Judgy McJudgealot

I am super judgmental. My kids know this and especially admonish me for comments I make about other drivers. In my defense, I tend to drive as if every other driver on the road is either distracted or an idiot or possibly both.  This approach has worked well for me as evidenced by the fact that I have only hit one other vehicle in my life: the 80-something-year-old lady made that turn way too fast for me to stop on wet pavement at night.  The two motorcycles that hit our van in Thailand were in fact idiots. I rest that particular case.

Back to the point of me being super judgmental.  Nothing seems to bring out the super judgy in me quite like the airport. And flying international seems to make it even worse. Don’t believe me? Read here and here. One trip, two international airports. Hyper-judgmentality in overdrive.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ranting about people who are dressed in what by most standards would be considered normal, appropriate everyday attire. This is my first time transiting through Dubai, and the men in their robes and head coverings and the women with their robes are all pretty cool to see.  This is after all, their part of the world, and it’s entirely appropriate.

Nor am I ranting about the folks who mosey through the airport looking like they got up late for class dressed in sweats, sandals or flip-flops and backwards baseball caps.  I especially like the flip-flops with socks look. Okay, I get it, people like to be comfortable when they fly, and they like to do things that make it easier to transit through the security screening process.*

So yeah, be comfortable when you fly, but I am ranting about the dude I saw at the airport in Boston. My friend, please, there are children at the airport. Your brotastic man bun, two-week patchy beard, short-sleeve henley unbuttoned to display your chest fur, adidas soccer warmup pants, down to your brightly-colored patterned socks and your shiny leather loafers with the gold hardwear...I just...I can’t...my head is exploding!  It’s like you couldn’t quite decide which hipster/millennial stereotype you wanted to represent, so you put them all together in a glorious train wreck of a fashion mashup. All you were missing was a locally-sourced mocha latte and a slouch beanie (which, to be fair, you might have had stashed in your backpack).  Just pick ONE theme and go with it!  Think of the children.  Do it for them.

See, I told you.

Super.

Duper.

Judgmental.

On the positive side of things, the local Coca-Cola brew tastes different to me, which is probably a good thing. I drink too much Coke.

*Quick shout out to my brother, the one who is a TSA agent.  If you’ve ever had one of those guys give you a hard time at the airport, I promise it wasn’t him.  Okay, it might have been him, but it could have been because of how you were dressed. He’s super judgy.  I mean, we are brothers...

Menace to (Thai) Society?

I've previously ruminated on my observations about Thai movies and television, so this post is both a follow-on and another commentary about Thai culture/society.  I will give advance warning, however, that as our time in Thailand draws to a close I have allowed myself to become increasingly irritated rather easily.  It's actually a defense mechanism, a sort of denial that I will actually miss this place a great deal.

Thailand's Ministry of Culture of late has been getting their knickers in a twist over a couple of incidents that they claim have eroded the glorious culture in the Land of Smiles.  The first incident was the case of some young women dancing topless on Silom Road (a popular tourist spot in Bangkok) during Songkran, the traditional new year festival in mid-April.  Let me be clear that I am NOT condoning the behavior of these young ladies, especially when subsequent reporting revealed that the girls were underage and this was not the first time they had done something like this.  What I find gloriously hypocritical about it is the fact that immediately adjacent to Silom Road is the infamous area called Patpong, renowned for its bars and, how do I put this delicately...other forms of adult entertainment.  When the YouTube video first appeared officials at the Culture Ministry even said their initial suspicion was that the young women were employees of one of Patpong's finer establishments and had made their way to the Songkran party on Silom Road.

The second major cultural scandal, at least according to the Culture Ministry, has been the wildly popular evening soap opera Dok Som Si Thong (ดอกส้มสีทอง or "Golden Orange Flower").  Like many Thai soap operas, it deals with some uber-rich guy and his relationship with both his wife and his mia noi (เมียน้อย or minor wife).  The danger to Thai culture here, apparently, is that the mia noi uses some pretty coarse language and is quite the schemer, something the Ministry of Culture says that no self respecting Thai would ever do (can you hear me rolling my eyes?).  In addition, the ministry fears that many Thais would not be able to discern that this is entertainment, not reality (again, my eyes are rolling quite loudly here).

Imagine, then, my shock today when The Nation--one of Thailand's two major English-language dailies, widely read by Thai elites and the expatriate community--had an article with the following headline:

Media literacy needed among TV viewers, says watchdog

Really?  Those brilliant folks at the Culture Ministry, those guardians of all that is pure and virtuous in the kingdom just figured out that there might be some inappropriate stuff on TV here?  Where are these paragons of virtue, these scions of purity when HBO and Cinemax are running an all-day Saw marathon on Saturday, starting in the morning/afternoon when kids have easy access to the tube?  Yes, I know those examples are from premium channels, but really, is it that hard to delay the back-to-back-to-back showings of the Friday the 13th flicks until at least maybe 7 p.m.?


What about the trailers for horror movies, complete with zombies attacking and the occasional blood spatter, shown before films marketed for children?  I’m absolutely gobsmacked that it’s taken the uproar over the soap opera to bring the issue of what may or may not be appropriate for media that is readily/easily accessible by minors.  And don't even get me started on the inordinate number of Steven Segal movies shown on television here...I believe there's something in the Geneva Convention about that.

Fortunately I had this story from *Not the Nation, which sarcastically beat the mainstream media to the punch by four months.  It's funny, mostly because it hits so close to the mark.

Please don't misunderstand me: I love Thailand and I know that most Thais are genuinely decent people who in fact are quite capable of discerning that the lifestyles of the super-wealthy depicted in Thai soaps do not represent reality for most people, just as most Americans understand that many of our television shows are not indicative of the daily life for most people in the United States.  Well, except for Melrose Place and The Wire--I'm pretty sure those are documentaries.  And, like most Americans, I am confident that the Thais that do enjoy these soap operas see them merely as (mindless?) entertainment, not as blueprints for successful, happy living.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to stumble off my soapbox.

*For those of you uninitiated to the brilliance that is Not the Nation, it is a parody of Thailand's news, very similar to The Onion.  Wickedly funny, with bitingly sarcasm and irony that quite often shines a glaring spotlight on the various idiosyncrasies of Thai politics and culture.  Excellent reading, I highly recommend it.