Life: Has the value gone up or down today?

        I noticed a particular tendency in all my visitors that have come to see me in Thailand when they would inevitably become a passenger on the back of my motorcycle.  I – knowing all the routes we would take like the back of my hand and driving accordingly  -  would soon realize my passenger was not looking at all the sights they could see from the back of my motorbike…which… in my experience, is one of the best ways to see the real Thailand.  No, instead they were intently focused on the road in front of us, trying to prevent us from getting into an accident by the sheer focus of their eyes on the road.  Backseat driving through visual intent, if you will.  As if focusing with all your might on the road before us is going to somehow prevent an accident. 

        Now, I need to say that I realize my attitude about this has been shaped by living here, and may seem callous.  I will also say that I am not a bad motorcycle driver.  In fact I have been told I am a very good driver. I take some risks, yes, but only because I know that I am skilled enough to do so, and I think I’ve developed that sort of 6^th sense you have to develop here to predict what the other drivers will do. When people arrive here from the western world they think the Thais drive crazy.  This is untrue and relative.  The Thais drive like they have to to drive in Thailand.  This is also how I have had to re-learn to drive.

        When I realize my passengers are doing this uptight, intense and fearful staring over my shoulder, I find myself slightly irritated, and wish they would simply trust me and so be able to take in all the scenes along the road instead of completely shutting them out.  You can learn more about Thailand looking around from the back of a motorbike than if you traveled through 5 different provinces by bus, I think.  Of course, this is easy for me to say.

        During T’s visit, I realized for a long time that she was doing this before I said anything about it. T turned 7 months pregnant while she was here.

        Perhaps a bit compulsively, and perhaps a bit insensitively, I said,

          “You need to try and just trust my driving.  You’ll see a lot more of Thailand if you look around while we’re on the road.”

          “I know… I would …except that I have this precious cargo,” she said.

          “Yeah, I know. And I’m sure I would feel the same way if I were pregnant.  But think of it this way:  I don’t wanna die today either.  And you’re no more likely to get in an accident than any other pregnant Thai on the back of a motorcycle, and believe me, there are plenty”

       She argued that she figured if she was paying attention to the road she would be prepared for the impact of an accident, and she could prevent a more serious injury than if she were not.  In my experience accidents usually happen so fast that no one has time to prepare for it, but I couldn’t blame her for thinking it might make a difference.  I’m sure in a way she had to somehow convince herself that she might be able to have some semblance of control to even allow herself and her 7 month old fetus to board my vehicle in the first place. I can understand that.

        At the same time, I must confess I busted out in a huge grin the day that T’s trust in Thai roads progressed from initially refusing to drink an iced coffee while on my bike (leaving it to melt and get all watery in my basket on our way to the beach – while I of course drove one-handed and drank mine immediately), saying she needed to have her hands free in case we fell, to happily slurping a strawberry shake while we sped along the road the week before she left.  And I knew she’d relaxed a bit because she would say things about the stuff she saw by the roadside.

        I am also very aware that I have become slightly addicted to speed (when I am passengerless) in this country.  It is one of my favorite natural highs.  With all respects and apologies to my mother and closest friends and relatives who may fear I am cruising  toward certain death, I have to take pleasure in the simple everyday things in my life here and this is certainly one of them.  I will add even more horror (I’m truly sorry) to this by saying that sometimes I also wear my iPod on full volume, and no helmet.  We all have to die sometime.  This does not mean I don’t value life; it means that I choose to enjoy it in my own ways despite the risks.  Some people shoot heroin…I drive the way I want to, because no one here is ever going say I shouldn’t, and because I can’t ever do that in the states.

        Recently I had 4 friends over at my house.  One of them was G, a  Thai filmmaker.  I went inside my house for a moment and tried to plug in a light fixture which didn’t work properly and in grabbing the fixture I received a hefty electric shock.  This is not the first nor will be the last time, I am sure; I and lots of my friends have experienced the same sort of shocking experience in Thailand.  I came back out to the patio and asked G:  isn’t there some kind of organization in Thailand whose job it is to test electrical appliances for safety? So that people don’t drop dead left and right from being electrocuted?

        She said something like, “No…Thai lives aren’t worth that much.”

        Now… G’s English is pretty damn good.  I don’t know if this would have come off sounding the same way in Thai, maybe it came off sounding a little less sensitive in English, but I’m pretty sure all of us foreigners felt something like shock in what her idea expressed. 

        I won’t even get started on the absolute lack of seatbelt and carseat laws here.  A 6-month-old baby held on the hip of a woman on the back of a motorcycle driven by her husband…do you really think they value the lives of their children less than we do?  I doubt it.  So how can a whole country be so “careless?”  Is it even carelessness?  You tell me. I think about this type of shit all the time.

         But think about this:  who are we (westerners) to think we can make everything a pain in the ass so we can supposedly prevent our inevitable demise?  How much more stressed out are we on a day-to-day basis trying to control when and how  we die…and is it worth it?  This concept was re-stated by others as well.

        I had a hoopdance/fire show in the outskirts of Bangkok this weekend.  The morning after the show I asked an American friend of mine about my Thai fellow fire-performer’s drinking habits.  Before the show he had drunk a bit more than usual, and was messing some of his stunts because of it.  Not really seriously, but he did sustain a burn on his face, and more importantly there’s a 10-year-old kid involved in his act who could have potentially been hurt because of his mistakes.  When I complained of this, this American friend – who’s lived here 30 years - said something like, “I know…but just relax.  See…Thai people don’t see life in quite the same way as we do.  It takes quite a few years here to really cement the concept in your brain that most Thai people see their bodies as these temporary vehicles we’re given to bump around in for a limited time.  Sometimes people seem to act as though these are pretty expendable.  Not to the point where they are self-destructive…but to the point that they’re able to live without this constant fear and paranoia that we grow up with in the west.”

        Another example: Most parents in the west are well-versed in the concept of typical teenage behavior and rebellion. I would imagine you’d have to be, in order to survive this period without killing your own child.  My Thai supervisor/friend and I were talking about the statistics involving fatal traffic accidents, and the fact that a lot of them involve teenage boys. 

          “Well, that makes sense,” I said, “Teenagers drive like idiots all over the world, I’d assume.  Part of it is probably inexperience, but part of it is probably because they think they’re invincible.”

          “What?”

          I talked about the whole youth invincibility/immortality concept with him that my mom explained to me a long time ago, following my explanation with the always-self-dooming phrase (especially across cultures), “Everyone knows that!”

        Carrie, you jackass.  Clearly, everyone does NOT know that.  This highly educated father of two adult sons didn’t know that.  And why? Is it because the concept doesn’t apply to Thais? Or because Thai people don’t read parenting books?  How could I ever pretend to know?

        No one can tell me the value of my own life except me.  It seems it would be a pretty important concept to be clear on, but in balancing between cultures, the ideas become blurry and changeable, and it’s up to me to decide how I feel about it, day by day…and that’s one of the things I like about living on the other side of the world.