Tokyo

O.K. I will come clean. The thing that impressed me the most about Japan was the heated toilets with the automatic spray, in three speeds, and your choice of cologne spray!! Why the cologne spray?

This probably epitomizes my thoughts on the city itself. Everything is perfect, as Tokyo fulfills all the stereotypes, at least from what I saw on my one day whirlwind tour. Daniel, I did make my way in from the airport with no sweat ( ok, so I got lucky and got a Japanese guy working for Philips who helped me buy the ticket, find my seat and told me what to see). Since I got off at Tokyo station, I decided to visit the Imperial Palace, just north of Marunouche. Ok, so that is where I ended up but at least I found it. I didn’t even realize Japan had an emperor even though he only has a ceremonial role and the gardens, which were open to the public, were regal as you can see from the pictures. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain on the one day I was in Tokyo but I refused to buy a umbrella for $10 when I could get one for $2 in Bangkok even though I had no hesitation in buying the $3,000 air ticket. I also had no raincoat since my bags were checked through to Canada (or at least LA). Needless to say, I will probably have a cold for the first time in a year, but at least I learned Japan had an emperor, lots of people in Tokyo love to run on the week-ends and the Japanese take a lot of pride in their horticultural and organizational skills. Even though the entrance was free, we still needed to take a plastic ticket and return it when we left. Go figure!

The Japanese are obsessed with cleanliness. The taxi drivers, garage attendants, foremen on construction sites, wore white gloves and were meticulous with their vehicles. I couldn’t believe watching two different taxi drivers wiping down their steering wheels and dashboards. You would never see that in Asia, that is for sure, or at least in the part of Asia I lived in. I had lunch in the Ginza in a diner with about 10 chairs and the woman took pity on me and gave me a spoon. What shocked me was before she handed me the spoon she washed it in hot water…the water was steaming. I haven’t seen that in two years. In Bangkok, there is a red metallic box on the table in ‘diners’ if there was such a thing in Bangkok and you basically use the fork and spoon that have probably never been washed. Even in bakeries they were aghast when I just picked up a loaf of bread with my hands and went to pay for it. When I looked around I saw everyone else had a tray and was carefully picking up their baked goods with tongs. I also handed her the money directly which shocked her. Then I saw other people who put the money on a tray as if the money is never touched by human hands. God forbid dirty hands might touch the bread.

The business district around the palace and the Ginza were very quiet. I was very tired after my overnight flight so I did consider just going back to the airport but decided to see more and broke down and bought an umbrella. The people of Tokyo should thank me because it stopped raining instantly as soon as I passed the woman my money. By the way, when people walk into malls or stores, there is a machine outside that automatically encases the umbrella in plastic. What a waste of plastic I thought, but then I do not even pick up my clothes from the floor or notice it is there!

Having decided to see more of Tokyo with my new unnecessary umbrella, I took a taxi to Rappongi because I love the sound of the name and it appeared in a book I read in Koh Chang. Thankfully it was busy and fun. There was a beautiful art gallery, coffee houses, museums, fancy grocery stores with one orange for about $3.00 and so on. When I figured it was time to go, I saw a distinguished looking westerner having a coffee and reading a book at Starbucks. I asked him where I could find a train to take me back to the airport. He told me he never took a train to the airport, but offered me an alternative and walked me over to the Hyatt hotel where he put me on the hotel bus. When I asked him why he never took the train to the airport, he told me he was always driven and he put his guests on the bus. When I asked him what he did, he told me he was the ambassador from Switzerland!

My Last Class

Last night, just as I was in the business district around Sathorn getting a print out of my air ticket, Yui called and asked me if I could fill in for a language teacher who was sick. The class started in forty-five minutes so thank God for MRT, the subway system. It would have taken me at least two hours to make it on time by car but the subway system is fantastic and I made it just in time for the class. ( with seconds to spare I might add)

In the past, it seems, I always got my ‘next’ job in June, so I never really had the opportunity that Sylvia did in knowing that the class she just taught the last day in June was the last class she could ever call her own. As I told the students last night, they had the privilege or rather I had the privilege of knowing that this was going to be the last class I would ever teach. Unfortunately, they all went to the principal of the school and told him how much they like me and he offered me a job immediately. I gave him my card and told him to write me if he was serious. I also just got an e mail from my “boss” asking me to meet him in Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow but I told him I will either be in Narita or Tokyo. ( Daniel thinks I should go into Tokyo in my eleven hour layover). I am sort of timid about it and think I should probably just take the local bus into Narita ( if there is such a thing) and look at the temples, have lunch, go into a store or two and back to the airport. I am afraid that if I go to Tokyo it will probably be “mi me ben ha”…no sweat but getting back might be sweat!!! Would I ever find the train station again in time to get back?

On another note, Yui told me that in languages, the first thing people acquire is listening and understanding, then speaking, then reading and finally writing. For some reason this never sunk in with me until this last trip to Issan. Instead of trying to figure out intellectually what people were saying to me, I just listened and reacted. I let the sounds wash over me and did not try to decipher what every word or sound meant. I just tried to respond appropriately. For example, people in stores always say ‘dai mai’ which I know means how can I help you but literally means correct? I keep trying to figure out why they are using the words they are using instead of just accepting them, and moving on with my response. It will be kind of interesting when I get back to Canada tomorrow to only hear English or some version of it anyway!

The rice cycle!

It started the way it ended. Remember my first trip to Ayuttaya early last fall when I met that wonderful family. Now fast forward to the last few days when I met another wonderful family in Issan in a town called Roiet ( which literally means eleven gates.) As I was sitting in the park this morning, as usually happens, no always happens, a toothless man starting talking with me, or was I talking to him and before you knew it I was at his house having lunch with his family with me the centre of interest.

As you go down any dirt road in these small towns, I suspect what I discovered is quite typical. Like the Kennedy compound in Hyannis port, the nongchai and piesou etc ( younger brother, older sister etc) live in adjoining houses but I guess this is where the comparison to the Kennedy family ends.

Let me try to describe a typical Thai house in this area, the poorest area in all of Thailand. As you enter the house, and I use enter loosely since there is no door, there are a few low platforms where people are eating, sitting cross-legged or sitting on another platform idly chatting. It seems that all of the extended family is at one house or the other all the time. I was wondering about how they could all be so idle until I started to think about. They plant the rice at Songkran (about a month ago) and then they wait four or five months until they harvest? What do they do in the meantime? Like an anaesthesiologist there are long periods of boredom followed by frantic moments of panic. I suspect with the rice farmers it is not so much panic as hard work getting the rice in before it spoils.

Anyway, back to the house. I guess the two most important parts are at the back where there is the outhouse and elevated seed storage area, always kept under lock and key except when special guests arrive! I did climb up and look in the storage area, but I did not have the heart (or thank God) the need to look at the outhouse. Also near the back could be what is loosely called the kitchen where everything is done in the outdoors and I suspect, for the lady of the house ,are constantly busy preparing the meals .There did not seem to be electricity of any kind or natural gas, except mine perhaps.

The stories that I heard are, unfortunately all too typical. Q, the little boy you see in the pictures lost his parents ( the children of the host) in a motorcycle accident, 2 other children live in Bangkok and the youngest daughter ( who showed me around the farm) lives with the elderly parents to care for them. All of the children ( Daniel and Josh, are you reading this?) support their parents with regular monthly cash deposits.

Each village ( it seems of about 100 houses of extended family) has it’s own wat and crematorium as you see in the picture. Again, as I have asked myself about a million times these past two years, who has got it right? The poor people of Issan who spend the day, cooking, eating, chatting, gossiping, I presume ( about me) or the west where we get up and go and spend our days becoming as alienated as possible from our extended families as we focus on our own families! When I have ever, to speak personally, ever just sat around chatting without an formal invitation of some sort to someone’s house?

On a reflective note, I am also getting to know a little history and culture. You will notice from the pictures that Phimai, also in Issan, looks very much like Angkor Wat even though it predates Angkor by a hundred years. I am beginning to recognize architectural styles and religious iconography. I am also getting to learn a little bit about the history of the region by what I see.

Tomorrow, I am going to try to move my flight date home. One or two more things to do, but they are rather mundane like picking up pants and getting my laundry done, so this will probably be my penultimate blog entry. I do have an eleven hour layover in Japan where I hope to go into the town of Narita ,so as I sit on the plane to LA, I should have some tale or two to tell!

See you all in a few days.