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.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, September 7, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, September 4, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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