Never Can Say Goodbye

Cities are a collection of spaces – profound and mundane; public and personal; holy and profane; safe and scary; familiar and unknown; inspiring and disheartening; beautiful and ugly; comfortable and edgy. Human beings are adaptable in many ways and while we certainly shape our cities, we more often live our lives in and around the shape of the spaces we find there. The shortcuts, that beautiful view, our favorite bakery, the park we take our children or dogs, that gas station with the best price – or the one that's quick to pull in and out of on the way home. So many hours and minutes of our lives – our minute choices that may affect the trajectory of our day or even lives – takes place in relation to these many spaces.

As I get older I have an increasing fascination with the texture of the spaces in our lives – the way our experiences and memories are so fused with the nuances of the places we spend our time. A few weeks ago, as we were walking across the grass in the park over to the kids' school, Sennen asked me how I knew where to walk to avoid the wet and muddy spots on the expansive grassy field. I realized that it was because I knew that lawn from when I was a child and crossed it more times than I can count. I know that particular dirt and the type of grass, and the little signs that can lead to a muddy or wet foot – even though they may not be particularly obvious. On another field and another hill, I might be useless. I know that lawn intimately – as I do my house, my office, the house I grew up in, my grandparents house, the smell of the classrooms at my (and now my kids') school, La Croisette in Cannes, Patmos, central Singapore and in pieces and bursts – Bangkok.

Looking down on Bangkok from the roof of the Marriott 49 stories above Thanon Sukhumvit (one of the longest and busiest streets in Bangkok), I realized that the collection of spaces I saw was notably incoherent. Bangkok has more tall buildings than 20 years ago when I came to know some of its spaces and textures. And those buildings don't group around a downtown or any other particular area. They stand up hodge-podge, helter-skelter forming more of a random collection than a skyline like New York's. Like Los Angeles, the city sprawls out beyond the horizon. I no longer know where Bangkok ends and there are Skytrain stops I've never heard of, but can ascertain they are VERY FAR from the central Bangkok I know. From what I've seen as we have entered the city, these areas are new suburbs where an increasing number of middle class families can have a single-family home that resembles something American.

But the spaces between the skyscrapers, tall condo blocks and hotels are dissonant. Old houses, sheds, parks, malls, alleys, shophouses, temples, construction sites, stagnant pools of water, everlasting piles of junk, schools, massive intersections, dilapidated buildings, business in makeshift structures with corrugated metal roofs – all strewn about a city that looks increasingly modern from the tenth floor up. 

Cities like Paris, London, Singapore, New York, Hong Kong, Tel Aviv, Athens, San Francisco, Seattle have an aesthetic, a vibe. There's something that makes them what they are and the people within them who they are. You can feel New York and the New Yorkers within it. And if Paris isn't the ultimate in a city with an aesthetic and message, I don't know what is.

But Bangkok – what to make of Bangkok? A city of almost 16 million that feels like a hard-to-navigate random collection of spaces. A city whose residents don't identify as Bangkokians or Bangkokers or even Bangkies – the way New Yorkers, Parisians, Shanghainese, Hong Kongers (or Honkies as they are called by Singaporeans) and Angelinos identify with their cities. Bangkok seems to be the necessary big city of a developing country – the place with the most jobs and where the highest of the high and the lowest of the low find places to exist. Yet, despite its incoherence, whether by design or not, Bangkok is a world city – standing clearly on the global stage both politically and economically. It is a force and for anyone who knows it, Bangkok is a world unto itself that one person could never completely know in a lifetime.

Although our family has frequented Bangkok far more than I would have expected by this age, we do not have a lifetime to explore it. We had today as our last day of the Bangkok stretch of the trip. And honestly, if one night in Bangkok makes a hard man crumble, eight nights makes a squishy family of five pretty damn tired. Our group has never woken up as tired and disinterested in doing anything as it did today. But we also decided we weren't going to let our last day pass us by. So after a slow morning, we went to see the Golden Buddha at Wat Tramit, near Chinatown. 

The Golden Buddha gets its name because unlike most of the gold gilded Buddhas of Thailand, the one at Wat Tramit is made of 5.5 tons of pure gold and dates back more than 700 years. He sits high within a very tall marble temple with a golden roof, adjacent to a school of novice monks. As you might imagine, a 5.5 ton gold statue was very vibrant. Unlike the Emerald Buddha whose incredibly ornamented temple left a sense of extreme awe and holiness, the Golden Buddha seemed not to need its trappings and just shined.

On the way out from our visit with the Buddha, Sennen and Ailyn spotted a Thai elementary school nearby. Given its densely populated neighborhood, the school was in a long, five story building (typical of Thai schools). "Look at that Sennen! It's beautiful! It makes our school look like NOTHING!" "You're right, Ailyn, it makes our school look like nothing."

For all the time I've spent in Bangkok, one place I've visited only briefly and which Emily has never visited at all is Chinatown. We decided to change that by taking walk through Chinatown and finding some dim sum for lunch. Despite the colors and vibrance of the signs, the temples and some of the buildings, I can't say that Bangkok's Chinatown was actually more charming or enjoyable than most of the other Chinatowns I have known. And the dim sum was distinctly less impressive. Their char siew bao were the size and shape of golf balls. Need I say more?

To make it up to the kids, we took tuk-tuks from Chinatown to our last stop – the Pak Khlong Flower and Fruit Market which runs 24 hours a day, stocking and selling two of the city's most important forms of perishables. Bailey was interested to visit one more market on our last day in Bangkok and we heard this one was interesting. I would say that to a hardened Thai market-goer, it was not that interesting a market, unless you really love flowers. But for Bailey, it seemed to provide something she was looking for – another glimpse into a world she is trying to understand. The concept that massive markets are how people shop, produce their livelihood and distribute goods is still fascinating. While I'm scanning for any signs of coconut sticky rice stands, she's absorbed in the wonder of a culture and lifestyle she never knew existed. So whether its flowers and fruit, or fish and meat or clothes and cobras (the Chatuchak market we went to on Saturday sells live animals including snakes) – the experience of the market interests Bailey.

However, Sennen and Ailyn had absorbed all the market they were going to today and after a full walk-through, they were done. We taxied home to relax and pack. I also got in a massage at the place downstairs. 

In my new job, one of the companies I help manage has overseas employees including many in Thailand. I invited the Thai employees to meet me while I was here – and the available group chose tonight at 7pm. So while Emily took the kids for gourmet milkshakes and fried rice to round out their Bangkok experience, I found myself at the bar on the top of the Marriott staring out at the city I'm always happy to arrive in and just as happy to leave. 

The interesting part about the places with which we are intimate is that we have them – sometimes for years or decades – until suddenly we don't. One day you move out of your house, leave your job and office, graduate your school, remodel, move to a new city – and the spaces that were the fabric of your daily life suddenly aren't. Like a flame going out – they're there one moment and gone the next – sometimes forever. I have thought my Bangkok flame was blown out more than once. However, it seems to be one of those trick candles that comes back to life over and over. Sometimes I really love it. Sometimes I grow tired of it. Bangkok is not an easy relationship. It's rough around the edges. It's hard to get around. Eventually the yucky smells become more annoying than the beautiful smells are pleasurable. The noise becomes grating. The chaos can also wear you out. There isn't a sense the city is going somewhere in particular – it changes somewhat aimlessly. Yet in some ways, it's absolutely glorious and can bring my soul to life. As I heard one of Ailyn's classmates say to his best friend with whom he was having an argument, "I'm still your best friend, but sometimes it's really hard to be your friend!" Same same, Bangkok.