Where thro' gleams that untravelled world: How many Buddhas does it take to change a lightbulb?

None, the change must come from within.

Alright, it's a terrible pun, but I'm in the land of smiles now, so give me at least a half-smile, half-groan.

Welcome to Thailand, dear readers! I am currently at a hostel in Bangkok, leaving tomorrow to begin training for the coming year. Sure there's a lot to see in Bangkok that I haven't seen yet, but Ive been running since I hit the ground and fighting jet lag, so I'm allowing myself to veg in the hostel for a few hours to get an update out to you. After all, it's not like I'm running short on months to see more of Bangkok.

My wee little legs are tired from all the exploring. The past few weeks in the US were delightful, but I intentionally spent them doing not-a-lot, other than eating and getting used to driving again. Man, America has SO much food, like, that's what being home seems to be all about. Things that seem novel in a place like Mexico (or Thailand) are commonplace, so I found myself staring with awe at tubs of hummus and jars of pesto. Trader Joe's was a religious experience--a land of manna, milk and honey. It's not that everywhere else I've been hasn't liked to eat, it's just the sheer convenience factor in the States, I don't have to be fabulously wealthy to get a variety of foods. Convenience was one of the strange things about being home. Having gotten used to pedestrian life on an island, the fact that I could just hop in a car and drive to whatever was great but strangely awful at the same time. It made everything so easy that the same tubs of hummus or jars of pesto didn't have the effect that they did whenever I scored them in Mexico. It was all a bit too easy, it took some of the challenge and fun out of daily living. Of course, if I had a job in the States, I wouldn't be looking to grocery stores to provide my daily challenges, just a strange personal observation I had given my circumstances.

Also, everything in the US just seemed to be "er." Bigger, faster, brighter, hotter, colder, etc. Thanks to the super cold of air conditioning and the super hot of the ridiculously well-pressured showers together my skin got really sensitive and dry. I could have taken cold showers, yes, but miss out on the glory of hot, super-pressured showers for my limited stay? Not a chance!

On a related note, when I was first starting anthropology in college, I was handed a famous article "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema." As any former anthropology student knows, the secret to the article is in the title. SPOILER: Spell "Nacirema" backward! The article more or less lampoons the sense that anthropology is to be performed as if other cultures were, well, backward. It suggests a bit of introspection using the supposed impartiality of anthropological research. We look pretty funny if you do that, no? Which is perhaps half the fun of leaving for a long time. The US is kind of a funny place when you finally come back, because the familiar is suddenly cause for pause and reflection and sometimes great humor.

Some general trends that stood out after a year away:
-Americans are TOTALLY obsessed with their pets. Pets make the covers of magazines, they are special segments on most news shows, and have you seen the supermarket pet aisle? They sell dog ice cream for heaven's sake!

-Pop music trends currently seem to blend varying parts 80s and Justin Timberlake for inspiration.

-We are really obsessive about cars, like ridiculously so.

-What makes Cheez-its so delicious? They are the crack of snack. Thank God I don't see them much when I'm abroad.

-We watch a hell of a lot of t.v., and almost anyone who is a figure/celebrity on American television is a blowhard or a ditz. This is not to suggest that t.v. is more highbrow anywhere else, just again a reflection of my personal experience, given that I don't watch a lot of t.v. abroad.

Anyway, it was wonderful to spend time with family, including extended family, and I am grateful I had the time (however brief) to hang out and catch up with some people.

Now, perhaps Buddha-inspired, I'm back to life "in the moment," Bangkok. Incidentally, even if it took 100,000 Buddhas to change a lightbulb, I am more than certain that Bangkok's Buddha population would be up to the challenge. There are sitting Buddhas, standing Buddhas, reclining Buddhas, green Buddhas, black Buddhas, gold Buddhas, flaky gold Buddhas, HUGE Buddhas, wallet-sized Buddhas, on and on and on. I am not, of course, talking about any living Buddhas, just the icons and statues that are ALL over the city. Peppered among the Buddhas are Ganeshes and Brahmas, as well as crescents and crosses, signs of complex and long-lived ties with many parts of the world.

One of the first maps of the city that I picked up explained how the number 9 was very lucky and gave the locations of nine temples and shrines, Buddhist and otherwise, throughout the city. I thought it would be auspicious to start my year (and my new cultural training) with a visit to nine temples, a feasible goal for a 2-day jaunt. I didn't go to all of the ones they suggested, but found some lovely surprises instead for a few and did ultimately visit 9. I did take my visits seriously as a spiritual experience, out of respect for local beliefs; it wasn't just for tourism.

One of my offerings at Wat Pho ("wat" translates as temple). When entering any site, it is imperative to remove your shoes. It seems typical across temples that 20 baht (approximately 67 cents) buys you a lotus flower, a small yellow candle, incense sticks in multiples of 3, and sometimes a garland of jasmine. These are then brought to the shrine and it seems there's no hard and fast rule about what order to place them, how long to hold on to them, whether or not to use them while praying, etc.

Lighting my incense at Golden Mountain, a much-touristed but beautiful shrine in the center of the city.

Another offering at a small shrine along one of Bangkok's main thoroughfares.

Three lotus blossoms waiting to bloom at a shrine near Siam Center, a hub of expensive shopping, Starbucks and cosmopolitan-ness.

Some wilting jasmine blossoms left in the hand of a Buddha.

One of Bangkok's most famous shrines, the Erawan Shrine. This one contains a four-faced Brahma, though many people mistake it for a Buddha. It was built to rectify an inauspicious start date for the adjacent hotel. When construction began on the hotel, work kept stopping and stalling, and strange events were spooking the workers. An expert was brought in, and he believed the cornerstone had been laid on a bad day, and it must be corrected with a shrine. After it was built, work finished without a hitch and many people believe their wishes have come true thanks to visiting the shrine. If you have a wish granted, you can praise the god by hiring traditional Thai dancers to perform in front of the shrine. The combination of dancers, story line, wishes, etc. has cemented this onto the tourist map, so it's always packed. The incense is so thick around the shrine that my hair smelled of it until late that night.

The Thai royal family is revered by many Thais, in part because they helped keep Thailand, or Siam, an independent state when all of their neighbors fell to colonial powers. You can find multiple royal shrines and statues throughout the city, and people pray at these much as they would at any shrine, flowers and candles and incense, etc. The current King is the world's longest serving monarch, you can find photos of he and the Queen meeting with President Eisenhower, for example. Pretty wild when you think about it. It can actually be a criminal offense to say anything negative about the King, but it doesn't seem that there are many people who would want to say anything negative anyway, he is a hugely popular figure here.

This is a monstrously-sized Buddha (if he stood up, he could totally trash Godzilla, not that 'trashing' people is the Buddha's style). This picture doesn't quite convey it, since it obviously won't fit into a camera lens. But...

These are just his feet, to give a sense.

The aesthetic and sensations of Thailand are completely different than anywhere else I've ever been. The smells are all new, consisting primarily of jasmine, chicken satay, pollution, incense, and car exhaust. The sounds are different, lots of bells and jangles and motorcycles and long vowel-y, tonal syllables. The color palette is surprisingly feminine; many taxis are bright pink and some buses are pepto-bismol colored. The Thai airlines colors are gold, purple and pink, and shrines, tuk tuks and homes are all coated in flowers. As for tastes, well, don't tell me you haven't tried Thai food! The city is awash in contradictions, modern and glamorous as well as run-down and backwater; young and hip and traditional and ancient; absolutely packed with harried traffic, yet blissfully calm inside the shrines and massage centers. (Yes, I went for a Thai massage today, which cost a whole of...200 baht for a whole hour! An hour-long massage may sound indulgent, but given that 200 baht is under $7, it's less indulgent than some of the options at the Siam Center Starbucks. Furthermore, Thai massage is not the most relaxing, given that the masseuse has got her whole body into the act, pushing you around with her feet and whatnot. It was definitely needed after the long flights to get over here!).

Garlands on the end of a traditional Thai longboat (outfitted with a funny little propeller on the end of an oar). I took a river taxi to see some of the shrines and came across lots of boats like this out on the muddy water. How strange to see so much dirty old river water less than a month after the Caribbean!

I am enjoying exploring, to be sure, but I definitely don't feel anywhere near living here. I shouldn't, of course, I didn't feel it in Mexico at first either. But this is such a different experience that it's going to take awhile. Strangely, I was taken aback by how the time difference between here and home (12 hours) has given me homesickness. Before I shared at least part of the day or a whole day, with family and friends, and now it feels like I'm totally opposite, like I can't be on the same page as people. And, damn, Thai is hard. This is going to merit it's own blog post soon, so I'll be succinct for now. Despite spending hours learning how to read and basic tone rules, I still know absolutely nothing. Going from essential fluency in Spanish to a place where I'm not sure how to say "bus station" is clearly humbling and frustrating, but ultimately a good experience. And though most people I know who've been to Thailand say that most people speak English, I am not most travelers, and I always have a knack for getting myself into places where no one does speak English (I think this comes from a preference for walking to destinations whenever possible). I also feel like there are a million unwritten cultural norms and etiquette rules that I've never learned and that I'm tripping all over. I have to keep reminding myself that this is only day 2, for heaven's sake, so I should be easy on myself. I've got 363 days to figure it out...and Burmese...and some Mon.

Anyway, I'm feeling jet-lagged and my tight packing of 2 days ago has already exploded into a mess which must be organized. Bus early tomorrow morning! I leave you with some images of a more familiar culture...sometimes I love you, globalization.