Kat’s Window

Once upon a time, I was hunting for some new clothes at a major shopping mall in Thailand. I wanted to try some things on and I eventually found the fitting room. The saleswoman told me to wait a moment. The door was closed. I was stunned when I saw her go in and wake up about five employees who were asleep on the floor. This was only the beginning of my ‘napping nation’ experience.

A few weeks later I saw a clerk standing next to a gigantic display rack in a department store. I had a question for him and so I started talking. He didn’t respond. I talked some more - with no response. Upon closer inspection, I discovered he was sound asleep in a full standing position. His head was slightly tilted and supported by a nice fluffy stack of towels. I was awe struck.

I have since learned that Thai napping can happen anywhere at anytime - on tables, under tables or simply by leaning forward in the chair and putting the head down on a table. Noise, heat, or the position of the head and body become irrelevant. Napping in crowded busses, boats, and trains is common. Napping on the back of a speeding moped while sitting in a sidesaddle position is also possible and so is napping on winding roads while heads bob back and forth like metronomes.

One of my favourite napping techniques is the ’sitting cross-legged on the edge of a tailgate of a pickup truck driving top speed down the highway’ position. I have seen napping on piles of vegetables, napping on a truckload of tires, napping with livestock and napping in dangerously-perched and high-up positions. My friend recently reported a napper sticking out of the back of a cement mixer truck.

I am one of those people who sometimes simply cannot sleep let alone nap. I have stared at alarm clocks in dismay as they showed the sad time of four or five a.m. I have channel flipped until dawn. I also have a long list of pre-conditions that must be met before I can enter the realm of a nice snooze. It must be quiet. It must be dark. I must be in a fully horizontal position.

Most people I know back in the States will deny sleeping at night, let alone napping. An after-midnight phone call with the caller asking, “Were you asleep?” invariably gets the answer, “No, no” from the person who has been rudely disturbed by the ringing telephone. What would your boss’ reaction be if he or she were to come in and find you sitting in your chair, facedown, and sound asleep at your desk? I have seen this many times. I have also witnessed people moving offices in Thailand. Out comes the desk, the computer, the photocopier, and yes, sometimes the bed.

Originally I could not fathom the Thai ability to nap. Now I am no longer so easily impressed or shocked. Instead I have become an Olympic judge of napping. I give out points for difficulty of napping position, elegance of performance, and level of difficulty of napping environment. As a country, Thailand deserves a gold medal.

I think it is more than fair to point out that Thai people generally work very long hours for much less money than most would suspect. They have more than the right to be tired. It can also be ridiculously hot in Thailand. By getting up very early and taking an afternoon siesta, the peak hours of heat can be avoided. In Thailand, it seems there is no time like the present for a quick snooze.

Napping no longer surprises me. When asked to write down their favorite pastimes, Thai students often list napping at the top. I aspire to one day obtain the Thai napping skill. It would make my life so much easier and I would be far less tired.

Hundreds of strange T-shirts with even stranger sayings in English have either migrated to or been produced in Thailand. Most often the Thai wearer does not know what these shirts say. Parent-teacher organizations, bowling clubs, concerts, vacation spots, and companies from around the world are well advertised here. I often wonder how these shirts found their way to Thailand in the first place. Oh, if only a shirt could talk.

Shopping at a street vendor stall one day in downtown Bangkok, I chose my purchase and looked for the salesperson. I eventually spotted him. He was a 10- or 11-year-old boy standing at the far end of the table bent over at the waist. He was sound asleep on a pile of silk underwear. Finally he awoke and blurry eyed, he stood up.

He was wearing a bright yellow T-shirt. It proclaimed: SLEEPING CHILDREN OF THE WORLD in bold, dark-blue, square lettering.

The ding dong of the ice cream man, the ring ring of the dried squid vendor, the bing bong of the combination broom-feather duster-toilet scrubber salesman, the honk honk of a car, the vroom vroom of the racing moped driver, the clickety clank of a broken taxi’s tailpipe, the chug chug of an overstuffed pickup truck, the ting tong of the fruit cart, bing ting of the bicycle bell, and the woof woof of the street dogs arguing again over their meager scrounged dinner, the bark bark of my dog who has never and will never like the sound of bells, the cheers of children playing soccer in the park, pieces of floating conversation, honkahonkahonka of one ice cream vendor who should be going ding dong, beautiful Thai country music from a radio, and at night live singing from a picnic bench across the street; sometimes accompanied by guitar, but mostly only with the clinking of bottles and the banging of hands……these are the sounds that filter into my windows.

Live in the neighbourhood long enough, buy on the street often enough, and I am told you can read the air like a billboard. The sounds from the vendors are specifically designed to let people know which items are currently for sale in front of their houses. I can not read the air but I like these sounds no matter how strange the sights are which accompany them.

To make matters even more interesting, in my neighbourhood exists the strangest sound of all. It is my favourite sound and to this day I have never seen the sight that goes with it. This sound goes Clank clank, Clank clank, Clank clank, and sounds like a piece of metal being hit against another piece of metal.

This sound usually begins in the late afternoon and continues all night long. Even more intriguing, this sound MOVES. Sometimes it is directly in front of my house and then within two or three minutes I hear it from a distance. Between interludes it grows fainter and eventually fades away, only to return later on.

In the beginning I counted the clanks. I wanted to see if the clanks had something to do with the time. To me Clank clank Clank clank always equaled four. Looking at my watch, four made no sense. I also knew the Thai system of telling time divides the clock into four periods. You begin counting from six. Seven in the morning becomes one, eight in the morning becomes two and it gets more confusing from there. Well, these clanks didn’t match the Thai time system either.

To add to my confusion, sometimes these clanks didn’t always happen on the hour. I refuted my original thesis and decided the clanks had nothing to do with time. They remained a mystery of the highest order and I decided that their purpose was to have no purpose at all.

Time passed. While standing in front of a desk one day, the clanks came again. This time they chose to let me understand. Clank clank. Clank clank. Clank clank. My brain screamed EUREKA! Not six clanks. Three. Three clanks. I looked down, and yes, oh yes. It was three o’clock! Like a scene straight out of Sesame Street with Countdracula (Hah hah hah!!! Three! Three wonderful clanks!) I rejoiced. I had learned the code of our neighbourhood timekeeper.

Now I can tell if he’s having a bad day. He can be up to 35 minutes late with his time keeping, other days he is as punctual as the Swiss rail system. I think he has the world’s greatest job but I can’t fathom how he gets paid for it or even if he does.

One day last week he gave a particularly interesting performance. The speed of the clanks was rapid fire with no breaks between the sets of two. I got a real kick out of this speed metal version. Maybe he has been listening to Metallica or maybe he was just in a rush.

I have never seen him, and for now I don’t want to. But before I move house I would love to watch him work, preferably at three in the morning with a full moon shining down on the pond in the park. The other neighbours will be out fishing with their nets and tire tubes. Perhaps he will appear 15 or 30 minutes late. I will just sit in the shadows and watch my neighbourhood celebrity.

Here I am walking along with Thailand. This gives me the unique chance to find out some first-hand information. As we stroll together I begin to wonder who this mysterious country is. Some basic ‘first date’ questions arise like, “What is your name?” to which I get the reply, “Well, I used to be called Siam but I changed my name in 1939. Now my official name is The Kingdom of Thailand.”

“Where do you live?” yields the reply, “In south-east Asia. I have Laos to my north and north-east, Myanmar to my north and west, Cambodia to my east, and Malaysia to my south. Oh yeah, by the way, Myanmar had its name changed from Burma in 1989.”

Keeping up with the small talk I ask, “How old are you?” Thailand replies, “Older than you think. Rock paintings dating back to possibly the fourth century BC have been found outside of Bangkok but I was officially founded in 1238 AD. I was never colonized, although the French, British, and Dutch were quite busy with my neighbors and sometimes we were quite busy with each other.” Next I ask, “So, how big are you?” and Thailand says, “I am about twice the size of Wyoming, about the size of France, or 514,000 square kilometers.”

“So why does the yogurt in my refrigerator have the expiration year of 2543 stamped on it?” “Well, for you it may be the year 2000 AD, but for me it is also the year 2543 BE because we use both the Gregorian and Buddhist Era calendars here.” I say, “Could you explain more about the calendar thing?” Thailand states, “The Buddhist Era is based on the death of the Lord Buddha in 543 BC making the Buddhist Era calendar 543 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar.” Thailand continues…

“The Mekong River is on my border with Laos. The Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand are in my south. I have many streams, rivers, and canals. I have lush tropical forests, gorgeous beaches, and three seasons: hot, rainy, and cool. The Tourism Authority of Thailand reported that 8,580,332 tourists came to see me last year. Bangkok is my capitol and my biggest city with over nine million residents. Chiang Mai is my second biggest city. I have a total of about 61 million residents and I am divided into 76 provinces.”

Further chatting reveals a country ruled by a democratic constitutional monarchy. The population is 95% Buddhist, 4% Muslim, and has small Hindu and Christian populations also. Thailand is a firm believer in the freedom of religious choice. There are over 30,000 Buddhist temples and about 2,000 mosques in Thailand. Religion plays a major role in daily life.

Patterns of migration, both ancient and more recent, have shaped the country into a diverse nation. A mosaic of different people and cultures reside within Thailand including Thai, Chinese, Lao, Khmer, Shan, Muslin, Mon, and different groups of hill tribes.

The majority of the population is Thai (75%), and the second largest group is Chinese (14%). Individual ethnic groups typically maintain their native language and customs in addition to speaking Thai. This multiplicity accounts for the diverse sights, sounds, languages, forms of dress, and rituals one may see and hear while traveling through the country.

I find walking along with Thailand much less of a challenge than learning the Thai alphabet. Created by King Ramkhamhaeng in 1283 AD, the 44 consonants and 32 vowels create an initial shock in most upon first contact. Thai is a tonal language. The same ‘word’ pronounced with a high, mid, low, rising, or falling tone can render five different meanings.

Because of these dramatic differences in language and culture I sometimes feel very out of place and I get homesick. I miss speaking my native language at super sonic speed, functioning on automatic pilot, and hanging out with my family. This feeling passes.

The rice fields, winding hills, mountain tops, valleys, shopping malls, rivers, beaches, butterflies, birds, traffic jams, sleepy villages, bamboo huts, temples, markets, and most importantly, the people, remind me that Thailand is someone worth getting to know.

Before actually moving to Bangkok I came here for two weeks to look for a place to live. This proved to be an adventure of the highest order as I looked at houses and apartments in various sizes, locations, and states of dilapidation.

The Asian financial crisis had not happened long ago and most of the properties shown to me were in states of despair. The agents and owners tried to convince me that the walls would be painted, the smashed windows replaced, piles of dirt, debris, and dead plants removed, a new kitchen installed, the antiquated bathroom refurbished, and the leaking roof fixed - a huge challenge for my imagination.

After much footwork I eventually found a place I liked which was in a medium state of despair. I signed the contract, ordered a bed from a factory, and went back to Switzerland. 97% of my possessions were already on their way across the great blue sea.

Two months passed and I moved to Bangkok. The moving crates arrived on time. I unpacked, set up house, and began navigating my neighborhood. I also peered more than curiously at my new surroundings.

During these initial months I was having trouble adjusting to the environment and level of chaos here. In my eyes, things were seldom done correctly. Everything was not clean enough, punctual enough, fast enough, convenient enough, automated enough, or quiet enough. Moving from a town where the cows outnumbered the people only added to my shock. To add to my aggravation, there was no sign of the bed I had paid for months ago.

One day the phone rang at 10 am. It was the factory telling me they would be delivering the bed at 9:30 the next morning. I chose to remain skeptical.

The following day a big moving truck with four passengers and one driver arrived right on time. I opened my gate. They opened the back of their truck. And then they all started laughing. They laughed and they laughed. At first I thought they were laughing at me. I was caught in a moment of awkward confusion but soon realized the cause of the laughter.

They had forgotten the bed and driven three hours with a totally empty vehicle.

I was about to totally blow a mental fuse. Then I looked at the smiling, laughing faces in front of me. I remembered that yelling is not a polite thing to do in Thailand. But most importantly, and it may sound silly, I suddenly realized that no matter how aggravated I got the bed would not just simply appear.

I made the spontaneous and monumental decision to join in and laugh along with them. So there we all stood at the back of the empty truck cracking up. It was the best laugh I’d had in awhile.

This decision to laugh somehow transformed me permanently and made living in Thailand much easier from that day on. On that day I learned the real meaning of two Thai phrases. Not only what they mean on paper but what they mean in your attitude.

‘Mai pen rai’ and ‘jai yen yen’ are two frequently heard Thai expressions. The first means ‘It doesn’t matter.’ The second means ‘(Be) cool-hearted.’ These expressions may be used for almost any form of disaster or stress causing situation. Blunders, interpersonal mistakes, stressful situations, and mishaps are usually greeted with ‘mai pen rai.’ If one starts to get annoyed or worked up ‘jai yen yen’ serves as a reminder to keep one’s cool.

Every temperament and situation is unique, but in my opinion I see Thai people as having a natural ability to take it easy. I admire this capacity to lighten most serious situations. This may be seen by westerners as an inept uncaring attitude often used as an excuse for blunder. I disagree. I believe it is the most healthy and realistic of mindsets.

The delivery guys said they would be back on the next day with the bed. I waved a cheerful goodbye, and walked back to my house shaking my head but still chuckling. Right on time at 9:30 the following morning they did deliver a bed - a healthy 50-pound bed with frame.

It wasn’t the bed I had ordered but that just doesn’t matter. I had a good laugh about that also. I went to the store and bought the happiest looking sheets I could find. The bed is now clothed in a cheerful scene of cows, chickens, roosters, pigs, geese, silos, ponds, barns, and tractors. Not only did I get a bed; I ended up with a farm and a good story too.