THAILAND AND LAOS, 2004
Travel Notes
:: 11.5.04 ::
– Bangkok –
Bangkok is the Milan of South East Asia: an ugly city with some precious corners.
In these two days the city passed me by quickly and without setting the basis of my sensations. Many Asian déjà vu and stereotypes now excessively stereotyped or exploited for organized groups of European tourists on a stopover to Phuket.
Even Patpong, once a renowned place for real child prostitution, has fallen to the rank of a market with stalls of the usual global t-shirts and the usual fake watches. And right next to the most prestigious go-go clubs, now decoys, many others have recently opened that take up the brand with unlikely names – King’s Castle has at least five different names in five different clubs. In short, the most dishonorable of the phases of decline of a neighborhood that once had a really good promise.
Three things fascinated me about my first visit to Bangkok.
First, the traffic. Bangkok traffic is a global caricature of an eternal and infinite traffic jam. Cars stopped, always and everywhere. The wait for a small movement is so illogical that the time dilation becomes even pleasant and fun.
Second, the wonderful house of Jim Thompson, an American architect who at the beginning of the last century, during a trip to Thailand, was struck by the beauty of the local silks, and began to show them in the places of the world where this beauty was most appreciated – Milan, Paris, New York – starting a solid business. The house in which he lived is now a museum; its architecture, interiors and furnishings are a monument to the beauty of real things. The visible or hidden details of the furniture, the decorations, the ceramics and the precious materials, coming from Thailand, Asia and the whole world, give an account of the divine that is hidden in the minutiae, and seem to mimic the sense of devotion to it of the artisans and artists during their creative work.
:: D 22:32 [+] ::
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:: 16.5.04 ::
– Chang Mai –
Terni is a horrible city, period. Bergamo Alta, on the other hand, is very beautiful. But there are some places in the world that are more difficult to judge or define. Chang Mai, for example. A seemingly soulless town in northern Thailand, which was supposed to serve me simply as a base for the rest of my journey north, but where I ended up staying for three nights.
Chang Mai is a small town with medium-wide streets and low houses. Two things define this place. First, the traffic of cars and scooters is exactly the same caliber on every street in the city, both in the center and on the outskirts, it is perfectly spread out over the territory, there are no streets without traffic just as there are no streets with more traffic than others. The traffic is the same everywhere, and in fact there are no queues.
Second, the fabric of the city’s commercial activities is typical of the economy of a country that is changing rapidly, and therefore in itself difficult to define. Alongside rows of guesthouses and new backpacker bars are tiny, dark family workshops where small, indefinable things, usually made of metal, are repaired or produced, and right next door is a huge shop selling only new photocopy machines.
Last night I had an irresistible craving for a pizza. I searched for and found an Italian restaurant, the owner, Roberto, is from Parma. Italian restaurants abroad are always a risk, but this one fascinated and convinced me right away; as soon as I crossed the threshold I had the impression of entering a trattoria near Scandiano, one of those low-level ones with flowered plastic tablecloths where, if the tablecloths are appropriately sticky, then you run the risk of eating really well. I liked Roberto because he brought out some Parma ham that wasn’t written on the menu, then he introduced me to his wife, a Thai woman who speaks with a perfect Parmesan accent and who every now and then he pats on the bottom to send her to the kitchen to finish the lasagna pasta.
At a certain point, a guy in his fifties came in, who looked like he had come out of a photo story from the late 70s, with a round face, a mustache, and a sugar paper-colored polo shirt with the top button buttoned. This character began to tell me about his life, and, stimulated by my questions, he got straight to the point. The New Age. As soon as I heard these words, I lit up and a sarcastic grin immediately appeared on my face, and I thought about when was the last time I had spoken to one of these. I must admit that I missed them, I really missed having someone in front of me who can explain to me the reason for his being in the world and his happiness, reducing everything to three sentences of exhilarating simplicity or a total disconnection with the being of man and reality. What made me sneer the most yesterday, as I urged him with my questions to double down, was something about the future, and the fact that the future changes, so the power of our actions today changes the future tomorrow, and the power of our actions tomorrow changes the future the day after tomorrow. When I then mentioned three or four books on the subject that I have at home, then he had an explosion of gratitude and happiness in realizing how much we were on the same wavelength.
I went out, walked a good half hour along the river and arrived at the only place that stays open until 2:00 AM, Bubble, a place with the dark decor of a Sunday afternoon disco.
I met Jen, who drove me around the deserted Chang Mai at night on her scooter. It was hot, and from the back seat I spread my arms out to the sides as one does, when one is happy, on summer nights.
:: D 08:21 [+] ::
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:: 18.5.04 ::
– Dad –
We were talking about war and peace the other evening with Saskia. We were talking about what is the limit within which a people must somehow concern itself with the destiny of another people, that is, what are the presuppositions thanks to which, in concrete terms, a state can interfere, even with a positive project, in the destiny of another state or another people, fighting for it or alongside it, and freeing it from the hands of the enemy. Which is a burning topic, as they say, of current interest. At a certain point during the discussion, Saskia and I got stuck. Then I brought up the story of Tibet.
The Tibetan people have, in recent years, been driven out of Tibet by the Chinese, the government forced into exile in India, and the support structure of Buddhist philosophy – monasteries and places of worship – physically destroyed. China’s work of removing Buddhist culture and tradition from Tibet is already well underway, although there is still some work to be done before the job is finished.
Tibet has responded substantially throughout history by doing what the Buddha taught: absolutely nothing. By making peace.
A Buddhist has no enemies, and it is not part of his culture to react violently to violent action. This is a very striking position. When I met Tibetan monks who had escaped from Tibet by walking for four months over the icy mountains to India, and had arrived there losing the vast majority of their group along the way, they bore no grudge against the Chinese who had forced them to do so – precisely because they know no enemies. Such a position is truly striking and fascinating, especially for those who come from a culture in which historically, in the event of an enemy attack, one has been accustomed to taking up arms – whether to defend power, a geographical area, or the freedom of a people. Such a position, the removal of hatred from the intimacy of consciences, is precisely what many are tending towards to help the world on a path towards peace. And yet, all of this already exists, all of this is already reality.
We were talking, with Saskia, about what is the limit within which, however, a nucleus of people can survive in the world sufficient to keep alive the culture and tradition of a people, such as the Tibetans, in this case. In fact, Tibetan Buddhists are disappearing quickly, and, as they themselves say, “time is running fast”.
We got stuck right here. On the one hand, the fascination of a real non-violent position, on the other, a question mark. The afternoon of the next day, I went out of town, to a Buddhist monastery in the forest. A monk was giving a public lecture, and I asked him the question. The answer was very interesting, he spoke of the teachings of the Buddha, of non-violence, of the tranquility of the soul of the people.
However, at a certain point, returning to the example of the Tibetans that interested me, he said a sentence that seemed simple and obvious within the speech, and to which he did not even associate a particular intonation, but with radical importance. He said that, in Tibet, by force and without a doubt, the Buddhists will be annihilated, the culture dispersed, the cult and the tradition destroyed. This will happen, it has already happened in their history, and nothing will be done to resist – nothing other than non-violent, diplomatic action, dialogue – because “having tradition and religion destroyed is always better than fighting”.
Here we run aground, and this is probably the key point. Because a position like this only works, paradoxically, if evil does not exist, that is, if there is not only one person in the world who is interested in dominating another. The solution, in the end, perhaps lies entirely here, whether or not to believe that original sin exists, whether or not to believe that evil, which we intimately experience every day, exists.
From this follows everything: protecting one’s own people, one’s own culture, one’s own tradition, and that of others, or letting someone, be it the Chinese army in Tibet or four pilots in America or three people in Spain, take them. Destroy them. Eradicate their history.
These are the terms within which war and peace move, and these are the times in which one can decide whether, as for the Tibetans, it is always better to have one’s own tradition and religion – one’s own people – destroyed, rather than fight.
:: D 04:03 [+] ::
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:: 24.5.04 ::
– Vang Vieng, Laos –