"North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe..."

Yesterday we saw My Week With Marilyn.  I thought it was a fine film, with very good acting, and overall I enjoyed it. However, it got me thinking about something I have never understood: Marilyn Monroe.

I don't mean someone I have never understood, because I'm not really referring to the person. I mean the whole Marilyn Monroe thing. I have never been able to relate to the fascination with this woman, and it has always mystified me. I feel like when it comes to the Marilyn-Monroe-magic-spell, there's everyone in the world and then there's me.

It might start with the hair, quite frankly. I mean, here's this woman who is supposed to be the ultimate sex symbol, the most beautiful, alluring, recklessly charming, perfect encapsulation of all that is sexy, and I just can't get past the hair. It's a hideous shade of fake blonde that I'm not entirely sure would look nice on anybody, and secondly, it's short. I don't care for short hair and I generally don't find that it makes a woman sexier, or more beautiful, let alone the sexiest or the most beautiful. In fact, I can't think of anyone with short hair that I would consider to be ultimately sexy. Long hair just looks better. (And prettier, for sure.) So I suppose the idea of Marilyn Monroe being a supremely beautiful woman was always lost on me, for this and other reasons.

So then, OK, so she acts in movies and is charming, but by all accounts is a total pain in the ass, racked with insecurities and a fragility act. And she manipulates people and acts this whole persona so that no one ever really knows the whole person and then - surprise, surprise - she takes all these pills, and dies early and tragically. I mean, really? She's a walking cliche, so it's interesting that she is considered so very special. I mean, just objectively speaking.

Anyway, the movie My Week With Marilyn contemplates a few of these issues, not that it ever stands up and screams "Get over yourself" and/or "Get over her" to everyone around herself. But it is very interesting and I totally and completely see why Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh were nominated for Oscars. Branagh was great as Laurence Olivier. The interaction of the cast of great actors in this film was wonderful and fun to watch.

Brian and I desperately need to catch up on all the 2011 movies we missed while living in Andong, and so I declared a goal of watching 40 movies in March. We have watched three so far since March 1st: Hugo, My Week With Marilyn, and The Descendants.  (We launched our catch-up project when we watched The Artist, but that was on February 29. Should I count it?)  It may seem like I'm off to a slow start, but we will be back in Phoenix for a while, and I am going to be a theater-goin', Netflixin' fiend. I will totally get to see 40 movies this month. Just you watch!

It's goodbye again

Well, here I am, leaving Korea. Again. Linda Without Borders is going to once more wend her way across the Pacific Ocean to the U.S. and an unknown future. And while it is so different from the last time, it somehow  manages to be very much the same in some ways. Life is sneaky like that.

One way it was very much the same and also oh so very different was last night when I once again had my final commune trip. My favorite bar in the world is still the lovely Commune's lonely hearts club in Junangno, Daegu, and one of my greatest thrills in 2011 was returning to that place, my old haunt of haunts, the locale of so much of what I experienced when I lived in Daegu 2005-06. I never thought I would go back there (or to Daegu at all) and being able to revisit it multiple times while we lived in Andong brought me pure joy. I know that a lot of people don't understand; they think, "What? It's just a bar, and a smoky one at that. How great could it be?" But that's OK; they can stay upstairs on the harsh neon streets and I will experience the truest souls I've yet found on the planet in the beautiful basement darkness below.

Only - I won't. Not for a while, anyway. Because now Brian and I are headed out of the country, so last night was our final night in Daegu, and our last stop had to be our last Commune trip for at least a little while, if not a long while. It was so interesting to be there though, because this time I know that you can never say never. This weekend I sat where I sat almost six years ago, and I conversed with the two special people I conversed with six years ago, and took shots with them like we did six years ago...and I was filled with a quite beautiful melancholy. I know it will be a long time before I can go back there, but I was still marveling at the fact that over the past year I was able to go back there at all. When I left in 2006 there were tears and there was anger and there were so many things I didn't understand about what I was leaving behind. I like to think I have a deeper understanding now, but I suspect there are still many things I need to figure out, too many to count.

I kind of miss my solitary journeys and the moments I used to spend in deep, pensive solitude. I thought about that this weekend, and I think that part of the Commune magic, for me, is that it lets me glimpse and remember that part of myself.

There's more, of course, but not all of it can be blogged at this time in this space.

Phuket is not a vulgar city! Day 61 of our Southeast Asia Odyssey

OK, let's be clear about one thing. You pronounce Phuket like this:  pooh-KETT.  It's funny (to me) that it hadn't even occurred to me that people unfamiliar with it initially read it as f**k it. Ha ha and all, but the first time someone posted a wisecrack about pronouncing it that way, it took me a while to figure out what they were saying. I guess I've just thought of it as (winnie-the-)pooh-KETT or the somewhat mispronounced foo-KETT for as long as I've known of its existence.

Anyway, here's what I think about Phuket, which everyone is now saying correctly in their heads as they read this, right? I think Phuket is awesome. I rather enjoy living in Phuket town, and I am sad that our CELTA course and therefore our time here are coming to an end.

Brian and I chose Phuket as the place to get our CELTA teaching qualification because we had our eyes on Thailand for cheap living and beach proximity during the four-week course. It has worked out great. Because there are two of us splitting the rent, we were able to snag a pretty nice accommodation (no SE Asia backpacker flophouse for us) with a lovely pool and a cute room with a balcony. I highly recommend Baan Suwantawe's monthly room rental to anyone coming to Phuket town.

Also, there is absolutely no shortage of restaurants in this little city. Within walking distance we have oodles of noodles, roti, dim sum, curries, fried chicken, rice, pad thai, tom yum (sp?) and Phuket specialties and pork and appetizers and soups and that's not even mentioning the coffee shops and plentiful Western food, this being a travelers' destination and all. We eat out cheaply and deliciously for all our meals (even though we do have a refrigerator and microwave in the Baan Suwantawe room) and we spend like $2-5 per meal. It's so great to be in southeast Asia.

Unfortunately, despite how great it is to be in Southeast Asia, we are in fact almost done with our time in Phuket. We will not stay in this city teaching right at the moment, although I could possible end up back here in the future. We are looking at a few job opportunities and think a different country is on the horizon. (Well, obviously, there are many countries on the horizon, if you want to look at it literally, but you know what I mean.)

Meanwhile, we have one more weekend to enjoy the beaches of Phuket. We spend Monday-Friday in Phuket town, and on Saturdays and Sundays we head to the water. We have enjoyed the beaches of Patong, Karon, Kata, Nai Harn, and glimpses of Rawai, plus a boat trip to Ao Phang Nga and "James Bond Island."  We have looked up at the Big Buddha on the mountaintop and looked out at the sunset from Phromthep Cape. All in all, I give Phuket two thumbs up, and there is nothing whatsoever f**k-it about the place! Well, except for the occasional cockroach that stampedes across the sidewalk at night, coming awfully close to my flip-flop bared feet. But at least there are a few lizards scurrying around to make up for it.

Whitney Houston and Madonnaand the answers are all up to me

I remember the 1980s. The morning after Whitney Houston's death, I spent our entire breakfast remembering the 80s to Brian, who sometimes remembers a bit less about the 80s than I do. Here's one thing I remember about the 80s: "Whitney/Madonna." Notice how I put them together, there. Obviously they are such different people with such different styles of music and life and all that. HOWever, those of us who remember the 80s remember the slash, the Whitney/Madonna talk, the incessant marveling at how there could be not one but two chart-topping ladies with a bazillion hits. In some ways, Whitney and Madonna together were the entirety of valuable pop radio in the 80s, if you keep all the new wave and alterna-pop that people so often think of when thinking of 80s music in the alternative category, and if you don't place a lot of value on Michael Jackson, who was the other big thing in 80s pop radio, as dictated by Billboard. (Oh, wait, that's just me who doesn't care about the MJ.) Anyway, so, Madonna and Whitney. Yeah.

As Brian and I breakfasted, I prattled on about my early cassette buying: Madonna's Like a Virgin was my first - no, really - but I also bought Whitney, probably from Columbia House Record & Tape club. Over egg and roti pancake I happily recalled Whitney's sassy one-raised-shoulder pose in the white tank top on that cassette's cover, and the Olympic single "One Moment in Time" (which, I might add, I belted screeched out at a noraebang in Korea last summer). And then it hit me: could it be that Whitney, too, had the 1980s Madonna/Whitney hype-pressure on the brain this week?  Madonna just performed at the Super Bowl and ignited the blogosphere with her 53-year-old-and-still-performing-ness. Many people loved her show. The whole world was watching, as it were. That world could have included Whitney. It's kind of like a high school reunion or something, no?  I am not being snarky or trying to make light of that -- I know that the pressure of an upcoming high school reunion can be too much for someone to handle.

Such an in-your-face reminder of all that you were can make you question where you are now, and when such a mighty incessant comparison is thrown back in your face in a new way, maybe it can wreak havoc on a person's psyche?  I actually don't know the details of the death, but whether it was suicide, drugs, or both, it was probably her self-destruction, right? As we walked back from breakfast this morning, I said, "It's as if Madonna killed Whitney -- but I don't mean that -- but maybe the Tweets about Madonna killed Whitney?"

I'm so sad to think of someone being so distraught about not measuring up, by real or imagined standards, that she would be driven to take her own life, but I know it has happened. And I find this a bizarre ending to  the life of Whitney "Didn't we almost have it all?" Houston.

I think the "One Moment in Time" lyrics are the most appropriate, actually, for all of us to remember...seriously, go listen to it.

Rest in peace, obviously, of course. Would that the peace could also be found during our lifetimes.

In which I interview myself about 2011

Time for a 2011 recap as we head into 2012!  What do you mean, January 31st doesn't still count as "heading into 2012"? Whatever. It's still January, that's all I have to say. Oooh, not true! I also have to say, in my defense, that I have for the last three weeks been hanging out in places decidedly more concerned with the Chinese New Year than the January 1st new year. So I am entitled to only get around to doing this questionnaire, which I got from multiple bloggers, now. All right, let's look back:

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
A whole lot! I visited new places and flew around the world with Brian - I'd been alone on most of my previous long-haul flights in life (symbolism intended in that statement). Also, I finally won NaNoWriMo.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Apparently my resolutions for 2011 were to acquire the Southern belle ability to speak my mind or tell people off without "being angry," and to read more books and travel to more countries than I did in 2011. Well. I did in fact make my Goodreads goal of reading 44 books in 2011, check! I traveled to the same number of countries in 2011 as 2010 - four, but one of those I moved to (Korea), and I took two trips to another (Japan), so on the whole I think we can say I traveled more, since two of the 2010s (England and Ireland) were just stopovers anyway. (My other two 2011 countries were China and at the end there Cambodia.) As for the Southern belle ability, I still covet it, but there were multiple times -multiple!- in 2011 that I successfully bit my tongue when listening to someone and responded diplomatically instead of arguing. It's a start. 

Duh, of course I will make resolutions for 2012! Writing and exercising more, as usual. Four books per month.  Visit four more countries. And one more that I'm forgetting now. I'll think of it.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?


My sister welcomed #4, Kristen, so of course that is the closest. Some friends gave birth, too! It was a good year for babies.  (I suppose that's what happens when the previous four years have all been spent attending multiple weddings…)

4. Did anyone close to you die?
In 2011, no, although my family and I were still reeling in some ways from Grandpa’s late 2010 death.  Aaron, a good friend of Brian’s from Michigan, whom I got to know a little bit through Brian and his crew during the last couple years, also passed away.

5. What countries did you visit?
Well, Korea again, as we moved there on Jan 1, 2011. Japan (twice), China, and Cambodia.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Willpower, the ability to set boundaries and convey my sense of urgency without starting quarrels, and a way for full-time freelancers and independent contractors and unmarried people (i.e., me and thousands like me) to have health insurance that the rest of the U.S. has through their employers or spouses’ employers.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
January 1 because Brian and I moved to Korea together. My birthday because it was a Friday the 13^th, and those are my favorites! June 27^th because my aforementioned niece was born on my friend Mo’s birthday. August 18th because we climbed Mt. Fuji. Actually, to be honest, that is more etched in my head as the Thursday of our week in Japan and I had to double check the date.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Mt. Fuji? Completing my teaching contract? Making myself act in a play again? Learning some Korean? Creating a book swap for Andong? I guess just coming back to live in Korea and having it work out really well. 

9. What was your biggest failure?
Demand Studios. I don’t want to talk about it.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I was barely ever sick at all - one or two colds. Nothing at all like the first time I was in Korea! A few little minor injuries that would make me skip working out for a couple days.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My Nike indoor exercise shoes for kickboxing class. I adore them with all of my being.

12. Where did most of your money go?
China. But not the way people in the U.S. funnel it to China, through WalMart. I mean directly on site! Well, and all the plane tickets I bought to various Chinese cities. 

13. What did you get really excited about?

China. And Japan. And galmegi.

14. What song will always remind you of 2011?
"Like a G6," "Please Be My Baby" (Britney), Rihanna's stupid sex in the air song, and anything else that played over and over and over at kickboxing. And I.U.!

 

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:

Happier or sadder?  I think about the same. Thinner or fatter?  Unfortunately, about the same. I lost weight when we got to Korea, then gained it back. Brian cooks too much, too well. :)
Richer or poorer?
Just the eensiest bit richer. Only because I went from freelancing to having the teaching job, but really, just the teeniest little bit so don't get too excited, folks. (That means you, income-based student loan repayment.)

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?


Write.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Drink. 


18. How did you spend Christmas?
On a plane. Seoul - Hong Kong - Bangkok - Phnom Penh, ending with a delightful Merry Christmas nightcap in a riverfront bar.  I love Phnom Penh, and I love Cambodia.

19. What was your favorite TV program?

Cuh-rim-i-nal Ma-eend-dz. That's how it's announced on Korean SkyHD TV, where Brian and I discovered it, learned to love it, and began craving it during 2011. We are so excited that there are still many more episodes for us to see!

20. What were your favorite books of the year?

Reasonable Creatures by Katha Pollitt. Everyone should read this book. Everyone. Yes, you too. If you are reading my blog, you should read that book. Your friends who aren't reading my blog should read it as well, so buy an extra copy for one of them. Also, I loved Virginia Woolf's The Waves, Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down, W. Somerset Maugham's The Summing Up and Jose Saramago's Blindness. Do I need to note that none of these came out in 2011? 
.

21. What was your favorite music from this year?


Anything and everything, as long as we were singing it in the no-rae-bang!

22. What were your favorite films of the year?

If these count because I saw them in 2011: True Grit, Eat Pray Love, and The Green Zone.  Out of movies that came out in 2011, it would have to be Moneyball, because I don't think it's Super 8. I definitely didn't see enough movies this year.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

It was a Friday the 13th, that's all that matters!  And I had a one-track mind: noraebang. 

 

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

More noraebang, Less of the b.s. noraebang resistance among the expat English teachers. It really bugs me when they do that. 

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

 Outsourced! I finally accomplished my lifelong dream of getting a personal shopper to go buy clothes for me. Actually, it was just once, but Jody and Brian totally went around Seoul and scored me some shirts, dresses, skirts, etc. and all I had to do was pay them. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do this all the time. I definitely want to repeat this in 2012. I am interested in having more/different/cuter clothes, but I am not interested in making the effort to pick them out. If I ever move to within striking distance of your city, do let me know if you are interested in my personal shopper position.

26. What kept you sane?

N/A

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.


We need to bring back protective tariffs in place of income taxes, and stop this love affair with free trade. I have learned an incredible lot about this from reading my prez bios (I'm now on #18, Grant.)  I wish Michael Moore, the #Occupy peeps, and other people who care about the disaster that is the U.S. would listen to my reason and start promoting this idea far and wide. National boundaries as jingoistic lines in the sand are stupid, but as a place to collect tariffs they are genius, because economically-tax wise we are all divided up by country, for convenience. If we have tariffs, then we can stop blabbering about tax cuts and increases all the time (freeing our government to actually get some work done), and greedy corporations can stop f***ing everyone up by taking all their jobs out of the country, because it would no longer be cheaper for the companies to do that, because they would have to actually fairly pay to bring all the stuff in. NO MORE FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS! I watched with interest as some in Korea tried to stop the Korea-U.S. FTA. Sigh. 

All righty then, so that's 2011. On to 2012! Or, you know. The rest of it. How was January for you? I missed a bunch of it on this blog because I was in China. 

Si-a-me-ese, if you ple-ease

Tonight we went to dinner at another fabulous (and fabulously affordable!) little Thai restaurant, and we saw a Siamese cat.

Get it? A Siamese cat. We're in Thailand...which used to be... Get it?

It's so wonderful. I really don't know how Bangkok can ever top that, so we're off to Phuket tomorrow.

Things Suzanne Sugarbaker Might Say Day 34 of our Southeast Asia Odyssey

So, there's a wonderful moment in the Designing Women episode in which Julia and Suzanne travel to Japan for a brief, specific task, which, if you know anything about the awesomeness that was Designing Women, you may remember and you can definitely appreciate. (If you don't know anything about the awesomeness that was Designing Women, hie thee to Netflix to remedy that, won't you?)

On the plane, the ever intelligent and earnestly sophisticated Julia says that in their brief time there she hopes that they get to see "the real Japan."

"Oh, I don't," Suzanne replies. Naturally, the crowd laughs because it's a typically unexpected-and-yet-expected-from-Suzanne response.  She goes on to explain, "I've noticed that whenever people talk about seeing 'the real' anything, what they really mean is 'hanging around with poor people.' I figure, I don't hang around with poor people at home, so why should I do so on vacation?"

I was thinking about Suzanne as we galavanted about the malls of Sukhumvit in Bangkok.  Now, I will say that we saw some interesting sites, like the greatest food court in the world (no, really! this incredible place with every possible kind of ethnic cuisine) and lots of shiny atrium space and gleaming glass and marble floors and so on and so on, with walkways and plazas and what have you. And, we eventually made our way to a fantastic bookstore full of a gazillion English language books where Brian and I spent several pleasant hours reading and browsing and he found an insanely great book about Thai hawkers' street food.  HOWEVER, it was just funny, for me, the loather of shopping and in particular shopping malls, that Bangkok's malls were not only the theme of our day but really its whole point and purpose.

As we were strolling from one glorious shopping paradise to another, I was thinking about how many places I've been in the world where I've inevitably been taken shopping. I particularly thought about the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, which everyone was so hopped up about -- the bazaar! the GRAND bazaar! grandest in the world! -- which was quite uninteresting because when I finally caved and checked it out it turned out to be, frankly, a mall.  I chuckled to myself today because in my head I sounded like Suzanne Sugarbaker, only my quick is distinctly un-Suzanne-like, because she adores shopping, but I could hear myself saying, "I've noticed that whenever people talk about seeing the 'central marketplace' anywhere, what they really mean is, let's go to the shopping mall. I figure, I don't go shopping at home, so why should I do so on vacation?"

"I can feel the devil walking next to me..." Day 33 of our Southeast Asia Odyssey

Coming to you from Bangkok now...this is one of those epic cities, with one of those epically associated songs, i.e., the one from which I took the title of this post, that gets stuck in your head the entire time you are here. What's a person of my generation to do? You spend years of your life listening to the song on "Flashback Friday" lunch hours and the odd dance floor, and then here you finally are - of course "One Night in Bangkok" is going to be stuck in your head the entire time. You only wish that you could actually get a verse, or a bridge, or even the rest of the chorus stuck in there. Something besides "One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster...da duh duh da duh-duh..." and so on. Because, news flash: that "night in Bangkok" is actually depressing. Ain't no pearls in the nasty nightlife scene, and precious few oysters. But I will get to that in a second.

First, I must report that earlier today when I posted as my Facebook status that my generation is cursed to have that song play in our heads when we finally travel here (high five to those of you who quickly felt my pain with your Likes and Comments), Brian's response was not appreciation for my wit or sympathy for my predicament - oh no! His response: "It's not my generation."  My god. What a difference a few little years make. He is so not of the 80s in the way that I am. HOWEVER, I maintain that it has less to do with the actual age/few years than the fact that I have an older sister, but he has a younger brother. So on top of the few years, I skew older in things like music (having been influenced by, say, my sister's Whitney Houston-Wham!-Cyndi Lauper-cassette-buying ways) and Brian skews younger (90s rap, mostly).

We also have this conversation all the time when I reference The Brady Bunch  - because, yes, I do that all the time, as there is an appropriate Brady Bunch quote/anecdote for every life situation - and Brian reminds me that he and his brother did not grow up watching Brady Bunch reruns, to which the only sane reply is, naturally, their loss! - right? Somehow Brian doesn't quite understand how very much he is missing there. But he is in turn surprised that I didn't watch Saved by the Bell. Which, no. Not even the same league, OK.

ANYWAY. Back to Bangkok. Yes, I think the devil is walking here, and just down the street from where we're staying, in fact. OK, kidding! There is no devil, just the unfettered depravity of my fellow man. Wait, you ask, am I calling the old men who retire/visit/"tour" here,spending their nights purchasing bar girls and/or bar ladyboys, evil? Why, perhaps I am! Is that judgmental of me? Why yes, I do believe it is.  Soooo OK with being judgmental of these men. Soooo all kinds of OK with that.  I was actually horrified by what I saw last night in Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy.  And of course, it's not really the blatant or weird things that horrify you - it's the little things, like when you sit talking with your friends enjoying your beer, supposedly on this ironic "exploration" of the seedy randomness of Bangkok's red light district, and in your line of sight are the five or six young Thai women of the bar across the way, doing their thing, namely, waiting for foreigners with money to walk in, and then soon enough one does walk in, say, a 50- or 60-something man, white polo shirt, shorts, casual, and then he's taking her hand and smiling and they sit at a table, and ewwww! ewww! eww! the same things is happening thousands and thousands of times to all these young women and behind the curtains of these bars' doorways the "shows" are going on and the girls/ladyboys are wearing numbers so they can be picked out and requested like cattle or slaves in an auction...it's quite horrible. I wanted to be dutifully amused by the seedy part of the Bangkok scene, as one who grew up listening to "One Night in Bangkok" is supposed to be, but instead it really made me hate humanity. I mean, you know, more than usual.

The whole situation reminded me of something that happened in the 90s, back when I used to still hang around Mormons (instead of watching Saved by the Bell). So, when Schindler's List came out it got a lot of buzz, and then a lot praise, and then a lot of Oscar nominations, and so, you know, people wanted to see it. Even Mormons. Slight problem: Mormons aren't really "allowed" to watch R-rated movies. I mean, some don't really care, but some prophet or other said not to and it's a rule that a fair amount of them stick to, ESPECIALLY at BYU, which is where most of the ones I hung around at that time were. Specifically, this one fabulous English professor at BYU, Cecilia Konchar-Farr, who was questionably fired/not given tenure. Her last semester teaching there happened to be early 1994, as Schindler's List  was marching toward its victorious Oscar night, and many a curious BYU student really wanted to see it - heard it was so good - but it's rated R. So, then, the discussion always turns to why the movie is rated R. Like, is it full of the f-word? Violence? Naked people? Nudity is really a no-go for lots of these rule-abiding Mormons. (Have I mentioned that BYU's on-campus theater edits the R-rated movies before they are shown there for students?)  So Cecilia reports that yes, she did see Schindler's List over the weekend, and yes, it was great and fantastic and moving and meaningful and important and all that. Then, she says, in a moment filled with the logic and clarity that escape so many religious people so much of the time, that all this fuss about "Is there nudity? Is there a sex scene?" in it really seems to miss the point.  "It's the Holocaust," she says. "It is the murder of hundreds and thousands and millions of innocent people. Of COURSE it's a mature theme. Of COURSE it's rated R. But you're not worried about the savage, systematic persecution and murder of millions of people, you're worried about seeing someone naked?"

I mean, she makes a really good point, yes?

That's how I felt last night. Because, no lie, I got really kind of pissed off at one point and I kind of yelled at my drinking companions. I wanted to discuss endlessly just what motivates men to come to Bangkok and be horrible and depraved and purchase other humans, and at some point they got tired of my fascination with this subject that I could analyze and scrutinize for hours, and I was yelling and weeping and wailing and gnashing teeth (well, 2 or 3 of those anyway) and I looked like the jerk. Which, probably I was a jerk, because I was frustrated and furious and appalled and also just plain sad. I mean, I literally would just get tears in my beer when I stared across the road too long at the scene playing out in front of us. And nobody likes it when their drinking companion starts wailing and draws the other happy drinkers' attention. But part of me wanted to shout, "What's wrong with all of you [tourists/backpackers/business travelers/police/guidebooks]?! You're missing the point! Of COURSE I'm upset and volatile and crying and screaming and angry in a public place and embarrassing my friends. Why aren't all of YOU? You're not worried about thousands of young women who face such a dearth of life choices that this is their better/only career option, and you're not offended by the desperation emanating from these despicable men who buy the women, but it bothers you if I cry and rant about it in a bar, because that is unsophisticated and unbecoming and uncool?"

Yeah. Bangkok.

But I am actually really enjoying Thailand! Tomorrow I will blog about happier things!

"Not much between despair and ecstasy..."
- good ol' Murray Head and the ABBA guy and Tim Rice, who wrote the song