Live Chickens

An
American in Asia:

His Quest for Cosmic Truth

(or at least a Decent Espresso)

Yeah, I see a live chicken somewhere in Bangkok at least once a day. It's one of those sights that a lot of people associate with developing countries: people living close to barnyard animals. But when you think about it, it's not so strange as the fact that in America, where millions of tons of poultry are consumed every minute, you never see a live chicken. Who's eating better chicken, the guy with the crowing rooster under the whicker basket or the guy with the paper bucket and giant Pepsi?

Speaking of chickens in Thailand, I heard a story from a friend who used to work at the KFC main office here. A lot of the KFC chicken eaten around the world is raised here in Thailand. Apparently, whenever the exported birds are rejected in America or Britain or wherever, they come back to Thailand to be served at the Thai KFC's. Yum. Reject chicken. I was never inclined to eat fast food and I'm even less so now.

Reptile News

In the Bangkok Post there was an article about a convention for tropical fish: "One area is dedicated to the story of the famous turtle village in Khon Kaen province, where turtles are abundant. In this serene village, people and turtles live together in harmony." Imagine that. I consider myself an enlightened man but in my youth, I was always fighting with the turtles. Perhaps the Americans, Israelis, Arabs, British and everyone else fighting in the Middle East could learn something from this community living in peace with their natural enemies.

In other reptile news, I was walking in the central park of this fine metropolis a few weeks ago and I stopped on a bridge. I always stop on bridges for some reason. I can't cross even a small one without pausing in the center and looking around. This time I looked down into a little stream to see if I could spot some fish. I saw fish. I also saw a movement out of the corner of my eye that was just very wrong. It was far, far bigger than the little fishy movements I'd expected to see. My eyes snapped over to take in the sight of a monitor lizard the size of a german shepherd mawing on a tattered fish. He slunk out of a drainage pipe, soon followed by a pack of his friends. This is a park like Central Park in Manhattan, with little children running around, boyfriends teaching their girlfriends how to play frisbee, old folks enjoying their twilight years........and huge slinking carnivores from the Pleistocene era that could swallow your head. Neato.

An hour later I was in for another treat. There were a few thousand people in the park that day and within my immediate view there were at least several hundred running, playing, eating and doing general holiday park stuff. At exactly 6pm, loudspeakers started blaring the national anthem. As soon as it started every single person froze in their tracks and stared blankly in front of them. Frisbees dropped from the air uncaught by boyfriends and chicken wings fell back into paper plates. In the 100 degree heat I got goose bumps all over my body and prepared to run like Charleton Heston in 'Omegaman'. Jeffrey Studebaker: last man on Earth, chased by zombies who want to eat his brain with lots of spicy peppers. It was just about the eeriest thing I ever saw. My heart started beating again about halfway through the anthem and my rational mind explained to my hysterical mind that the Thai people love their country and their King and always show immense respect to both. My hysterical mind was kind of looking forward to running from zombies and was just a tad disappointed.

I'm slowly getting used to the fact that I have to stand up to pay respects to the King in movie theaters just after the trailers and before the movie starts. They really love their King here.

The Wild Sleeping Dogs of Bangkok

The streets are littered with wild dogs here, rampantly sleeping like big sausages in the middle of the sidewalk. I rarely see one awake. They apparently capture their prey by tripping it. They never bark and probably aren't dangerous. But I was reminded that dogs are indeed carnivores this morning. I was hanging my towel out to dry on my balcony and when I looked over, I saw two playful little puppies in the courtyard below. Then I noticed that what they were playing with was about the size of a cat. Though it was no longer the consistency of a cat. It was much more floppy than even your laziest cat. And I noticed that they weren't actually playing so much as devouring.

Of course I always knew that it was dead animal that I scooped out of the purina can to feed to my childhood dog, Sailor. And of course the reason that little Fifi likes the squeaky toy is that it sounds like something dying in agony while they chew on it. But it was still a bit incongruous to see the sillly puppies happily tearing away at Garfield.

Happy Father's Day!

Jeffrey Studebaker has been (in no particular order) a SE Asian correspondent for a Singaporean travel magazine, a teacher, consultant and translator in Japan, a guitarist with the band, Swoon 23 in every city of the US of A, a coffee roaster in Seattle, a bike messenger in Portland, a marine fire system repairman in Seattle, an osteoporosis clinic researcher in Providence, a mental ward counsellor on the night shift in Portland, a brief success in New York, and he has now returned to the US after nearly a decade in Asia to pursue a publishing career.