Happy New Year Bangkok

Watching fireworks going off everywhere in the city, I couldn't believe it's New Year's eve of 2008, and I am in Bangkok. It actually feels chilly, and I have to have my sweater on today, just like a Thai, when it's 26 degrees centigrade (78 F). Brent questions how I would survive after returning to New York. I don't know, but I will worry about it when it happens. I am preparing myself for the hot season here starting March, when it's going to be 40C (100F) and muggy everyday.

We celebrated New Year's eve at home with my cousin's family and a friend. Brent whipped up his specialty - spaghetti. It was pretty good despite of the poor quality electric stove and having only one pot to cook with that sticks all the time. The two little boys had the grandest time, doing ninja moves on each other, chasing each other non-stop, and taking turns to get shoulder rides from Brent.

2007 was an eventful and interesting year. It started with my never-going-away hand, arm, and back pain; improvement after staying home for a month and physical therapy; worsened pain after returning to work. This pushed me to seriously consider a career change. It wasn't an easy decision. I was quite good at what I did in my profession after all these years, and doing anything else would mean retraining and a big loss on income.

It would be impossible to live in New York on our savings. It would burn up so quickly that I would be forced to go back to the profession that hurts me so much in no time.

After two months of painful search for tenants for our apartment, we packed up and left for China.

There were highs and lows in our time in Asia, but for me, the highs are far outweighing the lows.

Lows:
1. Bureaucracy in visa office in China. But I heard that the American consulate in London is no better.
2. Mosquitoes, my #1 enemy while traveling, were having a feast on me in Yangtze south. Even in our apartment in Bangkok, once I forgot to put repellent on, I got ten bites in 10 minutes typing an email.
3. Rude drivers in Qingdao, could easily claim lives or limbs. I was angry everyday when I went out, as everyday I almost got hit. Bangkok has a lot more cars, but I feel so much safer. People actually yield.
4. The stares I got from women in China when I was walking with Brent, made me feel very uneasy. I no longer get stares in Thailand.
5. True, things don't always work properly here. Internet is slow, despite a high-speed plan. Taxis don't stop or refuse to take us when it's empty, is mind boggling.

Highs:
1. Generous uncles and aunts allowed us to stay in their homes in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Bangkok while we were traveling and searching for places to settle.
2. Cousins who kept their eyes out for apartments, patiently translate for us when I would call frantically in a taxi and couldn't communicate to the driver.
3. Reconnected with some friends whom I haven't seen for 19 years. I do feel having lived two lives already.
4. Visited some incredibly beautiful places in inland China, which I never knew existed before.
5. Met some very wonderful friends in Qingdao. Ran into a woman I met at a conference 15 years ago in Minnesota, then of course, a big dinner was waiting for us in her home.
6. Translated a contract for the 2008 Olympics sailing competition. Very proud to say that I have done something for the Olympics.
7. Having cousins spontaneously visit us when they were on their honeymoon in China.
8. Sharing meals with total strangers. Actually we didn't share, but our neighbors would offer for us to taste their food because we were so curious about what they were eating.
9. Have met some wonderful people in Bangkok, most of whom have lived in this region for many years. We are often invited to dinner in their homes, and learning the tips about living here.
10. While Brent was getting his $3 haircut in downtown Suzhou, I was teaching two young conscientious washers English phrases that they could use with their foreign customers. Teaching is fun when your students want to learn.
11. A Thai woman stopped me to ask for directions, and I understood and answered her.
12. 13. 14... The list goes on and on. I'd just stop here and provide links to places we visited but haven't posted pictures or forgot to bring our camera when visiting.
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/134379031GuYEYl
http://www.thaiwaysmagazine.com/krabi/krabi_attraction_muang_county.html#ao_nang


By now, I still don't know what's next for me in terms of career. Learning Thai is fun and keeping me busy. Teaching Chinese to kids once a week is rewarding but not sufficient. I have a lot of figure out in the year to come.

Christmas in Bangkok

Picture 1 - Pristine Singapore
Picture 2 - also Singapore, Arab Quarter


I can't believe it's Christmas! It's been so long since I last wrote.

It's 33 degrees Celsius and sunny and it's the first warm Christmas I've ever had. I am very thankful for that.

Think back to the dreadful hand/arm injury and seemingly never ending physical therapy and acupuncture, which couldn't take away my pain, to a life away from computer, I am thankful.

Some have asked how my hand and arm is - I am mostly without pain, as long as I don't stay on the computer for more than half an hour or carry heavy stuff.

So many things happened in the last month and a half, so it's hard to remember to write down everything. I don't have the opportunity to write therefore less chance to injure myself again, because Brent has been working a lot (hogging the computer).

I am happy with the progress I've made in my Thai. I have been chatting with the cleaning lady, the taxi drivers, and the landlady. I can't understand everything they say, but I get the gist of it.

The shopping malls have been blasting Christmas music and singing about the Savior is born, without the worry of political correctness. It's ironic, since most people here are Buddhists. On the other hand, this music just becomes background noise, without meaning. Words have no meaning, without a personal relationship.

We were in Singapore three weeks ago for our second "visa run", and met up with an old friend Tara from New York. Tara is a scientist, and has moved to Singapore earlier this year. She noticed that in the highly educated science community, a lot more people are confessing Christians. Even in the society in large, people are not marginalized if they believe in God. In the States, in New York in particular, people were shocked that she believes in God, because she's a scientist, as if they should be mutually exclusive.

It rained hard in Singapore the first day we got there. As we always bring rain with us, it's become something to laugh about. It is as pristine as I remembered it 10 years ago, but I only went to the pristine places then. This time, thanks to my walking fanatic husband, we walked through Little India and the Arab Quarter, which gave me a glimpse of the "cultured" parts of Singapore, which actually makes it more interesting. Brent enjoyed the wide sidewalks and mostly clean streets, in contrast to Bangkok. On the other hand, he grew tired of it after four days and commented he was happy to be back in Bangkok afterwards. For some reason, December is the busiest time in Singapore and all the low to mid range hotels were booked. There were some very "reasonable" hotels, turned out to be in the Gaylong district - redlight district. I refused to stay there. My cousin was shocked that Singapore has redlight district. Human beings nature do not change even with an efficient government. We need a lot more than government and policies.

I was impressed by Singapore's recycling effort. See picture. And another picture that you would think belongs to New York City:)

I am getting to know my classmates who take Thai lessons with me. One bright eyed young woman is worth writing about. Anita is 22, from Ohio. She lived in northern India for a year, working with YWAM doing social working with some very poor women. She went back to the States for a year and waitressed to save up money, and came to Bangkok in October. She plans to stay here for two years, working with young women who were trafficed into prostitution because of poverty. This particular group is from Isan, a region very poor and looked down by Bangkok people. Many man and women came from Isan to work in Bangkok, to make some money to send home. Many women were tricked into coming to Bangkok, thinking they would be maids or factory workers, but only found out what their job would be after being locked up by the trafficers after they got here. Many of them have children back home. In order to pay off their debt, they feel they have no other way out except to do what makes the most money the fastest. Besides selling their bodies, they are often abused by their "customers" and forced to use drugs, which becomes an addiction which requires them to make more money to feed the addiction. Anyhow, Anita has never gone to college, and she had decided since high school that she wanted to find where her passion is, before wasting money in universities. She lives like a local, with no air conditioning in her place, as was in India.

We went to a couple of friends' home for a Christmas party last night (Christmas Eve) and met a group of Cubans. I chatted with a young Cuban woman. She's a musician and plays flute in a band. She just came to Thailand 3 to 4 months ago. When she heard that I came from China, she lamented - I wish my country is like yours! People in Cuba are so oppressed and blinded by Castro that they have nothing left by the end of the month, financially and emotionally. But at least Castro allows them to dance. This group exhibited the Cuban salsa, which has four pairs of dancers and they switch partner every few seconds. It's amazing to watch. The other Latin people who were not Cuban had to be kicked out, because they had no idea what to do!

Time to quit writing, before my hand starts to hurt...

What does a French, an Austrian, a Chinese and a Japanese in common?

Sawadii Ka!

We say ma, ma, ma, ma, ma together. All these "ma"s have different tones and mean different things. We are in the same Thai language class.

I've been learning Thai for 6 days now, and I can finally say a few sentences and initiate a simple conversation with the cleaning lady. It's been frustrating not being able to communicate, and I feel really good about learning the language of the land.

We have 8 students in the class, but the four of us women like to hang out a little afterwards and have lunch together, and complain about how difficult it is to learn Thai. Both the Japanese and I have arrived in Thailand 1.5 months ago, and the French has been here for 2 years and the Austrian has been here for 9 years and finally decided to learn Thai. The French has been working in Asia for the last 10 years and lived in Vietnam for 4 years, China for 2. She never learned Vietnamese, but could understand and speak a few words, so it's even more confusing to her because the same sound means different things in Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai. She recently quit her job and is taking some time to learn Thai.

It's fun to share the cultural differences. One story the French told us happened at her company here in Thailand. The French usually greet their friends and family with kisses, but at business settings, they just shake hands. But since everyone is far away from home here, they kiss each other too, even with clients. But once some clients came and one guy is the president of the company, who is a really big shot, so they would kiss him, but just to shake hands. Her Thai female coworker thought kissing was the proper French way, so when the clients were leaving, she went ahead and kissed the president. The president was so kind that he turned around to my French classmate, and said to her, "let me kiss you too then", so he kissed her too, to save any embarrassment the Thai women would have. I don't know if anyone ever explained to her when it's proper to kiss and when it's not.

"Face" is very important here, and that's why Thais are always smiling and being very polite to each other, though there must be ways to put each other down too. So the difference between Thailand and China is - the Chinese would rip you off with a straight face, the Thais will rip you off with a smile and you walk away happy!

We visited a small mission church last weekend. There were mostly Thai, with a temporary American pastor, so a translator is needed. There were also a couple of Americans going there regularly. They were in the process of hiring a Thai pastor and one candidate was available. One American lady asked - "since some of us here don't speak Thai very well, is he (the candidate) willing to learn English?" What a strange request! I almost blabbed out - maybe it's time for you to learn Thai! It's his country you are staying in.

5-star service

A week ago, I arrived at the building by motorcycle taxi, a thrilling thing to do in Bangkok. It wiggles through all the traffic jams. Three men with umbrellas came up and shaded me from the sun and escorted me through the automatic door. The lobby smelled like lavender.

Is this Mandarin Oriental? Nope. It's a hospital. I never thought I would smile going to a hospital. I went for a routine procedure. In New York, I would have to set an appointment 1-2 months ahead of time. Here, I called the day before, and I went in the next day. All the staff were in clean and neat uniforms and smiled at me. I checked in at the front desk, just liking checking into a hotel. When I got to the destination, someone came up and smiled and asked what I was there for.

I have no insurance, and have to pay out of my own pocket. The procedure cost less than $90, and the doctor's fee was $17, less than my co-pay in NY. In NY, they would send a thousands of dollars bill to the insurance company, to cover everything plus the doctor's insurance against lawsuits. And the doctor informed me that I would know the result in one hour (vs. a week in NY), and they have a cafeteria downstairs. I was guided by a nurse's assistant to where I could see the escalator to the cafeteria. There are shops and bookstore along the way. The cafeteria had healthy salad or burgers for the farangs (foreigners), and noodles, curries etc.

My result was questionable, so the doctor had her nurse check the schedule of the specialist. I got an appointment for that day, at 6:15pm.

I never thought I could smile going in and out of the hospital, but I did.

My cousin's wife's parents lived in California. Her father came down with liver cancer and passed away within weeks. She was going to bring him to Bangkok for treatment, (her mother always comes to Bangkok for medical treatment) but he deteriorated so fast that they didn't have a chance. He stayed in Stanford Hospital, and the daily rate was $6K+. If not for medicare, he couldn't even receive morphine in the end of his life.

What about the poor people here? I heard they can go for free care in public hospitals. The wait is a bit long, at least they will be treated. No wonder people take their king so seriously here. He is a respectable man and visits remote places where no other officials would remember. Before any movie or show starts, people stand up to a song that's written for the king.

In China, a continuation of the story of the maid's son - he is in that good province level high school and is working hard. He gets up at 5 am every morning, and when his mother called him one night at 11, he still had an hour to go, and he needed to do his laundry. By hand of course, no washing machine in the dorms. I hope he gets into university...

Picture time - this is sunset at the end of monsoon from our window.

Hello Bangkok!

We left Hong Kong on a very "peaceful" note. We packed and repacked out luggage and weighted and calculated carefully which ones to check in. We were able to fly without paying any penalty! I love Hong Kong every time I go there. Good food, polite people, endless shopping... even though I hate shopping.

We have been staying at my aunt and uncle's house and received numerous generosity from them and cousins. We spent the last four days searching for an apartment. They said we could stay in the house for as long as we want. It is a big house but it is in the outskirt and if you don't know what traffic jam is until you come here. Last night, we saw the biggest monsoon in our lives. It poured and poured and didn't stop till 11 am this morning. Brent went out for a walk (I didn't like walking in dirty flooded streets, I mean really dirty as tons of street dogs roam around), and at one point of the street, it was connecting to the swamp and flooded and fish were swimming on the street river. Anyway come back to the traffic - we had dinner with two friends (will talk about them next) and one offered us a ride home as it was pouring and he lives 10 minutes away. It's usually a 30 minute drive, it took us over 90 minutes to get home.

Back to the apartment search. The house we are staying in is a big old house, and no internet (I'm in an internet cafe in THE MALL) and it has a yard like a tropical jungle. I stood in front of the door talking to my uncle for two minutes, and got a mosquito bite on my toe! I put repellent on mind you. Dangee fever is bad right now and the mosquitoes carry them feed during the day too...

OK, apartment. Since the dollar has devalued to the Baht, the rent here is more expensive than before, to Americans. We looked at so many apartments and our head spinned. Nice ones are expensive, even the ones that are not cheap would have roaches or crumbs on mattress. Ha, shows us that we don't have kids. Or some are in sleazy streets with tons of bar-girls hanging out. We received quite a bit of help from my cousins and their friends, as we don't speak Thai and less people than foreigners think speak English to a level that can understand our needs (such as wired high speed internet, not wireless etc). One friend Sam took us across the river to the building he used to live in. And then my cousin's wife called two days ago and said Sam mentioned a friend Ray in their church has two apartments for rent, though they are far from public transit, he would rent them out to us for cheap. Ray wasn't around till yesterday to show us the apartments. One of them was a penthouse unit with great view. He would rent it to us at less than 1/3 of market price which meets our budget! It's more than what we could have imagined or asked for. God is good!

Ray is a business man and used to be very superstitious (in his own words). When he heard about any new pretty temple coming up, he would go to pay respect. Then something happened to his family two years ago and he became a Christian. He sees now that all his possessions are gifts from God, and he gives them out generously and doesn't hold back. So we hope our friends come to visit and stay with us, that we can spread this grace around.

Goodbye China, hello and goodbye Hong Kong

It was a whirl wind of two weeks of traveling in China and then HK. Went to the "river south" of China and saw many beautiful things. Also got giant mosquito bites. They had to eat too. I was "glad" to contribute to their reproduction.

Felt good to leave China, only because the girl at the airline counter would give us a break, and we got a luggage overweight penalty that amounted to half of my plane ticket! I kept on telling people, please please don't give me anything, I can't carry it. Everyone said, oh, just a little something, then it added up and they charge by the kilo!

HK is much more organized and civilized. I hate to be singing praises to the Queen but we don't need to worry about being hit by a car any more crossing the street. The cars actually stop for the lights.

Miss China for its prices. HK is much more expensive.

People think it's so "cool" and romantic to travel around for a year. Actually it's a lot more pain then we realized. We thought we carefully picked out what is needed for a year, but since we weren't sure where we'd really be (though Thailand preferred, but there has been visa difficulties to the foreigners), we had to pack up quite a bit. Then there's weight limits. In Asia, you can only check in 20kg! (a little over 40 lbs) It's not easy task, but when I see how Americans pack their cars to the rim to travel, I wonder if they can survive this. There's something to be said about minimumlism (I made up that word).

Leaving very early AM tomorrow for Bangkok. Now Thailand doesn't allow anyone going in without a plane ticket leaving the country, I had to scramble to buy tickets going to Penang, Malaysia in 4 weeks. The joy and challenge of this trip!

Good-bye Qingdao and on the go again

We packed up and left Qingdao on September 20, on a stormy rainy day. The big tropical storm hit Qingdao the night before and many roads were flooded. We asked the hotel staff (the building we stayed in is part hotel and part apartments) to book a taxi the night before for us. After the boys loaded the car with our luggage, they were soaked already. Five minutes into the road, the driver started her business talk - "Let's set a price! Look, the roads are all flooded and it's hard to drive. Give me Y150." I replied, "are you kidding! this is an over the top price!" She came down, "OK, 130." I said "that's still over the top". She said "my car's starting price is 10, not 7, and it's Y1 extra for each km". I didn't say anything, just hoping to get to the airport on time. Good thing we started early. Roads were truly flooded, and she was constantly on the phone talking to other drivers inquiring road condition. The radio was saying not to hit the break in the water, just let the car slide, so it wouldn't halt. Many cars halted in the flood. So, it took an hour to get to the airport instead of half an hour. I gave her 130 and let her know that though it was over the top, it was a difficult drive.

Bargaining is a very big part of most Asian life, and it's fun when you shop, but it is not when you are under the pressure to be somewhere before a certain time!

We stopped in Shanghai for a day and then went to Nanjing to visit my aunt and cousin. My cousin's daughter is in Junior in high school. This part summer vacation, she was in school most of the time studying second year university chemistry, so that she can take part in the high school chemistry competition next year. Many students are studying some college subjects at this point. Some parents send their kids, they are all only-childs in their family by the way, to other countries (like America, Europe and Singapore) for a year of study. It's shocking to me to learn that because most parents I met before hold on to their child so tight and don't want their child to leave their sight, yet these parents are willing to let their child go to a faraway land and they won't see them for a year. When these students return to China, they have to repeat that same year because China's school covers so much more material and subjects that they wouldn't be able to follow. My cousin's daughter didn't want to go because she didn't want to be a year older than her classmates when she returns. Now she's regretting a little after seeing her friends return. But too late now!