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.