Thailand enchanted me

“Sawatdii, kha.” The beauty jumped into my eyes―no artificial, genuine. It was shining through―how she grew up, how she was polite to others, what kind of education she got. Two female flight attendants bowed to me with their fingertips brought together, before I got on the plane. There were male ones who looked handsome with great figures. They looked totally different from the Thai I had imaged.

Suvarnabhumi Airport―the youth, the energy, the animation―was such a contrast to Fukuoka Airport where it was quiet and calm that I wandered around to enjoy the atmosphere. It was just five days after I left the company―a cliché, “take action,” inspired me―and the first time to go abroad alone.

I had hit a snag with the ATM because I could not read English. I failed to withdraw cash so many times, that I asked a bank teller to show me how to use it. When she tried to instead of me, the card was already locked. I became bewildered; she connected me to a man who could speak Japanese. “Go to the Japanese Embassy,” he said in broken Japanese. She was back at the reception counter, no longer dealing with me, but I made an asking motion to her. “Embassy,” she said in a terse manner.

Bangkok was flourishing not far behind from Tokyo. I strolled about the town, touted by bike taxi drivers, looking at the map attached to the tour guide book, not MAPS.ME. (Online maps that I didn’t know was popular among backpackers in 2016.) A luxury car passing by me, I entered a shopping center, where many young people in stylish clothes enjoyed the moment.

When I got to the bank floor, one teller at window of a bank caught my eye―she crossed her legs, with her hands fiddling with her smartphone and her elbows on the desk. I asked her to change yen into baht. For five seconds, she didn’t look away from her phone, and there was an awkward silence. After that she put it on desk reluctantly as if to be prevented from watching Youtube, and got down to work; I was completely astounded. Simultaneously, I was jealous of the society that tolerated this. In Japan I had to carry tasks consistently, lest I was thought to be lazy, even if I had free time at work.

Wat Phra Kaew was packed with Chinese who took photos with their smartphone: Huawei, Samsung, Apple. It never occurred to me these were ubiquitous, regardless of generation. I had never used smartphone because in Japan (2016), flip phones, as faxes, was not obsolete. I recalled the small talk: “They lag behind Japan, doesn’t they?” “Dose they know smartphone?” He said with contempt, even though he had never been abroad. It dawned on me that I needed to get with the times.

I saw a woman with a stick taking a selfie by adopting an ostentatious pose like an actress. That looked like a great time for her. As for Japanese, she could care how she looked to others―to the extent that not asserting was her virtue: modest and graceful as what a woman should be like.

Bangkok was so hot and humid, that I decided to take the tour to Koh Larn, a little island. In the van, I encountered two Japanese young women. During the tour, they were always near the Thai tour guide, who spoke Japanese well. I heard her say in an authoritative tone: “Carry my bag instead of me,” “Go get juice for me,” “What a sick fashion!” They seemed to look down on him. I thought to myself: what do you think you are? If he were a Westerner, could they have had such a demeanor? 

In contrast, they were polite to me: ’Excuse me,’’ before they spoked to me, “You’re really good at jet ski,”as flattery. I had a complex feeling that I didn’t get along with them―changing their attitude depending on the person―and while I was never treated me unpleasantly. Sense of recognition that I cared only about myself, or I didn’t care for others. Basically, Japanese could be unwilling to help a person who was picked on at school or workplace because doing that meant that you were the next victim.

Early this evening, to go watch Calypso Cabaret Show, whose performers were the ladyboys, I got on the BTS (sky train), overwhelmed by glittering ads playing on big screen with blasted sound. I saw most of passengers were young, a student group talking, a man having a chat on his smartphone, a woman putting on makeup carefully―carefreeness in chaos. I pictured that Japanese train was dominated by middle-aged persons who was exhausted from work. If he took such behavior, they could felt unpleasant or tell him off for it―what they call manners in public order.

On the boat from Sathorn Pier to Asiatique the Riverfront, city lights at night that were extravagant attracted me. I was strolling through the night market that was full of life. There were a lot of the small shops selling creative goods. Some people neglected her work, chatting and laughing and others sat behind a shop counter, eating or sleeping. I felt sorry for the technical intern trainees from southeast Asia working in Japan; they were obliged to do with a sense of tension. 

At night, I heard EBM playing from a distance, it was obvious that the excitement around Silom station, and there were a lot of stalls crowded a mixture of young tourists and local people. In a smell of burning in the air, we sat around eating Hainanese chicken rice, drinking and talking. And then I walked toward the stall that sold Banana Roti I was really into. As I watched him making it, there was a beautiful woman stood beside me.