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An
American in Asia:

His Quest for Cosmic Truth

(or at least a Decent Espresso)

I gave Bangkok a good raking over the coals in my last installment and let it stand for more than a month. So it's probably about time to replace it with something a bit more positive, since I more often feel that way about this lovely, squalorous city.

Also, I've got a ticket to the States in my pocket and that goes a long way towards allowing me to take a more liberal view of things like corruption, greed and tastelessness. Though I find the latter least forgivable. The ticket is round trip and I'm definitely coming back to roost in Bangkok, but I am sorely looking forward to a quick breather in the USA.

I've unintentionally timed my visit for the presidential election, so I'll have to deal with that painful farce while I'm there, and then again when I get back, with everyone asking me either, "Is Kerry a good man?" or, "How the heck can you be so stupid as to elect Bush again?" Either way, as the nearest American to hand, I will be expected to account for whatever idiocy our commander-in-chief gets up to.

I am looking forward to American TV. It might sound nigh-impossible but Thai TV, and Japanese TV for that matter, actually manage to be worse than US TV. I won't litter the internet with descriptions of awful dramas and lame game shows, but suffice it to say that Thai TV seems to be about 80 per cent crying and hollering. The rest is taken up by glaring (as the actor awaits his or her turn to holler and cry).

I'm also looking forward to American shoes. I can get clothes made in my outlandish size easily and cheaply enough here, and I never want to buy anything with long sleeves anyway, as it's so danged hot. But size 12 shoes are not even made in Asia.

The experience of being cold is going to be novel after a year and a half in the tropics. I'm not excited about that so much as the related fact that I'll get to wear coats and sweaters. My absolute favourite article of clothing is a corduroy coat I bought in Japan, but I never get a chance to wear it here.

The plane trip, though long, is another thing I plan to enjoy. I fly on planes a lot in my work, but I never get tired of the spectacle of viewing the clouds from above. Seeing the sun rising out of a blanket of clouds is pretty cool. And I like to be looking down on the Pacific in the middle of the night and spy a single light down on the water and wonder what the heck somebody is doing down there.

Sometime during my measly week in the States, I'm going to descend on a used record store and pillage all the good new music I've been missing. Also I'm going to pick up copies of the Sam Raimi films, "Evil Dead II" and "Army of Darkness", to show to my friends here. The funny ghost story is a favourite genre in Thailand, where everyone is truly terrified of ghosts, and I'd like to show some friends the best that America has to offer.

Lastly, but not leastly, I'm obviously thrilled to see my family. In particular I've been missing my nephew something awful. Last I saw him he had pretty much mastered the art of sitting, but now I hear he's running around and talking. I have only one week to provide a bad example for him in his formative years.

When I get back I hope I'll be able to see Bangkok with renewed appreciation. If that doesn't work, hopefully the fact that I'll be moving away from the tourist area will help. I don't know where I'll be moving to yet, but my dream place would be an apartment with a balcony overlooking the Chao Phraya River.

That river is my favourite thing about this city. I wish I could bring Mark Twain (or Samuel Clemens, whichever) back from the dead, because I know he would really dig the life and commerce that happens on the muddy flow. I think the only thing that's changed about the river in the last thousand years is that all the boatmen have yanked engines out of trucks and mounted them wholesale onto the stern of their longboats, with a propeller welded on the end of the drive shaft.

When I can see stuff like that every day, I'll be a happy Bangkokian again.

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.