April Abandoned

Chiang Mai greeted my flight from Kuala Lumpur with a dense blanket of filthy nicotine-yellow haze. The cab driver told me that they had been burning the mountain this time of year -- which I assume means clearing the underbrush. The entire city was half choked with smoke and even during daylight I couldn't see the mountains from my balcony. So we planned a camping trip to the burning mountains to get above the smoke.

From Doi Pui, which in Thai literally means Pui Mountain, Will, Liz and I looked out over the gray of the city. As the sun set, the gray turned cafe au lait creamy, and as the city lights lit one by one, it was as if watching a Polaroid picture develop, and the city slowly outlined itself -- the square of the moat, the eliptical lakes, the barren stretch of the airport. The air was cool, dark and quiet as we sat by the fire drinking tall Singha beers and smoking Dunhills. All we were missing was the harmonica to soundtrack us as we wondered whethere there were any wild tigers left in thailand; the decision that there weren't didn't stop any of us from jumping a nerve every time a stick cracked in the distance.

There has been a rapid non-tiger related evacuation of tourists and expats from Chiang Mai. Maybe called back to their Nordic homes to resume a life with pockets full of small change and responsibility. This of course means that the generations of expats without a normal world to return to, remain here and continue to soak in their own atavistic depravity. A bald guy in a sarong buys soy milk and 100 pipers scotch in an ultra-modern fluorescent-lit grocery store. Why do they dress and act this way here in Thailand? The Thai people never dress as the androgynous tatterdemalion -- the inspiration comes from somewhere else, perhaps a separate cultural force but then again, culture cannot explain such grotesque and sudden mutation.

It's the expat gene.

I'm convinced now that the gene, when active, essentially dopes the host body into a delusive state. The concept of time is lost along with that of hygiene and the ability to censor one's own use of the N-Word in the presence of those who find it terribly offensive. Honestly, I didn't think people still said that word. The gene's doping, which is chemical in nature, coincides with a release of pheremones, which help the carriers identify fellow expats: in recognition, the individual will look at one of his own with a half-nod and grim smirk, a look that says "you know everything i know, we speak the same language brother, we have no secrets, I too will have a Chang beer, later, i would fancy a bantering idiotic conversation in a British accent devoid of consonants."

Exhibit A would be the man I played pool with the other night who was about two drinks away from a wheel chair you move with your tongue. His effort to pull the cue back to take a shot would either dislodge the stick from the knuckle he was balancing on, or pull him two stumbling steps back away from the table. I couldn't understand a word he said, but when he scratched a shot, or totally miscued, he still had the ability to look at me in a cocky way that said "that is really unlike me to miss that shot" my only response was to look back at him in a way that said "do you need a bucket?" But he didn't barf. And eventually I scratched on the eight ball entirely because he left every single one of his balls on the table leaving too many obstacles. He won by losing.

Maybe that's a good expat slogan: "Be a loser and win!"

Of course, not everybody has the balls to do it.