Stories from Bangkok

ahhh even in Singapore I can't add pictures :( So sorry guys. If you can, check out my facebook albums, for now, I'll have to look into creating a photo website for those of you who don't have FB. Hope it's an interesting entry anyway!


I spent last weekend in Bangkok, Thailand, and the greater part of the week at a beach in Krabi Province, Thailand. I’m now in Singapore and will be going back to Malaysia on Monday.

Bangkok was a fascinating experience for me, as it presented a completely different atmosphere, culture, and feel that was distinct from China in many ways. Of course, I shouldn’t have assumed the two nations would be similar, but I was still taken aback by all the differences I noticed. Thailand is the second (first being China) foreign nation/culture that I have been lucky enough to experience, and I’m just blown away by the diversity of life over here in Southeast Asia—Malaysia (for the one night that I experienced it) was also new and unique to me.

The population of Thailand is near 62 million, and the capital is located in central Thailand at Bangkok. Bangkok is a “tourist name” that is only used internationally. Thai people call the city Krung Thep, which is short for the unbelievably long full name: krung thep mahanakhon amon rattanakosin mahinthara yuthaya mahadilok phop noppharat ratchathani burirom udomratchaniwet mahasathan amon piman awatan sathit sakkathattiya witsanukam prasit.

Wow.

The language was perhaps one of the most interesting, and for me, most frustrating parts of my experience in Thailand. The script of Thai is beautiful, involving over 40 consonants and over 30 vowels, combined with 5 tones that are marked over consonants to create a pretty complicated language. I would say the majority of people I interacted with had a basic handling of English, but they often would slip back into Thai at random intervals, or their English was very heavily accented so I didn’t quite understand. I remember once when I was trying to bargain for a shirt, I could have sworn the saleswomen was speaking Chinese to me because she kept saying [what I heard as] “ni kan ni kan” (which in Chinese means, “you look you look”). After I heard that I excited replied in Chinese to her, because I just wanted to be able to use my—if I do say so myself—rather good Chinese bargaining skills, but then she just gave me a confused look. Either she was using Thai that sounded similar, or she was saying “can” as in “can you buy it for this price?” I tell ya, not being able to communicate, especially during bargaining/making purchases was very very frustrating, and I felt more like a foreigner than I ever have in China.

Another funny thing about the Thai language was the way Thai people answer their cell phones. They often say “Huhlllloooooooo”, with the first part (“heh”) dipping down and then the “low” part rising up from the bottom pitch. Strange to hear something so familiar but then not quite the same.

My classmate from UVA, Oh, picked me up from the airport and we went to Siam shopping center, which is apparently one of the largest or the largest shopping centers in East Asia. It was an enormous complex with multiple buildings and name brands I’d never heard of and food court after food court after food court. Just paying for parking was interesting, because the service person put her hands together at her chest (as if in Christian prayer, with the fingers straight) and then leaned her head downward, almost touching her nose to her fingers. This is called wai and is a way of showing respect in Thailand. Usually service people/sales people will do a wai and the customer can either wai in response or just nod the head. Also, whenever a younger person is introduced or says hello to someone older, he or she should definitely wai.

After Oh and I had chosen a restaurant in the Siam Shopping center, I encountered another difference that I wasn’t accustomed to. We ordered a curry and a salad, and I was surprised that we were each given a fork and a spoon—no chopsticks and no knife. I started using the spoon as a knife with my left hand, and then used the fork how I would in America. Oh laughed at me and told me I had it the opposite way around—the spoon should go in the right hand and the fork should be used to scoop food onto the spoon before eating it. I suppose it shows my ignorance, but I had no idea people ate with spoons and forks in such a way!

I arrived on Friday, and the following Tuesday was the Queen of Thailand’s birthday, so pictures of her (and the King, and other members of the Royal Family) were all around the city. Neat Fact that Oh told me: the King is said to always have a camera, pencil, and map with him whenever he goes out.

I had read about the seriousness of respecting the royal family in my guidebook, apparently stepping on a dollar bill (which has the king’s face) is a serious offense and punishable. Oh told me that people do take it seriously, but that he has rarely heard of these types of occurrences.

On Friday night, we went to a bar in the gay district in Bangkok. We were lucky to arrive right at the beginning of a Cabaret show, which was quite an amazing sight. The stage had about six or so performers at a time, dancing precisely choreographed numbers behind a diva singing her heart out. Before I had heard about the “ladyboys” of Thailand—men who either cross dress, had a full sex change, or somewhere in between—but wow I was stunned to this performance in real life. Some of the performers were GORGEOUS—I would really never imagine that they once before, or even at the time, were men. Perfectly formed bodies, too! Even thought the club was packed and we only had a half-view, it was really exciting, and also punctuated by some comic relief when an extremely large ladyboy (she was probably near 300 pounds) would come onto the stage and sing very romantic songs in her long, elegant dress. Quite an experience.

As we were weaving in and out of the night market stands (EVERYTHING was being sold at bargain prices—shirts, jeans, DVDs, souvenirs, socks) on the way back to my hostel, we came across an elephant on a leash. Earlier in the day I saw a man riding an elephant on the busy streets of Thailand, and Oh told me that keeping elephants in the city is actually illegal according to Thai law, falling under cruelty to animals. So, I felt bad when I encouraged the whole situation by paying 10 baht to the “owner” so that I could feel the elephant. Well, the elephant must have been starving because it ate the food out of my hand as soon as I took it out of the bag. Hahha, what a tourist moment.

The next day Oh and I went to the Grand Palace, the (very) old home of the King and Queen. As we were walking to get a taxi (Oh was not a fan of the very touristy “tuk-tuks”—motocycle taxis, and in fact I’m glad we didn’t ride them, because I met not a few other westerners like myself who said tuk-tuk drivers “took-took” (hah) them to random places to buy stuff, rather then going to the actual location asked for by the passenger), but so we were walking and all the sudden we heard the screams of several teenage girls. We looked to our right and saw several girls running together—toward the entrance of a hotel. Naturally, Oh and I started running as well, even though we didn’t have the posters in our hands that many of these probably middle-school or high-school aged girls had. We soon saw the fronts of the posters, and it looked like some sort of Korean celebrity… maybe he was staying in the hotel or something. But by the time we got closer, the girls seemed to have given up and then walked back to the shade—waiting, waiting for the next time when he might come down to the first floor. Another funny experience.

It is only used for special ceremonies now though. In the palace compound is Wat Phra Kaew, one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to yet. Pictures do all the talking here.


We also went to another very very old Buddhist temple, Wat Arun. Buddhism is the State Religion in Thailand.

It was particularly interesting seeing these temples to me, because in Thailand and many other South and Southeast Asian countries they practice Theravada Buddhism, which is different from Mahayana Buddhism which is practiced in China, Korea, and Japan (and other regions). (And of course both of these are different than Variyana Buddhism, which is practiced in Tibet.) The main difference, if I’m remembering correctly, is that Theravada Buddhism focuses mainly on the actual teachings of the Buddha himself and thus encourages individual salvation and enlightenment, whereas Mahayana Buddhism posits that there are several Bodhisattvas who are also very influential to believers. A Bodhisattva is an individual who has almost reached Enlightenment but then decided not to fully renounce the world and in fact stay on in the world to help others achieve Enlightenment. Any of my Buddhist friends, or anyone else in-the-know, please feel free to comment to correct/supplement this brief description!

In general, though, I would say that these two temples I saw in Thailand were much more ornate than those I’ve seen in China. The details and amount of ornamentation surpasses many Chinese temples in splendor and, well, shiny-ness.

Saturday evening I went with my other UVa classmate, Napatra, to Siam Shopping Center again just to walk around and buy some street clothes (all of which I’m very proud of because they’re so hip!). We saw a really neat photo exhibit about the importance of environmental protection for a sustainable future. We also came across a very strange event taking place in a public space outside of the shopping mall: a Japanese Anime Dress-up Competition?! Look at some of the crazzzy costumes people were wearing:


The next day Oh took me to the Old Parliament building to see an exhibit about some artisan creations for the King and Queen. On the way to the exhibit, we had to take a detour because there was a protest… perhaps against the Parliament, my friend thought. There are many complaints against corruption and manipulation of rural peoples during election time. The exhibit itself was amazing, some really beautiful pieces of work—unfortunately no cameras were allowed inside, but I took these from the outside. Very interesting to architecture, too, eh?

One thing that left me confused about Thailand was the seemingly contradictory ideas about gender. While one night I was able to see the thriving ladyboy culture, the next day I was witness to the strictly genderized requirements of temples and buildings like the Old Parliament Building. Men had to cover their legs, so they could wear pants or, if they forgot to wear pants (like I did at the Old Parliament building), he could buy a piece of cloth to tie around the waste. However, women had to be wearing skirts at these locations—even if she was wearing pants. Seems kind of gender reinforcing, doesn’t it?

I wish I had had more time to spend in Bangkok—I know I still only scratched the surface of a very unique culture very rooted in history. The stories Oh told me about past Kings of Thailand were pretty amazing, and it was very eye opening for me to see such a large, distinctly different city in another part of the world other than the States or China.