Dreamscapes and Cityscapes

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Fevered and imagined, the teeming city wherever he looked, the traditional Thai neighbourhoods almost side by side with modern, high end malls, the filthy coffee, the endless stalls, the clear debates and rapid exchanges; life going on as normal, not a book in sight. No one reads. Their life, business life, trading life, goes on by day and into the warm musty nights. They curl together in limpid, loving embraces and he rises up snap tired, talking to no one, listening with a wry laugh and fevered despair. Alex lies in a nest of bottles. Gary marches through the midday sun. Peter, the Australian, carted his backpack around and stayed at the Romance for a night. Vivid voices come and go. There is no surrender.

He wanted to ask, he stood in the street and the silences stretched and he thought, I should ask. But what's the point; wasting someone else's time; here in the heat of the capital, in the crowded streets where it was so easy to get lost, where time stood still and was yet just another fevered imagining, where the quietness of the passing parade, the Western men bargaining with the girls, who turn and walk, their pert faces lit briefly by the flashing neon signs, the touts, massage, massage, cry the girls, thank you thank you he waves dismissively, as if such a thought was not possible, not in this life, not in this body, not in this time and place. Yet why not? And why not here?

Where the heat swirls and the girls ply their trade. And the katoys, the ladyboys, sit and watch the passing parade; just as he did. The French girl sat in Coffee world each night, watching the circus around Nana, a bristling tourist area, at once down market and expensive, where the old Miami Hotel where he had once stayed, cheap, cheerful, the decor unchanged for decades, was now an anachronism in an era of mass tourism, when cheap airfares and the internet had changed the world, changed everything. We are the people of the internet, says the advertising on the BBC. We can travel vast distances in the blink of an eye. We are helping your leaders, we are helping your people. A shimmering light. A disembodied voice. He wanted to be deeply free. He heard the traces of others, he heard familiar echoes to his own predicament, yet none of it was believable, none of it was clear.

Darkness would do him no favours. The oblivion seeking behaviour of the past presented no solutions for an old man in an old body, someone who should have come to terms with the waves of distress, the looming, melancholic, malignant fabric of things, the fundamental disturbances in the force. Beyond the border of the real lay nothing but a broiling grey soup, faces and friendships looming up and disappearing, as day followed day and face followed face, as he laughed discontentedly to himself and watched his friend with pity, the mumbled attempt to communicate, the Bacardi Freezers for the girls, the half drunk bottle of vodka, the money sprayed across the side table. I just wanted to get laid, he said, his hawkish strong face bewildered at what had obviously turned into a disaster, the girls unwilling, non-understanding, playing a game while the crazy man drank himself into oblivion; couldn't do nothing.

Life without consequence, that's what it had been. Now, as they say, all the chickens had come home to roost. Fevered, yet indistinct, pointless, yet each day seemed to have some vague, shambling purpose, if not to avoid the oblivion seeking behaviour of the past, then at least to manage it, exert some control, try to rise above these ridiculous efforts, the teeming crowds of Bangkok, the wall to wall girls and the high pitched boy friends, the astonishing crowds. Mark my words, the voice had said, as if there were any more words to be had. Every corner was crowded. Every scene was a fascinating set of geometrical shapes, stepping off into the distance, surreal cityscapes, profoundly beautiful some of them, even in their utterly manufactured, unnatural states. He could embrace everything. He could embrace nothing. No one would notice. No one would care. It would soon be over, one way or the other. Embrace the future, destroy the past. It is a troubled country for both of us, my son. Let's not go there.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www1.voanews.com/policy/editorials/Protests-In-Thailand-88455632.html

Protestors took to the streets of Bangkok as supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinwatra demanded the current government be dissolved and new elections held. Though raucous and featuring the symbolic splattering of blood on the gates of the country's administrative headquarters, Government House, the demonstrations were largely peaceful.

As a long-time friend of Thailand, the United States is watching the situation there closely. As Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said in Bangkok on March 12, the United States hopes that political differences can be dealt with in an appropriate way through the electoral process and through other democratic institutions.

An estimated 100,000 protestors began gathering in Bangkok that day to press demands that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva call elections now rather than late next year. They blame the Thai army and senior government officials for the collapse of a pro-Thaksin government in late 2008. Security was heavy throughout the city to prevent a repeat of protests last year that spun out of control, killing two people.

The standoff is the latest confrontation in a deep split that has roiled the nation since 2006, when Thaksin was deposed in a non-violent coup backed by the military. A series of pro- and anti-Thaksin governments have traded power since then, usually as a result of strikes and demonstrations.

As the parties confront their differences, it is hoped that this week's symbolic tossing of blood is the only bloodshed in the confrontation. Peaceful demonstrations are a hallmark of democratic society. Protestors and their leaders must avoid the use of violence. We urge all sides to exercise appropriate restraint as well.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1973185,00.html

My 2-year-old son was demanding to wear his T-shirt from our vacation on Bali. Getting him to focus on anything in the mornings, let alone sartorial choices, can be an ordeal. So Bali it was. It was only after we walked outside into the tropical heat of Thailand's capital, Bangkok, that we realized just how monumental a mistake we had made. Thais in the parking lot stared. The whispering began. Could it be that a blond American toddler had knowingly dressed himself in a red shirt?

In Thailand, people literally wear their politics on their sleeves. The nation has been locked for years in a paralyzing political showdown between two camps. There are the red shirts, who support former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 military coup and later convicted in absentia of abuse of power. And there are the establishment yellow shirts, who back current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. On March 12, around 100,000 red shirts, whose numbers are drawn largely from Thailand's poor rural regions, began descending on Bangkok by bus, truck, boat and tractor for what they deemed their final stand: a massive march to force the yellow-backed government to hold elections, which the reds believe will favor them. "Relinquish power and return it to the people," went the rally cry from protest leader Veera Musikapong.
(See pictures from Thailand's April 2009 protests.)

The protests are the latest in a years-running to-and-fro between the groups. In 2008, the yellows occupied Government House, the nation's seat of power, for three months. Later they hijacked Bangkok's two airports for a week, a disaster for a tourism-dependent economy. Last year, after a yellow-supported government took office, the reds swarmed an international summit at a seaside resort, forcing the emergency airlift of foreign leaders. That was followed by a scarlet siege of Government House, a takeover that culminated in Thailand's worst political violence in nearly two decades.

Of course, the color revolutions — orange in Ukraine or rose in Georgia — prove that Thailand is not the only country that mixes politics and pigments. But no other nation is quite as rigid about color schemes. In the U.S., Democrats may be associated with blue, but that didn't stop Barack Obama from wearing a red tie on Inauguration Day. (Outgoing President George W. Bush chose a blue tie for the occasion.)