We Are the Fighters

From time to time I'll hear a few words, or even as much as a sentence, delivered in just the right way, or perhaps at just the right moment, so that they seem to echo with a profundity that would otherwise not be implied by the arrangement of the words themselves. Today I was thinking about the first time that this happened to me in Thailand. It was my first week in the camp, and no doubt I was a little extra-susceptible to wonder, due to a combination of culture shock and a lot of well-trained punches to the head. I was perched uncomfortably on a bar stool at the Tiger Grill, wings folded, head down, trying to ignore the pervasive agony in my muscles, when a man named Will came by. I still know very little about him, other than that he is a young man, a general manager here, and was born somewhere near Boston, but he introduced himself to me almost immediately upon my arrival, and checks up on me from time to time.

As he passed, he clapped me on the shoulder, saying, "How you feeling, man?"
I feigned indifference to the protests of my entrails. "Ah, I'm alright. Just recovering."
Will chuckled, presumably seeing through my façade. "Alright, good to hear."
Then, just before continuing on his way, he paused for a moment which, in my memory, always plays like a close-up just before a scene change.

"The pain happens, man. Don't worry about it; there's only the fighters here."

It's been a little less than a month since he said that to me, but it's taken less time than that to realize that he was right. There is certainly a solidarity amongst everyone here at Tiger Muay Thai, trainer and student alike, but I don't actually think that it is hugely different than that achieved, for example, at Conway Mixed Martial Arts, my gym back in Arkansas. I don't know that every martial arts training ground has a similar community aspect, but due to the quality of my previous instruction, I'm no stranger to it, so I can't say that I really expected anything less. In fact, what has provided a much greater subject of interest to me is the habits and lifestyles of the people here, and though they perhaps do not reflect the feelings of similarity encouraged by shared hardship, the elusive commonality which persists.

As an aside, I remember quite well that in every school at which I've trained, and indeed in every community of which I have been a part, there are those who either resist, ignore or betray the feelings of solidarity extended to them. Certainly, that has already been the case more than once in my limited experience here, but for the purposes of this discussion, I'll be limiting myself to the large majority of students, all of whom seem to share an understanding with, and mild affection for, their trainers and classmates.

The really remarkable thing about the community here is that so many people seem to have so little in common with one another. For example, just this afternoon, I went to the office to buy a few of the necessities sold there, such as soap, disinfectant, and an extra pair of handwraps. While my purchases were being calculated, I stood next to an Irishman with a chest full of tattooed proper nouns, a slurred voice that seemed to have few worthwhile uses, and half-lidded eyes that might otherwise be keen, but had the air of having lost their edge after long being beaten against poor choices. He was very drunk (as it was then a little after 2PM), and mentioned that he was on the business end of several tablets of Vallium. He explained to me that he deserved this day of stuporous rest as he had just lost 50,000 baht (about $1,500 USD) last weekend to the classic alliance of a prostitute and too much alcohol.

By contrast, on the trip to Bangkok mentioned last time, I shared a bus with a man named Berneung (corrected spelling). Berneung is Thai, and a man of few words and fewer facial expressions. He is not grim or prickly, but simply impassive, though his eyebrows are permanently fixed in a slightly peaked position of imposing analysis. He followed the rest of the TMT crew to the bars each night, but I didn't hear him speak a single word to any women who didn't train with us, and he only quietly shook his head each time he was offered a drink. He doesn't say much to anyone from what I understand, and showed very little response even after his quick and decisive victories in the ring that weekend. On a side note, I'm told that though his personal demeanor has been consistent in recent memory, he has actually demonstrated a bit more flair for the dramatic, as in this picture taken of him a few months ago which has since been made into a poster for sale around Phuket (Berneung is on the right).



These two men clearly have very little in common. What is of course striking about the comparison is that as far as anyone can tell, they have a perfect understanding. Between these two specifically, I cannot vouch for anything other than that once Berneung held pads for the Irishman whose name I've forgotten, but it is implicit among the social group here that each would help the other if there was need. What's more, I know that there are many here who are as different from me as these two are from each other, but when I've been outside the camp, I know instinctively that I'm with them, and they're with me.

I want to emphasize here that this isn't even something based on foreignness. I can remember a similar feeling of camaraderie springing up quickly with people I met in France, if only because people who are outside of their comfort zones tend to band together quickly, and generally part with equal swiftness when the need is over. Here, however, I have observed and experienced this bond between Thais and foreigners, between the travelers and the xenophobes, and even more impressive, I've noticed that it endures.

All of this is admittedly rather nebulous, though I've forgiven myself somewhat due to the fact that don't particularly think that I'm describing anything really momentous or outside the experience of most. The reason I go into it, however, is that it is the most concrete symptom of a phenomenon that I have found which directly relates to my study here. It strikes me that ours is a completely imagined community here at the camp; we have no specific personal bond, and indeed many of us have never met. Other than the fact of one's training here, the personal criteria for our acceptance of another, then, are functionally nonexistent.

This idea immediately reminded me of an earlier post in which I asked some vague questions about the differences between soldiers and martial artists, and in which I mentioned a book from which I have just borrowed a phrase, Imagined Communities, by Benedict Anderson. I sorely wish that I had been able to read more of that book before my departure, but one thing that I took from it which has stayed with me is that nations are, in fact, what I have just described. Here we are certainly absent the comparatively recent inventions of Western-imposed categorization and strict border recognition, but according to Anderson and Dr. King of the Howard University Anthropology Department (with whom I had a very illuminating conversation before I left), the fighters here have the basic genesis of a cultural identity. In short, the fighters of Tiger Muay Thai are certainly individual and separate, "but in the minds of all exists the image of [our] communion" (Anderson). I'll be trying to get access to more of this, as I think that it's fascinating.

Finally, I should clarify that I do not believe that membership in one imagined community excludes one from membership in others. I was warned by Will (from the beginning of the post) that the Thais may be somewhat offended if I tried to vent to them about my vexing run-in with the famous merchants of Bangkok mentioned in the last post. While many Thais would respond the same way emotionally, Will explained that it was quite possible that they would be a bit resistant to commentary on their social problems from a foreigner of the same brand who supports the problem. Even the trainers, that is to say, would not necessarily accept me as part of their community in this sense, despite whatever other camaraderie we share.

In short, the identity that we here have all adapted as Muay Thai fighters does not subsume all other identities, though it does somehow rank among them. I can say that I feel a certain kinship toward the fighters and trainers here that I do not for Americans in general, though that wouldn't make me indifferent if I met someone else from Kansas City. It is particularly relevant to me as well that this identity as Muay Thai fighters has rules to it, and traditions, and it behooves us all to follow them. The martial art has demonstrably incorporated us into an imagined community in which we follow its ethics. We don't kick for the groin, we don't follow our opponents to the ground; we show respect for our trainers and for our ancestors before a fight, and we use Thai words to describe certain features of the training or ceremony. This is, in fact, what I came here to study. We are not all Thai, but neither are we the same as we were before we were immersed into this Thai art, which has carried with it the old rules and traditions that are now becoming our own. And so, almost as if we said, "We are Americans," or "We are Christians," or "We are Buddhists," we know that we are Muay Thai fighters, as little or as much as that means.

For the sake of levity, I submit the following picture of one of my friends here for general approval, as a brilliantly telling allegory for my own presence here in the camp.

Bangkok

I've been back in Phuket for a couple of days now, and I willingly confess that I've been procrastinating on writing this entry, because I couldn't quite conceptualize a description of the past weekend. I have decided to get to it now, however, as these entries are usually the best opportunities for me to take the attendance of my thoughts, to make them all stand up, pay attention, put down their accordions and Scrabble games, so that I can talk to them one at a time. I hope that this attempt will be successful, as these recent thoughts are rather a raucous bunch, and that I do not end up like a failed AA meeting leader, face-down in the gutters of my intentions, groaning about my life, and as incoherent as my stuporous charges who surround me.

(As an aside, I may or may not have been reading a lot of Milton lately, and while I have been procrastinating, the rest is perhaps just the pressure to invoke a Muse. Then again perhaps not.)

I left the camp with my friend Chris on Friday afternoon, and we shared a taxi to the bus station with Oscar, a Swedish fellow-student, Nu, a Thai trainer at the camp and part-time professional competitor, and Vernon, also a Thai trainer, who was recently ranked among the top-ten Muay Thai fighters in Thailand (Vernon is rumored to have once knocked out an opponent with a cartwheel-kick). We boarded the bus around 6PM, and began the overnight trek to the capital, where some organization which remains unfamiliar to me was hosting a Pan-Asian grappling and MMA tournament. We arrived, cramped and ill-rested, on Saturday morning, and just had time to find a taxi to a hotel, drop our things, and then race to the competition which began at 10AM.

We arrived just in time for weigh-ins, which didn't concern me or Oscar, as both of us had come to spectate rather than compete. We met about ten other people from Tiger (my gym, for those of you just joining us) who had wisely flown in, and together we formed a solid cheering section near one corner of the chamber. I'll spare a few words for the tournament itself here, but I must say that overall, it was much the same as Jiu-Jitsu tournaments in the States, though with many more languages being spoken around the mats.

Chris was the only of my traveling companions to compete on the first day, in the gi part of the tournament. He gave a good showing, but was defeated due, I think, to a few basic mistakes which he is usually above. We watched a few other brackets, but I retired back to the hotel rather early, citing nauseousness, thanks to the dubious quality of some of the roadside vendor "food" for which everyone on the bus had been periodically jostled awake the night before.

The competition the following day was distinctly more impressive, though perhaps I only thought so because I saw more of it. I was very struck by the level of physical conditioning of the fighters, particularly in terms of flexibility, as that's something that is too often overlooked in US mixed martial arts, in my own humble opinion. That said, perhaps there's a reason that the ever-practical Americans have comparatively ignored this method of training, as I did see one unfortunate man choked out by his own ankle, in a very complicated scenario of anatomical treachery.
The second day also proved more impressive for the Tigers, as our grapplers train exclusively without gis, in preparation for MMA fights. Chris did better than he had the previous day, and several of our fighters won their divisions. In the three MMA fights, Vernon and Nu each won almost without a struggle, at the great expense of their opponents' shins, and Tobias, our Swiss novice fighter, won against a much larger opponent with a well-executed rear naked choke. All-in-all, a very good day for Tiger Muay Thai, and despite our comparative lack of success the day before, we took home the trophy for second-most medals won overall.

Now, on to the city.

It is difficult, if at all possible, to reckon the size of Bangkok. Due to a misunderstanding with a cab-driver, at one point I ended up at 100th St. instead of 1st St., but I still wandered around for a few minutes, deceived into thinking that I was close to my destination by the fact that there were skyscrapers at 100th St. to compare to those at 1st. The city is all the more difficult to navigate due to the seamless-ness with which alley melds into street, and roads branch off at any angle and degree. It is somewhat difficult at points to differentiate the heavily residential districts from the commercial ones, particularly at the lower income levels. I remarked several times (necessarily in passing, as I can't imagine how long it would have taken me to explore these areas, even if a 6'4'' blond-haired white guy could have done so safely) that in so many places, the stalls and small stands which lined the street were just the fringes of much larger markets just out of sight. When one walks the streets of Bangkok, one can see hundreds of alleys and paths that run between the cheap craft and produce stands of the poor. These narrow passages disappear quickly into darkness, the gloom punctuated grudgingly by dim, flickering, flourescent bulbs, and it is difficult not to be haunted by what lies out of sight in the child and adult prostitution capital of the world.

At night the city shifts gear, but certainly doesn't slow down. Like any big city, there is the constant dull roar of streets clogged with traffic and industrial fans blowing mist and smoke out of the tops of buildings and gaps in the sidewalks. People pass constantly on the sidewalks, most averting their eyes to the ground when they see us coming. Saturday and Sunday nights I went out with the other Tigers, though both nights I refrained from following them to the end of their beer-washed paths. As we walked the streets, pausing at restaurants, markets and pubs, we certainly did our part to protect each other from the feeling of insignificance that often assails one in any of the great cities of the world, but I'm not sure that I really appreciated that feeling. True, it was nice to look around and realize that I'm about as safe as a person could be without Secret Service protection, but at the same time, Bangkok has so much fear, so much poverty, so much sadness, and yet so much power, so much wealth, so much pride and majesty that to insulate myself in this way made me feel almost dishonest, as I looked around at the people we passed.

For fear that I may not be making sense here, I'll provide an anecdote. When we left a Western-style pub on Sunday night, I decided to head back to the hotel, and on the way there, a man fell into step next to me. He was Thai, and looked unassuming enough, with short black hair combed over to one side and a dark leather vest on over a horizontally striped T-shirt. He smiled widely at me, as many seem inclined to do here, and said this:
"Heeey, you come out an paateee?"
I paused. "Uh, I'm having a good time," I said.
"Okay! Lots of guys weeth you, need girls! You come with me, I show you menee girls!"
I grimaced and turned my eyes forward again. "Oh. No, man. Thanks. Have a good night."
He waved his hands quickly back and forth, twice. "Oh no, ees no problim! Have menee girls! Girls like thees," he held his hands out in front of his chest, and, giving me a conspiratorial grin, he held his hand down near my waist level, "girls like thees."

It took a few seconds to realize that this man had offered to force a child to have sex with me. I'm not really that educated about how the whole industry works, but from what I understand, there are few volunteers, and those who employ child prostitutes, or indeed any prostitutes, are something less than philanthropic. It was perhaps the first time in my life when I have genuinely felt that one fact was all that I would ever need to know about a person, and the first thought that went through my head was that I should hit this guy in the face, for no other reason than that someone should.

I would be angry afterward; minutes later, when I got back to the hotel, fury would actually rise up in me which might cause me to do physical harm to someone. At the time, however, I was just shocked, and I thought, feeling almost coldly rational, that good people don't walk away from this. Good people take this to the police, good people find a way to help these girls, or if nothing else, good people don't let someone who sells children smile at them openly without knocking that grin to the pavement.

Though it actually pains me somewhat to say it now, I did not turn out to be that particular type of good person, though I am somewhat satisfied with my decision. Other thoughts entered my head, not the least of which was that flesh-peddlers quite probably travel armed, or that doing what was in my power, which is to say beating this man senseless, would probably only cause him to repeat that cruelty exponentially on the plentiful supply of people who were weaker than him. I had reasons not to hit him, and in hindsight, I still think that they were good ones, but there is a part of me that recognizes that moment as a chance to throw the most meaningful knee to the face that I have considered in my life thus far.

Before I went to bed, however, my anger subsided, and the morals I'm used to walking around with came back to me. Despite my hobbies, I really am something of a pacifist. When I'm in a room at Hendrix College, I don't believe in fighting to solve problems. I recognize that cruelty is the thing that cruel people know best how to handle, and that good people should generally not employ the methods of those they oppose. I don't think I'll solve any problems by becoming bigger and more dangerous than the pimps in Bangkok, which I guess means that, despite my inclination, I can't actually make a difference in a large societal problem on a whim.

I would encourage everyone reading this to look up a thing or two on the sex trade in general, and to perhaps familiarize yourselves, as I have in the past two days, on the type of thing that goes on everywhere, and quite significantly on the Mexican-American border. I suppose that our awareness is the least we can give, and I don't think that it's insignificant.

Before I left Bangkok I did one good thing. I don't think it really matters what it was, but it made me feel better, even if it was the societal equivalent of kicking a mountain in an attempt to move the range. While in the capital, I met a lot of different types of people, though of course in my two days, I didn't really have the opportunity to get to know any of them as well as I would like. I learned something about Lumpini Stadium, which is one of the best-known Muay Thai arenas in Thailand, and in the next post I will most likely return to the declared business of my voyage with a study of that blood-soaked place and its history.

For now, however, clichéed though it is, I would encourage all of my friends out there to do one good thing, preferably small, as it's generally less ambiguous that way. I think it will make you feel good, and somewhat powerful. Like you just voted.

A Few Peculiarities

As I'm sitting here in my new room, having hurriedly vacated the old one due to imminent roof collapse (or so the office told me), I'm realizing that there are a fair number of subtle differences to my new environment of which I wasn't immediately aware. I will certainly get to those differences in a moment, but I was actually led by this realization to consider some of the general peculiarities and eccentricities displayed by the camp and the country.

The first thing that I, or, I think, anyone else, would notice about Phuket at this time of year is the rain. It would be an understatement to say
that it rains every day, as the sky is rather like an asthmatic with a serious head-cold: marked by long periods of calmness, but whenever roused from stillness responding with loud and violent sneezes, followed by long periods of wheezing, howling and sniffling. At this point, I have tried to emulate the native population, and just ignore the rain as much as possible. During the sudden and frequent monsoons, I notice no decrease in the sizeable amount of motorbike traffic on the roads, and no classes are ever canceled due to inclement weather, despite the absence of a single full wall around any of the training areas. In fact, after the second or third time, I have come to rather enjoy doing pushups or hitting a punching bag in the rain; it gives one a sort of fierce inspiration at the most violent and tenacious moments, and makes me feel as though the natural world is rooting for my success, as though I had just seen an eagle fly by, carrying an electric guitar.

As pervasive as the rain, yet sometimes more subtle, is the affluence of cats in the camp. After spending a few weeks here, I'm reasonably certain that there is actually only one rather large family in residence, but they seem to enjoy making themselves obnoxious (as cats so often do). In my last room, which was situated rather close to the camp's kitchens, I was sometimes awoken by a lanky, rather stretched-looking, camel-colored feline, who would hop onto the chair outside of my window, and whine incessantly, as if I was withholding a stock of food that was rightfully hers. Once, in exasperation, I opened the door, intending to justify myself through sheer evidence of poverty, and she sauntered inside, glanced disdainfully at my box of granola bars as if they affronted her, and went to sleep on my boxing gloves.
Before I moved, I had actually struck up something of a friendship with one of these creatures. Perhaps the smallest of the bunch, a small black-and-white kitten seemed very fond of murdering the sweaty hand-wraps that I hung out to dry on the rack outside my door. I never actually fed this one either, but she seemed content to show up each evening as I returned home, attacking the heels of my sandals as I crossed the restaurant area toward my door. I admit that I grew somewhat fond of her before I was forced to relocate, but I have since seen her sleeping on the shrine kept towards the front of camp, her head resting somewhat impiously on the Buddha's right knee.
Below is a picture of her habitual evening occupation with my shoes.



Since I have moved, I am actually closer to the fringes of the camp, and in fact the back window of my room looks out into the jungle. It seems that the cats are less inclined to venture out this direction, and so our relationship has gone the way of French cinematic romances, with much sighing and staring from long distances, but little in the way of activity or complete sentences.

I have, however, discovered a new set of creatures to plague my rest, which seem equally interested in my footwear as places of repose. I have taken to keeping my tennis-shoes inside now, after one evening when I stepped outside my door in only my socks, and when I attempted to put on one of my shoes, I felt something inside, about halfway down the sole. I pulled back, and was about to reach inside to smooth down the lining, or brush away whatever had wrinkled up enough to obstruct my toes, when I paused, reminded of the hand-sized spider that I had noticed in my room about a week before. Thinking better of reaching in blind, I tapped the heel of my shoe against the ground three or four times, and, holding it by the toe, I made a quick whipping motion with my hand, flicking the heel end away from me. At this final gesture, a frog just slightly smaller than my fist was sling-shot out of my shoe, and rocketed (presumably terrified) some ten feet into the grass, where it quickly righted itself, paused, and hopped away.
Since I have moved out here, I have noticed a particular excess of reptiles, which I suppose accounts for the comparative lack of insects and arachnids about. While I value that service, it is somewhat disconcerting when, in the middle of the night, I'm making my way toward the bathrooms on an errand of doubtful import to God and Country and I realize that I am being watched from all sides by a myriad of squishy bodies in the grass and clinging to the walls. All the same, I am glad to be free from houseguests like the one pictured below (for reference, my hand, from wrist to fingertips, goes about to the top of the first hinge on the window).


Speaking of the bathrooms, I feel that a word or two is due the facilities here, as it is truly some unfortunate person's thankless, Herculean responsibility to keep them somewhat in order. Overall, I have been very impressed by the state of the camp and by the rigorous cleanliness applied to the mats, but while it is certainly something to clean off the buckets of sweat and blood which are splattered across the training areas every day, I think that the bathrooms may have been doomed from the start. Without getting too graphic, I should warn any travelers to Thailand that native Thai cuisine apparently has a reputation for causing something of a traffic jam in the bowels of newcomers. I myself somehow escaped this unsightly syndrome, but many of my colleagues did not, and as new people are constantly arriving at the gym, I have come to expect the worst from the toilets and their immediate areas. In fact, as Western Europeans seem to be particularly vulnerable to the obstructive effects of pad thai, I have come to think of the bathrooms as existing perpetually in a state akin to the beaches of Normandy on June 5th, 1944: quiet and serene, well-attended, but on the eve of being stormed by large numbers of ill-fated Englishmen.

The final eccentricity of camp on which I'll comment today is the casual nudity which seems to pervade the mats. The population of the place is predominantly men, but certainly not without exception, which to me makes the general disregard for clothing all the more striking. To be fair, one rarely encounters full frontal nakedness in men or women, but I have only to look out my window to see one of the MMA fighters disrobe in the corner of the mats in order to put on his athletic cup and supporter; an activity which, to my mind, reminds one in private of humanity's absurdity quite well enough, and in public is at best a strong kidney-punch to one's dignity. Just the same, however, I have already had several three- and four-day stretches in which I haven't once put on a shirt, due to, if nothing else, the sheer impracticality of clothing on the upper-body in this level of heat and humidity. Without any means of air-conditioning in my room, let alone on the mats, it seems prudent to me to trade in a bit of self-consciousness in exchange for sparing myself from sending in my laundry every third day.

Finally, as I've clearly only just now discovered the ease with which I can post pictures here, I'll add the photos of Dang that I promised in my last post. I somewhat wish that I could have taken more candid shots of him, as his face in training is usually very different than the grin with which you see him here, but perhaps that will come later.

Intermediate Level

It's not the first time since I've been here that I've been discouraged, and in fact I think that somehow, this is still the same instance of it. I don't mean to say in any way that I regret being here, or that my resolve to learn and to train is at all wavering. But just the same, sometimes you're up, and sometimes you're down, and sometimes you're just a long long way from home.

I'm sure that anyone who has had an extended stay abroad has some idea of the feeling to which I'm referring, but for those who haven't, I should clarify that I'm not at all depressed, I'm just sort of coming to terms with this whole undertaking. It's easy, before one leaves on a venture like this one, to be swept away by the romance of the whole idea, and to consider any future hardships in a dewy sort of light that makes every character in the untold story seem fascinatingly multicultural and dynamic, with quotable bits of wisdom and faces like Easter-colored marshmallows. Certainly I've already had my share of montage-worthy experiences, but today in particular I've been a bit disillusioned; the gentle flock of sheep that were my expectations have been shorn and whipped, and are now standing in a light drizzle, staring dubiously at a smiling Texan with an umbrella and undiscriminating molars.

No doubt many of you reading this are wondering if perhaps some unfortunate incident has provoked this comparatively melancholy on my part, and while I think that in some ways it's inevitable, even healthy, to feel this way a bit, perhaps there was a catalyst which made me feel it necessary to write this down.

Yesterday I was promoted from my previous classes, and I was instructed to join the intermediate Muay Thai classes as of this morning. I was pleased (with reservations) at the time, as I accepted the unspoken compliment of my trainers, but I understood also that this meant a whole new set of instructors, and presumably a great difference in severity of training. Honestly, the idea of training harder did not––and does not––upset me. I've already come a long way in terms of physical fitness, and I understand that I need to keep tackling harder tasks for that trend to continue. What's more, I'm here to be challenged, and in fact I relish the opportunity to find the new boundaries of my capacity.

Unfortunately, I found the intermediate class to be too much of what I had expected. The trainers at this level are much more committed to fight conditioning, and seem to be professional fighters more in the Western tradition. From the little I heard from the other students, and small facts gained about the general population of the camp during my stay so far, I know that two of the trainers have had professional boxing careers which have taken them across oceans in their adult lives. They both met with dubious success, and I don't know at all the backgrounds of the other four or so who seem to come and go freely during class, but they all seem to bear the business end of a punch in recent memory.

The dispositions of these trainers is very different from those I've described already. The air in the class is much less jovial, and at times vindictive. During technique exercises, the Thai men circulate with stone faces, making brief but constructive comments to the students, and sometimes demonstrating on an unfortunate trainee. During drills, however, of which there are a great many, the instructors become small, unapproachable islands, bristling with armaments and exporting only irritated grunts and physical pain. During bag work (in which each instructor holds a pair of pads in various positions for three-minute rounds, while a student strikes at full power, following the trainer's position and commands), they regularly move pads away at the last instant, while the student is reeling from the momentum of the missed strike, leap forward to backhand or leg-kick students. I quickly realized today that trying to block these sudden shots is not only extremely difficult, but in fact a punishable offense, as the instructors fully intend to strike unfairly, and for the students to get used to the feeling of being hit.

Likewise, the trainers often bark out commands to do short spurts of various physical exercises, and then deliberately disrupt them. They shout, "TEN PUSHUP! GO!" and then when we drop to the mat to begin, they heckle, step on our backs, kick out our hands, or punch us in the ribs. During a drill practicing the Thai Clench today, five instructors gathered around one unfortunate Englishman and took turns grabbing him by the head and throwing him across the ring, while he did what [very] little he could to resist them.

Training in an atmosphere like this has admittedly affected my attitude today, but not at all in the sense that I'm unwilling to return. I recognize this as in fact one of the purest examples of what I came here to do. Today, in the ring, when I saw George being tossed about like a veal steak in a room full of militant vegans, I considered that the trainers clearly intend to demoralize us. They want us to be discouraged, they want us to feel that it is futile to try to succeed. They want us to be beaten, bloody, and downtrodden, and they ensure that we are just that every class. I can say with certainty that in some sense they have accomplished their goal, that the novelty of my stay here has gone the way of all European attempts at colonization; that said, I see that what is left is only the hard and rather bleak reality of Muay Thai.

It is particularly clear to me today that for the Thai, this art is not a casual hobby. It is not something undertaken lightly, or a lifestyle to be conveniently emulated. The only way to get through this training is to accept the stark reality of elbows and knees, to learn to ignore physical pain the same way I have learned to ignore humidity and heat. The goal of these men is not to teach us how to block punches, but how to endure them. As with the deceptive strikes during bag-work, there is no possibility of evasion, no moment to block, no strategy to predict. There are elbows, knees, knuckles, and the warm, sweat-stained embrace of the mats.

Tonight, I came home. I took a shower, then wrapped two knuckles in medical tape, and put band-aids in various places on both feet. I washed my knuckles, put ice on my shins, and realized that this will be the closest thing to a victory-dance that my trainers will allow me to do.

Perhaps the most important thing I did this evening, however, was to hobble over to the corner of my room, and take from its case my dormant guitar. I placed the tuner on my knee, plucked the strings one by one, and then opened all of the windows facing the mats. With the smell of sweat and coming rain, I plodded gingerly back to my bed, picked up my instrument, and I belted out every song I knew at the top of my voice.

I think that in the coming weeks, I will need to gain great fortitude, I will need to accept the reality of pain, and I will need to not forget how important it is to play music.

Summer Jobs

Yesterday I learned something which really cut to the heart of my study here, and which I think will certainly impact the way I see Thailand for the rest of my stay, and may well remain permanently as one more subtle lens for the 6th-grade science project telescope that is my regard for the world in general.

As most of those reading this are surely aware by now, I've been hoping to get some idea of how the study and preservation of Muay Thai as a martial art is related to a sense of cultural identity for the Thai. It has been my theory that martial arts represent more than antiquated military techniques, and much like a dance or a dialect of language can represent a great deal of history for the nation that created it. As mentioned in previous postings, my notion of a nation has been (and is being) somewhat complicated, but in the slow broiler of my contemplation, that thought is still medium-rare, and I try to serve my hypotheses well-done.

Since I've been studying here in Thailand, I have realized very quickly that there is a completely different attitude toward training on this side of the Pacific. My instructors never ask if my limbs or joints are hurting, and while the select few Westerners who teach supplementary classes here have made suggestions about body maintenance, the vastly more numerous Thai instructors respond to complaints of potential injury with the zeal of Iron Chefs tenderizing rebellious fillets of some undecipherable sea creature.

In short, a new student such as myself quickly realizes that in order to maintain a healthy body, and in particular to assure one's full and continued use of that body after the next five years, it is often necessary to shrug off the heckling of one's instructors and take an unscheduled day or two off. I have often wondered not only how my trainers have survived as long as they have, but also why they seem to have such a single-minded focus on training, such that they seem to either not understand––or just deliberately not acknowledge––any reason why a student would not be practicing at every possible opportunity.

Up until yesterday, I answered the question of my trainers' Herculean motivation with a rather naïve supposition that Thai people just took Muay Thai training seriously, and beyond that I just slipped comfortably into the lukewarm oatmeal-like assurance that non-Westerners just do intense things to preserve their cultural traditions. In hindsight, I think I was somewhat borne out by a long line of lightly accented English-speaking samurai from the silver screens of my childhood, and a blurry amalgamation of many Buddhist and Taoist soundbites which inevitably saturates the career of any American juvenile martial-artist.

Fortunately, I was jarred out of this sunnily enthnocentric attitude rather suddenly near the end of my last training session, due, to no one's surprise I'm sure, to a conversation with Dang (as his name is actually spelled, I recently learned). Just before the end of class, and the head-scarved and bamboo-shaft carrying trainer's final exhaustive torments, Dang usually gives us a break for between three and five minutes. This time allows us to take off shin pads, hand-wraps, and any other equipment that we've donned in the course of class, and to recuperate for a moment before the final charge. During this time, Dang usually sits on the large black medicine ball which will soon become one of his sinister instruments, and alternately stares out at the camp or idly examines his heavily-taped stick.

Yesterday, as is sometimes our habit, we the students collapsed onto the mats in front of Dang, either leaning on our elbows or lying altogether prostrate, catching our collective breath one last time. From time to time Dang takes this opportunity to formulaicly heckle a student or two, or perhaps say something brief to another trainer passing by. On this day, however, Dang looked down at us from his spherical perch, and pointed his switch at an Australian man named Tim.

"Tim. Why you come learn Muay Thai?" Dang asked quickly.
"Ah, why am I learning Muay Thai?" Tim repeated, puzzled.
Dang nodded.
"Well, to learn to fight I suppose." Tim responded.
Dang smiled and nodded, muttering, "learn to fight, ah? Okay..." And I couldn't help but detect a note of condescension in his manner. He looked around, and we all perked up, mentally rehearsing our own profound and credible answers to the same question, which would surely leave this small Thai man feeling a distinct sense of respect and camaraderie with a kindred spirit who fights for all the right reasons, but after a few seconds, Dang just nodded again and resumed his study of the rubber trees on a hill beyond the camp.

After class, when I was collecting my regular mess of empty water-bottles, gloves, and sweat-soaked handwraps, I saw Dang pacing slowly around the mats, and I decided, at the risk of yet another cultural misstep with the oldest of my trainers, to satisfy my curiosity. After picking up my things, I walked over to Dang, and when he glanced up at me, I spoke plainly, keeping my sentences simple in English, as I know he prefers.

"Dang. How long have you done Muay Thai?"
He grunted. "Me? Oh, I do Muay Thai when very leettle, like this," and he held his hand out perhaps three feet off the ground.
I raised my eyebrows, insightfully musing, "long time."
Dang nodded, grunting again. "Seven yeer old."
At this, I was very much startled, though I had heard some stories from other fighters about children fighting professionally around that age. "You wanted to fight at seven years old?" I asked, trying to demonstrate my surprise.
Dang, eyes still scanning the mats, shrugged, tossing his head to the side casually. "Have to. Make money, my family."

I didn't really know what to say in response to that, so I decided to say nothing. I nodded, lingered for a moment, and then said a quick goodbye, to which Dang responded silently. I should point out that he did not seem embarrassed to have shared this with me, and he didn't have the air of one sharing a parable or any sort of valuable lesson. What he said, in that short moment, was, I came to realize, the simple reality of his life.

I found out this morning that Dang fought professionally from the age of seven until he was twenty, when he retired. I don't know that he has been a Muay Thai trainer since then, but it seems likely, and either way, as he is now 43, he has almost certainly been practicing this art for longer than I have been alive. What's more, I understand that stories like his are not at all uncommon, and that many, if not most fighters in Thailand retire around their early twenties, primarily because their bodies are no longer capable of the required level of physical endurance.

Though I do not think for a moment that I have more than scratched the surface of my trainers' attitudes toward Muay Thai, I have gotten a brief and illuminating glimpse into a different life. These men have always lived in a world in which days off are as foreign as McDonalds, and perceived as equally unhealthy. They seem not to acknowledge joint pain or bruising, and to regard such things in their students as amusing and petty excuses. For these men, their bodies are like an American farmer's F-150, meant for work, and not much good to anyone if you're going to worry about it getting scratched up. The only difference, I suppose, is how little an American would think about buying a new one.

Also, I cannot discount the sheer courage and tenacity which would have been necessary for Dang, at seven years old, to step into a ring knowing that either he or his opponent was going to leave on his feet. It is nothing short of staggering for me to consider a seven-year-old doing something which so seriously intimidates me even now, and then, win or lose, getting up, going home to eat (or not), and preparing to do the same thing again in a week or less.

I wonder how many times the gloves landed on Dang's chin or nose, and how many times he was flung to the mat in blood-soaked oblivion. I wonder if he felt that fabled fighter's spirit, felt the rush of competition and the drive for victory, or if he felt only the slow gnawing of hunger, and the knowledge that he wasn't the only one who could be hurt by his opponent. I think it reasonable to suppose that there were enough times when he enjoyed his work, or was proud of it, but it isn't hard to see by his quiet and melancholy demeanor outside of class, his sudden and unexplained questions of his students, and his awkward and abbreviated hemorrhaging of personal details that he has lost something that perhaps he would have back.

I think that on Monday I will try to get a picture of Dang, as the lines of his face are something that I think I would do well not to forget.

A Compliment Violently Delivered

To follow up on the previous post, I'll relate a quick anecdote that I find amusing in hindsight, as most martial artists would, I imagine.

This morning I went to class, as per usual, and it proceeded more or less as expected. The class was still a bit larger than it usually is, but it appeared that we had lost a few since Monday, so the group was a bit more manageable. We went through training more or less as expected, and we did so at the direction of a trainer named (I think) Nan, while Deng and two others circulated around, watching certain students specifically.

I should note here that Deng has a distinctive habit of carrying around a thin bamboo switch, which he uses to punctuate his commands by slamming it onto mats or walls or thighs. The thing itself is perhaps just wider than my thumb, and it is held together by heavily layered masking tape in several places, giving it the air of a spiteful elderly middle-school disciplinarian who carries on despite several terminal illnesses. He walks with this old-fashioned study-aid seemingly everywhere he goes, only laying it aside to demonstrate techniques or when holding pads.

Throughout the class, Deng took little notice of me, as has become his habit, and, as mentioned in the last post, I have begun to take his abnormal attitude (or perhaps lack of attitude) toward me, which is to say primarily his lack of shouting, as a subtle compliment. Until the end of class, he in fact said very little to me, aside from grunting at me to come over to him so he could wrap my hands halfway through.

At the end of training, Deng proclaimed his customary orders to finish the workout:
"OK, AN NOW, FO-HUNID SEET-UP AN ONE-HUNID PUSH-UP."

As we all fell to the mats, preparing to embark on the final marathon for the morning, Deng retrieved the 15-pound medicine ball from it's usual seat next to a pillar, and strolling over, dropped it next to my head. I was familiar with this exercise, as I believe I have described it before, and I prepared my stomach for the ensuing bombardment. Instead of stepping over me, however, and preparing to somewhat gleefully deliver the daily punishment, Deng simply swatted my shoulder with his stick and, grunting, pointed to the student next to me. I looked up at Deng inquiringly, and he nodded to the ball and to my fellow, grunting, "You, peek up, fo heem, foty time."

Surprised, but flattered, I sprang up, grabbed the ball, and stepped over to the other student. He nodded to me when he was ready, and I started dropping the ball onto his abs, calling out each time I reached a multiple of ten. Deng stood nearby, surveying my work expressionlessly, and from time to time swatting me with the stick and growling "Mo powa."

Most martial artists (and perhaps other athletes, though I can't say from experience) now reading this will understand that moment to be something of a compliment, as the direct responsibility for any task, however minor, is customarily given to the most competent student available. Honored as I was, however, as we continued around the room, which I now coldly realized contained seventeen students, I began to realize that this was certainly no free pass. In case anyone is wondering, fifteen pounds is not an excessive amount of weight, but around the five-hundredth repetition, it becomes a little more cumbersome. Deng followed me from student to student, assigning them numbers based on, presumably, what he thought they could handle, and then flicking me absently with his stick whenever my efforts flagged.

No one in class seemed to resent my efforts, particularly, I'd imagine, those toward the end of the line, for whom I could barely muster up the first ten, let alone fifty, of the assigned thrashings. When I had finally finished, Deng smiled briefly and hit me on the shoulder, saying "See? Not so easy be like Deng."

Then he pointed at the ground, and when I was on my back, arms above my head, waiting for him to assign my sentence, he pointed to Harry, an almost impolitely large Englishman, and said to him, "Now you do fo heem. Eity time. Wait twenny second. Then seventy time mo. One-hunned-feefty time."

As I stared at Deng in horror, Harry smiled ruefully at me and shrugged, muttering, "Sorry mate. Best o' luck."

In the ensuing violence, I could only think that for all I value my ambiguous friendship with Deng, this was, unfortunately, an inevitable side effect of earning the respect of one's trainer. I'm glad that Deng seems to have a high estimate of my gastric capacity (rather higher than my own, in fact), but I can't say I was experiencing any of my typical respectful affection for him after Harry finished, and the little Thai man snatched the ball, raised it over his own head, and barked "Why you do so soft? Must go like thees! Twenny mo time!" He then proceeded to further demonstrate his respect for me at the great expense of my abdominal muscles, and indeed the majority of my digestive tract.

Now, sitting on my bed, a few hours removed from that final moment of my prostration in which I rolled groaning onto my side, coughing spasmodically, I can say that I sincerely appreciate the compliment. Certainly Deng offered little in the way of encouragement, only swatting my shoulder with his stick and grunting his customary "See, uh? Not die," but I can't help but feel that now, demonstrably, we at least have an understanding, though I'm not convinced that I have the sheer fortitude it will require develop that into a friendship.

Here's hoping.

It Isn't Just About Height

It's only three o'clock in the afternoon here, but a I sit on my bed hoping that my fan will suddenly sprout an A/C unit and a dehumidifier like wings on a baby angel at Christmas, I realize that it has already been quite a remarkable day.

For the first time since I've been here, I got a normal, full, and restful night's sleep last night, due in no small part to the fact that my new friend Chris and I went into town yesterday, keeping ourselves awake past the normal point in the late afternoon at which Americans (or anyone from those time zones) seem to suddenly become tired. I write this small bit as a reminder to myself to say more about Chris later, as he is a somewhat striking figure on his own, but at the moment I'll focus on today's revelations.

After getting up early, I had time to relax a bit, eat a granola bar bought in town yesterday, and get myself more thoroughly ready for the morning's training session than I've yet been able to do. When I left my room for the mats, I saw that the class was abnormally large today, holding perhaps 20-25 people instead of the customary 8-12. We proceeded under the instruction of Deng (personally my favorite trainer), who usually teaches with a series of harsh, angry yells which do little to conceal his natural good humor, which seems to surface primarily around small children and students who have been satisfactorily exhausted. After stretching and basic warm-ups, the other trainers arrived, supplemented by a few extras from the intermediate and advanced mats due to our excess of students. Among the other trainers were two young men, both of whom I had seen before, but only one of whom I was acquainted with.

One of the two in question is a high-spirited and excitable young man whose short dark hair is usually pushed up into some unidentifiably hip style. He regularly teaches on the beginner mats, and is known among us for his signature habit of making everyone in the class come up to the front one by one and enact some version of the following play:

Trainer: "HEY MAN, WHAS YO NEM?"
Student: "Ben."
Trainer: "AGAIN!"
Student: "Ben." [louder]
Trainer: "AGAIN!"
Student: "BEN!"
Trainer: "WHA CUM FRO?"
Student: "AMERICA"
Trainer: "WHHHOOOOAAAAAYYYY!" [applause]

In this way, he has quickly gained a reputation for comforting boisterousness, and insistence on participation and enthusiasm. Like the rest of the trainers, his English is very patchy, but, also like the others, he is evidently not at all self-conscious about that fact, and corrects and encourages students constantly, even if sometimes unintelligibly.

The other trainer is a man I have only met once, when I was temporarily assigned to the intermediate mats on my first day. He is about the same height as the young man mentioned above, with a short mop of dark hair that seems generally unregarded by its owner. He is somewhat older than his counterpart in this story, though not as old as Deng, whose lined and weathered face mark him out as significantly more advanced than most of his colleagues. My own experience with this man was admittedly brief, but in the short time that he held the pads for me, he mocked me twice, and openly laughed at me three times. He usually has a somewhat dour expression on his face when I see him walking around the camp, and he seldom intermingles with other classes of students.

What took place between these two today may seem at first glance to be rather insignificant, but to me it was quite striking. When the class was divided into manageable groups, as inevitably it would have to be, these two, along with one other trainer who regularly helps in the beginner classes, took me and several other students off to the side to do a few drills. In the course of these exercises, I noticed the former of the two in question (I'll call him Trainer A, as I'm tired of doing anything else) was acting a bit strangely, and that his attitude was a bit less enthusiastic, and a bit more irritable, than was his custom. I did very little work with Trainer B, but from what I noticed, he seemed to be his usual self.

At one point, however, the two of them, in the process of changing partners, walked past each other in opposite directions, and for some reason, neither of them moved aside to let the other pass through all the other bodies surrounding them. When I saw them bump into each other in my peripheral vision, I looked over, and saw an expression on both faces that I had yet to encounter on this side of the Pacific. They were glaring at each other in a very peculiar way; they weren't aggressive, but as they rotated slowly, neither twisting unduly to let the other pass, they both glanced up and down the other, appraisingly, and their eyes were hard, and much colder than any weather ever seen on this island.

The moment passed quickly, and I'm not sure that anyone else even noticed. As Trainer A approached me to continue the drill, he grimaced at the ground, shook his head, gave me a quick frowning, quizzical expression, and then shrugged, rolled his shoulders, and resumed his customary energy, though slightly dampened as it had been all morning.

As I thought about this later, I realized that though I have no idea what the story was behind these two, there is no reason for me to be as surprised by the incident as I was. The two could be rivals, enemies, or even unfamiliar coworkers who suddenly shared a bad day, but I was starkly reminded that it would be a mistake for me to reduce any of these men to the caricatures that they so deliberately create during class.

For example, just an hour ago, I was eating lunch by myself at the bar when I saw Deng walking by. I nodded to him, and he smiled briefly and looked at the ground. He swatted me softly with a stick he was carrying on his way past and chuckled quietly, and suddenly, in stark contrast to the shouting, constantly animated figure I was used to from class, I saw a rather shy and dignified middle-aged man, walking home from work alone.

In short, I suppose it's just good to be reminded that people who speak my language in only a broken and somewhat endearing way are presumably quite articulate in their own. It is easy to get lost in the image that people deliberately present, particularly when one doesn't have the cultural understanding to read between the lines of another person's actions or behaviors.

What is all the more striking is that there have been two other incidents in the past few days which have made me think that Deng rather likes me, but in hindsight, I feel that I've acted something of an ass. After my second class with Deng, he took me aside and shook my hand, saying "I am happy with today training. You keep a-work hard."

Then he walked away. I jogged after him, thanking him and jokingly threatening him in the way that he had done to the students during the class, but though he smiled offhandedly, he seemed somewhat uncomfortable as he left, comparatively unresponsive.

Similarly, during class today he wrapped my hands for me before we put on the boxing gloves, and while that was done in silence (which I foolishly mistook for awkward, not knowing, myself, how to start a conversation), as he strapped my gloves on, he asked suddenly, "Wer you from?"
"United States," I responded, as jovially as I could make it.
He nodded at the ground and said rather gravely, "Oh, ok. My girlfriend in United States. Hawaii. She come here visit me 18th. She come it's my birday."
"That's awesome!" (in my wincing memory I shouted this, though I hope I wasn't that obnoxious) "Happy birthday!"
"Oh, yes." Deng nodded, before suddenly walking away again.

In hindsight, I realize that Deng respects me in class, because I don't talk to the other students during drills (which is oddly rare, considering how much it seems to irritate the trainers), and because I always go until I'm utterly spent. I'm glad for that, but I realize now that he was not trying to start a conversation with me, or wanting us to become the type of friends who sit down over glasses of beer to discuss women or the world. In his own way, which, it turns out, is rather awkward and reserved, he was simply trying to show that he had noticed me particularly, and to pay me the compliment of telling me something about him personally. In both cases, the image that I had gained in class of the loud, goofy, somewhat ridiculous and absolutely un-self-conscious Muay Thai trainer blinded me from seeing a simple man who on his own never seems to speak loudly or rashly, and who is willing to attempt to be sincere to some foreign kid of whom he actually knows very little.

Next time I think I'll just say thank you, and try not to proclaim too loudly the merits of a gesture I still don't fully understand.

See? Not die!

Tonight will be my third night at Tiger Muay Thai training camp, and as I'm sitting here on my meager mattress in my 10'x10' sauna of a room, I'm finally starting to get a realistic picture of what the next few months will be like.

The day that I arrived I spent settling in, trying to get the lay of the complex and figuring out some of the administrative concerns. At the reccommendation of the front office, I didn't train during the afternoon training session, so that I could start a whole day on the morrow. Overall, I suppose my accommodations could be worse, as I have a television, a large wardrobe, and a small refrigerator all to myself, but my bed would be more appropriately termed a cot, with a mattress not wider than my index finger is long. Also, what I was led to believe was an air-conditioned room has turned out to in fact be a small room with three windows and a wall-mounted fan; the air circulates well, but it's just as hot outside, so little is gained. While I admit I was unimpressed by the room when I walked in, I've done what I can to forget my expectations, and I think I'm adapting well. My sleep schedule is a bit tangled with a twelve-hour time difference, but there's no shortage of fatigue, so it's been easier to adjust than perhaps it would be otherwise.

I'll skim over the second day of my stay, as I really wasn't able to accomplish much due to lack of sleep and the vague cold that I seem to get every time I change continents. I tried to go to a conditioning class that morning before the real workout began, but I was thoroughly murdered after even that first hour, so apart from a feeble attempt at jogging in the afternoon, I spent the rest of the day just trying to recover.

Today was the third day that I've been in Thailand, and for the first time I really felt the full force of Tiger Muay Thai training. Opting out of the supplemental conditioning class, I went straight to the regular morning training session, which, it turns out, is four hours long. I can say with certainty that I worked more in those four hours than in any other full day of my life. We jogged, we shadow-boxed, we did burnout drills on the pads, we sparred at 50% speed and power, we did more jogging, we did more shadow-boxing, we did more drills on the pads, and then we did 300 sit-ups and 100 push-ups, after which the trainer made us lie on our backs while he slammed a 15-pound medicine ball into our stomachs between 20 and 60 times depending on the person (I was assigned a gentleman's 40). Needless to say, I didn't manage to stagger out of my room for the afternoon session, which, I'm told, is the hard part.

All that said, I have to say that the most remarkable thing about the training here is the trainers themselves. With perhaps three or four exceptions, the instructors are all native Thais, and they speak a broken but fervent brand of English which makes up in intensity and volume what it lacks in grammar and syntax. It is important for me to point out, however, that these men are not drill sergeants, or even any close approximation to them. They yell constantly, but in more of a playful, even joyous way. They grin at us encouragingly from behind their wrapped fists, and they give visceral cries of "uuaaahhh!" and "eeeeeaaayyyy!" when we deliver a solid blow. Needless to say, they make it clear that our limbs are simply incapable of doing them any damage, but they regularly offer words of dubious encouragement, clapping us on the back with arms made of iron and knotted rope and delightedly crying "See? Not die!"

Right now I am more sore than I can ever remember being before. My knuckles are bruised and split despite the handwraps and 16oz. gloves, but somehow I'm still looking forward to seeing these jolly little boxing gnomes tomorrow, as they show me other things which, despite my previous expectations, will leave me 'not dead' again.

Watching From Above

I’ve just arrived in Hong Kong, and I think that the adventure has begun. I slept fitfully throughout the 18 hours that was last night, and during each period of wakefulness I was struck by the utter darkness that surrounded the plane. When I looked out the window, there were some moments when I could make out the surface of clouds below us, and thereby differentiate between the ocean and the sky, but for the most part, there was just darkness. About an hour outside of Hong Kong, however, I started to see shapes of light down below, and I don’t think that I can quite describe the experience that followed.

I mentioned in previous posts that I am very conscious of a feeling of isolation when in other countries, caused by the constant knowledge that I am a foreigner. Until today, my only real experience with being in a foreign country was my stay in Western Europe, which, I realized this morning, really doesn’t measure up on the “You Ain’t From ‘Round Here” scale.

As the plane got closer to the city, I saw small groups of lights from below, and I still have no idea what they could have possibly been. I recognized boats here and there, but there were also giant circles and lines made of lights strung together with nothing within them, like a luminous connect-the-dots picture that no one had bothered to color in. Once we got over the harbor itself, however, I could at least make out, in a general sense, what was below me, but I was still awestruck. Just before the sky started to turn blue-gray in the east, there were hundreds of ships moving out from the ports. They seemed, from above, to be in a rough sort of grid, though with a lot of space between them, like a mismatched armada in an unenthusiastic traffic-jam.

I remember distinctly that all of the lights on the water, recognizable or not, gave me such a strong sense of foreignness, seemed so quintessentially alien to my own experience, that it really hit me how far I was from home. I should also note that this was not at all an unpleasant feeling, but rather just a concrete manifestation of the otherness that I suppose pervades all international travel, and which is also the cause for great excitement.

We landed at sunrise. As we flew over the city itself, I could see so many lights from unimaginable numbers of people, with large blots of darkness oozing through them in the shapes of small harbors and coves. It wasn’t until the sun finally started shedding direct light, however (which actually wasn’t until we had just begun our taxi to the airport), that I realized that there are mountains all around the city, and that the clouds really do cling to the tops of them much like I’ve seen in every Chinese martial arts movie. Flying over Hong Kong, it is impossible to ignore that this is one of the great cities of the world. Skyscrapers stretch across the horizon for as far as the eye can see; shipyards load and unload massive freighters carrying hundreds of boxes, each bigger than three American houses put together. There is a constant coming and going which is evident even from miles above; the very atmosphere shudders with the life force of the place, and above it all loom the majestic sillhouettes of the mountains cloaked in mist.

Granted, after we landed, some of the romance was broken up by the series of tests and checks for H1N1 symptoms to which we were all subjected, combined with (it seemed to me) a rather poorly organized security checkpoint through which we were all slowly herded, but those details are better saved for amusing anecdotes to be told in person. Right now, sitting at the gate, waiting for my final flight which will at last take me to Phuket, I’m still thinking about the view from the sky.

Proverbial Twilight, Literal Midnight

[The following two posts are published late; I wrote them in places without free internet, and I wasn't willing to pay for it. Now I'm at the gym, and these were some of my thoughts on the trip.]

It’s cold in the airport.

I’m sitting at the end of the east wing of the international terminal in San Francisco, and I have come down enough escalators and flights of stairs that I’m thoroughly convinced that I’m underground, and I mistrust the dim silhouettes of aircraft which drone through the darkness past the window at the end of the hall.

I’ve never been in a terminal quite like this; I’m used to having windows on all the walls, but here at the end of the pier one has only the comparatively narrow perspective of just one wall of glass. I think a menopausal woman may have gotten ahold of the air conditioning, and the metal arms of the chairs at the gate are distractingly cold, burrowing through the sleeves of my shirt to clutch at my forearms.


From my place amongst the rigid rows of black pleather-covered seating, I can see the base of the escalator which deposited me unceremoniously on the semi-reflective stone floor in the middle of this long chamber, and I’m watching other people glide down one by one, each glancing around expressionlessly for a moment before moving in the direction of their gate.
It’s pretty quiet here at the end of the terminal. My flight for Hong Kong doesn’t leave for another two hours or so, and as it’s already rather late there is little other activity. Those who are already seated at gates are mostly either sleeping or overgrown by headphone wires, their private soundtracks sprouting out of their ears and covering their whole bodies like ivy on old brick buildings. No one is talking, and I can hear the murmurs of passing crowds from the level above, and the jarring and intrusive voice of an airport administrator who chimes in every few minutes to tell us how likely we all are to die if we accept candy from strangers.

As of about ten minutes ago, my phone finally stopped functioning, and I just had time to send my parents a brief message, and tell a beautiful woman that I loved her, before my service was deactivated in preparation for my stay abroad. For some reason, it was this final goodbye which made this trip as real as it has yet been, and as I sit here now it seems wrong that I still have two hours to wait until I cross the ocean. For some reason, it always seems that one’s departure should immediately follow the most poignant goodbyes, and as a well-trained American movie-goer I find myself unable to occupy myself through the proverbial twilight, having spoken my last lines in the late afternoon and expected an immediate sunset into which I might ride. Instead, I’m sitting in a cold airport, unable to stop picturing a camera panning back and forth between myself and sleeping faces of family and friends, an acoustic guitar playing in the background.

Forgive my sentimentality; it’s late, my body thinks it’s even later, and I am beset by that intolerable restlessness for which the only cure is to quote Tennyson.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.