SENSES
Experience the visceral impact of Thailand’s enigmatic capital the first section, Senses.
Through 20 sensory chapters, go beyond the taste of its famous food to the sound of the city, the scent of the night, or the trance of a tattoo shaman.
Eight chapters were featured on the homepage. Here are 12 more sensory ways to perceive the City of Angels.
SACRED
Welcome to Buddhaland” proclaim billboards at Suvarnabhumi Airport. How faith is actually practised can be seen in the taxi ride to town. A Buddha image sits on the dashboard, often accompanied by figures of a great King, a Hindu god or a Chinese deity. Amulets rest over the speed dial, while multicoloured scarves bind the steering column. Drivers have magical tattoos; patriotic flag stickers frame the windows. The expressway to town passes several mosques and a couple of churches. Arrival in Bangkok reveals a city of various beliefs, that venerates the nation and a semi-divine King.
pictured: a Sino-Thai boy enacts the Buddha in a procession through Talad Noi during the Hokkien Chinese Vegetarian Festival.
LOOKING
In Bangkok, there’s a lot to distract the eye. Trades, chores and pleasures take place in full public view. Exquisite in parts, sloppy en masse, the Thai capital challenges our notions of how a city should look.
pictured: traditional bamboo sculpted into modern forms on the forecourt of the hi-tech EmQuartier mall.
TOUCH
This is a highly tactile city – but calibrated by taboos about touching and hierarchical seating. Younger and lower-status Bangkokians will still happily sit on the floor. This is a rare metropolis where much is still handmade. Sticky-rice baskets and garlands of folded petals humanise the city by conveying a depth of manual care. Yet Bangkok is touchy about touching. Bangkokians shrink from incidental contact, unless it’s a trusted commitment – as among family, friends or lovers – or a professional job. Masseurs, like hairdressers, will wai you for permission to contact your sacred body.
pictured: Migrants from Isaan handcraft palm-leaf toys in an abandoned shopfront at Phrakhanong.
LIBIDO
Observers can’t help but contrast Bangkok’s prudish airs with its bawdy reputation and what Ross King calls its “libidinal landscape” of brothels, bars and steameries. Gay-friendliness, and the prominence of convincing transsexuals dubbed ‘ladyboys’ add spice to the cliché of ‘Sin City.’ Yet it could as easily be dubbed ‘Prim City.’
pictured: a part-peeled banana stands among the spirit offerings placed at the frontage of a go-go bar in Patpong.
NIGHT
“My name is Bangkok and I’m a reformed partyholic. Once infamous for nightlife addiction with ribald girlie bars, I was a city that never slept, but now I’m going to bed a bit earlier.” A big night out is now less about saucy cabarets and after-hours dives, and more likely to involve artisanal cocktails at a designer lounge or a one-nighter theme-party at shifting venues like Trasher, under direction of their charismatic impresarios.
pictured: dancers lift a trans singer in the Calypso Cabaret show.
HEAT & DAMP
Bangkok teaches a lesson in humidity. Built in a swampy tropical delta, ringed by evaporating paddy and shrimp ponds, the city lies flat at sea level, in the torpid cleft between Indochina and its peninsula arm. Sheltered from bracing oceans, Bangkok is where air comes to wallow and put on weight. Thanks to technology, this is also a city of bracing indoor chill. Mall-freeze is also cultural. Convection vents cooled traditional buildings in a sustainable way, but they’re considered low status and outdated. Air-conditioning is a symbol of development, even luxury.
pictured: A tuk-tuk surfs through a flash flood on downtown Ploenchit Road.
SANUK
Bangkok is more entertaining than most cities, bursting with jollity and startling sights. Sanuk (the fun sensibility) is a Bangkokian trait: the language fizzes with articulate wordplay, comedy is clownishly slapstick, and toonish mascots lighten everyday tasks, as in this taxi. Bewildered foreigners marvel at the spectacle but may wonder what the joke is. Introverts can struggle with it as ‘compulsory fun.’ The dynamic is uniquely Thai. Sanuk is not high culture but springs from folk ways. Hard tasks on the farm were made easier if group work became fun.
pictured: mascots of cartoon characters scamper across the dash of a taxi.
BALANCE
Bangkok knocks newcomers off balance. Sois with no sidewalks force feet to splay along V-shaped gutters. Guy cables threaten to garrotte those who don’t duck. Tourists stride boldly where this City of Angels fear to tread. Meanwhile, Thais nimbly avoid all the hazards. Thai culture hails balance as a virtue, exemplified in muaythai, dance, and worship. Notice how delicately a Thai wrist tilts to receive a garland. From Buddhism, mindfulness in the moment and a spirit of non-confrontation lead people to subtly dodge rather than lunge. School kids get taught marayaat – formal etiquette that displays upbringing and inspires harmony.
pictured: a martial artists dances to honour his teachers in a wai khru rite.
TRANCE
A vast occult subculture encompasses mediums, shamans and a middle-class cult of worshipping Hindu deities. Conducted mostly beneath the mainstream radar, it surfaces at the annual Navaratri Festival in Silom. Raang song (mediums) speak in the tongues of their adoptive beings. They may summon a known deceased person, but usually call upon a generic deity or historical figure using telltale postures, props and acts of self-mortification with blades or flames. Devotees, too, can slip into trance. Involuntarily they take on the attributes of that soul, expressed through mannerisms, convulsions and interpretive dance. Many faint upon coming out of trance. Others bring them round by stroking their ears.
Pictured: a self-mortifying medium at Navaratri writes mantras for devotees.
SUFFERING
Bangkok is often cited as being remarkably safe to stroll at night, even for lone women. But there’s a disjoint between how safe you feel and how at risk some people actually are. The Thai media is full of lurid crime reports that rarely get coverage in English, although gun crime is as high as in the US. Buddhism’s unflinching focus on suffering has a flip side: compassion. A Thai ethic is to show composure in the face of suffering. Yet if ‘face’ is at stake, reactions can be vehement. What hurts the most is feelings.
pictured: Among the provocative installations Death Café – in the Kit Mai (Think Anew) Buddhist centre in Aree – you can test out a coffin.
TIME
At 8am and 6pm sharp, Bangkokians stop what they’re doing and stand. Across the city, pandemonium pauses while loudspeakered beeps count down to the playing of the National Anthem. Often accompanied by raising and lowering of the Thai flag, this ritual disciplines the day. The other landmark hour, the most popular one, is lunch, which is taken religiously at 12 noon. Buddhism’s ultimate lesson about time is to live in the moment. Farming requires only about half of the year, with the rest given over to leisure, so what punctual visitors might decry as an idle waste of precious hours, Thais call ‘empty time,’ which should best be spent being happy.
pictured: the clock at Bang Sue Grand Station, Southeast Asia’s biggest rail hub, marks only one hour, nine in Thai numerals, to honour the late King Rama IX.
SENSORS
While apps enhance some Thai social traits, the power of computing to standardise and subdue marks a fundamental wrench in Thai life. Gating by sensors could sap the city of its impromptu, easy-going character. Yet most of the digital disruption is keenly embraced. People in Thailand spend more time on the Internet than in any other nation, 9.38 hours a day, and the most online via mobile phone, 4.56 hours. Compared to the world average, Thais have many more Facebook friends. Networking technology turbocharged the city’s obsession with social connections.
pictured: a couple take a selfie in a social media booth at the Thainess Festival.