December 2009
...out of Bangkok, early Sunday morning. A driver's ed course on the outskirts of town, a simple layout of tires and cones rather than the miniature manicured streets of Japan. Eastern Thailand is flat, reforested, but for the large lurking Maurice Sendak trees seen occasionally between the rows. Lots of people as work in the fields, or manning the stalls alongside the roads. There are no Sundays for the rural poor...
...Aranya Pratet, a dusty, featureless border town. Poipet across the way, the white-tile razzle dazzle of casinos. The countryside is merely rice fields, stretching away to both horizons. Dusty paths bisect them, sometimes traversed by bicycle or motorbike. The odd village pops up now and again. We stop awhile in one, talk with some kids selling bracelets. They speak good English, and a couple even speak basic Japanese. One girl asks for a coin, and we give her five yen that she can make into a necklace. She in return gives us bananas. Another girl looks hurt when I give her one yen. They seem happy despite the rural poverty out here, the houses simple and built upon stilts. The wall of one house has been recently repaired and painted with the 'trois colouers.' After dark, I notice that there is no electricity out here, single candles break the darkness within. There is a bizarre light in the sky above the fields, probably a far-off tower, but there is something otherworldly about it...
...Siem Reap has plenty of lights, Xmas decorations hanging around most of the large hotels. (I remember too seeing Santa out there somewhere, a bizarre sight in rural Cambodia.) Many of these big hotels are Korean, one with a sign for "Korean girled meat." Most of the people we've encountered are young, kids hocking their wares will grow up to lead tours and run hotels. I love that those kids we met earlier at the road stop have little, but still have to confidence to convince us to buy their bracelets for 25 cents...On the turntable: Depeche Mode, "Music for the Masses"
On the nighttable: "RE/Search, Real Conversations #1"
December 2009
...Our Thai friends Dew and Pom drove us north. When they pick us up, Dew is not allowed to enter the house that we're renting, due to her being Thai. She tells us that it feels lousy to be discriminated against by her own kind. On the way out of town, Miki waves to a palace guard, who half-raises his gun...
...at a rest stop, a group of kids is milling about. They think Dew is the farang, and speak Thai to Miki instead. I sip coffee in the sun...
...Bang Pa-in Palace isn't too interesting to me, too grand a display. A woman thinking Miki is Thai, scolds her for her improper 'wai.' A monitor lizard sunbathes beside a wide lake. The bungalows built for the consorts are small Victorians sitting on a wide grassy expanse of lawn like in a Midwest college town. A houseboat provides shade from the heat, two pink pitched roofs over water. Lazy tourists drive golf carts around the expansive site. Later, we cross a moat on a pulley system operated by young monks. Rama V built a temple here, designed as a cathedral. Bizarre to see Buddha sitting behind stained glass. A monk here has tattoos that his robes can't completely hide. Working off some prison karma, I suspect...
...a truck waits for a massive snake to cross the road. Further on, a monitor lizard doesn't share the same luck...
...a blue-eyed nun plays with some children at Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon. I press my fingers to apply gold leaf to the reclining Buddhas, then to my sweaty forehead, where the gold remains all day. Buddhist figures with their arms extended, like The Supremes doing "Stop! In the name of love." Dead turtles bob in the moat, fish dining on their feet...
...Wat Phra Mahatat and its wonderful disembodied Buddhas. (A wonderful pun, if you get it...) A film crew from Akita is shooting amongst the trees. A gay Thai man asks to take a photo with me...
...sit awhile with the Buddha at Wat Phra Si Sanphet. On the grassy lawns beyond, farang pay huge fees to ride elephants. Next door, people fire rounds at a shooting gallery. As I sit, the ruins here are invaded by kids on a school excursion. A boy steals a kiss from a girl, who protests, but follows. Twelve years ago, I had the place to myself. How can UNESCO protect what it deems worth protecting? Tourist circuses inevitably follow, destroying any value the place once had...
On the turntable: Green on Red, "The Best of..."
On the nighttable: David Desser, "The Samurai Films of Akira Kurosawa"
On the reel table: "Hearts and Minds" ( Davis, 1974)
A decade ago, on a visit to the States from my home in rural Japan, I entered for the first time that yuppie food mecca of Whole Foods for the first time. I'd been struggling for years as a vegetarian in a country that had forgotten that that had been its traditional diet for centuries. After WWII, when the nation was occupied by an army of big-bodied meat eaters, animal parts were seen as a status symbol, a way of elevating you above your poor, malnourished, millet-eating neighbor. The custom stuck and by the '90s, finding a restaurant meal sans meat was an exercise in developing the purest Zen-like patience. Pork oil in the ramen. Beef stock in the soups. The real whack of the keisaku was settling yet again on a salad, only to find bacon in the dressing. I eventually found Tengu Foods in Saitama, and mail order became a monthly exercise, though admittedly, this wasn't the most eco-friendly, sustainable solution. Thus, entering Whole Foods was an epiphany. In the States, I could eat in a way that was healthy for both myself and the planet. I toyed with the idea of returning to the States within the year.
Life is a fickle percussionist, and I didn't get back here until a year ago. And now, I can barely stand Whole Foods, the extremities of its prices nearly equaling that of the pretension. Meanwhile, I've been visiting the blogs of a handful of expats who've done an I-turn into the Japanese countryside. Many have recipes included. So here I sit, mouth watering over photos of homegrown veggies, mulling a possible return to that great supermarket without walls...
On the turntable: Everything but the Girl, "Baby, The Stars Shine Bright"
On the nighttable: Yoshida Kiju, "Ozu's Anti-Cinema"
On the reeltable: "Food, Inc."
