By Sometimes this is only an adventure, only pictures to display on Facebook, only an opportunity to gather exotic gifts. Sometimes I forget if this is reality. I am awakened by a Thai woman whose features strikingly resemble my Mom’s.
Is it for power? Is this rash display of wealth for power? meaning? hope? There are only a few Thais actually in here (only one of the perhaps thousands of Wats – temples – that speckle Thailand) the rest are Farang – Tourists. I want to be an ‘experiencist’ (as opposed to a tourist). Are these images only to create a tangible god to worship? A symbol makes it easier to unite under, not unlike a nation’s flag. Though the icon is so important to Buddhist culture, I feel that creating an image of Buddha is saying that his teaching wasn’t enough. I could speak of a thousand things, but this seems to be foremost on my mind; maybe Jesus and Buddha can sympathize, as we performed a similar gesture with his cross. I can’t help but think how many people could be fed if people were not giving money to build a temple in order to increase their merit, of how many rural daughters and sisters it took who work in urban brothels to send money back to their families to build a golden Wat surrounded by rice paddies: a place for boys to get free education and a strict hand. Then I talked to older Monks- Monks who preach against worshipping Buddha, who’s favourite part of the day is meditating morning and night, and who simply by their peace and laid back attitude almost have me flying to Cambodia to become a monk as well.
I have found a lot of societal contradictions here in Thailand; they confuse me and I wonder if I will be privy to Canada’s own versions of these contrasts when I arrive back in Toronto. The world shown to casual tourists differs sharply to the real Thai world; the high morals expected of Thai women contradicts the slack attitude toward prostitution; in fact the hierarchical culture even seems to support it.
I want to be an experiencist… I don’t want to see old buildings and flashy tourist-traps if they serve to hide the triumphs and the plight of the people. I want to sit and understand. Upon coming overseas, I thought that the differences must not be so rash; in the end we are all humanity. Somethings, however, I don’t understand; I want to, but I don’t. In some ways this trip has pulled the world together, and in others it has blasted me with awareness of what a vast and varied world we live in.
As a tourist it is easy to detach oneself; it is dangerous to realize that you are entering into another’s life for a short time on the other side of the world and really recognize that they are just as real as you are. What would happen if I truly saw myself selling mango sticky rice for a lifetime, or blindly playing an accordion in the middle of a market? I am sitting in an internet cafe in Bangkok city and cannot weld this disconnect in reality– *sigh; one contradiction that I desperately do not want to add to the mounting list already existing in Thailand.
I hope to come back someday- Dichan my pen Farang; con Thai dee Kwa!
Sa wat dii Kha!
One Comment
thanks Nicola!