I think I must be out of my mind to do this.  Not so much the writing; that just sort of comes out by itself especially when the brain is addled from a 13 hour and 6 time zone trip; it’s the technological bits and the certainty that I will inevitability that I will f£$%ck up bigtime and somehow leave the security keys to everybody’s bank accounts to the Somali pirates.  Anyway, my excuse is that certain people (I will not name them out of a sense of delicacy) have asked me to do this.  So here goes.

Sunday, 4 June 2017

I remember the first time I walked into a Starbucks.  It was years ago.  At the time I hadn’t been back to the US in a while and it was all new to me.  I didn’t know that everything had been transformed.  So I walked into the Starbucks and asked for a coffee.  The teenager behind the counter replied, “hazelnut, caramel or vanilla?”

I thought he hadn’t understood me, so I repeated the order, “I’d like a coffee, please.”

And he repeated the enigmatic response.

Eventually I found out that these were three syrups that were added to your coffee.  If I’d been more aware, I would have remembered that hazelnut, caramel and vanilla had already been around for a while because they were the three flavours that the non-dairy creamers came in (these had been showing up in nonna’s fridge for years, compliments of the nursies).  My first reaction after figuring this out was, I blush to admit it, rather bramble-ish.  ‘Shocking!’ I exclaimed to myself, ‘they are adding artificially-flavored sweeteners to coffee.  How unspeakably vulgar of them.’

I should instead have reflected that for millennia the plebs have been less concerned about artificial flavors in their coffee sweeteners than about straining the mouse turds out of their drinking water.  If today things have gotten somewhat inverted it’s less a case of a decline in manners and good taste than what German psychologists call Spieltrieb or the instinct to play around with things.

I’m telling you all this because I got up this morning, first day in Bangkok, still jet-lagged out of my mind, and I staggered into the adjacent shopping centre with eight floors, each of which has its own food court, and was unable to find anything so basic and simple as a Starbucks coffee flavoured with hazelnut, caramel or vanilla syrup.

Katy probably remembers the Bangkok shopping mall food-court experience (identical to the Singapore shopping mall food-court experience, etc.).  One way to describe them might be ‘the Revenge of Miss Kitty’ (or, if it were not politically incorrect to put it this way,  ‘the Wet Dream of Miss Kitty’, because, whatever else you might like to say about that animal which even though it defines itself as a kitty cat still looks like a rodent, is that it sure has a sweet tooth).  Do you remember Roald Dahl’s descriptions of the candy shops of his boyhood, filled with mysterious things like ‘doodlewangers’ and ‘licorice humbuggies’, things that seem to travel directly from Roald Dahl to Harry Potter’s Diagonalley shops where they all became animated?  Well, the Bangkok shopping centre food court seems to be the next stop on the outward journey of such things.  There were hundreds of little shops decorated with pictures or plasticated replica of the foodstuffs on offer inside, foodstuffs sometimes cheerfully dancing around in animated videos, together with descriptions in any number of (to me as yet) incomprehensible scripts.  Inspiring!  It was thrilling to discover how far Spieltrieb, the human urge to play with food could go.  ‘How childish,’ I thought, ‘how infantile, what fun!’  Audrey would soon run amuck in this place, especially if she had a visa card.  Fortunately for me, my better angels were whispering in my ear that even standing still leaning on my crutch in a place like this was increasing my susceptibility to type 2 diabetes up to the critical level, so I exited, my running amuckness limited only to the toothbrush I had come in to purchase.

 

Speaking of Audrey, on the Roma – Doha leg of my journey I saw a film called Logan.  It was a father-daughter bonding story where the daughter is a princess with super powers.  Just the thing for certain little girls, I thought.  But then I have to admit that the film had a bit of a dark side, so maybe Audrey ought to wait a few years.

Qatar Airways wanted to give me a full wheelchair treatment.  I said ‘no’ at first.  At first I’m rather scornful; ‘they’re trying to treat me like an invalid,’ I think resentfully.  ‘But I’m not an invalid.  I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.’  By the time we got to Doha, however, the nice stewardess was entreating me; so I said ‘yes’ and soon found myself being wheeled around the ultra-smart and ultra-modern Doha airport by a team of Indian wheel-chair pushers in special uniforms.  ‘Unless these wheel-chair pushers find someone to push around in wheel chairs,’ I thought, justifying myself, ‘they probably are out of a job.’  So it’s therefore perfectly ok, I decided, to let these workers practice their trade.  I don’t have to feel guilty.  But Doha was nothing compared to what Qatar Airways had arranged for me at Bangkok Airport.  I was whisked from airplane through priority immigration control, through baggage claim and into a taxi while my bags were being loaded for me in about twenty minutes without hardly moving a muscle.  I was 100% delighted by the experience while at the same time being 100% mortified.  It was like being shuttled off to heaven while your soul is screaming ‘I don’t belong here!  I’m a very bad person!’  I really wanted to hide myself because I was so embarrassed about this special treatment I was getting and about the resentful looks I imagined I was getting from fellow passengers who were naturally desiring to spit on me.  In the end, no one spat on me, however, so I sat in my air-conditioned Bangkok taxi with the driver chatting to me in confused English and reflected.  The truth is that everyone had not only been very helpful, but that they had all been kind and friendly as well.  Especially from Doha onwards, people seemed to take a genuine pleasure in helping me, and that even though my instincts rebelled a little, I was being ungracious not to accept their assistance.  Graciousness is a two-way street: it’s not enough to be kind and generous in the giving part; you need to be gracious in the taking part as well.  Welcome to SE Asa.