I thoroughly enjoyed my experience traveling with my daughter, Jasmine. She is a great company and a good sport. We flew from Little Rock Arkansas to Dallas and Tokyo and finally to Bangkok. When we reached Bangkok, it was almost midnight local time. Still feeling hyper and wild awake, we strolled around the marketplace next to the hotel soon after we checked-in.Local people still milling around and we approached one of the many roadside stalls for an authentic seafood tom yam. Of course I ordered it "hot" forgetting the subjectivity and context of the term. "Hot" in Oriental restaurants in the States is definitely not that spicy nor hot when compared to this dish. Nevertheless, I devoured the soup, sweating like crazy. The owner showed concerns and gestured if it everything was alright. At least that was what I interpret and inferred. For all you know she might not give me a hoot! But the main point was I enjoyed the authentic tom yam right from the land it originated. I wonder how people like Andrew Zimmerman of Food Channel can digest let alone stomach such diverse and unique dishes. Perhaps, it was a sense of adventure mixed with openness and willingness to accept others, whatever "others" mean or happen to be at that particular moment in time and willingness to use self to relate to them.
When we walked on the streets in downtown Bangkok and whenever a hawker pulled cart full of food, I focused my eyes to look for fried insects and other such delicacies as I watched Andrew Zimmerman explained in his bizarre food show. Of course I could easily recognized fruits and on several occasions, stopped and bought a sample simply to taste. Yes, when we came across such hawker, I did point it out to Jasmine by reminding her of what I thought it was. In the excitement of getting ourselves closer to the cart and in deciding if I was brave and gutsy enough to sample it, we forgot to snap pictures like normal tourists would do. We were too busy giggling ourselves away at out idiosyncratic experience of making a television show come alive. The only difference was that we were experiencing not just sights and views but also the panoramic view brought out the smell and plus with tropical heat and humidity of metro Bangkok, all in all, that was somewhat difficult to explain but we knew it was unique and different than what we had experienced before. The awe I had for my daughter was her willingness to be in the moment, her attitude of accepting differences and diversity without a hint nor an ounce of that typical difficult moody teenager persona. I am feeling very lucky and blessed and I am pretty sure if she retains that attitude, she will go further and accomplish more in her future life endeavor.
The next day we dined at a tourist place, meaning, a place where overwhelming number of guests/customers were non-Thais and most of the waiters/servers were Thais. Of course we ordered seafood and were entertained by a group of performers of Thai traditional dancers and musicians. While enjoying the evening, I came across a situation where my understanding of the term "ugly American" came to light. A few table away, a few young individuals were making a scene, hollering and talking overly and seemingly and purposefully loud disturbing others from enjoying the cultural show with their rude comments and I would not be surprised if they were somewhat intoxicated or under some kind of influence. The term "redneck" does not quite fit. Still, stupid is as stupid does. After a while they were escorted out by uniformed personnel, either security personnel or the city police but the atmosphere was better after they were gone. Those jerks had the audacity to protest by claiming that they are Americans as if being one exempted oneself from acting and behaving appropriately especially in a foreign land or perhaps by announcing their nationality in the face of arrest would frightened local law enforcement officers from carrying out their duties. A few others even clapped in approval of the security personnel. Jasmine handled the experience very well. I don't think she noticed the commotion as it happened a few table away and she was fixated with the dance performances.
[more to come]
