bangkok 3 saturday (am)

This morning has to be the highlight of my trip, when we explored the peripheries around the hotel. We were assured by the concierge that although the back alley was dirty with drains of brackish waters, the people were somewhat friendly, although poor. They were neither beggars nor thieves, just poor folk living in what we would call a 2 storey slum. After a good breakfast of fried tidbits we took a scroll down the surrounding estate and walked—and walked.

We came to a small street corner, with the broken down cobbled stone passage to the main road, and I had initially thought it were just like any ordinary back alley, but to my surprise, this 1.5m walkway was actually the main door passage way of the houses in the lane.

There was a little girl, with massive hoops of hair, glinting in the sunlight, running around without panties, and laughing at nothing in particular really.

She smiled, and waved at me, disappearing behind her mother, seated on the ground, chatting easily with their neighbors, and smiled at us with real warmth in her eyes, and asked where we were from. I asked if I could take a photo of the little angel, and she said of course, if I wanted to bring her back to Singapore it was fine too—I was stunned speechless, and she laughed and declared that cannot do, that was her little darling.


We took some pictures, laughed a little, and felt tears gathering in my eyes at how happy these people were, despite the fact that they’re stuck in a backward society, where households share a communal toilet, and cook together to save on fuel, where children run amok, underwear less, amist the raging motorcycles and cars, where kids’ main source of entertainment were scratching at ants in the dirt, and yet a simple camera flash, made the little boys in the community come running laughing and clamouring, preening for the camera, perfect smiles painted. The women laughed and egged the children on, asking them to strike poses or not block each other from the lens eye of the camera.

It was a perfect way to start the morning.

The most it-advanced item they own is a broken television, and there are interference lines across the screens and its rusty antennas stick out like feelers. Far are they from the frustrations of bidding online for courses, and computer crashes, or the big (well, now insignificant) issue of mac vs pc. They don’t worry about spreadsheets or P & L statements, litigation, even shareholdingthey find joys at thai variety show, at having caught a spider, and laugh as the rain water caught in the potholes in the ground splash on their ankles.

I was disallowed to give the children any money, for fear of being mobbed. But the boyscout bought me some biscuits to give the children—so at least this passing stranger, feels like she made some little one’s day.

--11.00am Periphery Community Dwelling, Din Daeng District.