Three Small Things: the rise & fall of an empire, laughing our way to the food court, and a cultural apology

This Is WEDNESDAY! (but there's nothing to see) 
As I've mentioned in the past, Spectra and I take full advantage of Wednesday's 100 baht movies. The institution was nearly derailed by the lamentably stupid Shadow Recruit but we recovered from the setback and hadn't missed an available Wednesday. Despite the theater across the street having 14 screens we knew the day would arrive when there wouldn't be anything playing we were willing to see. I'd assumed that would happen through the process of attrition: we'd simply see everything that looked good or interesting and the replacements wouldn't arrive fast enough.



Wednesday it finally happened. Spectra and I strolled up to the box office (technically a digital display on the wall), took a look and mutually agreed there wasn't anything worth seeing. Yes, in part because we'd seen some of the movies, but the problem was the arrival of one movie. A movie that extirpated its rivals for screen space with stunning and unexpected ruthlessness. One movie occupied 8 of our 14 screens and we looked its overwhelming force in the digitized eye and meet it with a shrug.



"300 Rise of an Empire? Meh. Let's go home and watch the Syfy channel."



I guess movies come out on Thursdays here because I checked the listings the next day to make sure I had the correct screen count for 300 Rise of an Empire but its hegemony has already given way. It's already been relegated to one screen and timeshare on a second thanks to the combined onslaught of Non-Stop, Mr. Peabody, The Lego Movie, Delivery Man, Vampire Academy, and a Thai comedy-romance that might also be a horror movie where a woman has to decide whether she wants to date a jerky man or a charming demonic spirit. No points for guessing which we’ll see first and which we’ll see over our own dead bodies. 

What Are You Doing Up Here?  
Spectra and I have an official favorite dinner place now. It's a kind of outdoor food court hawker stall mini-complex across from our bus stop. A dish is about 30 baht ($1) there so it's proper street food and I’ve seen one other farang there one time so it’s heavily local. On Thursday a lady sitting next to us asked where we're from and we got to chatting with her. After a spell she asked, "What are you doing up here?" She meant, “What are we doing so far away from where I’d expect to find farang like you?”



"We live just around the corner," Spectra replied.



She was visibly taken aback. "Oh, usually people like you live further south, like in Silom."



We laughed and agreed but said we didn't like it down there, "Too many farang tourists." She laughed.



After that she was advising us about places to see in Thailand, we dutifully took notes, and then she stopped and said, "You're from America. It's so big and there's so much to see there that Thailand must be ugly for you."



Spectra and I both fell all over ourselves assuring her that wasn't the case and that there were many ugly, pointless places in America (Chicago, Florida). She took the opportunity to point out that there's all manner of dangerous weather in the US. "You have tornados, earthquakes, wildfires. BUT," and I swear she paused for dramatic effect, "you have great government."

We laughed again and, despite our laundry list of issues and quibbles, we didn't disagree.


For Those About To Wash Their Feet, I Apologize
One of the things I found confounding about the Northeast Library was how often the sink in the men’s room had paper blocking the drain and water all over the floor. It was as though people were using it to bathe. That didn’t seem right though because as far as I could tell there wasn’t a sizeable homeless population frequenting the library and this watery mess happened all the time, perhaps even every single day. It was a mystery and I left it at that. 



Then one day, for absolutely no reason, it occurred to me what was probably going on: ritual ablution. The Northeast Library may not have a notable homeless contingent but it does have a sizeable Muslim population. I don’t know what percentage go through the full ritual washing process including their feet before prayer, but it wouldn’t take many to consistently turn the bathroom into a soggy paper toweled mess.

This will be blazingly culturally insensitive and I’m apologizing for that upfront and will again later, but I found this annoying. Not in the sense that I was going to complain or harbor a grudge. I found it annoying in a fashion similar to how I feel about, oh, I don't know... our federal government. I certainly don't want to abolish it but it also seems like some reasonable reform is in order. Something simple like "clean up after yourself in public restrooms when using them for extracurricular purposes” which applies literally for ablutions and metaphorically for a host of dubious governmental actions ranging from wars to leaving no children behind.

Bangkok is the first hot, dirty, dry place I've ever lived in. More specifically, Bangkok is the first hot, dirty, dry place I've cleaned a home in and it's turned my feelings about feet washing around. Even in a pair of shoes it's astonishing how dirty your feet get here. At home I strictly enforced the "no shoes inside" rule and I'd like to add "and walk on your tiptoes to the bathtub to wash your feet before setting another foot in my home."

It's madness, I tell you, MADNESS! Perhaps time will make this seem normal, but I will never again question anyone emphatic about feet washing and I apologize for every moment of judgmental irritation I've had about it. So wash those feet, I’m right there with you, but you should still take the paper towels out of the sink when you're done because that’s rude and gross.