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Through My Hotel Room Window

Today is my last day here in Bangkok. Looking through my hotel window as I prepare for my coaching session this afternoon, I find myself in a sorrowful yet grateful pensive mood. I immediately pause to explore it.

You see, my experiences in Thailand have been beautiful if not awe-inspiring. The warmth and humility of the Thai people has been tangible.

I’m still figuring out whether it’s in the way they clasp their hands, as if praying, and bow down as they greet or it’s in their gentle and undulating tonality as they say “sawadeekraap” or “sawadeekah” (an equivalent of hello in Thai) or perhaps in the tenderness of their attentive gaze that telegraphs that right here right now I am dedicating all my attention to you!

In South Africa, we often theoretically reference Ubuntu, arguably the most powerful and iconic state of being that most South Africans have never experienced. Here in the Kingdom of the Thai, the DNA of Ubuntu can be found in the most mundane of behaviours.

However, those beautiful memories of my Thai experience are soon overpowered by what I see through my hotel room window.

The ubiquitous blanket of thick smog over the city is unmissable.

The greenish-brown waters of the life-giving Chao Phraya River emit a toxic concoction of industrial chemicals and human sewage that invaded my olfactory system when we were having dinner on the boat two nights ago.

How can such a beautiful people lunge themselves into such an ugly habitat?

My thoughts gradually drift to the fact that tomorrow, most of the world celebrates ‘Labour Day’, including here in Thailand.

I immediately find myself at odds with the very concept of such a holiday. Should we really be celebrating the commodification of human labour? Or perhaps it’s a commemoration… I suppose that would be more appropriate.

I think of women back home in South Africa who leave their homes and their children at 4am to take care of other people’s children and their luxurious comforts while earning less than a living wage. No doubt they deserve to be acknowledged. Is it what they need though? I wonder to myself.

My gaze shifts to the two hectically busy bridges, even on a Saturday. The majority are taxis, trucks, busses, and delivery vans. They all are trading their time for money. Most of them will be doing the same tomorrow on Labour Day which is supposedly about them.

An inescapable thought abruptly interrupts my musings. Didn’t Jesus say the meek shall inherit the earth? When shall this be? I wonder to myself, because surely as I look through my hotel window, it isn’t so.

Surely it can’t be at Jesus’ second coming because that would be the end of earth as we know it, as the Holy Scriptures inform us.

Perhaps some of my discerning social media friends here will help me!

Anyway, I need to get ready for my coaching session now.

Let me be the first to wish you a Happy Worker’s Day… I will be spending most of mine in the air!

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