Wave to Laika

An
American in Asia:

His Quest for Cosmic Truth

(or at least a Decent Espresso)

Dogs make great pets, but humans are not such great owners. Dogs differ from significantly in that they are pack animals. On no account will a dog willingly separate itself from the pack. If a dog goes for food and does not immediately return, it is because it can't return. So when a happy family leaves the dog with friends while they go for a weekend in the country, the poor dog quite naturally assumes that its family has been eaten. Imagine its shock when they return, seemingly from the jaws of death.

The first astronaut was Laika, a dog from Russia. Laika never came back, nor was she meant to. No pack animal has ever been further from its pack. A good definition of loneliness would be Laika, circling the earth in her little doggy sputnik.

The Most Pathetic Lover's Quarrel I've Ever Seen

Asia is a funny place right now. All of the countries are going global, even China. One of the odder results is that if there is a business meeting between a Chinese, a Japanese and a Korean company, it will be conducted in English. If a Japanese businessman is managing the Bangkok branch of his company, he will have to talk to his Thai staff in English.

I was drinking an over-priced pint of Guinness the other night at an Irish pub near a street where Japanese men can meet young Thai women. Only Japanese men, incidentally. No Thais or Westerners allowed. At the next table there was a lover's quarrel going on. A young Japanese man was arguing with his Thai girlfriend. In English. I'm an English teacher and I know that there can be some difficult situations for students of my unnecessarily complicated language, but this was a new one for me.

It was simultaneously so funny and so pathetic that I was beyond laughter. The guy was sullen and unresponsive, while the girl flung poorly-worded insults regarding his ability to remain monogamous. He didn't understand half of what she was saying and he was too embarrassed about his bad English to respond anyway. The more they talked the further they drifted from understanding.

I'm always ready to help people with their English in Asia. Though not personally responsible for it, I feel bad for the fact that my convoluted tongue has become the choice for world communication and I try my best to make up for it. But this time there was no way in heck I was going to get involved. I can speak Japanese, but I'd sooner stick my head between brawling pit bulls. Anyway, neither of them seemed terribly fond of each other and it was almost like they were rehearsing a scene from a bad soap opera they'd studied in English class.

Kicking Ass for Buddha

My favorite image of the Buddha, the Walking Buddha (image courtesy of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy)

Thailand is a Buddhist country and there is a huge amount of respect for that church here. It was imported to Southeast Asia over a thousand years ago by the Burmese, from Ceylon. Later Mahayana Buddhism came from Tibet and China, but the more institutional Theravada Buddhism has the largest influence in Thailand and the church is organized and heirarchical. Saffron robes and bald heads are seen everywhere from temples to shopping malls. The church is quite rich and powerful and inevitably there is a little corruption.

Still, I was surprised last week during a stroll down Sukhumvit road. I was passing a small family store that seemed to be selling hardware, but it was hard to tell what was for sale amidst the mess. A middle-aged monk was standing near the owner as he knelt on the floor to retrieve something. Apparently he wasn't retrieving fast enough because, in plain view on a busy street, the monk started kicking the poor guy in the ass. Any romantic notions of peaceful Buddhism which had been summoned by the sight of the saffron and baldness flew right out the window. It was so incongruous and sudden, again I was at a loss for mirth. People so profoundly in the public trust should behave more responsibly. Police brutality is one thing and no one is really surprised, but monk brutality?

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.