Originally published via Armageddon Prose Substack:
I came across this video of a girl doing freaky stuff with her neck while her mother watches on sternly in typical Asian fashion — just like they do at their kids’ piano recitals.
Anyway, it stirred in me a sort of nostalgia for all of the unorthodox, alien activities I have seen Asians engaged in throughout the years, like a barefoot Bangkok municipal employee in a tree sawing off a branch overhanging a bustling street with a chainsaw while cars pass by underneath – all while a gaggle of confused white people (farang, as they are termed in Thai) look on in horror at the latent catastrophe waiting to happen.
“Bogati,” my Thai girlfriend at the time explained to me. “Normal.”
I also fondly recalled this Vietnamese flower lady who somehow managed to fit an entire garden on her motorbike, which would surely violate some obscure traffic law in the regulation-obsessed West.
I could go on and on, and, in fact, I do in my forthcoming memoir, Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile. Stay tuned for updates.
Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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