Saturday, January 29, 2022
6:04 a.m. Room 1102, Phannu House
Mae Sot, Thailand
I’ve reached that point when the flurry of activity surrounding my return to Mae Sot has ended, and I’m settling down. My only task from yesterday was to walk a few blocks to fill up my water bag at a purified water machine. And on the way back, I stopped at a local noodle shop for lunch. It was such a good lunch. I often wonder how these places can make any money at all. The bowl of noodles was large and also packed with lots of ingredients. The people there also have to pay for the property and the tables and chairs and the complimentary ice and water. And they charged only 40 baht, which is currently $1.20 US. What could be the profit margin on this bowl of noodles? Considering the number of different ingredients involved and how much meat and veggies was in the bowl along with the noodles, I can’t imagine how 40 baht would even cover the cost of the basic ingredients let alone provide room for a profit. It seems even more astonishing when I have the example of Casa Mia across the street charging 35 baht for two pieces of toast. Now THAT’s a profit margin. But I guess the difference is one of volume. The Casa Mia would likely sell very few pieces of toast in one day at that price. But the noodle shop sells quite a large number of bowls of noodles. And if they make ten baht per bowl in profit, and they sell one or two hundred a day, they can put together some kind of income at least. And these families usually have multiple streams of income, usually one or two from every family member, as they all have a variety of jobs and make money in different ways. Plus, the kitchen they use for the restaurant would do double duty as their family kitchen, since the restaurant is their home. That’s the big difference I always notice between Canada and places like Thailand. Businesses often make economic sense here in Southeast Asia because the business is intertwined with family life. Most Canadians have a washing machine and dryer in their house and a garden hose on the outside. And they use those things only for their own family. But in Thailand, a family that has a washing machine could make it available to neighbors at a price. And the garden hose becomes a scooter-washing business. People here just take the things that they own and already have in the house and turn them all into income-generating operations. What’s the point of having a washing machine if it is just going to sit there doing nothing most of the time? They think they might as well put it to work making money. But you couldn’t do that in Canada, and you wouldn’t need to anyway.
I don’t think I have any other stories of note from yesterday. I spent much of the day getting caught up on YouTube videos about my trip to the north. And in the times when my devices were busy churning away exporting or copying video, I watched some Battlebots (which I dearly love) and an episode or two of a new show called Yellowjackets. Yellowjackets is not something I’m terribly excited about. I do like the characters. And the plot is intriguing. They have done a very good job in terms of slowly revealing the events of the story by switching back and forth between the present and the past. And every episode ends with me really wanting to know what is going to happen next and to get answers about what happened in the past. And I find they don’t do that with cheap cliffhangers, which I appreciate. When they introduce a very exciting plot element in one episode, they resolve that situation in that episode. They don’t use that cheap technique of not showing you what happens and making you wait until the next episode. They wrap everything up inside each episode. Yet, there are larger stories going on in the background, and you still want to keep watching to find out more about those larger stories and get answers to the mysteries.
And the story is something that was designed to appeal to me. I’m always interested in survival stories and stories about how people behave when the trappings of civilization are stripped away. I’m sure every reviewer of Yellowjackets out there makes a reference to Lord of the Flies at some point, because that is essentially what is going on. The story is a combination of Lord of the Flies and the real-life story Alive. Except in this case, instead of a group of young boys or a rugby team getting stranded somewhere, it’s a girls high school soccer team.
During my scooter trip to the north, I was watching a series called Station Eleven. THAT show, I can wholeheartedly recommend. It gets Doug’s Seal of Approval. I’d even go public and give it Planet Doug’s Seal of Approval. It’s similar to many shows that I enjoy in that it takes place in a post-apocalyptic landscape. Civilization (and nearly the entire human race) has once again been wiped out. And the remaining people are trying to survive. And there is the usual savagery and violence. Yet, that plot feels more like just a structure on which to hang the story they really wanted to tell, and that story is one of character and relationships and meaning. The show has a slow burn, which I enjoy. And I don’t know how necessary it is to the plot or to the overall quality of the show, but Shakespeare plays a large part. And I really enjoyed that. I’m far from a Shakespearean scholar. To be honest, I prefer stories that are told in plain English. I’m not into language that you have to study under a microscope to understand. I prefer prose over poetry. I like people to just say what they mean in plain language. But I recognize the beauty and the power in Shakespeare’s writing. And the main characters in Station Eleven have formed a traveling troupe that performs Shakespeare’s plays in the communities that are struggling to survive in this world. On top of that, the story is driven forward by the text of a graphic novel. And the combination of the language and imagery of the graphic novel with that of Shakespeare in this unusual setting with such strong characters and relationships is compelling. I have the whole show on my tablet still, and my plan is to let it sit for a bit longer, until it will feel fresh, and then I will watch it again. A show like Yellowjackets, by comparison, feels like something you would only watch once. Its strength is the story and solving the mystery. But once you know the answers, I’m not sure that I would ever want to watch it again. But I think I could watch Station Eleven multiple times.
I also watched Squid Game, that huge hit out of South Korea. I also enjoyed it very much. That’s not to say it is a perfect show. Particularly in terms of plot and believability, I felt it had a lot of problems. But I enjoyed its Black Mirror-esque qualities. And it was such a huge pop culture phenomenon that I had to watch it. And after I watched it, I was able to go onto YouTube and watch all the reaction videos of other people watching it. There are many moments in the show of extreme violence and great shock and surprise, and it was fun to rewatch the show with other people, even if only on YouTube, and see their reactions. I’m sure no one will ever believe me, but I solved the show’s central mystery in the very first episode. The entire show leads up to a big reveal in the final episode. And this big reveal seems to come as a massive shock to everyone. But I saw it in the very first episode. It seemed quite obvious to me. I wanted to write down my prediction and then send myself that prediction in the mail so that I could have it datestamped to prove that I guessed the answer before I’d watched the show. I never did that, of course, so no one will ever believe me.
I just stepped outside for a few minutes to greet the dogs. It looks like that may not end up being a part of my morning routine. The dogs are simply too busy to really care about me. They know that they are let out of their prison for such a short time, and they have a lot to do in that time. Both dogs did stop for a minute towards the end to hang out with me, but they clearly were torn. They like the attention, but they also need to run and stretch their legs and do all their sniffing.
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