What's wrong with this picture? (It's not a trick.)
Take a closer look . . .
I’ll tell you what's wrong. No one is talking to each other at this Toronto coffee house.
I’ll also warn you this post is longer than most of my others.
I was in a popular coffee chain store a couple of weeks back -- not the one above. There was no snow on the ground, but it was cold. Bitterly cold. It was far out of my neighbourhood, in a tonier part of town, with lots of older apartment buildings. Nicer ones. There’s a big chain supermarket nearby. A streetcar line goes by it and the intersection where the coffee shop is.I was very early for a meet-up with a friend so I walked around the neighbourhood. But it was just too cold to stay out long. And I’d just come back from Bangkok, very sensitive to the cold.
Time for an espresso and in the shop I went. Aha, two Korean girl students were up front with their computers, chatting away about some lesson, their notebooks open. There are many Korean students in Toronto and you see them in all the coffee shops. Learning English but mostly happy to escape their lives under their parents’ thumb back home. I’m told this on good authority, namely several Korean shopkeepers I know in my ’hood.
The rest of the patrons were the average white Toronto Canadians. Of 14 people in the shop, 12 were completely engrossed in their laptops. Although one guy was busy drawing scenes in his big artist’s sketch pad. Not one person was talking with another. It continued that way for the entire 20 minutes or so I was there. The shop was silent. Each person was wrapped in his or her cocoon of activity, such as it was.
Every table was occupied when finally a couple of fellows -- probably late 40s -- came in together, chatting away. But no tables. The pair looked around, they looked at each other. The artist made ready to leave and the two guys sat down, almost apologizing for disturbing the library silence of the place. But they set to chatting quietly and looking around and probably drawing the same conclusion I was.
Why should two friends feel self-conscious about meeting at a coffee shop for a chat? What are they disturbing at a public coffee house, the kind of place with a tradition for artists, writers, philosophers, couples, and people of all kinds to meet and enjoy a companion’s company?
If you are going to dress up, go for a walk and aim for a place full of the promise of discourse and not talk to anyone, why did you leave home in the first place? So there you are in a city of 3 million and no one to talk to. Is it any wonder people in the North America feel alienated from each other, with the consequent feeling of loneliness and dissatisfaction with their lives.
That’s why I find it very hard to return to this town after my vacations in Southeast Asia.
I feel the alienation. I still feel the same way but not to the degree that I used to. I can escape it. I think it’s true one has to take the blame for your situation, no matter what. I made changes that would improve my general openness and I credit my time in Southeast Asia for the Great Unblocking.
I wish I could remember the exact moment when I attained a certain clarity of understanding that would forever change me and my relationship to the world, so to speak. I might come close though because of a certain small incident. Of course, it occurred in Thailand, which I credit for my change of outlook and relationship with just any old human being.
Back to 2004 and my first trip to Thailand and Cambodia. Mind blowing. Changed my life forever, but I didn’t know this at the time. I felt it, that’s all. I went back yearly. Each time out I scratched the surface of the local culture. But I also started to dig into the surface of my own culture.
In Southeast Asia, you first enjoy the superficial things such as freedom to eat, drink and smoke anything, anytime, anywhere. Buy things cheap. Fly or ride cheap. Not worry about laws, regulations and consequences of your actions. We’re not talking extremes here. You meet new people from around the world. Meet Thai girls! You find that you are not ignored, not given the silent treatment, not brushed off. Then, to be more positive, you find yourself participating in enjoyable things more and more often. You want more of that. As you gain more experience and knowledge, you start to see the cracks in the facade but you also start to see the good things. The latter is worth more than gold.
Then on my fourth trip, in 2007, I realized that I was still arriving with my western filters and reactions intact. I realized I needed to disable them and start to see what I was looking at. So I intermittently disabled them and really started to see another world, one I really wanted to get involved in. But first you have to unwind those filters, put them in your pocket, or better yet, leave them in your hotel luggage. Then go out and allow yourself to be open to everything that before you’d react badly to. In other words, go with the flow.
At the same time, you have to watch and learn. Don’t judge, under any circumstances.
My understanding grew with repeated interactions with Thai people. I’d walk down soi 19 Sukhumvit from my hotel, which I’d stayed at several times, and people, mostly girls, in the local shops and vendors would say hello and welcome me back. Huh? How could they remember me among thousands of tourists they’d see every year? Well, they did. They would say things that were specific to me. They’d remember my hotel (you staying at the Honey?), how I liked my coffee (double espresso, black), where I’m from (Canada; not the easy response, America or England), what I smoked (7-11 clerk sees me and says, Mild Seven, Sky Blue?). That’s pretty awesome. Good for the ego but hardly what you’d call a basis for a new path to understanding your new experiences.
There’s a small travel agency on soi 19 that I visited to use their internet terminals. Both girls working there spoke pretty good English and I could ask them questions about places I wanted to visit or airfares or general cultural issues. So I got to know them and felt comfortable visiting their shop and not feel I was taking advantage of their good graces. But you see that was all in my western head. One day they were so helpful I felt I needed to give them a tip and put down a 100 baht bill to buy them lunch. They were aghast, politely. They were Thai. I was western. I conducted myself like a westerner, feeling I had to hand over money to show my appreciation. They had no such need. I persisted and didn’t realize until later I had just learned a big lesson.
I thought back later too how they were always so talkative, nice, polite, unhurried, friendly to me year after year and never ever wanted anything from me except to be nice and smile. That’s all. I was, but tainted this with the offer of money. Thais value a good heart. I didn’t know this term never mind understand this at the time, but that’s so important to them. Money has no value but having a good heart is everything.
Being nice. It takes very little effort but if you’re out of practice, and you may very well be if you
are from the west, it’s very hard to change from being a cynical SOB. I was worse than that years ago but learned that that’s very hard to keep up. And if you’re known as a cynical SOB, people don’t want to associate with you. I made changes back then. Now I’ve hopefully rounded a corner toward having a good heart.
I make it sound easy but it wasn’t. I learned much from Thai people and, frankly, from Buddhist readings. And I cannot forget the many discussions with my friends G and M who have vastly more Southeast Asia experience and appreciate the finer points of jai yen (keeping a cool heart) and sanuk (by all means, have fun).
I remember in 2007 returning home in December. I remember vowing to myself to be more open, friendlier and easy-going. I was making the change. I could feel the change. People were reacting to me differently. Both in Thailand and at home in Canada. The subject came up with a waitress friend at my local bar when I’d reacted to something in a way she never expected. I’d been back about a month at this point. I told her my vacation was very enlightening and I told her my goals. She said she’d already noticed the change. The thing I liked was the change was comfortable and true.
I’ve experienced at least one major benefit from my new approach to life. When I have presented an open, calm demeanour, I’ve discovered people pick up on that and are not to hard to engage in a conversation. In fact, sometimes they even welcome it. It affects all ages.
I like the changes and I think they're permanent. And I like me. The former country boy who went away. And came back.
