A Thai Concert - The World Taking on New Hues
Plain desks stood in plain rows, the plain walls covered in plain wallpaper. But this was no ordinary newsroom. Outside scooters jostled by, interrupted by trucks carrying people into a stuffy metropolis. A vendor tossed noodles busily, seats filled with families, talking and laughing over the roar of the streets. Scents wafted from rickety wooden booths, intermingling with the sounds of stray cats, slicing of knives and thrumming of engines. Living in Thailand was unlike anything I had experienced before. It was here that the world began to show itself in different colors. Everything outside of my home in America took new shape, my definition of plainness redefining, exhibiting new hues of fluorescence, as I continued to labor away in that plain newsroom.
It felt as if the uniform overhead lighting was driving into my skull, contributing to my preexisting exhaustion. My fingers skittered across the keyboard, interrupted by the speedy dialogue of a few Thai co-workers. As I graced the final period, I was filled with a sense of satisfaction. After emailing my article to my editor, I began to search for an event I could cover that night.
At that moment, a sudden idea struck me, as if a lightning bolt had sprinted from my brain, blasting through my veins, spreading to the rest of my body. I began to search for concerts in the surrounding area. Eventually I stumbled upon one, and was ecstatic to discover that a famous Thai band was playing near Chiang Mai.
As the streetlights blurred long lines of puddles, cracks in the pavement gleaming and reflecting, I set off in the direction of the concert. Hailing a Tuk Tuk, I bounced my way through the streets. I began to reminisce about home, but the mental picture was somehow altered, different than before. I couldn’t understand this shift, nor what it meant, but I intuitively knew something was different.
Clouds of grey shrouded thick green mountaintops, the light waning, as I arrived at the concert venue. I walked up to the ticket booth, strangers’ stares invading from every direction. I handed the vendor my phone, and she scanned my ticket. Her face remained puzzled, like that of the other teenage concertgoers. It was as if I was an alien, a strange visitor from a peculiar land.
As I walked around the venue I was struck by its uniqueness and size. Numerous small tables conglomerated in front of a large black stage, all of this covered by a metal roof. I had never been to a concert venue like this one before. At that moment, at some level, I felt like an alien observer, awash in the turbulent seas of another culture. With fresh eyes I observed the surrounding landscape, as in my mind America was quickly enveloped in mediocrity. My very definition of plain was being reworked, slowly fit together like the pieces of an endless puzzle.
I approached a nearby table, glossing over the menu and drink list. Exotic appetizers took hold of my attention. I was stunned by their drastic difference from typical concert foods back home. As I was browsing over the strange manuscript in front of me, a young guy confidently ambled over to the table. He was clearly an outsider as well.
“Hey man! I just saw you over here alone. If you want to join my group, you’re welcome to! My Thai friends will be here any minute.”
“Hey, thanks! I think I’ll take you up on that! Are you from America? You’re English is perfect.”
“Yeah! I’m from Virginia. I decided to move to Thailand after traveling through the country a few years ago.”
“That’s really cool! That must have been a huge adjustment though.”
“Yeah it’s definitely been a drastic change for me. I not only had to learn the language, but had to adjust to the culture. It’s so different from back in the states, but you look like you probably already know that.”
“For sure. It’s definitely quite different from what I’m used to. I’ve never been to a concert venue like this before.”
“It’s really cool isn’t it! This is a traditional Thai concert venue. People eat appetizers and other foods as they watch the bands play. The menu is definitely quite different from what you’re probably used to, but there’s some delicious foods on there.”
Shortly after finishing our conversation, the music began, a Thai punk band gracing the stage. Guitar notes slammed through the airwaves, piercing my ears, vibrating my body, and sending blasts of electricity through my veins. The vocals were different though, conveying powerful emotions, but in a language of which I couldn’t understand. The vocal notes lodged themselves into my brain, reassembling my ever-changing mental puzzle of the world. They erased parts of my mental sketch of cultures, replacing them with something new.
Nick laughed and said something in English to me, but his voice was drowned out by the noises of the crowd. Thai girls screamed and shouted, clapping their hands, bouncing on their feet in exultation. College students sat around their tables, eating skewered pork in a spicy sauce. They repeated the singer’s cries of excitement, as he alternated between yelling in the microphone and holding it in front of the stage. It was almost as if the crowd was an extension of the singer himself. To this day, I still remember the shouting of the crowd, in a tongue of which I couldn’t understand. The Thai girls all sang in unison, their shrill voices rising up to the ceiling, and quickly falling back down, shattering my preconceived concept of the world.
I clinked beers with Nick, his eyes beaming with fervor and life. A girl friend of his stood next to him, raising her glass and yelling drunkenly in chorus with the music. Nick turned over to a friend, speaking softly, his friend laughing, as I attempted to understand what he was saying. A few people at another table stared at me, and I suddenly felt like an outsider again.
The main act suddenly jumped up on the stage, and phones flew out of peoples’ pockets. The drums smashed into an exploding rhythm, the guitar following in line, and the singer belting out words that carried a certain depth, even though I couldn’t understand them. I struggled to see over hordes of teenage girls, as they giggled, laughed and screamed in ecstasy.
As the band played through their set, I was elevated to another level of sound. I forgot about my plain dorm room back in Boulder, or my plain car, which I drove around on plain streets. For that matter, I forgot about the plain newsroom, situated in an anything but plain location. As the band reached the final notes of their performance, my mind began to see the world painted in new hues. America had become plain, compared to the exotic locale of Chiang Mai.