What kind of ceremony is this?

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16 May, 2001 – Bankok, Thailand

So, We're in Bankok. Since we were not able to find local activist/organizers to link up with for volunteer work, we're only staying a short time and so have been in the heart of the city downtown.

Bankok is fascinating, fabulous and fierce. It's spiritually enlightened and humbly devout. It's also horribly unjust and economically exploitative. Nearly everywhere you look is an exquisite temple, filled with people from may walks of life (so it seems) making devotions and meditating. so much so that when we'd ride past some awesome-looking edifice and ask the "tuk-tuk" driver what it is, the response was often (essentially) "oh, just another temple". There are more than 400 in the city. Truly astounding.

Then, a few blocks away, many people are living under bridges. The tuk-tuk (3-wheel, open-air taxi) drivers make nothing off of tourists, so they have to cut deals with shopping outlets to bring tourists to the stores and then get a cut of sales, or free gas. We ended up pretending to shop at a couple places cuz the driver said he needed free gas and we'd be doing him a favor. Of course, I hear the tourists complain about the drivers always "trying to rip you off", as though the drivers were somehow exploiting us "first-worlders" that spend as much on lunch as these guys make in a week. If having to go a bit out of one's way in a tuk-tuk while on holiday is all it takes to break even for centuries of economic exploitation ...

As for my lack of understanding, it's deep. But a couple of places I've stumbled that I didn’t fit in...

On the plane I read about a conference and exhibit of people from many Asian countries doing art and other stuff related to sustainable development. So off we go to the university to see and hear. We walk in to the conference room and it's the usual panel in the front of the room, giving presentations and showing slides ... in Thai. So after a while of pretending to understand and looking for materials in English, we slunk out and plan to return to see the exhibit.

Then tonight, while looking for things to see/do, we came upon one of the temples we wanted to visit, it was closed, bit there was something going on in part of it. So in we go, to watch from the back a bunch of people doing some kind of ceremony. Is it a wedding? or someone being accepted into Buddhist monkhood? It's interesting, with people in regalia marching, chanting, singing. A young woman beckons us to come in and sit down. She offers us drinks. A bit later I ask "Can you tell me what kind of ceremony this is? what's going on?" She replies: "My Mother died."
Oh.
Well, that was about the end of my conversation and we slunk out shortly thereafter.

The other thing, is crossing the street. It's an amazing adventure and high risk endeavor. There's a big interchange between our guest house and the central city where the university and palace etc are, so we've had to cross it several times. I've been tempted to get a tuk-tuk just so I don't have to cross the street. And we're talking 6 lanes of traffic, going in three directions (yes, they have streets that somehow have enourmous traffic volumes going more than 2 directions). We're standing on the edge of the traffic abyss, clinging to one another for life and limb, when a young girl walks into the middle of the traffic, stands in front of the on-rushing cars and manages to walk, unscathed, all the way to the other side. I'd been cringing in anticipation of the sound of bones crunching on bumpers. I have a new understanding of what it took for that guy to stand in front of the row of tanks in Tiannenman Square a while back -- it was sort of a natural extension of just crossing the street in Asia.

Anyway, that's all for now. My e-mail has been acting up, so this may not even get through.

Below I'm attaching a note I'd started writing from Darwin Australia, another place that 's got a few stories to tell and plenty of skeletons buried out back.

Let me know what's up with you or if you want me to stop sending you this blather (or if you get 2 copies so I can adjust my dysfunctional e-mail)

Fran

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Darwin Australia: 9 May 2001

Well ... first I guess I have to say that it's quite remarkable how much time wandering around relatively aimlessly can take up. That's my excuse (and I'm sticking to it) for not recording and sending my various pithy observations about customs, politics and people of the various spots in New Zealand and Australia I've been visiting over the last 2 months (could it really be almost 2 months already since leaving the snow and sleet storm in Chicago?). I'm going to plan to send something more interesting in a few weeks, and instead just mention a little about WWOOFing, the main system of travel and lodging we've been using here in Australia.

You don't know about WWOOF you say? Well, it stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms. Or, for some of us, Wild Wonderful Or Oddball Facilities (or something like that). It's a basic, ingenious set-up that allows travelers to trade about 4 hours of labor for a night's lodging and meals. The idea is that most of the hosts are involved in organic farming of some sort. Yes, that's the idea, that's what was listed in all the literature and what we signed up for.

So ...
Picture your intrepid itinerant organizer, committed to justice, willing to take great risks in standing up against the powerful, seeking out wisdom and strategies from around the globe ...

Ironing. That's right, ironing. For several hours (and when was the last time I've used an iron? Have I ever?!?). Not only ironing, but ironing clothes that were tattered beyond mending for people that never seem to change their clothes.

Or if you prefer ... scrubbing down walls for a landlord so she can rent to a better class of people. for five hours. Yes, folks, that's social change in the making!

Speaking of which, just briefly, I wanted to mention that I was pleased to make it to the Darwin May Day parade and celebration. It was pretty cool, with lots of different unionists and speakers, aboriginal performers etc. etc. Most interesting was how many speakers mentioned “the American Model” as being what’s wrong with the potential future of Australia. In New Zealand and elsewhere in Australia, people commonly talk about “the Americanization” of the economy as being the threat to everyone’s livelihood and personal security – and gee … here I’d always heard (from the Chicago Trib and Thomas Friedman anyway) that everyone in the world wanted to be more like America …

More later on the people we’ve met and other pithy observations.

Next stops from Australia are Bali and Thailand.

Fran

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