Build Friendship Bridge from Your Heart
(Written by Bjorn from Norway)
These words you are reading right now is actual written sitting inside a tin can ten thousand meters above ground rushing forward in a speed of more than eight hundred kilometer per hour! How much more extreme human existence can you imagine? But, nevertheless, it is in extreme artificial environment like this the reality, the beauty, the value of life becomes real, becomes alive, isn’t it? It is in your troubled hours you long back, you remember clearest the beauty of everyday life. It is in your most extreme situation the glory of an everyday-sunrise stands as the ultimate proof that you are alive, that you are living, isn’t it? At least it is that for me, I guess it is that for you too!
So let me tell you my story of every day life, let me tell you my story of every days value. I have no clue that you are, where you are or what you are doing, all I know is where I have been and what I have been doing. And coincidences in life (somebody prefer to call it that, I don´t know any more), but coincidences in life lead me to Nong Bua Lam Phu. A small unimportant, unpretentious town of the vast Issan-plateau in the Northeast of Thailand. A small town that have seen the most and takes the most with the same pragmatic tranquility.
Nong Bua Lam hu, the Lake near The Mountain Where The Lotus-Flower Bloom. Pure poetry in the name itself, and pure poetry you will find in the change between fertile marshland where rice-fields have their domain, dry mountain-steeps where snakes prevails or the busy paved streets.Calm and unpretentious she is lying there. In the out-skirt, of course. In the "boon-docks" with its drawbacks and its advantages. Most advantages, thou. Drawbacks like that greedy Bangkok sucks in most of the cake, but she takes that too with thousands of years of pragmatic patience. She once in a while glances towards that so-called modern lifestyle in Bangkok and elsewhere, but mostly she is preoccupied with fishing, the state of the rice-fields, newborn and the neighbor’s kidney-disfunction. (She needs a new kidney! I wonder where she will find one! We must help her.) Life is living in Nong Bua Lamphu, important life is living, life worth while listen to is living in Nong Bua Lamphu. Life is also glancing at the outside world with old, wise eyes.
In ancient Thailand, far away from busy Bangkok the real Thai pulse beats slowly, rhythmic, strong. She does not flash her luxury here, Thailand, but she possesses tranquility, continuity, a fortune a western Farang only can observe and envy. Her values are not placed in gadgets, you will find out that pretty soon. She drives her little motorcycle. Her house is small, that is if she has a house. Maybe she lives with her old mother, carries burdens a Westerner only can admire, wonder about. And where does she get the strength from? And in between every-day duties, where does she get the smiles from? Where does she get all the smiles from? And don’t let yourself be carried away by other western visitors. You have heard that Thailand only smiles with her mouth! They say that Thailand never let the smile reach her eyes! Don’t let yourself be dictated by other visitors, her smile reaches her eyes, believe me! Actually, her smile starts in her eyes. ”Sawadika” she says, bows her neck gracefully over her palms, looks down. She greets you welcome, asks you in as her guest.
Maybe Bangkok is different? Maybe you get out of your plane slightly jetlaged, let yourself be driven to your hotel by a servile taxi-driver. Maybe you are checking into the hotel, get your room, sleeps uneasy in a too hard bed with your biological clock totally crazy. Maybe you awake the next morning far too early to an annoying insisting rooster located just outside your bedroom window. I guess you have a shower, get yourself dressed, and walks downstairs where you are served an American-inspired breakfast on the hotel patio. Maybe you toss a few baht to the waiter before you stroll along the sidewalk. I guess you are in Coa Sarn Road. That is were everything is happening, right! So, strolling along Cao Sarn you let your self be admired by innumerous street-salesmen. I guess you nod a bit condescending to too-many, too-insisting salesmen selling all kinds of junk. I guess you will unconscious let yourself be admired by salespersons in the streets with all that junk hanging around their necks. And unconscious you will flatter yourself in the attention Bangkok gives you! Back home, maybe you comes from a city in Europe, maybe back home your life in featureless, gray? So it is nice, isn’t it, once to be given a bit attention. And some you have read before you left, and some have you been told about greedy, money-thirsty people, right? And about how everything revolves around money. Maybe you have talked to Chris? You know the American who has been visiting Thailand a dozen of times before. He who can tell you how Thailand is dependent upon tourism. He who can tell you that really it is the west that keeps Thailand on her feet. He who can tell you with not a shred of doubt in his voice that it is USA that really keeps Thailand alive! And I guess you will believe him. Something else will of course be stupid taken into account how many times Chris has visited Thailand! But back away a little. Tourism is just a pimple on Thailand but she would have survived. Have no doubt.
But get out of Bangkok, go north as I did. You will always find a bus, a train, a plane. To Northeast to be precise. Go to Nong Bua Lam Phu as I did. Not much of a place, I know that, not compared with Udon Thani or Khon Kaen and not to forget Bangkok, but still big enough. What is more important is that Thailand has preserved her identity there. The Lotus-flower lifts her stem high up from the many ponds and backwaters in the rivers there. The rice-fields live their lives through the year. It is a time for everything. And it is there you will find her sincerity. She is polite, you see. She has seen Westerners aggression before, Easterners too for that matter. She is a bit uncomfortable with the aggression, the impatience, the rush, but most she is embarrassed. She questions silently the blind chase after gold and excess luxury, but mostly she is polite. So give her space, Nong Bua Lam Phu, and she will show you the value of a rice-field. Give her time and she will explain to you the cow’s life-philosophy. Give her your attention and she will take you on a culinary travel you late will forget. But you have to give her time. You have to stay long and the countryside will fill you. You have to give yourself a way to a Bhuddistic time. Let your mind at peace, let your body rest. Forget the west chase for luxury and status. What is more important is the togetherness, the good conversation, the eye-contacts, the friendships. Thai language, Issan-language is inaccessible, strange, complicated, but takes your time with the language also. You will learn a little every day. And your stumble efforts will be valued regardless of how wrong your pronunciation is. I only visited Nong Bua Lam Phu for some small weeks, what do I know, but I sense something of value, great value. And behind all this the crickets keep on singing.
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