ghana: one

“Welcome Visitor” – Accra, Ghana, July 2006

After this most recent trip to Hong Kong and Thailand, I feel the pull to write about my previous globe-trotting experiences — despite the fact it’s been a few years and memory is flawed. But screw all that, I’m an artist; I’ll make some of it up if I have to. Of course, I won’t. I like to pretend though. I think a good place to start is Summer 2006, Ghana. Hong Kong and China are of distant Summer 2005, and I should write those first, but damn it, I’ve been overloaded with Asia these past few weeks.

I spent Summer 2006 with my aunt and uncle (yes, they are Chinese) in Accra, Ghana. My uncle managed to wrangle a summer internship at a small, local newspaper The Daily Guide; at that time, I was attempting to pursue a career in journalism. I was lucky: The experience was indespensible. During the weekdays, I worked with locals, traveled to different towns around Accra, reported for a newspaper. During the weekends, I toured the country with my aunt and uncle. Like, Summer 2005 (of which I will write in another post), it was the perfect combination of true local experience and tourism.

The first day at The Daily Guide, a fellow intern asked me if I were a virgin and if I appreciated the music of P. Diddy and 50 Cent. Alfred Mortey was 20 and lived time zones away from New York City, and yet, we managed to connect, talking about sex and rap. Some things span oceans.

The second day, our supervisor Amos, whom we respectfully called Uncle Amos, told us to walk around the city on our own. There were no mini reporting assignments for us to bungle. No dull press conferences to attend. No senior reporters who wanted the two of us as baggage. He told us to walk around the city to “smell news.” Alfred and I departed, our notebooks under our arms, ready to sniff out a story about the local mafia, the heroin and prostitution rings, the corrupted high officials.

We visited the police office across town, and after being handed off a few times, we talked to a public relations officer. He led us to his office. The lights were off; the midday heat was just sneaking up. He had a story we could write, he said as he wiped his brow with a dirty hankerchief. He laid out the scene for us (slowly, as he could tell we were interns): a robbery-hijacking of a taxi cab in broad daylight. He spelled out the names of the players for us (repeatedly, as he could tell we were trying to catch up with our clumsy notetaking): Alhaji something.

I must admit I didn’t understand everything that he said; he had — did I mention? — a heavy African accent. Alfred and Uncle Amos had accents also, but I guess I didn’t notice until it became crucial to follow the details of gun calibre and street intersection for a story to be published in a city newspaper. It was only when Alfred and I began walking back to the Guide did I really understand the nature of the story. It wasn’t about the taxi driver or the robber-hijacker. It was about the Good Samaritan. (I guess I missed that whole part of the story.)

Alfred and I arrived at the office excited to write our article. But there were no computers available. We were given irregular, long, gray recycled paper to outline and write the story on. We wrote each objective sentence in simple, journalistic syntax. Who, what, where, when, how. Why. The headline, byline, lede were written multiple times as we arranged and rearranged subject, verb, object. After two hours or so, we delivered the draft to the 80-year-old proofreader, Uncle Roddy, who, within 10 minutes, returned it with handwritten corrections in the margins, instructing us to give it to the typists. (Few people knew how to type. Those who knew typed very slowly; most were astounded with the speed at which I typed.) We were done for the day.

We sat outside on the balcony, the balcony we would sit on every day that summer, and talked about our luck stumbling upon a worthy first story. At sunset, as the senior reporters were just arriving into the office to write their own stories, Alfred and I went our separate ways home, happy as clams, as Vonnegut would say.

The article was never published.

pattaya, thailand

Some of the shit I’m saying in this blog is only shit. I do try to be fair and tactful with all my judgments, whether they be on traveling, authors, writing, art, religion, politics. But if you think I’m out of line about something, feel free to drop me a line and I will consider your comment, then consider altering my perspectives. Okay, now with that major disclaimer aside, I dive face-first into Pattaya, Thailand.

“Thailand” – Pattaya, Thailand, February 2008

Off the top of my head, I can think of a few phrases to briefly summarize what I saw during two days and nights there: neon lights; young hookers; middle-aged white men; seedy bars; stray dogs. A friend of mine who spent a summer in Thailand told me after I returned: “Pattaya is [...] a post-war prositution city. The real Thai people don’t go there actually (and you can see why). It’s a tourist destination that mostly caters to the white male.” Her words match my experience. And hobinskii’s. It was the first time I’d ever seen hookers.

(Please keep in mind we went with a less-than-shitty tour bus. We really had little control of where we went or what we saw; we were at the mercy of Pinky and the Beast.)

The first evening, after my mother and I returned to the hotel, my father and hobinskii continued their stroll through Pattaya. At this time, hobinskii saw two middle-aged white men, one in a wheelchair, on the Walking Street. Two days later, at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, the two men were spotted again. This time, they were accompanied by two young Thai women — newly purchased wives perhaps? I will leave this passage at that.

On a lighter note, we got a chance to see the transsexual cabaret, “Tiffany’s Show.” Pattaya boasts this world-famous, colorful attraction. (Surprisingly, it’s a fairly family-oriented. Before the show began, the theater showed clips akin to “America’s Funniest Home Videos” on big screens.) The women, if they are properly termed so, were young and gorgeous. The lip-synching was spot-on. Only their voices failed. Had I not heard the voices of these women after the show, the glorious, beautiful illusion would have stayed. Alas.

“Tiffany’s Show” – Pattaya, Thailand, February 2008

Sadly, the tour group, which is designed for Chinese tourists, ate nothing but Chinese food, which was to be expected because we were in Thailand. Naturally. What a shit tour company to think travelers are not able or are not willing to eat a cuisine apart from their own.  I was absolutely stunned into rage to eat fucking Chinese food in fucking Thailand. Fuck, it wasn’t even good Chinese food. A mafia-run restaurant can’t be that great — and it wasn’t. I paid money to visit Thailand to eat shit Chinese food? The whole point of traveling, for my family and me, is to eat. Oh, and to see new things, or something. At least, we managed to ditch the group for a few meals to eat on our own, and eat we did. Tiger shrimp? Yummy. Other delicacies (by hobinskii): yummy fish, yummy big krill thing. Mango and sticky rice. Fish patties with spicy sauce. Thailand is yummy.

(These were nothing compared to the cuisine in Hong Kong though. For a list of animals eaten in Hong Kong, see hobinskii’s “Eat! Eat!” and “The Best Part [...].”)

I feel robbed though. The tour group was shit. I’m convinced the Beast knew nothing of Thailand outside this preset tour route. The same stops, the same roads, the same missed experiences. Upon reflection, it is upsetting that I didn’t get what I could have out of Thailand. The entire trip would have been so much better, so much more cultural if only my family and I didn’t have to get stuck last minute with Pinky and the Beast. The last-minute hop onto the tour bus from hell was just unavoidable. I don’t regret the trip, but when I think about all the experiences I missed out on because we were tied to the tour, I could weep. I do think I got as much as I could out of it though, and I can say with confidence we saw more than the other members of the tour did.

Still. Fucking fuck. I wish I’d eaten more.

bangkok, thailand

(moment stolen for all posterity by hobinskii)

Imprimis. So I’m attempting this blogshit. In my defense for caving into this ludicrous cyberworld, I’m pretending it will do me some good to write a few paragraphs a day, considering how little I’ve written in the past few months. Mayhaps, as is my hope, one of these entries will inspire a personal essay, a story, what have you. Oh, this blog is also to promote my mediocre photography and my average writing skills. I do not claim any of this photography or writing as great, thought-out, and organized work. As long as this is all out in the open. Thanks.

I would really rather peck out a few paragraphs on my travels in Hong Kong right now, but this picture of me in Bangkok is all-too-suitable for a first entry. So, Thailand it is.

Thailand is not the first developing country I have visited. It is merely among others: China, Ghana, Mexico, Bahamas (more on these later; at least an entry will come out on each). Granted, the last two were for primarily vacationing purposes, not unlike Thailand, but there are similarities that cannot be overlooked simply because I only visited Cancun and Nassau. Thanks to my adventurous (at times, to the point of absurdity) father, I have seen not only the flashy tourist locations gushed about in travel pamphlets and by shallow travelers, but also the city/landscape of urban squalor.

(I will not go into intimate details of what I have seen at the moment. If you want superb descriptions of urban squalor, see, off the top of my head, Hugo and Dostoyevsky. If you want unexceptional photos of urban squalor, see through my own camera lens: Cancun, Cancun, Accra, Accra, Bangkok. I must admit, after going to Ghana, it’s been harder to take such pictures.)

The tourism industry has depended on the fact that few travelers, especially those on weeklong suntanning vacations, have seen the seedy underbelly of any particular attractive location. Even if there is some awareness of the poverty of these countries, tourists still travel to them. Ghana, perhaps least in terms of tourism, still thrives on the thousands who visit each season. When I was in Accra and its environs from early June to late August, I saw more stout, middle-aged, ignorant Americans than I expected. Of course, I only saw them in the tourist locations where roads were paved and air-conditioners were in every store.

Back to Bangkok. I suppose I must give a premise to this five-day trip. Originally, we were supposed to go to Guilin, China (idyllic images here). However, thanks to hobinskii (see “The Bane of a Traveling Midwesterner”), all of China was snowed in for the first time in 50 years. We, instead, decided to travel to Thailand, where it was a balmy 90 degrees. Because of the last-minute change, we were forced to join a godforsaken tour bus that was fully equipped with loudspeakers and two overly enthused group leaders, happily dubbed by hobinskii and me, Pinky and the Beast. Pinky, the local guide, was a petite Thai man, who spoke cautious Cantonese and frequently encouraged the members of the tour group to buy incense and flowers for all the Buddhas we visited. The Beast, the company guide, was a not-so-petite Hong Kongnese woman, who spoke rapidfire Cantonese and frequently laughed at her own horrible jokes over the loudspeakers of the bus.

The tour group only led us through, it seemed, the tourist areas, or better termed, tourist traps. Malls, flea markets, Buddhist temples. I enjoyed the trip, yet at every corner, there was a person attempting to sell me something I did not want. “Silk” scarves, incense, Buddha statuettes, etc. This is nothing astounding. This occurs at every tourist site, yet I do believe this is the first time I truly realized the force of the tourist industry. Buy, buy, buy. Consume, consume, consume. (Hong Kong, or as hobinskii calls it, “One giant shopping mall.”)

The first attraction after the three-hour plane ride from Hong Kong to Bangkok was a small amusement park, woefully called Dream World, with an equally woeful tagline, “The World of Happiness.” This Dream World was naturally surrounded by rice paddies, shanty towns, and what seemed like an abandoned railroad track. The world of happiness, indeed. The second attraction? Siam Paragon, an urban mall right in the middle of Bangkok.

As we rumbled down the highway on the tour bus, we saw billboards for zippy foreign cars towering over dilapidated homes. Nothing new, however, I suppose. This is in every struggling developing country. I certainly saw this in China, Mexico, Ghana, et al. Yet I knew I was somehow part of the problem as well. In all these countries, I stood as an outsider, as a foreigner who could afford to travel to such countries. How can one care about the issue of poverty when one always has the luxury of jumping on a jet plane and leaving? This is a question we all must answer for ourselves, but I was particularly provoked in Thailand, especially when Pinky related stories of distant kings who, after acquiring millions from the economy, built more than 40,000 temples, temples that later demanded already impoverished devoutees to give offerings of – wait for it – money in order to ask Buddha for – wait for it again – money. Religion as an instrument to oppress the poor? This again would not be the first time. (If it seems I’m pinning this all on Buddhism, which, by the way, I do not claim to know all the ins and outs of, I’m not. I was once a Presbyterian, and Protestantism is by no means clean.) But religion is a whole other post, so I will end with this image of Pattaya, Thailand, which is also a whole other post.

Pattaya, Thailand, February 2008

Business in the front, poverty in the back.

back from the far east

“Wan Chai” – Hong Kong, January 2008

“Morning Rush” – Bangkok, February 2008