Angry Spirtis And Great Humility

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 rings again.  I think it may have something to do with the billing cycle as today is the last day of the month however, if it continues I may have to move.  Couple this with the mysterious texts I am receiving on my cell phone in Thai and I am starting to wonder if I am being investigated by the phone company. 

In Thailand I speak to people trying my best to recall all the words that were pounded in my brain during 7 months of six hours a day training.  At times they flow while still other times they seem impossible to recall.  The sentence structures mash together as I fumble to complete my sentence.  The hardest part is sometimes you are sure you got it,  "Home run!" I will think, I did it.  The Thai before me will still look mystified.   Damn it!  I thought it was perfect.  "What happened?" I will mumble.  The confused Thai standing before me will cock their head like a puppy dog looking at you while you say something incomprehensible.  Today I was at a pharmacy.  I wanted to ask if I had a problem should I go there or to a doctor?  Could they give me something?  Well that didn't seem to work.  So I tried to be more descriptive.  If my stomach hurt could they help me?  The clerk started to look concerned and point at parts of my anatomy.  I followed up by again saying, "I don't have a problem."  The female clerk called over a guy.  "God help me if it is my pipi that hurts" I thought.

I asked the guy if he spoke English.  This guy had on a nice shirt and seemed to be in charge.  "A little" he said, "Thai is better."   I took a deep breath and I tried again.  The natural thing in English is to give another example.  Our minds automatically tell us that it must be our example that is failing.  The problem is the example has nothing to do with it.  It is all in the tones. Keep messing up and before you know it you are getting an enema for a headache.  Before me the girl and the man were spreading out a variety of stomach remedies from hard core antibiotics to some dried flower. 

"I don't have a problem," I said again trying to smile and look happy.  "I just want to know if I do where to go?"  Deciding to throw all caution to the wind I asked them if they had any Gofen.  I learned in Bangkok that Gofen meant ibuprofen for the Thais.  My effort at solving my non-aliment was leaving me with a headache and I thought I might as well get something for that.

Come on guys, would you really say no?

successfully communicate in Thai and achieve the desired outcome, believe me, it is an achievement. As I entered the man's store front garage believing I had in fact successfully requested an oil change and that the pressure in my tires be checked, I triumphantly removed my helmet.  I didn't want to hold it for a long time so I spotted a small neatly painted table and placed my helmet next to a small prepared tray of food.  I felt guilty interrupting the man from his lunch but as I entered the shop he had been otherwise disposed.  He was deeply involved in the reconstruction of a small Honda engine.

Spirit house

Having relieved myself of my helmet I looked toward him and was greeted with a horrified expression.  His eyeballs had escaped the almond eyes of an Asian and had become two giant orbs.  He started to speak yet his words were not about oil and air, they seemed to involve Buddha.  He was apparently asking for forgiveness and apologizing profusely.  It was only then when I realized what I had done.  Behind the small table sat a spirit house.  The food on the table was not his lunch, it was his offering.  The offering was to the spirits in the house.  I must have turned two shades of red as I grabbed my helmet, apologized to him and then turned to the shrine bowed my head and apologized to Buddha.  The later seemed to bring great relief.  Almost instantly he relaxed and commenced draining oil from my machine. 

At times foreign ignorance seems like a curse.  Still other times it can be a universal mechanism to bond.  I am convinced the key is to always laugh at yourself.  If you can do that, any error in judgment will quickly melt away into a universal language of simple human understanding.