Today has been a good day

I am following my philosophy for this year to take more time out.  With an old friend in town on his way back to Australia after being in Rome for a conference for priests, I had a perfect opportunity to take a day off and relax and unwnd.   So out I went to the airport hotel, where he was for the day, to have lunch with my friend.  It was such good fun to catch up with someone whom I had not seen for over 10 years. 

It was a much appreciated time after facing two huge days of trying to be a manager in a Thai workplace.   Refreshing even!

Now, what were these two days?  In the midst of much work activity, I was involved in or observing the Thai process in my office for making a decision on staff salary increases for 2015.  What I saw I judged to be quite bizarre.  I would think it to be a delicate matter.  I would think that it could be dealt with by looking up pay scales but there is no such thing.  Then I would think one would proceed in a specifically chosen and planned way that respects the important and delicate nature of the task.  There was none of this.

What transpired was that the Thai employer, the bishop, entrusted senior Thai staff to run their process of assessing staff salaries and report to him.  They were part of the decision making that concerned both their peers and themselves.  I thought this a grossly unfair burden for them but one they took on with great gusto.  But then this was happening in a culture so strongly based on patronage, seniority and hierarchy where ones just accept, at least outwardly, what is presented to them by therir superiors.  So they were expected to act but for two reasons.  One because they were asked by the bishop.  The other was because they were senior in the workplace and so they themselves expected to act on this group task and as well they were expected by the group to act for them.   

So the 'gang of three' came up with their agreed recommendations which they presented to the bishop who guess what?  He did not approve, saying their increases were far too high.  He then took their list and declared his own acceptable level of pay for staff.  The three took the list back, agreed to the boss' recommendations of the now reduced increases and presented his list back to him for his approval. 

I would say then that it was a process that was not a process.  It was about the boss having control all the time under the guise of teamwork.  I believe this to be more than just a bizarre practice but to be unprofessional and questionable as it takes an integral and valued, employer responsibility of upholding justice for all staff and uses it to remind the staff who is in control.  All along, the boss set the agenda and was making the decision.  The boss' agenda was to give pay increases to staff but it was much more than that.  It was even about more than just work hard and getting paid for that.     

It was a strange experience for me as I tried to understand what was happening and assert as best I could all along my one principle to see that all staff were treated fairly and justly.  It was an experience of being here where you are included but you are not and where you see how the culture of position and status acts in its own way to protect its own interests.     

I was exhausted at the end of all this.  So my day off was a needed day, a day to take time away and out and be in a different place in life. 

I have a new girlfriend

Guess what?  Over New Year I finally got out of Bangkok for a couple of days.  I just don't get away enough and I know that is not goos for me. 

I went with my good Thai friend, Om, to his home in Buriram Province up in the northeast of Thailand which is called Isan.  His family home is in a simple village and there I met a new girlfriend.  She has a great smile and loves to dance.  She just happens to be 77 and Om's grandmother.

New Year and not Christmas is the real holiday in Thailand.  It is when they all go home to be with their family.  So off I went out of Bangkok up country, along with millions of others.  It was a short adventure, enjoyable and different.  I discovered that this was what I needed in my life - get out of Bangkok and do something different.  It was so refreshing. 

It all started with New Year's dinner which was a family dinner at their father's house, sitting on the floor, sharing the food before us.  There was a simple exchange of gifts.  Then everyone went home or onto Buriram football stadium for New Year's Eve countdown.  Buriram has the best football team in the country. 

You could hear and see home fireworks at midnight but no great display.  Then it was New Year's Day.  This is the big day in the provinces.  The centre of life and celebration for the day was the temple.  During the day, they had a fair where there were simple rides and games.  You could do bingo and darts, or there was a little merry-go-round for the children.  Families went to make merit during the day for the New Year with the monks.  Then the big event was the Isan concert.  Once again this was at the temple and up to 10,000 people came.  Amazing!

"Simple" was the descriptive word that keeps coming to me as I describe my short time away.  It was simple, nothing outlandish, but it was also enjoyable being shared with people who were friendly and gracious.  I returned to Bangkok with a clearer mind and feeling good about life.  I was no longer feeling that end of the year tiredness.  My "task oriented" mindset was left behind and I was refreshed by just getting away and being with people.  I had given a greater focus to relationships and let them do their work on me. 

Once again, people's kindness did its good work.  It is not complicated.  It is just the way it is when I open myself up to others and give time to getting out of my work routine, my "task oriented" mindset.  It is simple and it is refreshing and it does give life.  I just have to do it more often. 

There are those loose ends

Well, I hope Santa reached you and left some good cheer under that tree.  As for me, I am simply once again touched by the kindness of people at this time of year.  Family and friends from near and far have been most kind to me as have ones here with whom I am involved in my ministry.  All I can say is that people I know from Bangkok, Australia, wherever have been so kind to me and I think how good people are.  This is a good way to finish the year but this was not the way it was only last week. Then I felt much more tired, defeated or stretched in life. 

On my last day at the Caritas office on Christmas Eve, I went away thinking how much unfinished business I was leaving behind.  There were important tasks at hand but I could not finish them as they demanded the attention of more people than just me and in one way or another they were not there.   So as I approached finishing 2014 last week, my 'task oriented' mindset told me that I am finishing the year with many loose ends left undone.  Ho, hum! 

Then along came Christmas and I name it as my focus changed to my 'relationship oriented' mindset and my experience has been so much more positive.  So this week, I approach finishing the year with a healthy appreciation of humanity.  People have been good to me over these past few days and they have left their mark on me for the better.  My overwhelming sense is that I no longer feel tired, defeated or stretched. 

I wonder how to put these two mindsets or experiences of my life together.  I don't believe in compartmentalising life.  I also don't see that one mindset can be ignored while the other becomes dominant and rules the day.  The two I am sure speak to each other and go hand in hand.  There are the loose ends in my life but that does not take away from the fact that people are basically good and life has so much to offer. 

Maybe these two roads in my life come together through reflecting on another experience in my Bangkok.  It is Christmas - New Year and people flock here from the Australias of our world because they have found their bit of paradise, escape or just place of fun.  For them, here can be their El Dorado for now.  For me, this is home.  It can be anything but fun and my internal response to encountering these people can be a simple internal yell - Please!!!

Here is my place of work and daily struggle, it is my place of daily achievement and striving, the place where I meet people and friends on a daily basis.  As I reflect on life from this approach, I think good Pope Francis has something to offer me.  I need to have more fun and exercise that sense of humour.  I must not overemphasize the task focus in life at the expense of the relationship focus.  Life may have become too serious and in the process I just don't stop enough and enjoy the goodness of people around me.  As they say, I need to smell the flowers more. 

Yes, there are the loose ends but they don't really matter.  They are a part of life and the task will always remain undone.  What really matters is life itself and to savour and enjoy it, to savour and enjoy the people around me.  What matters is balance in life.  The task focus in life cannot take over from the relationship focus.  Both are important and have their place.  What, I would say, has primary place is relationships.  Never let the task lose sight of the people, never let the negative overcome the positive, never let the world's woes hide the world's joys and possibilities for goodness and greatness.  Good Pope Francis is right.  A healthy sense of humour is essential in life. 

I wonder if Santa has any loose ends at the completion of his annual tour of duty.  Well, loose ends or not, he knows that Christmas has to keep rolling on. 

Ho! Ho! Ho!  Happy New Year!

Have yourself a merry little Christmas!

Christmas recital at Holy Rosary church. 

Holy Rosary church is a lovely, old Catholic church in Bangkok near Chinatown and on the river.  It was built some 200 years ago as the church for the then Portugese community in the then Siam.  The Portugese were some of the Europeans living here in the kingdom's history for the sake of trade, diplomacy and business. 

I was at Holy Rosary Monday evening for a Christmas recital by the Bangkok Voices.  It was an uplifting experience, listening to the Christmas songs while looking around at the inside of the church with its many statues and symbols and wonderful sky or heavenly like ceiling.   

It was a good way to enter into Christmas week.  Their last song was particularly moving.  It was "The Prayer".  Celine Dion does a version as does Andrea Bocelli, or they sing it together.  I heard the words and felt they had a real message and here it is: 
"Let this be our prayer.  When shadows fill our day, lead us to a place, guide us with your grace. give us faith so that we'll be safe. 
..............
It's the faith you light in us.  I feel it will save us."

Merry Christmas!!!

What's the hurry?

On Sunday, I met with a great friend who is a Filipina and working here as a Director of an NGO.  When talking about being a boss here, I was amazed to hear her use the same line I use in dealing with Thai staff.  She simply said how they show no sense of urgency.  She sees all their work just building up, with so much being left undone until the very end. 

How true!  Nothing here is done quickly.  Many things are ongoing and just left unfinished.  Then the classic experience is seen when Thais want something done immediately in their time frame after leaving the same task go unattended for so long.  There is then a great rush and a demand for immediate action. 

Here there is no great sense of urgency amongst the general population and life just goes on and on and on.  I am reminded of this approach to life by the picture of last week of the two girls sleeping at the bus stop.  That is such a typical scene.  I am coming on the bus to work this morning and there are two school girls sitting together and both are sound asleep.  You wonder if they will ever wake up for their stop. 

It is a week before Christmas and this time of year has its own sense of urgency to get things done and be ready for the big day.  It is all go!  None of that here.  Life goes on at its own pace.  Nothing will move the people unless they want to be moved.  There is a general complacency, a certain laissez-faire among the population but there is much more to them than that.  This is not the whole story for you don't want to disturb them or disagree with them without expecting a backlash.  Like everything here, it highlights how complex the culture and the people are.  Nothing can ever be dealt with by a short essay.  Rather any understanding demands at least a chapter of a major thesis.

For someone like me, it keeps me ever awake and ever thinking on what is really happening and how best to approach life issues. 

Merry Christmas!

It's a tough time of year

Thais have the gift of sleep.  They can sleep anywhere.  It is a precious gift they have.  These two are sleeping while waiting for the bus for school along a busy street, and guess what?  They won't miss the bus. 

Maybe sleep is needed as we get up too early or maybe because the diet is not as nutritious as it could be or maybe it is the climate or maybe it is a docile approach to life or maybe it is just a good escape from a harsh reality.  Like everything here, I just don't know.  I will just speak for myself. 

Living here, every day I face the same dilemma encapsulated by the same basic question - what is happening here?  I receive a work communication and as I try to deal with the difficulty presented, I ask myself what is really happening here.  We are given a notice at work and what is it that is really being said.  I go out with Om last week to a grand community celebration and when it comes to going home, it is why are we still here? 

I am eventually told that, as a member of staff, he needed to stay back late and help clean up.  He never told me that.  Truth is that if I am told the score, I can deal with what is given.  However, time and again I am not told the score.  So what am I to do?There is nothing personal in this as it is just part of being here for all of us from outside.  We never seem to be told the score.
 
It makes me ask why aren't we told what is really going on around us.  Is it lack of trust, is it the way communication happens or fails to happen, is it lack of thought or is it the way it is planned?  I just don't know what it is.  All I can say is that it is part of being in Thailand.  So maybe sleep is the answer to what you can't control.  It is better than getting upset as that serves no purpose, getting you nowhere other than to destroy your day.  When times get tough, go and take a nap. 

We need each other

Early last Sunday morning, I was going to the cathedral for mass and I came across this whole team of women cleaning the footpath.  There were so many of them on one simple task.  They were working along Silom which is a major street.  With all of them on the footpath, you had to revert to using the road to walk.  What first struck me is that this is how Thais best operate - doing things together.  So I took the photo thinking that this so typifies the Thai approach to life. 

What I did not realise was that this was a precursor to my week which featured a three day regional workshop run by UNHCR.  It is because this workshop was all about partnering - partnering between UNHCR and all those agencies and others helping refugees.  The bottom line presented was that the refugee situation throughout the world is at a crisis level with UNHCR acknowledging that it cannot go it alone as it lacks a budget and resources to meet the need.  So they now turn to their partners in a special effort wherever and whoever they may be to work closer together for the good of the world's refugees. 

The ideal of working together remains the optimal way to go in all things as it shares resources and more importantly builds up relationships.  In our world ideals often become more a reality when the bottom line tells us that something is wrong and something different has to happen.  Our world can be so short term focused that we sacrifice good ideals which then come to the fore only when needed. What is worse is when I see ones using ideals as a way to get their own message across.  What I hate is the boss who proclaims teamwork but then acts to divide the team to get his own way.  I see this in church so often.  Working together is hard work and demands commitment and patience.  It is the way to go as I know only too well that I can't do it alone.  That is the truth. 

As I met ones working with UNHCR and other agencies from throughout Asia responding to refugees, I was struck by their simplicity and humility and their passion for a population in dire need.  In this group, there was a lot of skill and goodwill.  I was impressed. 

I look at the Thai women in this picture doing a simple and menial task and I can see how they have a real message for me.  Being there, I knew they were enjoying doing their work as they were doing it together.  They were getting the job done with a degree of enjoyment.  There is the lesson.  Whatever we do, it is more enjoyable and rewarding and more productive, when done together.