Smiles
September 25th, 2009, 14:25
The other day I was sitting in a small cafe on Sasong Rd here in Hua Hin. It was a sprinkly day ~ 'gentle' rain' as Thais call it ~ which was a good excuse for a beer and a plate of khao pad gai waiting for both the water to disappear, and my guy to make his appearance for our hunt for some special advertising material for business.
I had The BKK Post in hand as well as the beer, feeling a pleasant mellow buzz, and looking over the big double editorial page, which on this particular day just happened to be comprised of more than it's fair share of think-pieces knocking Thai politicians in general for their lethargy, incompetence, childishness, combativeness, well-fed physiques, really bad rugs etc etc ... all well-deserved I'm certain.
As well, it was a particularly good edition for the Letters-to-the-Editor section being chock-a-block filled with wordy whining and complaining farangs, all with the ever-present background subliminal message hiss: I.E. " ... Thais would all be a damn sight better off if they'd just do things more like the way we do in the West ... ". In the presence of the aforementioned buzz, I thought to myself that it felt a little like the Baht-Stop sensibility in fact :blackeye:
.................................................. .............................
Fast forward one day (i.e. yesterday) and I found myself alone and fast-walking the great 5 kilometer sweep of Hua Hin beach ... a bit of very neglected exercise I was desperately in need of. The sand had a perfect hardness for either a run or a walk ... about an hour after the tide had gone out past where I was trundling along at the moment, and the drying had taken over leaving a walker's paradise.
The original casual walk had turned into 'fast' because, looking to the south towards Cha Am and (eventually) Bangkok, the sky had begun to turn dark and black and foreboding, and a decent wind had started to pick up. I knew the meaning of "outta the blue" on this occasion as I had started off a half hour before in brilliant sunshine.
Another half kilometer and I thought I'd better play it safe: which In My World means a Leo beer stop and a good book to keep me company, and for pete's sake wasn't I right at that moment standing smack dab in front of my second favourite beach chair consession (the #1 is my landlady's place ... free chairs for my guy and me, and a little sucking up).
The young guy (about 34 I think) who runs the place with his mother is always a nice bit of eye candy, and in fact he was making a bee-line for me already (it's Low Season), and taking my hand led me over to a nice big loungechair and umbrella. A Leo Beer 'yai' followed quickly and the sky's got darker and darker and I was glad to be where I was.
The place had conjoured a makeshift rain shelter behind the 3 rows of loungechairs: seven or eight umbrellas all pitched to overlap and then a giant blue tarpaulin thrown over the whole lot.
Good thing too. About 30 minutes later the rain started pelting down (can I say "in buckets", no forget that, can I say "wheelbarrows full", no way, let's talk "whole German Zepplins full"). Now it is after all, the rainy season in Thailand. Here in Hua Hin we've had two to four hours of rain every day now for a week, and the land is lush and greeny and flower-filled. But this puppy was Something Else: This was the Mother of Monsoon rainfalls, Noahs Arc territory, the Hoover Damn collapsing next door, Katrina's grandfather. Unlike most rainy days, the lightening flashed in great brilliance, the boom happening milliseconds after ... the son of a bitch was right overhead ("umbrellas attract lightening don't they?").
I was partly soaked in warm, rather comforting water by the time I reached the short distance from my chair to the tent behind, and it was there I spent the next two hours ... with book and beer (and aforementioned buzz, for the 2nd time in two days) and ~ eventually, after tiring of the book ~ thinking about metaphors. The tent worked fairly well, though it was not 100% waterproof and my full beer glass suffered from a rather mesmerizing assault by a single drip of clean rainwater every ten seconds (I timed it, the lag was perfect, my glass had become a clock!).
The metaphor was all about The Monsoon.
Thai people 'worship' this particular type of rain (but rightly, they should be worshipping the Himalayas in fact), because it is their life blood. Without the monsoon Thailand might well be part desert, barren, cropless, riceless. My guy can remember 'bad' years, and being from a farm family (who isn't here?), by 'bad' he invariably means 'only small rain'.
Under the tent, a few ~ but only a few, to the other's credit ~ of my bedraggled fellow hostages were complaining about the water leaking in, and presumably about the ruination of a holiday, and things not being 'perfect' (as if ... in Thailand). I felt like (though I didn't) standing up like a professor and facing my captive audience and explaining to them the thankfulness to the Gods they should be feeling to be sitting huddled under the crashing earthwards of a essential life force in this place they'd chosen to fly to. They were covered in a Life Blood and didn't know it. Someone should tell them.
But I didn't, and I'm sure they were wondering how drunk this silly farang was with that rather odd semi-smile he had been wearing on his face for the last hour.
And The Metaphor rolled on: I thought back to the Bangkok Post articles I'd read on the editorial page the day before. Most of them had in one spin or another alluded to the chaotic do-nothing-ism of Thai politics and what was going to become of the country, and what was the long term future of Thailand, and why could it not develop a 'real' democracy instead of wallowing in the Army/Police state 'veneer' democracy they had now and and and and (don't even get me going on 'corruption') ..... and Baht-Stop's whining ponderousness along the same lines.
And I thought of what the Thais really want deep deep down. Democracy and Thaksin's Red Shirts and Whoever's-Behind Yellow Shirts and lazy politicians and wailing farangs be damned. What's 'real' is the Monsoon, and that it comes, like clockwork, every year ... in abundance.
I wandered out into the last drops ~ the 'gentle rain' ~ on my walk home and got as deliberately soaked in the giant pools of rainwater which littered sidewalks and streets as I possibly could ... 'ting tong' farang I'm sure.
I had The BKK Post in hand as well as the beer, feeling a pleasant mellow buzz, and looking over the big double editorial page, which on this particular day just happened to be comprised of more than it's fair share of think-pieces knocking Thai politicians in general for their lethargy, incompetence, childishness, combativeness, well-fed physiques, really bad rugs etc etc ... all well-deserved I'm certain.
As well, it was a particularly good edition for the Letters-to-the-Editor section being chock-a-block filled with wordy whining and complaining farangs, all with the ever-present background subliminal message hiss: I.E. " ... Thais would all be a damn sight better off if they'd just do things more like the way we do in the West ... ". In the presence of the aforementioned buzz, I thought to myself that it felt a little like the Baht-Stop sensibility in fact :blackeye:
.................................................. .............................
Fast forward one day (i.e. yesterday) and I found myself alone and fast-walking the great 5 kilometer sweep of Hua Hin beach ... a bit of very neglected exercise I was desperately in need of. The sand had a perfect hardness for either a run or a walk ... about an hour after the tide had gone out past where I was trundling along at the moment, and the drying had taken over leaving a walker's paradise.
The original casual walk had turned into 'fast' because, looking to the south towards Cha Am and (eventually) Bangkok, the sky had begun to turn dark and black and foreboding, and a decent wind had started to pick up. I knew the meaning of "outta the blue" on this occasion as I had started off a half hour before in brilliant sunshine.
Another half kilometer and I thought I'd better play it safe: which In My World means a Leo beer stop and a good book to keep me company, and for pete's sake wasn't I right at that moment standing smack dab in front of my second favourite beach chair consession (the #1 is my landlady's place ... free chairs for my guy and me, and a little sucking up).
The young guy (about 34 I think) who runs the place with his mother is always a nice bit of eye candy, and in fact he was making a bee-line for me already (it's Low Season), and taking my hand led me over to a nice big loungechair and umbrella. A Leo Beer 'yai' followed quickly and the sky's got darker and darker and I was glad to be where I was.
The place had conjoured a makeshift rain shelter behind the 3 rows of loungechairs: seven or eight umbrellas all pitched to overlap and then a giant blue tarpaulin thrown over the whole lot.
Good thing too. About 30 minutes later the rain started pelting down (can I say "in buckets", no forget that, can I say "wheelbarrows full", no way, let's talk "whole German Zepplins full"). Now it is after all, the rainy season in Thailand. Here in Hua Hin we've had two to four hours of rain every day now for a week, and the land is lush and greeny and flower-filled. But this puppy was Something Else: This was the Mother of Monsoon rainfalls, Noahs Arc territory, the Hoover Damn collapsing next door, Katrina's grandfather. Unlike most rainy days, the lightening flashed in great brilliance, the boom happening milliseconds after ... the son of a bitch was right overhead ("umbrellas attract lightening don't they?").
I was partly soaked in warm, rather comforting water by the time I reached the short distance from my chair to the tent behind, and it was there I spent the next two hours ... with book and beer (and aforementioned buzz, for the 2nd time in two days) and ~ eventually, after tiring of the book ~ thinking about metaphors. The tent worked fairly well, though it was not 100% waterproof and my full beer glass suffered from a rather mesmerizing assault by a single drip of clean rainwater every ten seconds (I timed it, the lag was perfect, my glass had become a clock!).
The metaphor was all about The Monsoon.
Thai people 'worship' this particular type of rain (but rightly, they should be worshipping the Himalayas in fact), because it is their life blood. Without the monsoon Thailand might well be part desert, barren, cropless, riceless. My guy can remember 'bad' years, and being from a farm family (who isn't here?), by 'bad' he invariably means 'only small rain'.
Under the tent, a few ~ but only a few, to the other's credit ~ of my bedraggled fellow hostages were complaining about the water leaking in, and presumably about the ruination of a holiday, and things not being 'perfect' (as if ... in Thailand). I felt like (though I didn't) standing up like a professor and facing my captive audience and explaining to them the thankfulness to the Gods they should be feeling to be sitting huddled under the crashing earthwards of a essential life force in this place they'd chosen to fly to. They were covered in a Life Blood and didn't know it. Someone should tell them.
But I didn't, and I'm sure they were wondering how drunk this silly farang was with that rather odd semi-smile he had been wearing on his face for the last hour.
And The Metaphor rolled on: I thought back to the Bangkok Post articles I'd read on the editorial page the day before. Most of them had in one spin or another alluded to the chaotic do-nothing-ism of Thai politics and what was going to become of the country, and what was the long term future of Thailand, and why could it not develop a 'real' democracy instead of wallowing in the Army/Police state 'veneer' democracy they had now and and and and (don't even get me going on 'corruption') ..... and Baht-Stop's whining ponderousness along the same lines.
And I thought of what the Thais really want deep deep down. Democracy and Thaksin's Red Shirts and Whoever's-Behind Yellow Shirts and lazy politicians and wailing farangs be damned. What's 'real' is the Monsoon, and that it comes, like clockwork, every year ... in abundance.
I wandered out into the last drops ~ the 'gentle rain' ~ on my walk home and got as deliberately soaked in the giant pools of rainwater which littered sidewalks and streets as I possibly could ... 'ting tong' farang I'm sure.