Why I Smile

The last blog reminded me of something I wrote a little while ago. I hope you enjoy it:

Why I Smile

I love to smile. I've been asked why I'm always smiling, but I say that you can never smile enough. I smile because I'm free - free to live on my own accord and to love whom I choose. I choose to celebrate my love for liberty and for mankind through my 32 ivory brilliance of dental anatomy. It is my purest expression of joy...you should try it sometime.

A simple and honest smile has the power to melt down barriers between races, warm up cold faces, and open up closed spaces. The smile is the God-given panacea for the fear of the unknown, human insecurity, and hopelessness. It excites the lukewarm heart, penetrates the deeply-planted soul, and eases the turbulent mind. It is the most subtle, and yet the boldest, gift to give, and the happiest to receive. A smile is a glimpse into the core of man - his character, his values, and his passions; it is the keyhole through which we view the meaning of intimacy and human inter-connectivity.

I love to smile because I love to see YOU, and I want to see you happy. I smile because I treasure your friendship, I love your style, I think you're hilarious, and oh, I find you so beautiful. I smile because I see you frustrated, depressed, and stressed, and yet I know that it doesn't have to be that way. I smile to help you achieve your full potential, to maximize your happiness utility, to help you appreciate the simple beauty of life. I smile because I love.

So, I express my love for you with my canines, incisors, and molars. Accepting with humility the power in my jaw, and with an agenda to elicit joy. And I encourage you to smile more often, and let happiness trickle from your mouth and into the inner beings of those around you.

Smile!

Smile :)

They don't call Thailand the "Land of Smiles" for nothing. People are always eager to flash this irrepressible smile upon seeing you. In my opinion this happens for a few reasons: (1) In my case, they're probably just so puzzled and mesmerized by me that they can't help but to grin. I am absolutely a novelty here; I get gawked at, laughed at, and pointed at all the time. It's crazy when people see me - their eyes light up and they have to nudge someone (or the air) to make sure that they ACTUALLY are seeing what's in front of them. Although sometimes I get pissy about it, I embrace it because I think it's innocuous. Such reactions should be expected because, I mean if I were Thai, I'd also be wondering what this big, black, Ghanaian kid riding a yellow bicycle was doing in Khon Kaen.

There aren't many black people around, and white people are a more common "farang" (foreigner) face to see. My appearance here must be shrouded in so much mystery for the citizens of the city that in their nervousness, interest, shock, and desire to know more, but fear of not knowing how to speak or approach me, utilize that very diplomatic tool of a smile to mask how they feel. And although I recognize that some people's laughter might contain some malicious intent, I'm filled with so much joy when through a shared smile I can begin a dialogue with a random person that, by the end of the conversation, leads to a dinner invitation and a cell phone number swap - that just makes my day. I'm definitely feeling that people are getting used to me though, and things are normalizing.

(2) Thais don't like tension. A smile is the best way to break the ice. When a situation is getting tense, all you need to do is make someone smile and it loosens everybody up. I think that Thais smile as a means to remind themselves and others that life doesn't have to be as stressful, or nerve-wracking, or conflict-ridden. You have to be able to take it easy, and nobody takes is easy like Thais. I'm not gonna generalize and call a whole culture lackadaisical, but time is just another word here, not a planner by which to manage your life.

In this sense, Thais are very much like Africans, and I recognize a lot of "African traits" in people. When a Thai person says that they'll see you in 10 minutes, don't expect them to come for another 40. When, on my first day of class, I was buggin' a bit because no students showed up to my class, my office partner, Pi Piyaporn (another English teacher at KKU), just said, "Oh, don't worry about it, the students didn't know what class to go to, we'll figure it out later." You can take a comment like that as a sign of how disorganized and chaotic the society might be, but I see it as a sign of how relaxed and chill everything is. If they're not stressing, I'm not stressing; hakuna matata, baby.

(3) The last reason why I think Thais smile so much is that they are generally very friendly and happy people. Thais pride themselves on being hospitable and making sure that guests are catered for. Thais will go out of their way to make people feel comfortable.

In the short time that I've been here there have been occasions where public transportation has been difficult to find at night. On one such night, while I was looking for a tuk-tuk (a motorcyle taxi) in the rain, an old man who sold flowers on a motorcycle, offered me his umbrella, his cell phone, and his friendship in a little under minute. He probably would have given me his motorbike too, had he not had a heap of flowers stacked on it, and had he not been waiting to drive his wife back home. And just last night, after getting stranded in another part of the city, a couple sitting out on the sidewalk, sensing our distress, offered us a ride home free of charge. This made me wonder whether Thais are as nice to each other as they are to foreigners, but if they are THIS nice to outsiders, they must be decently cordial with their countrymen, right?

So the lesson I'm learning here is: just smile. It's one of the warmest gestures you can show a person, and it expresses a joy for life. We should all smile more.

Hit me up!

Hit me up with your feedback and thoughts. If you want to contact me, I'm on Facebook and I can hook you up with my email address, Skpe name, and cellie number; if you want to send me anything (not that you have to, of course), I can give you my address as well.

Until next time. B.ez.

Allow me to reintroduce myself, my name is:

Frank Hagan-Brown. I felt the need to explain why I am in Thailand and my reason for blogging. Many of you know me, but some of you don't, so here's a synopsis of the events that brought me to the Land of Smiles:

Sometime last fall, I was desperately searching for something to do after my graduation from university in May when a Google search for "internships and fellowships" landed me on the Princeton in Asia (PiA) website. It looked flashy enough, it sounded prestigious, and, most importantly, it offered a temporary escape from the bewildering self-reflection on the state of my "passions" and questions about what job I could foresee myself doing in the future. Never a big soap opera fan, nor a soothsayer, I let the images of rickshaws and woks, rice-patties and Yao Ming, wisp me away into an Asian wonderland in which I held all the cards and didn't have to worry about life collapsing in on me.

You see, I had been carrying this weight on my shoulders which I couldn't seem to brush off. It comprised of an amalgamation of concerns - personal and family expectations, the lack of job opportunities in the States for a kid of my nationality and visa status, the desire to do well in school and not let the dreaded job-search engulf my life, and the sudden uncertainty of life coupled with the fear of failure - that got to me; even Atlas would've had a hard time with that balancing act. But PiA offered a convenient escape from all that stress, and I was immediately enticed by its allure. The website told me that I could apply to be a fellow through this program, with the option of teaching, working for a non-governmental organization or a non-profit organization, working with a business, or working for a media outlet. I was ecstatic! This was exactly what I wanted to do out of college: see a part of the world that I'd always wanted to visit and get paid doing it. With only two weeks left before the December 1st deadline, I printed out the application and started filling it out.

A month after the deadline, I received an email stating that I had been selected for an interview with PiA at Princeton University. I did some research into some Asian countries that I would want to work in for a year, and had my mind set on Vietnam. I am interested in international development, and I discovered that Vietnam had engaged in economic liberalization and cool economic and social development initiatives that went far in providing the poor with the essential elements of life and health. I believed that Vietnam would be the stepping stone from which I could spring into a career focusing on international development and its related fields. That was the vision that I tried to portray to my interviewers in Princeton, and I thought that they would buy it and offer me a position with an NGO somewhere in Vietnam. But life doesn't always work the way you want it to - sometimes it works even better.

Instead of Somewhere, Vietnam and an NGO, I got Khon Kaen, Thailand and a teaching post. When I heard back from Princeton toward the end of March, I was just psyched and relieved that I had actually found something to do this year (PiA was the only thing I had actually applied for, and I was a month and a half away from graduating - eeeekkkk!!!). I was also very excited and satisfied with my position. As a teacher, I would be able to help my students develop English speaking skills that could propel them to success in the future, and I could learn so much about Thailand from kids my age. Teaching would be a lot more laid back than a position wearing a business suit in an office with CEOs and TPS reports and Happy Hour. Not that I'm knocking that lifestyle - shoot, It'll be me someday - but teaching would offer me a more relaxed working atmosphere, and would allow me to connect with the people of Khon Kaen in a very special way. Plus, with semester breaks, midterm breaks, and national holidays all to my benefit, I could do some incredible traveling through Southeast Asia!! I made my mind up on the spot.

So, on May 30, 2009 at 10:05, I set off from Dulles Airport (TEFL certified and with a few days of teacher training in hand) on an 8 month journey to Asia that I trust to be one of the most exciting, humbling, challenging, and rewarding experiences of my life. I arrived in Khon Kaen 30 odd hours later (after stopovers in London and Bangkok), and in the 3 weeks that I've been here, everyday has blown me away. Thai culture is fascinating and perplexing, the food is OFF THE HOOK, and the people are some of the friendliest in the world. I live in an apartment close to Khon Kaen University, where I teach, and life is good. In the next few months I will try to share my thoughts and feelings and photos, and try to keep you entertained with some sketchy and not-so-sketchy stories.

Come ride with me!

Meaning of the blog title

For those of you wondering what my blog title means, they are words from one of my favorite songs: "No Rest for the Weary" by Blue Scholars. The line goes, "So check the work ethic and the name, the lesson's my change but the essence of the message is the same."

I love that line because it's so true and perfectly reflects our shared humanity across the globe. Everywhere you go in this world you experience different cultures, meet new and interesting people, and engage in activities or see images so foreign to your worldview that sometimes it just blows your mind. Yet, although the lessons (i.e. those experiences, those people, those places, those activities) might change from place to place, the essence of the message (i.e. the intrinsic, indispensable, qualities that make us who were are), never changes...it's the same. We're all trying to get a hold of the basic elements for life (food, water, and shelter), we're all trying to ensure a better future for our progeny - our children, we're all trying to stay healthy, we're all trying to live lives free of tyranny and oppression, and even if we live as oppressed peoples, we try to live that narrow life to it's fullest.

Human beings are incredible creatures, and this song just speaks to our spirit, and the hope that we hold so deeply within us in the toughest of times - the spark that keeps us going despite all of life's troubles. "There's no rest for the weary, just another day grinding up stones til they turn into dust." Let's stay on our grind until that day when we won't have to grind no more.

Peace.

Tell mommy I'm sorry, this life is a party...I'm never growin' UP!!!

So, today I rode by bicycle from downtown Khon Kaen to my apartment in Gantse Dan (a 20 minute ride) in the pouring rain...and I loved it!!! It was idiotic and I utilized some incredibly poor judgment on my part, but it was also one of the most magical, exhilarating, and terrifying experiences of my life! I was gunning my bike at breakneck speed (maybe not THAT fast, but I'll exaggerate here) with my backpack on, my helmet strapped tight, shoeless, in my work khakis, and reppin' the blue and orange of Virginia in a faded shirt, blazing the streets of Khon Kaen. Earlier in the night I had come inches from getting run over while crossing the deceptively named, enemy-to-all-bicycles, Mittapharb (Friendship) Road, where motorcycles, cars, and trucks mercilessly roar through the tarmac. I should've adamantly protested rekindling my rivalry with that "Friendly" road, especially after the skies opened up and the monsoonal rains came pouring down in droves, but I sucked in my fears and rode!!! Let me recapitulate this night a little for you:

I finished work/planning at Khon Kaen University, where I am an English teacher, around 7:30PM, and rode my bike downtown in order to make Tuesday Trivia/Quiz Night at Cheap Charlie's by 8. Cheap Charlie's is an establishment run by a Cockney British man where Westerners often congregate for a drink or some chatter; it's a lot of fun and we have become Tuesday night regulars there since coming to Thailand. Mid-way through Meredith (another Princeton in Asia teaching fellow in Khon Kaen) and I's valiant, but trivial, effort at winning the game (and after a couple of elephants came strolling down to the bar, mama elephant shrieking as it's child was being pimped out and made to perform tricks by Thai handlers trying to make a buck), the rains came down - and heavily. While we were wrapping up our night, I considered leaving my bike downtown and taking a tuk-tuk (a three-wheeled, open-sided motorcycle taxi) home, but I had just spend 100baht to play in the trivia (the regular participatory fee) and 270baht on a pizza and sodas, and I wasn't trying to get ripped off of 70+baht to get home. If you're lost in the monetary translation, $1 is approximately 30baht, and although I sound petty and pathetic for complaining about spending a grand total of $10 on entertainment and food, you start thinking cheaply once you've been in Thailand for a while. I mean, a good, filling meal could have cost me between 20 and 25baht at one of the nightmarkets (outdoor markets where vendors sell everything from pad Thai, grilled chicken, sushi, fresh fruits, and sweats, to sandals, trendy and colorful shirts, and Hello Kitty pillows!) peppered around the city, or at a nice roadside restaurant. When you put that in perspective, anytime you have to spend 300baht in one night you REALLY feel duped.

Also, I wanted to be able to ride my bicycle to school tomorrow. Before purchasing my bike, a bright yellow and black beauty, streaming with personality, I had been riding songtaohs (covered pickup trucks with two rows of seating on the bed, which run all through the city at 8baht per trip - they are the main form of public transportation in the city) regularly. As convenient and cheap as songtaohs are, the downsides of having to rely on them is that (1) the 8baht fee adds up over time, (2) they stop running after 7PM, and (3) they stick to a fixed route, thus giving you little opportunity for genuine exploration. A bicycle gives me a cheap alternative to the songtaoh and also offers me the freedom to roam the city as I choose. Most people in Khon Kaen (KK) get around on motorcycles or cars, but I have never ridden a legit motorcycle before and I'm too afraid to try my hand on one in these bustling and chaotic streets, and I can't afford a car. Although I hadn't ridden one in years, a bicycle sounded like a perfect idea, and mine hasn't failed me yet...So I didn't want to leave my bike downtown because I didn't want to spend more money on an "expensive" ride home, and I wanted to be able to utilize it tomorrow. Thus, after seeing Meredith off (she, smartly, took a tuk-tuk home), I strapped my umbrella to the back of my bike, took my dress shoes and socks off and put them in my backpack, rolled up my khakis, strapped my helmet on, and headed into the damp night...

It was one of those scintillating, adrenaline-pumping, WTF! experiences, and one of the most thrilling things I've done! I call it a magical experience because it was just so eerie and different; the rain, the flora, the roads, the lights, the architecture, all blended together to form this concoction of culture and emotion that I'd never felt before...it was incredible. As I was scurrying to get home safely, I couldn't help but pause a few times and just reflect on how awesome life is, and how blessed I've been to have this opportunity. When I got home, I pumped my fists a couple of times and just wanted to let out a scream: "Momma I made it!!!" Then I thought about how badly my mother would have berated me had she learned that I'd driven across a dangerous highway, in the rain, barefoot, and at 11PM in the third week of my stay in a country that I am not familiar with. So Mom, if you read this, I'm sorry. But your boy's taking care of himself and he's doing well. I'm in Thailand baby!!!!