Learning to live on the left side of the road
By scott.poniewaz | September 14, 2006
A child and her balloon leave the temple as the body of a head monk of a rural Thai village is burned. Most of the people have moved on to the Molam, an Issan music and dance party that lasts into the early hours of the morning. Ban Chiang Yun, Thailand.
Click the gallery for a glimpse into Thailand and pictures of me from the summer!
Your first day of kindergarten, your first sleepover, when your father teaches you to ride your bike, your first day of middle school (and subsequently high school), getting your drivers license, going to your first dance, your first day of college and moving away from home for your first time. These are all signs and notches on the timeline of your life that symbolize growing up.
There’s also that first time you get sick in college and your mother is no longer there to take care of you; she isn’t there to bring you soup, feel your forehead, or comfort you back to health, then of course college graduation is a big slap into the real world. Another one of those feelings of becoming a grown up has hit me again…my first real job.
When I decided to take a job after graduating from the University of Montana last fall in Asia teaching photography, I figured I’d be hearing responses from my applications to several newspapers I had applied to in the spring, then coming back to a job in some corner of the United States. Little did I know that my temporary summer job would lead me to a position that would be keeping me in Thailand year-round. Here I am now, living in rural northeastern Thailand near a place called Udon Thani, while doing a job that allows me to travel the world and take pictures. While I have said it before, what is explained in my blog has no connection to the company I work for and is only my personal site, so with that being said, I have decided to stay on board in Asia working for a company called Rustic Pathways.
With that being said… I’m also about to take on a freelance contract with Newscom, a McClatchy-Times (formerly Knight Ridder) news and photo wire service. This will give me freelance work, while I am also able to teach and travel. How much work and income that will actually result out of this contract is still unknown, but at least its not my only way to stay afloat financially for now. With that, I guess the purpose of this was to give everyone the great news that I have…two jobs, one posting and various photos from somewhere over Asia from the summer!
Now here I am to kind of give a summer in review for those that are just catching up with me and also give a few shots of me that many of you haven’t had the opportunity to catch yet.
When I graduated from the University of Montana, they gave me an empty case for my diploma and said go grab the world by the horns and become a mendacious little journalist. Somewhere along the line, I decided that I wanted to have fun and travel the world. I’m not cut out for journalism in a rural western state or the flatlands of Oklahoma. My eyes are big and the world has plenty of places that people have not had an opportunity to see or hear about and my hope is to help those people understand places they are unable to see first-hand. As I have traveled through places like Burma and Cambodia, my hopes were to expose people to some of the issues I, myself, had just begun to understand.
As the summer progressed, I learned a lot, thought a lot, taught a lot and made a lot of images. Sometimes things were harrowing, some were confusing, others exposed the beauty of this world and yet some caused alarm. As I settle into my newfound rural lifestyle among the radiant ricefields of Thailand, I am learning even more. Tonight was my first bout with driving on the “wrong” side of the road as I whizzed into town on a motorcycle by myself for the first time. Okay, so maybe not the first, I spent about 15 minutes the other day learning to drive the darn thing on a canal road, but that didn’t really count, because there was no real correct side of the road. I learned to use a clutch for the first time, which I suppose is a bit pathetic, but hey, you need to learn sometime, right?
So tonight, I headed into town for a nice Thai massage with a couple co-workers and worked all the kinks out of my body. As I’ve said before, the beauty of Thailand…$5 massages for an hour (and for all of you wondering, not all of the massage places in Thailand come with happy endings, so don’t get any crazy ideas!). In order to get to the massage, however, I would have to take control of my own destiny and drive my own bike! It really wasn’t so bad cruising at about 60 km/h (sounds like a lot, but its only like 30 mph) into town, but the tension came with my first attempt at swimming in the Thai traffic on the left side of the road. It’s different driving here obviously, but the laws are a bit distinctive. It doesn’t matter which lane you’re in, it doesn’t matter if you pass in the same lane, or in a no passing lane and nobody really uses blinkers. Its not a big deal though, it just works. Horns aren’t used and in many cases, helmets aren’t worn and people pile anywhere between three and five deep on a bike. I picked up a helmet before I learned to ride. It was a worthwhile 500 baht (US $12) investment, not to mention it is red, with a white stripe down the middle, a big star on each side, then are you ready… a nice iridium flip down lens! Yeah, it’s pretty sweet to motor around Thailand in.
After the massage it was a nice stroll through the night market, then we headed back to the village. It’s about 20 minutes by bike back, but I got off to a rocky start, I think my confidence was a little high after making it in so smoothly. I started the bike up and immediately jumped it forward as I pulled out of the parking lot. I couldn’t figure out how the blinkers were working as I tried to make a turn (no one uses blinkers, but still!), when I did make that turn, I made the error of forgetting the fact that I needed to stay on the left side of the road. DOH! Luckily it was a slower street and there was no oncoming traffic. Talk about issues if that would have been the case!
Okay, so I’ve never ridden a motorcycle before, I could continue to list things that I’ve still never done that many people have done. I haven’t ever been to New York City, only had a layover in Los Angeles, haven’t spent a spring break in Cancun (nor do I really want to, I think Phuket will do one of these days though), I didn’t see “The Goonies” until I was a freshman in college (I know, how could I have a childhood without it?), and I’ve never really seen a lot of those staple movies. When I grew up, I kept myself (and my extremely supportive parents) busy as I swam, dove, ran, kicked, skied (on snow and on water), golfed, pitched, skated, and played tennis. I lived in the water in the summer when I was younger, then lived on the soccer field as I got older. They supported me as I traveled the country playing in tournaments, then later as I headed to Montana for my education. It may not be Ivy League, but at least Skiing Magazine named it the “Harvard of the West,” which was fine by my standards! I entered with aspirations of becoming a ceramicist and walked away with a degree in photojournalism and a goal of helping people tell the stories that they are unable to share with the rest of the world. I think the compassion and respect for other people that my parents taught me throughout my life is what has guided me in this direction. I may not have picked up an appreciation for accounting from them, but I think they’re probably happier that I have taken these qualities away from them instead.
Though I may not have ever gone on a weekend trip to New York City, I can’t forget the last minute trip my family took to Louisville, Kentucky. Little did I know I would actually enjoy going to see Mammoth Cave, Churchill Downs and the Louisville Slugger bat manufacturing company. My past summer has taken me across many borders and into places that have turned my world upside down at times. Stepping into Burma is like stepping back into the 1700’s as you see ox carts going through primitive villages. Going through airport security in Jammu, India was an eye opener when I was questioned about my lens being an explosive device and realizing that bombings are a real and present danger there, not just a color-coded alert system like they are in the States. I’ve witnessed the chilling after effects of the Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge genocides in Cambodia. I’ve also seen the strength of a growing economy in Vietnam following the “American War” as they call it, then jumped off junk boats at sunset in Halong Bay. I’ve watched the sun rise over the Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat. I’ve visited the homes of Shan refugees, helped Thai villagers plant rice in the fields and yet, there are still so many things out there that I still need to do. Even deeper than that, my camera has taken me through the hallways of congress in Washington, into the world of smokejumpers and the heat of wildfire, onto the sidelines of more football and basketball games than I’ve been in the stands for and into the homes of many others. I am so fortunate that my camera and my jobs have allowed me to see amazing places and meet people from so many different backgrounds.
As life proceeds it also ends and it is just another example of driving on the other side of the road in a way. I had the opportunity to see my first body burned at the local temple last week. It was quite surreal to say the least. It all began with a couple days of celebration including a local molam band. Molam’s are typical Issan dance parties that go all night and include a little bit of karaoke, a lot of the band singing and who can forget to mention the girls doing pelvic thrusts in short neon skirts as they danced around on stage all night. After two days of molam and ceremonies and offerings in the daytime, the third night was the burning of the body. This was a head monk for our village as well as a fair number of the surrounding villages, so thousands of people came from all over. It would be like having a local bishop die in the Catholic church, but while death in Catholicism causes mourning, in Buddhism is it celebrated due to their theories on reincarnation.
This third night was the big night, everyone was there, they brought in a bigger molam band that took up half the temple grounds and about 40-yards away stood a special structure that held the body of the monk. When it was time to begin the burning, the early molam music subsided and people made their final offerings of incense, candles and flowers to the body of the monk. Once everyone said their final goodbyes, a metal box was quickly built surrounding the body and they set fire to the body. As the body began to burn, a fireworks display started directly on the temple grounds. The safety of this was a bit questionable, but fortunately there were no further burnings that needed to be planned after the display of explosives. Death is taken a bit more lightly here, it is not so apologetic and full of sorrow. Instead it is expected and people shrug their shoulders, so the crowds quickly shifted back to the molam and much like the crowd shifted, so did the wind. The crowd became smoked out by the burning body of the monk and was quickly covering their faces with shirts and towels, but the music never stopped. It was a bit surreal to say the least as I stood there, looking at the temples surrounding me, beer and cheap Thai whiskey being consumed already, smoke filling the crowd and attractive women in short neon skirts on stage doing pelvic thrusts to thai pop music. If I were anywhere else I know this would be sacrilegious!
As I transition into the so-called real world, I’m trying to develop my identity in the growing sea of freelance photojournalists, while trying to inspire another wave of photographers to follow their passion, be it for a hobby or a profession. Along the way, I get to experience exciting things, journey through places still buried on the map, meet people from fascinating walks of life and of course continue to grow up.
I’m still young, but as I meet more people in the world, the more I realize that you’re never too old to be trying something new, experiencing something different or venturing into a new culture. The simplicity of the rest of the world is beginning to be touched by western lifestyle, evident by televisions in grass huts that are accessible only by boat and electricity comes from fuel in places like Cambodia, yet there are so many people in this world with fascinating stories and the wrinkles that go where their smiles have been. I’m thankful to be able to be on this journey and am extremely fortunate to have the support I have grown up with and continue to have from my friends and family.
Topics: Travel, Photo Galleries, General, Photography News, Thailand, India, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia |
3 Responses to “Learning to live on the left side of the road”
Comments
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12:04 pm on September 15th, 2006
scott,
while i realize your parents (ok, your mom) are probably a little concerned about your decision, i can’t help but be excited for you. you’ve found something that marries your passion for photography and your passion for changing the world (or at least educating the world about itself). how many of us can say we’ve ever had anything remotely resembling our perfect job? how many of us hate our jobs? work for the weekend? even know what the 7 wonders of the world are, much less have visited 3 or 4 of them this summer alone? can’t say that i’ll be there to visit any time soon, though i think it would be simply amazing. keep those posts and pix coming so that we can live vicariously through you (and maybe learn something along the way).
-g.
5:56 am on September 18th, 2006
Scott,
Thanks so much for sharing all this with us… I am fascinated by the places your have been and the things you have seen. Congratulations on the job, I know you will do great things… continue to share them with us!! (but try to stay on the correct side of the road please).
Lots of Love,
M
10:08 am on September 21st, 2006
You may have forgiven mom and dad for the trip to Louisville (and I will admit that I enjoyed it, too), but I will never forgive them for the trip to the Mall of America.
Anyway, I’m jealous and happy for you.
Take care,
kap