Part 1
Impressions
Introduction to “Impressions”
I have decided to call this part of the journal “Impressions” because that is what I seemed to focus on mostly while writing this part of the diary. It was composed during the first stay in Thailand at the Ratchasuda College, Mahidol University (August 2000), where Victor and I were conducting computer courses for blind and low vision people. My course was attended by low vision as well as sighted people who wanted to know how to use various programs that magnify the computer screen.
The impressions from Thailand are followed by the impressions from Manila, the Philippines. My objective was to catch a few very first impressions associated with the arrival to a new country. They are followed by impressions from Vietnam, where Victor and I have been doing consulting work for people who are blind or vision impaired as well as for their instructors. This work was conducted in June 2002.
The impressions during our first visit to Thailand are, what I call, the primary impressions, since they are concerned with our primary needs, such as food, sleep, the sound of the new language, etc. Even though they may seem trivial subjects, they bring a number of strong impressions because of their novelty. On the second and third trip to the very same place, these impressions are, if not thrown into the background of our minds, they are at least different from the primary impressions, which remain the strongest and therefore, so hard to express in some kind of order.
The impressions that come from Vietnam focus on other, more complex subjects, such as the attitude towards blind people, or the associations we have had with the Vietnamese political system. I call these impressions secondary, since their subject matter is not essential to our daily existence. The impressions from the Philippines focus mostly on the sounds: sounds of the languages, sounds of the city at dawn, and sounds of the prayers. This short part of the journal is a smooth transition between the primary impressions from Thailand and the secondary impressions from Vietnam.
Impression
- an imprint on the mind
- a remainder of a word, an
evening, a person heard or met,
that seeps slowly to the past
and leaves a train of emotions as it seeps
and the emotions, except for leaving
the fine lines of laughter of amazement
or of any other expression of the mind,
trigger thoughts, arguments, argumentative
thoughts, thoughtful arguments, arguing
arguments, arguing thoughts, thoughtful arguing…!
Ment-argue, argue-ment, meant-argue meant meant meant!
Until the mind is tired of tossing and turning and turmoil,
And tosses the emotions and the ever-accompanying thoughts away, far away
Yet, they had in-printed themselves on the mind already
Impressions from Thailand
Thursday, August 10, 2000
We’re still in Philly, although as the day of the flight approaches, our belief in the realness of going to Thailand increases from day to day; or shall I say, from hour to hour (as the handouts are getting longer). Handouts, in fact have turned out to disclose so much about their author that I’m weighing every word I write. On the left side of me, there stands an angel-like figure that urges me to write everything in as simple language and structure as I can, so that “everyone” can understand what I mean. As I obey the good spirit, the devil appears on my right side and laughs into my ear: “If you make the handouts too trivially simple, people will think that you treat them as fools without brains, without the slightest ability of logical thinking. They will then ignore and disrespect you. Is that what you want?” And before I have time to answer, the angel shouts back to the devil (straight into my ear) that if the text is too difficult, people will think I’ve been lazy and didn’t take the time to care about them and to prepare easy-to-read and concise handouts.
So I have decided to resign myself to writing, which becomes harder and harder, as the good and bad spirits begin to raise their voices in agitation. I try to get rid of them, or make them quiet at least by a compromise: write not too simply, and not too obliquely, and hope that my fate will be decided not by them, but by the real, living beings, my students, in Thailand.
August 17th, Thursday Early Morning
As I've decided to write this, it is already 4:02 in the morning and, I figured, no point in going back to bed, since we have to get up before six. Sleeping is nice in Philadelphia, but here it’s almost a sin! When I awoke two hours ago, my first thought was to make sure that I remember all the Thai words I've learned yesterday; fortunately I did.
It is a pity that all the fresh impressions gathered up during our flight are gone. As soon as I opened a blank document, they seemed to evaporate from my mind, as if on purpose, as if to say, "Don't be silly, we're just thoughts. Wait until you see, feel, and touch everything around you, and then you will know that you are indeed in Thailand.” Thoughts, after all, may be so misleading!
It would be a false conclusion to suspect that all the thoughts should be condemned, and there is no space here to discuss their metamorphosis into ideas, and then, step-by-step, ideas into actions. But how many times does it happen that one thinks too much? How many times have thoughts been optimistic by nature, but then, after reconsideration, they have become a nuisance to one’s mind? And after naturally rebellious actions against such thoughts, the more optimistic ones became real [the bad ones quickly burying themselves into the depth of the mind]?
Considering all that, for instance, how nicely surprised I was to discover, that the Thai language is much easier than the Chinese! It does have five tones, while the Chinese language has four, that is true, but it has an alphabet of letters, rather than characters, so everything can be written so much quicker (at least for the non-native speakers of Chinese). And once a word has its tone, its meaning is fixed, whereas in Chinese one character, even with one and the same tone, may have several utterly unrelated meanings. Why, therefore, so few people have decided to study the Thai language, if it is so much easier than the Chinese?
I won't speculate on that now, since I was just able to rid myself of Chinese. Yesterday, for as long as the early evening hours, I've been comparing Thai vocabulary to the Chinese one, and it proved useless, since the two languages have many common sounds, but the meaning of the words is usually not the same at all. What has irritated me at first was also the fact that Thai words seem longer and not as “smooth-sounding” as the Chinese ones. Why, for instance, one has to say “Palaya,” a “Wife” that is, if the Chinese simply say “TaiTai!”
Everything has changed once I've dropped my comparisons and began to wonder why I had used them in the first place. I should try not to use comparisons when I think of two different cultures, since one culture is always praised, while the other is doubtlessly condemned. I can almost hear someone pointing to something from a foreign culture with a subdued mocking smile on his face and, having the inability to refrain oneself from superficial comments, saying: ”bad, intolerable, unjustifiable. In MY country…” [and here the flowery soliloquy would begin].
But a language is, after all, a part of any given culture, it is imprinted in it and the two cannot be separated! Therefore, without any allusions to Ni Hao [1] , and considering the fact that it's four thirty four, I can safely say, Soua Di [2] Everyone!
August 19th, Saturday
It is always hard to mitigate the boundary between a foreign country's culture and "one's own" culture. It's hard to believe in what Ow, our Thai friend, has told us a few days ago, mainly, that many visitors don't want to try the genuine Thai food, but instead look for the generic, same chewy and unbearable taste of KFC and McDonalds. Moreover, she said that, many foreigners would complain of going to the open market to buy clothes or food because it is too hot outside!!! For such visitors, there is, in my opinion, only one remedy: Stay Home!
August 27th, 3:23 a.m. Sunday Night
The week of teaching has just flown by with a speed of light, putting us to sleep around three a.m. and making us get up either at six or at seven in the morning. And it's not because the students had any special requests or needed any extra time, but we had to readjust our syllabi or simply try things out, to make sure that they--or rather that we—would not fail during the class the next day. But it is hard to describe how rewarding this week was!
To me, Monday morning was the hardest moment of the week; it was like walking on the wetlands. First, there was a short opening ceremony, to welcome all the students who have come from different parts of Thailand to participate in our courses, and then, it was also to welcome us, and so we had to say a couple of words (something we've learned we had to do a few minutes before our turn has come).
While it is an easy and enjoyable task for me to give presentations for my classmates, I wasn't prepared to utter a word here, at the opening ceremony. It is, after all, easier to get people interested in the subject of “Standardization of the Ukrainian Language after 1991” or on Deconstruction of Jacques Derrida’s theories,“ [3] rather than “The Importance of Comparing Magnification Software Programs” (Or so I thought at the time). I realized that Victor had more experience in doing presentations on the computer-related and accessibility-related subjects, so I thought to listen carefully to what he had to say, and go on from there. And this thought gave me some relief, until I heard my name called up first.
So there was no choice, but to say something, and it was too late to say no, to quit the room and hide in the darkest corner of the school. In my mind I saw a wasteland covered with deep mud, and myself walking on it. Walking carefully, so as not to fall, but walking onwards, somewhere, but in a steady direction. Then I heard myself talking to the whole audience, grateful for the fact that there was a Thai translator, giving me the time to think about what I was going to say next. I don't think I said too much, but I could imagine myself sitting on the other side of the table, where the students were sitting, and having to listen to a speech, rather than begin their class. With the presumption that the students would not enjoy listening to a too long speech, I did finish talking rather quickly.
Then, just before going to class, Wiraman, our host and a teacher at Ratchasuda College told me that he was going to be my translator for the day. I realized that he was treated with a tremendous amount of respect: he was not only the teacher at the college, but also that he was a coordinator of the program, who has agreed to take us as teachers, but who had the same power to send us back home if he didn't think we were qualified enough. But again, it was too late to turn back, even later too late than before, because the ceremony was over and everyone went to their classes. So there was no choice but to move on in the wasteland, even if the mud seemed to get deeper.
I cannot remember who got first into the classroom, whether it was I or the students. I know for sure that I was covered with sweat because of the effort of walking forward, and no air conditioners in the world, even the big, loud one in the classroom would have been capable of extracting the sweat away from my body. The sight of microphones made it still worse and I felt like hiding my face behind the computer screen standing on my desk. But I knew that the screen could be seen on the projector, and I was afraid that my face would be seen there too. Today's technology is capable of achieving so much, that one can never fully trust it.
And then it was up to me to begin the class, which I did, with the greatest effort not to betray how distant I really felt from all the students and how strong the odor of the mud became. I believed, however, in the importance of the first impression, so I tried not to spoil it. The introduction went quite smoothly because I didn't lie about anything to create a better impression of myself. In other words, I didn't feel like writing a resume and having to stretch facts here and there to make them sound better, but told the truth: what I have been studying, what schools I went to, nothing but undeniable facts, which no one could argue against, and which gave me some strength.
The feeling of self-assurance didn't last long though. When the students had to introduce themselves and their self-assured and mature voices reached me, half hidden as I was behind the computer, I thought I'd sink. There was an elderly woman from a school for the blind in Bangkok, who sounded like she would break the ice with her teeth if that could help the low vision people. Another elderly lady sitting behind her, who was from a similar institution didn't sound too enthusiastic about the course or the low vision people. Behind her was a guy from the school in Corat, next to him a guy from a more distant educational institution; they both sounded like high-tech experts. Then there was a young, self-confident lady who said she just had a little experience with Zoomtext, but her "a little experience" sounded to me like "knowing the program all the way through," almost like being able to add some major improvements to it. There was also a man who didn't sound as sure of himself as the others did, but his reputation was already established. He was an Ajan [4] at Ratchasuda College, so he did not have to worry about the impression he'd make on anyone in the room. There was also a very low-vision student from a distant province (700 kilometers away), another grad student, this time from Ratchasuda, writing her thesis on access technology. Behind her there were two ladies who sounded like they were not much over thirty, from some kind of association for the blind, one of whom showed her brevity by introducing herself in English. And finally, there was a guy with white hair. He was sitting in the front row and terrified me at first by his superior age, until I found out that he was as old as I was, but happened to be an albino! I was about to plunge my head straight into the mud!
I was sure it was inevitable, until it was my turn to begin teaching. It didn't turn out to be that bad, however, since I had some handouts, so if I forgot something, they were always in my hand. Soon after the first moments of the lesson have passed, I felt I was walking on a dry sand. I realized that everyone was listening to me. I became so used to the microphone that I turned it towards myself to make sure I could use it during the class and smile, rather than stay hidden behind the monitor.
Next day in the morning I felt a little uneasy when only two people showed up for the first session. My belief in preparing challenges, surprises and putting as much creativity as possible to keep people interested has failed. But soon enough I have discovered that no one really bothered to come to class on time, and we usually began the first session at least twenty minutes after it was supposed to start. One day after it was raining, we started about forty minutes later because, as my translator informed me, people got stuck in a traffic jam. But they all came, eventually. No one from our classes dropped out.
***
On Monday and Tuesday I desperately wanted to get to know my students, since we only had one week to get to know each other. I wanted to talk to them during breaks, when lunch or coffee was served, but whenever I tried to do that, someone directed me to the table where we, the teachers, had to sit with our translators. It was only later that I would decide to skip my lunch and go to the other table and talk to the students. But standing beside their table is never the same as eating with them.
On Tuesday, I did get to know them better because they had to do some exercises, so I went from one student to the other to see if they had any problems. The wetlands were far away by then, since I noticed that what seemed extremely simple to me, was an exciting task for them. I realized that they didn't know exactly what I did, and that if we kept on the same pace everyday, I would not run out of ideas for exercises.
It was only on Wednesday morning, and purely by chance, that coming back from break was not associated with the fear of stepping back into the mud. I was telling the students that we won't spend more time on a given topic, but that if they felt that they really needed more assistance, I would definitely spend some time with them after the classes were over. When it was translated into Thai, all the guys, including the one who was videotaping the class all the time, started to laugh out loud. From then on, the atmosphere was a lot more relaxed.
One thing occurred to me then: however knowledgeable they were, and whichever organization or school they represented, they were just humans, not super-perfect un-humans who only think and talk about how to improve lives of low vision students. This has convinced me that even if I made a mistake, they'd understand it, that most certainly they treated me just like a human being as well, and it was only my misconception to treat them differently.
It was from then on that I came up to their table during the breaks, and that we started to joke. Thus two guys got their nicknames: a tiny student with an almost feminine voice, the one from 700 kilometers away became Lunar, since it was his favorite magnification program, and the other one, the albino, became Zoomtext (Zoomtec by his pronunciation), since he used this particular software whenever he finished to do exercises in any other enlargement program.
It was also on that day that people relied less on translations when I came up to them to see how they were getting along, but spoke as much English as they could. And it was then that I began to correct their English. Zoomtec, for instance, kept saying ”Yes Sir” whenever I told him to do something, until I told him that in fact ”Sir” does not refer to a girl, but only to a guy. He had trouble remembering it, so in the end he'd always say "yes SirM'am."
That same day they had trouble understanding a concept of ”application settings” because they were not advanced in English and we spent lots of time just on the explanation of that concept. Until then I felt I could tell them anything, since they were just as human as I was. So after many attempts, a pretty weird idea occurred to me: why not compare different settings to different people? Each specific setting was to represent an individual person, with his/her own thoughts, appearance, lifestyle, etc. And this last thought seemed to work, since the next day they have all done their exercises without my help.
***
On Friday, I was astonished when two students, the lady who didn't sound all too enthusiastic about the course among them, gave me small souvenirs, and then many of them had cameras, so we made lots of pictures of our group. During the closing ceremony, I was also supposed to say a couple of words and was ready to speak, when it turned out that Victor had to speak first this time. So in the meantime I had to change what I wanted to say, as it seemed to sound pretty similar to what he had said already. But it was fine. Then I heard the woman from one of the schools for the Blind in Bangkok, the one who was very eager to help the low vision students in any way she possibly could, thank me for coming to Thailand and conducting the course. This made me a little embarrassed, since it was I who had to thank the others for participating in the course. But it was a nice feeling to hear that someone has profited from the course, so the time spent on preparation of presentations and handouts was not lost at all.
The only disadvantage is that now everything seems so distant! And I think I have an idea why: on Thursday some of our students have invited us for dinner (with lots of beer and red grape wine). Then, we still had to write the final exam. On Friday evening, after a peaceful meal in a tiny Thai restaurant, we had a party at Chaiya's (our former student’s) house and a few glasses of wine and whiskey with Pepsi have contributed to our sleep of eleven hours. When we awoke at three thirty p.m., everything was dark because of rain, and somehow the events from yesterday seemed distant. The only thought was to take a cold shower.
Now that I'm writing it all down, I regret that there are no more handouts to prepare, since I've gotten used to that. It's a great satisfaction to see that others appreciate whatever they were given to read. In that respect, a handout is so much different from carefully designed advertisements, which people get in the mail and often throw into the trash, without even looking at them. And I'm confident that despite the fact that it's six forty in the morning now, I'd be able to write another handout if I only had to.
Good night!
August 30th, 1:50 a.m. Wednesday
We're in the city of Corat now, about three hours away from Bangkok. Someone told us today that ‘Co’ means ‘Cow’ and ‘Rat’ means ‘king’, so once the two words are put together, they sound like ‘king of the cows.’ This has, in turn, immediately reminded me of Lord of the Flies, not the most pleasant reading experience (despite the message that the book itself carried). But then I thought that the majority of the Thai people didn't even have a chance to read this book, so it is only my fault if I'd begin to make any associations or comparisons of that sort.
That comparisons have been a useful way of making order in one's mind I've known for a long time; but that they may lead to confusions and misconceptions has occurred to me only recently. There is, for instance, the most “obvious” comparison between “East” and “West,” “Us” and “Them,” or even on a more simple level, what is “good” and what is “bad.” But who really has the authority to judge what is valued against what and which is the winning ideal? [Edward Said, perhaps?]
Victor and I have already noticed many things that have quite different meanings, even though they are supposedly referring to the same thing: a long-distance bus in Thailand, means a clean and comfortable vehicle, whereas in the U.S. it means Greyhound; eating in Thailand means using a fork and a spoon, while in the U.S. it means using a fork and a knife; drinking in Thailand means primarily water, then juice, and only then sodas, while in the West it means first and foremost sodas, then water, and only then juice. Which of these instances are “better” and which are “worse” is hard to say objectively. Why should Thailand be called a “developing country?” Why their standards have to match those of the West, the “Big Brother” of the world for the time being?
Of course it’s more comfortable (at least for most of “us”) to have clean water and electricity, something that the “developing countries” may perceive as a great luxury. The West, however, has other problems, mostly social ones. Old people, for instance, stay at nursing homes rather than at their homes, or the homes of their family members. Babysitters take care of small children, even though family members or friends could do the job better (I don't want to condemn all the babysitters in the world, but many of them are students and don't care a bit about the kids). Can we take some of “their” standards without diminishing the importance of “their” problems? That would be worth trying...
P.S. We were very hesitant to go to Seven Eleven, one of the closest stores in the area, but were presently surprised to see that despite several half-empty shelves of Dunken' Donuts, there was a choice of nice Thai cookies, cakes, milk mixed with juice, and some Thai salads. The always-present smell of coffee prevailed though.
September 4th, Monday (Labor Day)- the time is hard to determine, due to the long flights and the change of time zones...
We slept during the entire flight from Bangkok to Seoul, and that was very fortunate, since turbulences were frequent and quite strong. When I awoke once, I seriously questioned the fact of ever lending safely at Seoul. The plain was rocking as if it were a ship, so I thought we were already in the ocean, or the sea, or some maliciously deep and fast-running river. And to make the situation worse, of course the ever-visible orange life jackets did not pop up from underneath the seats; oxygen masks did not jump out from their hiding places either. Yes, I've heard about the old equipment in the planes and that must have been the case...
It quickly occurred to me, however, that no one was panicking, or even sitting and waiting in agitation for what would happen the next minute. It seemed a normal occurrence to most people who slept or read or talked in lowered voices; Victor belonged to the first group, the sleepers. On seeing that, my eyelids closed involuntarily and quickly drew me back to sleep. But in my dreams I saw a plane which flew for so many hours that no one kept track of time anymore; finally, after countlessness of time that the plane had to fly through, it landed somewhere, no one knew where, but it landed safely, without any unexpected incidents. That is how we got to Korea.
In the big plane to New York it didn't rock that much, so the Titanic-like thoughts didn't occupy our minds. As Victor slept most of the way, there was not much time left for discussion, and so my thoughts were sometimes jumping around my mind, a feeling similar to experiencing a turbulence, but without much of any resounding effects. After bouncing back and fourth, most of the thoughts would vanish into space without trace.
One of the thoughts that held on firmly, however, concerned the phenomenon of regularity. One can get used to certain things so fast, that then it is hard to accept the fact that they will change. And one should be lucky if they change from one day to another (as in our case), and not from one minute to another. We won't have any coffee and cookies in the morning, long conversations with Wi-Chian and Ow, then Crisselda and Komon, our friends whom we had met in Thailand. And what's ironic is that regularity is generally boring, so thats why it is up to us to make it interesting (...).
Sleep—food—food--sleep, for about thirteen hours which seemed eternal, was finally broken by the English-language all around. The English brought us back to another regularity, not a bad one, but not one to be compared with the Thai one. Instead of complaining about the current regularity, it is better to immerse oneself into it, more precisely, into the world of Starbuck’s and NPR. Also, the bookstores will be exciting again, since the Thai ones, as full of books as they may be, bring a feeling of estrangement and make me feel like an illiterate person.
Impressions from Manila, the Philippines
Monday, March 5, 2001
A choir of roosters awoke us before dawn. It was still dark, about four o’clock in the morning, when the roosters announced the coming of the new day. The crowing of roosters was the first sound imprint of Manila.
The choir of roosters, however, is not the only choir that I associate with Manila. When we arrived to the office where Resources for the Blind is located, we have noticed that there the day begins not with the morning coffee, but with the morning prayer! For two hours we listened to psalms, with an additional backup voice of a crying child, who had to wait until the morning devotion was over.
The psalms intermingled with prayers, said half in the English language and half in the language of Tagalog, spoken in the Philippines. The two languages, in turn, mingled with each other in such a way, that a part of the sentence could have been said in the first one, and the second part in the latter. “Stanza,” “Verse,” “Sacrifice,” “Pleasure,” “Temptation,” and “’’No one can hurt you, unless you agree to it,’ such were the words of Elleonor Roosevelt.” These were the bits and pieces of the English part of the prayer; the remainder was in Tagalog, or in Taglish, that is, a mixture of the Tagalog and the English language. I felt like I was witnessing the construction of the Babel Tower!
Impressions from Vietnam
Monday, June 10, 2002, 8 p.m.
Sounds of Vietnam
In Ho Chi Min City, formerly called Saigon, unlike in Manila, it would be hard to find a crowing rooster at dawn; instead as soon as the day breaks, motorcycles and horns of cars reign in the air over the streets. If a painter were to draw a picture of the morning in Manila, he would have to include a rooster in the foreground; a morning in Ho Chi Min City would have to be illustrated with a motorcycle. Obviously, the picture would have to include more than just motorcycles: people who walk on sidewalks or try to sell goods—any kind of goods that anybody could ever wish to buy--but their shapes would have to be blurred. So overwhelming is the sound of the motor engines and horns. The horns sound so loud, as if they were trying to win the contest of “the noisiest horn in the city.” In my mind’s eye, the loud horns took the shape of people, the merchants trying to sell exactly the same goods on a crowded market and screaming as loud as they can, in order to attract the buyers’ attention to themselves.
A Double-Data
Today, we were supposed to spend the morning at a computer center for the blind whose name brings to mind optimistic and uplifting associations: The Sao Mai Center, which means “The Morning Star Center.” The morning hours, however, were spent on the trip to the Association for the Blind of the Ho Chi Min City. Originally, we were thinking that the two organizations were one and the same thing or at least, that they were pretty much connected with each other. As it turned out, however, talking to a representative of one of them did not guarantee a smooth flow of information to the other organization; whatever we arranged therefore, had to be double-said to the other organization (if only oral utterances could be easily duplicated/copied like email messages!).
So, let me re-utter myself here: in the morning, when we arrived at the association for the blind, we were quite surprised to find out that the association had nothing to do with the Sao Mai Center; I felt as if we arrived to the North Pole, but had intended to travel to the South Pole originally.
When we were asked about our plans for the next two days, a chilling picture ran through our heads, and a recent fascination with the movie about John Nash has only doubled the strength of the shiver that ran through our bodies. Was it simply a misunderstanding, a miscommunication between the two organizations, or were they trying to find out some more information about our plans and well, in the end, about us? When the phrase “What are your plans?” was said, I could almost feel a touch on my shoulder, the touch of a guy in a hat, the very same person that had dominated the life of John Nash. Tapping us on the shoulder, he murmured: “if you do not complete this job assignment for me, I’ll betray you both to the Russians.”
A nice atmosphere that prevailed in the Sao Mai center has destroyed the powerful image of the person who has never existed, except for Nash’s schizophrenic imagination. Only a trace of fear, as tiny as a stroke of a paintbrush, has remained in the back of our minds.
Where the tongue cannot be trusted, the hands can.
It is always very helpful to know the native language of a country that one intends to visit. It is good to know it to such an extent that one is able to express one’s needs, desires and concerns freely. Many foreigners, if they are not able to muster the native tongue of a given country, simply show with their facial expressions and gestures what they want, need or think. In the case of blind people, however, this solution does not guarantee that what is said or shown to them will be understood. Therefore, what did the hotel guard do when he could not explain to us that there was one step up? He took Victor’s leg in his hands and put it on the ground one step higher!
Under such circumstances we are lucky that a waitress knew enough English to tell us that a freshly prepared meal she’d just brought was hot. Hadn’t we understood, maybe she’d take our hands and let us touch the food, so that we could see for ourselves how hot it was.
But even such an experience would not surpass yesterday’s conversation in the plane. The stewardess asked us if we could eat by ourselves. That left me pondering, whether the experience of feeding ourselves for over a quarter of a century was enough to answer in the affirmative?
On the Top of the Hill…
On the top of the hill
A guard of heaven sits still
His face looking like a stone
For too long he didn’t smile or mourn.
He nods at souls to come in
Through the gate of fulfillin’ dreams
Where Heaven that each mortal admires,
Is boundless kingdom of desires.
Mingling stars dance everywhere,
They chant their eternal prayer-
They wish their friends below the sky
Could drink the happiness of life.
If sadness covers your eyes
Climb the hill to reach the sky
The stone-faced guard will help you there
To fulfill the stars’ eternal prayer.
[1] “Good Morning” in Chinese
[2] “Good Morning” in Thai
[3] These two topics are the subject of my research papers during my Master’s program.
[4] A respectful title, given to a knowledgeable and respected person in Thailand.