#021 Thailand Update: An Important Message

Today, I got off to a late start. I had to wake up at 4:15am to prepare for a 5:00am meeting, and then had a 6:00am meeting directly after that one. After writing up the meeting minutes, sending out a few more emails to get additional information, a couple more phone calls... I now find myself looking at 9:12am. By the time I get into the office, it’s going to be lunchtime. Now, I’m one of the people who worry about how things look. I am going to show up to work at 11:00am, and I’m sure many will wonder why I get to come in so late. Oh well, I need to stop worry about things that don’t matter, right?

Unfortunately, I can’t.

“Today” is no longer today. The late start resulted in me not finishing my update, or publishing it to the website. Now I have two days to complete this. That normally means it becomes waaaay to long, but we’ll see.

The Ancient Royal Palace

The last stop in our Ayudhaya tour was the Ancient Royal Palace. I had planned on taking the ticket I purchased and writing down all the information from the ticket so you would all marvel at my intellect, but I decided not to. Most of you know me already, and would be able to pick that off right away. Instead, let me just start by saying it was awesome.

Ancient buildings amaze me. I look at them and see an entire history unfolding before my eyes. Buildings that have stood the test of time. Unfortunately, many of the buildings in the Ancient Royal Palace did not stand this test. They were raided and demolished by the Burmese (Myanmar) during their war with Siam (Thailand). The remains that are left over are a mere shell of its former magnificence. Even still, it was amazing to see.

It is very hard to describe what we saw in words. It is even hard to take a picture that really captures what we saw. I did my best though, and posted these pictures to the website. I hope you have a chance to look at them.

While we were looking around, we ran into a group of schoolkids and their teachers. One of the teachers asked if he and the kids could have their picture taken with me and my family. Of course! We get our picture taken and then walk off. Now I am thinking of how cool it would have been to have gotten pictures with the students at Wat Yai Chaya Mongkol and these students. I'll have to remember that if we're ever asked again.

And I thought I had Already Seen a Huge Mall

We have been doing a lot of shopping since we’ve been here. We haven’t really bought much, but we’ve been doing a lot of shopping. On the way home from Ayudhaya, I mention to Boonchan that we want to see a movie. I ask him again if he knows of any theatres nearby our home, and he again looks as confused as ever. Then, he offers “Future Park” in Rangsit. Ok, why not?

When we get to Future Park, I am completely amazed. The place was humongous. The mall was so big it had an overhead rail that took you between the buildings. They had everything imaginable there. However, we were not there to shop; we were there to watch a movie.

We get to the “theatre wing” of this mall and look at our choices for movies. We are a little tentative now, especially after our “Alien v. Predator” experience. We finally decide on “Man on Fire” with Denzel Washington. Trust me when I tell you it was the closest thing to a kid movie that we could come up with. That turned out to be a pretty somber meeting. That’s one of those movies that makes parents cringe, because it is about child abduction. Even worse, it’s about child abduction in a foreign country. I can’t imagine that happening to Livonia and I, but it did make me think about it.

Livonia Singing and An Important Message

We went to church on Sunday and got to hear Livonia sing again. I had nearly forgotten how much I really enjoyed hearing her on stage. When she sings songs about our Savior, she can really move you. It’s pretty inspiring. I watched her and smiled. I’m looking forward to hearing her continue to open up and share her voice with others.

The pastor of our church also brought up an important message to the congregation. It’s something I often forget, and sometimes need to be reminded of. He asked if people knew I was a Christian, or if they just wonder. Do I ever make it known to others who I am and what I believe? Am I unafraid to tell people about my faith? Is my faith big enough to be a major part of my life?

The short answer to all that is “no.” I have not expressed to many people that I am a Christian. Mostly because I know many of the people I am close friends with are either agnostic or non-Christian believers. I worry about offending them and separating myself from them.

The truth of the matter is that Jesus Christ is such an important part of my life that I realize I could never be the person that you all love (or maybe just remotely like to be around) without Him. I don’t want anyone to question my faith, or wonder where my loyalty resides. I put my faith in Jesus Christ, and want everyone to know that. At least all of you reading this update will know that. I'll work on the rest of the world at a later date.

I also want you to know that if you are a non-Christian, what being a Christian means to me. It does not mean that I’m narrow minded and have a “holier than thou” view of myself in relation to non-believers. Point blank: being a Christian means that I believe that God walked the Earth in the form of Jesus Christ, and died on the cross to save our souls. The only cost I have to pay is to believe in Him. My belief in Him is what makes me become a better person; it’s what makes me want to do more than I did before, and to tell more people about Him. I love all of my friends, Christian and non-Christian alike. I would love to see everyone after our time on this world. This is also a topic I love to talk about. If you want to talk to me about it, please let me know. You will probably hear more about this in future posts. As for now, I want to make it clear to everyone reading this post: The person writing this blog is a firm believer in Jesus Christ. This is the most important thing I will ever say in my writing. God Bless you all.

Talad Market

I finally make it to the market that Livonia loves so much. Livonia and I went after church on Sunday. This market is similar in design to many of the places we have been to in Thailand. It is a mixture of fresh vegetables, raw meats, raw seafood, cooked food, clothing, electronics, movies, haircut shops, massage parlors, etc. It is, once again, the everything market. Something I didn’t realize until walking through this market is how they will have a shop where they are cooking food right next to a shop selling clothes. Interesting combination, right?

I liked the layout of Talad better than most of the markets I’ve been to. The fresh fruit and vegetable section was separate from everything else. Of course, that’s good and bad. Livonia could spend hours looking at all the fresh items. At the same time, I could spend hours looking at all the strange gadgets. I mean, who wouldn’t find it fascinating to see a lighter in the shape of a woman’s torso, where one side is a lighter, the other side is a laser pointer, and key parts of her anatomy having flashing LEDs? You just can’t find things like this in the US! Oh, the ingenuity.

But, I digress.

With the two things separate, I now have nothing to occupy my time. I just watch and smile as the process continues for picking out the right items. We got the food, picked up a couple of clothing items for Esiaah, and head back to the apartment. It was time to work on the kid’s homework.

The American Doll, The Grand Canyon, and Chief Seattle

A parent’s version of Mission Impossible: It’s Sunday afternoon and you review the assignments your kids have due tomorrow. Your oldest has a paper to write on Chief Seattle’s letter to the President regarding the purchase of land. Your youngest has to complete three pages of his “International Me” packet, and decorate a doll to look like a typical American. Your youngest also has something to do, but you can’t think about that now. You have enough on your plate as it is! Can you do it? Cue the fuse...

After recovering from the initial reaction of “why do teacher’s give kids so much homework when they know the parents are insanely busy,” I tackle Christian’s homework first. His seems to be easier. I think I can be successful helping out with a First Grader’s work. The first thing I notice is the doll. We need to decorate the doll to look like a typical American. We can use Native American, Cowboy, Hawaiian, etc. I was thinking about a Dirty Politician, or a Sleezy Car Salesman, but I think the intent may have gotten lost in translation. We ended up deciding on a Hawaiian. Seems to be easy enough; the Hawaiian warrior does not wear many clothes. However, we have no arts and crafts available. Now what?

Livonia goes next door to one of her friends and comes back with a ton of supplies. I am so happy she has made so many friends. Hey wait a second, this might actually work! We start looking through the materials: I can make a grass skirt with that, armbands and wristbands with this, headpiece... yep. We can do this. Now, my creative juices are flowing. In no time my doll... err Christian’s doll will be ready for production.

I love to draw. I especially love to make characters. I drew the face of this warrior to match the type of faces used on Disney’s Lilo and Stitch, and then colored the doll to match the same skin tones. I also drew in some muscle definition and shaded and highlighted these areas to give the doll some depth. Livonia hot glued the grass skirt and belt in place, and also added some trinkets to the arms. We add in the head, ankle, and wrist bands, draw in more definition on the feet, and we have ourselves a Hawaiian warrior! Okay, next item on the list.

Christian has to draw the American flag. A seemingly easy task, except he has an artist for a Father. I make sure he has exactly 13 stripes, they start the red/white combination on the correct color (red), and he draws 50 circles to account for all the stars, in alternating rows of 6 stars and five stars, in a checkerboard pattern. Is that too detailed for a 6yr old? I wonder...

What should have taken a few minutes took about a half hour, because I wanted him to do a really good job. In the end, he was very happy with how it looked, so that made me happy.
Next, he had to draw a place in the US he would want his friend to visit. When I asked him for a place, he said “I want David to visit my school.” Hmm... can we think of another place that’s a little more specific to the US? Not that he didn’t have a good idea; I just didn’t know how to draw his school. We finally ended up with the Grand Canyon, so I show him how to draw it in steps. First, he drew a staggered canyon that staggered in on both sides. Next, I had him draw more canyon inside this canyon to give his drawing depth. He then used the colors red, orange, and brown to color the canyon walls, and mixed it up to show some different layers. The background canyon was colored lighter to again provide depth, and he added a little blue at the bottom for the river. Add in a few cacti (yeah, yeah, I know the cactus aren’t that far north), a few conifers, blue skies and bright yellow sun, and we have ourselves a Grand Canyon! I have to admit that he drew the whole thing himself. All I did was give him direction on another piece of paper. He did a great job. I’m sure his teacher will be quite impressed.

We finished next few pages in similar fashion. He only had to do three pages, but we pretty much finished the whole book. We got on a roll, and we started to enjoy ourselves. I think Christian liked all the attention.

After finishing with him, I went to check on Esaiah and his Chief Seattle paper. Okay, this was going to take quite a bit more time. We had to talk about sentence structure, grammar used, developing a good introduction, supporting your introduction’s key points in the body, and wrapping it all up with a clear, concise conclusion. I also had to work with him on how to write a persuasive letter. His letter was rather defensive, where he used a lot “you said this, and you said that” statements. I showed him ways you say the same thing, but make it sound totally different. He rewrote it based on my inputs. I don’t know what the final result was, because I knew it wouldn’t be fair to him if I looked at it again. If I read it again, I would find even more problems and would make him keep correcting it until it was something he could turn into a college professor. I decided to let Livonia proof it this time. She’s a bit more realistic than I am.

The Weigh In

Yes, it’s that time again. When I get into work, I get to find out how unhealthy I’ve been this week. I’m almost certain I’ve lost this one, especially after all the eating out we did in Ayudhaya. Plus, Siriwan was sick again this past week. She actually had to go to the hospital. She’s feeling better now, so I of course gave her a bad time about getting sick just to win.

Since it is now tomorrow, I can update you on the weigh in. Siriwan gained 0.4 kilos, Ekgachai gained 1.0 kilos, Roger stayed the same. I win again! We’ve also introduced a new member to the group: Chartchai. Apparently, since he just started, he now has to pay. When I started, Ekgachai still had to pay, so the rules are changing again. As I said before, I’m fine with that, as long as it benefits me.

The Reality of Growing Older
Age plays an amazing role on your body. I know many of you on copy will wonder why I am talking about this, since many of you still consider me a baby. But, truth be told, my body is not doing a very good job of keeping up with the rest of me. This “weight containment” contest that I’m in has got me more interested in my health. A direct result of that is for me to be more interested in exercise, or my present lack thereof. Two nights ago, I went for a walk with Livonia, and last night I decided to go the gym (uh oh).

I put my gym shorts on, lace up my Nikes, strap my iPod armband on and crank up the tunes. As pumped as I was feeling, I should have started with “Eye of the Tiger,” because I was having a bit of a “Rocky” moment. I hussle down the stairs, and realize that I’m not going to the gym; I’m going running. I finally clear the stairs, get out of the apartment complex, and hit the open road. Do you have the Rocky theme song in your head yet? I do.

I was simply amazing. I had a good stride, decent pace, and was feeling good. For the first few feet anyway. However, by the time I cleared the edge of the apartment complex, my body had finally managed to send the SOS message to my brain, which was “Are you crazy?!? Do you have any idea how long it’s been since you asked me to do this?”

My pace dramatically shortened. You know how they say “You need to pace yourself?” I was pacing myself for pacing myself. My run has been reduced to light jog. I refuse to walk because I cannot believe I am that out of shape (there’s my brain lying to me again). So now I start playing games with myself. I tell myself “Roger, just make it to the corner, and then you can walk all you want.” Of course, when I get to the corner, I try for another corner. Have you ever done that? I’m curious why I do. I mean, I’m technically lying to myself, and the worst part is that I’m actually believing my own lie. I think something must be wrong with me.

By the time I got to the kids school, I stopped running. I decided to walk for a bit. I remember Livonia telling me that she met a new friend and they walked around the entire lake (took about an hour). I thought, sounds good to me. I started around the lake.

I learned something about late night walks in Nichada. It is very easy to get spooked. I know we have snakes here, so I was little nervous about running into one. It is also very dark around the lake. In the dark, shadows can produce some pretty amazing images. There were several times I thought someone was right behind me. Now, I’m not normally a guy who gets spooked easily, but for some reason that walk was freaking me out. Visions of a man with a large knife and a hockey mask were rolling through my head.

But, I kept on walking and running. I eventually made my way around the lake. At the other side is the church Livonia and I attend. It is up on a hill, so the last part of my evening stroll was uphill.

Perfect.

I decided to sprint up the hill. Why? Because I’m a glutton for punishment and I enjoy “feelin’ it in the morning.” I run as fast as I can up the hill. As I pass by the other “walkers” and “runners,” I’m sure visions of Forrest Gump ran through their heads as well.

“Run Forrest!”
“Run!”

I got to the top of the mountain and just about fell over when my knees buckled. I crawled my way back home, contemplated taking the stairs or the elevator (I took the stairs) and made it back to the apartment, When I got inside, I collapsed on the floor, with sweat dripping from every conceivable pore in my body. Livonia asks me “did you have a good workout?” In my best impression of a macho man, I respond with “Yeah, it was okay.” Wow, I managed to say all that in one breath. I slept good last night.

Until next time...