9/14/95
Dear Everybody:
Daniel here. I just wanted to update you on what’s been going on. You may get a sense of deja vu as you read these lines, but its not you. I am getting forgetful in my dotage-- i.e., I’ll be 25 soon. (don’t tell anybody out here...they think I’m 29...or maybe they are too polite to tell me that I am full of it.)
WORK
My biggest disappointment is that I probably won’t be going home in November. I had hoped to go on a project but that seems pretty ill-advised. Ah well.
We still haven’t moved as yet....the landlord is taking is sweet time about moving. Now that our director is gone again for a month I am hoping that it gets delayed until when he comes back.
Perhaps my main fundraising accomplishment occured three months ago, after I gave a presentation to the Copper Development Council. Afterwards, I stayed up until midnight writing a proposal they asked me to submit, turning out a 3-year, $2.3 million proposal. It has been whittled down a bit but should be good for next year -- just don’t ask me to work on it!!! bores me to tears!!!!
Workload is not so bad now --- but it was in July that I was away most of the time. I was in charge of everything it seemed -- 12 hour days and everything -- but we will be hiring a Filipino in a month, and a Chinese Ph.D by the end of the year, and things are slowing down.
My projects aren’t much different now, but I am travelling a bit. Oh, by the way, I went to the Philippines as promised, so let me tell you about........
THE THRILLA in MANILA
Went to Manila. Worst air pollution I have ever seen along the main roadways. Stick a Q-Tip in your ear (this is anecdotal of course; you know I would never take such liberties with my auditory canal) and it comes out BLACK. Well, grey -- sooty, like the buildings. Traffic moves a little faster than Bangkok, though. Streets aren’t as well lit.
I thought Thailand was Americanized, but the Philippines IS America -- more so than any other country I have ever seen. Every fast-food franchise that has ever existed lives on in Manila. Shakey’s, Jack in the Box, Orange Julius, in addition to Pizza Hut, McDo, even Wendy’s. Of course, Steak ‘n’ Shake was not there -- wouldn’t want to actually expand now, would they? On TV, the programs are similar --- “Flying Nun,” “Man from UNCLE,” Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, Hanna Barbera Wacky Racers and all kinds of other dreck.
Cooler than Bangkok – a little rain here and there. Food is like Puerto Rico squared -- (1) take everything, and (2) fry it. Fried pork is a big favorite, plus little fried egg rolls, containing pork. Low-metabolism upper-class kids with maids to feed them constantly are so round you want to take a pin to them. So are many adults. Main diet: rice, meat (fried or in sauce), and vegetables as an afterthought. Pretty bland compared to Thai food -- I am so spoiled!!!! And Thai food is cheaper. Of course, IIEC paid my way.
I also felt like a giant. I was pretty tall by Filipino standards (I am shortish by Thai standards now). I realized this when the guy frisking me at the airport spoke in Tagalog, and realizing I wasn’t Filipino, asked if I was German or Australian. When I told him American, he said Oh, I thought you were Filipino -- you are pilipino-sized.” (I was his height).
Many poorer people had never even heard of Florida -- a first for me. Probably even Kaiapo Indians in Brazil think they know of Disney World or Miami. And in Manila no one assumes you are American! Amazing, because they speak English there. Actually, they go back and forth between Tagalog and English constantly, the way Miami Cubans do with Spanish, only worse.
The project looks good -- the people are very nice about it. All we are doing is trying to develop one project. Problem is the Filipinos can talk, talk, and no action. [This was told to me by Filipinos, though I confirmed it with my own eyes.] Well, I’ll surely be going back in September and at least one more time after that, though it will be a miracle if I get off that lucky. Actually, it will be a better trip later--I have contacts now, so I can go out to a volcano or something. Pinatubo, here I come!
If you are rich in Manila, you have so many choices -- whether to give your armed guard bullets or not, whether to use barbed, razor, or concertina wire around your home (unless of course you desire the traditional broken bottles), and whether to build walls that are 12 feet high or perhaps just a flashy row of iron spikes on top of a 9 foot wall. Crime is a little rife in Manila, it appears.
Malls are as clogged with people as the people’s arteries are clogged with cholesterol. Also amusing: US malls like to pretend they are someplace real with a cutesy name (like Sarasota Square) instead of a paved over cow-pasture; in Philippines, no bones about it: they have the SM Megamall. Take Dadeland and triple it. And give it six stories. There you go.
I am going back to Manila on 26 September. I will be attending a UN conference (read: royal snoozefest) and following up on the aforementioned project. But best (or worst) of all, I will be making a presentation in the first half of the first day. It seems that these are big shindigs too, because the UN basically bribes everybody to attend with free flights and a -- you heard right -- a $170/day allowance, in cash. I wasn’t smart enough to ask for a free flight, and I will have to fork over the cash to IIEC -- whatever is left :-) So I am a little nervous but I am sure that after a little while I will be swaggering up to the podium.....
It is funny playing the whiz kid out here where they really don’t have them. I’m not such a whiz either, but I am likely to be the most talkative person on the panel. That can be considered bad in Asian culture. Well, I will just wear my glasses and talk baritone, which is what I usually do at these things.
Actually, IIEC deserves (a little of) the $ because just after the conference I will be going to Singapore. The Royal Thai Embassy in Manila gave me a hard time in processing my visa, so I convinced Terry (our director) to let me fly through Singapore. So I will stay there for 2 days or so getting my stamps, and doing a little shopping. I presume the Singaporeans, with a GNP/capita close to ours, will have better taste in clothes than the Thais. It is the region’s shopping center.
Oh, and I will be travelling around a bit after the conference. Some people I met on the trip before invited me to go visit a volcano with them, so I may do that and have another meeting when I get back and then go to Singapore. I will even do a little work in Singapore, calling on some people.
I am also trying to get some funds to go to Indonesia too. I am sure I will be over there by January. So in a way, despite my distance, I at least am moving around often enough to give the impression of great activity.
SOCIAL THINGS
Time have been hard without many friends to talk to. In order to remedy the social situation, I put up some notices at Chulalongkorn university. (Free English!) One engineering student called me; there may be others, but Thais are really shy about calling up someone they have never heard of. The word for university in Thai, by the way, is mahawitayalai. When I took my cab the other day the driver was incapable of recognizing my butchered versions of that word.
I don’t know how I’ll celebrate my birthday here, by the way. Here 25 is a big age because it is their half-way point here (i.e. people would die at 50). So in order to start this over-the-hill half off right, you liberate some aquatic animal that would have been eaten or perhaps buy a coffin at a charitable institution. I think I will go the coffin route, because it is a mere $25 or so, and surely worthwhile to avoid everlasting ill fortune, no? Plus I would feel absurd carrying around some fish or turtle just to have it come to an untimely death in the Liver. Actually I will have my birthday in Manila. I am not sure if I will tell anybody though--- I have been asserting I am 29 but I know there is no way anyway will believe I am 30. Maybe I will revert to 28 in order to have my 29th birthday.
Actually an interesting thing about these charitable insitutions is that when someone gets in a wreck, they are the first on the scene cleaning things up. In fact they are extremely thorough about cleaning out the wallets and glove compartments of the victims. Their charitability is so extreme that the competing institutions will get into fights over who gets dibs on the clean-up. The institutions also like to show pictures of all the accidents they have responded to--blood, twisted cars, the works. Whether this is a memento mori exercise or a call for greater safety is uncertain in Thailand. Here the usual response to this is to hang larger and more powerful amulets from your rear view mirror, as well as to get monks to paint lucky charms on the roof of your car.
Anyway, back in Thailand, my usual schedule is shifting to about 9am to 7pm. Still have those tough lunches.
LIVING. I am still at House by the Pond. The place is too nice and I am too lazy to move. As before, reach me at the IIEC address:
IIEC Asia
8 Sukhumvit Soi 49/9
Bangkok 10110 THAILAND
I am still taking those good old motorcycle taxis....I have even taken one or two to work on the weekends, when traffic is light....door to door in 5 minutes for 30 baht (US$1.20) but I feel better using taxis.
Other Thailand stuff......
FOOD is still OK. For a while I wasn’t eating much, but now I am back to my old ways.
WEATHER has gotten quite a bit cooler (lower 80s?) and we now have little drizzles and the occasional thunderstorm at night. My leather shoes are dying—I don’t even bother to polish them -- a bad thing because good shoes cost twice as much here.
The big news is that it will flood in a week or two. They say it will be really devastating (based on floods up the Liver) and that it will flood for weeks, but I am worried that it will come and go while I am away. If it hits it could be really cool -- 1-4 feet of water in the streets and you can only get to work on army trucks. I am really looking forward to taking Flood Time off -- though I will probably grab the laptop to do work.
CLOTHES aren’t so problematic now--I have pants, but not many shirts, and the weather makes it possible to dress up without melting.
LANGUAGE. My Thai is slowly improving, and I can read most things without understanding what they say or getting the tones right. “Khao” pronounced in different tones can mean white, news, rice, in, and a few other things, so it is a teensy problem. And if I say a sentence longer than 10 syllables most Thais get lost in my sea of mistoned verbiage. A common sentence of mine like “I would like to eat, then return home” probably comes out sounding like, “Hard will eat white, then horse (or alternately, dog) back bloom,” so what can be done? I can understand enough not be killed or die of starvation, however.
At the office my name is effectively Dan-yen, accent on the final syllable (like Dan. Yen!). While final Ls exist in the Thai written language, they get pronounced as Ns, a la King Bhumibol Adulyadej, whose name is really pronounced Pumipon Adunyadeht.
TRAVELING. Since I wrote my last long letter I have been to Ayutthaya, Koh Chang, Koh Nang Yuan, Sukhothai and Chiang Mai. Saw many things at Ayutthaya (capital of Thailand before Bangkok, destryoed by the Burmese), but they don’t really label anything, so it is hard to remember exactly what I saw. Thais also like to decapitate all those poor old Buddhas (to sell their heads to farang, I’m sure), so that also removes a point of differentiation. Went by minibus, unfortunately.
Koh Nang Yuan is near Koh Tao, a very big island somewhere in the South, about six hours away by train then 2 hours by fast boat then twenty minutes by little bitty boat. (Went with our office manager Mem -- she travels with everybody -- even went to China with another coworker and his wife in August). We took a sleeper but no air conditioning-- it was a little too warm.
Tao has all kinds of people on it -- many farang. They have beaches somewhere but they are better known for snorkeling. Nang Yuan is even more known for it. Nang Yuan is basically three pretty little mountains of massive granite rocks and trees, connected by two strips of sand which serve as beaches. (one is flooded at high tide). The sand is gritty, because it’s made of coral, but what you do there is snorkel or scuba dive. The water is pretty clear, and there are jillions of coral reefs down below. I rented snorkel equipment there. They have a bunch of pretty nice bungalows, as well as a nice little restaurant--its all owned by one person so they take care of it -- Euro standards, and Euro guests mostly. I got pretty brown, or at least burned the backs of my legs.........
Also went to the rain-forested island Koh Chang -- which, I learned upon arrival, was indeed malarial. It is practically all the way to Cambodia, although it is not a good idea to go directly from there to Cambodia because of Khmer Rouge, chances of being killed, etc. (I heard a little story: someone’s friends went to go visit Cambodia, driving to Phnom Penh. They disappeared. End of story.) The island was nice -- but no electricity on our beach. You could get it, but at places which charged $40 or more per night -- our bungalow was $10/night. Unfortunately it was (as it is all over Thailand) the rainy season, so waters were not so clear and White Sand Beach appeared yellow. There was also a large waterfall. There were mosquito nets, but I still got bitten.....anyhow, I am finally off malaria pills. I have had no effects, so I probably am home free.
Two other places I went are Chiang Mai, a touristy city up in the North, and Sukothai, one of Thailand’s old ruined capitals. (Unlike the new ruined one I now live in.) You will be horrified to learn I rented a motorbike--a Honda Dream, which is not exactly a motocycle--you can sort of sit up and maintain your dignity. Just so you know, everybody in SE Asia outside Bangkok rides these things around. This includes everyone over 15, so I figured, hey, how hard can it be? And as I looked around at all the dumpy little schoolgirls in black skirts and white blouses riding around, I thought I Can Do This. And when I saw the price ($8 with insurance for 24 hours--cheapest rental in Thailand) I said, I Can Afford This. So I took one for a spin, and lived.
Here now I am at my wit’s end. I have no friends here practically, especially after being a workoholic for a month and then going on vacation. It is quite discouraging--I have never been so alone. At the same time my job is fairly good. So .... I will be trying to get out more now.... I hope it works.....
CITY LIFE. On of the benefits here is the plethora of US fast food. Here they have Pizza Hut, Swensens, Baskin Robbins, McDonalds, and -- hold on to your hats -- Shakey’s Pizza. I am a MAJOR patron of Swensens, often buying rather expensive (well, $5.40) quarts of so-called Sticky Chewy Chocolate which indeed can create a good fuzz on the teeth by next morning, if one does not brush, which of course I always do, given that if you don’t in this climate things appear to stick quite easily. This is also the land where Things Get Caught in your Teeth. Luckily, I can, and did, buy two things of waxed Dental Floss -- one for the home and one for the office.
I finally went for a massage the other day, at a place right across from work. It was nothing special...I need to go to a good one with 90-year old blind masseuses or something.
POLITICS. The election succeeded in bringing to power one party which was so corrupt (i.e., pork-barrel members of parliament buy votes for $10 or a few bottles of fish sauce, or pay off the village headman, so that they can engage in illegal cross-border smuggling of drugs, gems, timber or protect their similary corrupt friends from the legal system) that they didnt even field candidates here in Bangkok, because no one here is dumb enough to vote for them. They are the leaders of a coalition government, all their selections for ministers are weird, and everybody thinks the government is on thin ice, although due to the strong corruption constituency, it probably isn’t.
Really, almost everybody is up to their eyeballs in some malfeasance by US standards, even the supposedly honest and competent ones. It is very amusing to read about this story where the US embassy denied visas to 2 powerful majority-party MPs because they were involved in drug smuggling -- the first time someone made a public accusation, even though everyone knew they were evil incarnate, but everyone was also too politely Thai to say anything. The MPs have been twisting in the wind ever since, because no one in the government really wants to order a serious investigation and because the US won’t release any details -- because if they did, their informants would be murdered. In any case, our opposition kept them out of the government...interference in internal affairs pays off!!!
REACHING ME
Now my ONLY e-mail address will be:
All on-line services should be able to use it.
Basta! As always, mail is welcome.
Take care,
Daniel