OceanicThai

We came down from Eastern Thailand, as soon as we had enough money, to help after the tsunami. We ended up at Wat Yan Yaw, the main temple where they were processing bodies. Our time there was like being in a nightmare, a tragic and frightening one. We went back to the temple last week, and walked around the grounds. They had put fill dirt in, throughout the entire temple area. It was so strange to see the refrigerated body containers gone, the mounds of donated goods gone, the room of computers gone, and all the people, soldiers, doctors, volunteers all gone. No one was there, just a handful of placid monks. They had some pictures posted, though, and they were extremely graphic, and they brought it all back. There was the destroyed beach area, the bodies, there was where I worked, there was where my husband worked, there was my husband...there he was, all suited up in his white smock, apron, mask, gloves, working among the bodies. No mistaking his tall frame, certain stance, the way h

The other day my son went out to play with the boys from the shack across from our shophouse. They seemed to be having fun together, then he came in, upset. "They threw rocks at me." Why? I think it is because he looks different than they do, he talks differently, although he was trying to speak Thai, they speak another dialect. They acted from powerful inner impulses, perhaps they felt upset and threatened by this person who was so unlike themselves. Adults can also feel strong emotions when confronted by people of another language and culture. I think it is a strength of America that society has done so much to try to cultivate an attitude of appreciation towards other cultures, some regions more sucessfully than others, of course. There is always more to do, of course, and always more room to grow, and there are always groups of people that cannot see the value of anyone but themselves, but I feel there are also vast numbers of peoples that are kind-hearted, genero

I was teaching English 2 days ago and one of my students asked me why it was that sometimes foreign (western) tourists are unfriendly and don't want to talk to them. This man in his 50's asked, "Do they want to 'protect' themselves?" I thought about Thai culture, how open they are with strangers about their own lives, and tried to quickly formulate an answer, "They don't understand the Thai culture and they don't know you, so they are afraid you might want to do something bad to them." American idioms flowed through my brain..."Don't talk to strangers." "It's none of your business." How could they possibly understand these strange and apparently unfriendly ideas? I see sometime in the future I will have to teach them the word "privacy" and how it is so highly valued in western countries. Here it is not valued or understood. Perhaps it is the luxury of the rich, but not part of the thinking of the everyday

Here is another voice from the ocean of humanity. We have lived here in Thailand for over 6 years, first in Chiang Mai then Esaan, the East, then 6 months in Central Thailand. Now we are here in Southern Thailand, 2 months since arrival. We have lived in all 4 regions of Thailand now. We live in a shophouse along a major road in Phang Nga. Our "front door" is a big metal roll-up door. People walk by on their way to nearby shops, peering in at us. Sometimes they just come on in, after taking their shoes off first, of course. The owner and her relatives come in quite often, calling up to us if we are on the upper floor . The other day a "worker" type with his western-style sweat-soaked clothes walked right into our house to sell us some rattan shelves he had just built and laquered. He was convinced we should buy them from him. We did. 2 weeks ago an elderly lady in a rumpled traditional skirt walked in. She held a well-used natural fiber basket and told me in