May 3rd, 2004
108432609031995511
More TV and contrast
I’m lying in bed, propped up on a hard pillow that must be filled with plastic beads. I have a dim lamp over the headboard turned on, and my windowless room feels like it could be two a.m. as just as well as eleven. Some dry crackers and tea are my breakfast, as I have yet again slept past the hour for using my buffet ticket. One of the three things on my television is a documentary set to highly attenuated music, like something out of a forties western drama. Judging by the heavily saturated reds and greens I’d say it was in the early sixties, through there are so many logos overlaid I can’t be sure. It must be Chinese, because the credits are all in hanzi, but the location is mountainous and cold, so it could be filmed in western China or Tibet. The music booms impossibly distorted, and I feel like I’m in elementary school watching an old world studies reel, though to be honest, I don’t remember learning hardly anything about Asia [or even _seeing_ an Asian person] until I was halfway through high school. I guess it’s because there aren’t a lot of missionaries there.
[PICTURES GO HERE]
Thailand is by far the most foreign place I’ve yet to visit, however there are undeniable signs of an exploding economy. The poverty and the public uncleanliness are a stark contrast to the six-story mall at the central train station and the fifteen foot Pepsi posters of Britney and Enrique’ in mock Grecian armor (assumedly pushing summer megamovie Troy). People sit in the street begging with an endless array of unsightly maladies, while a few blocks away the beautiful walk in polo shirts across the lawn of a prestigious university. The food is delicious and tastes quite fresh, yet I have been warned to not come into contact with the water from nearly every river. The commercial spaces are wide and new, but much of the design seems crude and without polish. Outside weather is exhausting, though there is a certain charm to the heat, a motivation to just sit down and do nothing. The city of Thonburi, across the Chao Phraya river, is actually quite nice. I can only imagine the countryside of Thailand is even more humble and pure.
I think my mind is predominantly confused and over saturated by conflicting images, but I think that might be a good thing as it prevents me from forming and kind of opinion. Hopefully when I return and people ask me what it was like I can state the facts based only on the things I have seen and the locals I have talked to, unjudging and objectively.
