"Mama, could we just, like, not go ANYwhere tonight?"
The rains are over, the tourists are here, Chiang Mai's Loy Krathong was huge, it's countdown mode till Christmas and New Year and I started the week with precisely 39 events in my facebook event reminder for the coming week. Urgh! Everyone has their hustle on.
On a regular week, my solo-mama schedule includes after-school Korean class on Mondays and Wednesdays for Miss 14, guitar class on Tuesdays and ballet on Thursdays (for her). We leave home for the morning school run around 7.15am and are rarely home before 7pm. In between, I run my Pure Thai Naturals empire and the household alone, and then usually put in a second shift at the desk between 9pm and 11pm. I aim to be up by 5am but, if I'm busy, sometimes it's 4am.
It's into THIS environment that the invitations to your meetups, get togethers, seminars, awareness raising events, classes, festivals, conscious events, parties and fundraisers arrive. Most of my other business-owning Chiang Mai friends keep similar schedules.
My standard answer to most everything?
Why the ambiguity? Well, when the "Chiang Mai Is My Second Home" wannabes arrive, desperate networking is the order of the day. Real locals who have done it hard all the long rainy season and are financially hammered are suddenly competing for customers with the 'just off the plane' crowd. Everyone is trying to get traction so they can sell something, get out of debt, fill their seminars, locate the next money-making product, buy their next plane ticket, engage people, get their 'cause' out there or just make some money. I get it. So, because I know how facebook works and because I like you and your cause-business, I click "interested" on your event, so that my facebook friends will get to see your event in their newsfeed. That's it. If you haven't personally spoken to me (as in a real conversation) then please understand I have no intention of going. Very, very rarely, for important people or causes, I will trawl my friends list and invite people to your event for you. It's about as benevolent as I get.
Today, as I caught myself text-snapping at someone (whom I have never met) who asked if I'd be at tomorrow's 'conscious' festival (nope!), I realized that the same depleted nutritional dynamic that causes sugar cravings in some people, causes others to endlessly need air kisses, social approval, social media pics, 'oh my GOD it's been AGES', visibility, 'will you be in Bali in April?' and plastic conversations with people they may not see again till next 'season'. They are starved.
Starved for connection, funds, purpose, opportunities, real relationship, dreams, a place of their own, ideas, family, customers, recognition....
Fun Fact: Thailand, with a population of roughly 64 million people is aiming for 40 million tourists this year. A growing percentage of those tourists are here on reconnaissance .
It's exhausting. I feel like all the people off the Titanic are in the icy cold water around me and trying to grab the plastic inflatable rings that the few of us who really do live and work here have worked so hard to create. The financially-struggling Thai people around us need connection to the hordes (and their money), and the hordes need legitimacy, a visa, income, digitally documented local credibility and a 'my friend in Thailand" story.
In this place, "No" is an incredible word.
I can think of nothing more wonderful than what I have tonight. Silence and the sounds of crickets. My daughter is downstairs drawing. Our weekend involves tomorrow afternoon's ballet performance, product deliveries, painting the walls in our new production space, and a lot of home time. Gardening, cooking, creating, writing, art, music, shared meals and probably laundry. We have a life in Thailand, not a manicured Thai tourist experience in a rented room in town.
I feel incredibly powerful today to have simply said No. To have delightfully declined. Not one, but a myriad of invitations. To be enjoying the richness of my overgrown messy garden, my natural world, my herbal creations, my Thai kitchen, my tiny family of two....
The Thai world I came to live in so many years ago wasn't driven by events. The annual temple fair was a big deal. The Buddhist festivals which punctuated the year were enough. Village funerals were about as social as it got. I liked it that way.
Somehow our western 'thing' has muddied the waters and changed the vibe here to the point that it makes me want and need to run. I urge you to think about the footprint and the expectation you bring with you when you travel in the 'developing' world. That the local community enables you and your ideas out of financial desperation does not make it a good thing.
Grateful for discourse and travel, and even more grateful for quiet villages, rural life and simpler ways.
Contributing to the @earthtribe. Cos it MATTERS.
yes, I am all about the simple things right now, slowing down and enjoying what surrounds me. finding the time to be still is so important. I can only imagine how priceless that is for you where you live xxxx
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It must be quite annoying to have all of that 'be seen' crowd - I can't even put up with it here, and it's why I wont teach yoga - I just can't do the hustle.
xx
The December hussle is real ej!!
I almost tripped over 700 asians here today coming back from the trainstation, agenda is filled until the end of the year and same thing 'NO' will be the answer to every question for the next 3 weeks
Festival times are the most hyped up times, everyone is trying to make the most of it in whatever way they can. But sometimes I feel that those who cannot celebrate and get into the season mood how bad they feel when they look at so much of festivities out there. Around 5 months back, it was our traditional celebration and I was in hospital, everyone out there was celebrating and I was feeling so bad to be in hospital at the same time. And then I realized it is so important to not always make so much of noise about everything, there are less privileged ones who can feel so deprived in life.