Thai Thoughts And Anecdotes Part 64
Thai Thoughts And Anecdotes 64
CHEMICAL SOUP
I was once in a hospital room with another fellow who had the shakes. He was shaking so badly that he couldn't feed himself. It looked like Parkinson's. But it also didn't look like Parkinson's and he didn't respond
traditionally to standard Parkinson disease treatment protocols. So an intern was sent in to take an oral history starting with the day the guy was born. I lay in my bed and listened through the curtain. After two hours they hit the jackpot. It
turns out that when this elderly gentleman was 18 he had been in a gas attack in France during World War I. The old guy knew the name of the gas. This gas has a cumulative effect and can take decades to finally initiate dramatic effects. Luckily
for this gentleman there was an antidote. Modern medicine was able to help him.
This is a good example of the fact that our bodies and our minds are chemical soups that can respond positively or negatively to incoming chemicals (foods, pollution, etc). We are partly what we ingest. Lately in my state and in many other
states in the United States long term mental patients have been responding positively to megavitamin and megamineral therapies. These patients were not crazy. They had specific chemical needs. Their systems were sick. Many of these patients have
been released. Chemical soup again.
In Thailand one of the biggest killers is hypertension (high blood pressure). Causes can be many including Essential Hypertension or Etiology Unknown (fancy doctor talk for We Have No Idea!). One universally accepted idea regarding at least
one of the causes of hypertension is excess stress. Stress consistently delivered to a system that was not designed to handle so much incoming stress causes the body to reset the barocepters higher in response. Then even higher amounts of stress
cause the body to reset the barocepters higher once again. Eventually, something has to give. Death certificates might list brain aneurysm or cardiac event or some sort of mental / electrical short circuit. The real cause was too much stress delivered
over too long a period. You can only blow up a balloon so big before it bursts.
So if Thais are plodding behind buffalo ripping up paddy fields or sitting on the front porch of the general store watching the sun go down or looking for road kill for dinner; where is the stress coming from? Well, one form of stress is
chemical–food. Spice. Thais eat so much spice from birth that they regard it as a food group. It really is a stimulant. Heart rates and systems unnecessarily and improvidentally stimulated since birth can not be a good thing.
I have an idea that I can't explain that well but that makes sense to me. To wit: regarding the Thai females mentally unstable flash violent prolonged temper theatrics; I am more and more developing the notion that it may be because
of some bio / chemical psychological nutritional imbalance based on excessive amounts of spice in the diet starting with the fetus in the womb receiving the mother's blood and then followed by decades of excessive stimulants. I am more and
more persuaded that this causes some kind of nutritional chemical imbalance that manifests itself in abnormal brain function. To chalk up the violent aberrant behavior of the Thai female to culture is simply not sufficient. I think something more
basic to the human organism is going on here. Example: Eskimo women eat mostly seal fat and snow balls. No flash tempers there! The Terra del Feugian women eat mostly mussels and grass. No outbursts there! The Japanese women eat mostly soy curd
and noodles. Couldn't be more angelic. The Thais eat so much spice however that they actually don't know it is a condiment and not a food.
So here is my theory and my plan of action: Take away a Thai female's daily intake of spice for 36 months and you might get a stable reasonable adult acting mature woman that you could live with. Since these little darlings can't
be trusted to go cold turkey on their own; incarceration will be required. I'm in charge. They'll be housed with me. There'll be some video taping. Hey, it's science. Who wants to get in on this? Let me know.
Teddy Bear
The size of the stuffed teddy bear plush toy is that of a three year old child and I can hardly see over the thing. I am small and the teddy bear is huge. They should sell periscopes with these things! Staggering down the boulevard in South
Pattaya at night with this thing marks me to every hooker within a hundred feet. I might as well be wearing a neon sigh on my head that says Farang Fool or Easy Money or Jerk from America or Sex Starved Middle Aged Man. The hookers smile as I
stumble by but don't try to reel me in. They know that it is hopeless for now. I am being drawn to another woman's web and until the anesthesia wears off I am immune to competing pussy. But they have marked me. They know that sometime
in the future when the anesthesia has worn off and I am no longer making a public spectacle of myself that I am easy baht on the hoof. They smile as they put me in their future sucker rolodex.
But I don't care. I'm proud to be marked. I'm happy to be a spectacle. I'm secure in my future. I am heading for Pea and I couldn't be happier. I called her and she is expecting me. Last time I saw her was six months ago. A more
wonderful, gentle soul it would be impossible to imagine. We flowed into each other like water. I told her I loved her and I meant it when I said it. She returned the feelings with hip and smile and laugh. When I gave her a cute little love note
written in Thai she looked at it and smiled and put it in her purse. Later I realized she can't read Thai. She wants only two things. To love and to be loved. I hope she likes the teddy bear.
Usually when I check into Pattaya I set up at the AA Hotel. Then I decide what other places I might be using. Pea knows all about the AA Hotel. It was our home together. This time however I didn't check into the AA hotel. I checked into
the White Inn on the corner of 2nd road and soi 15. You would have to know about the White Inn to know it was there. No signs outside, a dark lobby, unsmiling receptionist. $10 / day and no questions asked. Why did I check into this obscure down
market place? I don't know. What premonition was greater than force of habit? I don't know!
Pea works in the first open air bar on the right on Walking Street. As I step off the curb and down the stairs there is a momentary lull in the bedlam and then all twenty girls start screaming and clapping. Man, this must be some teddy bear!
Can I buy great gifts or what? Looking around the bear I see Pea. Eye contact. Smiles. Then she bursts into tears. Man, this teddy bear idea was pure genius! The other girls are screaming and clapping. Then Pea is on the move. Pushing the other
girls aside as she comes out from behind the bar. Now she is in front of me. Pointing. At her stomach. She is six months pregnant. In perfectly rehearsed English she says, "This is our baby!"
Now I am out in the street running. Running down Walking street. Like a small child who has forgotten to drop the bat after hitting the ball, I am still holding the teddy bear. And running. And talking to myself. "Don't stumble.
Don't fall. Watch your left knee. Don't run into anyone else. Keep running. Run!" Too late I see the two policemen. Nowhere to hide. Too late to stop. I blow right by them. Short legs churning like the wheels on a steam locomotive.
I leave loud Thai yelling and whistles in my wake. I hang a left and churn up soi 14. At the intersection of soi 14 and soi 15 I can feel the clamping down in my chest. Time to stop. Stop or die. I step into an Internet chat room and pretend to
be emailing. Hiding behind the desk I don't see any pursuers. Later I make it to the White Inn.
The next day I get the last plane out of Bangkok to Phnom Penh. I have a sudden desire to see Angkor Wat. This remote jungle architectural wonder in another country has always fascinated me. Now seems like a good time to inform myself on
the wonders of Asian history. The stewardess sees me sitting with the big teddy bear in my arms. In perfect English she says, "For your girlfriend?" I smile a deathbed smile. "You have good heart." she says.
I feel sick.
Stickman's thoughts:
Interesting first piece…I wonder if such a correlation exists? More than likely the behaviour can be explained by the existence of other factors though.