Getting along II

The scene in Chiang Mai:

Even in Bangkok (well.. sorta..):

Happy Songkran* everyone. Seems like it couldn't come at a better time.

*Thai New Year and water fesitval... and the greatest holiday in the entire world.

Giant Thai Things

we live in a jungle.

(that's a king cobra)

Live free; Ride hard

I got this vespa for my birthday two weeks ago:


I was going to join the Black Rabbits, this local motorcycle gang:


The moto came with a pink seat and pink handlebars. But it didn't come with a license plate, and we didn't realize that meant we couldn't ever get a license plate for it — ensuring inevitable confusing, awkward, hand-flapping run-ins with the local bribe-happy cops who care about that sort of thing.

So after riding it just a handful of times (including one long, glorious dash through countryside backroads during which I ran out of gas in the middle of a rice farm), we sold it back yesterday to Dong — the guy with the motorcycle shop in our front yard.

I never even named it. The Black Rabbits approve of my municipal obedience.

Lamborghini dichotomies

From a development perspective, I've found Thailand to be a great example of both the potential and the problems that come with a high-growth emerging economy.

There's a well-developed infrastructure, good rural roads, consistent power, some social safety nets, a growing middle class and a very-visible high society (featuring all the modern touches — Lamborghinis and Ferraris for sale in a Bangkok mall — that come with them). But there's also a large chunk of the population living on a couple bucks a day, plaguing political turmoil, corruption and mistrust, abhorrent treatment of refugees and minorities and a huge slum in the shadows of the Bangkok high-rises.



It's healthy democracy and capitalism next to Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, but waste and inefficiency next to Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

And it's why the sex trade is so bad here — Thailand is poor enough to make it a "sending" country (poor girls to fuel the trade) but rich enough to have a robust business/expat/tourist "receiving" community (men to buy them).

Our pastor in Bangkok wrote a good post illustrating life on both sides of the divide after an encounter with a Lamborghini:

I pulled up right beside him and passed him. As I went by I looked over my shoulder as if to say "eat my dust".

How you might ask did this happen? He was stuck in traffic on Rama IV road and I was on a motorbike which can (carefully) weave in and out of stopped traffic.

We live in a world where generally the wealthier you are, the faster you go, the higher you climb, the less dust you have to inhale. What surprised me was how satisfying it was to pass the guy.

....

The motorbikes have a kind of camaraderie. There is an unspoken bond over and against the car drivers. Motorbikers of the world unite! Again, what's amazing to me is that I didn't really know about this world until I drove a bike myself.

Jesus over and over again said that one way to "test" the authenticity of our faith is to see how we treat the most vulnerable people around us. (See Matt 25 for example) So I'll take my encounter with the Lamborghini this morning and the feelings it stirred up as a reminder of how different the world looks depending on whether you are on the top (luxury cars), in the middle (Motorbikes) or on the bottom (traveling on foot or by bus).

I'm not ready to say that all Christians need to join the bottom (sell our cars and motorbikes). Although there are stories about Jesus that suggest that wouldn't be such a bad idea. What we are obligated to do though is to pay attention, be sympathetic and offer friendship and help to those who struggle to meet life's basic needs.

Read the whole post here.

Siamese Marie No. 1

My mom and dad are in Thailand. Took mom to a market where they slaughter frogs, which scream before getting whomped upside the head by this lady. Something squirted out of one, hitting mom in the eye.

Here she is in a public place, in a foreign land: