A letter to home
Dear Internet,
It’s been a while since I was last in touch, but it seems that all is well with you. Bangkok is hot, humid, chaotic and overwhelming. Both my sisters don’t have connection to you at their apartment, and my parents’ house in Chiang Mai has a super old telephone line that even hi-speed feels like using a modem from 1997.
I’ve been hopping around Bangkok to find a decent spot for wireless connection. The only good places are in shopping malls (where the music is always horrible), but even that is not guaranteed to work all the time. There are signs to advertise that Bangkok is covered with wifi-Internet, and it is, but there are too many competing signals and my airport antenna will keep scanning for a decent channel, finding only the weak ones and unable to maintain connection long enough to let a page load.
Not having you is like I’m missing parts of my brain. The part that knows exactly what’s going on in the world at any given moment, what my friends are saying on Twitter, who’s befriending who on Facebook, what videos are popular on YouTube, the latest quotes from the U.S. election, reviews of Apple’s new gadgets, art projects around the world, flickr photos of my friends kids and travels, people’s blogs, etc etc etc….. Without you, I feel disconnected, away from the world, alone like living in a cup.
Yesterday I was out taking pictures at the protest. An older guy asked me if I was a news reporter. No, I told him. It’s only a hobby. I take pictures, and put them on the Internet. He was thoroughly impressed that I could actually “put” something on the Internet.
“So people from all over the world can type this in and see what you put on there?”
“yea… “ (duh, it’s the Internet? hullo?)
“Really? From ALL OVER the world?”
“Yes, that’s the point. That’s how it works.”
“That’s great!! Here, take a picture of me..”
My my, what a generation gap. I do take you for granted some times.
On one hand Bangkok seems like it’s on the brink of political meltdown, but from a day to day basis, everything goes on as usual. Even when the protesters come out on the streets, the traffic doesn’t stop. The protest here isn’t very creative as they are in New York though, for some reason people feel so compelled to wear the same color to show unity. Nobody makes their own signs or costumes or puppets. If you go near the yellow people don’t wear red. If you go near the red people, don’t wear yellow. Perhaps it’s a convenient way of identifying each other, but they have no idea how communist they all look.
Anyway, gotta go. I miss you dearly.
ann