After the dinner, I move back and sit at my
usual spot, a place a bit higher than other chairs and also a bit outside the
circle of relatives. I watch one of the aunts –she is a nurse at the district
hospital- talking to two kids, one boy and one girl. A few seconds later I
notice that she was telling a ghost story to them. Even though I could not hear
the words, the way she explained the things and used her body language to
depict ghosts or monsters was remarkably successful. I thought she must have
done the same thing to her own sons when they were kids. I think it was a kind
of story with a moral lesson which will be somehow connected to Buddha’s
thoughts or at least the way to be a good Buddhist in modern Thai society.
Before the end of the story, the boy left the chair he was sitting on for the
entire session and found himself a different company: a bucket of soil which is
full of ants. However, the girl didn’t leave her chair. She started crying at
the end –afraid of being a bad girl who doesn’t drink milk or doesn’t wai to
elders or doesn’t go to the temple for offering her help- and finally found her
consolation in the very same aunt’s arms. When the boy sees the girl crying, he
leaves the bucket of soil in order to see what made her friend cried. However,
his lesson was very soon as well. The ants in the bucket started biting his
sensitive skin and soon he too started crying. Aunt nurse hugged him and
cleaned his arms, hands and legs from the invasion of ants while talking to him
like a prophet, “If you don’t listen to elders, you get punished like this.
Next time, stay where you are until the end of the story.”
Kids in İsan are like the kids in any other
rural areas in the world. They are poor-looking, prettily-dressed and full of
opportunities of fun with their environment: earth, water and air. They don’t
know computers yet, no iphones or ipads ever touched their fingertips, no video
games yet spoiled their natural life. They usually wander near their houses,
play with their peers on the village roads or in the rice fields, swim in a dam
or a lake, ride bicycles with their brothers or sisters, climb the trees, play
with dogs and cats which are usually friendly in the brutal heat of Thailand.
More physical it is, their skin is darker than those who grow up in Bangkok
although Bangkok is located about 400 km south of Isan region. However, the
same thing cannot be said for the young boys and girls in the villages. The
allure of the city life and colors of the modern life style attracts many youth
and make them alienated to their own self-beings without giving them much back.
I heard many young boys join the local gangs to make easy money so that they
can buy those sparkling mobile phones. Although the crime rate is significantly
low in İsan region, many of these young people spend their days at internet
cafes playing violent computer games or chatting with imaginary
friends/girlfriends.
The day I arrived to KK, I saw some
fireworks thrown to air from outskirts the village. I asked J about the
significance of the fireworks and she told me that originally the fireworks are
shot in the air to ask for rain. The peasants did this for hundreds of years
during the hot and dry summers. But like everything else, fireworks are also
used for pure entertainment for those who cannot find enough ecstasy-provoking
activities. Today’s youth uses fireworks to bet for money. They bet on the time
that the firework will get back to ground. The one stays in the air longest wins
the money.
After finishing with two kids, the nurse
aunt comes near to me and talks to me in Thai about my future plans. She seems sad
about our going far away. She asks about Turkey, how far is it, how long does
it take by airplane, how many people live there, do I have a job etc… I answer
them one by one and at the end tell her that “Don’t worry, we will come back
next year.” However, my words do not make her convinced. She keeps asking me
why I am not working in Bangkok or why I left my work in Vietnam. I have no
answers for these questions. I cannot tell her that I need to go to Turkey
because I feel my country is getting away from the world of science and
freedom. I cannot explain her that we have a government which does everything
to make people religious but not moral, not intellectual, not free people.
Then she leaves my desk to help others.
Night becomes darker, people get involved in deep conversations about farming,
debts, government jobs etc. I take some more photos, watch the differences in
people (the men who work in the farm usually have fit body and the veins in
their arms are quite visible, the men who work in government offices are
usually chubby, it is impossible to spot the veins in their arms) and then go into the house for reading.
Next day is J’s birthday. We go to KK to
have some different air. After doing some shopping, we go to a cinema. Before
the movie starts, we are forced to stand up for the King’s anthem. I personally
don’t like the idea of standing up for a king. Not for this king or any other
kings. If he personally comes to the room where I am sitting, I will definitely
stand up and greet him but I would do this to anyone no matter how rich or poor
or important or ignorable that person is. I have respect for all humans
regardless of his/her class, sex, race, religion and/or nationality. However,
being forced to show respect does not really reflect the real respect. It just
shows conformism. I can hear from some people saying that “King in Thailand is
not only a king, he is a good person and also he is the unifying power for the
country”. I fully understand this objection and I also fully object this objection
because I believe that a person cannot and shouldn’t be a unifying power for a
nation. People in a country should have better reasons to look forward in order
to live together in peace. If democracy needs to be balanced by a king whenever
it is out of control, then it cannot be called real democracy and surely it won’t
be different from the ones “fixed” by the army generals in many other countries
including Turkey.
After the movie –It was a postmodern version
of Snow White and Seven Dwarves but it was even worse. When will Holywood
filmmakers stop enjoying re-making old stories with stupid ends and stripping
them to barely visual show? I would rather to see the original story and the
jokes so at least it will have some archaic meaning. This way, the result
becomes an attempt to create a modern epic but failing with a postmodern shit (cliché)
– we went back home. The street going to our house in the village is empty and
there is no one around, it is as empty as a desert.
No one walks on the village roads. Even the shortest
distances are taken by motorbike or bicycles. Kids go to school either by
motorbike or bicycle, adults go to their offices by their cars… Walking is the
sign of poverty and only those who cannot afford any vehicle walk. This is why
when I run from village to the district, everyone looks at me as if I am an
alien. According to my father-in-law, I am the only person who traveled on feet
from village to the district and came back (8 km only) in the known history of
the village.
At the weekend, we travel to Kao Ko
mountains and stay in a hotel for one night. Then we come back I spend more
time on reading and taking notes for stories. Nothing special happens in
Thailand since I leave Thailand on 1st of July. Even the time we
spent in Bangkok was so usual, so ordinary.
We arrived to İstanbul on 2nd of
July at 6 am. From now on, I will write “Letters from Turkey” as right now I am
in İstanbul and still trying to settle things in order to catch up a life 12
years behind. Hopefully, I will be able to write enough to make 100 letters
(1000 words each) till the end of the year.
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