backtracking my parents journey to the united states

eversince before i could remember, i know i grew up on stories about ban xon and xishuangbanna. i've successfully done the opposite journey my parents did and i have so many things to say and write but can't keep hogging this computer for that long.

• chiang khong, thailand across the mekong river to huay xai, laos.
• huay xai, laos to muang sing, laos.
• muang sing laos, across the border to muang mang, china (where mom was born)
• muang mang, china to ban xon, china (where dad was born)

"you're slowly becoming increasingly useless."

i just had a horrible conversation with my brother today while i was trying to study for my last exam.

he told me i was becoming increasingly useless.

he gave me a hard time about studying abroad. not having direction in life. taking a long time to graduate. etc. etc.

it's stupid because (1) studying abroad has brought me an opportunity to intern for UNESCO, which would give me some amazing experience AND look amazing on my CV, (2) i've been wanting to be a lawyer since i was in the 8th grade and have not deterred from that since, (3) i'm going to finish in four years double majoring and minoring . . which is more than he can say since he took five years with his one major.

he also gave me shit about how shane has a house and i'm wandering around thailand. man. so am i such a failure? just because i went to college after high school and haven't finished? would he rather me go straight into the workforce after high school, save some money, move to some state where the cost of living is 1/4 of california's. buy a house. get married. get pregnant. yada yada. thats so stupid and so not the way mom and dad raised me.

it's like i understand james really cares about me and worries about me . . thats why he gives me a hard time. but i swear, sometimes he's worst than mom and dad. mom and dad have issues with "encouragement" also. and in the long run, i know it's made me a stronger person. negative reineforcement. they always worry that over complimenting us will make us stop working so hard. and it's good, i know.

but sometimes it's really hard to always have to prove someone wrong. or feel like the people who you think should be the most proud of you are just waiting for you to fail.

i guess i haven't felt like this since high school when mom and dad were convinced that a month before graduation i would get pregnant and drop out of school. instead, i hosted the graduation ceremony infront of a stadium of people.

i dont know. i haven't been feeling so great because yesterday a ghost from the past attempted to contact me. so i guess i've been more sensitive and touchy. i hate that.

Temporary Friends?

december 6th

I just got back from Koh Tao last night at 1am. I spent the night packing and talking to my brother and sister. I’m really excited because Malisa is almost certain she’ll be visiting in May and James and Kimi still wanna come too. it makes me excited because I miss my family. Especially my brother and sister. I guess we have one of those weird families where the kids get along. More than get along. We actually like each other.

Anyway. Besides that, I went to bed really late but luckily Coline called me to ask if I wanted to study. It was nice to hear Coline’s voice. I was hoping she’d be staying with me next semester but her school informed her during the weekend if she didn’t take some class (that wont be offered here in Thailand), she wouldn’t graduate. So she’s heading back to Paris in January. And it makes me really sad because we were gonna live in the same building with each other and even made all these wonderful plans for next year. Ha. last Thursday, she said:

“monica, if I stay here next semester, we need to find boyfriends. If I go a whole year without a boyfriend, I might die.”

Ha. I love it.

This morning Harper came over and invited me to brunch with everyone at Ricky’s. Brunch turned into Lunch because I had to go buy tickets to Laos and China for tomorrow. When I got to Ricky’s, I was greeted a huge table of my friends with huge smiles on their faces sitting around sipping on their cappuccinos and fruit shakes with plates of half eaten grilled cheese, muesli and yogurt, etc. etc.

It was a sight that I don’t ever want to forget.

I’ve made such wonderful friends during this semester abroad. Wonderfully amazing. Who would have known that I would be able to connect with so many different people from so many different places. Who would have known that I could have been such close friends with

- A girl from Paris who I would eat vegetarian food with every Wednesday night to discuss life, goals, careers, and re-meeting up in New York in two years.

- A guy from Nesbraksa who I would share invite to visit my family in Laos and spend a 22 hours bus ride with

- Fall in love with a girl who grew up in Piedmont but goes to UCLA

- Find someone I could completely connect with on so many levels in Thailand… only to realize I could have spent my last two years in Berkeley hanging out with her (if only she dropped some of those econ classes for some Ethnic Studies or Sociology classes).

- A Jewish girl from Denver who likes to run as much as me and would keep good luck strings from my uncle on her wrists for a month

- A French-Canadian whom I would have a fling with then travel through out Vietnam AND get certified for scuba diving with.

- A girl from vegetarian from Nashville who is probably my favorite southerner in the world.

- A Mexican who has become my favorite person to share a bucket with and could convince me to do anything just by calling me, “Moni-Cake”

- A great roommate from Sacramento turned Los Angeles who I could bitch about the world for hours instead of studying in our room.

… and so many many more.

The sad thing is that in the beginning, I thought maybe these would be “temporary” friends. Who would have known, I would come to Thailand to make friends with people whom I’ve become closer to in the past five months than friends I have back at home that I’ve known for years.

Maybe its because we all came to Thailand with nothing. Maybe its because we all learned to live in Thailand together. Maybe its because in Thailand, we lived a surreal life. A surreal life that no one would ever be able to even imagine.

Only us.

01/Dec - 04/Dec: Koh Tao & Scuba Diving

to be continued

the joys (and pain) of being a womyn

tomorrow, i go scuba diving in koh tao with charles. we're going to get our PADI licenses. so like many farang girls in bangkok, i went to go get a wax.

it's only been my second time but i stuck to the place erin took me to the first time. i always try to lessen the uncomfortable situation by conversating with the person. they're always really nice. very attractive thai girls from the north and northeast. umm. i wonder why, right?

it gets me thinking. most prostitutes in bangkok are trafficked from the north and northeast. i wonder, what is better (or worst): being a prostitute in bangkok and servicing men OR working in a waxing salon and servicing women.

then i got to thinking again. are those stories about bangkok true? can you walk into a massage place to get a massage then 30 minutes later have the option of "getting something a little more"? i'm always scared to walk into certain bars, resturants, and massage parlors because of that. then, it made me wonder if my really nice and clean waxing salon does that also..

"Reagan is rightfully seen nowadays as one of the best American Presidents"

sometimes, i think professors are idiots.

[to be continued]

the above quote is from my professor in my cold war class. after an entire semester, i've learned to tolerate his stupid opinionated lectures. he'll stand there and compliment reagan and bush senior while at the same time pointing out carter's inexperience with foreign policy, roosevelt's affair with another woman, etc etc.

the sad thing is that the thai students who take his class will probably only ever be taught american government and politics from this man. as if thai people weren't extremely conservative already. now, they're being taught what "most americans" believe in . . but not really.

i always become puzzled when professors are conservative. ive always had the notion that the more education you undergo, the more progressive you will be. i guess its a nice change. my cold war professor is getting his phd in economics and my cool ass british government professor is a sociologist by training and marxist by life.

vaios and macs in siam square

today i went to go look for more apartments. i found one i like. and it's three bts stations away from siam square. which is wonderful. i love it. i'm going to live five minutes away from the victory monument bts station. whoopty whoop!

anyway. after my errands, i wandered into the bunch of shops and boutiques across the street form siam square in search of a true cafe to study and read at. i found it and it was great. i loved it. i could see myself spending many hours and drinking many lattes there.

so to the point. it was strange. the students there were not thammasat students (since its so far). they were chulalongkorn students. and during my four hours in the cafe, i think i saw more thai people with laptops than i have at the entire semester at thammasat. and not only did they have laptops. they had vaios and macs. powerbooks. ibooks. macbooks. etc. etc.

it makes me wonderful how things are at chulalongkorn university. i wonder if it's as bad-ass as they say it is. everyone is reguired to wear uniform everyday. and the girls have a hangbag uniform. it has to be some brandname thing. thats just insane.

Buddhism from the Farang's Perspective

Tomorrow is my Buddhist Institutions final exam.

I feel like a failure because out of all my classes, this is the one I'm doing the shittiest in. I guess I am the typical "cradle" Buddhist that just follows rituals and traditions while my classmates are like those convert Buddhist that know so much more than me . . and hence, are doing better in the class than me.

Aside from my frustrations from being really sucky at Buddhist Institutions, while I am the only Buddhist in the class . . I've also been really frustrated with people who have expressed their "disapointment" in Thai Buddhism.

Apparently, a lot of students came to Thailand with these perfect images of Buddhism as the purest and most wonderful religion in the world. Therefore, they were expecting to find wonderfully faithful Buddhists citizens and amazingly holy monks in Thailand.

However, when they got to Bangkok, they found (among other things) crazy drunk teenagers partying it up in clubs on weekdays and weekends, prostitutes galore, Thai girls with really right and short uniform skirts, monks smoking and talking on cellular phones . .

Apparently, Bangkok hasn't lived up to their expectations as a Buddhist society which has led them to think that Buddhism is as corrupt and "just another religion" like all the other western religions in the states.

I'm not really quite sure how to respond to this. Part of me wants to justify all these failings and say, "Well, Bangkok isn't exactly the best representation of a 'good' Buddhist society." Then I would go on and on about how Bangkok is different because it's so consumer driven with their "High-So" population and most people like my relatives that live up north in the villages are deeply and much more purely Buddhist.

However, the other part of me doesn't even want to address the matter of purity of Buddhism in Thailand. Part of me looks and sees a bunch of western people, coming over from their countries, and placing their assumptions and standards on an entire society that they cannot possibily understand. It is so like us westerners (I say "us" because, yes, my experience here in Thailand has made me so much more conscious of how western I actually am) to look at other cultures and societies through our own lenses.

We are so Euro/American centric.

It disgusts me because it seems so anthropological. With the superiority implications of: this is us, that is you, and you are definitely not like us.

But then again, what do I know? I'm just another American farang born Buddhist that has probably gotten better grades on past exams on Christianity then on the present exams on Buddhism . .

farang food and high - so

I had a really good breakfast today. I finally made it to Ricky's Coffee Shop, which is really like five minutes away from campus. Harper told me they had the best yogurt and she was right. I had two things. Yogurt with Muesli and Fruit. A tofu and cheese sandwich.


it was great.


so "american" or "farang" of me, right? i'm in thailand and i'm sitting here looking for good yogurt. I think I could speak for the rest of the exchange students when I say that now that it's November, we're a bit tired of "trying to fit in" or "being like the locals." On Wednesdays, we have vegetarian nights at May Kaidee's and on Thursdays it's girls night out at Ranee's.. which we go to because they have really good greek salad and fresh bread.

Malisa would be upset at me. I'm in Thailand, I should be eating all the great and CHEAP thai food. The crappy thing is that Kevie is coming in about three weeks and he's going to want to do all that "thai" stuff . . and i'm already at the point where all I really want to do is sit at a cafe, drink a latte, and read newspapers.

Maybe thats why I also want to move closer to BTS. Maybe I'm just tired of living in "Old Bangkok." I mean, it's great that I'm right across the river from the Grand Palace, school, Banglumphu . . but I don't know. I want to be closer to Siam Paragon, the Gourmet Market, Sukhumvit, etc etc. too. And it reminds me of the end of my freshmen year in college. You know how when you're a freshmen in college, you want to do all the fun stuff and socialize and make friends and yadayadayada. Well, after this semester, all my friends are leaving and there will be a new group of exchange students. They'll be all excited about their first night partying at RCA. They'll be making plans to go visit Angkor Wat. Some people will be figuring out the best way to get to Laos. They'll be complaining about the library dress code, etc etc.

& me, I'll be over it.

I dont know how social I'm going to be next semester. I dont know how excited I am about it. I dont know. I kind of just want to move near BTS. Intern at UNESCO on Sukhumvit. Travel on my own. Go to school. & live near the other Ex-Pats. sounds kinda high - so but hey.

speaking of high - so. we went to sky bar tonight. the view was great. the drinks were over priced. and we all felt a bit awkward and out of place. I like getting all dolled up but I could see how some of the other students felt out of place. It wasn't exactly the best place to go to with a group of 20 of your friends either. Eh. Oh well. it just amazes me how one city could have so many different things in it. They have places like sky bar that sells a glass of wine for 1000 baht and then in the same city, they have places on the street that sell noodles for 10 baht. interesting the diversity AND disparity of Thailand...

Welcome

so, i was talking to jimmy tran today and he asked me if i kept a blog.

thats when i realized, i should just give in and create one.

since i started this trip writing emails to certain individuals about what i've been doing, i'm going to post these emails (editted) in place of my four months of non-blogged adventures in southeast asia.