Recognizing My Limits

There is a line in a Nine Inch Nails song (slightly modified by me) that runs through my head a lot:

I want to go everywhere
I want to know everything
I want to love everyone in the world
I want to do something that matters

In many ways, those four sentences are my motivation for much of what I do in life. I also find them incredibly limiting and discouraging. Each one is independently impossible to achieve. If I go to Thailand, it means I didn't go to Kenya. I can't go everywhere. They also conflict with each other. If I spend my time in school to learn something, I'm not moving around and seeing new places. The main hope I hold is that from this jumbled mess I will nevertheless succeed in doing something that matters, once I figure out what that means to me.

I've been thinking about that little verse a lot in the recent weeks. My time in Thailand is been plagued by my desire to do and accomplish "everything", and while in many places this attempt results in some interesting balance that I find wholeheartedly satisfying, this time many of my projects fell through, leaving me feeling a little hollow about my time here. But there is a lot to learn from that as well. I'm still processing the lessons.

My Activities
Here is a brief description of what I've been doing with my time, what worked, what didn't and some of my thoughts about it.

Housing - I realized very early that Couchsurfing in Chiang Mai would be very difficult. The city is flooded with backpackers, the type who look for couches, and has only 200 or so people offering to host (for comparison, Munich has 14,000). Many of these people are foreigners living short term in cramped apartments and regularly going on trips, so even if I find someone who is not already hosting, they are often away or only available to host for a couple of nights. Also, the nature of Thailand is that nothing is fixed, plans, work schedules, trips, all change from day to day. I was very diligent and very lucky so that I was able to couchsurf for my entire stay in Chiang Mai, but I spent many many hours soliciting couches to achieve this, moved from house to house much more frequently than I have in other places, and often had to deal with last minute crises where someone who offered me a couch has to ask me to leave early or could no longer let me come because of one reason or another. As a result, much of my time and energy was spent on housing.

Work - I had a freelance editing job that I did while I was here. The job was great in that I was able to do the work from anywhere and got paid about double per hour of work compared with what I have ever been paid for any job I have done before. However, the work involved sitting alone in front of a computer and was in no way related to Thailand. Work that I had done before always allowed me to meet people, practice the local language, learn about elements of local culture, or at least get to know the city. This job afforded none of those benefits. The work was also mind-numbingly dull, so that I had a very difficult time sitting and being productive. The mix of not being productive and schedule mishaps that meant that this project that I was suppose to have 6 months to work on, or at least three months, had to get done in 5 weeks, meant that much of my mental and emotional energy was dedicated to this job.

Learning Thai - My attempt at learning Thai was a new challenge for me. Never before had I entered a country where I had no background in the language and spent enough time there so that I could try to learn the language, especially with little structure to support me. I signed up for Thai classes, but they were four hours a week of pretty pathetic teaching. Besides not having the Thai foundations so that I could not really attempt a conversation in Thai, the great number of foreigners in Chiang Mai resulted in that I spent much of my time with foreigners and that the Thai people I met did not always have the patience for my very broken attempts at conversation. I spent a lot of time and energy studying at the beginning, but was very ineffective at finding conversation partners. When the stress of work got to high and time started running out I cracked and gave up. I would say my survival Thai is pretty good. I can manage most store and market transactions in Thai with a few hand gestures and can occasionally throw in a fancy word they don't expect a foreigner with such weak language skills to know. But my ability to actually hold even the most basic conversation, to read anything besides a menu, or to write almost anything at all, are nearly non-existent.

Playing Frisbee - Frisbee has been the saving grace of my time in Chiang Mai. It's been a fun way to spend some time and meet people. I think everyone I spend time with is from Frisbee in some way or another. It's also one of the few things that I came into with almost no expectations but have experienced marked improvements in. While I never considered myself in shape or a decent runner, I have times when I am more or less capable, and I have returned to roughly the best running ability I have ever had. My general Frisbee skills have improved greatly, such that whereas before I would have rated myself as a bad player, I would now rate myself as high as below average.

Volunteering - Never really happened. I made a few half-hearted attempts at volunteering with a couple of different of organizations, but I started looking late, did not invest heavily in the search, and with Frisbee, Thai class, my job, and other personal projects, I never found myself able to really commit to anything even when I was presented with somewhat promising opportunities. The closest I got was with this place called the vegetarian society. It's a place that serves free and cheap vegetarian food on weekdays until the early afternoon. Everyone who works there is a volunteer, coming from some Buddhist organization. I found out they take volunteers, even foreigners, and applied. But because of Buddhist modesty, new volunteers could only be trained by members of the same sex, and there were no males who spoke English well enough to train me.

Otherwise I have spent my time on other random small projects, meeting up with people here and there, and devouring books. Nothing became a real focal point, and so nothing progressed beyond an initial stage.

Spread too Thin
With everything pulling at my energy, no single entity got enough of it. I tried too hard to go everywhere that I didn't go much of anywhere, tired so hard to know everything that I didn't learn much of anything, and tried so hard to do something that mattered that I didn't do much at all. In my mind the most unfortunate is that I have been so scatter-brained that I haven't had the opportunity to connect very deeply with people, or with communities  These are not particularly new sensations for me. I've spent the last 10 year of my life trying to take on more than I can and coming to grips with reality, but every time the context is different and the lesson is new.

It's difficult for me to describe my emotional reaction to this reality. I don't feel sad or depressed, and I certainly would not say that my time here has been wasted. I think unaccomplished is the best adjective I can find. What I am working on now is next steps. I'm not a big believer in regrets. I try to sped very little time thinking about what could have happened, because it didn't. I am more interested in honestly recognizing what did happen and using that knowledge to better understand what is happening right now and what I should do in the future.

One of my techniques is to reflect on my experiences and think of the moments that stand out. When did I feel particularly connected, accomplished, joyful, at home? I held a Seder at a friend's house, which was fantastic; a wonderful night of singing, socializing, and drinking wine.  I had several moments when I had small breakthroughs in my Thai and I felt extremely accomplished. I discovered a cycling group and had a few great moments chatting and cycling with them. This past week I've been house sitting for friends, which meant full access to a functioning kitchen, and some of my cooking experiments were very gratifying. When I handed in my application at the vegetarian society I felt eager and excited.

Finding the common threads or meaningful threads in these is more difficult, and I know that no guesses will hit the mark exactly, but it's worth the attempt. My conclusions rehash ideas and reemphasize ideas and thought I have discussed before, but apparently I have to realize these ideas many times before they sink in. I should invest in people, the people around me, the people I care about. I should invest in the communities around me and work to enrich them and to connect with them in that way. I should invest in tools and methods that bring me in touch with the culture and the people around me. I should spend less energy, and in fact spend energy avoiding situations that isolate me or that lead me to do things alone. Any sort of study or self enhancement I should try to integrate with interactions with others. I have this upcoming week to practice. I have no commitments and Sognkran is being celebrating here, the crazy new year water festival. No one has work and it's a perfect opportunity for me to try to spend time with others.

The alternative direction is to look at those moments, see what connects them, and then determine what I need to work on so that I can get the same sense of fulfillment and enjoy myself during other moment. Instead of focusing on bringing about moments that feel inspired, learn to be inspired at all moment. People and community seem to be a big theme. I've said since I began wandering that I have a general aim of exploring communities and interpersonal relationships, but that I also want to explore being with me and being ok with being alone when the connections to the communities are less fruitful. It looks like I still have a long way to progress in the second objective. Feeling alone does not stir up the same negative feelings of loneliness that it used to, but it appears I still lack fulfillment and am not content without connections to other around me. The month after Songkran will present me with a good opportunity o cultivate that capability. I'll be spending 10 days at Wat Doi Suthep practicing Vipasana meditation, and after a two day break, I will go to a forest monastery for an additional two weeks. Among many other things that the experience will bring, I am hoping it will offer me some time for reflection and for learning to be comfortable with myself.

Travel Itinerary
For the next week I will be in Chiang Mai
April 19th - May 13th I will be practicing meditation at the two temples. I will not have phone/internet access for almost the entire time.
May 17th I arrive in Los Angeles. I will be in Portland until early June when I will leave for Michigan. how long I spend in Michigan depends on a pending job application, but I will likely return to Portland in late June and stay there for the remained of July. August and onward depends entirely on various applications and opportunities as they pan out, so I'll keep you informed.

I probably won't speak with most of you until I'm back in the US. Enjoy the coming of spring and best of luck on your journeys.

The Journey Continues

Friends!

I've missed writing to you so much. There has been all sorts of stuff going on which has made it very difficult for me to focus, but that's over now. I'm hoping with this update, and another one in a few days, to finally catch up. I left off last time when I arrived in Chiang Mai. Since then there have been two chunks: continuing to move and travel, and settling in Chiang Mai. This update will cover that first chunk.

Real Thai Family
I was lucky to secure a place with a very friendly couchsurfing host immediately upon arriving in Chiang Mai. The hosts are a mother and a daughter who live a good 15-20 km outside the city in a village called San Kham Paeng. I got along with them really well, and am still kind of in touch. I've visited them once and plan to visit again once more and cook for them. The place I stayed at was gorgeous. You can see pictures here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=583572144678&set=a.583572124718.1073741827.9701799&type=3&theater. That was my room. All that being said, much of my interaction with them was continuously awkward and confusing, an abrupt introduction to Thai culture and all of the small things I would have to adjust to.

The confusion began before I arrived. The Couchsurfing profile is for a late middle-age retired teacher, however all of my communication was with her daughter, Pi Toey, who is roughly my age. She never bothered to explain why she answers requests through her mother's profile (I got some kind of explanation for this later on) or even warn me, so in the beginning I was not sure sure who I was talking to. Before arriving I was also sent a set of rules. One of these was that while breakfast would be provided, I had to eat lunch and dinner elsewhere. I had to make sure to have food for lunch and dinner, because Pi Toey's mom would otherwise insist on feeding me, but would later complain about feeding me. This sounded like a trap and was indeed very difficult to maneuver, because at times when I least expected it, I would be offered food, occasionally simply have food set down in front of me. Not only did I want to eat it, but everything I knew about politeness, especially in cultures similar to the culture here, said I was obligated to eat the food. But I also had my instructions. I think I came out ok, but it was an endless struggle.

Our first encounter also set an odd stage. I arrived in Chiang Mai rather late at night, close to 10 pm. I was not expecting to arrive so late, but everything ended up more delayed than I had expected it to be. I had a number of back-up plans in case Pi Toey was not able to host me if I were to come so late, and every time I communicated with her, I checked whether it was ok for me to come or if I should wait until tomorrow. She insisted there was no problem, and yet the first thing she said when they picked me up was how surprised she was that I came so late and that she had assumed I would just stay somewhere along the way. I don't know if she meant it accusingly, but I am always eager to please couchsurfing hosts, especially when I first meet them, and this felt like I was losing points right at the start.

Day to day interaction was somewhat more normal. I would wake up early in the morning, well before Pi Toey, and after her mom. Her mom would start talking to me, telling me stories. I would often sit for one to two hours listening to these stories, only able to sneak in a few words or comments, generally a yes or a no or a quick clarification question. After Pi Toey would wake up she would ask me my plans for the day, which mostly involved trying to get set up for my stay in Chiang Mai: finding a bike, figuring out housing, learning Thai. Mentioning any of these endeavors would lead her to spend the next one to two hours looking online, asking all her friends, and finding creative ways to show me maps that explain where things are to help me with my missions. I was very grateful for the help, but also amazed and concerned at the level of effort. I didn't know if I was culturally obliging her to help by telling her what I was doing.

Perhaps the most awkward situation happened the day before I left. It was Pi Toey's birthday, and her father, who lives in another city, was coming into town to celebrate. Sometime in the afternoon while I was running around town, I received a text message asking me not to come back until after 7 because her dad doesn't like foreigners. Just receiving that message was strange enough, but I decided to oblige, put in an extra buffer and made sure to arrive after 9. In them morning, I woke up and went to the breakfast table to discover Pi Toey's dad sitting there. Shit! What do I do now? Her mother is already setting things for me and calling me over, so I can't escape. I just tried to stay as silent as possible, answer questions politely, finish up and return to my room. I was slow moving that morning, so I was only ready to leave for the city by the early afternoon, when they asked me to join them for Pi Toey's birthday lunch at a nearby restaurant. One night I'm asked to come back home late to avoid running across her dad, the next day I'm invited to lunch with him. I made as clear as I could, in the confines of politeness, that I didn't want to intrude, but they insisted, so I joined. I asked Pi Toey about all of this later and what she had to say more or less boiled down to: he used to really dislike foreigners, but I guess he's over it.

Another Border Crossing
I had ten days between when I arrived in Chiang Mai and when my parents arrived for a short visit. I tried to spent most of that time hanging out with my Kalamazoo College friends who were still here on study abroad, and trying to get organized in whatever way possible so that after returning to Chiang Mai post trip with parents I could hit the ground running. I spent time looking for a bike, which I eventually found, tried to learn as much Thai as possible, and looked up Thai language courses and volunteer opportunities. I also spent time wandering about the city and trying to get my bearings as much as possible.

As a side adventure, I had to spend time going on a visa run. Most countries that let you in without a visa will give you 90 days just for the stamp in your passport. I had consulted with my friend Ellen who had spent a lot of time here and did some looking online, and while I knew I was not going to get 90 days here, I was for some reason under the delusion that I would be able to stay long term with stamps alone. There was constant talk of tourist visas, which I mistakenly assumed was a reference to these stamps. But when I crossed the border I only got 15 days. I finally did some more in depth research and had a full conversation with Ellen to realize that tourist visa was not an entry stamp but a not so cheap thing I would have to apply for at a consulate in another country. This is annoying under any circumstance because it means a long expensive trip. I was particularly worried because I discovered this fact on a Tuesday, and my parents were arriving the morning of the following Tuesday. Somehow I had to leave and get my visa in a week, and consulates don't operate on the weekend.

Luckily there are many foreigners in Chiang Mai who have to deal with all of these hoops. I found an agency that would pick me up Wednesday evening and was guaranteed to drop me off at the Thai consulate in Vientiane, the Laos capitol, on Thursday morning while visa applications could still be submitted. Then I could pick up my passport Friday afternoon and hop on the van back to Chiang Mai, arriving by Saturday morning. I was in the clear. I was also lucky to have my awesome friends from K who let me keep my big bag in their dorm and let me crash there a couple of nights.

My stay in Vientiane turned out to be a fun little adventure. I spent the day walking to pretty much every attraction Vientiane has to offer, doesn't amount to much. It's not your typical tourist city. My favorite part was the massive, filthy, tangled local market. I spent hours walking through all of its little alleys and isles just looking at everything and breathing it all in, avoiding the flooded paths when it rained. The most exciting portion of the journey came at night. I had decided not to stay at a hostel or guesthouse. My journey to Thailand ended up much more expensive than I had planned because of all of the unexpected twists and turns. And now this visa run was costing me an additional $150 that I had not planned on spending. Sure, the cheapest beds only ran about $4 a night, but I figured I should cut every corner I could. I spent the day scouring the area for good public sleeping spots, and once it became late enough, went over to check them out. In terms of relative comfort and not being disturbed, most of my spots were great. It was also very warm, so much so that I could barely stand to wear my fleece. The problem was one that seems completely obvious to me after two months in Thailand, but which eluded me then: mosquitoes. They attacked in amazing swarms. I don't generally mind mosquito bites too much. My allergic reaction has gotten weaker over time so that they disappear within a matter of hours. But the buzzing I have yet to get used to, and the tickling feeling when they walk on me or the stinging feeling as they bite me, is more than I can bare. I was able to almost completely cover myself, but I unfortunately did not have socks, and most of the night it was too chokingly hot to remain fully covered. I assumed the night would cool off at some point and they would go away; this was happening it Chiang Mai at the time. I stationed myself at some spot for about half an hour, try to rest as best I could, despite the mosquitoes, and then move on to somewhere else. I tried many different places, but the mosquitoes were in great numbers everywhere. By 4 am I had slept perhaps 30-40 disjointed minutes and was tired of trying. I was by the river and found one of those outdoor exercise parks. I started doing circuits on the machines, waiting for time to pass. I knew a nearby temple opened its doors at 5 am, so when the time finally came I went there. I climbed up a small tower, and there, with the protection of the cold of early morning, the concrete around me, and the height of the tower, I was finally rid of the mosquitoes. I was able to sleep until around 9 when I decided to begin my day and wander around the city again. I had no problems sleeping in the van on the way back to Chiang Mai.

The Family

It's unclear whether my parents use their children's international adventures as an excuse to travel, use travel as an excuse to visit their children, or simply find the combination of children and travel agreeable. What I can say is that since the summer of 2009, I have mostly seen my parents while they have been travelling outside the US. I was very excited for my parents to come. I hadn't seen my mom in over a year and had only seen my dad for a brief few days during that year. Travelling with the parents also means relaxing and forgetting some of the stresses that follow my day-to-day life. I was also a little nervous about the upcoming trip, because of the new stresses that would take their place. My parents and I, especially my mom and I, seem to have some recurring difficulties with certain elements of communication. The greatest difficulties arise around decision making, which is a skill that needs to be constantly exercised while travelling. The last two trips I did with them, in China and in Ecuador, had some marked differences. First, I had at least one sibling with me. My siblings and I may not see eye-to-eye on everything or agree on all travel related preferences, but we have a much easier time understanding and accepting each others positions, and can better support each other in the discussions that follow. Beyond that, in China I was the tour guide. While with my family, we went only to places I had been to before, we had a rough itinerary before they arrived, and I was proficient enough in Chinese, and adept enough at how things functioned in China, that changes or modifications were easy to arrange. In Ecuador, that role fell upon my sister, and my siblings and I all speak Spanish well enough to easily navigate the country. I tried to explain to my parents that we would not have any of these advantages for this trip and so they had to plan everything in advance. But for a number of reasons, some of them out of their control, when we were united in Chiang Mai we had an almost completely blank itinerary to fill.

Despite all the concerns, things went really well. Making the trip successful relied primarily on two things that I am a learning about a lot these days, patience and detachment, or letting things be. I think the conflicts that we were most prone to having were around energy and inclusive decision making. My mom for example, does not walk quickly, but can walk all day long if we are at interesting markets/temples/etc. I can walk quickly but get wiped after a few hours on my feet. I've also grown to detest trip planning, and get exhausted after thinking about plans for more than half an hour. So we often had energy imbalances. The other issue we regularly have is a need for everyone's input on every decision. My parents and I have different travel styles, as you may imagine. They would not, for example, sleep on the streets on Vientiane to save $4. It's very difficult for me to try to weigh decisions from my parents perspective. It's also very difficulty for me to choose between two options that would not normally be my choice. For example, the first afternoon in Chiang Mai, we wandered around trying to find guesthouses, which were all full. We finally found something that was ok for us, but it was a little more expensive than we wanted. It was getting late and my mom was getting tired of walking around. Do we stay or do we keep going? I'm asked what I think. I think I wouldn't stay in a guesthouse if I were travelling. I think I would try to sleep outdoors if I couldn't find a couch. I think if I were determined to stay in a guesthouse I would spend hours and walk my self to exhaustion if I thought it could save me a dollar. But do I think this guesthouse is too expensive for my parents to pay to avoid spending who knows how much time walking around the city looking for something else? I don't have a good answer to that question.

But sparks did not arise and things proceeded smoothly. We were patient with each other. We respected each others decisions, each others silences, each others pace. We did not attach ourselves to particular methods or results. For example, when asked about the guesthouse I was able to say I don't know several times without getting frustrated, and my mom was able to accept that answer after only a few exchanges. We were able to look past differences in approach, enjoy whatever came our way, and focus on spending time with each other. We spent a few days wandering around Chiang Mai, went on a three day hike in the mountains to the north, spent a day slowly walking around Bangkok as I recovered from food poisoning, and snorkeled around the beautiful island of Go Tao in the south. I got to eat a lot of delicious food, sample sweets, and drink many smoothies, things that I usually don't allow myself at all, or only in heavy moderation. I also spent a few weeks sleeping on beds and not thinking too much about where I would sleep the next day. As I said, shifting one set of stresses for another, just like any vacation.

We went back to Bangkok together, they left for the airport, and I stayed for a day, wondered around the city, and left on an evening bus for Chiang Mai. The bus was very sketchy. We got led all around the Kao San area before getting on. When I looked through my bag that was left under the bus after getting off the bus, I discovered some one had gone through it, though luckily I had nothing valuable inside so things were just rearranged but nothing was missing. The bus dropped us off at 5 am in an awkward place way out of town, and the songthaw drivers that came to pick us up wanted far too much money, so I started walking the 5-7 kms to town. Somewhere along the way, some guy in a pick up truck pulled up in front of me and using mostly hand gestures and the 3-4 shared words we had between us, said he could take me to the intersection, about a km up ahead.. I hopped in the back an enjoyed the break from walking. After the intersection, he realized we were still going the same way, so he stopped for me again and took me all the way to the river, leaving me less than half an hour walk from where my bike was parked. I had to sit around until my couchsurfing hosts work up, and then I got on my bike and headed over. Finally, for the first time since early November when I left Tel Aviv, I was going to live in one place for a while. I began my residency in Chiang Mai.

To be continued soon...