{pre-footnote: I'd forgotten the post preceding this one was about normality so I guess this is an issue that's been bubbling away in the back of my mind.}
Last week Spectra and I independently had the same realization: we simply live in Bangkok now. We’re no longer wide-eyed tourists or explorers. We’re no longer frazzled immigrants, stumbling around in a daze. Our Thai, minimal though it be, is enough to navigate the vast majority of daily transactions (I can count to 100!). We're mystified by people finding the buses excessively complicated. We know roughly how long it takes to get anywhere in the city off the top of our heads and can adjust that estimate based on assumed traffic conditions. Froggering through cars and motorbikes to cross an intersection or walking down a sidewalk-less alley as all manner of transport careen around us doesn’t even register. When we go out to eat we debate choices rather than fret about whether we’ll eat at McDonald’s. We typically avoid the places farang tourists congregate because we find them gauche rather than a lifeline. Whatever you’d call a person who’s not a local but not really a tourist is what we’ve become.
Spectra had this epiphany while walking home from work. She realized she wasn’t wondering about what she’d find when she got home or what we’d do because she knew exactly what she’d find and what we’d do. Her life had become normal. I had it while walking down our street to catch the bus and was struck by the idea that it’s going to be weird to not walk down our street to catch a bus; that there will be a day, in the near future, where I’ll be back in Minnesota and I thought of that as missing the people I know in Bangkok rather than seeing the people I know in Minnesota.
Don’t get me wrong. For health related reasons afflicting not one, not two, but THREE people I care very much about back home I’m deeply frustrated about being so far away from my family and friends right now. Griffin, the younger half of the kids I nannyed, is turning three next week and I’m annoyed about missing his birthday. For the first time in my life I’m aggravated by the fact that my brother and his wife and their ludicrous child live in Japan. In short, for the first time I feel like my mother.
Yet, despite all of that, now I find the idea of leaving Bangkok melancholy. Three weeks ago that was unthinkable. I was still very much struggling with day-to-day existence and wondered if I’d ever adjust. I wondered if I was just too “American” to ever socially fit in. I wondered if the language was too nuanced for me to pick up on short order. I wondered if the rules or lack there of governing walking down the sidewalk were just too chaotic for me to be at peace with. In short I wondered if Bangkok was simply not “for me.”
Anyone who’s sought advice from me about finding their way through a turbulent or uncertain situation has heard me say something along the lines of, “Sometimes there’s no substitute for time. You want to predict the future—how will it all end so I know whether I should continue?—but you can’t. Things will work out or the they won’t. The problems will overwhelm you or they won’t. The kicker is if things work out you won’t even notice when the problems pass. There will come a day when you realize oh, hey, that thing that used to drive me crazy doesn’t anymore. We live going forward and understand looking backwards. It’s frustrating but there’s nothing you can do about it so remember the most important advice in the universe: DON'T PANIC!"
Easier said than done. I knew that but it had been a good while since I’d fully experienced it. I suppose there are few surer signs that you’ve settled into a new place than finding yourself re-learning old lessons. Come to think of it one of my hallmarks is forgetting lessons I’ve already learned and finding myself making mistakes I’ve already made to re-learn things I didn’t realize I’d lost track of. So this re-experience is even more comforting than I’d initially realized.
So Spectra and I live in Bangkok and it’s wondrously, fantastically and utterly normal.
Last week Spectra and I independently had the same realization: we simply live in Bangkok now. We’re no longer wide-eyed tourists or explorers. We’re no longer frazzled immigrants, stumbling around in a daze. Our Thai, minimal though it be, is enough to navigate the vast majority of daily transactions (I can count to 100!). We're mystified by people finding the buses excessively complicated. We know roughly how long it takes to get anywhere in the city off the top of our heads and can adjust that estimate based on assumed traffic conditions. Froggering through cars and motorbikes to cross an intersection or walking down a sidewalk-less alley as all manner of transport careen around us doesn’t even register. When we go out to eat we debate choices rather than fret about whether we’ll eat at McDonald’s. We typically avoid the places farang tourists congregate because we find them gauche rather than a lifeline. Whatever you’d call a person who’s not a local but not really a tourist is what we’ve become.
Spectra had this epiphany while walking home from work. She realized she wasn’t wondering about what she’d find when she got home or what we’d do because she knew exactly what she’d find and what we’d do. Her life had become normal. I had it while walking down our street to catch the bus and was struck by the idea that it’s going to be weird to not walk down our street to catch a bus; that there will be a day, in the near future, where I’ll be back in Minnesota and I thought of that as missing the people I know in Bangkok rather than seeing the people I know in Minnesota.
Don’t get me wrong. For health related reasons afflicting not one, not two, but THREE people I care very much about back home I’m deeply frustrated about being so far away from my family and friends right now. Griffin, the younger half of the kids I nannyed, is turning three next week and I’m annoyed about missing his birthday. For the first time in my life I’m aggravated by the fact that my brother and his wife and their ludicrous child live in Japan. In short, for the first time I feel like my mother.
Yet, despite all of that, now I find the idea of leaving Bangkok melancholy. Three weeks ago that was unthinkable. I was still very much struggling with day-to-day existence and wondered if I’d ever adjust. I wondered if I was just too “American” to ever socially fit in. I wondered if the language was too nuanced for me to pick up on short order. I wondered if the rules or lack there of governing walking down the sidewalk were just too chaotic for me to be at peace with. In short I wondered if Bangkok was simply not “for me.”
Anyone who’s sought advice from me about finding their way through a turbulent or uncertain situation has heard me say something along the lines of, “Sometimes there’s no substitute for time. You want to predict the future—how will it all end so I know whether I should continue?—but you can’t. Things will work out or the they won’t. The problems will overwhelm you or they won’t. The kicker is if things work out you won’t even notice when the problems pass. There will come a day when you realize oh, hey, that thing that used to drive me crazy doesn’t anymore. We live going forward and understand looking backwards. It’s frustrating but there’s nothing you can do about it so remember the most important advice in the universe: DON'T PANIC!"
Easier said than done. I knew that but it had been a good while since I’d fully experienced it. I suppose there are few surer signs that you’ve settled into a new place than finding yourself re-learning old lessons. Come to think of it one of my hallmarks is forgetting lessons I’ve already learned and finding myself making mistakes I’ve already made to re-learn things I didn’t realize I’d lost track of. So this re-experience is even more comforting than I’d initially realized.
So Spectra and I live in Bangkok and it’s wondrously, fantastically and utterly normal.
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| Nothing to see here. All's normal. |
LOL. I finally knew I'd become "Thai" when a Thai friend saw me sitting sidesaddle on the back of a motorbike wearing a skirt, carrying four shopping bags in one hand and on my cell phone in the other and commented I was definitely "a local".
ReplyDeletePlanned on being in Thailand for a year. 11 years later I still haven't left :)
Nice blog, btw. Found you from Google Plus.
Oops, I thought I'd "replied" but hadn't. So here's my reply in double: WHOA! We don't ride on the motorbikes at all, much less carrying groceries or talking on the phone. You are indeed fully Thai, although I hope you've retained enough of your native self to wear a helmet.
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