TRANG, Thailand -- Thailand is a puzzle. A very complicated puzzle. Everything fits together perfectly; every sight, sound and smell. Yet if you were to pull apart the puzzle and try to put it back together, it would seem nearly impossible to make all of the pieces fit because separated, the aspects of life in southern Thailand seem incongruous.
Case in point: During a long, hot van ride to the coast, I was staring idly out the window when I spotted a Buddhist monk chatting away on a cell phone. I couldn't help but laugh. It was the new, digital age meets the old world on a dusty roadside.
Other examples of incongruities that dwell side by side are plentiful.
A small family restaurant that is nothing more than a tin roof held up by rickety boards comes equipped with a large, flat-screen Samsung. Young children living in hovels in the Trang countryside wear Guess T-shirts. A massive new supermart (think K-Mart or Target) sits amid tiny, open-air markets, boasting a large shrine to the king in front of its shiny sliding doors. Spiffy new motorcycles zoom down streets lined with garbage. Unassuming stores in town sell you green curry and noodles with a side dish of hi-tech cameras. And every store, whether it sells pad Thai, clothing, mopeds or Buddhist shrines, is likely to offer Coca-Cola and every flavor of Fanta.
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It's what Thomas Friedman has been writing about for years, the phenomenon of globalization in rapidly burgeoning countries. But seeing it up close is much different than reading about it on the pages of a book.
It's like watching the collision of worlds and eras. More than East meets West, it's old meets cutting edge and poverty meets privilege.
Even in the schools, opposing worlds knock together. I started work Tuesday at a school of about 300 children, ages ranging from five to about 16 or so. When my teaching partner and I arrived for work, the children peeked around doorframes, giggling if we waved or said "Sawatdee ka" (hello).
In class, the littlest ones would grab my hand as I walked past their desks, or reach for my curly hair. They begged for hugs, looked up my skirt and touched my skin. I was a rarity. Many of them had never even seen a foreigner.
But in this world of concrete floors, scratched chalkboards and tilted old wooden desks, where the West and its sheen of newness seem so out of place, people are desperate to learn English.
The children yelp out answers if they know them, identify colors with glee and take to "Simon Says" in a snap. The teachers, sometimes more so than the students, are eager to learn a few phrases or words during lunch hour, over sweet pea soup and three types of curry. They are also very proud of their Internet access, which connects them with the rest of the world, even if the dial-up comes and goes as fast as the breeze.
I will be in this world for two months, and I already know that it will change me. In fact, it already has. Suddenly the cares of my world are far away. Lacrosse rape scandals, exams and class schedules are gone, resting somewhere in the back of my mind. Now on the table are the concerns of a chaotic city, a culture of mismatches.
Looking out the window of my house at night, I can see leaf fires smoldering on the grounds of the papaya orchard. The smoke is meant to keep mosquitoes away.
At the same time, my housemate reaches for a DVD to thrust into the TV, purchased, no doubt, at the electronics store down the road where cows mill around the parking lot.
How can it all fit together?
Thailand is indeed a puzzle. I intend to spend my summer trying to understand what makes each piece of that puzzle stick.
Seyward Darby is a Trinity senior and editorial page managing editor of The Chronicle. Her column runs weekly during the summer.
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