The Mons

These two holy images adorn the small chapel in the Catholic Bishops' Conference building where I have my desk with the Catholic Commission on Migration.  They are the pride of our Monsignor V, one of the characters of my Bangkok.  Monsignor names himself as the parish priest of the Bishops' Conference, a role which he fills gallantly and with his own style. In his role, he is someone who brings a whole new and needed approach to this sometimes staid Church of Thailand.  I like the guy. 

The Mons comes to us after having spent over 25 years in the diplomatic corps of the Holy See.  He knows and loves Rome, while having had postings in Ireland, Indonesia, Ethiopia.   After such experiences and a life lived on the international level of both world and Church, he now adds to the Thai Church a much needed level of sophistication.  I say this as I would name that this Church lacks an appreciation of the universal Church, of belonging to a body that is much wider than itself.   

The Mons is ever friendly and hospitable, being ever so human with others.  He is a transparent human being who is just so funny and appealing while he talks seriously about the issues of his daily life.  For me in my Bangkok, he is a breath of fresh air.

I do not share this so as to be able to praise the Monsignor.   Rather my wish is to share one of my characters in my Bangkok and what he brings to it - a healthy sense of the outrageous and a sense of new life.  The two images shown here may not seem much to others but they speak heaps of who the Mons is to those around him for they symbolise two of my experiences of him. 

One is his generosity as he bought these himself and placed them in the chapel simply because he values them and wants to share them with the community.  The other is that the crucifix is a rather non- traditional style, and it is this that the Mons openly shares with us, another way of being and presenting Church.  I appreciate both sides of who he is to us, his parishioners, as he so happily names us. 

My characters in my Bangkok are numerous and varied.  Some are a bit questionable but all, like the Mons, are likeable characters, living life in their own unique style.  They take that extra step in life and in doing so offer to those around them a bit more than the usual, a taste for what life could be if only we ventured out a bit more and did things a bit differently. 

The Many Faces of Intolerance.

This picture shows the vigil held in Bangkok in front of the US Embassy to honour the victims of the recent Orlando shooting.  In sharing this, I am not focusing on the tragedy itself but on what laid behind it - the prejudice and accompanying hatred aimed at others we perceive as different or as a threat.

I choose this as a local story of prejudice is the story associated with this local vigil.  It is a story of intolerance in Thailand which opened my mind to another insight into my Thailand and which jolted me in my own assumptions.  Intolerance and discrimination were among the key factors that led to the Orlando killings.  They exist everywhere even in Thailand where order and beauty and happiness are always held up as existing values defining the local scene.

The Thai story in question is of a university professor in Bangkok who publicly decried the appearance of one of his students, saying that because of his looks the student should not have been admitted to the university as he would give the institution a bad name.  This same student, an activist, was a leader at the Bangkok vigil for Orlando.  I first thought that this was an anti-gay stance aimed at the student but my assumption was wrong.

On doing my homework, I discovered that the professor perpetrating the discrimination was himself gay.  He was aiming at the student whom he despised for being a known political activist who has led a stance against the present military government.   The reality is that the professor is against the student for his politics and so publicly insulted his student due to his own level of political prejudice and intolerance.  Basically, being an elitist intellectual, the professor just does not approve of a student taking an opposing political stance in society.  So he is using the students' looks as his way to publicly attack and silence the student.  The real issue is politics. The tool used by the professor was to throw personal insults in the public arena. 

The divide here is not sexual orientation but political.  I discover through this article that a way being used these days to attack your political foes in Thailand is not by reasoned argument but by name calling and referring to those on the opposite side of the fence as being gay.

Now in a Thailand presumably tolerant towards people of different sexual orientations, I am discovering otherwise and that personal discrimination is alive and well, using personal abuse to insult and put down your political foes.  Surprise, surprise!  Intolerance reigns in Thailand as elsewhere.  It just may be more subtle here.

My other insight gained from this story is that it is not always the gay person who is the victim.  A gay person can also be the perpetrator.  Intolerance and discrimination go across all boundaries.  No matter your race, religion, class, sexual orientation, gender, all people can be both victims  and perpetrators of intolerance and discrimination.

A happy group

This week, I share a picture that shows part of my world in Bangkok - the National Catholic Commission on Migration.  The occasion was our six monthly meeting.  You see here all the characters of the outfit and some of them do get mentioned along the way in this blog.  So you might as well get a look at them and see that I do share about real live people.  . 

I have to say as I look at this picture that it amazes me how much good a small group of people can achieve.  It is refreshing to appreciate the good in others as so often we mention others for all the wrong reasons.

The day after this meeting, I had breakfast with a good friend living in retirement in Thailand from Chicago.  He lives in Jomtien and whenever he comes to town, we get together for breakfast at his hotel.  At the end of our breakfast this time, I was asking myself if we had been too negative.  You can guess what we were talking about - politics in the US and Australia but also the life we experience in Thailand.

It strikes me that us expats (I am named as an expat and not as a migrant worker and sometimes I wonder why I get a such a much nicer sounding title in English) spend so much of our time dissecting the country and the people we are immersed in and so much of it can sound so negative.  Stop!

I say to myself that it is not being negative but being realistic and striving to make sense of what we are caught up in, and that is important for appreciation of one's environment and acting on it within it for good.  Otherwise we live a reactionary life, simply suffering what is dished out to us by those around us.

Reality is that life is not all smiles and happiness even in the Land of Smiles.  Everywhere has its strengths and weaknesses, its positives and negatives.  Unlike the rest of the world, here suffers from being presented in the extreme - being the land full of gentle, beautiful people where everyone is happy.  Truth is that here is like everywhere else with its own uniqueness and different characteristics, and its people are human just like on the rest of the planet.  I will often say that I am beyond what I name as the "WOW factor" of Thailand.

Still it is a good place to be with good people and great opportunity.  I appreciate my life here for what it is and what I am able to do, offer and enjoy in the world.   What more can I ask for?

The people that make up my world here are good people but human people which is essential to acknowledge.  Like the rest of humanity, they are limited and fragile, and they are free to be so.  Let them be normal human beings and not exceptional human beings as the system here may like to present.  To think otherwise is dangerous and unfair and leads to distorted thinking and action.  We just soldier on together, making the most of what we enjoy and doing the best we can with what we've got.  What more can one ask for?  Thank God for these happy and normal people with whom I share my life, no matter how limited they may be.  I just have to keep reminding myself of this or otherwise I may easily fall into the dangerous trap of over expectation or over negativity.

Living with oneself

How do you live with yourself when having so much money, power and status gives you (or so you think) permission just to walk all over the little people that you see there below you?  These are the "hi-sos" of Thai society.  "Hi-so" is the local slang for those in Thai 'high society'. 

This is a question I face often living in such a strongly hierarchical and somewhat ruthless society.  I see the "hi-sos" of society from afar and I see how they treat their underlings, and I don't like what I see.  .

My latest case comes through my neighbour.  His great Thai friend who has his own little business in Pattaya had a motorbike accident last week.  He had been hit from behind by another bike whose rider was speeding with his mates and lost control, thus hitting the friend's bike and causing significant damage to both bike and person.

For a week, the poor guy has been receiving treatment and hurting and off from his business.  His bike is in need of serious repair.  Then a week after the accident, he met with the parents of the lad, who had caused the accident with his reckless riding, and their lawyer.  This was to allow negotiations and settlement to occur between the parties.  It happened at the police station and lasted six hours.  The basic aim was to allay and accept blame and then have the aggrieved party compensated.  This is the way justice works here.  Accidents and wrongs are dealt with like business deals.  Needless to say, you have to be wary as the more powerful party is more likely to win the case, and that is what happened here yet again.

The parents of the other and better placed party claimed that their son was not at fault and so there was no payment due from them to the friend.  That was it.  They did however offer a smaller sum than was justly due as a way of showing good intent. So the friend who was not to blame got the blame anyway and went away luckily not having to pay himself, while being kindly granted a small pay off.  I find this appalling.  Sadly this is so typical of what happens here when the so called "hi-so" cause grief to others.  They are just able to walk away taking no responsibility for their action.

They may get away with it but I ask myself this question - how can these people live with themselves?

Human trafficking, sex trade, under age sex workers, drugs, corruption - surprisingly (or so they say) found all in one this week at a very large and well known massage parlour in Bangkok run and frequented by the local population.

Early morning Bangkok

I don't know what it was about what I was seeing this morning while waiting at the bus stop but I had to take a photo.  It was speaking to me at the moment.  Nothing momentous, nothing dramatic!  It just spoke to me. 

As usual I was at my bus stop by 6am to get the bus to work.  It is better to go early so as to beat the traffic and so not waste lots of time.  Right by my bus stop is one of the innumerable spots on the streets of Bangkok where people just place their rubbish for it to be picked up later by the rubbish man, and it works.  So the pile of rubbish is there every morning. 

This morning was a little different when along comes a decrepit looking, old lady in her pyjamas.  She hobbled along so as to reach the pile of rubbish near me and purposefully scrounge through it.  I was watching in amazement.  What is she on about?  Is she so poor that she is rummaging through the rubbish seeking some possible item of worth?  I am thinking how can she go through other people's rubbish with her bare hands, and in her pyjamas.  No class! 

Then I see the end product of her quest.  She had seen a box and was after it at all costs.  The determined, old woman got her prize.  She left with it and I still wondered - what is she on about?

Maybe the question for me really is this - why did it attract so much of my attention early in the morning.  

What I saw was an old woman able to act to get what she wanted.  While doing so, she lived in her own world, not being aware of anyone around her.  She was totally in her own bubble, determined and totally focused.  And on what?  One item in a heap of dirty rubbish. So what was it for me?

• That, in a society so ruled by appearances, this woman did not care one iota what anyone else may think.  She just did it.

• That this woman was so poor that she needed to do this as she could not get what she wanted by normal means.

• That this woman was resourceful and just saw an item she could use and so why have it wasted.

• That she was alone in a society where family and their elderly are so important and people just cannot understand why you would live alone.  

• That this woman was poor and no one really cared in a society so strong into order.

• That, for a people so concerned with cleanliness, this old woman was dirtying herself in public. 

This early morning scene not only grabbed my focus but, for some reason, shocked me.  I am not sure why but I can see that what I experienced was touching on a number of central themes arising in my Bangkok.

Amazing Thailand remains ever the mystery.