Factories and Monks in Thailand

Factories
In my previous post I mentioned my visit to Samut Sakhorn where I hung out around shrimp processing and ice producing factories. Since then, I have visited two more factories, belonging to the family of a different friend. The last factories I visited were a bridal gown factory and a garment factory. From the few factories I've seen in Thailand, it seems to be that women operate the mass-production lines, where the men operate the heavy machinery. There must be exceptions, but this appears to be the trend.

Bridal gown factory outside of Bangkok

Garment factory outside of Bangkok

Monks
The reason I made the visit to the above pair of factories was to take part in a 'tham bun' ceremony, which I loosely (and most likely erroneously) understand to mean a Buddhist ceremony of offering merit and gifts to the monkhood on behalf of the factory, in return for their blessing and good luck. A long time ago my friend Krisanai and I worked out that 'tham bun' in Buddhist tradition must be similar to the notion of performing 'mitzvah' in the Jewish culture - the doing of general good deed.

This particular ceremony consisted of two phases:

Prayer followed by food
The ceremony commences with the arrival and seating of the monks. The representatives of the factory (and me) then approach, bowing three times on the floor out of respect. The monks then begin chanting, I think in sanskrit, while we sit clamping our hands as in prayer, for about 30 minutes. If the wait was shorter than 30 minutes, it didn't feel it. This is then followed by the offering of food to the monks. Monks in Thailand can only eat one meal per day, and only before midday.

Monks in prayer

Monks being served lunch as part of 'tham bun' ceremony

Prayer followed by the offering of gifts in exchange for the blessing of the monks
My memory is loose, but I believe there was a bit more praying after lunch. We then each approach a monk and give them a bucket filled with practical gifts such as candles, matches etc. After receiving the gifts, the monks then pour some water from a jar into a cup. As the monk pours the water, one person must touch the cup. Another person must touch him and so on until we have a circuit of everyone touching someone, with one person touching the cup. The monk then takes the water from the cup and transfers it to some kind of reed/sticks. I didn't get a good look. He then blesses us by throwing water on us, ridding us of any evil.

This was about the end of the ceremony, eventually the monks left. We then had lunch, finishing off any food the monks didn't eat. It is considered good luck to eat after the monks. And so concluded the 'tham bun' ceremony.

Once again, you can see all my photos on my flickr site.

One week in Thailand

Bangkok
All is well, and I have now been in Thailand for a week. My time here has been spent sorting out travel-related things (such as vaccinations, visas, buying travels items) as well as eating Thai food and meeting old friends. In fact, that sums up my time here pretty well, there's not all that much to add!

Bangkok has changed a little bit since I was here last (a bit over a year ago). There are some new shopping complexes, and a lot of people have taken to wearing yellow, especially on Mondays. Have a look at my flickr site for photos.

The hard life
Eating Phad Thai Goong at one of Bangkok's swanky malls (Central World).

Thai dancers at Erawan Shrine
A popular buddhist shrine in Bangkok, for tourists as well as for Thais.

Samut Sakhorn
On Friday I twisted my friend's arm to allow me to come down to spend a few nights with him in Samut Sakhorn. Samut Sakhorn is a coastal town, it's not touristy, it's fairly industrial. Many of the factories down there process shrimp and other seafood. That's the industry that Kris's family is in. They also do cold storage & produce ice.

I didn't do all the much down there, went for a few meals, and hung around the factories. His house is actually attached to the factory, so I went to sleep to the sound of miscellaneous machinery doing their thing cutting ice.

Hanging out at shrimp-processing factory in Samut Sakhorn

Indulging in Thai food in Samut Sakhorn.
The food was too tasty for me to have the time to take a properly exposed / steady photo.

Arrival in Bangkok

I am now in Bangkok. In fact, I have been here nearly three days, so this post has been a while coming. Let me wrap up my experiences of Singapore, then get to experiences of being in Bangkok.

Leaving the order of Singapore

My final days in Singapore went rather quickly, and there was a lot of alcohol involved. On my last full day I went to Haw Par Villa, a sort of chinese-folklore fantasy garden, developed by the brothers that created the famous 'tiger-balm'. The place is aimed at kids and is a bit kitschy, but of particular interest was the section devoted to the many courts of Hell that the Buddhists believe in.

Next was dinner at a Hawker store, and like most meals in Singapore it was delicious. After dinner it was to the pub. It was the third time in my stay that we'd been to this particular pub, so I had become a kind of regular. An enjoyable evening, followed by 3 hours sleep and a personal tour of the Singapore National Museum in the morning. Then it was to the airport.

Hell according to the Buddhists

Heaven according to me
(dinner at Hawker store)

Into the chaos of Bangkok

The flight to Bangkok went well. I jumped in a taxi to my friend Aunchalee's house. Bangkok had been my home for 2 years during highschool, and I have been back several times since, but even after Singapore I forgot just how chaotic and disorderly this place is. Since being here, I've done extensive walking around Bangkok, and have taken a few pictures. Right now I'm knackered and off to bed, more blogging to follow.

Bangkok

Trying hard to be critical

I've been in Singapore just over a week now, and am soon ready to move on to Thailand. Before coming to Singapore I was interested to see what I would think about the place. Since high school I have met a number of non-native Singaporeans who lived in Singapore for some time, and sad to say, they just about all were happy to leave the place when they did. That's not to say there weren't things they liked about Singapore, there were many, but overall they all determined they couldn't ultimately live in Singapore. So, I've been trying, really hard, to find things not to like about the place! Let me say now it's been quite a challenge! And let me also say that it's not the objective of my stay to try to hate the place, for it is the opposite, but I'm also just trying to understand what makes people want to leave!

Merlions everywhere...

But what friends have told me was that on the surface, and there can be little doubt about this, Singapore is an attractive place. It's green, well planned, safe, there is some interesting architecture, and there is a fantastic blend of cultures. I've also heard that the appearance of Singapore has improved markedly even over the past 10 years. They say however it's only once you spend a lot of time here that certain aspects start to get on your nerves. I haven't been here long enough so from my little experience, I can't begin to list those.

But I can let someone else list them instead. I just finished reading the book 'Notes from an even smaller island' by Neil Humphreys, a British expat who lived and worked in Singapore for a number of years. In the book he tries to chronicle his experience of essential Singaporean traits, the good and the bad. He mentioned several negative aspects including kiasuism (self betterment, often petty, stemming from fear of failure), enforced filial piety (adults, under certain conditions, are required by law to look after their parents financially and are liable to be taken to court if they do not), government censorship & control over just about everything, lack of respect for the arts & sport, lack of respect for the lower classes, Singlish - and a few others I can't remember. All the while he's careful to point out that whatever Singapore's shortcomings, England has more, and he's happily stayed on in Singapore for more than 5 years.

So, I can't really arrive at a conclusion on this matter. It seems nice here, whether I'd change my mind after spending a year or two here, well, I can't say. For this short time at least, I've felt very welcome.

Oh, also note that I've now got myself a photo album with flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7323965@N02/sets/72157594587371009/

Tourist in Singapore

My time in Singapore yesterday was pretty much spent doing two kinds of things: touristy and not-so-touristy stuff.

Touristy stuff
King of all things touristy in Singapore is a visit to Sentosa island. In more recent history it was a kind military base and fortress of the British, built in the late 1800's, and extended in the 1930's, to defend Singapore's port from sea invasion - which was for some while one of Britain's most significant ports. Since Singaporean independance, the island has been converted into a kind of amusement park called Sentosa. Sentosa is part Disneyland-esque theme park, part recreational island (there are 2 golf courses, and plenty of man-made beaches), part historical site. I went for the fun option of taking a cable car to get from Singapore over to Sentosa, and once there, I walked around the island, checking out the sites.

The Merlion at Sentosa

A moving singing house in Sentosa

Any visit I make to a theme-park I can't help reflecting on the disconnect between what must have been the park creator's vision for the perfect fantasy-land and the reality of the place. A land inspired by imagination yet subject to factors beyond imagination, to decline from neglect and nature, resulting in effects such as the peeling of paint from walls, concrete stained from weather and rust, pathways overgrown with grass etc. If there's any difference, it's not necessarily a bad thing, in fact I quite enjoy pursuing the differences; it's just something to take note of.

Parts of Sentosa have seen better days

Sentosa was no exception. In fact, on the 'jungle walking path', which is on a quieter side of the island, I was left a bit confused, as I wasn't sure about the status of the path. Someone had obviously planned the walk, laying out factoid info panels along the pathway, a handful of seats, viewing points and picnic tables. Yet almost all of these had fallen out of use. There were signs indicating viewing points, but there were no views - instead there were quite significantly sized trees where once, perhaps there were none. I found benches in the middle of foot-high grass, and picnic tables infested with spider webs. The info panels didn't look old, yet the whole place had obviously been left derelict for many years. Was this place officially open? Forgotten? I'm not sure but I enjoyed pondering the possibilities.

For all my cynicism, I still had a very enjoyable few hours on Sentosa. I even took a chairlift up a hill, and took a luge (toboggan/kart thing) down again. I did it alone, but still enjoyed it ;p


Not so touristy stuff
The not-so-touristy stuff was pretty much me just walking around different parts of Singapore, and also dinner.

I made my way to Harbourfront which is a shopping mall from where you get the cable car over to Sentosa. Most people, I imagine, take the Mass Rapid Trasit (MRT) underground train there, but I decided to walk from the city. The road followed the port and connecting industrial area. It was just me and my harmonica.

To get back to the city, I also decided to walk, but this time from a place called Mount Faber (which you get to from Sentosa also on the cable car). From Mount Faber I descended the mountain into some estate housing. I wandered around the estates in the general direction of town, and enjoyed seeing how many Singaporeans live. Despite, or because of, the high density housing, there is space left for much greenery, trees and grass, which is attractive. I only started seeing white faces again once I get closer to town, which was after about an hour or more's walking.

HDBs in Singapore

Dinner was at a hawker restaurant underneath a HDB near an area called Ang Mo Kio. We had black pepper crab, butter crab, and a few accompanying side dishes.

Pub with Chinese Karaoke (all the pubs I've been to so far feature Chinese Karaoke), finished off the evening.

Black pepper crab

Well fed in Singapore

Greetings again from Singapore. I've just come back this evening from a dinner with Mick's family at his grand mother's apartment. It was pretty casual, and no doubt run-of-the-mill, but nonetheless it was new to me and I found it to be a sort of a cultural experience.

The first part of the experience was discovering the mode of living in that part of Singapore (the majority part). The area basically contains tower after tower of estate housing (called HDBs). We walked through and past them, yet strangely they don't feel as threatening as their European or Soviet social housing counterparts. I don't quite know why this is, because essentially they are very similar buildings. Anyhow, walking about the estates, there were many people riding bicycles, they all seemed friendly enough - not a hoodie in sight.

Singaporean estate housing is comparatively welcoming

Estate housing in Singapore (HDBs)

Council flats in London

Soviet social housing

Once at Mick's grandmother's place, we met with 4 generations of his family - from the grandmother down through her kids, grandkids and their little toddlers. There were also some random women whose relation to the family I couldn't work out but were still referred to as 'auntie', at least I think that was the case.

Dinner was a bowl of rice served with a variety of dishes in the middle of the table, which included mushrooms, curries (with chicken feet), sea cucumber and some vegetables. Which to me was about as exotic as it gets, but I was assured that to a Chinese person this is pretty run-of-the-mill.

Anyway, time for bed. I also picked up a camera today, so pictures will follow soon.

Yoni status report

New blog.
Greetings all. I've just started some travels, and I thought the most convenient way of keeping people updated would be to get a travel blog up and running. I told some of you that I had plans to create my new blog from scratch - but in January it quickly became apparent that to do so would have meant spending all my time in front of the computer, when it could have been better spent doing other things (tv evidently). So, about 15 minutes ago, I gave in, taking the easier option of singing up to one of these free blogging thingies.

What I've been up to.
I finished up in London at the end of December, then spent some weeks with my parents on the Gold Coast (where our new home is) and in Papua New Guinea (where my parents currently live and work). After all that I went down to Sydney where I stayed a few weeks with friends. After 2 years in UK a part of me felt like a tourist in Australia, which wasn't unpleasant. I managed to get to see some rainforest in Queensland, got to swim at the beach, and eat some nice food - lots of fish and chips; I even I ate a crepe filled with chicken schnitzel and chilli sauce.

Singapore.
So after months of confused planning, I'm finally on the first leg of my 2007 travels, in Singapore. I will be here about a week, before moving onto Malaysia, and then Thailand. What they say about Singapore being very neat, I suppose is true, especially in the centre of town. An odd thing to notice perhaps, but I while staring idly at the road, as one does, I was surprised to notice the extreme contrast between the dark bitumen and the bright road markings. I was most impressed. Most of the roads are lined with trees as well, so it's really quite green in Singapore, despite the population density.

The main shopping/fashion street in Singapore is Orchard Road. I walked along here on the day I arrived, to meet my friend Mick. It's a long, wide, attractive avenue, lined with trees and modern glitzy malls/shops. I admit having felt rather shabbily dressed, everyone seemed so well dressed, wearing all the latest brand names no doubt. At the time I thought perhaps this was characteristic of Singapore - but at dinner Mick & his friends completely disagreed with this theory. Dinner incidentally was delicious. We ate at a hawker food centre, which is an outdoor food court, a large ring of food shops enclosing ample seats & tables. Had garlic prawns, stingray, carrot cake (a savoury stirfry dish made with what i think was radish cake), chicken wings.

I would post photos but I don't have a camera yet. Will do soon.

Until then, yoni: out.