What Will Happen When There Are No Longer Entry-Level Positions?

Khao San Road is the Stupidest Place on Earth. Tourists sit at open-air cafes, drinking swill beer served from a cart. In fact, there is no cafe, it is just a cart parked in front of a boarded-up shop, with an array of plastic tables & chairs strewn about. The formula is simple: get tourists to drink cheap beer in the midst of all the hubbub, which is hubbub for the sake of hubbub. For a view, you get to witness hordes of other similarly stupidly dressed foreigners get hassled by touts and peddlers for such things as Fish Foot Massage (what an excellent use of otherwise useless goldfish!), henna tattoos, Made in China generalized cultural items, t-shirts of every stripe, reproductions of CDs/DVDs/books, a variety of carnival street food and, in the darker cornices, drugs and sex (perhaps the reason for Khao San's existence). I watched touts mindlessly push their billboards in front of white folks' noses for a good bit. It certainly was amusing, but in a painful way. The music blasting from multiple stereos creates a deranging mash-up of pop songs that go beyond even the stupidest DJ's wet dreams. The current favorite t-shirt on sale features a man taking a shit in a toilet with the words "iPood" written over it, subtly copying Apple's print ads. Myself, I wear my Toddler Frat Boy t-shirt around for two reasons: 1) to blend in, best not to be too suspicious in this environment, best to just look like every other dipshit; and 2) I want to send a message: this is you, this is me, this Toddler Frat Boy is the Future.

We are all effed. Sort of. Even the nearby art cinema had to close because of the Stupid Nature of Bangkok Tourists. While searching for a cinema mentioned in my Lonely Planet guide, I met up with Juanita at her cafe, Sabah, down the street from Khao San. She said she closed her upstairs cinema, which had a massive archive of classic international films to view, about two years ago. Partly due to the Thai government clampdown on copyright laws (literally closing thousands of internet cafes and movie houses overnight) but mainly, she explained, because people would abuse her cinema. They'd bring in their own DVDs (mostly mindless Hollywood action flicks or, sometimes, pornography) and sneak pints of Beer Chang into the theater. Downstairs Juanita cooked up delicious organic pastas and breakfast foods. I ate her pesto pasta with two slices of fresh-baked bread and perused through the latest issue of The Economist. Being the only customer at the cafe, Juanita sat down with me and engaged me on a variety of topics. She used to be editor-in-chief of a large English-language fashion & culture magazine in Thailand, giving her the privilege to meet B.B. King, Willy Nelson, Santana and even Michael Jackson. But after six years she burned out. Then she ran her own publishing company for several years. Now, in addition to the cafe (which she described as her "hobby") she runs a commodities trading company with one other partner. Juanita doesn't understand the prevalence of texting, of Facebooking, of other forms of 21st century anomie. She believes that if we don't pour ourselves fully into our work we will die. We discussed writing and becoming famous, both together and separately. We discussed having to work "24/7" in the magazine and newspaper biz. We discussed the state of the Thai and world economy (tourists numbers are way down this year). We discussed old postcards, of which she had a decent collection, and which were for sale (I bought two). In short, it was probably the rarest form of conversation (the "intelligent" sort) happening at that moment in a mile radius. I am going back for breakfast.

How To Send Me Stuff in SE Asia

In the off chance that you would like to send me a postcard, a letter, or a small/lightweight/none-too-valuable gift for either my birthday or Christmas, use the following addresses:

For my birthday (I will be here approx. Dec. 2-4):

Charles Adams
POSTE RESTANTE
Vientiane, LAOS

For Christmas (I will be here Dec. 17-19):

Charles Adams
POSTE RESTANTE
Phnom Penh, CAMBODIA

As with anything in the foreign post, do not send anything that is of a high monetary value. Also, please tell me if you send anything, otherwise I won't check at these cities' post offices. Also, make sure it's air mail and allow 2-3 weeks for delivery, though it might arrive sooner since these are capital cities.

King of Chaiya, Thailand

There is a man who carries a jug of water to the train station every evening in Chaiya, the oldest town in Thailand. He passes by the foreigners lounging in the central park near the fountain, and, despite the sign forbidding it, they recline in the grass as they await their night train to Bangkok. The man is squat, broad, and wears a simple collared shirt, khaki shorts, and cheap plastic sandals. He also wears a huge smile on his face. He catches the eye of one of the foreigners, or farangs as they're known in SE Asia (sort of the Asian version of gringo/gringa), and approaches. "Where you come from?" is the typical first question off his tongue. "The USA," says one of the male backpackers. "America." The female backpacker says, "Australia." He smiles deeply and says a bunch of gobbledigook that is a mish-mash of Thai, English and Other. The backpackers smile back. The man says, "Welcome to Thailand." And then he walks off, almost bursting with happiness.

A few moments later, after depositing the jug of water at the train station market, he returns to the backpackers with an offering: two pomegranates. "Tam tine!" he says, handing them to the flabbergasted American and Australian. "Thank you! Thank you!" they say. And he walks off. No sweat.

Ten minutes later, the man must relate the news to the backpackers at once: the results of the Miss Universe pageant. He approaches the duo, who are still sitting in the same spot in the grass near the fountain, their train being delayed by more than an hour. "Miss Australia is second place in the Universe," the man says, grinning. "And Miss Thailand is first in Most Photography." The Aussie corrects him, "Most Photogenic." The man smiles. "Who won?" we ask. "Venuezuela," the man says. "What about Miss America?" the American asks. "She got tenth place," says the man. And he walks off, buzzing to himself.

Later, waiting for their ever delayed train in the dark of night, as the insects buzz around the flourescent lights and the few train personnel light up cigarette after cigarette, informing the passengers of the delay with much delight, the backpackers sit glumly on the bench of the depot. The man approaches. This time the Australian tells the man to close his eyes. He half-closes them. There is a giddy struggle and the man won't close his eyes. The Aussie hands him a tiny koala, a token gift she has stashed in her pack to give to children. She tells the man that the toy is for his children, and says this in Thai language. The man finally accepts the gift and drifts away, marvelling at the tiny koala as if he were still a wide-eyed five-year-old.

In the final encounter the American has with the Thai man, he notices the koala pinned to the man's shirt, where it may stay for a night, for a day, or forever. The backpackers fall soundly asleep in their sleeping berths, the Aussie in the first cabin, the American in the last.

Daily Routine

04.00 Wake up At precisely 4 AM a man named Werner, who looks like Dracula and talks like Dr. Strangelove, rings a bell for about 5 minutes straight. You roll out of bed (it's not hard because the bed is a concrete slab, your pillow is made of wood) and run to pee in the bathroom down the hall. Your feet are the only part that hurts first thing in the morning, stiff from the meditation practice, all that fierce bending and terrible nerve-wrangling. The concrete bed hasn't made things better. But it does make getting up at 4 AM for a ten-day retreat all the more easier. You actually look forward to jumping onto your feet and legs and moving muscles and bone around in a nimble environment. That, and your dreams are terrifying you. The previous night you had to hold someone's mouth open while they thrashed around with the Rabies sickness. Lockjaw, they call it. Dreams do not bring solace. In the moonlight you splash your face with a bowl dipped in a round pool, throw on your Thai fisherman pants, your REI athletic shirt, wrap your Permethrin-treated bandanna around your head and ears, apply 100 percent DEET to your feet, neck, arms and hands, grab your Petzl headlamp and Winnie the Pooh umbrella and shuffle your way slowly to Meditation Hall #5, a fairly cavernous open-air hall with a floor of sand. There you'll find your three pillows of various sizes, your coconut sack, and maybe a few wandering ants.

04.30 Morning Reading Since you don't meditate during the Morning Reading, you sit in a comfortable position and wait for the bell to ring. The bell sits on the desk at the front, where all speakers and coordinators sit. They ring the bell before they begin to speak and when you are dismissed. Bells rule your life now. The Morning Readings are like the opposite of Campfire Ghost Stories. Campfire Ghost Stories are horrific tales told before you go to bed at night. Morning Readings are uplifting thoughts and reflections (one of them is Chief Seattle's 1854 Address to All White People Concerning the Takeover of Sacred Lands) told to you right after you woke up, still in a dreamy state, before the sun has even begun to rise. The only light comes from the desk lamp of the reader, and the words come into your head one by one, so as to make them chewy and soft, like a marshmallow.

04.45 Sitting meditation You will find that sitting meditation this early in the morning is hopeless. You are drowsy as all hell and as soon as you close your eyes in the inky darkness, sleep invades you. It isn't until Day 9 or 10 when you actually feel awake enough to concentrate at this hour.

05.15 Mindfulness in Motion (aka Yoga) Werner leads the men in a simple, 85-minute yoga routine that involves plenty of blissful Corpse poses (lying flat on back for a minute or two). Your yoga mat is a straw mat. You once thought that yoga would be good for you "in your late thirties, or whenever it is that I am old and have pains in my knees." By equating yoga with ageing, you have tried to avoid the facts of life: You are getting old and inflexible. One day you will die. One day the pain will be too much. Now you know: Better to start now. Yoga feels good. It's good for you. And, despite being as flexible in the joints as a Nutcracker, you are actually quite good at it. At the retreat, Werner's soft Dracula-voice guides you through the motions, and at the end, in the Final Relaxation, where you simply lie on your back for 10 minutes while Werner words like "sensation" and "reeeeeeeeeeeeelllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaxxxxxxxxx," you find yoga quite good, but wonder if you could ever wake up before 8 AM for a session back in the States, much less 5 AM.

07.00 Dhamma talk & Sitting meditation The bell rings and it's time to hear Yoda talk. Yoda is actually Ajuhn Poh, the Wat Suanmokkh abbot. He taught himself how to speak English and so sticks to simple phrases with unnatural pauses. He sounds like Yoda. He tells you to "Breet in. Breet out." He pronounces "people" as "PEE-Ben" and for a while you thought he was saying "THEE-Ben" and reciting Ancient Greek. But he calls you "Good Friends" and it instantly brightens your mind. When he gives his welcome talk, you stare intensely at the monk's head and start to hallucinate for a little bit. You think, "Oh dear... here we go."
08.00 Breakfast & Chores Breakfast is always a rice soup with a few salad-y options and tiny bananas. In fact, except for one day where you find eggs in your food, you are on a strict vegan diet for the next ten days. You eat nothing but grains and greens, washed down with hot water (they call it tea, but you know better than that). Nobody eats until everyone has food in front of them and the Food Reflection is recited. Yadda yadda yadda something about Eating Only To Maintain This Body / Not for Fattening, Not for Beautification / So That You May Lead The Spiritual Life yadda yadda ya. Then you eat. Mind you, everything is done in total silence. Or near silence. You still have to give your voice to the Food Reflection and the Chanting in the evening, but talking with others is not allowed. This means there are no social stresses. There is no pressure to mingle, to flirt, to wax poetic, to wolf down your food from one side of your mouth and spit words out the other. You just eat your food. Slowly. Bite by bite. There's no rush. You have all the time in the world so long as you are breathing in, breathing out.

10.00 Dhamma talk These amount to lectures, some long-winded and some just blatant propaganda. This is, after all, a Buddhist retreat, and like all religions, there has to be some proselytizing. Some of it is just history, water under the bridge so to speak, or just lexicology, like what is sati, samahdi, anapanasati, vipanassa and whatnot. Some of it sounds like you're in a time warp (the lecture on 'eco-awareness' was something lifted out of the early '90s) and some it is just funny, like when the British monk cracks wise on How to Bring Your Mind Back to Focus After Thoughts of Sex (monks think of corpses) or Thoughts of Food (the British monk things of dog vomit on the streets of London).
11.00 Walking or standing meditation You have some breakthrough moments while walking at a glacial pace. You feel which bones and which muscles move at precisely which point as you move your foot in front of you, one by one. You are getting more in touch with your body, which is a good thing. It's about time you learned how your body works, isn't it?

11.45 Sitting meditation This is some of your best meditation moments, right after the British monk is finished talking. It's like a wash. But your stomach rumbles. The rice soup just ain't enough. And so the mind wanders in and out, like the breath.
12.30 Lunch & chores Lunch is more substantial than breakfast, in that you get more variety of grains and grasses. Plus, dessert. Dessert is what you live for in such spartan environments. And they can make or break your mood for the day. Bananas soaked in syrup, swimming in a pool of coconut milk? Delicious! Lentils and kidney beans swimming in a lightly-sweetened watery substance? It must be some sort of sick joke. In fact, your mind will think "The food seems more bland than yesterday. This must be a part of their scheme. Make the food less delicious day by day and to 'test' you." It's quite easy to fall into these completely irrational paranoid dilemmas when you are locked prisoner in your own head. After you eat, you do your chore. Your is simple: Bring all the leftovers and pots and trays around the dining hall to the back and set them on a bench. That is all. Simple. Other people are stuck with mopping or cleaning toilets. You are so lucky.

14.30 Meditation instruction & Sitting meditation
15.30 Walking or standing meditation
16.15 Sitting meditation Sometime the British monk comes again and gives you his spiel. It's quite meaty. It's as if the British monk is a professor in robes. This is how they used to teach in classical Greece, right? An orator speaks and you absorb and go forth. You find it's quite nice to gaze out into the field and feel the breeze on your face. Or, if it's pouring buckets of rain (cuz this is the rainy season in this part of Thailand), you simply watch the raindrops until they make animations in your head.

17.00 Chanting & Loving Kindness meditation Chanting is your time to clear the throat. You chant in Pali, a dead language only used by Buddhists. It sounds kind of like Italian, but the flow is purely Asian. The first monk to lead chanting is OK. Then a woman comes, who you dub The China Lady, and she treats you all like out-of-control school children. ("No! No! Do it right! Why can't y'all just do it right!") She lectures you and the feeling in the class is mutinous. And then The China Lady moves on to what really moves her, Loving Kindness. Apparently Loving Kindness is what you do when somebody crosses you, or you've hurt someone, or there are starving children in Africa. You breathe loving kindness out into the world. It's like magic, only slightly more nonsensical... it's more like telepathy. Or The Secret. You get the feeling that The China Lady really just wants to be a Presbyterian, but also wants to meditate, so Loving Kindness is her way to combine the best of both worlds. The last few days of the retreat an Indian monk leads the chanting, and he's a kooky man with lots of humor, but perhaps says "Na-na-na-nah nah!" a bit too much for comic relief.

18.00 Tea & hot springs Tea isn't really tea at the retreat. It's mostly Ovaltine, or some other powder mixed with hot water to give you some calories when you're hitting a caloric low at this hour of the evening. It's also time to really slap on plenty of DEET, as the mosquitos are the most vicious at this hour.

19.30 Sitting meditation This is your last time to shine, as beginning to drift away to slumberland during the sitting meditation at 8:30 PM, so you really give it a go. You're humming along, reaching Level 1 (long breathing, your record is 50 seconds on one in-out breath), then Level 2 (short breathing, like you are hyperventilating), then on to Level 3 (normal breathing, focusing the attention on the nose tip, honing in for the kill...) and, just as you're about to step off the cliff into The Abyss, the bell rings. The bell rings. The bell rings one more time. In this state, you are trying to balance on a cliff, and there's the bell telling you it's time to stand up for Group Walking Meditation. The damned bell! Like a hook, it pulls you back from the cliff, back to solid ground. And there you were, peering into the abyss, wanting to just Let Go, but the 30 minutes are up. Took you 9 days to reach this point, and you are spent.

20.00 Group walking meditation While others practice a meditative gait, you practice your modeling skills. Becoming a monk won't earn your bread, but walking the runways of Paris just might...

20.30 Sitting meditation You are a corpse by now, so you bury your head in the pillows and wait patiently for 30 minutes, til you can go to your concrete bunker and lay your head on the wooden pillow.

21.00 Bedtime Thank God.

Wat is the What?

In case of emergency, I can be found at Wat Suanmokkh outside of Chaiya, Thailand for the next 12 days, 'til Nov. 11. Ten days of total silence, sleeping on concrete mattresses with wooden pillows, waking at 4am, 80 minutes of yoga every morning, a shitton of meditations (sitting, standing & walking) and chanting, fasting for 20 hours each day, hot spring soaks, cold water-bucket baths, spiritual cleansing. What the hell am I getting myself into?

New Photos

Once again, for those not on the Fbook, please find some new photos at this link.

Crabby in Krabi

It's not really crappy in Krabi, nor am I crabby. But Krabi certainly is a mid-sized Thai town in which to TCOB (take-care-of-business) and see what the Thai do when they're not serving me banana pancakes. Surprise, surprise! They shop at colorful night markets selling hot satay goodies, miniature bunnies, ice cream, designer jeans, chestnuts, donuts, Tarot-card readings and cheap plastic toy guns. They even have cripples asking for money and carnival games like Pop-The-Balloon with a Dart to win prizes like a six-pack of Coca-Cola. They mostly drive cars, but some ride motos. Pasty tourists walk around in a daze and sip Beer Chang at corner bars. Touts beep their horns or yell out mythical destinations: "Railay!" "Ko Phi Phi!" "Ao Nang!" "Boat ride!"

To get a traditional Thai massage, first you walk into Lisa's Bakery, where Lisa will make the call on her cell to the masseuse. Then you walk across the street to the parlor where anyone walking by and can see through the glass doors (this is a sign that the place is legit and means business). The cost for an hour of foot reflexology is $8. The cost for a traditional one-hour Thai massage is $7. You are greedy and get both, one after the other. Why not? If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing right.

Do it now. There's cheap eats and places to get a haircut. This isn't some beach resort. Sometimes you tire of beach resorts and their limited offerings. White sand, views, overpriced coffee. Sometimes you just want cheap abundance. This can be found in Krabi. A transit town with an international airport and bus hub. A 7-11 on every corner. A dog and cat in every shop. Giddy Thai making the passiagata amid the hubbub of long, hot mornings, tempered with monsoon rains in the afternoon, followed by carnival nights.