I Never Thought I’d Travel Out of the Country
I’m traveling soon, and so I’ve decided to take a moment to reflect on what travel means to me. I’m not a culture-expert, I’m a film and arts guy, so with all that in mind…
When I was younger, I hung out with an adventurous group. Eclectic kids, whom I had respect for. I remember one girl, Casey, told me traveling was so important. And I remember telling her flatly: I don’t really think it is. I stood by that opinion for many, many years. Today, I’m conflicted as to how I feel about travel, so I’m still not entirely convinced I was ever wrong. Allow me to explain —
Traveling costs money. If you’re rich, I don’t suppose that’s a factor, and in that situation I think traveling is fine. Traveling allows you to avoid your problems, so it can be a stress reliever to sit on a beach in the Bahamas while the kitchen burns. I get it. I get young people being intoxicated by the idea of encountering a stranger and having a passionate sexual encounter. In fact, I see many old people traveling for just this reason though, I must say, watching old bald men in bowler caps courting young (potentially underage) asian women is not so romantic.
New sights, new sounds, new experiences. I don’t think I was ever sold on the pitch, until I met my wife. She is from another country, so when it came time to go back to visit her folks, I couldn’t really argue. So, I went to Thailand.
Right off the bat — long fucking flight. But, you’re in a chair, so it is what it is. They bring you food. It’s a little like being in a hospital, which I’ve always enjoyed. Hospitals are nicer, because they’re usually the perfect temperature, and you’re usually on drugs, and it’s usually post-op so you’ve been treated and you’re better, which is like a small involuntary accomplishment. Airplanes are crowded bacteria vectors, but you don’t have to move, and you get to watch movies, and that’s pretty laid back.
Once we landed in Bangkok, it was off to the races. It’s sticky, loud, and dirty. Did I mention it’s loud? Most people travel by scooter/motorcycle, so you have to constantly watch traffic as to not flatten anyone. The old white guys with bowler caps are everywhere, and if you stop too long in a rowdy area you’ll get offers to see a “ping pong show”.
It’s also quite a pretty place, too. The days are nice in December, and people are friendly. It’s fun to walk through Bangkok, it’s fun to try food. I’m not a massive fan of walking in general, but walking is probably healthy. Pause.
This is my interpretation of why traveling is so important and the growth angle. If you’re paying attention to the little differences in a culture, you can extrapolate their cultural wisdom and compare it against your own. At sixteen, or seventeen or whenever Casey said that I would’ve never been able to consciously compare cultures in a meaningful way. At thirty-five, here’s a couple of things I noticed —
Pausing for the King’s song, no matter what you’re doing. Standing before movies for the King’s song at the theater, and in no way criticizing the King. People who feel like America is restrictive really need to visit a place like this, where you will literally get thrown in jail for talking shit. You can’t coax an opinion out of any of them.
Street food, unrestricted, ungoverned small business. I’m not quite sure how it works, but everyone just seems to park on the side of the road and sell shit and it’s totally okay. Restaurants don’t have health codes, but the people have a sense of pride that makes you trust that they’re doing a good job.
Medical is good, and by that I mean professional. But that professionalism extends to everything; as I noted above with the restaurants. You can go anywhere and the person who is selling a product, or offering a service is someone who is taking themselves seriously. Except, I will make a note, for one pimp-like massage parlor owner, who overcharged my mother and I when we were alone and I am pretty sure stole the tips from the ladies who gave us our massages. That was dark. But by and large, anyone who claims a professional title is much more professional, in my experience, than the ones we meet here.
Extrapolating further, I’ll add this — if I want general medical I’d get it there. Example: LASIK eye surgery — Thailand wins hands down. Hair transplants — Thailand. Anything where you’re not dying of cancer or something very extreme, probably goes to Thailand over the U.S. However, that changes if you can afford to go to the top medical facilities in the United States. Thailand can’t compete with like, the Mayo Clinic or anything like that. That’s why we still hold the title and honors of “best medicine” but they, over there, seem to have the misimpression that our general medical is superior and it absolutely is not. Laziness plagues the U.S. A general nurse in the U.S. does not give a damn, loses paperwork, etc. Anyone without liability is slacker-ish here. I didn’t observe that in Thailand. If someone was getting paid a reasonable amount of money (for Thailand, still far below what you’d pay for the same work here) the quality of the work was twice as good as you’d get here. Example being — a 30 dollar massage in Thailand was twice as good as a 100 dollar massage in the united states. Hair spa, hair cuts, tours, snorkeling, scuba, food, medical — everything.
Alright, I got hung up on that one, but it’s something I thought about for a while so I had some real thoughts on it. Next difference I’d point out is Religion — Buddhism. I observed this in Japan, too, where I went after Thailand. Everyone paused their lives to worship at these massive temples, and that was just totally unlike the United States. Culturally, here, religion quietly mocked. Maybe I can tie that back to the way we mock our President’s, too, and contrast it with their strict policies regarding the King. If I can, I’d like to connect that further to a general innocence I observed in both countries. Not a naivety, but a… purity?
Example: the temple worship was a family-affair. Tiny kids were dragged through two and three hour lines to stand at the feet of alters, and I know damn well they didn’t know what was going on, but they didn’t cry or complain. Japan was just… staggering with how many of their people went. I mean, the temples were cool, but it’s wild to have a place where everyone is so one-hundred percent on the same page. In the United States, whenever people are on the same page like that, it presents an opportunity for someone to come along and make a counter-argument, or deconstruct it. Hell, that’s what I do! But with religion in both of these cultures it’s just a no-go. And I respect the hell out of that, and I wish we had that here.
It reminds me of the entertainment we used to produce here, which is much like the entertainment they still produce in Thailand. It was pure, and innocent. It was hero beats lots of bad guys — don’t worry about how it works, he just does. We used to do that, with guys like Stallone in Rambo, or Rocky. We mock that kind of machismo now, but it really comes from this core connection with purity that we’ve culturally lost. We used to root for that shit, and now we just laugh at it here, like we know better.
Rocky and Rambo and Temple Worship in Japan and Thailand do connect even if I can’t explain in a way that does it justice. I hope they preserve their innocence.
Which is funny, because in Thailand sex work is in the open, and rampant. And I don’t even blame them for it. It’s an indictment on the westerners and other tourists who want to pay for it. It’s a pity to see so many things built to accommodate the predilections of perverts, but poor people will do what they must to survive. It’s interesting to see it so open, which was abrasive to me, but then, I know it happens back home too, it just takes place on streets I don’t travel. My wife told me some of them like to do it. I don’t know, I suppose if you don’t have any choice…
Finally, my final point — a lot of people there do things because they have no other choice. This is something I brought back home. If you’re over the age of fifty, you’re legitimately not getting a job even if you want one. Here, it’s so easy. Work, in general, is so easy. That’s why there, you see so many people just stoked to have a professional job. They know there’s someone waiting in the wings for them to fuck up, so they can snipe the position. Here, well… we can deconstruct what’s wrong with the United States work-force another time. I don’t have enough readers to alienate half of you.
So, I’m excited through this lens. I’m eager to go back and compare and contrast some more. I’d like to see more of it, and to pretend I am a Thailander (there can be only one) rather than an American. I love being an American, but I want to immerse myself. Last time, I left for two months. When I got back, I genuinely felt like a stranger in my own town. This time, it’s only three weeks.
My town feels small now, but I still remain fixated on the same crap I was obsessed with before — making a movie, and talking and typing a bunch. Sometimes, memories feel like things that never happened. They get foggy, or the event was so crazy it was hard to store it all away, or your feet hurt and it was distracting you from the hot sun and the brightly painted dragon-statues.
A lot of times, for me, all that feels real is this streaming thread that I weave between moments. I’m weaving it right now… it’s continuous and it doesn’t break for anything.
