Monday 2
nd Feb 3:00pm
I have always wanted to experience the sting of a foreign country in which they speak no English. Some call Australia a racist country, that we treat people of other races and cultures with less respect than we would someone who speaks our language and is 'Australian.' On thinking about it, it's probably true, I think generally and as a whole Australia is a racist nation. One can only imagine what that experience is like, unless it is lived for themselves. And live it for myself is exactly what I have desired.
I am currently in Ayutthaya, just a 2 hour train ride north of Bangkok and I feel like I am in a whole other country, again. I am in a place where I am alone and scared and the fact that English is not spoken here intensifies that experience more than I would have thought. To be fair, I have heard a few English words since I have arrived, I have a safe and comfortable place to sleep (and hide) and knowing that I leave here tomorrow makes the experience bearable. I recognise that my experience here, although is definitely an experience, is nothing compared to those who don't have the luxury of returning to their home, those who don't have somewhere safe to go, those who are separated from the ones they love and those who are treated like they don't have rights. That being said, this is still an experience which has given me a huge amount of understanding of what it is like for people in that situation that I could never have gotten otherwise.
My adventures into this foreign world began yesterday evening when I was dropped off at the train station and told 'train.' I already had my ticket so fortunately all I had to do was find my train, which was easily done by showing my ticket to official looking people and with lots of pointing and hand gestures. My train ticket stated the arrival time into Ayutthaya station so I used this as a guide to know when to get off and after many questioning and lost glances at the train staff he read my ticket and gestured that this was my stop. At the station I was able to hand the guest house address to a cab driver and was taken there for 50 baht. As you can gather, getting around and doing day to day things here hasn't been the challenge, the menu at the restaurant is even in English, I see 'vegetables and rice' and 'water' and I point (by the way, that's all I eat in Thailand!). For me, it hasn't been about getting around and doing day to day things. Instead, the sting comes from not hearing your language anywhere, when I want to talk to someone I just can't. This is important for me as I am someone who has, as Blanche Dubois would say, always depended on the kindness of strangers, and yes, I know she is referring to prostitution. I'm not, I'm referring to knowing that if I need help, people will be there. I don't have that comfort here and it is more than not being able to communicate. By the looks and body language I receive and lack of returned smiles in the street, I feel that I am not respected or welcome here, not unlike a foreigner must feel in Australia. It seems people feel frustrated and angry with me for not speaking their language (sound familiar Australians?) and even when I did my very best 'Khawp Khun Kha' (Thank You) in a 7/11, I was given an uncomfortable look.
So although this experience has been a scary, lonely, and panic provoking one, I am grateful for it. It will make me think differently about how I act and speak with non-English speaking Australians and foreigners. I don't refer to discrimination or disrespect, it goes without saying that that was never something I was guilty of. Instead I speak of better understanding the overwhelming, lonely and panicky feeling that they must experience, and knowing that there is more to it than helping them with getting around. Take a breath, empahise and of course smile .
