East Influences West

I've come across a number of interesting ways in which the East, particularly Thailand, is influencing my country of origin, the USA. I will keep adding more examples to this article as I come across them. Meanwhile, here are a few starters.

• The USA is saturated with Muay Thai (Thai boxing) schools; one being less than a mile from my former home in Tacoma, Washington.
  
  
• Human interest story (from a podcast): Thailand's "Sriracha" sauce takes the U.S. by storm. Love those spicy buffalo wings sold at baseball games and popular restaurant chains? Thank Thailand for a hot chili sauce that I thought only I was enjoying in Thailand. Named after a town near Bangkok, where the sauce originates the condiment can now be found on most store shelves in the USA.
  
  Recently this sauce has beat out tomato ketchup as America's preferred condiment--now THAT is momentous!
  
  
• And in a deeper vein, religious/philosophical influence is reaching significantly into the lives of Americans. Read on . . .

Thai Buddhist Temple at Five Mile Lake, Sumner Washington.

This temple's property adjacent to the former

Glendawn Baptist Bible Camp.

The Baptist Bible camp was disbanded and sold,

but the newly-built Buddhist temple is apparently thriving.

The above photo was taken three years ago and the temple was a total surprise when I visited the site of a summer camp I attended as a child. Here are a few more items of interest on the same topic...

• News item (from a recent podcast): Alabama's highest-security men's prison institutes two-week Buddhist Thai-style meditation courses for hundreds of inmates. The prison (a Baptist) chaplain comments that it seems to work, so he can't knock it.
  
  
• From an ad in the Seattle Times (below). The type of meditation classes are from a Thai-branch of Buddhism called Theravada.
  
  Kadampa Meditation Center Washington
  "Everyone welcome! Meditation classes are offered at the Temple in Ballard on Sunday mornings and Monday evenings. We also offer a Learning to Meditate lunchtime class on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. These classes are suitable for all individuals whatever their level of interest, from those who seek simple relaxation to those who wish to find lasting inner peace and contentment through following the Buddhist path.
  
  Classes in Buddhism and meditation are also offered at over a dozen locations in the greater Seattle area, such as Bellevue, Capitol Hill, Burien, and West Seattle.

60-Year Floods Hit Thailand

Above is a picture circulating in emails today, alleging to picture an escaped crocodile at the entrance of a Thai house in the flood waters. Today's Bangkok Post reported 100 crocodiles escaping from a flooded wildlife farm. The headlines cooed "100 Escaped Crocodiles 'not fierce.' " Tell that to the guy who lost his arm this year to a croc at Pattaya's Crocodile Farm.

The worst floods since 1949 are wreaking havoc in Thaland with hundreds dead, scores of flooded factories, and thousands of square miles of farms and cities under water.

Our village (photos below) sits on Thailand's longest river, The Chi. It runs 765 kilometers (480 miles) through five provinces and its waters finally empty into the mighty Mekong downriver.

Below are photos taken this afternoon, upon learning that our river has overrun its banks.

Looking upriver, the metal fence marks the

normal river bank boundary.

Flooded village road closest to the river. Recently-filled sandbags on the left.

Another impassable village road beginning to flood.

Precaution #1: Sand ready for more sand bag filling.

Precaution #2: Longboats ready for quick rescues.

Americana in Isaan

Our little university town sports a surprising variety of foreign restaurants and eateries including Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean and American* cuisines (*if you'd call KFC and Mister Donut a "cuisine").

My absolute favorite "foreign" restaurant, however, opened up a couple years ago about two miles from my house. It's called "The Living Room," and does a perfect job at creating a nice American-style living room atmosphere; complete with sofas, coffee tables, American movies on the big LCD screen (satellite Star Movies), and soft jazz playing in the background.

Half of The Living Room restaurant is furnished with living room settings where you can sip a nice beverage and snack on appetizers (tempura, buffalo wings, etc.), and then later move to the large dining tables for the feast.

The menu is eclectic (Thai, Isaan, Japanese, Italian and American) with only the best of ingredients used by a very well-trained Thai chef.

My favorites are:

• BBQ Ribs (the Texas BBQ sauce is a dead ringer for anything you could get in San Antonio!). The rack of ribs is huge and very meaty.
• Giant New Zealand mussels (I mean they are BIG, with just a touch of mozzarella cheese on each one before they are put under the broiler),
  
• The huge "Deluxe Ceasar Salad" with deep-fried shrimp buried among the grated Parmesan cheese, croutons, and zesty blue cheese dressing
• The Japanese tempura (delicately batter-dipped onions, carrots, shrimp, potatoes, broccoli, and asparagus)
• And, the Italian Calzone (like a pizza made into a turnover). Full of ham, cheese, onions and peppers.
  

Price? About a half or third of the cost in a western restaurant back home in the USA.

Background: The owner also runs a successful British Pub in downtown Bangkok, and has really duplicated an authentic English atmosphere there. Last month on a trip to the Big Mango, stopped by for fish & chips and watched the British soccer matches on the seven or eight huge LCD screens surrounding the dining area. Just like lolly-gaggin' in Brighton, Old Chap!

Of course, after visiting this successful restaurateur's Living Room here in Isaan, I have to double my exercise routine and live on water for a couple of days to counteract the calories and cholesterol, but that's the price of a real treat. Yep, living in a remote location in a foreign country is especially nice when you know the comforts of home may be only five minutes away!

Photographer's apologies: it was a phone cam in dim light.
Thai Proverb: The poor dancer always blames the dummer.

Ethical Dilemma

OK, you've just finished a six-hour bus trip and your bladder is about to burst. Yes, the whites of your eyes have already turned yellow. The moment the bus pulls into the station, you make a mad dash to the restrooms, and this scene greets you:

The charge for using the restroom is two baht (six cents).

You only have a 100-baht note ($3.50) in your pocket, and certainly need change, because the taxi is going to cost you 85 baht.

The only one in sight who can give you change is the attendant who is fast asleep. She's probably a working mom with three kids and two jobs and has just pulled an all-night shift somewhere cleaning someone's office.

Remember, your bladder is bursting. You are mere milliseconds from wet underwear.

OK, you Ethical Giants out there, what do you do?

Unexpected and Amazing

Every night I "power-walk" around the school gymnasium for a half hour to keep the old ticker going. One of the things I enjoy while walking is listening to a Podcast of some of my favorite speakers.

Last night I was listening to one of Charles Swindoll's better broadcasts where he tells the story of Mephibosheth. This incident is embedded in the story of King David's life in the Bible. "M" was a handicapped son of a royal rival family which had earlier fled the palace, fearing assasination. There are literally dozens of analogies between this man's story and the story of a gracious God who helps people who have no hope. A perfect picture of "grace."

Swindoll was at his most eloquent in his teaching of this point, and just as he reached a climax, I heard the strong melody and harmony--then the words in English-- of "Amazing Grace." But it was not on my earphones. It was being boomed over the loudspeaker in the gymnasium area, where hundreds of Thai kids were noisily enjoying evening sports and exercise.


The music was even louder than my little iPod earphones, and I stopped in my tracks. The combination of hearing 'M's' story and this traditional gospel hymn being publicly broadcast--in remote northeast Thailand, no less--left me a bit stunned.

I felt like shouting to the crowd: "Hey everybody! Stop and listen! Do you know what those words are all about??" I wanted to tell them about John Newton, the composer, who had once commanded England's slave ships filled with hopeless souls bound for a life of servitude in the New World--until God changed his heart and turned him 180 degrees. I wanted to tell them about a shepherd Who looks for lost sheep on the dark mountain when all hope of rescue is gone.

I will, in time, one by one...

The throngs of students unwittingly carried on with their basketball, volleyball, weightlifting, breakdancing and fencing practice throughout the song, no one lifting an ear nor eyebrow to the profound words and music that permeated the air around them. I have no idea who or for what reason the hymn was sent over the university campus P.A. system.

Regardless, I know at least one person caught the full impact.

**********************

Below, watch and listen to the history and words of "Amazing Grace,"
as told and sung by a possible descendant of John Newton's slave-prisoners...



You can read the about Mephibosheth and his story here.

The Spirit vs. the Letter of the "Law"

From the back, it's a photo of my Thai barber doing his
"law" magic on the customer seated in front of him.

Interestingly, the word for "handsome" in the Thai language is pronounced "law." When I first started going to this guy for haircuts six years ago, I noticed after every haircut, he pronounced "law" with a big smile as I stepped down from the barber chair. After a couple times I went home and checked my dictionary and immediately decided this guy was a GOOD barber. You don't get compliments like that every day, so might as well soak it in once a month at haircut time. It was a good working relationship. The more energetic the "law" sounded, the bigger the tip.

Until.....

About six months into my new customer-barber mutual appreciation sessions, I showed up at the shop to get my mane trimmed, and took notice of another customer already in the chair. He was about 80 years old, very thin--almost emaciated, a dark wrinkled face that that would make a Chinese Shar-Pei jealous, hardly a tooth in his head, and a few whisps of white hair on a mostly bald head--which, for some reason, he was having trimmed.

Sure enough, at the end of his haircut, this shriveled geriatric hobbled down from the chair, and the barber started beaming. Instinctively, I knew what was coming next. He would utter....that....word....

I can barely think about it now. It was like watching a slow-motion slasher movie. I stared in horror at my barber brandishing a straight razor in the air and slowly opening his cavernous maw. The slow-motion "Nooooooooo" reeled through my mind as I imagined myself, arms outstretched and flailing, lunging at the barber to shut his mouth.

But before my thoughts could turn to deeds, that guttural sound slowly spilled out like a river of lukewarm lava-- "LAW."

Adding insult to injury, he gushed it out twice. "LAW, LAW."

Soaking it all in, of course, the near-toothless farmer grinned and paid his 50 baht, plus a generous tip. Bigger than my tips. Of course they were bigger. He had more reason show his gratitude.

*********

Yeah, I still get my haircuts there, but no more do I trust a single word from this traitor, particularly his discourses on the "law."

JD

P.S. After my epiphany, I then started asking other questions to myself, such as: "If I was 'law' AFTER the haircut, what was I BEFORE the haircut?" The suspicion about The Truth continues to mount.