Thai Cowboys, the Appeal of Country Music, and the Chatuchak Weekend Market in Bangkok

The Chatuchak (pronounced jaht-uh-jahk) weekend market (more familiarly known as JJ reflecting the pronunciation) is popular with tourists and locals. It is outdoor and sprawling, but more organized than what you might imagine when you think of a Southeast Asian market. There are stalls, some covered, and aisles and signs and sections. There’s a lot of shit to see and everything to buy.

Not being a big shopper myself (why yes sir, that carved teak chair is beautiful, but I just don’t think it would fit in my backpack…) I was mainly at JJ for the food and the sightseeing.

I found myself uninspired until I wandered into the second-hand section where I was met with seas of Converse shoes in every color, pattern, and material. All for around $3-10 US per pair.

There seemed enough to outfit all the youth of the world. If the youth are still wearing Converse. Are they? I’m out of touch in this regard.

Maybe they’re no longer cool and that’s why they’ve all ended up here.

No matter. If Converse isn’t your thing, there were also stacks of Vans, Pumas and, for the socially responsible shopper, there were even a few piles of TOMS, which I didn’t think lasted long enough to get to the second hand stage.

But my shoes haven’t fallen apart yet, so I wandered even deeper into the second-hand section. And that’s where I found it: a little slice of Wyoming here in Bangkok.

Now, cowboy culture is pretty popular worldwide and American country music has a way of popping up in the strangest of places (I remember a tuk tuk driver in Phnom Penh who blasted old-timey country from his vehicle’s tinny speakers and talked to his barang customers with his best twangy John Wayne accent.), but I’ve never been in a country so widely drawn to Western Americana as Thailand.

Cowboy boots, cowboy hats, faded Levi’s jeans, and silver belt buckles are common sights here, even in the city of Bangkok, but especially in more rural areas.

I recently listened to a great episode of the Radiolab podcast which examined the phenomenal popularity of American country music around the world, in countries as disparate as Zimbabwe (where Don Williams filled a 40,000 seat football stadium twice), Western Australia, and South Africa. You can listen to the segment here (starting at minute 13:22). It’s a fascinating piece which will probably act as a gateway to more Radiolab episodes, as it should.

The basic idea as to why American country music is so popular worldwide is not the melody but the stories and not even the specifics of the stories (it’s a pretty narrow demographic who can relate to sitting on a rocking chair on a front porch in the Smoky Mountains) but this general feeling of migration, of moving from the friendly countryside into the cold, hectic city. Country music celebrates home as it eulogizes it. It longs for something simpler, something left behind.

So maybe that’s a part of why Western American styles are adopted here. Or maybe it’s shallower than that. Maybe it’s all the Marlboro man’s fault. Cowboys equal freedom, independence, a gruff Steve McQueen-esque cool.

Whatever it is, I see almost as many faded, terrifically unstylish Levi’s here as I did growing up in Iowa.

No Elephants and Other Oddities

I want to share a few odds and ends, things which, despite my unruffleable feathers, still strike me as unique.

This is the sign at the local village market. No elephants allowed!

I… have no words. The graphic and text are pretty equally disturbing.

Why all the durian hate? Surely durian is not as offensive as smoking! This little sign was in a taxi, along with a graphic depiction of a couple having sex. So: no sex, no alcohol, no smoking, and no durians.

Tallying the Numbers

“How many countries have you been to?”

I can’t tell you how many times I get asked this question. No really. I literally can’t tell you because I’m not in the habit of keeping track of things like that. Which means I don’t have an answer when posed the number of countries question. Oh sure, if I sat down and took a few minutes to recollect I could tabulate something. But what would that number mean?

At the risk of appearing to peddle in broad stereotypes, I want to add that it is usually only men who are fascinated by the “score”. They hear that I’ve been traveling for a few years now, tell me they’ve been to thirty-seven countries—but it’s actually more because that’s counting Yugoslavia back when it was only one country—then ask to hear my country count. And again I wonder, what does that number really mean?

I lived in Turkey for over six months, learning Turkish, meeting families, speaking with hundreds of people, being invited into countless homes, and making lifelong friends. These experiences certainly speak more to who I am and what I’ve seen than any number could do. It seems too reductive to wear Turkey as just another notch on my traveler’s belt.

“How Happy I am to be a Turk!” and a lovely woman in Adana making ıspanklı gözleme (spinach crepes similar to these).

I spent a day in Ukraine on a botched layover. Am I supposed to include Ukraine in my list? Sure, I experienced Ukrainian customer service (dour), witnessed cultural activities (beer, lots of beer), and sampled the local cuisine (peanut halvah and great wheat bread), but have I really experienced enough of Ukraine to add it to my list?

The extent of my Ukrainian sightseeing

This is the crux of my problem with tallying countries. What exactly does it represent when you add a country to your list? Does it simply mean you’ve been there or does it stand for something more? Does it mean that you’ve spent quality time there, learning as much language as you could, meeting as many people as you could? Can I ask you for advice on every single country on your list? Will you have anything meaningful to say? And once you’ve added a country to your total does that discourage you from going back—since to do so would not bump up your numbers?

Though it would only take a few minutes of reflection, I won’t be tallying up my travels into one neat little number, so please don’t ask me. Try asking an illuminating question instead. Try asking what I’ve seen, whom I’ve met, what I’ve learned, and what I’ve loved.

*Not to be crass, but I also had planned to write a whole analogy between tallying countries and tallying sex partners. In both cases, the only telling numbers are those on either extreme—very low or very high. Everything in between is a muddle which numbers cannot help illuminate.

Inspiration, and a reintroduction.

I hate introductions almost as much as I hate goodbyes. For a traveler, the latter is filled with uncertainty (will I see this person again?) and the former is filled with tedium ("So where are you going next?"). So let's just skip the introductions and get right into the thick of things, shall we?

I once met a fellow traveler at a party and we played this game: we both had veto power over every question asked of us; we could pass on any question deemed too boring, too cliche, too repetitive. As I recall, we ended up discussing flip flops. But what a relief to not be asked, "Where are you from? What are your plans?"!

Thanks to Daniel and Tracy for inspiring me to pick this old blog up again, for giving me the confidence to introduce myself not just as a hobo, but as a hobo who writes. For as Daniel said to me the first night we met while volunteering on an organic farm in southern Turkey, a mechanic who stops working for a few months is still a mechanic; he would still fix his car should it break down. Just so, a writer who lays downs the figurative pen is still a writer. She stills sees the world, with its silliness and idiosyncrasies, through a writer's eyes.

This blog is for anyone who wishes he could look through my eyes, for anyone who is curious what the life of a vagabond is like. But mainly it's for me. A place for me to share thoughts, observations, recipes, experiences, philosophies, people, memories.