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It has been raining in Bangkok, Thailand for the last three days. At least, I think it has been three days. At first the rain was really nice. You see, I’ve been in Bangkok (also called BKK) for about two months now. And ever since I’ve been here the weather has been exactly the same: hot. Oppressively hot. I understand that cliché now. When I first arrived, I tried to converse like I had stateside. I tried to talk about the weather, albeit in broken, slow (though never quite slow enough) English. Short, truncated sentences without articles or adjectives. And when the meaning was understood, that I was trying to say that it was hot, again, today, the Thai person I was speaking to would look at me like I was talking complete nonsense. Or like, “What else would the weather be like?” So finally I got over my dependency on talking about the weather. But there were other things. It took longer to get over being soaked in sweat when I walked across the street from work to lunch. It also took a while to get used to not being able to read anything. Thai script is unique, even when compared to other Asian letters. So when I look at street signs, it’s like being three years-old again. Now, two months after my arrival, it’s as if the rainy season has arrived early. Some of the locals attribute this to something being seriously wrong with the world. Today when I got ready for work, I had to put on the jacket I had felt so stupid for bringing in the first place. But I hadn’t really had any choice but to bring it. What else would I wear to O’Haire in January? Wearing my jacket again, I realized how much I had missed it. It wasn’t the wool overcoat that I wore at night when I was trying to look decent. And I wasn’t wearing a sweater with a scarf and top coat. But it was a jacket. Black, water resistant and three pockets. Three pockets! Do you know how useful those are? Why didn’t I ever notice this before? So, for some reason I felt a little more comfortable. I’ve been doing my best to blend in and not act like a tourist (if I have to look at a map, I go to the bathroom to do it). But now, it’s like everyone’s on my turf. It’s almost chilly out, and you can’t see the sun most of the day. (I think it’s really interesting though, that the moon is upside down. Did everyone but me already know this? I think it’s great. I feel like an astronaut.) But walking around in my jacket, it's as if I’m unique for being the only one comfortable wearing the extra garment. It’s pathetic, but I catch myself walking like I know what I’m doing. As if, “Look, I know you people are cringing from the weather outside, but this is nothing to me. I’ve slept outside in weather a hundred times worse.” I’m a tourist. Although I like the bad weather for now, I wasn’t too fond of it this morning. I was running late for work and the streets were covered in water. I usually take a motorcycle taxi when I’m in a hurry. (A motorcycle taxi is just that—a motorcycle and a driver and a passenger huddled behind the driver.) Motorcycles can weave through traffic and save time in stalled traffic, which is always stalled when I’m running late. Since it was raining, I would have preferred to wait for a normal automobile-type taxi, but there wasn’t time. I was late, so I had to take what was available. And I think that I might have arrived at work before a lot of my coworkers. But they were much drier. My American coworker, Jacky Curtis, thought it was amusing. She knows that I always sleep as late as possible and that getting to work soaked in acid rain is exactly what I, a lazy American, deserve. But Jacky is kind and kept her amusement mostly to herself. Maybe it’s not just the jacket that’s making me feel at ease. For instance, lately when I’ve given taxi drivers directions to my apartment, they’ve understood me. You probably have no idea how remarkable that is. On the radio I heard (on the English station of course) that one way you can tell that you’ve been in BKK too long is that the taxi drivers start understanding you. They only sometimes understand me. There are other times, though, that I find myself becoming less patient. I find myself impatient when they bring me the wrong plate at dinner. They always do, and when I first arrived in BKK I would just smile and eat it and think, “Oh well, that’s Thailand. Ooh, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten this before…” But now when I order rice with beef and I get squid and noodles, I get somewhat—pissed. I still don’t say anything, but I poke my dinner with a spoon and look at my waiter like, “Do you have any idea how wrong this is?” But I’m also not about to say anything because if there is one generalization about the Thai that’s true, it’s this: they are the nicest people on the planet. Really. And even though they might get my order wrong or misunderstand my directions and take me to the wrong side of town (a big town by the way—something like seven million people in BKK), I don’t get mad because they really do try very hard. Which is why it's confusing that I keep ending up with squid and noodles. One of my favorite stories involves Curtis, my aforementioned American coworker. She was on her own one Sunday, and she went to a little touristy coffee shop for lunch. She had planned on paying with her credit card, but when the bill came she discovered that they didn’t accept American Express, or something very American like that. She was trying to figure out what to do, when the waitress paid the bill out of her own tips. Of course, Jacky made it a point to pay the waitress back and thank her, so as to save the American reputation in BKK. Because Jacky is a good American. Another thing that bothers me, and I don’t mind saying this because I know that I annoy the Thai in a million ways, is that nobody here waits in line. That has to be why the traffic is so bad (or else it’s the seven million people). For example, when I get off the Sky Train (an elevated train; it’s exactly like the BART in San Francisco), everyone tries to surge inside the train before anyone has had a chance to get off. Why do they do that? You can’t get away with that sort of thing with American public transportation. But then again, most Americans aren’t much on public transportation in the first place. I’m sitting here, trying to think of things that annoy me about BKK. But it’s really hard at the moment. I’ll change my mind tomorrow when I’m eating snails or small bugs (some Thai people do eat certain insects), but for now I’m realizing how good I’ve got it. The people here treat me with respect and courtesy. And they really do, like everyone told me, smile a lot. I suppose being among the Thai is worth eating some squid and snails.
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