and some of mine...
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
sawattdii khab
For all the benefits of time travel it sure does make one exhausted. I am still trying to recapture the 12 hours lost to the conventionalities of time.
Chiang Mai City is boxed in by an old dilapidated wall and moat - definitely not something you would want to swim in. The city sprawls beyond the gates though, spreading throughout the wide Chiang Mai valley, with lush mountains on most sides from what I can tell. Can't wait to get up there on foot. Monstrous monsoon clouds, protruding high into the sky, cover the peaks and bring torrential rains every once and a while.
After a delirious first day exploring Chiang Mai City, I was swept off to my homestay on the outskirts of town. Papee, Meemee, Grandma, Yok (7), Ninn (6), and Trunk (1), plus some other visitors from time to time. They are so great, the most caring and friendly family. Meemee keeps telling me that I seem like a real son to her.... except that I am so much taller. Fortunately, I try to tell her, I am accustomed to being taller than my parents. Meemee knows exactly how long I spend yawning each day (more than you'd think) and how many times I use the bathroom during the night, plus everything I learned during the day in Thai class. We laugh a lot, especially at their English and my Thai.
Yok understands some English and the parents speak a little bit, which was nice because last weekend I could say almost nothing in Thai. I desperately want to pick up some competence and converse in their language for a change. Learning Thai has been a roller coaster of tones flowing through the jaw... new mouth muscles have been discovered... and never before heard sounds have been uttered.
On Sunday we had a family outing to Lampang, a town across the mountains about an hour away. Don't forget to honk 3 times upon passing the shrine on the top of the mountain pass! We ate at Papee's family restaurant and then stopped by the elephant conservatory along the way. If you close your eyes, ignore the trunk slurping sludging sounds, and touch the top of the elephant's head you could possibly mistake it for a hard bristle brush. The creatures are huge and have the most tough skin with pointy little bristles sticking out on top. Yok and I took a ride on one. To top the day off I experienced an authentic funeral ceremony up in the mountains, where scorpions show up next to your shoe.
Class started Monday, and every day for the next five weeks I will be in intensive Thai language class (4 hours) and a seminar on Thai culture, history, and sociology. With all the many differences in culture and world view I can still make out the universals of everyday family life. It is amazing how much we as Americans are judged by what people see on movies and TV. Some myths need dispelling. Pictures aren't uploading, sorry. Love kyle.
Chiang Mai City is boxed in by an old dilapidated wall and moat - definitely not something you would want to swim in. The city sprawls beyond the gates though, spreading throughout the wide Chiang Mai valley, with lush mountains on most sides from what I can tell. Can't wait to get up there on foot. Monstrous monsoon clouds, protruding high into the sky, cover the peaks and bring torrential rains every once and a while.
After a delirious first day exploring Chiang Mai City, I was swept off to my homestay on the outskirts of town. Papee, Meemee, Grandma, Yok (7), Ninn (6), and Trunk (1), plus some other visitors from time to time. They are so great, the most caring and friendly family. Meemee keeps telling me that I seem like a real son to her.... except that I am so much taller. Fortunately, I try to tell her, I am accustomed to being taller than my parents. Meemee knows exactly how long I spend yawning each day (more than you'd think) and how many times I use the bathroom during the night, plus everything I learned during the day in Thai class. We laugh a lot, especially at their English and my Thai.
Yok understands some English and the parents speak a little bit, which was nice because last weekend I could say almost nothing in Thai. I desperately want to pick up some competence and converse in their language for a change. Learning Thai has been a roller coaster of tones flowing through the jaw... new mouth muscles have been discovered... and never before heard sounds have been uttered.
On Sunday we had a family outing to Lampang, a town across the mountains about an hour away. Don't forget to honk 3 times upon passing the shrine on the top of the mountain pass! We ate at Papee's family restaurant and then stopped by the elephant conservatory along the way. If you close your eyes, ignore the trunk slurping sludging sounds, and touch the top of the elephant's head you could possibly mistake it for a hard bristle brush. The creatures are huge and have the most tough skin with pointy little bristles sticking out on top. Yok and I took a ride on one. To top the day off I experienced an authentic funeral ceremony up in the mountains, where scorpions show up next to your shoe.
Class started Monday, and every day for the next five weeks I will be in intensive Thai language class (4 hours) and a seminar on Thai culture, history, and sociology. With all the many differences in culture and world view I can still make out the universals of everyday family life. It is amazing how much we as Americans are judged by what people see on movies and TV. Some myths need dispelling. Pictures aren't uploading, sorry. Love kyle.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
BKK
Made it into Bangkok finally... lots of time in the air.. almost 24 hours total. Saw some Tokyo on the way. I am very tired of being in both metal cylinders and their nests on the ground . I crossed above the Bering Strait by air which I felt was fitting... I underwent a sort of anti-migration, along the route that humans may have come by to populate the Americas 12,000? years ago. 55 seconds left of internet time.
Friday, August 14, 2009
post one
A few short days until I am off. I will be in Southeast Asia for the next 5 months studying abroad and then traveling. I hope this can provide an avenue for my family and friends to stay with me as I travel across the world for the next five months. I didn't want to impose on anyone... and I didn't want to leave anyone out... and I never imagined myself with a blog... so here it goes.
As I step into the abyss of the larger globe, I see myself entering another stage of my life... and it is hard not to look back at how I have landed here. From this point, I can see how all this started, and I can also see to the other side... when reality sets in permanently.
It is no doubt the workings of all of you that have allowed me to take this chance... to leap into another time and place, to explore the opposite of home and bask in the discomfort of the other. This has not been an easy transition.... after finding a place of relative inward and outward peace, I have chosen to enter the unknown. It is humanity not-as-I-know-it that needs to be addressed next... it is to them that I go. I hope the awesomeness and otherness that I will find serves not to jumble my identity, but concrete my sense of self webbed into the net of the globe. I just finished a book that in many ways revealed to me some reasons for this quest. This is the defining paragraph:
As I step into the abyss of the larger globe, I see myself entering another stage of my life... and it is hard not to look back at how I have landed here. From this point, I can see how all this started, and I can also see to the other side... when reality sets in permanently.
It is no doubt the workings of all of you that have allowed me to take this chance... to leap into another time and place, to explore the opposite of home and bask in the discomfort of the other. This has not been an easy transition.... after finding a place of relative inward and outward peace, I have chosen to enter the unknown. It is humanity not-as-I-know-it that needs to be addressed next... it is to them that I go. I hope the awesomeness and otherness that I will find serves not to jumble my identity, but concrete my sense of self webbed into the net of the globe. I just finished a book that in many ways revealed to me some reasons for this quest. This is the defining paragraph:
"I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am everything that happens after I've gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am i particularly exceptional in this matter: each 'I', every one of... us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." - Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.So really, I want to thank you all for making me feel empowered to make this leap, and for my knowledge that the places and people I leave will be here for me no matter what... that I can be me anywhere, still tethered to all that has brought me this far.
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