A day in Bangkok

I wonder how Thai people feel about having so many foreigners around. If there is any displeasure about it, they don’t show it. For better or worse, tourism and foreign investment are a critical part of the economy.

Last year I went to see the River Kwai, where the Japanese committed various atrocities during WW2 by forcing Allied troops and Thais to labour to death in many cases. I find it hard to reconcile those events with my love of Japan. But since then Japan has played a massive part in the development of Thailand. Building infrastructure, manufacturing industry and sharing their know-how.

On the other side there is the unfortunate sex tourism aspect here. There is no avoiding it. In my street I’m constantly hailed by scantily clad women as I walk by. After a week they are starting to leave me alone, but if I slip up and make eye contact I still get some kind of musically voiced pitch thrown my way.

Thailand is much more than that though. Development is in the air. Sitting in a somewhat central position geo-politically, Thailand receives investment from both East and West. They are currently building a high-speed rail system and I can’t help but feel that the future is promising.

So far I’m yet to see anyone lose their temper. Unfortunately in the West we seem to use anger and aggression as a way of getting things done. That is anathema in Thailand. Despite the flowing chaos of Bangkok, people move around calmly. I’ve taken a leaf from their book. Time flows differently. It’s too warm to rush anyway.

People acknowledge you quietly with a nod, palms pressed together or in the case of security guards a salute. I quite like all of that.

Aside from the tourists there is a large contingent of expats working here as digital nomads or in companies.

Everyone seems to have an interesting story. The lifers stand out, those people that came here long ago and never left. I suppose they’ve seen the place change substantially. The new generation of people moving here are quite different. Energised and ambitious they are drawn by the low living costs that allow them to bootstrap their online businesses or leverage their remote jobs. Others in the corporate world are involved in the modernisation of Thailand.

The great thing about Bangkok, like other international cities, is that it attracts people willing to take a chance.

I also like being able to use my Japanese here and there. I was chuffed to hear from one of my Japanese friends that I’ve improved. Being in Bangkok with it’s large expat Japanese community is the next best thing to being in Japan. Except that it comes with warm weather all year round and other expats to mingle with.

I spent 3 months in Bangkok last year, so things are not totally new to me. Perhaps it’s that I’m now at a different stage, but I don’t feel a great compulsion to explore. I want to work. And here is why.

All around Bangkok I see the old guard expats. Men in their 60’s and older who seem to have been here for many years. In some cases decades. Not all, but a good many of them escaped to Thailand at a younger age. They hit the reset switch. And with the relaxed lifestyle, nightlife and good times, they washed their worries away. But the thing about worries is they catch up with you. You can’t run from yourself. And looking at them as their bodies and energies wane, I can’t help but see many who missed the mark.

The years wore on for them and they let go the things their parents told them, get a good job, find a wife, have kids, do something for others. And now in their old age they feel it’s too late. They see the young bucks (like me, and younger) rolling up, with our youthful smiles and energy, and they can’t help seeing that time has past them by.

Time is a cruel mistress. She waits for nobody.

There is nothing worse than feeling that we missed our chance to do something great in life.

That something great isn’t necessarily starting the next Google. Having a good family is a monumental achievement.

Tolstoy said, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

In other words, there are a million ways that our lives can be thrown off course. The path to success on the other hand is a narrow one.

And all of that leaves me with a sense of importance about everything I do in my day. Since I know that the difference between good and poor outcomes depends on the seemingly small decisions we make each and every minute of the day.

Do I tip the waitress, do I smile and say thank you to the driver, do I go to the gym even when I don’t feel like it, do I read that book instead of watch funny but meaningless clips. How I answer all of those questions makes the difference between being a man that is happy in my older age to being that dejected man drinking a lonely beer in a pub in Thailand (at 9:30am in fact).

It’s all too easy to convince ourselves that there is always tomorrow. Trouble is we start to run out of tomorrows.

Another notable feature is the street food. Many of the vendors are out there all through the day. Slaving over a hot grill or wok, with nothing more than an umbrella to protect them from the sun. I wonder how they do it, day in and day out. I have to pinch myself each time and remember how fortunate I am. And yet the irony of it is, they often seem happier than the Westerners I see around the place.

Though many people here lead tough lives physically, they have company almost all the time. As a result that constant mind chatter that we in the West experience isn’t there. They move around in the present, as opposed to trapped in their mind.

The difference between Westerners is stark. It is as if they have weights attached to their heads. Walking around in a complete fog. Ill at ease with themselves and their environment. They are physically comfortable in their air conditioned lives, but totally separated from others. Caught up in their ego and thoughts. Intent on being ‘individuals’, doing things ‘my way’ to the extent that nobody can tolerate them, not even themselves. Their mind a washing machine. Constantly churning. And all the time they pay such close attention to it, as if their thoughts are something worth examining closely. When most of the time it would be better to see them as birds flying overhead. So ‘they’ seem to me, as somehow, I have already moved into a different mode here. But in those Westerners, I recognise myself of only a short time ago.

Only one word comes to mind for this condition, neurotic.

Our separateness from others, and our over identification with our ego that maintains this separateness, is a heavy price to pay for modernity.