first draft of my paper for the nitze journal
comments appreciated. (I personally find it a bit sappy... what do you think?)
How to Escape Your Nationality
One of the enduring images of my six weeks in Thailand is Ronald McDonald. In Thailand, Ronald looks very much like he does in America, of course: tall, big red shoes, goofy yellow, red and white face paint, pleasant smile. But in Thailand, Ronald does the wai, the bow with hands in a sort of prayer position that Thai people give each other upon meeting. As a westerner first arriving in Thailand, the wai was a strange ritual greeting, a symbol of welcome that I saw Thai women with crystal clear complexions and “traditional” dress doing on billboards on the highway into Bangkok, or flier advertisements offering a reduced rate on a stay in some swanky Phuket hotel. As a westerner who was also a student for two weeks in Thailand, the wai was a symbol of respect to my teachers, the monks and engaged Buddhist spiritual leaders who we met with daily. “It’s like a western handshake,” some American expatriate professors told our class during a miniature orientation to Thai customs in the days leading up to our departure. During my first weeks in Thailand, I grew to enjoy the wai, to understand its proper placement and intention, to realize that it was something to be both given and received, always to be reciprocated, a sign of respect and appreciation. This differed greatly from my impression of the wai as I saw it from the perspective of a western tourist, which I was for another four weeks after the Nitze group left. We had been told that if wai-ed, one should always wai back, and this felt natural after several weeks on my own. But when I arrived in an upscale Bangkok hotel for vacation time with my not-traveling-on-a-shoestring-mother, the wai became something entirely different. Everyone was wai-ing us: the porter, the bell boy, the woman at the reception desk, the maid, the waiter, the man guarding the pool… and as I looked around, I realized no one was wai-ing back.
At first, I tried wai-ing back, glancing around at my fellow Americans in confusion. “What are they thinking? That is so disrespectful!” I commented to my mom in outrage. Didn’t they know that the wai was like a handshake, and not reciprocating was like refusing an offered hand? But I soon realized that the wai meant something different here. In this oasis for Western wealth, the wai was no longer a symbol of respect shared between two people, but the marker of an identity of servitude.
It was not long before other qualities began to take on new meanings. Black hair pulled back tightly with a tropical flower carefully placed in the bun was usually a Thai woman working at hotel reception. Impeccable long sleeved silk clothing (even in killer 95 degree heat) could be a hired driver or doorman. Even a precise knowledge of English began to suggest a place few Thais frequented, a hotel room that cost more for one night than the woman at the front desk made in three weeks.
And the markers of my own identity began to bear down on me as well. Of course, the most obvious indicators--my skin and hair, far too pale and light to have come from southeast asia—had tagged me as a westerner since my arrival at the airport. But now it seemed the external characteristics that I had specifically chosen for myself as a traveler were making me feel more separate from a culture I was really enjoying. My backpackers’s pack, my bathing suit, and my requests for tofu instead of shrimp on my pad thai were only further implications of my western status. I began to look for ways to fit in more, ways to seem less like an American tourist. I refused to buy the ubiquitous thai fisherman pants that every backpacker on Khao San Road wears constantly, and I tried to speak Thai whenever I could, learning pretty well how to haggle in a foreign language. I searched for a sense of authenticity, a place where (for once) it would seem that Thai people were making something for themselves, and not simply to satisfy me, to make me comfortable.
I began to wonder why I had not felt a similar desire to be less of a tourist during my time with the Nitze group, and I quickly realized the reason. When I was with the group and with Ted, our identity as students was clear. To be a student in Thailand seemed to me a far less exploitative identity than to be a tourist. As a student, I was there to learn about the culture, to respect my teachers who, more often than not, were rather ordinary Thai people. And they were the people who had fulfilled my desire to create something that was for them alone, not for me. In the Pathom Asoke community, the stores where we bought herbal medicines and natural health foods were created to serve the community of local people who had made a conscious choice to eschew consumer culture by eating locally grown organic foods and living by the five Buddhist precepts. The village of Bo Nok had opposed the construction of a coal fired power plant because it would be harmful to their traditional local fishing livelihoods, not because it would prevent westerners from visiting their beaches.
Indeed, none of these amazing and inspiring ventures could be found in any of the guidebooks I had been treating as Thailand bibles. Lonely Planet couldn’t teach me anything about the destruction of forests in central Thailand the way a hike up a mountain with a forest monk named Phra Paisal could. And the level of corruption in Thai Buddhism became remarkably clear to me in hearing the story of a nun who took the children she was caring for at a Kanchanaburi temple and started her own orphanage after some of the children were sexually abused by monks at the temple and the abbot refused to do anything about it. It was striking to me how a book that every traveler has can leave so much out. And I was fascinated by the idea that even if I had happened upon one of these places, so much of the history of resistance to oppression could be invisible to me as an ordinary westerner. Without the connections and knowledge of a teacher and translator like Ted Mayer, none of our experiences of a Thailand where people really are interested in something other than the tourist economy would have been possible.
In this setting, I was not a backpacker with money to spend on knick knack elephants and Buddhas. I was a student who recognized the inherent value of the knowledge that Thai people had to give me. And because our relationship was not one governed by economics, the external differences became less meaningful. My nationality and the association of Thainess with servitude were non-existent as I slept beside southern Thai farmers and dried dishes with a forest temple nun. It is these moments of human to human interaction that are some of my favorite memories of my time in Thailand, even better than beautiful southern beaches and golden Bangkok Buddhas.
The image of Ronald McDonald pleasantly wai-ing approaching Thais was, to me, a symbol of the way that globalization, and tourism as a part of it, could turn frighteningly wrong. Sometimes during my six weeks in Thailand, it was much like Sulak Sivaraksa warned us on our first days in the country: people were so concerned with learning how to have that they forgot that the most important thing to learn was how to be. At times it seemed that no one wanted anything more than Ronald, complacently bowing to them as they doled out baht for his American burgers. But my experiences during the Nitze trip taught me that there is another side to everything, that of course Thailand could be a lot more than fast food chains, giant advertising parties in front of glitzy Bangkok malls, and the same tailor shop on every corner. With the right amount of cultural and linguistic knowledge, traveling can be much more than whatever they advertise in the guidebook, and getting off the beaten path can mean a new understanding of what it means to be an American.
How to Escape Your Nationality
One of the enduring images of my six weeks in Thailand is Ronald McDonald. In Thailand, Ronald looks very much like he does in America, of course: tall, big red shoes, goofy yellow, red and white face paint, pleasant smile. But in Thailand, Ronald does the wai, the bow with hands in a sort of prayer position that Thai people give each other upon meeting. As a westerner first arriving in Thailand, the wai was a strange ritual greeting, a symbol of welcome that I saw Thai women with crystal clear complexions and “traditional” dress doing on billboards on the highway into Bangkok, or flier advertisements offering a reduced rate on a stay in some swanky Phuket hotel. As a westerner who was also a student for two weeks in Thailand, the wai was a symbol of respect to my teachers, the monks and engaged Buddhist spiritual leaders who we met with daily. “It’s like a western handshake,” some American expatriate professors told our class during a miniature orientation to Thai customs in the days leading up to our departure. During my first weeks in Thailand, I grew to enjoy the wai, to understand its proper placement and intention, to realize that it was something to be both given and received, always to be reciprocated, a sign of respect and appreciation. This differed greatly from my impression of the wai as I saw it from the perspective of a western tourist, which I was for another four weeks after the Nitze group left. We had been told that if wai-ed, one should always wai back, and this felt natural after several weeks on my own. But when I arrived in an upscale Bangkok hotel for vacation time with my not-traveling-on-a-shoestring-mother, the wai became something entirely different. Everyone was wai-ing us: the porter, the bell boy, the woman at the reception desk, the maid, the waiter, the man guarding the pool… and as I looked around, I realized no one was wai-ing back.
At first, I tried wai-ing back, glancing around at my fellow Americans in confusion. “What are they thinking? That is so disrespectful!” I commented to my mom in outrage. Didn’t they know that the wai was like a handshake, and not reciprocating was like refusing an offered hand? But I soon realized that the wai meant something different here. In this oasis for Western wealth, the wai was no longer a symbol of respect shared between two people, but the marker of an identity of servitude.
It was not long before other qualities began to take on new meanings. Black hair pulled back tightly with a tropical flower carefully placed in the bun was usually a Thai woman working at hotel reception. Impeccable long sleeved silk clothing (even in killer 95 degree heat) could be a hired driver or doorman. Even a precise knowledge of English began to suggest a place few Thais frequented, a hotel room that cost more for one night than the woman at the front desk made in three weeks.
And the markers of my own identity began to bear down on me as well. Of course, the most obvious indicators--my skin and hair, far too pale and light to have come from southeast asia—had tagged me as a westerner since my arrival at the airport. But now it seemed the external characteristics that I had specifically chosen for myself as a traveler were making me feel more separate from a culture I was really enjoying. My backpackers’s pack, my bathing suit, and my requests for tofu instead of shrimp on my pad thai were only further implications of my western status. I began to look for ways to fit in more, ways to seem less like an American tourist. I refused to buy the ubiquitous thai fisherman pants that every backpacker on Khao San Road wears constantly, and I tried to speak Thai whenever I could, learning pretty well how to haggle in a foreign language. I searched for a sense of authenticity, a place where (for once) it would seem that Thai people were making something for themselves, and not simply to satisfy me, to make me comfortable.
I began to wonder why I had not felt a similar desire to be less of a tourist during my time with the Nitze group, and I quickly realized the reason. When I was with the group and with Ted, our identity as students was clear. To be a student in Thailand seemed to me a far less exploitative identity than to be a tourist. As a student, I was there to learn about the culture, to respect my teachers who, more often than not, were rather ordinary Thai people. And they were the people who had fulfilled my desire to create something that was for them alone, not for me. In the Pathom Asoke community, the stores where we bought herbal medicines and natural health foods were created to serve the community of local people who had made a conscious choice to eschew consumer culture by eating locally grown organic foods and living by the five Buddhist precepts. The village of Bo Nok had opposed the construction of a coal fired power plant because it would be harmful to their traditional local fishing livelihoods, not because it would prevent westerners from visiting their beaches.
Indeed, none of these amazing and inspiring ventures could be found in any of the guidebooks I had been treating as Thailand bibles. Lonely Planet couldn’t teach me anything about the destruction of forests in central Thailand the way a hike up a mountain with a forest monk named Phra Paisal could. And the level of corruption in Thai Buddhism became remarkably clear to me in hearing the story of a nun who took the children she was caring for at a Kanchanaburi temple and started her own orphanage after some of the children were sexually abused by monks at the temple and the abbot refused to do anything about it. It was striking to me how a book that every traveler has can leave so much out. And I was fascinated by the idea that even if I had happened upon one of these places, so much of the history of resistance to oppression could be invisible to me as an ordinary westerner. Without the connections and knowledge of a teacher and translator like Ted Mayer, none of our experiences of a Thailand where people really are interested in something other than the tourist economy would have been possible.
In this setting, I was not a backpacker with money to spend on knick knack elephants and Buddhas. I was a student who recognized the inherent value of the knowledge that Thai people had to give me. And because our relationship was not one governed by economics, the external differences became less meaningful. My nationality and the association of Thainess with servitude were non-existent as I slept beside southern Thai farmers and dried dishes with a forest temple nun. It is these moments of human to human interaction that are some of my favorite memories of my time in Thailand, even better than beautiful southern beaches and golden Bangkok Buddhas.
The image of Ronald McDonald pleasantly wai-ing approaching Thais was, to me, a symbol of the way that globalization, and tourism as a part of it, could turn frighteningly wrong. Sometimes during my six weeks in Thailand, it was much like Sulak Sivaraksa warned us on our first days in the country: people were so concerned with learning how to have that they forgot that the most important thing to learn was how to be. At times it seemed that no one wanted anything more than Ronald, complacently bowing to them as they doled out baht for his American burgers. But my experiences during the Nitze trip taught me that there is another side to everything, that of course Thailand could be a lot more than fast food chains, giant advertising parties in front of glitzy Bangkok malls, and the same tailor shop on every corner. With the right amount of cultural and linguistic knowledge, traveling can be much more than whatever they advertise in the guidebook, and getting off the beaten path can mean a new understanding of what it means to be an American.
posted by Liz @ 2:40 PM
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