The Dragonflies' Lair~Thread XXXII~

The Muse and Poets of The Lair | December 1, 2006 | Soaring Feather

[Soaring Feather]

My Dragon Fly and Me

If I could be a Dragon Fly
and wing my way through the sky
I would never be shy
just me and my Dragon Fly!

By moonlight we ride the wind
chase the comets tail for fun
by day we would hide from the sun
our fragile wings would come undone

On darkest nights we would use
fireflies as our guide
we would dip and we would glide
through the heavens open wide
and scatter diamonds in the night sky
my Dragon Fly and me...

And we would wing past our lovers
silent in the night...
to kiss their face in our flight
much to their surprise and delight
my Dragon Fly and me in sight...

Such a view do we share
away up here in the air
of breezes soft through our hair
my Dragon Fly and me a pair...

bentfeather©
2002

[tomkow6]

Good morning,

  

Ms Feather!

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning, Tom!

[Soaring Feather]

I must rush off for an appointment, BBL.

[Soaring Feather]

I am only one, but still I am one; I cannot do
everything; but still I can do something; and
because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse
to do the something that I can do.
--Edward Everett Hale

[Soaring Feather]

Penguin Swf...click
Just watch and wait, it runs itself.

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone.

[tomkow6]

Good morning,

  

Ms Feather!

[Soaring Feather]

Mannheim Steamroller~Little Drummer Boy

Three Irish Tenors~White Christmas

Three Irish Tenors~FelizNavidad



A Celtic Christmas~Highland Pipe Medley



Christmas Time Is Here~Rosemary Clooney


A Celtic Christmas~A Tree of Life





A Celtic Christmas~KanompNoue

[Soaring Feather]

Click......

[starbase]

Hi everyone!

Here I am in freaky Thailand. How about that government caused stock market crash to the tune of $24 billion dollars?! Something weird is always going on here. That visa screw job has utterly changed the tourist scene. Gone are all the old timers and their young Thai wives. I didn't know any of them, but you saw them everywhere and they walked around speaking Thai. Now tourist numbers have crashed, and the only tourists are new and totally ignorant of Thai language and culture. The Thais in town really look shocked, they're used to this certain level of familiarity with Thai culture, but they just chased all those types of foreigners away, the only one's here now feel nothing towards the Thais, they are just walking around on their vacation. You can feel the difference. Now this town is so silent in the evenings and nights. Before there were tuk tuks always buzzing around all night, but now it's just silent. On the other hand Thailand has 63 million people and only a few places were ever full of tourists, so almost everyone remains unaffected.

In fact, I detect a taste of back when I was in software during the '90s boom, if you mentioned being in software some very clear envy emerged, since everyone knew we were getting paid a lot. Now here in Thailand, it looks a bit like the vast majority of Thais are rather pleased that just certain areas are no longer getting all that easy tourist money. Seems that way to me, anyway.

I've applied for my Indian visa, I applied on the 21st, but they won't have it till Jan 3rd! Everyone says Indians are really slow in everything and keep very short hours, even my Indian friends have warned me of that!

So after hitting the wine bottle a bit the first couple days, now I'm in a very studious routine (with no wine!). Get up early, do breathing exercises, walk around town, go back to my room by 12, read until the sun goes down, go out for dinner, then hit the sack early. Rather nice, plus with the silent town it sure seems like I'm in some town I've never lived in before, oh well, seasons change.

[Soaring Feather]

Hello starbase, good to hear from you!


I've applied for my Indian visa, I applied on the 21st, but they won't have it till Jan 3rd! Everyone says Indians are really slow in everything and keep very short hours, even my Indian friends have warned me of that!


Well, we will have some new adventures to look forward to.
Take care and check in when you can. ;)

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone.

[starbase]

...and check in when you can. ;)

Actually I've been Freepin a lot lately. I really wanted to go to India sooner. This town has become rather boring. I'm eager to get started on my up-to-date certifications so I can get back in the corporate grind.

I can't believe I spent that much time and energy getting set up in Taiwan, then just walked away from it all to go to another (previous) field. But those people are just so into lying and stealing, pretending they're doing "big deals" when they're just cowardly rip off artists, well I realized I couldn't make money that way in any event.

Too bad. But now I must hang out till January! It's boring!!! At least a lot of the foreigner pubs have Christmas and New Year's parties, so that should be fun!

[tomkow6]

Good morning,

  

Ms Feather!

[Lady Jag]

[Soaring Feather]

Ah, nice!

[Lady Jag]

I wanted to post a polar bear because you posted one.

I've been thinking we need more Christmas polar bears.

[starbase]

Well it's almost Christmas. Christmas and New Years have become so big in Asia that the festivities are celebrated almost everywhere. Funny that while PC extremists have tried to exterminate our holiday traditions at home, Asians are really picking them up!

But I think the high mark of that censuring PC crap has been passed and it's all down hill from here. While the media finds the odd example of our traditions being taken down, that kind of nonsense has no support in the real population, ergo it can't continue ad naseum.

You know, I've noticed a fascinating cultural reaction by the Thais to the foreigner's disappearing here. I don't know if it's called "projection" or "role reversal" or what not, but previously no Thais ever dyed their hair blond, I mean never, including up to just a couple months ago.

But now, several times I looked at some blond hair and thought I'd see a foreigner, but was very surprised to see it was a Thai woman. I mean, I never saw this before in all my time here, now suddenly several women all around town have dyed their hair like foreigners.

Interestingly, I think it has to do with several things. One is they have always cheated and lied to us, it's well known there have always been two prices, one for Thais, a higher one for everyone else. Plus two years ago, when the now deposed prime minister swept to power with a huge majority, the, well, racism, or at least discrimination, was at a crescendo. They had a law that foreigners could not do any work that any Thai could do, so one British guy I knew needed to paint his little restaurant, but the Thais insisted he pay THREE times the going rate because he wasn't Thai!! If he didn't, then no one would accept the work, and he wasn't allowed to do it himself.

So he told me he closed up shop one day and painted the interior himself. Anyway, that kind of thing was common and occured in all aspects of living and working here. There were some things that were upsetting the Thai population like the huge impact of the English language spreading across Thailand (which the Thais complained about and felt threatened by), plus "Western Partying" and constant drinking was spreading all over (a big Buddhist organization protested hard (and succeeded) to prevent the national liquor monopoly from floating a publicly traded stock)).

So Thais had some grievances, but don't feel sorry for them, like that labor discrimination, and constantly cheating us, they're real clever at taking advantage of others.

Anyway, that sudden announcement that a 20 year visa policy was changing in just a couple weeks was such a middle finger in the face to all of us who helped make Thailand popular, and the Thai's really seemed to believe they were on the cusp of a new era where the new airport they just built would, basically, manufacture tourists, who would stay the shortest times and spend huge money, that they had this attitude of "Effe off and get out!"

And now that it has absolutely crashed, and the Thais have lost huge status in the world community of travelers from many countries, it looks like this sudden desire to "look like a foreigner" with this sudden dying of hair, which I repeat, I've never before seen Thais do that, it looks like an admission of guilt and a feeling of regret at being so wrong about things, perhaps even an attempt to hide what happend by placing "foreigner dummies" around town!

It's an interesting psychological development, at any rate, because you'd think if you just succeeded in kicking people out you would want to forget them, not start looking like them. Interesting.

[Soaring Feather]

It's an interesting psychological development, at any rate, because you'd think if you just succeeded in kicking people out you would want to forget them, not start looking like them. Interesting.

Good summary, I think you're correct. Well, maybe they have gotten what they desired-money and to be left alone??

[starbase]

Well, maybe they have gotten what they desired-money and to be left alone??

Well the money's dried up now, at least for those in the tourist industry, but most Thais are not in the tourist industry anyway.

There's a definite feeling of sorrow among the touristy places, because they want business, and October, November, and December are the "high" season, the rest of the year is the low season, and even without the visa changes the last two or three years of low seasons, which I saw myself, were very nearly dead, so if this silent "high" season is like this, the low season should be absolutely deserted! Hence the dread and sadness, plus they now truly understand, and I think for the first time ever, that they are truly not the cat's meow they always thought they were. Don't underestimate the arrogance of simple people!!

Other than the touristy areas, there does seem to be a feeling of peace and calm among those Thais not in the industry, so perhaps you're right, the majority of people are probably happy to see the whole noisy, flashy, drunken spectacle move off to some other country, and they can start feeling like they have been used to feeling for, oh, the last nine centuries or so!