Next Life in the Afternoon

We recently lost our beautiful, loving cat Molly. We had her cremated and spread the ashes in a swamp near the Potomac River, where she could be near wildlife and reenter the food/fertilizer cycle. She has returned to that from whence she came. Such a sweet kitty. We miss her dearly.

This all reminded me of Thai funerals. Almost every temple is equipped with a crematory and smokestack so the locals can be cremated when they die. This practice really serves two purposes. First of all, it reinforces the Buddhist doctrine of nonattachment by stressing that clinging to the physical is fruitless, as it becomes a small scattering of ashes relatively quickly.

The other functional purpose for cremation in Thailand is that it takes care of the typical body disposal problems. This is a country that has many floods each year and much of the land is close to sea level, so burial can be quite a watery process.

Cremation reduces the public health hazards associated with dead bloated bodies, freshly popped out of their graves by floods, floating down the river that used to be a street. If the cemetery, full of cremated remains, gets flooded, it just looks and acts like mud. In fact, that’s really what it is. No extra disease on account of rotting corpses and no psychological trauma from seeing such things.

Funerals in Thailand are strange affairs from an American viewpoint. The family may have monks come and chant for the deceased person, spreading blessings for all to hear and absorb, especially the decedent. The one funeral I got to attend was held at Wat Thep Surin in Bangkok and had four or five monks in attendance to chant the blessings.

While it was far from being a festive occasion, it was also far from somber. There was no expectation to show grief and many people carried on conversations during the ceremony. Young boys brought around refreshments – water, orange juice and steamed buns – and made sure that nobody sat too long without something to consume.

After all the blessings, the body was cremated. I did not stay that long, although I have to admit that I was curious. The heat from the crematory was evident and the fire glowed from around the door to the furnace.

I once read an account of a Thai funeral that was more of a bonfire with a body on it, likely for a less wealthy family who could not afford to rent the crematory. During the cremation, the body’s muscles constricted in such a way that the body sat up. The monks in attendance thought that was a sign of good luck and an indication that the person was going on to a better life. I think it’s a bit creepy, myself.

Technorati Tags: Thai funeral, crematory, cremation, Thailand, monks

Farang means something on the order of “honkey,” had the term honkey caught on. Let’s be honest – beyond those two years sometime in the 1970s, nobody has heard or used that term with any seriousness or regularity.

Farang is the designation Thais use for most non-Asian foreigners. More specifically, a stereotypical farang has light skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. Ironically, as I pointed out to my Thai friend Nut, those features are the same as you see in Siamese cats.

That brought no end of hilarity, it seemed for a little while. Farang cat, not Siamese cat. Good times.

What does it mean to be a farang in Thailand? It is like a sword with two edges. On one hand, Thais love for farangs to come and visit, spend their money and generally have a good time. On the other hand, Thais don’t particularly enjoy having farangs around for too long, thinking of us as rather uncultured, smelly people.

The smelly part – well, I hate to admit it, but that’s true. Farangs go about Thailand sweaty from the heat and don’t take the two or three showers a Thai person might take each day. For most Americans, one time is enough. And we stink.

As far as being uncultured, almost all cultures see almost all other cultures this way. We might look at Thai people and remark on their lack of proper sanitation, their open-air butcher shops and their fried insect snacks and call them backward or unhygienic. On the other hand, they see us as people who don’t shower enough, don’t remove our shoes when entering buildings and don’t bow properly in Buddhist temples and think of us as dirty and uncultured.

Which side is correct? That’s not the point. The problems with these labels are obvious and it’s easy to see how they can lead to a lack of cultural understanding on both sides. Seeing differences between cultures is not the problem. When we get into trouble is the moment we apply a value to a cultural difference.

It’s like measuring the world on a Cartesian plane in which you are at the origin – the (0,0) point. When we put ourselves in that spot and don’t see where we are on someone else’s map of the universe, it is very easy to assume that person is wrong or misguided. Just like we were told since first grade – not to judge another person before walking a mile in his shoes – we should not judge another culture before stepping into it and examining it for what it is and not necessarily from the basis of how it is different from what we are used to.

Certainly, our own point of origin is where we start from and our only real point of reference. But what we have to do, so that we can function properly in another culture, is to try to find our spot in a different Cartesian plane. We have to at least try to understand things as they are, adopt local customs as best we can and not judge the differences we encounter. We have to realize that we are no longer at the origin but at some other, less familiar point.

Understanding each other is the cornerstone to finding a meaningful dialogue, no matter the point of conflict. We have to find the humility within ourselves to let go of our point of origin and find our new home in light of the other culture.

Technorati Tags: honkey, farang, Siamese cat, Thailand, Thai, cultural understanding, cultural difference, Cartesian plane, dialogue, humility

Here is a list of cities and towns I spent some time in well enough to get to know them relatively well:

• Bangkok
• Udon Thani
• Chanthaburi
• Chiang Mai
• Sukhothai (both new and old)
• Prachin Buri

In addition, I got to visit lots of surrounding areas enough to get a feel for them, but was not able to spend lots of time there, such as Khon Kaen, Nong Khai and Nakhon Ratchasima. These were also great places but I just did not have a lot of time to spend there.

I think of all these places I liked Bangkok the most, which surprised me. That’s a very high-level statement, as I enjoyed all the places I visited for very different reasons. Bangkok has all the culture that you could want from a city, all the beauty and graft, joy and frustration. It’s like New York City but cooler and with both friendlier and fiercer people.

In Bangkok you can see a gorgeous sunrise over a stinky, fetid river and see the beauty of golden temples and turn to see a leper or someone suffering from elephantiasis. It’s a city of extremes and for the tourist not knowing to look, can seem like a place of few gradations, much like the Thai economy.

Believe me, though – there are gradations along the continua you do not see at first glance. Between the extremes is where you find the normal human interaction and I would argue that is right where you find the richest of experiences. It is easy to visit Bangkok and talk of the extremes of beauty and ugliness, but in doing so you only describe the physical characteristics.

The real beauty of Bangkok, and any city anywhere, for that matter, is in the people. The worth and beauty in the palm trees, golden chedis and floating lotuses is certainly striking but between that and discovering the hidden secrets of the human spirit, there is no comparison.

I have never received so much from people who have so little as I did in Thailand. For a group of people who could have easily taken advantage of me, I was treated more than fairly, sometimes given what they could barely afford, all in the name of graciousness and assisting someone along their path.

And as they helped me along my path, the goodness that flowed from them made evident that they were already far along their own.

Technorati Tags: Bangkok, Udon Thani, Chanthaburi, Chiang Mai, Sukhothai, Prachin Buri, culture, New York City, beauty, Thai economy, people, human spirit