Thousands of Miles from Seattle, Still Sleepless

In Chiang Mai, I am the proverbial information sponge. For example, right now I am learning that four cups of even acrid instant coffee will keep me up all night. Somehow, this familiar experience fails to summon nostalgia. So far, I have listened to three “Fresh Airs” and a “Sound Opinions” (actually, I thought Beyoncé’s new album was a “buy it,” Greg). Listening to podcasts feels like cheating, or maybe continent-jumping.If I spent four and a half hours today making Thai vocabulary flash cards (hence the over-caffination) to hasten my immersion in a world where I can’t even create a complex enough sentence to ask to go to the bathroom, then it seems so wrong to hear David Bean Cooley explain Standard and Poor’s rating break-down or Terry Gross review Jeff Bridge’s release (actually, Terry, that sounds awful).

Cheating or not, I feel great. I could simply tally all the good things happening right now to assess myself as happy, but it’s bigger than that. You know those rare moments when you hear a cliché, and for the first time, you understand the truth behind it? That happened to me at this Ancient Eastern Medicine Expo I attended with Mae. She and her colleagues at the public health department ran a booth while I meandered through the displays and exhibitions. Between the flashier “barbeque massage” stand (where I saw a masseuse using an accelerant to light his client on fire with his feet, and extinguishing the flame in fragrant sauce) and the delicious food samples, I walked into a small informational booth on the psychological healing powers of Buddhist introspection. A flowchart I had seen several times before sat on an easel representing the progression of thoughts to actions to habits to destiny. As cornball as it sounds, I stood there open-mouthed letting the brief epiphany soak in as I felt some of my habitual teeth-gnashing unclench.

Although schools chalk up study abroad as a chance to learn about another culture, the most resonating foreign education occurs internally. Over the next few days, my pace of life slowed as I gave myself the chance to appreciate the sweet smell of coconut rice and the thousands of shades of grey slipping though a storm cloud as I pedaled down the dirt road. Kalamazoo College allows for hours engulfed in books about EcoFeminism and a culture of competitive scholarship, but the pace denies students time for simple existence. A high school dropout could easily emerge from their 20’s wiser than a Hornet.

My new visceral awareness is met with the explosion of sensory intake that is Thailand. On Sunday evening, Mae told me to prepare for “an adventure,” which amounted to us racing across town on her motorcycle to the Walking Street night market.

Costumed children dance barefoot on carpets; endless stands hawk jewelry, clothes, bags, hair accessories, and massages; dozens of “bohemien”-and-yet-could-afford-to-fly-here German hipsters debate the merits of heavily-patterned genie pants; food vendors offer fried eggs the size of my thumbnail; peppers synchronize my vision to pulse, frizzled electric wiring pops and fumes; solemn wats reflect the sunset’s bloody finale.; blind men slap box drums to the patter of feet; Americans and Thais, who naturally walk on opposite sides of the street, collide skin to sweaty skin…

For now, I plan to drink in Chiang Mai as an outsider before I begin to latch onto the language and culture, and real life sets in.