The Siamerican

Here in Rangsit, Pathumthani apartment, having been given the rest of the week off due to National Emergency Decree, only half way through the first week teaching of the new School term, I’m left in solitude with just my thoughts distorted with the modern comforts of multimedia, fridgerated-cold water, air conditioning and fan to screen the heat and conflict somewhere outside.

Even though the 9:00 PM to 5 AM curfew set for a total 24 provinces including the capital for at least three more days doesn’t really affect my situation of budget inability and preexisting low desire to go out at night regardless of crisis, though because of the fact that all potentially marked daytime financial and capitalist institutions including banks and shopping centers in the capital and other provinces under the decree, I’m left without the security of scraping my last remaining savings remnants, and thus opportunity to consume.

Had I only been relying on television, about the only signs to remind me of a civil war are ironically the many songs of peace and unity, with periodically CRES (Center for the Resolution of an Emergency Situation, in Thai ศฮฉ ) updates and announcements, aimed at the masses—mostly confined to their homes to government emergency decree–reinforcing and maintaining of confidence in the government’s management of the situation.

Yet going online to survey the liberally flowing fact and opinion network that is the Internet, it is apparent that much of the country’s capital’s capitalist centers have been cruelly compromised; Acts of Arson in Retaliation in the call of dissatisfied if not desperate fragments of hard core rebels of the Government’s Crackdown, which though has put an official end to the Rallies, has invoked a suppressed cold into a boiling strain apparently emancipating from its previously dormant yet turning state. According the official count, May 2010 Thailand conflict crackdown has seen some 500 injuries and 50 deaths, and certainly billions on billions lost in business incomes, property, assets and operational costs.

Perhaps bored of my very own feeling of helplessness and inaction, I woke up today and decided that rather than sit around helplessly at home reading about and looking on at others’ misfortune, my best itinerary for today would be to go donate blood. And so I went. A short half an hour bike ride detouring the outskirts of Thammasat university campus opposite of the grand Talad Thai Market, just before Nava Nakorn industrial – residential rural-urban city.

After filling out the primary screening application which asked questions like whether I had drank alcohol in the past day, had any known health complications, diseases, been at risk to disease, etc., They confirmed my blood group being O Positive, by extracting blood from my middle right finger, promptly extracting some 450 ccs from my right arm. In the end, they gave me a button, some cookies and an appointment date three months down the road, sending on my way.

Having about a 15 minute minute cycle to get home from there in broad and bright Thai mid-daylight, I would have to pace myself, stopping for lunch on the way. By the time I got home, I was much ready for a long nap. Now Three more days of laying low before hopefully things will return to semi-normal for the state and ultimately me, one entity of it.

Popularity: 1% [?]