Guest Column: A Mother’s Perspective of Bangkok

To a mother, is there anything better than spending a vacation, even very short, with a child who has long since left home? I don’t think there is one. This is how I felt when I, over the past two weeks, visited Linda and her boyfriend Mitch in Bangkok, Thailand. Time passed by so quickly, and now I am going back to Beijing with many precious feelings and sweet memories of the trip left behind. With Linda’s and Mitch’s careful plan, in these two weeks, almost every day we went out and ate at different Thai restaurants that always came out with something just wonderful. I enjoyed Thai food very much, even though sometimes they were too spicy for me. But the dishes were fresh, light, and very tasty. I have to say that now I prefer Thai food to the Chinese food I have in Beijing, the latter usually being overly cooked and very oily. Every evening we played games, the way families spent times together in the pre-TV age. I wouldn’t say that I was a good player by any measure, but I enjoyed every minute spent with them immensely. We chatted, laughed, and ate a lot. Sometimes, Mitch and Linda cooked some American/Italian food that I have been longing for for a long time. Let alone to say that I was staying in their lovely lovely loft-styled apartment, modern, with high ceiling and a beautiful view especially during the night and rainy days.  I swam every day, in order to get my strength back for more hard work, and for most of the time, I had this long and narrow pool all by myself.

Manila, the Other Face of Asia

Last week found us in Manila.  We were headed to a remote island in Palawan to celebrate Mitch’s XXth birthday, a vacation that promised nature reserves, sunken Japanese warships, unparalleled underwater marine life, and cozy grass huts on the beach.  It sounded too good to be true, and it was, since heavy rains in that region caused all flights to be canceled. Instead, we spent Mitch’s birthday at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport, waiting for a flight that never happened, before we finally relented and spent the weekend in Manila, and then stayed in Manila some more the following week in order for me to get a special visa.  We wanted to like Manila; after all, the city sounds like a blend between Milan and Vanilla, and suggested Spanish ruins, American apparel, and fusion foods.  The city, however, bore a close resemblance to hell on earth.  Was it dirty, ugly and polluted? Yes. Was the food truly inedible or at best unremarkable? It’s true. Did it rain for 7 days straight? Sure did.  But what was most upsetting about Manila was the very apparent poverty, palpable income inequality, and this feeling of depression, rather than the vital energy that comes from knowing you are headed upwards.  The Philippines has witnessed tremendous economic growth in recent years, but as seen in the picture above, that wealth is largely concentrated in the hands of a few, while most of Metro Manila is more like the foreground – incredibly poor, and with few opportunities for improvements in quality of life.

Will you resign, or will you be dismissed?

I recently finished Suketu Mehta’s amazing “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found”, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist book about the city’s underground lives, such as gangs, police-gang warfare, prostitutes, and transvestites.  One of the most striking stories concerns a family of Jains who, having accumulated incredible wealth in the jewelry business, now decide to give up the world to become Jain monks and nuns.  The family of five give up all of their wealth, shave their heads and go forth into the world in winter, barefoot and with only two sets of clothes.  The men separate from the women, each parent now regarding the accompanying children as disciples only.  The father recalls reading a Jainist book with a sentence that electrified him and ultimately led him to this renunciation: “Are you going to be dismissed or will you resign?”

Mehta writes, “For a long time afterward, in my life in the cities, I think of Sevantibhai, of the utter final simplicity of his life. In New York I am beset with financial worry. How will I educate my children? Will I be able to buy a home? Approaching the middle of my life, I feel poorer every day compared to my friends who went to school with me, who are making money in technology and on the stock market, and who are buying up apartments and cars and raising their prices beyond my reach. I am earning more than I ever have before, and I am also feeling poorer than ever before. Each time it feels like I almost have it within reach at last – financial security (if not wealth), a working family, a career – it slips out of my grasp…

The Temple of Dawn… and Pickles

Wat Arun, or Temple of Dawn, is located on the west riverbank right across from the temples in the previous post, which are on the east bank.  It’s beautiful at any time of day, and if you find yourself in Bangkok, don’t miss the Amorosa Restaurant Bar at the Arun Residence in the old city, which provides unblemished views of the temple at sunset.  Built in the days of Ayuthaya Kingdom, Wat Arun preceeds the days when Bangkok became capital of Siam/Thailand.  Formerly, the Chinese community centered on the west bank, which may explain the many Chinese motifs of the temple. For instance, it’s covered in a mosaic of seashells and porcelain pieces, which came from the ballasts of ships that sailed from China to Bangkok, and Chinese soldiers and animals surround the bases of the prangs (a Khmer-style tower).  The trident at the top of the central prang is the Trident of Shiva. All religions and cultures unite at this singularly phallic-looking temple…

Temples of Bangkok

Wat Pho – Reclining Buddha

Sometimes, Bangkok really gets me down. It’s congested, polluted, stinky, rude, ugly, and LOUD.  It’s bad enough to make you want to give up on the city and move somewhere that hasn’t been totally wrecked, like Wyoming, say.  But, sometimes, the city redeems itself.  On Thursday, we went to a sneak preview of the Pattaya International Choir Festival, and heard Polish, Czech and Thai choirs perform traditional folk songs, as well as an interesting rendition of Ride the Chariot, that famous black gospel song. Friday found us at the Goethe Institute listening to young Thais perform classical guitar and cello solos.  (The cellist chose a 6-part Bach piece and people were quite ready to clap by part 3).  Next door was a gem of a German restaurant called Ratsstube that served up delicious beef goulash and French onion soup.  So urban jungles can be a real pain in the ass, but sometimes they throw you a bone or two to make you stick around.

Nan’s Birthday Celebration

One of Mitch’s many wonderful attributes is that he has a wonderful family.  We came back to the U.S. last week for the reunion, to see my parents, send my mom off to Beijing, where she’ll be directing a language program for a year (stay tuned….perhaps she’ll submit a guest column!), and then to celebrate Mitch’s mom (Nan)’s 80th birthday. By my calculation, she’s roughly 1/3 the age of America (and looking mighty fine at that!), so where better to celebrate than Washington, DC, reclaimed as it is after the dark reign of He Who Shall Not Be Named. 

For God, for Country, and for Yale

They said in college, “Enjoy, for these are the best four years of your life.” We said, “That can’t be true, how can we peak so quickly? There must be even better years to come!” A couple weekends ago at my five-year reunion, I realized, they were so right.  On a fine June day in New Haven (which never actually happened during college), Yale was at its most perfect – the trees in blossom, the sea breeze blowing coolth over our sun-warmed skin, no madly biking students nearly running you over….

To recap: we ate, we drank, there was singing, we slept. The singing by the 80+ year old Whiffenpoofs was spectacular (not to mention their pushing a baby grand out of the way first), the address by the president on Yale’s new initiatives in the past five years inspiring (almost warmed me up enough to donate to the alumni fund), and the midnight lights out among my closest friends a great relief in knowing that I am “in bed” with the right people. It was really heartwarming to see good, old friends and know that they were still good, old friends, all the more wonderful in contrast to the absence of these kinds of friendships in Thailand.

A Man and a Bull Walk into a Strip Club…

Sorry folks. Been too busy to blog (TBTB?) lately, but I’m making up for lost time by posting extra inflammatory material. Here’s the tale of how Mitch and I accidentally ended up at a go-go bar riding a mechanical bull while being beaten with narf sticks ….

Angkor Wat

At the end of a work trip to Phnom Penh, Mitch and I headed up to Angkor Wat, one of the ancient wonders of the world. The remaining temples of Angkor are the only remnants left of what was once a vast empire. Built over the 9th to 13th centuries, Angkor was a city of one million inhabitants, at a time when London had 50,000 people. The scale of the temples – the only structures built out of stone, and the level of detail in the carvings took our breath away. We spent three days tuk tuking from one temple to the next, some vast and monumental, like the temple of Angkor Wat, and others smaller, intimate and all the more beautiful. Here are “a few” pictures from the trip.

Exotic Eats in Beijing

I recently went to Beijing for a few days, technically to work (hammer out details on grants for research projects in China), but really people, I came to eat. People in Beijing asked me, “How do you feel about Thai food?” Well, it doesn’t hold a candle to Chinese food, and that’s the truth! Here are a few highlights.

Sichuan for Lunch – Hot, Hotter, Hottest