Monday, January 07, 2008
Hints of suffocation
So. Bangkok in 5 days, and back just in time for 3 hours of sleep before the first bells of the new school semester starts. Totally exciting!
Bangkok was splendid, good times, and great food together with excellent company makes this an unforgetable experience.
I miss the place already, I miss the holidays and I miss Japan too. Travelling this much in a month surely does wonders for the monotony, and in the process, many valuable lessons in life were learnt.
For one, English is not the universal language, and the times where it failed us ranged from the hilarious to the downright infuriating. Communication is more than just the words, it burns with passion, emotion and the intent of the speaker. Language, it is a beautiful thing, and the thai language, so filled with melody, the inflection subtle and gentle. It carries with it an unmistakable charm and to the uninitiated it sounds wonderful.
That certain observation accentuates the chasm between the cultures (Not that I have a culture to call my own). There I am, an outsider, a foreigner musing at the intricacies of a language I hardly comprehend save for a few rare words. For one like myself, lost in the overwhelming tides of culture and heritage, I can only claim to be a world citizen. Not chinese, malay or whatever enough for the constituents of my blood. I guess that's one way I can savour and appreciate the other cultures more.
Without that which to compare it to, with that a more inquisitive and almost furtive mindset to absorb and understand the sights and sounds that make up a culture. Awestruck by the vibrancy of another's culture, yet slightly mortified at the prospect of losing them in the increasing globalization and increasing conformity that is demanded by the prevailing powers for the world to tailor to their needs and fancies.
Urban Bangkok resembles Singapore and Malaysia, and in Bangkok city, the ever expansion of the concrete jungle engulfs and displaces, resigning those unable to or unwilling to keep pace into the sprawling slums under the network of highways. Pushed into the outskirts are the slums, the shanty towns. If not for a little wrong turn, that sight would have escaped my notice. It is as if the grey shroud of modernization seeks to suffocate the colours and diversity of a culture.
Hopefully it can be preserved least one day the loss is mourned.
Gavin
pondered @ 20:42
