colonial

Feeling rather colonial these days. Npot so muc hfrom the obvious, that we're white people in a brown people's world and paying them to cook clean serve and amuse us, that's to be expected. More in the conversations I've found myself in. With smart people, too, but it's set off little alarms in my head sometimes. Such a common conversation when you've got such a mix of nationalities is discussing cultural characteristics of different peoples. "The thais don't work that way..." Yeah, don't you find that with the Dutch?" "So many brits do such and such" "And the LAo are especially like that!" And so on. IT just sounds like old English colonial masters disussing their subject nations. Even when we're talking about other colonial powers. Speaking in absolutes triggers my PC-trained alarms. But, to be fair, partly what is going on is gathering observations and collecting them into an impression of a people. I guess the trick about thinking like that is making sure that you and everyone else are still open to more data, and you're being fair and not bigoted.

Still in Ko Pha Ngan. It's gorgeous. I've been spending most of my time with island full-timers, like John, a Scot who's lived here full time.

Some brits taught me to play Cricket on the beach! It was fun. Fun to play games. Not just wander, ponder, then have beers with folks at night. I'm planmning to do some hiking in the jungle here. And eat some fish. And try to spend less money. Not thatit's a lot, but it's more than I meant to be spending. I think it's the beer.

One bangkok story I didn't tell was about riding a motorcycle taxi. Leaving Justus' place, I waved my hand to flag down a cab, and then a guy in a little orange vest pulled up on his motorbike. I figured, what the hell. Why not. Holy shit was that whiteknuckled experience. They shoot up between the lines of cars, the handlebars only inches from the car's side mirrors. I was doing everything I could to be as narrow as I could. Suck everything in tight. And I was grasping the metal bar behind my seat so tightly that for an hour and a half afterwards, my biceps were trembling. HE Sure as hell made good time though. That is, until he ran out of gas before we got to my destination. Apparently that's what people take when they're in a real hurry. At rush hour when their traffic slicing ability is at a premium, their prices skyrocket. You see women in Skirt suits riding on the back, sidesaddle, shading their face with their hand.

Every Thai skin product boasts that it is "whitening." They mean it. The Thai Chinese are the ruling class, and everyone wants to be pale like them. The Issan Thais are from near the Cambodian border, so they're correspondingly dark. And they suffer for it socially.

Ok gang. Off to find my evening's amusement.