Brandon Scott Gorrell recalls specific interpersonal situations at two hostels in the Silom district of Bangkok, Thailand. The reader is left to interpret how ‘successful’ he was.
Bus ride in Bangkok. Photo: K.rol2007
“SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED,” said a white person in the lobby of my first hostel as I walked through the door.
“Shit,” I said. The group at the table laughed, all looking at me. One stood and got a beer from the mini-fridge in the corner.
“Where are you from?” they said. They asked me to take pictures of them with their digital cameras.
I said, “Well, goodnight,” and went to my room. In my room I thought about how I wouldn’t normally hang out with those people if I was in Seattle.
The next day I was sitting on a curb eating a banana pancake. One of the travelers—a mildly obese, sunburned man—turned his body gradually as he passed me. He stopped and looked at me. I looked at him. He moved slowly forward. I wasn’t sure if it was him.
“Good morning,” he said, “is that your breakfast?”
“Hi,” I said.
“I’m going to the Grand Palace,” he said, “where are you going?”
“I’m going to the park down that way,” I said. I didn’t think to ask him if I could come with him before he left. It didn’t occur to me until days later.
That night in a new guesthouse in the Silom area I was ordering large Changs at the bar and moving back to a table where I sat alone. If I sat there long enough I thought someone would approach me. A group of three Americans appeared and interacted with each other as if they had been friends for years. Eye contact was not established with any of the members of the group. I ended up in the corner on a couch writing in my notebook until the bar closed. The next morning the bartender, who also worked the reception, saw me and said “large Chang” and grinned.
The following night in the same guesthouse bar I was at a table where a lot of people sat drinking. I was seated across an English girl.
“Where are you from,” I said.
“How long have you been traveling for, and when will you go back,” she said.
“Where have you been since you started traveling,” I said, “and long have you been traveling?”
“You’re from the States, right,” she said, “where in the States?”
“Oh, you’re from Seattle? My cousin lives there,” the person next to me interrupted.
“Yes,” I said. “And where are you from?”
“England,” the new person said.
“I thought so,” I said. “I have such a hard time lately telling if people are English or Australian. Sometimes I even think Germans are English. One time I met this guy from London and I thought he was German for like two days. It was very strange.”
“I have such a hard time telling the difference between Americans and Canadians,” the new person said, “that I just ask if they’re Canadian because I don’t want to offend them.”
“But you guys have Obama now so it’s okay,” the English girl said
“Obama is very good,” the new person said.
“Obama is a lot better than George Bush,” the English person said.
“Yes,” I said.
“You must have been embarrassed to be an American when George Bush was president,” the new person said.
“No, I wasn’t,” I said.
“All the Americans I have talked to have been very embarrassed about George Bush,” the new person said.
“I don’t think I was embarrassed,” I said.
“But you must have been embarrassed,” the English said. “I was embarrassed that we were both a member of the same species.”
“I was embarrassed for the Americans,” the new person said.
“No, I wasn’t embarrassed,” I said.
“Do you like George Bush,” the English said.
“I do not like George Bush,” I said.
“Then, truly, you must have been embarrassed to be an American,” the new person said.
“If a person generalizes my personality or how ‘good’ I am based on my nationality, or who presides over the country in which I was born,” I said, “then that person is no better than George Bush, or even Nazis. Nazis generalized personality and how ‘good’ people were based on religion and then killed a lot of them. In Rwanda genocide happened because people were judging other people’s intellectual characteristics based on what tribe they came from.
“I never felt embarrassed because if a person judged me for being American and subsequently didn’t want to be my friend, I wouldn’t want to have that person as a friend, so I remained unaffected.”
The new person turned to the position she was in before she interrupted. I turned back to the English.
“So, what do you do for money,” I said.
The next morning at the reception we saw each other and she made a small wave then turned her face.
“Your bed’s infested,” I said that day to a Canadian girl that had just come in and put her bags down on one of the bunks. “That was supposed to be my bed, but someone told me there were bedbugs, so I moved to this bed. . . You should change beds.”
Later I had the same conversation with her that I had the night previous with the English, minus the genocide speech.
That night we went to the Loi Krathong festival together. We ended up back at the guesthouse on the balcony talking to two English people who gave me a lot of information about what to do in Cambodia.
The next day I went to Cambodia.
Community Connection
Brandon recently published an Analysis of the Typical Traveler Conversation. For more of his narrative writing, please check out this story at Muumuu House.
About the Author
More By This Author
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8 Comments... join the discussion!
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nice genocide speech
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I loved the dialogue about Bush. I lived in Pakistan for three years and got so sick of hearing about Bush! My favorite Bush quote, from a women in Western Sahara in 2004 is this:
“Anti amriki? Bush Shaitan!” (You’re American? Bush is Satan!)
How’s that for introductions?
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Thanks for this post. Awesome job. You replicated almost exactly my conversations being an expat in the UK for 2 years. Being from Texas, it got increasingly difficult to meet people without the politics being the first conversation. I learned quickly to just have my ipod as my best friend.
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“If a person generalizes my personality or how ‘good’ I am based on my nationality, or who presides over the country in which I was born,” I said, “then that person is no better than George Bush, or even Nazis. Nazis generalized personality and how ‘good’ people were based on religion and then killed a lot of them. In Rwanda genocide happened because people were judging other people’s intellectual characteristics based on what tribe they came from.
“I never felt embarrassed because if a person judged me for being American and subsequently didn’t want to be my friend, I wouldn’t want to have that person as a friend, so I remained unaffected.”
Did you just compare the people at your table, indirectly and impliedly, to Nazis? And the perpetrators of the Rwanda genocide?
First, both British people and Canadians have a culture of embarrassment that you clearly didn’t understand or want to understand and took way too personally. Traditionally, British culture, and the parts of Canadian culture flowing from it, view any poltical discomfort as embarrassing. Whereas in America politics are wider spread, in Canada our politics traditionally stay out of bedrooms and most polite conversation. Many people I know will not engage in political discussion because it makes them uncomfortable, hence “embarrassed.”
When I was abroad during the end of the Bush era and the transition, many people asked me about American politics just because I was North American. They wanted to know what was going on because they saw how American foreign policy affects them. Sometimes I found the way they approached the conversation uncomfortable – many African people, for example, view North America as a whole and don’t separate Canada’s politics from America’s. At first I was shocked by this – I come from a land of parliamentary democracy! I didn’t vote for anyone who signed on for, say, the war in Iraq! I became a little defensive. But then I got over it when I realized that some countries are far more comfortable about talking politics and that the way they were confronting me wasn’t personal but rather a genuine inquiry into what was going on overseas and how an average student their age would perceive it.
I don’t think they stopped talking to you because you’re an American, I think they stopped talking to you because what you said is offensive and hostile. Offensive mainly because of the “no better than” flawed logic, and the audacity to suggest that someone making a judgment about your culture is the same as someone attempting to exterminate it. But this hostile defensive mentality goes across a lot of your behaviors described in this article, whether you intended to write it that way or not. It’s really interesting to see the perspective of the type of person I would likely politely drop a conversation with, as I’ve come across them many times before and have wondered what on earth they are doing staying in communal living if they don’t want to engage with others. I think the article revealed you do want to engage with others sometimes but you don’t know how.
It presented an interesting challenge. I am, admittedly, always fairly friendly on the road. This isn’t altruism, it’s because I find that meeting people offers advantages and opportunities on a trip, like someone who may know how to get somewhere or have an extra seat in the car, or someone who will say something that changes my perspective on what I’m seeing. The next time I meet a You on the road, I’m going to take extra steps to engage.
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Well, I’ve been hanging out in East Africa (mostly Kenya) for the past 4 years so I tell most peeps here I’m from Jamaica since I don’t speak Swahili. With Usian Bolt and Bob Marley (always) at the top of their game, I get lots interesting conversation. You see, I’m Canadian born in Barbados in the Caribbean but they haven’t a clue where Barbados is. And if I mention I grew up in Canada and that it’s my home, I get questions like “so, how can I get into Canada?”
Jamaica is a much safer bet for now here since meh kan talk slang lik deh do pun de i’land teh ras clot! Less hassles. lol!
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At first the style of the writing kind of threw me off, especially how responses to questions or chunks of dialogue were so often omitted. It had sort of a post-apocalyptic feel to it. Then I got to liking it. It was bare and brutally honest – sometimes responses don’t really stick with you simply because they didn’t matter enough and the writing style accurately showed this. I thought the whole interchange about being ashamed of President Bush was very funny and the tension was built up well and showed character. Being true to himself while learning how to handle interaction with fellow travelers finally gets him what he wanted – human connection and a new destination. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
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great analysis and insight. I appreciate the different perspective, jf.
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