Happy Chinese New Year from Bangkok...and Much, Much More

Bangkok, Thailand

Yesterday began the Year of the Ox. In Bangkok, the 20% or so Chinese who live here ( or are of Chinese extraction ) celebrated in Chinatown, and I presume, other parts of this city of nine million. 

I, however, did not attend any festivities. I had food poisoning. 

Now, dear readers, I'm not looking for sympathy. Everyone has to adjust to their new environment in various ways, especially half way around the world. But this was a doozie--even caught me off guard since I have been vigilant about what I eat and where I eat it. Well, I obviously touched something to my lips and down my throat that was full of ( my guess ) Salmonella, a gram negative bacteria for those of you who might be interested. 

There is little as bewildering as being sick away from home. At home, one can regress into a state of comfort however pitiful that might look to any onlooker. So, I set out to get my comfort needs  met in this exotic land  as best I could with a massage, lots of fluids, lots of rock and roll music that I have downloaded on my Mac, and lots of sleep. It still took my immune system ( and still is taking ) a very long time. I can only say that I've now got the dubious distinction of getting food poisoning on the Nile, in New York ( oysters --never on Sunday--yes, I did ), every single time I ( used to ) go to Mexico, and now in Thailand. 

A sidebar:

( Now for those of you who are reading this who are not family, friends, or long time readers--who may be involved with the teaching project here in Bangkok--know that my illness is not an outcome of anything anyone could have prevented short of putting me in a bubble. No worries. I survived! It is part of the experience which I am busy absorbing--both the good and the bad. )

Life comes at you fast, as the ad says. And this city rivals New York, in my view, in its complexity --and the degree of difference between the haves and the have nots--and Cairo in its degree of incredible chaos. At least  to my Western mindset. 

This is my impression of Bangkok thus far. ( Again, those who are here, this is my early take on the city, not an indictment. ) It is extremely noisy. It is dirty. The water is thick with debri; the sky often smokey, smoggy ala L.A. 

 It is hot in the way the deep South is hot. Think Savannah in the summer away from the water. People consequently live, cook, chat on the street to beat the heat, drive any manner of vehicles ( no animal drawn buggies, thus far! ), all without mufflers and certainly without any environmental controlled mechanisms to keep pollution at bay.

I find thus far that each day my journey becomes a bit easier as I decode the streets, the snaking river's route, the intricate system of canals, lanes, roads, buses, songtaus. I practice Thai as best I can-- for my students' enjoyment--right, left, happy new year, but my retention is poor thus far which is to be expected at this stage of the game. 

This is a "typical day" since my first teaching day, one week ago.

6am--

I wake in my studio apartment, air conditioning droning, to the alarm, and see the sun creeping around the corner of my building, soon to create withering heat. 

I shower with a sprayer that has a life of its own as it spritzes the tiny bathroom, my hand grabbing it as it careens around the shower stall. The water heater reminds me of Ireland where you have to heat the water in advance if you want it warm. But this is a heating mechanism that provides instant, albeit lukewarm water.

 I take my vitamins, put in my contact carefully so I don't lose it since I have only two more to last the six weeks here, and turn on the computer to pick up messages. ( Another blog to tell you the funny way I find a signal for WiFi...)

I dress, eat something light out on my little deck, wondering about all of the houses below me and their inhabitants, and leave for the Wat.

8:10am--

I walk out of the Rio and walk down the soi ( lane ) to the corner and cross the street ( think I 95, well, maybe not quite that treacherous ). I hop on a crowded, open air red songtau, usually the only Westerner ( see earlier entry for a description ). 

The red truck with seats travels down the main road near the Rio for a minute or two, then takes a left onto a 1/2 mile soi with an open air market on either side. Everything is being prepared right on the street, and various fruits and vegetables are available from the stands. 

There are Thais everywere walking down the street. And motorbikes, and taxis, and tuk tuks puttering along the way. The songtau stops at the end of the soi which is a blessing because I don't have to worry about watching for my stop. Then, I cross another very busy street to the office which is less than a block away. (New York readers, after I complete that portion of the morning, I feel like I've been on a crowded, unairconditioned subway during rush hour that got stalled in the middle of August.)

8:30am--

I arrive at the office, greet Sakhorn and John B, the head of the teaching program. John and I walk over to our classrooms that are adjacent to the Wat. Usually, one or two of my monk students are there to greet me.

9am--( or so )

 Class begins, not always at the stroke of 9 because I'm told the monks have chores and other responsibilities and so they meander in anytime between 9 and 9:30am. This is an extra English program for them as many are already getting a structured English course in high school or their university course. The first day, I had six students. But the next day, they just kept coming in. I welcomed every eager face, told them my name, and asked them to write their name on an improvised tent card so that I could call them by name.

10:45 am-- My monks are dismissed promptly. They are about to have their second and last meal for the day, and I do not want them to miss one second of it. Just for the record, they are allowed liquids for the rest of the day but nothing they can chew. I'm told, however, that Buddhism is " the middle way" so that if a monk needed more food, the abbot would make sure he had what he needed.

11am--I return to the office.I give the sack lunch that the monks have put on my desk for me to eat to Sakhorn because my GI tract could not take the street food it contains. ( The monks gather alms in the morning on the street, and the people, good Buddhists, give them free food to "gain merit", and, hopefully get closer to nirvana. Again, Cliff notes! ). Then, sometimes I go to lunch with John B and others; sometimes return to the Rio.

My afternoons have been spent trying to sort out all of those things one sorts in a new environment. Where can I get a diet coke? Is the food good in the restaurant downstairs at the Rio? How does the pool work for laps? Who are the receptionists and guards--how can I communicate with them? And many other mundane things that create order, nesting if you will.

At night, sometimes I have an early dinner with new friends. Sometimes I write. Sometimes I just fall in bed, exhausted.

I haven't written about my teaching methods and experience with the monks. But I will. I'm still distilling their very different teaching needs. I've taught at universities, colleges, clinical practicuums for nursing majors. But the challenge here is much different. Simply put, we come from different worlds and are intersecting in that little classroom--east and west--young and old--Buddhist and Christian. 

Before I go to bed, I think about their faces and their many shades of saffron robes as they sit around the table with me: Cambodians, Vietnamese, Laotian, Thai. And I wonder how I could be so lucky to be here. It is touching the ineffable.

M.C.