Thread, *OT some more*
Yesterday I was in a plane for a couple of hours so I scanned the papers. It seemed everywhere I looked I was reading yet another article about the signs of improvement in Asia. Singapore had released new figures on exports, Japan was intervening to keep the Yen from climbing with much attendant commentary on improved indicators, some World bank official was quoted on new confidence in a turn around here, and so on. In fact, it was so prevalent that I had intended to save the papers I read and make a list of the stories and their opening remarks to post here with the question as to whether we collectively feel that Asia is out of the woods. Well, I failed that mission, because I walked off the plane without the papers. But the ride to the hotel in Bangkok may have answered the question for me, in a more personal way.
His name is too difficult for me to pronounce, so he cheerfully says "don't worry, just call me Sam". Sam is the driver of the car I hired to take me from the Bangkok airport to the glass and steel that constitutes my billet for the next few days. Sam speaks English so we engage in a conversation. According to him business is still very slow, even accounting for the fact it is off-tourist-season here. "Everyday no more trips for me. It is hard" he tells me.
As if to underscore his point we sail towards the central part of Bangkok as if we had an express lane to ourselves yet it is rush hour. It is a ride that used to be stop and go at any time of day just a few years ago. "No one can drive car anymore. No place to go and cannot afford the car anyway", Sam tells me. "My boss has 114 of these (referring to the Mercedes we are in) and only half of them are driving". Just he is saying this, we roll pass a long row of used heavy equipment dealership yards. The yards are full of back hoes, tractors, and heavy equipment of all kinds, idled. Sam tells me that, before the recession, this used equipment business was one of the hottest things going. A lack of availability had rates artificially high and all the dealers whose brimming full yards we had just passed had made fortunes. "Now go out of business. Only guard work there anymore".
Sam goes on to tell me that he is a divorcee with two chidren, a son twelve and a daughter nine. Sam has good English which he gets to practice a lot because of his job. He seems intelligent, asking questions about Malaysia that suggested he read the papers. Our conversation meanders. "Used to be Thai woman never leave a man. Now everything different. Thai lady want to be rich. Want to wear gold and sit in big car. Used to be Thai man can have three wives. Now cannot keep one."
I ask Sam about his children. "Now when Fahder day come I go to school with my children. Muhder day come....same. My kids say don't want new muhder. Other children ask them, they say muhder die already." Sam goes on to explain he drives about 12 hours a day. He keeps a small garden and tends to his children himself. He cooks and sews and keeps his small house outside of Bangkok where he was moved when the government relocated his family in order to build a highway through his home in Bangkok a few years ago. "Nevermind, they pay money so I go" he said. As we whisk past intersections that would have been 30 - 45 minute hurdles a couple of years ago, I look for more visible signs of recovery or lack of it. They are there I suspect but I do not see them. After getting off the freeway we are on a somewhat busier street near Sukamvit road and have slowed to the crawl I am more familiar with here. A legless man has set up his beggar's bowl in front of a row of small businesses and shops. As I watch a cleaning lady comes out of one of the small office buildings carrying a bag of refuse. She sees the beggar and, as busy shoppers walk past in their hurried fashion, she pauses, reaches into the folds of her garments, and comes out with a coin that she puts in his bowl. Just at a critical moment where I felt the rising urge, maybe need, to jump out of the shiny Mercedes, rush to put a wad of money in the beggars's bowl, and kiss the old wash woman, I am saved the moment of irrationality by a break in the traffic that allows us to sprint ahead about 50 yards.
In the remaining few minutes to get to the hotel I learn that Sam takes his children to the shopping center on the weekends to stroll around, window shop, and to eat McDonalds or KFC followed by Swensons Ice cream. "They love it" says Sam, and I think that some things are the same everywhere. We get to the hotel and I tip Sam an equivalent of $25. It is considerably more then his salary for a long day of work, though in Sam's case he does well by comparison to the average worker here. He is profusely grateful, his hands assuming the prayer posture, as is the practice here in expressions of greeting, or goodbyes, or gratitude. I turn to the glass and steel as a bellman scrambles to collect the bags. Sam, and I feel better, the beggar feels better, and the old wash woman feels better. For just a moment there is a bit of grace in Asia. But it is fleeting. So very fleeting.
Best,
Stitch
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