Unfamiliarly Familiar

After over three weeks of luxuriously relaxing on the southern beaches of Thailand, it was time to visit the organized chaos of another greatest hit -- Bangkok!  It was my first time back to this buzzing city since my brief stint teaching and touring four years ago, and I was looking forward to checking out my old haunts (and eating as much food as possible in the process).

From the familiar feeling of disembarking an overnight train and entering the public gallery of Hua Lamphong train station, it felt great to be back.  Great but weird.  For the duration of my visit to BKK, I felt like a stranger in a land that was not strange to me at all.  You know the feeling of a word or name being ‘on the tip of your tongue”?  I felt like that’s where the entire city of Bangkok was resting -- on the tip of my tongue.  My surroundings were familiar – the public transport map, the walk from the river to Khao San Road, the delicious food on the street carts – but I couldn’t quite connect the dots.  My brain was churning hard, trying to conjure memories that related to these sites with which I felt some vague nostalgic resonance.  Perhaps more practically, it was churning hard trying to remember how to get from place to place.  I wanted to call on some imaginary witness to my life and ask, “umm, can you please tell me what this corner means to me?  And, how do I get to Central World on the BTS?”    

One of the areas I was most looking forward to visiting was my old neighborhood.  For anyone who wants to get on the old googlemapper, I lived on an alley/small street (which they call a ‘soi’ in Thailand) off of         the main road between Bang Pho and Bang Sue (please insert slightly dirty joke here).   As I got off the subway, I was nervous that I would not remember my way, but it came back to me like muscle memory.  Once I began walking down my old main road, though, I felt quite confused.  “Was this always this way?  I thought there used to be some old school wood structures over here…”  I was hardcore second guessing myself.  Then, I realized that there was MASSIVE construction everywhere around me for a new line of the skytrain – the future purple line.  At least I had a concrete reason for being disoriented in this situation – my neighborhood was in the midst of a cosmetic makeover.  As I walked around, marveling at the changes and seeing traces of storefronts, carts, and karaoke bars I recognized, I kept thinking about how the whole scene seemed like a reflection of what was going on in my brain.  It was as though a big skytrain had been constructed in my mind amongst my Bangkok memories.  It felt like all of the knowledge and memories were in there somewhere, but many of them had been deemed obsolete and the rest were blocked by the new construction-y stuff.  Interestingly, the one thing that I remembered with greatest clarity was my little soi, and there was no mental or physical skytrain there (though, in both the literal and metaphorical sense, it appears that there will train tracks up in a matter of months).     

As I carried on with my walk to visit to my former workplace – Yothinburana School – the mental skytrain effect continued, and it became apparent that other people have their own brain train issues to deal with as well.  I passed through the gate, trying to explain to the security guard why this random white girl was walking into the school grounds.  He, obviously, had zero memory of me.  Then, I entered the English Program office, finding familiar faces whose names escaped me and familiar faces whose names I knew very well but who had no idea who the hell I was.   Other than two specific former colleagues, I didn’t actually expect anyone else to remember me.  Therefore, I thought it best to ask to simply ask to see these connections rather boldly announce my return, asserting some self-importance about my visit.  This, of course, turned out to be awkward, particularly when I was shuffled over to the director of the program.  She clearly had no idea who I was but also clearly took offense to the fact that I did not ask first to see her.  I managed to smooth things over by throwing up a few wais.  And, it seemed that all of the familiar faces did sort of recall me after I mentioned my formerly dreadlocked hair. 

Without indulging in too much Anna Skinner drama-queen-ness, I must say that this lack of connection with a formerly significant space and its people put me in a bit of an existential quandary.  My most typical line of existential questioning went as follows:  “Did I not leave even the faintest footprint on this city?  Have I ever left a footprint in any city?  Have I ever left a footprint on anything, anywhere, ever?  Does anyone ever leave a footprint?  What is the point of a footprint?  Does a footprint even exist?  What is the point of anything, anywhere, ever, anyways?”

Since my initial existential self-interrogation, I have regained a bit of perspective.  I only actually lived in Bangkok for four and a half months.  With my TEFL course and my travels, we are looking at a maximum of seven months in Thailand.  That is a remarkably short span of time.  Perhaps more significant than the length of time I spent there is the fact that Bangkok was never my place.  I made some lovely friends, and I had a rowdy, fun time there.  I appreciate the city for all of its madness and amazing food and cheap massages, but I never had a soul connection to the place.  So, um, duh -- of course there will be no bloody Anna Skinner footprint!  Cement footprints (like the ones on the driveway of my neighbors, the Bartamaluccis…I was always very jealous of their permanent prints on their property) require a serious investment of time and a stirring of the soul.  Let’s be honest -- my track record with time investment in any location in my adult life is extremely poor.  And, no offense to Bangkok, but there are other places in the world that have taken hold of my heart in a manner that it never could.   

All in all, it was more great than weird to be back in Bangkok.  I still love the city. I love it for everything it has been to me and everything it has not.  It’s OK that it did not take on my footprint.  It makes me feel a bit rejected, but I really don’t think I wanted to give it my footprint anyways.  I’ve got other footprints to cement…