Of random encounters in Bangkok

K?

So, after hanging out with M a couple of months ago… (and again now)… after seeing P @ Bully’s… finally, unsuspectingly I ran into K at Starbucks on Asoke. Memories of midnight champagne at the Dream and of sushi breakfast at the Landmark. Still crazy, but still gorgeous. How do you say esta es la vida loca in Thai?

Cool?

There are several kinds of cool places. Tokyo, New York, London are arguably beehives of global creativity, places where things start. Then you have the Singapores, LAs, maybe Barcelonas – places which take in things that originate elswhere, or perhaps originate things on their own, but without the global reach of the first tier global cities. Hong Kong and Seoul would be trapped somewhere between the two categories, creative enough to be influential but without the power to extend their influence globally.

And then you have everything else, the local, non cosmopolitan, cities – perhaps tuned-in consumers (Bangkok), or perhaps untuned, uncreative locals such as most of the US (disturbing parochialism).

Do you create, do you imitate, do you consume, do you ignore?

Not sure how this fits in Richard Florida’s work – it does on some level I’m sure

The Miracle Mile

So this time around I stayed far from the epicenter of Bangkok’s nightlife, and most definitely in a non-posh hotel. I wonder how would things have been had my first trip there been similar? In fact, I did stay for the first 3-4 nights at the not so hip and not so clean City Lodge on Soi 19, but when I completed the initial booked stay I moved just across the street to the shiny and luxurious Sheraton Sukhumvit Grande.

Hard Rock Cafe, the nightly walks on the “miracle mile”, Narcissus, everything started from there an created the image of Thailand (and Asia) that I still carry in my mind. Wonder if it would have been any different had my initial surroundings been On Nut and the (otherwise, nice) local Thai eatery S. took me to a week ago.

Fragments of Bangkok

• missing Dt… just found the pics from 6 years ago
• going to Sunrise Tacos, I found myself missing K. Crazy as a bat, but gorgeous, and kind hearted in her own unique way
• listening to Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto
• walking in knee deep water just outside Hard Rock Cafe. Where was the Telefon Band?
• met M and was more moved than I thought I would be, and I think she was too. 2 1/2 years since the wild days with C and the first encounter with her
• first time ever in Thailand that I don’t get any kinds of stomach ailments from street foods
• only one trip to the Mango and none known there
• Singapore: comfy. Bangkok: has a soul

Photos, soon.

Full of obscure references

…but I have to exorcize my readings in the last 12 hours. So here is a portrait of the Eastern European ‘intelligent thinker’ as encountered on various blogs – and yeah unless you are from the old old country or one of its neighbors, this wont’ make any sense to you; here are direct or paraphrased quotes that define the type:

• “I’m quite informed – very informed actually”
• “I know my way around the kitchen”
  • regarding these two, I’m deeply suspicious of anyone singing their own praises unsolicited
• I have a slight, but persistent disliking of the West, which I couch in metaphysical terms/”real knowledge about the world”/”the Left/humanistic/… tradition”/the way we know to do things and they don’t, them the narrow-minded fools
• I have a hidden, but not too well hidden, liking of Russia/strongmen/populists who tell it how it is to the Westerners, constant with my preferences described above
• I drink/smoke/stay up late/don’t really work very hard/like a good party
• I think talking is more important than doing
• I have a soft spot, especially for the “underdogs”/I get emotional but I swear a lot, at the same time, and just don’t appear very nice outwardly
• I don’t shave too often, and I wear shit clothes because I have more important things to do (such as drinking, smoking, etc)
• I’m traditional/religious although I know nothing of other cultures through direct experience, but I read about them and know mine is the best, although it is in deep shit right now, being squeezed between anonimity and irrelevance
• I don’t believe in simple facts; always, there is something behind it; I know

This is just one type of Eastern European; rather harmless actually, seen often on the blogs and in the bars, sometimes in print or on Tv; these dudes (they are always men) just need to take a chill pill and relax! Somehow, they never do.

There are other, more unpleasant types, of which I might be (or not) arsed to write about at a later date.

Just exorcizing. I don’t really care actually… I’m into cool things myself and I find all of the above terribly boring. One of the things I like about living in the world is how I am dealing with so many, well, semantic spaces. As far as I am concerned, one’s quality of life is determined by the size of his or her semantic spaces (meaning the same thing as the title of this blog – the totality of ideas that compose your life’s universe, the things that you think about in a given day or week or month or year) and by the spaces you can temporarily evade to – in your weekend escape or on your summer vacation. All the life in the old old country seems to revolve around politicians, a retrograde creed (that no one really takes seriously – as Alan Watts says – but everyone pretends to), and an ongoing blame game – nothing cool, nothing engrossing there, and this is unfortunately typical for Eastern Europe; some people miscall it their profound existence (as opposed to the levity of life in the West – what of Asia then?) when to me this is just a waste of time.

---

U guys are talking. I am living.
And it is here where I stop and move on.

Friday night

Just spent a night drinking red wine, listening to Air and Delerium, pretending to think about my future, and reading a bunch of blogs from the old old country. You’d think I’d have better things to do on a Friday night – but anyway, I was surprised to see how nothing changed. I hadn’t followed Eastern European news for perhaps a year, and now it was just like I’d never been gone: same sh*t, same discussions, same angry recriminations. What really amazes me is how people there get into ‘politics’ and talk unending talks; the country isn’t better off or worse off than any country in a similar stage of development, and its political class isn’t better or worse than the average representatives from anywhere. But the chattering classes, that is, 80% of the population sitting on the sidelines without getting involved in any way, is quick to find faults, and talk, and talk, and talk. I would be dead bored there – everyone knows the minutiae of the lives of the public figures and only talks about that.

While the facts aren’t brilliant, the constant chattering just amplifies and distorts them until they become unmanageable. It’s not just the blogs, this is how life is there, a constant talk – as H.P. Lovecraft used to be terrorized by any kind of music (see “The music of Erich Zann”), so I am over tired by the unending talks there. The tragedy is that some of these blogs are indeed extremely well written, with talent – and there clearly is a rather solid cultural background, curiosity, and intelligence that the writers possess to write in that fashion. Yet they are wasted in an ocean of bytes and useless banter. Why don’t these guys use their talents to create something else, more divorced from the immediate? If I was an ‘intellectual’ there, I would force myself to talk about everything but the now; I’d write about the classics, about science fiction, about nature, about painting, just about anything that is more perennial.

The double tragedy is that when I was in the country, I used to see all kinds of guys similar to these – in late night bars, getting sloshed and wailing over lack of chances, lost loves, and missed opportunities; well spoken they were too. But ultimately losers. Drinking and waxing poetic form the sidelines seems to be a national characteristic that no one is ever thinking of addressing.

Reaffirmations

Who doesn't like a song and dance?

Whatever illusions we have that are debunked, some happinesses are constant – such as the Thai Disco’s.

Debunkings

One of the things I never bought into in the US (another one being the ownership society, about whose debunking I just tweeted), but was constantly bombarded with, was the optimism; the so-called can-do attitude. It was an instinctive rejection that I could not quite explain. While I agree that moderate optimism is a useful approach to living, the idea that anything is possible seemed somehow ludicrous to me, as someone who comes from a culture that has been repeatedly shoved back in the dirt as soon as it had a chance to lift itself. I was just skeptical.

After being immersed in a different society for a while and having the advantage of distance, as well as the perspective afforded by the interesting times we’re in, I do have an explanation of sorts for my attitude; this endlessly optimistic attitude makes sense for a generation that has encountered hardship, struggled with it, and overcame. E.g., those who lived through the Civil War, Great Depression, maybe World War II even (although that was a remote calamity with little bearing on those left back home). You have seen the problem, fought with it, and conquered; you know you are equipped to deal with it, based on your experience.

But for a generation or two whose biggest worry was where is the next stash of dope going to come from, or when is the next Nintendo going to be released, and which did nothing to contribute to this state of freedom from worry, this kind of optimism is foolish and misguided. How do you know things will always be ok, when you never had to deal with bad stuff? You are just projecting a past which you did not create onto a future which you hope will be yours, but which you aren’t actively propping up – you’re just riding on someone else’s wave.

I don’t really think the current crisis will solve this issue – it takes a generational adjustment for that to happen and I don’t think that 2 years of dumping houses will cause it. Let’s wait and see.

Incidentally, the US isn’t the only one who should worry about this. If I was a thinking Chinese, I would worry about it too – the biggest wave is the next one.

*

Just had this girl, who says she is in love with me – schedule three meetings with me, none of which she was able to keep. Now: she is a professional, someone with a brain, no (apparent) baggage, and a life of her own. Yet, every time she scheduled something she canceled only hours later – first time she was too tired to meet, then her house was a mess, then something else happened. Just assume that you were in love with her; again, her biz card suggest a respectable, worthwhile potential date or more. Being in love with her, you would watch her every gesture and read into her every act, hoping for that sign that you matter more than others. And if she initiated an encounter, you would be overjoyed, only to crash and burn when she canceled. Three times in a row, you would be nearly devastated – the higher you are, the farther you fall.

Am I not better off being a skeptic? Chuckling quietly every time she sends another SMS? And wise – I always have the K’s, so no need for the (busy? mindless?) potential ideal date.

Umm

My EQ Intelligence

While I don’t disagree with the above, I wonder under what concept does ‘boredom’ fit? Inability to motivate an interest in others (and BTW, is this self-centeredness)? Anyway, I have much much Osho left to read and meditation to (begin to) practice it seems.

And how does it all relate to this?

Random post

Boats on Kallang River

Not a whole lot to write today. Or in the last few days, although I’ve tweeted quite a bit. I’m guessing, according to Emotional Intelligence, that blogging is to moods what tweeting is to emotions. So here are a couple of random Singapore photos, such as the Kallang (or is it Singapore?) River seen from Hooters at Clarke Quay (YES!).

Unrelated, more and more of my friends in the old-old country seem to drift towards fundamentalist (perhaps) Orthodoxy, … um. So much for the golden future. I wonder how would we sit around and share stories, e.g. how would I tell them about my previous Balinese squeeze, who is among others a consultant in sharia financing, and has a strong belief in dukun and other forms of magic. For someone totally a-religious, such as myself, these things can be brushed over without any second thoughts. But how does someone who believes deal with someone else’s beliefs?

Ok, back to my Faithless CD.