As the Bangkok temperatures rise -- we're well into the hot dry season now -- and I find myself increasingly flustered each time I leave the house and my Oxford shirts instantly cling to the film of sweat forming on my skin, I've discovered a brilliant antidote to heat-induced grumpiness.
I listen to tropical-theme music on my way out the door. I've got a lot of options: calypso is great, or merengue, or soukous, or really anything with lyrics about jungles or heat in general. (The Fern Gully soundtrack has been holding me in particularly good stead this week.)
When I take a step back and think in terms of tropical dance parties instead of business attire, the truth is that I find heat and sun and even a bit of humidity very romantic, and I'd take it over clammy cold any day. (Sorry, Chengdu.) It is yet another instance of this delightful quality of Bangkok: there's almost no complaint I can work up about the place that isn't easily dispelled through a shift of perspective. Seriously: how much would I have given for even a day of this sort of climate during the New Haven winter?
A lot, I reckon. And it means we get to grow orchids on our balcony and, if my heart desired it, even consummate my now 5-year-old longing to keep pet flower mantises, which are native to Thailand and therefore (unlike in the US) perfectly legal to buy and keep. If only they didn't need to be fed live bugs...
Monday, March 9, 2009
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1 comments:
yipee! i now am listening to the fern gully soundtrack. i remember really liking the scene with the giant walkman and the song i now know to be "land of a thousand dances."
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