Bangkok

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The fattest man I have ever seen has the most beautiful laugh. He sits in a stall in the northern quarter of Chatuchak weekend market in Bangkok. At his right hand is a basket of kanom and at his left is a cheerleader’s amplifier complete with pom pom sticker for some Thai high school marching band. His great girth seeps over the edge of his ridiculous plastic stool and his feet are stuffed into rubber boots that are propped on the lip of the concrete drain.

My eyes were first attracted to the bright orange sweatshirt he wear…his trunk like arms peeking out from under the cuffs that end halfway up his arm.

His flesh was covered, every inch with tattoos….his stall is in the trendy clothing section of the market, where wares of used converse chucks, army gear and bags of all sorts can be found among the packs of “cool” teenagers and young people that prowl the murky depths of the tiny alleys between stalls.

As I glanced over at the flash of orange in my vision, his laugh spilled out of his wide gaping mouth…surely, I thought this wasn’t for real…..the heat, the crowds…the exhilaration from the freedom at being alone in Bangkok was getting to me….
His laugh was as high pitched and as sweet as Dao’s (those who know her understand…) laugh was the first time I met her…a sweet, tinkling laugh fit for a girl the size and perfection of a butterfly.

This man was a behemoth…and yet I smiled at the contradiction. Before I knew it I was sitting beside him in the middle of this warren chatting in bad Thai and equally bad English mixed together.

He sold his wares of handmade leather goods…beautiful cured and stitched bags and pouches…the stitches miniature railroad tracks in the leather…but I can’t grasp how his sausage fingers produced such delicate work…and he swore he stitched them himself.

The market beyond his stall, when I finally pulled myself away from his conversation, is just how I remember it…busy, loud, claustrophobic and exactly right. I love the wares and the immensity of it all. I bought only a hanging fabric painting and nothing else though…it was the atmosphere I went for.

My trip to Bangkok started with a missed opportunity to meet Khun Prateep herself (The founder of the Duang Prateep Foundation and thus Ban Tharn Namchai Orphanage) and a hair raising taxi ride through Bangkok streets to a place I have never been and booked on a friends suggestion.

The cab I waved down (yes, I did!) outside the airport gates to avoid the stupid 400 baht charge they add to cabs in the grounds was friendly enough, immediately dispelling any notions and rumors I heard about snotty cab drivers in Bangkok. He took a direct route to the We-Train complex where I stayed and pointed out some of the few sights on the short trip in bad English. I was truly impressed he tried, but then talking to their customers is a great way to learn English.

“WE-TRAIN International House, Bangkok, Thailand, has been operating since 1990 as an on-site hotel, hostel, conference center which is also an income-generating project to raise funds for the Association for the Promotion of the Status of Women (APSW).
Some of the APSW projects include Emergency Homes for women and children, Women's Education and Training Centre (WE-TRAIN) and the Women's Clinic. Women from the Emergency Homes also take part in helping cater for our guests.”
Here I rented a swim suit and had a swim in their pool, got settled into my room, read A LOT of the refresher summary for the LSAT, and met a woman who has spent 18 years volunteering her time in the penal systems in Asia. Susan and I chatted for a few minutes about the idea of social work in Thailand and then unfortunately parted ways, myself to find dinner and Susan back to Thonburi where she was currently living.

I have to comment on my LSAT experience here because it was pretty interesting. I had an early start on Sunday morning and at 6:30am, I left the We-Train for the International School Bangkok in Nichda Thani. This “community” is a surreal world of a transplanted USA area code. Too many white residents and their Thai hired help… not my preferred environment.

I found the security guard at the gated school to be friendly enough…I think he figured I was going to fail the exam based on how many times I asked him if I was in the right place. It dawned on me then that I may indeed be the only person writing this sitting…a hard concept to fathom given the Canadian sittings host about 600 plus students each time!

I wandered toward the cafeteria where the guard assured me the proctor would meet me. He actually said “the person make official for you…okay mai?” I assumed that meant proctor…

I clasped my required clear plastic Ziploc proudly displaying my required HB pencils, Kleenex, eraser and pencil sharpener. The 20oz drink and “snack” I was permitted to bring into the exam room with me. I went to the bathroom twice and just sat for a while. I had arrived very early in case I ended up at the wrong school or the wrong twilight zone. Soon though, I spotted another person (so far the only other person) and as the same Ziploc bag…Yay! I had a friend. We chatted for a bit and then a few others came out of the woodwork.

There ended up being six of us writing the exam…two women, who, like me were humanitarian aid workers…one living in Chiang Mai and one who flew over from Bangladesh. There were three boys as well, Chris, from Ontario who ended up inviting me out later that night, one from India and one from Yemen (I think he said that). Not sure what the boys were doing in Thailand except for Chris. He is working in an international school as a dorm leader in Chiang Mai for the year.

We all hovered near the appointed classroom for another half hour before a stern looking woman came out followed by a high school teacher from the States. The lined us up, confiscated our cell phones and keys…everything but the plastic bag and its contents…checked our passports, secondary ID’s and then fingerprinted us. We were handed our admission slips and marched into the exam room.

The normal classroom seemed to dampen the escalating fear I knew more than just I was feeling…..what had I gotten myself into!?
The exam was heavy…”four hours of pure unbridled joy” to quote the Princeton LSAT review. Ya,….well, at least I got to write it on foreign soil…

This actually helped. I was WAY more relaxed sitting in a classroom with the familiar rattle of the air conditioner, rather than being stuffed into one of many overcrowded lecture theatres of 600 other students…..

To be honest it wasn’t a hard test…it’s the type where either you get it or you don’t, your grade depends on how everyone else does and you can’t study for it…you can’t cram logic and whatever other obscure things the test searches for. All you can do to prepare is relax and spend months practicing the types of questions on the exam.

I didn’t mind that much actually. I rather enjoyed the challenge of complex English paragraphs and trying to find purpose behind the words. It’s been a while since I had to deal with the higher English language!

That said I have no illusions that I did well either. I am not that smart of a cookie….if I get into law school so be it…if not I will hide in a corner and cry for a few weeks then try again…

Ahh well. I celebrated completing the exam (and the stress of the months prior) by taking a motorcycle taxi through the nighttime Bangkok streets (without Chris I might add…).The buses brushing my leg and the exhaust in my face….it felt good to be in Thailand. I have always wanted to do that…travel Thai style in Bangkok with no regard for safety or road rules…so I did. No kids, no travel partners…just me and the sweaty driver.

I wandered through Chatuchak again for an hour or so…just to see the pet market. Its a hard place to be really, there is such a different perspective on animal welfare here. None of the puppies or kittens have had shots and they are handled by hundreds of people a day…many, many of them are sick and despite that they are treated roughly without concern. I cried one when a puppy repeatedly kept falling out of its display box onto the ground and was slightly trampled. The pet stall owner put it into a box at the back….I pray it lived…or maybe died quickly too put it out of its Asian puppy mill hell.

Despite that I wanted so badly to buy a pup…a Thai ridgeback or a little Jack Russel to keep up with Miles….they are so inexpensive here…though I would make up the difference in immunizations and transport back to Canada, I’m sure.

At night I had the wonderful company of the 24 hour “King” channel and actually learned a lot about the man who is King by listening carefully and piecing together the narrative with the pictures. He is really a remarkable man. It is easy to understand why he is so revered.

Bangkok is still one of my most favorite places in the world…and Brittany, yes! the incense/exhaust/burning scent of Bangkok is still there…it is a unique scent that fills my head with memories every time I catch it.

So I am home now and the evening didn’t let up. There are six new (weeklong) volunteers to orient, one woman who will be here for three months, the photo project to work on, kids to unpack…..

It’s 10:30 at night and I finally just left the orphanage. (I often end up putting in 13 or 14 hour days at work here) I stood for a moment with one shoe on and peering sharply into the darkened pile of shoes on the steps looking in vain for my matching flip flop…and I had a rare moment of absolute clarity.

I am happy…

How that happened I am not sure, and while I shuffled back across the street with unmatched shoes (again) I smiled the whole way.

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Comments

[Brittany]

I can still smell that first night in Bangkok!!!