Oh, those stupid tourists

A voice that is becoming louder as the column is gaining readership... no, I won't take away from the excitement of reading it first, so...

Read on!
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BUDGET TAI TAI

Oh, those stupid tourists

They think things in Bangkok are just as they are back home ...

by Tabitha Wang

It's 2pm on a weekday and I'm chatting online with an old schoolmate, M. Suddenly, a message pops up: "Got to go, more clashes expected near my office."

Having worked in Bangkok for over three years now, M, a Malaysian, is no stranger to political protests in the city.

In November 2008, when the Yellow Shirts laid siege to the Suvarnabhumi Airport, she still went to work every day. It wasn't so bad, she recalled, because the protesters largely left the city alone.

This has not been the case with the recent protests. The main skirmishes took part just two train stations from her office so, more often than not, she would get ready for work, only to be turned back because they had closed the station. She has to take the bus instead - no cabbie would enter the area.

A single woman alone in a foreign country is always vulnerable, even at the best of times. What more when the country is in the midst of a bloody power struggle.

It sounds commendable that her company is not giving in. But her boss, whom you would expect might protect her, has run off to Perth with his family to wait out the skirmishes. He has refused to return until Thailand has a stable government again - which could be years.

Yet, he has insisted that she travel into the centre of the city to open the office every day since the protests began.

No, there will be no increase in insurance coverage. When she asked for a helmet or bulletproof vest, he just laughed. He wouldn't even let her have the company car, insisting that she make her own way to work every day.

Her local colleagues have not stepped into the office since the Red Shirts set up their camp in mid-March. So she mans the office alone, staying away from the windows and making do with cup noodles for lunch.

When the government threatened to cut the water and power supply, she had to fill buckets of water in the toilet just in case.

M has been watching her back for more than two months and now, she is fed up. She just wants to go home.

It is emotionally exhausting. She hasn't had a good night's sleep for weeks. Every little sound sends her sitting bolt upright in bed, convinced that another round of gunfire has started.

She comforts herself by saying the protesters have dispersed - but understandably, she is still afraid, especially when she can see barricades burning from her bedroom window.

It is lonely. She doesn't speak Thai so has not befriended anyone in her apartment block. Thankfully, the Internet is still up, so she can stay connected with her friends and family back home.

But the last straw was not being able to shop and eat because the protests are being held in the city's main shopping area.

"What's the point of being in Bangkok and not shopping or eating?" she lamented. "I moved here, putting up with the traffic and chaos, for the cheap food and clothes."

"There must be some places," I replied, pointing out that some Singaporeans, despite the Government's travel advisory, were still pouring into the city in search of imitation watches and fake antiques.

"The stupid tourists, you mean," she noted darkly.

Ah yes, the stupid tourists. The idiots who hear "protests" and think "perfect for a holiday". The ones who go to trouble spots, thinking: "It's nothing to do with me because they're fighting each other."

They forget that bullets and Molotov cocktails don't check passports. A lot of people who have been killed or injured so far were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If anything happens, they scream at their government and demand that they be airlifted home/rescued from prison/given compensation.

Many Red Shirts thought they were invincible because they had amulets to protect them. But, according to M, many tourists from Asean countries, including Singapore, are acting that way too.

"Their amulet is their sheer stupidity. They think things in Bangkok are just as they are back home."

M is pretty gloomy about the future of Thailand. She's told her boss she's had enough and is leaving Bangkok. For good. Tomorrow, she's taking advantage of the recent clampdown to make a dash for the airport, and head back home.

Where she can shop again. She said: "I know everything is cheap in Bangkok but so is life. I'm not about to die for a 50-baht shirt."


Even Tabitha Wang is not tempted by the thought of a to-die-for 50-baht shirt.



Taken from TODAY, Voices - Friday, 21-May-2010
Oh, those stupid tourists
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Like Apollo's Failure to Launch?

Cover via Amazon

At first glance on the title, I'm immediately reminded of space shuttles that, after all the preparation and hardships, the rigorous trainings and special suits - everything - it is a fiasco! Instead of applause and shouts of joy and congratulatory cries, what we hear is the opposite, all summed up in the words, "failure to launch."


Not to take out the excitement from the written article itself, do read on...

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Failure to launch

How do singles who live with their parents do it and mature at the same time?

by Tabitha Wang

My parents have come to Hong Kong for a fortnight. They've been here only two days and I've regressed by as many decades.

At this rate, I'd be babbling like a Teletubby by the weekend.

That is because, despite the fact that I haven't lived with them for 20-odd years, they still treat me as if I've never left home.

"Have you taken your cough mixture?"

"Are you going out with your hair wet like that?"

"Stop watching TV and eat your meal."

And that's only in the first hour they've been at my place.

I half-expect them to trot out curfew times and ask whom I've been going out with.

On the plus side, it means hot meals the moment I get home, not having to feed the cat before I go to work and putting the plates into the sink knowing that they will be washed by the next morning.

It's great having everyday decisions taken away from me - like what to have for dinner, whether to run the washing machine, when to go grocery shopping …

Leaving me free to make the important decisions - like what channel to watch on television.

"I could get used to this," I told my husband yesterday.

"I don't think it's healthy. Look how childish you have become," he said, drawing my attention to what I was wearing.

He was right. Without realising it, I had dressed in anticipation of the "what do you think you're wearing, young woman" question: A grotty big T-shirt instead of my usual skimpy nightgowns.

And mentally, I had gone back to my old ways of delegating responsibility to my parents. Somehow, being a kid again and settling the bills just didn't seem to go together.

Ah well, it's only for two weeks. Then I'd go back to being a lean, mean fully-functioning adult again.

This is just a hiatus.

But this started me thinking about my single friends who were still living with their parents and wonder how they do it without it stunting their maturity in some way or other.

Imagine being a high-flying boss whom everyone fears in the office, then going home to Mum telling you: "I've washed your underpants and packed your lunch in your favourite Hello Kitty container." Surely, that does cramp your style?

I once visited a 40-something single friend who lived with her parents.

Her Mum kept nagging her to get married but, at the same time, told her she had to be home by 10pm while her Dad vetoed her clothes if they were too revealing.

So my friend goes around in long-sleeved shirts and ankle-skimming skirts and without makeup all the time.

She could have done a lot more with herself if only she could get past the style dragons at the gate.

Many singles say they live with their parents not out of choice but necessity. They can't move out until they're 35 and can afford their own HDB flat.

Maybe they should be allowed out earlier. We make housing allowances for the elderly so why not the singles?

Some may say growing old is not a matter of choice but being single is. But really, when you're living at home with your parents, with a curfew (even unspoken), what chances do you have to go out, meet people and make your choice?

The number of singles in Singapore is increasing.

The census showed that more people aged 30 to 34 were single in 2008 (40.8 per cent for men and 29.4 per cent for women) compared to 1998 (33.3 per cent and 21.6 per cent).

The proportion of singles aged 45 to 49 also rose (13.6 per cent and 12.8 per cent in 2008 compared to 9.5 per cent and 12.5 per cent in 1998).

To cater to the rising numbers, maybe the HDB should convert flats in unpopular areas into studios and turn them into a singles block - much like a hostel for working singles instead of students.

At my university hostel, many hooked up - boosted by the huge concentration of singles in one place and the lack of parental supervision.

I think that magic formula could work in the singles block too.

As long as parents are banned from visiting.



Tabitha Wang gets her own back when her parents treat her like a child, by treating her husband like a baby.



Taken from TODAY, Voices - Budget Tai tai column; source article is below
Failure to Launch
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