T In China_Phuket

Here is an interesting article from an expat who is currently vacationing in Phuket, Thailand:


t_in_china@yahoogroups.com wrote:

Date: 26 Dec 2005 09:01:22 -0000From: t_in_china@yahoogroups.comTo: t_in_china@yahoogroups.comSubject: [t_in_china] Digest Number 195There is 1 message in this issue.Topics in this digest:1. Phuket UpdateFrom: "t_in_china"

Message: 1 Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2005 07:41:02 -0000From: "t_in_china" Subject: Phuket Update


I've officially become a lazy bum over the past couple days, spending my hard-earned vacation doing only the essentials: sleeping, eating, reading, and having foot massages. It's been a good rest. Today is the one-year anniversary of the tsunami, and all is quiet in Patong Beach. I took a short walk on the beach this morning, watching people lay flowers in the ocean, hugging, the whole bit. It was mostly foreigners--Europeans--with the locals doing what locals tend to do on normal days: making a living and moving on. It still weighs heavily on folks, though in more subtle ways. There are the hawkers selling "souvenir" videos showing footage of the wave and telling the story. There are the signs on walls of buildings--the cafe I'm in right now has a simply written sign that says "TSUNAMI" and a red arrow pointing to the discolored line on an unpainted section of the wall. As if there was any confusion about what it meant, the small letters below say, "water level 25.12.2004, 10:00 AM".Like all natural disasters, few people in the area are without stories to share, though the geography of Patong Bay resulted in nearly everyone becoming a part of the story. I followed Welk as he went looking for old friends--the t-shirt salespeople, the woman who sold spring rolls on the beach, a bar girl or two--and heard the stories unfold in every case. Yesterday I saw the scars on the arms and feet of the t-shirt lady who held her two-year-old daughter in her arms as the wave carried her more than 200 feet inland. Both survived. Bruce (Welk) saw a woman who reminded him of his kindness a year ago--when he lifted her up and over a pile of rubble that blocked their escape route. I met another woman walking on the beach, who described it all--the bodies, the lost friends. Clearly she was still in a bad place.Last night I sat on the beach watching families release hand-made hot-air balloons into the sky. It was quite a fitting memorial, I suppose, and one of the loveliest things I've seen in quite some time. Things today are quiet, though. There have been some members of the press here to cover things, but outside of that immediate area of attention drawn by the cameras, life goes on for the people of this island town.I'm not a big beach guy--with each trip below the Tropic of Cancer my Irish skin reminds me why my ghostly ancestors made their way north--so I continue to take advantage of the opportunity to read books about China that are not available there. I just finished reading Diane Wei Liang's _Lake with No Name_, a lovely nonfiction book about a Chinese woman whose eyes have some pretty incredible things. I just realized that I haven't really passed along any news from the home front lately. As usual, the less I write, the more there is to write about--and the past month has been no exception.The concert in Beijing--performing Handel's Messiah--was quite an experience. We performed in the Forbidden City, in a concert hall just behind the famous photo of Chairman Mao that looks out over Tiananmen Square. The best part for me was my visit from Mom, who made the trip from Chicago for the occasion. I spent some time chatting with members of our orchestra--all Chinese--after the performance, and it was fascinating to learn of their stories. Two of the performers, both women, were curious to know how our Shanghai branch of the chorus was doing. I told them that it was good but that we still had some difficulty with the local government's regulations--permissions, they're called. I explained that I didn't understand why something like Handel's Messiah or a Gilbert & Sullivan opera--both of which are many years (centuries?) beyond being politically charged works--could be the cause of such concern from the government. I wondered whether they, as people who have devoted their lives to music, had any insight. Their explanation was that it had nothing to do with the music itself, but the fact that large audiences were gathering without the Party being in control of the message. This, they said, was scary to the folks in charge. It seemed to make some sense. I then received a bit of a surprise: one of the young women--both are 22 or 23 years old--told me that they were both Party members. I hadn't met anyone of this age who was a member of the Communist Party, and was interested to know of how they--as artists--became involved. The conversation drifted a bit as other ears came into and out of it, but the essense of it was that they were brought in in order for the government to have an "insider" among performing groups. One of the young women mentioned that she had some regrets about her decision, while the other seemed more at peace with it all. In any event, they are good people, and I look forward to another opportunity to visit with them. I believe they will be a part of our performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's _Iolanthe_ in April, which will be happening at what is shaping up to be a busy time as well. We performed Handel's Messiah in Shanghai the following weekend, and it was the first public (read: Chinese could attend) performance of the Messiah in Shanghai since the 1940s. As usual, we had to go through some interesting procedures to pull it off: permission from our "work units," expensive stamps on documents, and so on. Unlike with our performance of Pirates of Penzance at the same venue this past April, the theater was actually able to sell tickets from their box office--though we were able only to have the words "Handel's Music" rather than "Handel's Messiah" on the tickets. The irony, of course, is that the performers all held musical scores that were copied--illegally--by the government's official copy service in Beijing. Ah, such is China today, where paranoia meets pragmatism.What else? Oh, I talked on the phone with Peter Hessler the other day. Pete is the author of River Town, the book about Fuling and the Three Gorges area. His new book is coming out soon--another on my list of recommendations. Anyhow, he was looking forward to seeing Father Li in Chongqing and needed directions to his place.Hessler also wanted detail on Father Li's condition. I've been concerned about Father Li's leg since I left Chongqing, and my telephone calls to his room made me even more concerned. They usually went unanswered--strange, knowing that Father Li always answered the phone by shouting loudly, a throwback to China's early years of telephone communication. When someone did finally answer, his Mandarin (or hearing . . . or both) were so poor that we couldn't understand one another very well. I did make out that Father Li was not there, and when I asked when he would return I was told that he would not be. Beyond that, communication broke down. I decided to try the following day, but feared the worst. I reached the same person the following afternoon, with similar results. Father Li was not there and would not be returning. I didn't have the nerve to ask if he was, well, dead, and finally figured out that he was in the hospital. As for his condition, I was worried that the "he's not coming back" message was enough information for one phone call, and left it at that. The next move was to call XiXi (pronounced "she-she"), one of the Chongqing gals I met on the airplane going to Chongqing. I asked her to contact the church and use the local dialect (and social graces) that I was sorely lacking in order to find out what was happening. Twenty minutes later she called back; everything was fine, but Father Li was in the hospital until the 22nd because his leg wasn't responding to the treatment and "bed rest" he was to be having at home. I sent a note to Hessler, letting him know that he needed to get to Chongqing sooner rather than later--but that Father Li was expected to be in the hospital until the 22nd. I sent along address information, plus a poorly-drawn sketch of how to find the tiny alleyway leading to Father Li's Chongqing home. It was neat to finally speak to Pete. We chatted for about a half-hour about all sorts of things--his new book, China in general, Chongqing and its changes. He hasn't been back for three years or so--just about the time I started going there on a regular basis. He'll be in for quite a surprise. He said he might be heading toward Shanghai at some point, and I offered him room at the "inn." He plans to be in China for only two more months before returning to the States for "several years" to explore some other writing interests. He mentioned being pigeon-holed as a "China" guy, and hopes to find another area to explore. So . . . next week I have several days in China before school starts. I might end up visiting Chongqing if Pete reports good things (or, I suppose, really bad) from Father Li. We'll have to see how that goes. Not much else to report. I'm off for a late lunch, then somewhere to rest. Lazy, lazy . . . but I'm OK with that. Until next time,


-T

To see previous messages and see some fine photographs, go to the T_in_China site at:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/t_in_china/

To visit your group on the web, go to:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/t_in_china/

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!