The Thais that bind
By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer
A group of girls from the Nongsuawittyakorn school where
Collins taught English in 1990. “Every day they’d come and just stare at
me,” Collins said of the fascinated girls. Photo courtesy JoEllen Collins
When JoEllen Collins left Thailand nine years ago, her Thai
"family" said there would always be room for "Mama Jo," and they lived
up to their word, hosting Collins and her friend, Judith Walker, with "great
zest" during a recent trip back, Collins says.
Collins, 62, now a Community School teacher and Idaho Mountain Express
columnist, first met her extensive Thai family of teachers during a two-year stint working
in the Peace Corps.
The common Thai phrase "Mai pen rai," Collins says, pretty much
sums up the Thai outlook on life: "It’s OK…no big deal."
Collins’ family of teachers might be poor by Western standards, but
observed through Asian eyes they are rich.
"I saw that when they picked frangipanis, birds of paradise and
orchids for us," Collins says. "Later, they demonstrated how to prepare
som-dtom, a fabulous spicy salad, made from papayas grown in their garden.
"Their 78-year-old mother didn’t join us for the actual meal,
but greeted us from the low teak table where she spends much of her time sitting
cross-legged and overseeing the lives of her 10 grown children and their many
offspring."
Collins says she was not surprised to see the many changes Thailand has
undergone since she left nearly a decade ago.
Her travels on this journey took her from the teeming streets of Bangkok
into the rural countryside of the north.
She describes tuk-tuks—three-wheeled taxis that weave through diesel
fumes—and public buses that all but clog Bangkok’s city streets; Mercedes and
Lexus car galleries that dot the new superhighways; and high-tech gas stations that appear
like mushrooms.
"I know that this emerging Pacific Rim country is afflicted with
too-rapid growth—government corruption, an exodus of the poor to demeaning lives in
the bars and brothels of Bangkok and a proliferation of gross tourists who pander to the
worst human impulses."
A helpful villager offers a lift back to Nungsua
during Collins’ recent return visit to Thailand. Photo courtesy JoEllen Collins
Even so, Collins is happy to report that the fundamental spirit of the
Thai people is unchanged.
"The pursuit of ‘sanuck’ (joy) is still alive with the
buoyant Thais, who refuse to let their love of life be daunted by negativity and
complaints," Collins says.
"Even if my Thai friends were upset, they would not show it. They
place problems in a larger context and view irritations with remarkable equanimity that
drives us Westerners mad."
Mai pen rai.
