Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Handbags


Handbags
Originally uploaded by oneboothy
I saw this daubed on a bridge near the canal on a Soi off Sukhumvit (Bangkok's main road), the sign resonated with me for obvious reasons and then within about 30 seconds I spotted this lady walking down the road, so I shot her handbag and decided to ask my friend Dave to put the two shots into one frame for me.

I think one of the most poignant truths for anybody living in Asia is the huge disparity between poverty and wealth and the negative effect this has in cultural and social terms. Not just on the poor but the rich too.

In a city like Bangkok these issues are bipolar, but there only ever seems to be one winner in the propaganda war between the needy and need nots.

Devotion to money manifest, appears to create a convenient cycle of myopia, the force of consumerism creates useless needs for the need nots, whilst the really needy watch the trend cycle by.

I believe the tide will turn one day and that's why I bring these shots to your attention.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Insomnia (Barking Dogs Mix) Faithless

Just when things started looking up, dogs howled and yapped all night long , that's why I'm in work at 6.30am writing this. Taking after my Dad for his love of barking dogs, call it nature or nurture either or, from 2am onwards I've had no sleep. At 5am the neighbours were berated and frankly put, if any of their dogs get within bamboo swinging pole reach of me I'm going to beat the living crap out of it or them.

Rhetorically, who in their right mind lets their dogs run round the moo bahn (estate) upsetting all the other dogs, all night long? Who never complains about problems because it's not in their "mai pen rai" quasi-nevermind culture? Why are problems never solved? Why does the white man come across as the crazy one?

Thankfully, I attained my compulsory 20 hours of Thai culture and language knowledge certificate the weekend prior, otherwise I may have gotten myself kicked out venting my spleen on this subject, like the drunk who stood up and said something like "when are the Thai people going to realise they are part of the international community, why is it always Thai this Thai that?" He was roundly booed but by then, he'd already upset the audience by screaming for the microphone and abusing the nice pretty well spoken lady orating the course.

In one way after a night of barking dogs no matter how far I've come to consolidate myself back with the "culture" since leaving Bangkok and a near two year fall out, it's like Tin Tin Out... always something there to remind me.

Take it East (Leave it West in a nod to Danny)

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Class P2/1


Class P2/1, originally uploaded by oneboothy.

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Class 2/2


Class 2/2, originally uploaded by oneboothy.

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Class 2/3


Class 2/3, originally uploaded by oneboothy.

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Feelin'

Bamboo started walking properly about four hours after this video was shot.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

New Age Colonialists of the World (hand it over)

For one reason and another I previously omitted to mention where we moved to, Khon Kaen. We live a little out of town quite close to the lake which takes a cute photograph at sunset. I first came here on my way back from Laos five years ago and distinctively recall the ultra friendliness of the locals and laid back atmosphere of the place. Situated at the heart of Isaan, most people converse in Lao dialect and drive like complete buffoons, the town is quite small and easy to get around but for the foresaid imbeciles.

I’ll try not to get too hung up on the locals’ lack of driving awareness but it really is bad. Being a small town we decided to take a little personal responsibility for Bamboo’s, Bamboo’s childrens’ (and so an and so forth) future world. Rather than buy an all air polluting, petrol consuming motorbike for our travels we invested in a pair of bicycles. Dtocky has a blue city (vicars’) bike and I have a red BMX. We are thanked for our selflessness at limiting our carbon footprint on Mother Earth by nincompoops driving motorised vehicles who regularly without warning make all manners of hazards; of us, themselves and the road in general. Of all the benefits of living in the countryside away from a big city like Bangkok I would say yokel style drivers have to be the largest drawback. My commute to and from school is never without hazard.

After nearly three years in Bangkok (on and off) making the transition back to the countryside is quite strange. After the equivalent of days as I’d had years there, retreating in the vicinity of some of the world’s most beautiful beaches my father commented ‘I miss Bangkok.’ At the time, I balked but if one has lived and survived in Bangkok for a considerable amount of time becoming acquainted with its city map, myriad methods of transportation, culture, language and lifestyle, one can leave Bangkok but Bangkok will never leave those (especially their alveoli). We have both commented how we especially miss lazy afternoons in Lumphini Park, perhaps the urban contrast of arcane hypertensive traffic flow in transition with the park’s quiet beauty (when the propaganda radios are switched off) makes its serenity all the more worthy of an occasional nostalgic look back at that distant metropolis we once suffered.

There’s definitely no going back, we live in a house in a cul de sac, there’s a dog opposite called Bonbon that barks at outsiders, on Sundays its owner family shoot hoops at an invisible basketball board whilst the sane half hang the washing out. Babies are everywhere and often we think it’s Bamboo crying when it’s not. Everything is within pedaling distance so we’re getting fitter and eating healthier.

More time spent off the sky train spent pedaling means more free time with the family, books and music channeled through a Sony Playstation 2 and portable television. On Sunday evening, enjoying Paul Simon’s Graceland and a book I realised I was turning into my Dad, I looked at the cover and was thankful it wasn’t Dick Francis.

I’ve never plugged a book specifically but then again I haven’t read a book as good as this in a long time: Freedom Next Time by John Pilger is one of the best exposes about ‘new age colonialism’ (a phrase I stole from Robert Mugabe quoted on Al Jazeera) that I’ve ever read, covering five chapters with some fantastic interviews (memorably Nelson Mandela who squirmed at the point of his official recognition of the Burmese incumbent junta, they supported the ANC you see), Pilger reveals the facts behind the British government’s theft of the Chagos islands including Diego Garcia (now a US military base from which Iraq is attacked and Iran will be) and the plight of its indigenous peoples whose existence was denied, it investigates the legacies of the British Empire’s lost colonies covering the Israel Palestine conflict, India, South Africa and Afghanistan. Paying attention to the stories ignored by the mainstream he interviews the voiceless and brings their stores to the reader, he then goes on to the policymakers and puts these struggles in perspective, to quote the writer "This book is about empire, its facades and the enduring struggle of people for their freedom. It offers an antidote to authorised versions of contemporary history that censor by omission and impose double standards."

It really is worth a read. I’ll cycle on home pull some jumps over sleeping police men, try not to get hit by veering motorists driving on the pavement and cheer on ASEAN for their long overdue and eventual marked criticism of the Burmese junta over the illegal imprisonment of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Take note current Thai administration.



Blog On

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Peggies

I was sitting in our bed reading Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent (highly recommendable) the other night whilst Dtocky was outside nattering to the neighbours, she knocked on the window and I shouted "I can't come out I'm naked!" So she asked "Which is closer to here Nong Khai or Ubon Ratchatani?" "Nong Khai" (of course).

This is the geographical and linguistic equivalent of three Lancastrians asking a Pole whether Bolton or Wigan are closer to Preston, but seeing as that the most topical topic of conversation in the staffroom is that there is now a Polish edition of The Sun that might not be a too distant vision.

On a side note one of Bamboo's front teeth has come through, not as nature intended however, he dangled precariously from a plastic style storage unit piled top heavy with unbroken glasses (for drinking out of). He lost balance, fell backwards (in slow motion) the glasses exploded everywhere and one of them slightly dinted his gum which seems to have provoked the emergence of the said tooth.

Take it East

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

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

Thursday, June 19, 2008

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

Saturday, June 14, 2008

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.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Dylan Bamboo Nearly Walking

Like Father Like Son


Like Father Like Son, originally uploaded by oneboothy.

A chip off the old block.

Friday, June 06, 2008

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!

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

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

Saturday, March 29, 2008

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