Trip to Thailand, Part สอง
My second time in Siam in the last two years. What are the odds?
Greetings,
Just last week I had just returned from a weeklong trip to Thailand. The reason is personal. To keep a long story short, my cousin got married there1. I won’t get into the details but this is the second time that I had a cousin getting married in Thailand. And so, for the second time in the last two years, I ended up visiting this country that was honestly not in my radar (other than as the butt of jokes, but more on that later).
What are the odds?
Last year when I first went to the Siamese Kingdom, I made sure to take as many pictures as I could. I was a tourist in every sense of the word. While I had visited Thailand before as a kid, that was decades ago. For all intents and purposes, I was a newcomer.
I took so many pictures, I put them in a gallery here in this Substack’s chat section. Here’s the link.
I also wrote an article about a museum I went to in Pattaya, the eye-popping Sanctuary of Truth:
But that was last year.
For this year’s trip, I decided not to make a photo gallery in Indonesian and American’s chat thread. Not just because it’s a tedious process but also because in all honestly, I didn’t take that many pictures.
Unlike last year, I didn’t come into Thailand with the intention to see what the country has to offer. Instead, I was dragged kicking and screaming into this foreign country by familial obligations. Not that I begrudge the time I’ve spent in Siam last week. But if it had been up to me, I would have spent the whole time just hanging in my hotel room playing Trails of Cold Steel.
But it wasn’t up to me. So instead, I ended up spending much of my time in Thailand visiting shopping malls with my relatives (esp. female relatives).
Needless to say, I had a miserable time. Now I don’t want to thumb my nose at people who like to go shopping. I also cringe whenever I hear people going on a screed against “consumerism” and “capitalism”. Not because I love capitalism, but because those people tend to come across as self-righteous and as shallow as the people they criticize themselves.
But when I see a place like the Platinum Fashion Mall in Bangkok, Thailand, I don’t know what else to describe it other than as a temple to consumerism and capitalism.
I also have the misfortune of coming to Thailand at the end of June. AKA “Pride Month”.
Anyone who is halfway familiar with Thailand, with their aptly named capital of Bangkok, will know that it’s the “gay capital” of Southeast Asia. Maybe even the world, rivaling the likes of San Francisco, California and Tel Aviv, Israel.
At the risk of getting into politics, I was never heavily exposed to LGBT rainbow alphabet soup gay pride stuff in person… until I went to Thailand last year. And mind you, I have lived for over 10 years in what Americans would call “blue states” (New Jersey and later Maryland) before moving back to Indonesia. I have also been an employee of the Federal Government of the United States as a member of the DHS/TSA. I remember seeing all the diversity-esque emails like Asian-American women month or some nonsense in my government inbox. But never “LGBT” or “pride” stuff. I’ve never seen rainbow flags plastered throughout my workplace at the Washington-Dulles International Airport during the month of June, which I suppose is a credit to the TSA and the US Government as a whole given what I would later see in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport (more on that soon).
Then again, I’ve also never been to California or places that were infamous for that kind of thing. It was in Thailand where I first experienced all these things being in-your-face and pushed down my throat (no Diddy, unlike Thailand).
The Thai are so gay, their government even put rainbow flags on the booths at airport immigration. I would put a picture of that here in this post, but taking photos there was forbidden.
I didn’t talk much about this gay-related stuff on Substack when I first visited Thailand last year, mostly because I didn’t want to get political. But I remember how glad I was to be back in Indonesia at the time. When I finally exited the plane after landing on Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, it was just in time for the Maghrib prayer. And I was never so happy to hear a Muslim prayer in my life before. Between the rainbows and the consumerism2, I was not sad to leave Thailand. Not last year, and not last week.
It’s not that I hate Thailand. But I did get the impression that the country is a spiritual wasteland. And I’ve been to Philadelphia.
But let us move on. The point is that Thailand is gay. And I don’t like it.
Credit where credit is due, though. Thailand has some beautiful beaches. It’s one of the reasons why the country got a lot of tourists. Hua Hin, the resort town where my cousin got married, is one such place.
Also, enjoy this picture of the Hua Hin Beach I posted on Instagram (I took it at the hotel I stayed in):
Also, despite my assessment of Thailand’s spiritual state, that doesn’t mean the Church is not present in the country. My time in Thailand included a Sunday, so that meant I had to go to Mass. Thankfully, there’s a Catholic parish within a walking distance of my hotel: Hua Hin’s St. Theresa Catholic Church.
I want to close this post on this parish because while I did derive some amusement from making fun of the Thai for how zesty they are3, I also know that the Thai are also a real people. Throughout Bangkok, I’ve seen pictures of their King and Queen plastered all over the buildings. I also saw a monument dedicated to… I don’t know, to be honest. Must be something important.
The point is that I don’t know much about Thailand and its history. As a tourist, I only see what they are presenting themselves as to the world. And unfortunately, that presentation conform to all the negative stereotypes of the Thai people.
Thank you for the hospitality, though. Really.
Until next time,
Michael P. Marpaung
And no, it’s not a 🏳️🌈 wedding. Shaddap!
This isn’t to say that Indonesia doesn’t have consumerism. Jakarta also has big malls. The difference is that these malls aren’t filled to the brim with tourists seeking to throw money around and vendors trying to take advantage of that.
And I feel no guilt for doing so. It’s not like I went out of my way to find these things. If the Thai wants to give the outside world the impression that their country is 🏳️🌈, that’s on them.