A Day in the Life of Chaos

Everyone defines Shangri-la differently.  One of the first films I came to love was a 1937 epic by Frank Capra called Lost Horizon.  Despite being one of the best and most thoughtful films of its time ever produced not many people know about it.  The movie contained a message of peace and pacifism at a time when the world was gearing up for war.   In it, actor Ronald Coleman escapes the violence and turmoil of China to find the mythic Shangri-la lost in the Himalayas.  Shangri-la for Coleman was a peaceful place filled with beauty, thought and contemplation, yet for others it might be something completely different.  We all have our own definitions for everything in life.  Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously replied in 1964 when answering the question what is Justice Potter Stewart pornography? "I know it when I see it." In truth Shangri-la is a concept so intrinsically personal only you will know it when you find it.  It is very much like Buddhist enlighte

Bangkok is a city of a million faces and a million stories.   Each person lives a life independent with his or her own complications, anxieties, depressions and laments.   Joy often gives way to a daily existence of life and work interwoven in a fabric of traffic and noise.   Every day when I awaken I feel like I want to explore and understand.   I want to comprehend what drives each individual.   I want to learn about their lives however joyful or miserable.   I think in a hidden voyeuristic sort of way it encourages me to look beyond myself and discover a world I might otherwise never see. One day while walking down a busy Bangkok street the city of a million stories decided to give me a glimpse into a very different life. One of the great curiosities of Thailand for the Western mind is what here is known colloquially as the “Third Sex.”   In the west we view transgender issues as interwoven with gay rights.   It exists as a subset of the society.  Most people when confronte

Bangkok is not just the Capital of Thailand, it is truly an international city.   It is a crossroads of East and West and an inner gateway to Asia itself.    I am visiting the city this time on my own dime and the experience has forced me to scale back my travel budget some.   On business the hotels are four star.   Out of my pocket they are two.   One persistent reality in South East Asia is that pictures at least in a commercial sense, hardly ever depict reality.   It reminds me of the elegant model of a new housing project you will find in a mall.   Landscaped environment and perfect trees line elegant driveways moving toy cars from one point to another.   I glance at the brochures and am often captivated by the image they portray.  They are beautiful depictions of what life will be like if I was only to plop down a hundred thousand dollars and become a resident. If I was to personally visit the place I can say without question I will find something different.   Reality and id

Every nation has their sports.  American's love football, basketball and baseball, the world loves soccer.  This said, Thailand and sport is something I am still trying to figure out.  I do see a lot of jackets emblazoned with the names of English Premier League teams.    Chelsea, Manchester United... the list goes on.  That said I am still not sure there is a true passion for the game.   I am increasingly becoming convinced however that there is an unofficial sport here, the art of scooter riding. Perhaps it is the same way around South East Asia but with only the Philippines and a brief time in Shanghai to compare I must say, Thailand is on the cusp of this emerging sport.  Okay, maybe it will never make the big leagues but if each commute is equal to a game how many athletes can say that they survived death in the course of their match?  As a current resident of Thailand I have embraced this life or death struggle with all the veracity of a shark feasting upon a helpless swim

For better or for worse people come to Thailand to escape.  Oh some will emphatically tell you they came to find something but in truth there is a fine line between the two.  The very essence of escape allows us a chance for discovery. I grew up in the northern most outpost of the nation.   Living in Alaska there was always a long standing truth hanging over everyone's head.  With the exception of us who were born or simply raised there just about every adult moved north to get away from something.  My parents used to always joke that moving to Alaska was as far away as they could possibly get from their parents and still be in America.  I suppose Hawaii would have been farther but the logistics of crossing an ocean versus loading up their cars made Alaska the appropriate choice. As we age the weight of life tends to add up.  I think we don't really know that it is happening and many never really realize that it did.  We start to compensate in useless ways attempting to

What follows is an intensely personal entry.  I have asked myself many times why I am willing to expose these thoughts to the world. After much contemplating I decided it is because I want people to understand what is possible.  How a moment in time can give clarity to life in a way nothing else can. Despite living in Thailand, I spend my life with a work week like most others.  Monday through Friday I hop on my scooter and navigate the Thai traffic for my eight to five job.  I confess the monotony of routine is far less for me these days however, for the most part I live a normal working existence.  Weekends are my chance to be a tourist.  A chance to venture out on a path of discovery and find the hidden secrets that are all around me. This Sunday while many of my countrymen crowded the pews in their chosen churches, I ventured out of my house seeking a shrine of Theravada Buddhism that sits nestled upon a mountain behind Chiang Mai.  The mountain Doi Sutep looms over Chaing Mai

I am one of those unfortunate souls who do to some genetic quirk in life was born with hair in all the wrong places.  Whenever I feel down about it I thank my lucky stars I am not a woman. The reasons for that gratefulness will become abundantly clear as you work your way through this missive. For some reason the legacy of my maternal grandfather decided that I should have little hair on my head and all of it on my body.  Like a puzzle from the past our genetic code decides our fate like the emperor of Rome presiding over gladiatorial combat. It can bring disease and it can provide long life.  It dictates the color of our eyes and if our appearance we will be beautiful or simply like that of a toad.  In Asia people are largely hairless and my abundance of it becomes a rather quaint oddity.  I am not quite sure how they view me.  Half simian perhaps?  I like to think they find it uniquely sexy.  At any rate women touch it as if it is a delicate foreign object of great curiosity. 

Being a foreigner in a new land takes great humility.   Every day is a new challenge.  It requires a fresh mind and a new set of guiding principles.  It can feel at times like the rules are constantly changing yet in fact, you are the one changing, most everything else is constant. We are the odd ones here.  We feel it every day as life buzzes around us in a chaotic yet seemingly synchronized pace. Meanwhile, we walk around like a duck out of water.  Our webbed feet don't seem quite right to navigate the land and our quack seems to have no meaning excepting our own ears. For some reason the phone in my house has started to ring.  Honestly I didn't even remember I had one.  Now it rings and rings.  My first impulse is to hide.  Some how my mind seems to think that if I try to conceal myself the ringing will go away.  When I pick it up there is a recording.  It sounds happy but I have no idea what it is saying.  All I know is it finishes, I hang up and awhile later the phone