Chaos and Calm in Kathmandu

Flying into Kathmandu has the feeling of suddenly coming upon a pile of blocks spilled by some child giant; individual, brightly-colored, multistory buildings dot the landscape in jumbles and clusters.

On the ground, things aren’t much more organized. Dusty roads weave and wind. Buses, vans, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and rickshaws vie for their place, honking and passing without mercy. Cows meander and graze in streets and empty lots.

But amid all the chaos, secreted away down side streets and back alleys, it is easy to find respite in the city’s numerous oases of religion. Temples, stupas, and shrines offer occasional bits of silence. Prayer flags flap in the breeze. Bells are rung. Tibetan child monks play games behind monasteries. Prayer wheels spin. Devotees circumambulate.

It’s a city of sound and silence. Of concrete buildings and of ancient Newari architecture. A city of Hinduism, of Buddhism, of Lamaism. A city of multiple languages, but also English. Tucked away in a valley, but surrounded by the world’s highest peaks.

It’s a city where serenity and history are available in all the commotion, if only one looks for it. 

Home Away From Home(land)

It’s an odd sensation, returning to a foreign country and experiencing a feeling of homecoming. It’s strange, a language re-emerging from forgotten corners of your mind. It’s interesting, something so exotic feeling so normal, so commonplace.

As we found ourselves back in Thailand for a second round, we were dealing with new classes, new students, new friends, new restaurants, and wholly new experiences. But, here we are in the same culture, speaking the same language, working with the same Thai co-workers, at the same loving, supportive school. It’s not quite the same, but neither is it drastically different.

Things we missed about Thailand –

• ·         The food. Hands down, Thailand has some of the most diverse, delicious food selection we have encountered in all our travels. We started anticipating, and salivating over, specific meals months before we landed back in Thailand.
• ·         The generosity. The Thais are some of the most giving, loving, supportive people you could ever hope to meet. Whether co-workers, strangers, or government employees, we have always been surprised by the lengths to which the Thais will go to help a fellow human.
• ·         The cost of living. No, seriously, it is just so easy to stretch the baht you make working in Thailand. It’s not hard to live without budgeting, travel for three months of the year, and still return home without emptying your wallet.
• ·         The compassion for street animals. As I have mentioned before, the way that Thais treat stray animals is far and away one of the most heartwarming examples I have ever witnessed of a culture having respect for the life of all beings.
• ·         The acceptance. It is amazing to see an entire country that is willing to accept homosexuality from childhood. Especially when teaching children and witnessing those who would be bullied and harassed in the US rise to the top of their class.

Things we didn’t miss about Thailand –

• ·         Tonal language. Despite being not-so-bad at Thai, I am still not a robot. And while I can effectively communicate here, divorcing emotion from inflection is incredibly difficult. Win, on the other hand, has such a hard time with it that all we can do is laugh and not worry too much.
• ·         Gossip and bizarrely insulting cultural tendencies. Though by no means exclusive to Thailand, it is difficult to constantly be asked why I do things and why I am fat. (As an addendum of sorts, we recently discovered that the asking about weight is the Thai way of saying that you care about someone and their health. But I could still do without someone rubbing my belly while saying, “baby?”)

Things that probably belong on the latter list, but don’t bother us enough to make the cut –

• ·         Squat toilets. Okay, in our travels we have definitely encountered far worse than those in Thailand. Plus, I like to think of it as a bit of a game. Target practice, if you will. (It’s entirely possible that that is nothing more than a coping mechanism when faced with something unpleasant.)
• ·         “Thai time”. It is a common joke in Thailand that things happen on “Thai time”. Typically, this means things happen eventually, but never when they were supposed to happen. Meeting at 7 can mean 8, and when something would be done by Tuesday it will almost certainly be finished no later than Friday. But, this is also something that we have encountered in numerous places and to worse degrees. Apparently, if you want things to happen promptly, move to the US or Europe; otherwise, just roll with it.

Of course when returning to anywhere there is the fear that it will not be the same. That you might in some way ruin your good memories with a new, worse experience. That it doesn’t live up to the memories you have.

We have been lucky in that regard; the Thailand we remember is intact and the Thailand we live in now is just as good (and, in some ways, just as bad). When all is said and done, we are thrilled to be back in Thailand.

It’s a wonderful feeling: to find home in the most faraway of destinations, and to know that, despite the common saying, sometimes you can, indeed, go back.

Katois and Toms and Dees. Oh My!

Last week I had a conversation with some of my eighth graders about ladyboys; they wanted to know if we have ladyboys in America. We reached a bit of a language impasse when I tried to explain that we have a whole LGBT community in the States, but we don’t necessarily have a direct equivalent to ladyboys.

Widely accepted in Thai culture is the “katoi” or ladyboy lifestyle. Ladyboys are extremely effeminate boys and men who want to be women, or according to my students, “boy and girl in one.” Were they in America, many ladyboys would probably just be flamingly gay (think Kurt on Glee).Thai standards are a bit different though. They like men, but they don’t consider themselves to be gay because they identify more closely with women. And they, therefore, want to become women.

Thailand, as a whole, is incredibly comfortable and nonjudgmental about sexual orientation. Back in America, we have parades and prides and protests about who you are allowed to love. On both sides of the debate, insults are hurled, assumptions are made, and rights are fought over. In Thailand’s attitude toward sexual identity, as in all things, the “sabai sabai” outlook is dominant. It’s not something to fight over because people are who they are.

Roughly ten percent of the fifth and sixth grade boys at our school already openly identify themselves as ladyboys. Not that they could hide it very easily. They shake, shimmy, and dance better (and more provocatively) than any of the girls, and they have mastered the art of french braids and makeup better than I ever will. During school events where the students are allowed to wear their street clothes, many of the ladyboys show up in full drag -- sexy dress, wig, makeup and heels.

On the other end of the spectrum are the Thai lesbians. Also already out of the closet by fifth and sixth grade, are the more masculine lesbians, or “toms”. Around seventh grade, many of the toms start wearing their hair shorter. Much like ladyboys identify with females, toms act in a more manly fashion. Toms do not date other toms, they have girlfriends, called “dees”. A dee, typically bisexual, might be dating a tom, and might date men at other times.

I truly appreciate how accepting the Thais are when it comes to sexuality. Anyone is allowed to love whoever they choose. However, my one criticism is that, unless it falls into specific categories, they don’t really talk about it. Gay men, for example, not as blatantly obvious or fabulously loud as ladyboys, are a largely overlooked segment of Thai society. And what if two lesbians happen to both be feminine rather than butch? The Thais, for all their open-mindedness, seem to only be open to certain configurations.

No matter the flaws in the national outlook on sexuality, there is something spectacular about a society in which a sixth grader has enough love and support to already be confident in who he or she is and to proudly announce having a crush on someone of the same sex.

Floating Light

As a lunar holiday, Loy Krathong typically falls sometime in November. Last year, oblivious to the fact that it was a holiday weekend, we went to Surin in northeast Thailand for their annual Elephant Roundup, effectively missing Loy Krathong entirely. This year, we were more prepared.

Loy Krathong is Thailand’s equivalent to a festival of lights. “Loy” means “to float.” And “Krathong” refers to homemade floats that carry a candle. A traditional Krathong is made from a cross-section of banana tree trunk elaborately decorated with strips of banana leaf and the decapitated heads of flowers, painstakingly twisted, twirled, stapled and pinned.

During November’s full moon, the krathongs are taken to the local river and loy-ed. Symbolically, the light from the candle is meant to honor Buddha, and the krathong carries away all grudges, mistakes, and negativity. Loy Krathong is a holiday of letting go, of new beginnings.

Over the years, the holiday has been augmented, and the beloved Thai lanterns (kohms) included. Kohms, made from tissue or rice paper, are like miniaturized hot air balloons, using the heat from a burning ring of oiled paper to lift up and away from earth.

From the banks of Chiang Rai’s Kok River, krathongs drifted downstream, kohms floated off by the hundreds, boyant and glowing. The sky was full of false constellations that shift and change with the wind. Fireworks burst overhead, close enough to rain paper on our shoulders.

As the kohm began to glow brighter, hotter, we shifted our grip from top to bottom. Suddenly, as if of its own accord, the lantern tugged itself free of our fingertips, slipping away to join the school of glowing lantern jellyfish, easing their way heavenward. With it, all mistakes and negative energy, leaving us cleansed.

Bangkok Retrospective

So here we are, one year after our arrival in Bangkok, back in the same airport, waiting to fly to Sri Lanka. It has been a very long year, full of airports, trains, buses and tuk-tuks. We have lived in two parts of Thailand, taught a combined 3,000 students, and traveled to seven other countries. Considering the Rachel I was on our first weekend in Thailand, I have to say I am proud of how far I’ve come.

To say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement. First arriving in Bangkok, the heat and humidity was stifling, my hair, skin and lungs tested as soon as we left the airport doors swished open, dumping us into Bangkok. Win, having lived in India for a year and traveled to Thailand before, knew what to expect. Although, his go-to Indian-accented English and desire to argue over every price were the extreme counterpoint to my helpless befuddlement.

The sheer number of people was mind-boggling. The traffic was congested, intermixed with neon cabs, driving on the left side of the road, and bobbing, weaving and swerving, rules of the road ignored. The streets, jammed full of people and various stands, most often reeked of garbage. And I was under constant attack, my stomach by the food and water, my legs and arms by an endless army of mosquitoes. It took a while for me to settle in, and even longer for my body to adjust.

Today, I am far better at traveling in a number of ways. I trust that a cab might take the roundabout way, but they will probably get us where we are going (and if not, we aren’t really obligated to pay). I am alright playing the occasional game of menu roulette, just pointing at a menu item and hoping for the best, all the while knowing I am bound to eat frog one of these days. Haggling over prices is a sort of game, not a source of stress. And I am slowly adapting my Western mentalities to the Thai ‘sabai-sabai’ attitude. I still have a way to go before becoming Thai-style laid back, but my immune system has stepped it up a notch, and my outlook isn’t far behind.