Eye Catcher

DBNB & Neighbour, originally uploaded by oneboothy.

There's something about this picture that catches the eye more and more. It was taken at Songkran as the festivities started for the Laos New Year behind Dtock's parents' home. There are much more from the same day on my flickr site that (in my opinion) convey happiness and ease of human friendship without barrier or division, for no other reason, that was what was being celebrated that day. The ties around Bamboo's wrist are all symbolic of wishes of good luck for the coming year from family and friends. Bamboo has plenty of friends in Laos as he does in England, the only difference is that here they make him more of a star than they would anywhere else. My parents will concur.

The man is one of the many friendly neighbours living by Dtock's family home in Vientiane. He comes to get his hair straightened Malcolm X conk style by Dtock's sister Dtick. Can you imagine the emotion in this picture if it were one of my Mum's random neighbours on Ward Street in Hindley? It just wouldn't work.

It's obfuscating to fully comprehend what it means to have Dtock and Dylan Bamboo. This last week they have been away in Laos organising their passports, I've missed them, much more than I did when we lived in Bangkok (or so it feels now) and it seems to me that the older he gets the more I miss them. Apprehension grants the true and actual realisation of how much your parents must miss you when you decide to live on the opposite side of the world. I wonder if as you get older you become less needy as a parent, as a child does vice versa.

The fact that they are on their way back from Laos at all is nothing short of a miracle, apart from Bamboo's life threatening back flip off the bed the other week, how has Dtock managed to get Bamboo a passport from a country where it is illegal for natives to have sexual intercourse with foreigners (how did he manage not to land on his head?)? Albeit a draconian law and one there for the breaking, the fact that they have given him a passport contradicts the need to obtain governmental permission (and give them loads of dollars) to officially start a family. Asian bureaucracy is so senseless.

I was riding Dtock's bicycle after dark, looking at the surroundings thinking that here is so much more like Laos, it may as well be Laos but for a border imposed by the French and British. The way they talk, live, eat, shop, everything is laid back, easy, soft... apart from work that is, but that's another story that is just brewing and brewing and much the difference because the operation is riddled with Westerners who are so much different in every way... Anyway more of that subject will come later.

This is the first time I've blogged off the cuff for a long time, I hope it makes sense, I'm off to greet my family at the bus station on a very small LA Bicycle (made for a small one, but can fit two and a small growing child).

As an afternote, our neighbour's baby girl (a little older than Bamboo) is called Blueberry, so it's not just us who choose really cool names for our children, I can see it on a Ford Capri windscreen now, Bamboo & Blueberry 4EVA...

Take it East

Dad Tips, Egg Cups

Check out this cracking transformation!

If you have a baby and you can't find an egg cup why not take out the bit of your baby's bottle that holds the teat and main container together, turn it upside down put it on a plate and eureka, you have an egg cup that works better than an actual egg cup because all the yolk has a convenient hole to run out of the bottom. Also if this deters you from buying an egg cup then you've saved money!





I don't know where I get it from, I really don't.


Blog On

Mummy is Crazy (Bamboo)

Mum swinging off rickety rope swings in Vang Vien. And me thinking Peter Kay style, you won't get me on that.

Daddy is Crazy (Bamboo)

Dad singing Digsy's Diner Tubing in Vang Vien.

Dylan Bamboo Nearly Walking

Like Father Like Son

Like Father Like Son, originally uploaded by oneboothy.

A chip off the old block.

Burst into Heaven Kissing the Cotton Clouds Buckets of Rice and Fields of Rice I Can't Stop Coming Down

Fifty nine days without a smidgeon, but that's all been for good reason, we've been gallivanting with our families on idyllic tropical beaches, dodging cyclones and earthquake tremors, tubing down rivers - singing, swinging off rope swings into rivers (well I've not but more of that later), getting more friends, contemplating India from beautiful sultry stormy Ko Lanta and relocating and generally building up plenty of material for you lucky readers.

This morning there was strangely no brick dust in the air we breathed and the background noise was unusually silent. We could hear the monks chanting through distant loud speakers and in our back garden there's a mango tree full of ripe mangoes, eat as many as you like for nowt.

I was going to start this blog with a pun on confessions, you know the sort: forgive me readers it's been so many eons since my last blog and all that. But it's such a blogging cliche and as I've winded up working for the confessors (the same ones who educated me), I wouldn't want to be accused of such crassness. To be fair, this is the first time I've really sat at a computer properly (if you could entertain such a notion as sitting at computers properly).

Words, thoughts and situations encapsulate two great lyrics: The Smiths and then The Chilis; Stop me stop me oh stop me stop me if you think you've heard this one before and... Catholic School, Catholic School girls rule, yes read that again. And that's where I've wound up... again! Me, Paul Booth, in a Catholic Girls' School (how could they?) Ok the last one wasn't Catholic but it's as much of a Shakespearean muchness. No lesbians feeding the pony yet, but surely that could have only ever happened in Udon.

Bamboo is nearly walking and there is much, much more to follow.

Goodbye City Bus Fumes (Hello Country Bicycle Rides)

Blog On!

The Doors of Perception (and loose panes)

If you read Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, you'll know that he uses one of those diagrams in the introduction that can be looked at in two ways (it's called a Necker cube apparently and it looks like this...



So far so good? I mean you can all see that this can be perceived in two ways, yes? If you stare at it for long enough then it should jump about.

Now then, let's get to the point, I was being given directions to somewhere by a Thai person and as I'm getting a bit handier at the language I wrote down the name in Thai to confirm the pronunciation. Two characters look very similar, they are kor kwai (k) and dor dek (d). I apologised for my ignorance and admitted I tend to get the two confused, to which my helper responded, a good way to remember is for kor kwai the loop comes out and for dor dek the loop goes in!!!

I give you kor kwai and dor dek...

Is anyone one of those loops popping out anymore than the other? They're not even three dimensional looking ffs! Which one looks more like a buffalo's backside? I mean someone send me some of them 3d glasses or better still a dab of LSD and I might just be able to work this shit out.

The kids were being dead loud at school today, so I slammed a door to shock them into quietude (I didn't have my banjo on me), unfortunately I didn't realise there was a pane of loose glass in the door. Not the cleverest of moves in a room of 50 people under seven years of old. When I apologised I was told not to worry it wasn't my fault, it's nice to see this warped logic working in my favour for a change.

Myself, Dtocky and Bamboo have been apart for nearly a month now, it feels like forever, in three more days we'll all be re-united in Laos (dodging the KGB multicultural lover police section).

Until then...
Take it East

Indian Rope

One of the many benefits of working legally in Thailand apart from the fact that it massively impinges on your freedom of choice of employer is that when you leave the country for any period of time you have to purchase a re-entry visa so that your existing visa isn't invalidated (what nonsense, I suppose Thais leaving the country invalidate their citizenship by the same logic). This of course costs 1000 baht and takes a small era to obtain from the immigration office on Sathorn. Did I write benefits? Sorry I meant something else beginning with 'b' and ending with 's'.

All credit to those down at immigration, they've designed not only a million and one ridiculous ways to extort money from Johnny Foreigner, they've designed a a queueing system with numbered tickets and counters and digital signs to help make that feeling of being screwed over that much more comfortable and organised.

When you enter the office you queue up for your relevant form (re-entry, lost passport, god bothering missionary visa etc.). Then you go and fill it in, glue your picture to it and go back and queue up for the number I mentioned earlier.

You do all of this, unless, you are a fat Indian cow in a bright pink sari made of enough material to unravel all the way to Kolkata, and a tilak the size of the same city's circumference stuck on your forehead. In that case the system doesn't apply to you and you may negate it by sheer obstinate will.

I mean queue pushing and then quoting Thai maxims such as 'jai yen yen' and 'mai pen rai' is one thing (and she did), but then trying to push in front when you have a ticket that reads 172 and the number at the board is still at 165 is in another dimension, especially when it's at the climax of a two hour wait. It takes some front trying to break the empirical laws of the numerical system.

On pointing out her basic faux pas, she had the cheek to ask 'why you cause problem?' On responding it's not your turn and you're screwing up the system causing everyone who's waiting their turn to wait longer,' she shouted '171 go home,' I replied 'yes but 166, 167, 168, 169 are all still waiting' she shouted 'why you fighting?' At this point, I considered for the first time ever, why Winston Churchill declared in response to requests to send food to India at the height of the Bengal famine of the early 1940s: 'I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.' (I'm not even a fan of Churchill's apart from his Mary Astor comment, but you get my point)

I think my Grandad Booth had a similar problem with queueing and Indians and he affirmed at the time 'in England we queue'. I could of course be mistaken on this point but if I'm not, I definitely derived his queueing gene and hope it will be passed on to Bamboo.

Take it Easter than India

Bambhooo, Bambhoooo

A lot of the natives here are like that Harry Enfield character, Tim Nice but Dim except perhaps a little less nice and definitely more dim. I have especially noticed this in Bangkok, perhaps that's because everyone is living on top of each other and after a while it becomes simply too difficult to ignore their intelectual shortfalls, but when you reflect, wouldn't that be typical wherever you were living? I mean imagine 16 million Wiganers crammed into a relatively small and very hot city with acute traffic and sanitation problems.

In the case of Thailand and dimness we don't have to look much further than to their democratically elected Prime Minister, listen to him speak about anything and if you're not laughing, believe you me, you'll be crying. Consider that they spent a fortune on a coup, risked ruining ties with their beloved American Dad, lost a fortune in 'free' trade and tourism, re-wrote the constitution, disbanded the corrupt ousted political party and then when another party appeared with a different name and said we're that old party's lap dog (the one that caused all those terrible problems, mass demonstrations in Bangkok and whose leader was blatantly fiddling you), the people were given a choice and the larger majority, remarkably voted for that very lap dog party. What a worthwhile activity that turned out to be! Funnily enough the democratically elected Mr Popular is now hankering to have the new re-written consitution revoked/ammended/decimated, which would be the ultimate cherry on the cream cake of ultimate futility.

They're also linguistic numpties which makes teaching English or learning their language a complete nightmare. As it's coming up to my fifth anniversary since I first lived amongst these (on occasion) simple minded people I think I'm qualified to comment.

It is quite ironic how when speaking their language you have to get the exact correct sound or they have no idea what you are talking about, I mean what could I possibly be saying to you laundry woman? Can you please iron my shirt too, or have you got any salt and pepper please? How does Rajadamri sound like Ratchada to a Bangkok taxi driver if you don't say Rajadamreeeeee, the other day we had to save two Chinese people who were being taken for a ride (literally), when they said Lang Suan Lum, the taxi driver took them to Soi Rang Nam. But (and this is the irony) they cannot audibly replicate anything, anything at all, I have yet to meet one Westerner whose name they get correct, it's not difficult to repeat exactly the same sound you just heard, Paul, Pon, no Paul, Porn, Paul, Ron ad infinitum. They even correct you on English words, computer, no computeeeerrrrrrrr. So I think I'm being fair with my 'occasionally simple minded' statement, especially if we restrict this view to the arenas of politics and linguistics.

The other week in the park brought a great example of niceness and dimness, these lovely old dears were cooing at Bamboo, as locals tend to do. The natives seem to be obsessed with him, I can't complain about that but it does get worrying when full blown lepers jump out the the sewer and start licking him. Anyway, back to the old dears, Dtocky went to do her aerobics and as these old dears were all dying for a cuddle of Bamboo, I took him over to their park bench. Oh, they loved him (who wouldn't?) but then they asked his name. (Oh god please don't ask for his name, I'm sure my family in England share the same feeling)

We've come to a point where we know that hardly anybody gets his name correct, they are so linguistically challenged they can't say Bamboo or Dylan even (I often wonder if there's anything they can say apart from Mai mee, jing law). Bamboo comes out Baboon (even his Laotion grandad says Baboon ffs), Barun, Bamoo, Babool, Bamoon and just about anything possible but the correct one and Dylan comes out Dirron. We have however devised a system, if they look slightly intelligent then we say Bamboo (you can usually judge a Bangkoker's intelligence by checking their eyes, sometimes you can see brain activity behind them) but usually they have that numb nut glazed look to them, on those many occasions we say Donpai which is Thai for Bamboo so at least they grasp the concept.

So when the old dears asked, cheeu arrai ka (name what please?), I checked their eyes, they appeared to be fronting a functioning CPU with a functioning light emitter display so I said (oh god why did I say it) "Bamboo", confused looks, (Oh please no, I'll try again slowly B a m b o o) Barun? no Bamboo, Bamoo? Help, Help, Eject, Eject, switch to Thai "Don Pai" now they were really confused "Don Pai passaa Thai ber waa Bamboo passaa Angrit..." I waited with bated breath, cogs and wheels turned, one of those lucky Chinese cookies almost fell out and then they got it "Bambhoooo,", "yes", "yes, Bamboo, that's it", "Bambhooo," and then the old lady in the middle started pulling a face at me like a speech therapist would and continued, trying to get me to copy her "Bambhoooo," encouraging nods and smiles looking deep into my eyes for confirmation that I have grasped how to pronounce my own son's name "Bambhoooo"

So there you go, Bangkokers must be the only people in this whole universe, that when you're introducing your own son to them they will correct you on how you pronounce his name? And before you start with your 'perhaps they were just checking pronunciation blah blah' they weren't, they established the correct pronunciation in school, I could see that when Don Pai triggered Bamboo'

So there you go.

Take it East

Toast

Check out this classy innovative state of the art gadget we have for making toast.





It's called fire.

I know my other half is Laotion and my son is half Laotion, but when exactly I became Laotion I cannot say. The realisation dawned on me this morning as I crouched on our balcony faffing around with this contraption, a lighter, some disused kebab skewers, a newspaper and a disgarded plastic nappy bag making toast for half an hour.

It's a bit like that Samuel L. Jackson line in Pulp Fiction when he says, my girlfriend's a vegetarian, which pretty much makes me a vegetarian. My girlfriend's Laotion which pretty much makes me crouch around on a Sunday morning trying to get a fire going.

I wonder if the Communist authorities will go easier on us if I explain that I crouch, if they catch is in our illegitimate relationship, perhaps this is the passport.

Take it East

Myanmar Peaceful & Orderly - It's Official

Just when his last comment started to haze from the near indelible indentation it left in my mind, today I picked up the Bangkok Post and read.

Thailand's democratically elected Prime Minister has described Myanmar as a peaceful and orderly country with a military leader who is a good Buddhist who prays every morning... “Killings and suppressions are normal there but we have to know the facts,” said the Thai premier.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/thai-premier-praises-myanmar-as-peaceful-and-orderly_10027969.html

I have that nauseous feeling again, my head feels dizzy, I want to cry out for all those poor and innocent people being systematically murdered, raped, beaten and silenced.

How can you be so close to such disaster but be so mentally distant? How can people in power be so callous? Would this man have been elected if he had said half of the things he has since taking power?

Tears for Burma, shame on Thailand.

Take it East

Bamboo's Video Diaries #01

Eating banana... man!

Bamboo does Sums

Bamboo does Sums, originally uploaded by oneboothy.

He got a bit bored the other day so we gave him some sums to do.

Renaldo & Clara

Renaldo & Clara, originally uploaded by oneboothy.

This was taken with the camera phone, we were out on the Ko San Rd over the weekend and this little girl ran out and started kissing Bamboo, so we asked her to do it again and got it on camera.

I Am the Resurrection

...

Down down you bring me down,
I hear you knocking down my door and I can't sleep at night,
Your face, it has no place,
No room for you inside my head I need to be alone.

Brown, Squire, Reni & Mani

Song for My Sugar Spun Sister

It's been a long time since I wrote to you so I thought I'd better make a good job of it. Every time I hear Ce Matin La by Air I think of you, a brass Yorkshire trumpet/accordion combination on soft French beats, like a sassy mid summer wine flavoured with Compo type stunts in disused bath tubs against rolling green hills. Biggie Smalls is my man these days, hence the delay in writing.

I'll never forget that first foray into Laos (Ce incursion la); Peruvians, French lessons, spring rolls, chocolate pancakes, tubing, a life changing sunset, Beerlao and an attachment to the local herb that bore pipe dreams which became reality when the sultry Mekong mist and haze faded.

Your prediction long ago came true, shortly after last seeing you in Halifax I came back. I was going to go to India but was talked out of it. I went to China instead. On the way, I stopped off in Vientiane to arrange my Chinese visa and bumped into Dtock. The visit to China was delayed although I did eventually make it to the breathtaking (in every way) Tiger Leaping Gorge. I was soon back in Laos and then believe it or not Thailand. We live together in Bangkok now with our four month old son, Bamboo. He's usually in good spirits but he went for his inoculations yesterday and has been overheating and tetchy since. He's playful and communicative like me, good looking, placid and easy going like his Mum. When he cries he screws up his face like I frown on a bad photo, it's uncanny it reminds me of my Dad in a bad mood, thankfully he doesn't cry too much.

Bangkok still attracts the chaff of the west and we're hoping we can get out of here before too long. We're planning the greatest of escapes whilst dodging the sun, tuk tuks and natives with no peripheral vision. Last I heard from you you were in Latin America with a Hawain called Victor, if you get to Little Havannah yell 'Viva Fidel' or you in Africa? Keep going keep going wherever you are.

Take it East

It's a Hard Knock (White Monkey) Life

This is by far the best rant I have ever read concerning teaching in Thailand. I cried laughing after reading this...

I have "some" moaning and groaning to do, so I guess I'm here at the right place to do so!

Teaching in Thailand at high school level is a farce and complete bullocks. In 2 years time I taught at 6 different high schools, ranging from the rich, private school to the poor government schools. Teaching at high school could better be referred to as teaching at "hell school".

I came to Thailand on 7 separate occasions, 7 consecutive years. I saw students everywhere in their cute white/black, white/blue uniforms. I saw great respect for their King and for monks and Buddism in general and I thought it would be a teachers heaven to teach such respectful and obedient people. I have some very good Thai friends and so I was so naive to think everybody was like that.

So.....as soon as I started to teach in Bangkok, I saw that my dream became an absolute horror movie. Children at school (high school that is) have no respect whatsoever. Don't get me wrong, not every student was bad. I had some nearly perfect classes like Mathayom 6/1, 5/1, 4/1 and these student were obedient and respectful and did what I asked them to do (doing their assignments, reading texts and so on) and it was a real pleasure to teach them, but unfortunately 90% of the classes following slash 1 (Mathayom 6/3, 5/3 whatever.....) were most of the time absolute hell. Especially the Mathayom 3, 4 slash 4,5 where pure hell.My biggest frustrations at school:- classes ranging from 30 up to 50 students in one class (impossible to handle and to teach)- Thai substitute teachers sometimes present, sitting in the corner of the class, who were supposed to help keeping order, doing nothing, just hang behind their desks without interfering- fighting, phoning (with their mobile phones), playing music on their mobile phones, playing soccer in the class room etc., you name it, I have seen and experienced all of it- people enter the classroom far too late and start to create chaos among the others- complete and utter disrespect in some classes because they think you are a farang, a white monkey (this was said to me in my face on several occasions)

At all schools I had no right to straighten them out. There are no rules whatsoever. Yes, I went to the head of department and the director on many different occasions and they came with me to the classroom and then after some "harsh talks" with the students, they were quiet for 5 minutes and then everything started again. I had classes full of wannabe pop stars, checking their faces and their Korean/Japanese soap-styled-hairdo's in their little pocket mirrors every single moment, just sitting there chewing gum and laughing about me. I had some very hard confrontations with them, telling them that they could laugh about me and disrespect me but at the end of the day I would still make my money and that is far more than they will ever make at the 7-eleven when they leave school.

Wise ass little shit-heads everywhere. They leave their books at home on purpose and just sit there wasting their time while chewing gum and completely disrespecting you. I had a Thai teacher, she was one of the English teachers that taught them 3 hours a week, and this woman always came to my worst classes, just to have a "peek". These classes were absolutely disastrous, no books, no understanding whatsoever of the English language, you name it.....She used to come to my class and ask me: "what are you going to teach them today?". I said to her:" they didn't bring their books again, like every day and they don't understand a word of English, so I can not read with them and practise pronunciation, so there's nothing much I can do". So she used to react a little pissed at me every time and so one day she started to get on my nerves and I told her:"Why is it, that these children have no understanding whatsoever of the English language while you, a Thai teacher who speaks Thai perfectly and also English perfectly teaches them 3 hours a week?". "If I would be able to speak Thai perfectly like you do and had the ability to explain them every single word, I bet your ass they would speak English quite well within a year". Yeh, bingo, she silenced....but didn't like what I said.

Yes, and I didn't like it, this same questioning routine several times a week while they don't handle any set of rules to straighten these children out who are unwilling to learn.Yes, nice line-up every morning at 8. Nice pep talk every morning at 8, but nobody gives a shit.I see 60 year old teachers who are working for the same school for more than 20/30 years and they don't have the energy anymore to do anything to improve the situation.

At one school some Thai teachers told me in my first week that my next 2 hours that day would be absolute hell and that no teacher could handle them, but that day I handled them perfectly, but every hour is a struggle, a war of words and mimic, a complete and utter headache crash course.

The list of what is wrong in the educational system in Thailand is endless and this is due to the system, the parents and the teachers.The system: at most schools were I was there were no exams! People just pass to the next year. No pressure, no study, no nothing.The parents: they don't give a shit and lack any substantial knowledge whatsoever to motivate and educate or force their children to study. School is just a building where you drop your pain-in-the-ass children and have some hours of peace and quiet. Later in the evening? Let's watch some soaps: evening long, brainless entertainment with beautiful-bad-acting-screaming-white-skin models (in whatever word order you want...).

After school they eat and then most of the children disappear again in the soi and go to the game-shops and play computer games till midnight or after, nobody gives a shit.The teachers: most Thai teachers don't care anymore, they just make a living and get their money anyway. Almost every farang teacher that I know does the same (and I know at least 30 in Bangkok). They tell me:"what the f*ck do you get angry about? The are just monkeys......take your money at the end of the month and just don't care about them! That's Thailand! It's a joke!

At the expensive private high schools they don't do much also, otherwise Hi-so daddy will take his child from school and put them somewhere else and teaching is big business in Bangkok, for the schools that is! Rich parents pay a lot to see their children off at some Hi-so school where the real native English speaking "monkey" teaches and where you have "English summer camps".

They all want "the real deal" to teach their children English.My list is endless. And also this "native English teacher" bullshit. The Thai still thinks that everyone coming from a native English speaking country is top and anyone else, non-native speaker is not good enough. What a big laugh! It's such a farce! I had a conversation with a guy from Manchester the other day and the day after with an Irish guy and don't forget the Cockney accent or Aussie..... God help us! Even I could hardly understand them!There are native English speaking teachers around for more than 20 years and what is the level of English till now among the common Thai? Zero and non-existing! Only some rich Thai people who have the money to go to some of the better schools, or the ones who can afford to go abroad, are able to speak English to a certain extend.And yes....all these little hustlers in the tourist areas like Khaosan and Silom/Sukhumvit, bar girls and such, they know to a certain extend to "use" the English language, standing or horizontal.

It's one big joke and unfortunately a sad one.I see teachers getting hired and getting paid 40/50.000 Baht a month, who have absolutely no good knowledge to be at these positions. But just because they are "handsome" and/or know the right people, schools and universities offer them a job (even ask them to marry their daughters...). Why do I get angry? I came because I like Thai people, I came to help them, no problem if I have to stay longer to teach them as long as they are eager and willing to learn, I will stay, even though it's my own time, nothing paid, I don't care.I am a real teacher..

Jeff K taken from Ajarn.com

Take it East

101 East - Thailand's new Prime Minister -09 Feb 08 - Part 2