights, obligations, ideologies, the times, even personality, etc without really having much of a say. We were born simply because our parents had sex. That was that and this is us. The rest: the rights and wrongs of societies, of human endeavour, of, well, everything as it is, is all totally arbitrary and based on the fact that people had sex.
If one is born into a Catholic system, the idea was that people had sex to somehow form a special marriage with God. I expect islam is much the same. Buddhism is a bit whackier but less torturous but all three of these, ahum, Great Religions do seem intent on controlling sex so that it complies with someone's righteous vision. The Real Terrorist is Uncontrolled, Unmanipulated Sex between adult consensual people who really like it; who, for a time, find themselves in each other's stream of being.
I hate the word 'appropriate'. It is used so often now and not only in talk, speeches, schools etc but also within the self-chat of a person. 'Appropriate' is simply the new 'god-fearing righteousness' of a secular world.
I'm very fond of the secular world and I think all churches, synagogues and mosques and temples and stupas would make great coffee-shop/book stores/bars (with very luxurious smoking areas) and the world would be far better if they were; but at the same time I think we need to get rid of the word 'appropriate'. Why? Because it's just another attempt at control of the human mind and heart, and is based upon the exact same illusion as the religions and the political ideologies that still run rampant around here there and everywhere.
Human life is not 'appropriate', nor is it righteous, moral or full of god-granted grace; it's just part of this flow, for now. This flow is just what Michel de Montaigne noted it as being in 1580.
The thing that was so remarkable about Monsieur de Montaigne was that he was a strong intellectual pillar of French Catholicism in the Renaissance yet he thought and wrote with a remarkably open mind. Some would say a modern, eclectic mind free of bullshit and pretty well honed the tool that is functionally atheistic Existentialism. His most famous question "How do I know?" When I think of Michel de Montaigne I picture him as the stuck-up bright French Prince that he most certainly was in paintings of him but I also see him, in the words of the songwriter Roy Harper, as 'a white dove, with a hawk's head, and an Open Mind before me'. I particularly like Montaigne because he was the first person to formally write anything Against Human Torture...and in 1580 when torture was all the rage and was seen as both righteous, godly, and appropriate. Just like Guantanamo Bay.
I don't really think generations learn much at all, ever. There's no 'progress'. I think it's all new with every life, with every flow. A new Hitler or Pol Pot etc is always at the gate and often loved and believed in. He/She is often inside the gate and sometimes in the lounge room, and is just as likely to be cooking in your kitchen or buying you dinner from time to time. Little Hitler takes his lunch to school in the same kind of brown bag that we all do. We just have advances in gadgets and weapons, but that's it. Apart from that, we don't learn anything that can be passed on except perhaps the capacity to be curious and to sometimes love, blinking from our little well at the sky.
This is my own thinking as best as I can make it out, from time spent in taxis in massive traffic jams in Bangkok where no one honks their horn, where ambulances can't possibly get through, where no one can be on time, where no one gets too angry or worried simply because...it doesn't matter. Mai pen rai, krab. Sabai sabai.
I was thinking that we are born into all this: family, traditions, races, religions, nations, rights, obligations, ideologies, the times, even personality, etc without really having much of a say. We were born simply because our parents had sex. That was that and this is us. The rest: the rights and wrongs of societies, of human endeavour, of, well, everything as it is, is all totally arbitrary and based on the fact that people had sex.
If one is born into a Catholic system, the idea was that people had sex to somehow form a special marriage with God. I expect islam is much the same. Buddhism is a bit whackier but less torturous but all three of these, ahum, Great Religions do seem intent on controlling sex so that it complies with someone's righteous vision. The Real Terrorist is Uncontrolled, Unmanipulated Sex between adult consensual people who really like it; who, for a time, find themselves in each other's stream of being.
I hate the word 'appropriate'. It is used so often now and not only in talk, speeches, schools etc but also within the self-chat of a person. 'Appropriate' is simply the new 'god-fearing righteousness' of a secular world.
I'm very fond of the secular world and I think all churches, synagogues and mosques and temples and stupas would make great coffee-shop/book stores/bars (with very luxurious smoking areas) and the world would be far better if they were; but at the same time I think we need to get rid of the word 'appropriate'. Why? Because it's just another attempt at control of the human mind and heart, and is based upon the exact same illusion as the religions and the political ideologies that still run rampant around here there and everywhere.
Human life is not 'appropriate', nor is it righteous, moral or full of god-granted grace; it's just part of this flow, for now. This flow is just what Michel de Montaigne noted it as being in 1580.
The thing that was so remarkable about Monsieur de Montaigne was that he was a strong intellectual pillar of French Catholicism in the Renaissance yet he thought and wrote with a remarkably open mind. Some would say a modern, eclectic mind free of bullshit and pretty well honed the tool that is functionally atheistic Existentialism. His most famous question "How do I know?" When I think of Michel de Montaigne I picture him as the stuck-up bright French Prince that he most certainly was in paintings of him but I also see him, in the words of the songwriter Roy Harper, as 'a white dove, with a hawk's head, and an Open Mind before me'. I particularly like Montaigne because he was the first person to formally write anything Against Human Torture...and in 1580 when torture was all the rage and was seen as both righteous, godly, and appropriate. Just like Guantanamo Bay.
I don't really think generations learn much at all, ever. There's no 'progress'. I think it's all new with every life, with every flow. A new Hitler or Pol Pot etc is always at the gate and often loved and believed in. He/She is often inside the gate and sometimes in the lounge room, and is just as likely to be cooking in your kitchen or buying you dinner from time to time. Little Hitler takes his lunch to school in the same kind of brown bag that we all do. We just have advances in gadgets and weapons, but that's it. Apart from that, we don't learn anything that can be passed on except perhaps the capacity to be curious and to sometimes love, blinking from our little well at the sky.
This is my own thinking as best as I can make it out, from time spent in taxis in massive traffic jams in Bangkok where no one honks their horn, where ambulances can't possibly get through, where no one can be on time, where no one gets too angry or worried simply because...it doesn't matter. Mai pen rai, krab. Sabai sabai.
China & Japan Facing Off
At the moment China and Japan are getting a tad volatile with each other due to a Japanese Coastguard stopping a Chinese fishing trawler around disputed island territory. Now, in the past it would have been quite usual for China to step back and act in a conciliatory fashion, but things have changed... and there's still the issue of the Nanjing massacre for both countries to talk about before there can be understanding. Things really have changed and the new balance is very different now.
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Beauty, Sex and Theft in Bangkok
On Sex: Now this is always an interesting topic and one that occupies the consciousness of many of my gender via the good god granting men hard-wired limbic systems with subtle arrays of complex receptors throughout our mortal body-life from between ages of about 13 and 200. The male moral compass is one that usually simply points firmly upward, at least in theory. It is probably why men do not need complex maps. There is a part of them that never really gets lost.
I'll prepare an essay on this topic and put it here soon.
It is interesting not only because it is interesting because women are interesting but also it is interesting how Thai society is bound to a 'binary relativism' in just about every aspect of life, and has been bound to this for 900 years; it's a mindset that doesnt stem directly from Buddhism, but co-exists quite well with it. Morality, or whatever one wishes to call what is 'appropriate' in any culture, as in every single individual, has variations and intrigues that cannot be understood.
Gender is interesting in Bangkok. Thus the large numbers of beautiful transgender folk (ladyboys, kathoeys)working in women's make up shops in the upper-strata centres. Often sexual re-assignment is both a personal choice, sometimes a bad one, and sometimes a smart economic move as well as a simple exuberance of physical beauty echoing a deep feminine beauty in the soul. Thai folk, women and men, to me, have a certain 'beauty DNA' that is quite common here yet rare elsewhere. I think the Thai Prime Minister is very beautiful, and far more beautiful than the Australian Prime Minister. That one is a man and the other a woman is hardly the point.
I've always been an admirer of beauty whether it be physical, intellectual, spiritual or mechanical. The Ducati 996 for example. The new Lambhorgini. Vespa motorscooters. Fresh flowers. The beauty of the human voice. The beauty of dialect. The smile. Laughter. Chinese songs. The writings of Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, and Michel de Montaigne. To admire beauty and indeed have an interest in human sexuality doesnt actually mean one is out there rooting all the time, to use an Australian vernacular. There is not much 'natural beauty' as in landscapes and perfect skies in Bangkok, but there is a giant array of human and mechanical beauty.
For instance, Chinatown 'runs' on and because of Vespa motorscooters from the early 60s. There are tens of thousands of them and they cart pretty well everything that can be sold in the narrow alleys of the markets. They are, to me, beautiful machines. As for the beauty of the clear night sky, well, we've seen stars maybe on 20 nights in 3 years. There are the frequent clouds of course, but also there's the dense opaque layer of suspended carbon that you can acually wear home from Chinatown. On any sunny day there's no need for hats, sunglasses or sun-protection lotion in Bangkok city.
Usually talk of sex/massage in Bangkok is based in one of two convictions: 1: That it is a social evil and a crime against women perperated by foreign devils. 2: That Bangkok is a very exciting & dreamlike destination for disillusioned overweight middle-aged men from Australia, England, America, Germany and France. I'd like to put together a far more succinct portrayal. Many are from Japan and from the Middle East although the majority are middle to upper class Thai men. The median age is around 28. A lot of English speaking guys seem to be in their early twenties and some especially like to have sex for hours and run off without paying. This perhaps perfects the 'social evil of men' aspect more than anything else. Not only are young women corrupted, but also robbed.
How do you know if a Thai massage shop in Bangkok is a legitimate Thai massage shop or a sex place when many are exactly both? I was talking to a young guy from Collaroy in Sydney who explained it thus: "If you are not very bright, mate, you can get a bit of an idea when you are having a foot massage and the masseuse sticks her perfect pink tongue in your ear." I can understand that. Something would dawn.
Personally, I find the most beautiful looking women come from North Eastern China, especially Shen Yang, and both North and South Korea; where Thailand overtakes them I guess is also in the physical beauty of the men; and of those inbetween the genders especially.
On Theft: Street theft/pickpocketing etc. This has only happened to us once in 3 years and the thief, who was very adept and opportunistic, was a young Western European tourist, most likely an Englander, in a Starbucks coffee shop at MBK.
Being a fastly vastly modernising metropolis, the thing one really needs to be careful about is wi-fi theft of identity. the number of false-sites that look so perfect when you try to connect anywhere is remarkable.
I'll prepare an essay on this topic and put it here soon.
It is interesting not only because it is interesting because women are interesting but also it is interesting how Thai society is bound to a 'binary relativism' in just about every aspect of life, and has been bound to this for 900 years; it's a mindset that doesnt stem directly from Buddhism, but co-exists quite well with it. Morality, or whatever one wishes to call what is 'appropriate' in any culture, as in every single individual, has variations and intrigues that cannot be understood.
Gender is interesting in Bangkok. Thus the large numbers of beautiful transgender folk (ladyboys, kathoeys)working in women's make up shops in the upper-strata centres. Often sexual re-assignment is both a personal choice, sometimes a bad one, and sometimes a smart economic move as well as a simple exuberance of physical beauty echoing a deep feminine beauty in the soul. Thai folk, women and men, to me, have a certain 'beauty DNA' that is quite common here yet rare elsewhere. I think the Thai Prime Minister is very beautiful, and far more beautiful than the Australian Prime Minister. That one is a man and the other a woman is hardly the point.
I've always been an admirer of beauty whether it be physical, intellectual, spiritual or mechanical. The Ducati 996 for example. The new Lambhorgini. Vespa motorscooters. Fresh flowers. The beauty of the human voice. The beauty of dialect. The smile. Laughter. Chinese songs. The writings of Yukio Mishima, Yasunari Kawabata, and Michel de Montaigne. To admire beauty and indeed have an interest in human sexuality doesnt actually mean one is out there rooting all the time, to use an Australian vernacular. There is not much 'natural beauty' as in landscapes and perfect skies in Bangkok, but there is a giant array of human and mechanical beauty.
For instance, Chinatown 'runs' on and because of Vespa motorscooters from the early 60s. There are tens of thousands of them and they cart pretty well everything that can be sold in the narrow alleys of the markets. They are, to me, beautiful machines. As for the beauty of the clear night sky, well, we've seen stars maybe on 20 nights in 3 years. There are the frequent clouds of course, but also there's the dense opaque layer of suspended carbon that you can acually wear home from Chinatown. On any sunny day there's no need for hats, sunglasses or sun-protection lotion in Bangkok city.
Usually talk of sex/massage in Bangkok is based in one of two convictions: 1: That it is a social evil and a crime against women perperated by foreign devils. 2: That Bangkok is a very exciting & dreamlike destination for disillusioned overweight middle-aged men from Australia, England, America, Germany and France. I'd like to put together a far more succinct portrayal. Many are from Japan and from the Middle East although the majority are middle to upper class Thai men. The median age is around 28. A lot of English speaking guys seem to be in their early twenties and some especially like to have sex for hours and run off without paying. This perhaps perfects the 'social evil of men' aspect more than anything else. Not only are young women corrupted, but also robbed.
How do you know if a Thai massage shop in Bangkok is a legitimate Thai massage shop or a sex place when many are exactly both? I was talking to a young guy from Collaroy in Sydney who explained it thus: "If you are not very bright, mate, you can get a bit of an idea when you are having a foot massage and the masseuse sticks her perfect pink tongue in your ear." I can understand that. Something would dawn.
Personally, I find the most beautiful looking women come from North Eastern China, especially Shen Yang, and both North and South Korea; where Thailand overtakes them I guess is also in the physical beauty of the men; and of those inbetween the genders especially.
On Theft: Street theft/pickpocketing etc. This has only happened to us once in 3 years and the thief, who was very adept and opportunistic, was a young Western European tourist, most likely an Englander, in a Starbucks coffee shop at MBK.
Being a fastly vastly modernising metropolis, the thing one really needs to be careful about is wi-fi theft of identity. the number of false-sites that look so perfect when you try to connect anywhere is remarkable.
Social Dangers in Bangkok versus in Australia
Now, being educated in the health sciences in Australia I'd be the first to say one needs to be careful with one's food choices in the streets of Bangkok but it's interesting to note that in 3 years in Bangkok I've only been ill once following a huge public celebration a Nonthaburi Pier when many new food vendors descended upon the event. The regular folk are very attuned to the need for food safety because they know what they are doing and their business depends upon returning customers. Anyway, whatever the toxin was, it was a heady one and I was sick for a month. In comparison, I was in Rockhampton, Australia, last year for six months and was sick from restaurant-food 5 times although only for a few days to a week each time.
The 'great poisoning' in Nonthaburi happened when about a million of us; yes, a real million, crowded down in very narrow streets with out any crowd-control etc, and for awhile we, in the middle, were carried along for 100 metres with our feet off the ground, pressure packed together. It was only when the real crush-peril dawned on everyone in this remarkable multi-way procession that kids were hoisted up on shoulders to stop them from being crushed and asphixiated. At the same time, interestingly, this is when everyone started to smile. Somehow the smiling made it all bearable and 'de-tuned' the panic. It was only when I got home that the food poisoning set in and that was me for a month; actually sicker than I've been before. I think the small black crabs often crushed into seafood meals for added flavour are sometimes not so fresh.
Still, when you think about it, that was only once in 3 years of relatively reckless eating in Bangkok streets, compared with 5 times in 6 months in well-regulated 'first world' Australian restaurants.
The 'great poisoning' in Nonthaburi happened when about a million of us; yes, a real million, crowded down in very narrow streets with out any crowd-control etc, and for awhile we, in the middle, were carried along for 100 metres with our feet off the ground, pressure packed together. It was only when the real crush-peril dawned on everyone in this remarkable multi-way procession that kids were hoisted up on shoulders to stop them from being crushed and asphixiated. At the same time, interestingly, this is when everyone started to smile. Somehow the smiling made it all bearable and 'de-tuned' the panic. It was only when I got home that the food poisoning set in and that was me for a month; actually sicker than I've been before. I think the small black crabs often crushed into seafood meals for added flavour are sometimes not so fresh.
Still, when you think about it, that was only once in 3 years of relatively reckless eating in Bangkok streets, compared with 5 times in 6 months in well-regulated 'first world' Australian restaurants.
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
General Satisfaction In Bangkok
We live in an enclave that runs off the third street in 'The Neighborhood of General Happiness'. We've been here about three years, in Pak Kret, Nonthaburi, about 20km North of Bangkok CBD although where the city begins and ends remains a mystery that we are well within. Its a giant thing, Bangkok, or Krung Thep Mahanakorn. The ancient design was that of a Mandala but now is more like a pine tree, a tree that looks in part as if its falling. It's a place that takes years to know. I'm proud of the things I know: That it's best not to try to get into the CBD on a Friday at the end of the month because the roads will be jammed tight for hours, many hours, because this is the time of month when people get paid.
So, if you have to get into town, you try to get the taxi to take you to Mo Chit BTS and from there get the Skytrain into Siam/Ploenchit etc depending on where you need to go. If you want to get to Chinatown, well, you can take the BTS from Mo Chit or the MRT underground from Chatuchat Park (which is also Mo Chit) and that'll take you through to just near Yarowat and you can get a tuk-tuk from there, although some wont want to take you; its only a 10 minute stroll from there anyway.
Sometimes its very hard to get a taxi around 2pm because its driver-change over time. If you're in a taxi with a reluctant driver he may well , mid journey, say 'no. I cant do it.' and he'll wave down another cab and then 5kms along in the new cab, the driver might say 'no, I cant do it.' and he'll flag down your third cab.
Some drivers just dont know where things are, which is fair enough, because its such a giant place. Sometimes you cant change directions for 20 minues or so , thus if you take a wrong turn, well, it may take you 20-40 minutes to get back on track.
The road sysem is very odd and resembles nothing so much as a big plate of one-way noodles; some that dont actually seem to connect to any others.
The joy of the Skytrain and the MRT is that you can get to most places in the city fast and economically and if you have an understanding of where things are, well, you can get on at Ploenchit, go to Asoke, go to On Nut, or do the run to Thaksin Bridge -National Stadium, and the mysterious and heady steamy mixture of sex and international diplomacy of Sala Daeng etc.
Motorcycle taxis are really the best way to get around at street level because you can go on footpaths, through lobbies, down train tracks, across prohibited land etc in the most creative of journeys.
Motor cycle deaths happen about once per hour in the city so this form of rapid transit has its issues, but whilst you are alive, you certainly know you are even if at the destination you note your elbows and knees are sore from whacking into various parts of moving cars.
It's very satisfying to know your way around, that's for sure. Sometimes the great thing about a journey is that you proved yes, it could be done; or you have suffered enough by trying and you know a little more about the Giant that is Bangkok, Krung Thep Mahanakorn. The City.
So, if you have to get into town, you try to get the taxi to take you to Mo Chit BTS and from there get the Skytrain into Siam/Ploenchit etc depending on where you need to go. If you want to get to Chinatown, well, you can take the BTS from Mo Chit or the MRT underground from Chatuchat Park (which is also Mo Chit) and that'll take you through to just near Yarowat and you can get a tuk-tuk from there, although some wont want to take you; its only a 10 minute stroll from there anyway.
Sometimes its very hard to get a taxi around 2pm because its driver-change over time. If you're in a taxi with a reluctant driver he may well , mid journey, say 'no. I cant do it.' and he'll wave down another cab and then 5kms along in the new cab, the driver might say 'no, I cant do it.' and he'll flag down your third cab.
Some drivers just dont know where things are, which is fair enough, because its such a giant place. Sometimes you cant change directions for 20 minues or so , thus if you take a wrong turn, well, it may take you 20-40 minutes to get back on track.
The road sysem is very odd and resembles nothing so much as a big plate of one-way noodles; some that dont actually seem to connect to any others.
The joy of the Skytrain and the MRT is that you can get to most places in the city fast and economically and if you have an understanding of where things are, well, you can get on at Ploenchit, go to Asoke, go to On Nut, or do the run to Thaksin Bridge -National Stadium, and the mysterious and heady steamy mixture of sex and international diplomacy of Sala Daeng etc.
Motorcycle taxis are really the best way to get around at street level because you can go on footpaths, through lobbies, down train tracks, across prohibited land etc in the most creative of journeys.
Motor cycle deaths happen about once per hour in the city so this form of rapid transit has its issues, but whilst you are alive, you certainly know you are even if at the destination you note your elbows and knees are sore from whacking into various parts of moving cars.
It's very satisfying to know your way around, that's for sure. Sometimes the great thing about a journey is that you proved yes, it could be done; or you have suffered enough by trying and you know a little more about the Giant that is Bangkok, Krung Thep Mahanakorn. The City.
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