Monday, October 29, 2012

Email I wrote to my Chinese aunt

My Chinese aunt Fang was supposed to send me my clothes, books, and souvenirs after I left China.  I didn't have enough room in my luggage, and she could do it through the China Post mail service.  She sent the packages out in August, she says, and I've been asking her for weeks now about their status.  I was about to write them off as lost, but I held my tongue because I did not want to believe in bad news and bring about the worst.  After the packages arrived this afternoon, I sent my aunt this confirmation email.  Because shipping took so long, I had to have a little fun with her.  She translates it into Chinese online.  I hope Google Translate can handle sarcasm.

"My mother had good news for me today.  My two packages came from China.  I was just thinking today about them, and I thought I might ask you again if they were coming.  I was feeling angry because they had taken so long.  But then I went out on the porch and there was a dusty old Chinese mule driver, smoking a cigarette as he looked over his wagon.  "Hello?" I asked.  He didn't respond.  "Wei?  Ni hao?" I said.  "Ni hao, ni hao," hello, he coughed back.  I used my computer and Google Translate to communicate and ask him about what he was doing on my porch and why he brought all the old mules.  He explained that he had traveled all the way from China with those mules, and they were only three-year old mules, in the prime of their physical strength.  He used the land bridge from Russia to Alaska, then traveled down to Washington state and went east over the Rocky Mountains, roughly along the same route as Lewis and Clark.  "I lost three or four good pack animals in those mountains," he said, a tear forming in his dust-caked eye.  When I saw the compassion in his weathered face, my anger melted away.  "Here," I said, handing him the money I had in my wallet, "Buy yourself some food.  You've got a long journey back."  Immediately he thrust up his hands and shook his head, "Bu Yao!  Bu Yao!"  He could not accept tips according to China Post regulations and Chinese customs.  "Well then, friend," I offered, "Enjoy your smoke and take as long as you'd like on my porch...  Or at least come on in and stay the night; get some rest."  He waved me off, explaining that he had an urgent Express Overnight Delivery due in Miami.  So as soon as he finishes his nap on my front porch, I'm sure he'll jump up and be on the road again to deliver his next package."

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Thailand, Part 1


Perhaps the best part of China was that it is five hours from Thailand, or at least Hong Kong is five hours from Bangkok.  My aunt looked at flight deals for me and told me I would save money by driving a couple hours to Hefei, then flying to Hong Kong and on to Bangkok.  Wouldn't that be complicated? I asked.  "Easy, easy," she said with a smile.  Her husband, "Uncle" Jiang, told me, "Nooo...  No!  Tell her no.  Go to Shanghai."  Flying out of there would have been direct, but I was not about to tell the woman who showed me the most care, "No."  After nervously questioning her many times and receiving the same assurance, I told her to go ahead and book the ticket.  I knew it was a precarious gamble, but like I said, even if I had to suffer the consequences I would follow her instead of taking Uncle Jiang's advice and telling her no.  Her plans were so often full of childlike enthusiasm and zest; I always had to allay my apprehensions to her but nonetheless followed along.  Her plans did work when we were in town because she could just walk up to whomever she wished and talk to them and get help.  But by myself, I would have to experience the misery of being stuck in a bad situation.

That was later though.  At this point I was overjoyed to be going back to Thailand, my promised land.  It had been nearly five years since my first trip to Thailand.  I had saved some money after college to travel to a Muay Thai gym and train for four weeks.  It had been a long heartache in between, pining to return and make good on my dream of training Muay Thai.  As soon as inspiration struck to use my winter school vacation for this trip, I emailed my friend Andrew back in my hometown.  Andrew and I trained together at the same gym and had discussed making this Thai pilgrimage before.  I told him now was the opportune time, he managed to get leave time from work, and we spent the next few weeks scouring websites for travel deals, Muay Thai gym reviews, and travel guide recommendations.

We planned to meet in the Bangkok airport after midnight, the time when the international flights arrive, and take the car we reserved through Fairtex Gym to the seaside city, Pattaya.  Well, in Hong Kong they changed my departure gate three times and I didn't even board until after midnight.  Andrew told me later that, after waiting in line through the passport check and collecting his luggage, he was already running behind, and after making the driver wait even longer to see if I would arrive, he rightly decided to go ahead to Pattaya and then checked into the gym in time for the morning practice session.  Luckily, we both had cell phone service, and after I made it through airport purgatory to the exit doors, I received Andrew's text letting me know he had made it.  But my traveling ordeal wasn't finished yet.  I still needed ground transportation to Pattaya, so I waited around four hours for the bus counter to open up.  In the meantime, I had to fend off the advances of a taxi driver who said he would find me a lady as part of the deal, but I also met a gregarious college student (coincidentally studying abroad in Beijing) and her brother from the Caribbean.  We ran into each other later in the city, but never joined up with her group, which was fine by me, since she was mostly interested in partying at the most sordid nightclubs there.

Yes, although Fairtex Gym was a great facility with plenty of topnotch trainers, and there were amenities like beaches and islands, plus the friendly people and relaxed ambiance of Thailand, Pattaya was a filthy, debauched city worthy of a moral parable like Pleasure Island in Pinocchio.  Its infamous Walking Street is something I regret seeing, but only slightly worse than the rest of the bar and club-filled town.  Girls would sit at tables bordering the sidewalk in the many open-air bars, and they would either shout at you or try and grab your shirt and pinch you.  It was funny at first when I saw it happen to Andrew and a girl told him he was cute, but it was without end, and it turned severely depressing when I saw old men walking with a limp and a young Thai girl on their arm, or sitting speechless at a bar table as they "enjoyed" dinner together.  I had had enough when I saw lady-boys in miniskirts standing on the corner and trying to latch on to passersby.

I did go out with Andrew and a few Australians to have some beers at a bar where washed-up old Thai guys would stage fake fights and then walk through the crowd collecting tips.  That was fun, cheap entertainment, but I had to call it a night when the environment of Walking Street wore me out.  Andrew stayed out a while longer with the Australians, but they were eventually thrown out of the next bar for a bogus reason.  I'll let him tell the story if he cares to.

So I was ready to move on from Pattaya.  Fairtex was a good gym to train at, and I did start to bond and get into rhythm with the trainers there, but I think Andrew and I were both looking for a new place to explore.  We packed our bags and went back to Bangkok, where Andrew had reserved a hotel room for the weekend.  We toured the city went up the river, walked through the shopping streets, saw the boxing stadiums, toured the National Palace and its temple complex, and through it all baked in the sun from morning till night.  We would order drinks from shops throughout the day, and Andrew got to try his Sprite the Thai way: poured into a plastic bag with ice and a straw sticking out.

We also went to watch the fights at world famous Lumpini Stadium.  Having seen fights our first night in Pattaya, we could compare the two.  Of course the atmosphere was better at Lumpini, being the mecca of Muay Thai and a favorite destination of foreign tourists and gambling Thais, and the fights in general were of better quality, though Pattaya did have some very exciting, highly-skilled match-ups as well.  I had a nice surprise at Lumpini when I saw the trainer and owner of the gym I trained at back in 2007, Por Pramuk, and went over to greet them.  Overall, I think I did enjoy the Lumpini fights better, but this is also due to the downing effect of drowsiness at the Pattaya fights.  I was exhausted from traveling and going the previous night without sleep, so when the time neared 11 and they were still bringing pairs of boys out to the ring, I called out, "Come on, ref, this is a school night!"  I think I fell asleep twice, slumped over in one of those white plastic lawn chairs that weigh a pound and bend in the legs whenever you shift your weight.  That last fight did provide the most amusement though.  Between rounds, when the boy from the red corner went back to his trainer, instead of the trainer having him sit on a stool and stretching him out, would just pick him up by the armpits so the boy could kick and shake his little body out.

I asked Andrew what he thought of these little boys fighting, how it would fare back in the land of soccer moms, and he said he didn't think it would happen, the kids would be covered in pads or end up crying and quit.  Not that I, as my whiny child self, wouldn't have, but the super-lean boys who grew up in the gym, and looked like they hadn't been fed in a week, were clearly a special breed.

Andrew had another gem of an observation during the trip.  I was so excited to be in Thailand and so excited to talk to a friend from back home and, hey! speak fluent English!, I kept pestering him with observations and questions about Thailand, which he took graciously.  I asked him about the many soap operas on TV, or the light, airy pop music.  "What do you think?"  "I think that the country that came up with Muay Thai has a lot of lame stuff."  I laughed.  Thailand had Muay Thai, charm, craziness and trouble, and exotic environments and cities, but yes, the pop culture was well tamer than American tastes prefer.


More to come,
Mantis