Juggling commitments....

“If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.”
Henry Miller

It is late on a balmy Friday evening, something of a relief after the mercury touched 41C mid-afternoon; a slight breeze stirs the air pleasantly. I find myself sitting in the open air Tara Guest House restaurant enjoying a large and very refreshing Chang (Thai beer) and a plate of what are described on the menu as 'Pineapple Flitters'. These come with either honey or chocolate, or even both if one is feeling particularly indulgent. My lifestyle here is generally quite healthy but this, I have to admit, forms something of an exception.
I did actually stay here for a few days on arrival, opting for the very reasonable 'superior' suite at a relatively expensive £12 a night. Normally, by this stage, I have settled into some kind of long term accommodation, usually involving a cold shower and a lack of air conditioning, but this time I have been in somewhat indulgent mood and so the pleasures of fresh sheets, fresh towels and a small but cooling swimming pool have proven too much to resist.
Although such temptations sometimes get the better of one, I still find myself frequenting the much-loved but distinctly down market 'Jolly Frog' on a regular basis. The accommodation may not be the best in town and the service internationally renowned for being terrible, but they do have the most wonderful garden and a peripatetic clientèle of wonderfully eccentric characters, some of whom seem to have become regular visitors over the years.
The garden is also a wonderful place to take some exercise; the air is fresh, the flowers beautiful and the fact that the river Kwai runs so close by all lend a unique ambience to the place that has charmed many a weary wanderer (including your footloose flaneur). When I arrived last week, I immediately headed for the place to practice a little qigong and indulge my current fascination for swinging nunchucks. I have little interest in using such weaponry for any aggressive purpose, but love learning the wonderfully flowing and co-ordinated movements that are necessary if one is to perform with any degree of gusto.
On the first day in the garden, whilst practising a few of the more advanced moves, I met a German guy by the name of Alex and a young French lad called Ansulyman, both of whom were practising juggling in the same garden. A mutual exchange of views on the subject of skill acquisition followed, and so it was that, for the last four or five days at least, an informal school dedicated to such performance arts sprung up quite spontaneously amidst the palms, tamarinds and bougainvillea of the Jolly Frog.

Others guests and various itinerants have happened by over the last week and found themselves drawn into the process. At any given time one can find oneself learning various forms of juggling, particularly with balls and skittles, nunchucks, qigong, tai chi or other, equally exotic forms of martial and performance arts.

The atmosphere is very informal, relaxed and supportive; all in all, very conducive to learning such skills without any sense of pressure and, basically, just for the sheer, unadulterated pleasure of it. For my part, I have focussed so far mostly on picking up juggling and am now, after a few days of trying, able to manipulate three balls at once without injuring the spectators or dropping them too frequently. One young man has progressed from neophyte to attempting five balls in a mere four days, although it has to be admitted that it can be a somewhat hazardous undertaking to stand anywhere in close proximity when he attempts to do so. 

 
When learning new skills is a pleasure, almost an indulgence, such activities become very pleasant indeed. I sometimes think back to the pedagogic horror which formed my own education, to the woefully inadequate methodologies employed, to the stress laid upon discipline imposed from the outside (whilst discipline is clearly necessary, that imposed from within is often far more powerful, and far more effective), to the simplistic 'chalk and talk' methodologies, and many other unpleasant and ineffective conventions, and realise that, for me at least, conventional education was merely something that I had to survive rather than having any real value in terms of knowledge or skills acquisition.
Since those far off days and the daily frustrations and humiliations one suffered in the process of poorly acquiring skills that were often completely useless from that moment forward (working out tangents has not come up even once in the intervening years, and as for the learning of the (mis)doings of various Kings and Queens of England… such knowledge only turned me into a lifelong and convinced republican). Since those happily far-off days I have invariably found myself enjoying learning a range of new subjects and competencies in so many areas. All of these seem to have been acquired relatively easily, just as long as I was given at least a modicum of encouragement and support to do so. Looking around the 'school' in the Jolly Frog this morning, the thought struck me that such learning is so normal, so natural, so enjoyable for all of us, if only the right ambience is created.
Back in the Tara they are closing up for the night and I find myself faced with a pleasant ten minute walk back to my hotel on the river front. Kanchanaburi is even quieter this year; so quiet in fact that one wonders how long the almost deserted bars can survive. On the other hand, those of us who are more open to the less inebriated, daytime pleasures of the place are enjoying the current state of affairs immensely. And so, as this late but still

very steamy hour, I must bid thee a fond farewell and prepare this rather over-exercised body for a night of hopefully recuperative slumber.
Night night….

Too far to walk...

 

"We begin here then, in the very quick of the nightmare, in the crucible where all values are reduced to slag."

Henry Miller - The Air Conditioned Nightmare

This evening I find myself enjoying the slightly salubrious yet subtly seductive comforts of the 'Jolly Frog'. This particular guesthouse, perhaps more than any other, was responsible for putting Kanchanaburi on the map as a backpacker's destination. That was many, many years ago now, and of more recent times it has become something of an emblem of Kanchanaburi, despite an ongoing process of delightfully delapidating degradation that has rendered its décor somewhat dated by modern standards . To say the rooms are basic is to understate the reality. This is not the place to come if one requires high levels of opulence in order to enjoy a break. On the other hand, its throwback decadence to its glory days of the seventies has an almost timeless appeal to a huge variety of travellers. The clientèle this evening are an odd mixture of the geriatric remains of a peripatetic generation and a cosmopolitan group of footloose and fancy free youngsters trying to reinvigorate the bygone days of backpacking yore.
In short, the Jolly Frog has a rather pleasant way of attracting the outlandish and the eccentric. Its garden is perhaps its most notable feature, sitting as it does aside the River Kwai. Unlike the rest of the establishment, it is always looked after with great care and, perhaps, even love. As I tap out these notes on a hot and steamy Wednesday evening I cannot help but overhear the delightfully bizarre conversations of the youngsters sharing a beer or two and swinging to and fro in the hammocks in the centre of the garden. From the accents I am guessing we have several Spaniards, a Frenchman or two, a young American with a predilection for swearing every time he wishes to emphasize a point and several girls, perhaps one American, one French and one English. They, much like myself, are enjoying the late night delights of a bottle or two of 'Archa', a cheap but cheerful Thai beer that sells for the very reasonable 49 baht in the local convenience store, and the soporific atmosphere of a warm night relaxing beside the river.
Actually, I have to admit to being pleased to be back here this evening after a very unpleasant sojourn into Bangkok over the past couple of days. In my years of travelling I have visited many, many cities from Moscow (very dull) to New York (very noisy), Barcelona to Venice (both fascinating), Cairo to Izmir, and many others far too numerous to mention, but I cannot think of any city over decades of travelling that is quite as unremittingly unpleasant as Bangkok. It is a dirty, dingy, dilapidated dystopian disaster of a city that has few, if any, redeeming features.
I spent last night in a hotel 2.5 kms from Don Mueang Airport, chosen for its proximity. In practice, it took nearly an hour and a half to find said hotel (the Pool House Guest Residence). My first resort was to attempt to hire a taxi, but trying to communicate with the drivers of these vehicles proved to be almost impossible. None of them seemed to recognise the name of the hotel, even though I had it written in both English and Thai. None of them seemed to have the foggiest idea of how to read a map, the very concept seeming to throw them into a state of confusion. None of them seemed to want to go on the metre, even though the law requires them to do so, preferring attempts to arrange a hugely inflated price beforehand instead. 

 
After several efforts that merely resulted in increased frustration, I resolved to walk to the hotel. This was probably a mistake as it took vastly longer than expected owing to the lack of anywhere to actually walk. What pavements there were were invariably broken up to the point of unsuitability, the rest of the journey being a case of either walking through a seemingly endless building site or against the stream of a apparently never ending cascade of recklessly driven motor vehicles.
Eventually, I found a 7-11 store that I knew to be in the vicinity of the guest house. I asked the girl behind the counter if she knew the hotel. She did, but she assured me that it was far too far to even consider walking. Instead, she suggested I take a motor bike. Tired, sweaty and a little fed up (a rare emotion for me), I took what I perceived as a rather desperate option and clambered aboard a Honda 90.
The rider rode thirty metres to the West, twenty five metres to the North, followed by one hundred metres to the east and…. we were there. As an expression of the idea of 'too far too walk' it seemed to be lacking something vital that, in the West at least, we tend to call 'distance'. 

 
To be fair, the Thai conception of 'too far to walk' is very different to the British or American. To those of us in the West, the expression would indicate several miles of challenging perambulation, whereas here in Thailand 'too far to walk' means anything above 40 yards or so. An old joke sprang to mind: question“What do you call a person walking in Thailand?”, answer “A tourist!”.
(Actually, I was tempted to use another, very much similar, line earlier, It was along the lines of 'what do you call someone hopelessly lost in Bangkok', the answer being, obviously, 'a taxi driver').
It is hard to conceive of a form of words that will convey just how hopelessly unpleasant Bangkok is. It consists of street upon street, road upon road, of sheer, adulterated ugliness. Even the centre of town, the area around the Royal Palaces, are notable for just how tacky the use of excessive gold leaf can appear. It comes across as a depressing display of unjustified opulence in a land where most of the population are struggling even to put a meal on the table.

Such tasteless decoration accounts for only a small area though, the vast majority of Bangkok being an endless chaos of cars and cables, broken pavements and unrepaired holes, officious policemen and self-righteous military men. From East to West South to North, inside and outside, over a vast distance, there is barely anything that one could recommend to someone about this truly atrocious city.

Luckily (I survived!), I now find myself back in the far pleasanter environs of Kanchanaburi where, if all goes well, I intend to spend the next couple of weeks reading, writing and learning to juggle. The last being the result of meeting Alex, a professional German juggler who was happy to pass on the basics to me in return for a few lessons of twirling nunchucks (I am no master, but sufficiently competent now to start a complete neophyte on the path towards a level of competence).
The hot season has arrived, with rumours of temperatures in excess of 40C on the way in the coming week. This seems a good enough excuse to me to curtail the more physical aspects of flaneurial activity and to concentrate instead on the process of writing, both this blog and a book I have been planning for a year or so now. The prospect of afternoons spent in air conditioned cafés slowly imbibing Americanos and fruit smoothies whilst tapping away on my netbook seems pleasant indeed in this heat...

Excuse me, but...

Today I find myself in the cosy environs of Hey! Coffee, yet another relatively new establishment that is to be found just off the Hongfu Road in the vicinity of the Dongguan Exhibition Centre. The coffee here is particularly excellent and the staff seem very helpful, if a little young and manic. They are a pleasant bunch, but occasionally, their patience and civility can be sorely tried by some of their excessively demanding Chinese customers. There is a peculiar way of addressing staff here that, to many a Western ear, would seem at the least rude, if not actually downright ignorant at times. Greetings of 'Ni hao' or 'Zao shang hao' ('hello' and 'good morning') will often be conspicuously ignored, it being seemingly beneath the customer's dignity to respond to mere serving staff.
Perhaps it is the overcrowding here, there are an awful lot of people crammed tightly into already overcrowded cities, or perhaps it a deeper, cultural aspect, but whatever the cause, notions of civility and patience do not come easily to the people of China. There is a desire to jump each and every queue at any available opportunity, to take advantage of another person whenever possible, to generally and quite ruthlessly (callously?) ignore the needs of others whilst looking after number one. For example, it is not unusual to wait ten to fifteen minutes for service at a railway station ticket office, only to find that at the last moment someone will jump in from the side, having not queued at all, thrust his money in front of the clerk and demand to be served. More often than not, that demand will be met rather than rejected, as such ways of conducting oneself are so common here that they barely merit a raised eyebrow from the ticketing clerk. For me, raised in a gentler culture, this somewhat refractory behaviour can be experienced as somewhat jarring. 

 
There is a lovely old cliché, one very much worth taking note of, that comes to mind: 'when in Rome do as the Romans do', but sometimes, some behaviour seems so, how can I put it, downright rude (?), that one really does not wish to find oneself behaving in similar ways.
An experience during the last week may serve to illustrate the point. A Chinese friend of mind needed some treatment in a local out-patient's department for three problematic teeth. For the sake of avoiding confusion, let us call her 'Patience'. Now Patience was in quite some pain, so much so that it had even crossed her mind to try to be admitted as an in-patient, but after some hesitation (she was very nervous at the thought of dental treatment) she opted for outpatients. After a short wait for service, a young dentist led her to a cubicle, one of four in the clinic, and proceeded to work on her troublesome teeth.
Within a couple of minutes another patient, accompanied by his noisily coughing wife, had turned up at outpatients and, without the slightest hesitation, walked straight into the cubicle and demanded the attention of the dentist who was, at that very moment, working on Patience's teeth, whirling drill in hand. Showing admirable patience, he responded politely to the impatient patient and told him to wait in the outpatients reception area. In the next few minutes, two more impatient outpatients barged impatiently into the cubicle occupied by Patience and her increasingly impatient dentist.
By this time, I myself was beginning to lose patience with these impatient outpatients, and attempted to block their access to the dentist. It seemed to me that the hygiene considerations were serious enough, but with Patience being somewhat nervous already, the last thing she needed was for her dentist to be physically distracted whilst in the course of drilling her oh so sensitive teeth. In an attempt to at least slow down the interruptions, I sat myself across the entrance to the cubicle and challenged the impatient outpatients to show a little more patience, much to the relief of Patience, as she later patiently explained to me.
These people could try the patience of a saint.
In my travels I have come across many cultural differences, many attitudes that were surprising, some even challenging at times, but I don't think I have ever come across a country where such simple decencies as showing even a modicum of sensitivity to the needs others is more often, and more blatantly, challenged than in China. It is so normal here as to be routine.
On several occasions now, whilst out dining, I have had things taken from my table without so much as a 'by your leave' or even an acknowledgement of my existence. Such things can be anything from the pot of tea from which you are drinking to the table napkins. Other customers will just walk up to your table and simply take whatever they want or need, usually without offering a any request or explanation.
One of the things one hears most often from mainland Chinese is how proud they are of their five thousand years of culture. In many ways this attitude is justified by a long and glorious history of such things as the arts, literature, poetry and science, all of which is very impressive indeed, but in areas of the most basic of attitudes, respect for the existence of others, this society seems to lag far, far behind much younger cultures than itself.
The Chinese government themselves have become aware of the growing problem of Chinese travellers embarrassing their home country by acting in less than pleasant ways either on their journey (many flights have been forced to abort following disputes, and even fights, whilst airborne) or when they reach their destinations, thus giving their country of origin a bad name. Quite lengthy articles on the subject can be found on government's media organs (such an appropriate word…) such as 'The Global Times' and 'The People's Daily'. 

This fine young lad made his mark in Luxor recently by adding 'Ding Jinhao was here' to a three thousand year old artwork...

 
The rudeness is not a matter of over-zealous xenophobia, although this too can be a problem in China. The people routinely treat each other in exactly the same rude way as they treat 'weiguoren' (foreigners). Five minutes standing at a zebra crossing will amply demonstrate this point. The cars will do absolutely anything rather than stop for a pedestrian. One can consider oneself fortunate if they even slow down or change direction. Any busy junction will also provide further proof, the motorists will routinely cut each up in the most blatant and ignorant of fashions, barely seeming to notice the presence of other road users. In the three months I have been here in China I have seen numerous minor accidents, more or less each and every one of which could have been avoided with just a modicum of patience and respect for the other road user.
To be fair, once one gets past this habitual rudeness, one often finds a friendly and even quite delightful people beneath the façade. There are indeed many aspects of Chinese attitudes and culture that other countries could learn from but...basic civility is not one of them! There may well be many reasons for this; the cultural revolution, the endemic corruption which blighted the society for many years, the pervasive influence of Confucius and 'filial piety' (a notion that tends to emphasize family links and those close to your inner circle but has the effect of downplaying the significance of those outside the group). Such justifications are all very well, but from a personal and experiential point of view though, this ubiquitous rudeness can, in all honesty, simply become rather tiresome at times.
Back in the coffee house now I find myself pondering my upcoming jaunt to Thailand to the soporific strains of easy Western jazz and Ancient Chinese folk music. There are many, many aspects of China that I will miss, it is a fascinating and varied country to visit, but there are also some things that I will be very glad to leave behind too...