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Thailand, 27 October 2007 - 22 November 2007
Travel to Chiang Mai
Getting to Chiang Mai from Melbourne was a 48 hour epic of a late flight into Bangkok, sleeping on airport benches made of steel and no padding for a few hours, hanging out all day in Bangkok around the train station, going to the cinema to get some sleep and wind up getting caught up in the film (The Kingdom), and a 13 hour overnight train ride in an upright seat (no sleeper berths available) to Chiang Mai. Needless to say, when I got to my hotel I went straight to bed. The next morning was the beginning of the time at the Elephant Nature Park. Two days in Thailand and I had seen almost nothing of the country.
Elephant Nature Park
The original reason for coming to Thailand was to be a volunteer at the Elephant Nature Park, an elephant sanctuary for creatures that were in bad shape due to abuse, injury, or illness. The park was founded by a tiny woman named Sangduen Chailert, but known by her nickname "Lek" which means "Small" in Thai, and that is not a reference to the size of her heart. Lek is an example of someone who sees suffering and cannot help herself. She took a huge leap of faith with no idea where the money and resources would come from.
Lek's compassion was claimed by elephants. Once upon a time, the use of elephants in the logging industry was regulated, with infant labor laws and a retirement age. There were standards for medical treatment and number of hours the creatures could be worked each day. But in the late 1980s logging was declared illegal to reduce the risk of flooding and to preserve the health of rivers and the forest ecosystem. The unforeseen consequence of decreased logging was the abuse of elephants. Because logging was illegal, the elephants that continued in illegal logging were no longer under the protection of the government. And, since the economics of illegal logging were marginal, the quality of care diminished. Eelephants were overworked, went hungry, and died in their harnesses. Elephants without a logging job are used in the trekking industry, in which tourists are carried in seats on the back of an elephant. And at the worst, elephants are used for begging on the streets of Bangkok and Chiang Mai, where they go hungry (there is no forage), are hit by traffic, and are stressed by the noise. Since 1900, the population of elephants Thailand has dropped from 100,000 to around 3,000. The population of Asian elephants is much smaller than African elephants, but the African elephants get all the attention.
Lek has 32 elephants at the moment, maintained on a 55 acre parcel of land. She regularly treks into remote areas of Thailand, looking for creatures that are in bad shape. The stories of her elephants can break your heart.
Jokia was working in illegal logging. Her owners didn't know she was pregnant (or did know but wouldn't give her a maternity leave) and she delivered her baby during a rainy night. The infant slipped down a muddy slope out of reach of Jokia. By morning the infant had died and Jokia was distraught. She refused to work, and when the owner became frustrated with her stubborness, he intentionally blinded her in one eye. When this didn't work, he blinded her in the other eye. When Lek found her, she was emaciated from overwork and neglect. Lek bought her for $1500, but once the owner learned that she wanted Jokia for reasons of compassion, he wouldn't honor the deal and doubled his price (from his perspective, an elephant with a disability would be a valueable asset in the beggin industry). When Jokia came to Elephant Nature Park, one of the older females walked over, touched Jokia's eyes with her trunk, draped her trunk over Jokia's head (the way elephants hug), and settled in to become Jokia's guide and lifelong friend.
Medo was struck in a rear leg by a runaway log being towed downhill, breaking her ankle. She laid on the ground until the ankle healed enough to stand on, and despite being crippled, she was put back to work. Sometime later, the owner had a male in musk (a hormonal state that makes males very aggressive) and put him in with Medo. He broke her pelvis while trying to mount her, and the owners couldn't get him out of the enclosure for two more days. Medo is badly disfigured and can only walk with great difficulty. Even in her extremely handicapped state, when Lek first found her, Medo was in harness pulling a log.
Mae Mai Tong had a foot blown off by a landmine. Lilly was addicted to amphetamines, given to her by an owner who wanted to work her 20 hours a day. One of the females had killed her mahout in response to chronic abuse. Some of the elephants have permanent damage to the bones of the head where they have been beaten with a metal rod. Sores that were neglected. Orphans. Mothers who have lost babies and refuse to work. Elephants too old to work (the oldest now in the park is over 80 years old).
Lek's compassion hasn't stopped with elephants. Her park is also home to 43 dogs, four brahma cattle, 6 water buffalos and around 15 cats. She also attracts compassionate people to the park like moths to a flame. Most visitors come and stay for a day, but some people find they cannot leave. Lek invites people to come to the park as volunteers for a week or two, but some stay months, some stay years becoming employees of the park. Carl is an Australian who came 4 years ago, and after a few months was given the task of caring for Maximus, an elderly bull elephant and the largest elephant in Thailand. Carl sees his job as simply making Max's remaining years as good as they can be.
One of Lek's long-term pet projects is an attempt to train elephants for work by positive reinforcement, to replace the traditional method of breaking elephants by torture. A 4-5 year old elephant (remember that is the same as a 4-5 year old human) is placed in a confining corral so that it cannot move. It's feet are all chained down. Then the youngster is denied food, water, and contact with other elephants. The trainer then beats and stabs the youngster with a nail pounded through the end of a board. If the torture goes well, the youngster will become compliant and responsive to the hook and stick used by mahouts. According to a video we saw of the training, only about 60% of elephants survive the training. Of those, post-traumatic stress is typical and elephants often rebel later in life, either becoming depressed and unresponsive, or violent and killing the mahout that has abused it. The mahouts do not believe that the elephants will be sufficiently compliant to work without the breaking. Lek wants to at least give it a try. Unfortunately, her first crop of students still have another 10 years of growing up.
The Elephant Nature Park is a remarkable place, providing an experience for visitors that would be impossible in the US or Europe, and probably doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. In many ways, this is a dangerous place. Each elephant has a mahout (handler) responsible for its welfare and behavior. Even so, visitors and volunteers are given strict rules about sharing the grounds with the elephants. These include always giving elephants the right of way, keeping your distance, never attempting to touch unless the mahout present and only when invited. We are told to watch each others backs (elephants can move very quietly and will sneak up behind you in a game of tag and knock you down). Every tourist gets to feed the elephants along the central building balcony and bathe them in the river. As volunteers, we not only got to do the tourist things, we get to move around them in their own spaces while we work.
The residents of the Elephant Nature Park
Its amazing to watch how the dogs, elephants, cows, buffalos, and cats behave and interact.
Within the constraints of safety, the elephants get to behave as elephants. There are allowed for form their own family groups, to choose their own companions, to go wherever they want, whenever they want during the day (they are chained up at night to give their mahout companions time to rest and to keep them from raiding the nearby village and farms). The young ones play. The teenagers roughhouse and test the boundaries. The young females flirt with the young bulls. Some of the females are hussies. Older females vie to become aunties for the few babies. The older males go in and out of musk, and in that condition are dangerous, nearly as dangerous as the 1000 pound babies who want to play. Twice I saw BK, the 40 something male and Big Elephant on Campus, knock down two other elephants (side note: When these fights occured, several mahouts jumped right into the middle of the fight to to get BK to stop, one of the bravest actions I have ever seen). When two elephants mate, every elephant in the park comes running to watch. When a baby becomes frightened, all the aunties come running to comfort it. When an elephant runs amok knocking down fences and parts of buildings, the elephants don't mind, but the mahouts come running.
The elephants range in age from 2 to 80+. The developmental ages of elephats closely parallel himan development. Teenaged elephants act like teenaged humans, rebelling against authority, trying to impress the opposite sex, acting cool, sometimes acting like adults, sometimes playing like youngsters. Pre-teens play alot. Sexual maturity around 12-14 years. Elephants should be retired around 60 years, but with care can live well into their 80s and occasionally their 90s. Their social structure is similar to human tribal cutures.
I find it hard to believe that the 43 dogs largely manage themselves. They too are allowed to act like dogs. They are fed and receive regular medical care, but they exist in the park with little or no human supervision. They have formed their own society amidst the humans, with their own issues of dog society to worry about. They are organized into packs corresponding with the various building complexes in the park. The pack structure is refreshed every day and there are frequent minor scuffles to confirm dominance. Once or twice a day, the dogs get excited and all run towards a rendezvous to settle some crisis of society. Once or twice a night, the dogs in the park and in the surrounding village and farms let loose with a howling party. Despite the fact that the dogs are almost constant companions for the elephants, some of the elephants are hostile towards the dogs.
The dogs I got to know most were the six dogs of the Volunteer House Pack. They would walk with us, greet us in the morning, sometimes show us the trophies they were carrying in their mouth, sleep in our rooms when invited (a dog in your room kept the rats out), and if you wished they would sleep in your bed. On the down side, a dog sleeping under my bed started howling at three in the morning and another time a dog from another pack violated some dominance order and was noisily chastised by the Volunteer House Pack under my roommates bed. The Volunteer House dogs accompany volunteers on the weekly camping trip with elephants to Haven. On another night, a dog sharing my room got up and walked around. When I woke up and shined my light, he came over and politely licked my hand, which I understood to mean that he wanted out. I never saw a dog be destructive. Only one or two of the dogs will growl and nip at a person who tries to touch it. Dogs from the neighboring village come over and hang out with the park dogs during the day. Someone told me that the good behavior of the pack was learned from the first two dogs to be given homes in the park.
The cats have a tree house and a drawbridge connecting to the upstairs dining hall (where the dogs are not allowed). The older cats were well behaved, but the kittens were a nuisance trying to steal food from people's plates. They made up for their bad behavior by crawling up onto your lap and purring. While the dogs would sometimes chase cats, most of the time the cats could walk downstairs with the other animals and not be molested.
The buffalos usually hung out by themselves. I did see a pack of dogs harass a buffalo, barking and nipping at the old girl. She calmly put up with the noise, then lost her patience, swung her head, and caught a dog with one of her 18 inch horns. The injured dog cried and ran and was later patched up by the park veterinarian. The other dogs continued to bark for a few more seconds, but with greatly reduced enthusiasm. It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.
Typical Day at the Elephant Nature Park
I wake up, then sit in a small gazebo near the volunteer hut with Number 2 and Pet, two of the Volunteer House Pack dogs, while I shave, and brush teeth.
On the walk from the volunteer huts on my way to breakfast, I pass two of the five elephant families. They are still chained up, waking up and waiting for their mahouts to set them loose for the day. A baby is lying on its side, rocking back and forth to get momentum to roll onto its legs to stand up. Its mother is rumbling to it quietly. Two females from the other family are giving each other the elephant equivalent of a good morning hug and kiss, wrapping their trunks around each others head with the ends of the trunks in each other's mouth.
Breakfast for the volunteers and the few overnight tourists consisted of coffee or tea, cereal and milk, fruit and yoghurt, and either waffles, banana pancakes, or banana bread.
Morning chores were next. My group has the pleasure of shoveling out the poop from the water buffalo shelter, then scrubbing in down with a brush and buckets of water. Other volunteers are picking up trash, recycling cans, and then taking care of the cats food and litter boxes. Another group is scooping elephant poop from paths and from around the observation platform. They also had the delightful task of crawling under the platform and raking out all the rotten fruit that had fallen between the wooden slats of the platform. Another group would water trees.
A morning project time followed, and each day was different. One day I helped build a structure for composting poop. Another day was fence mending. Another day was cutting up elephant grass for planting. Then tree-planting. Repeatedly repairing a bannister that one of the elephants liked to tear apart every morning. Mountains of poop were moved from one place to another.
Twice we went to the nearby village school to help teach. I got stuck with the kindergardeners, who were cute at first but then they turned on me. I taught them thumb wrestling, with a lesson of the English words "one, two, three, go". Then we did hand, shoulders, knees, and toes. Then drawing elephants. Then the boys decided to play "Kick-boxing", and I could not get them separated or seated. I gave up, and sat down, whereupon a couple of the girls came up to me and petted the hair on my arms as if they were kittens.
At around 10:30 the fruit trucks arrived and were unloaded. The 32 elephants ate two pickup truck loads of fruit and vegetables. Pumpkins and melons were washed and cut up. Corn was husked (husks were fed to the brahma cattle). Once all fruit was parceled out, day visitors helped feed the elephants from the observation platform at the main meeting house.
Lunch was a smorgasbjord of about 20 Thai dishes with rice dishes, noodle dishes, fried food, and salads.
Bath time was usually around 1300, and was an opportunity for volunteers and day visitors to get in the water with the elephants. Some of the elephants were comfortable with strangers scrubbing them. If the elephants were more skittish, they were just doused with water. After the bath, the elephants always covered themselves in dirt as a sunscreen and bug repellent.
From 1400 to 1700 was another three hours of maintenance projects, fence mending for today. The neat thing about these projects was that we were out with the elephants in their space, and every few minutes an elephant would walk by. The strange thing is that the elephants walking by got to be routine.
After work was a cold shower and rest. Dinner at 1830 was similar to lunch but with heavier fare such as fish and fried chicken, and fewer noodle dishes. Ladies from the nearby village would give an hour of massage for less than $4.00. Most nights, I was in bed by 2030.
Haven
A highlight of the week was the camping trip to Haven. We walked with the elephants (and dogs) for 2 hours along a road (sometimes dirt, sometimes paved), crossed a river on a rickety bamboo bridge (the bridge was washed out by a storm and bamboo rafts were used until the bridge could be replaced), then climbing up a hill for about 45 minutes. The mahouts cooked dinner for us, then played music. One of the most surreal experiences of the trip was singing Xmas carols on Halloween, accompanied by Burmese mahouts playing traditional Asian instruments on a platform over elephants. In the morning after breakfast, elephant trunks appeared from below, begging for leftover rice.
By the end of the second week, I was getting irritable and counting the days until the end of my time there. Wading in mud and poop soup, leeches, being led by 25 year olds with no concept about the laws of physics, volunteers who didn't want to work, trying to mend things with dried out bamboo, rotten planks, and rusty recycled nails, all were getting me down. I have learned (although I'm sure that my friends could have told me years ago) that when I get tired and stressed, I become more stubborn and argumentative. It was a good lesson in letting go of having to be right.
When the volunteer time was done, I went on a well-deserved vacation to the laid-back outback town of Pai.
Pai
A small town of about 6 streets, legend has it that Pai was discovered by hippies in the 1970s. The population is a mix of northern hill tribe people, Thai people from the south, aging hippies, and young people who came to visit for a day or so and stayed a month, a year, or the rest of their lives. The atmosphere is laid back and relaxed, and it reminds me of Key West as it was 30 years ago, but with forested mountains instead of ocean. Pai is located in the far north of Thailand, in high mountains near the Burma border, and apparently not very far from heaven.
Every night in Pai seems to be a festival and party. The streets are full of people (it looks like the whole population is out) buying and selling food, jewelry, clothing, and souvenirs. Musicians are playing, from an excellent Thai children's orchestra to a reggae band to rock and roll, to classical. The streets are lit with lanterns. Street vendors are not pushy, but friendly, helpful, full of smiles, and ever ready to joke with you. You can buy a filling bowl of curry soup and noodles with tea for less than a dollar or can go for a gourmet meal in a restaurant for 25 dollars. You can find simple but clean lodgings for less than $20, or if you insist, spend $200 a night. Late at night, the people who are inclined to drink head out for ritualized pub crawls.
I appear to not be immune to the disease: Walking through the town leaves me with a sense of peace and belonging that has been rare in my life. Its easy to meet and talk with people, both Thai and visitors. I ran into a woman I had met at the Elephant Nature Park and we had a 3 hour talk over dinner and a walk. I met a young man from Colorado who had meant to visit for only a day and has stayed 2 weeks and has no immediate plans for leaving. I met a young Frenchman from a family of vintners and his Thai guide who were heading up into the mountains to visit a Kerrin tribal village where the women still stretch their necks with gold rings.
On the ride from Pai to Chiang Mai, I sat next to a 30 year old man who was born in London to a Thai father and an Indian woman from near the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. He was a software engineer who had worked in the US for a few years, but was now looking for work in Thailand. Part of the year he lives with friends in Pai who have a small software company.
Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai is in northern Thailand and is the country's second largest city with 3 million people, a major university, and 300 wats (Buddhist temples). In the middle of the city is the old city, a walled fortress surrounded by a moat. The old city is remarkable because it contains small neighborhoods that are clusters of guest houses, restaurants, and supporting shops. Staying in one of these neighborhoods feels like you are in a small village, despite the fact that major streets are less than 100 meters away.
I'm staying at the Britannia Hotel, a small inn with nice rooms for only $15 per night and for which you would pay $75 per night room in the US. Within a couple of blocks are several pubs, including one that shows three movies every night. Also a Tibetan restaurant, a vegetarian restaurant, laundry, motor scootors renting for $3 per day, internet cafes, travel agents, massage shops (an hour of Thai yoga massage for $5), small grocery shops, and a street market. The Britannia is owned by Steve, a London ex-pat with a strong Cockney acent, who had driven trucks, owned a trucking business, and looks like he could have easily been a football hooligan. He had come to Thailand to learn yoga and lived in an Ashram for 4 years. His business partner and life partner is Da, a Thai woman with no education who had worked in rice fields. One morning she woke up to find her husband dead and that she no longer had a job. She and her son went to Bangkok looking for a change of fortunes and two weeks later she met Steve. They are a delightful couple to watch work together. They are constantly joking and teasing each other.
This pattern of old Western men finding young Thai women is a common one here. At one extreme, you have Steve and Da, who make a partnership work with grace and love. On the other extreme, the relationship is based on exploitation, although you cannot tell who is exploiting whom. Some men are looking for a sex partner for a week, and some women are looking for one or more sugar daddies (simultaneous sugar daddies even better). Generally, either party is asking for trouble if they meet in a bar. I have met several westerners who are scandalized by these relationships, but I see nothing wrong with the custom as long as the parties are of age and consensual. And, looking at couples, you cannot tell which ones are based on exploitation and which are based on mutual support.
I have been visiting some of the temples in Chiang Mai to sightsee and to meditate. One Sunday morning, as I sat meditating, Thai people began to arrive, to socialize, and to be active around me. When I opened my eyes 30 minutes later, I found myself in the middle of the final preparations for a funeral ceremony. I got up to leave and a woman came and said that the funeral was for her brother and that I was welcome to stay for the ceremony. I started to protest that I didn't want to intrude, that I wasn't properly dressed, etc., but another person came over and asked me to stay. I took a seat at the back of the temple and some of the people sitting nearby turned and frowned at me, but when the women who invited me to stay introduced me to the people sitting nearby, the frowns turned to smiles. From that point, I was treated as family, and a gentleman who spoke English sat beside me and interpreted the ceremony. I was struck how the structure of the ceremony seemed to parallel Catholic masses I have attended. With offerings to the abbot; prayers; a chant sermon; a choir of monks singing an incredible a capella chant of light, lilting, interwoven harmonies; and the participation of family members.
That same night, I went to the Sunday night market, a festival comparable to what I saw in Pai with musicians, a parade of dancers, monks chanting, a troop of teenaged girls wearing uniforms and horns on their head, handing out flyers for the 7-11 convenience store company, lots of food, lots of souvenirs. I bought dinner (sushi for $1.25, green tea for $0.60), and when I couldn't find a seat, a Thai woman with a toddler invited me to join her. She knew no English and I knew only six words of Thai, so the conversation was limited. A couple of teenaged girls who wanted to interview me as part of their English class project joined us. They were an entertaining and confident pair. They asked me what I thought of Thai people, and I said that I thought that they were kind, polite, and funny, to which one of the girls did a push up of her hair and said "and beautiful too?". One of the girls was holding up a cell phone as a recorder of the conversation, and she kept pointing it at the person who wasn't talking, to which we kept breaking up with laughter. When they were finished, they wanted a photograph of me with one the interviewer, who of course, presented the ever popular peace sign. As they left, I heard one of them say "He was a perfect man". Whatever that meant, it sounded good.
Chiang Mai holds frequent and varied holidays and festivals. A sample of the ones I know about: One festival is to give gifts that look like Xmas trees decorated with money and household goods to the neighborhood monks. Another example occurs the last week of November, in which people purchase paper hot air balloons powered by candles. I've seen a few of them flying the week before, shining a ghostly light slowly rising up and disappearing into the clouds. These are most often launched by couples in love, and the holiday has something of the spirit of Valentine's Day. I'm told that on the festival weekend 10,000s to 100,000s of these balloons are launched each evening. A third example, my personal favorite, is the festival of water in mid April. During that week, Chaing Mai turns into a free-for-all water fight. Everyone from two to 90 years old is packing. They can be carrying anything from a squirt gun to a water cannon to water balloons to a fire hose. There are drive by shootings of restaurants. Streetside bombings of passing cars. Ambushes in back alleys. Friend turning of friend. Brother against brother, children against mothers, even grandparents. No one is safe. It gets ugly and it gets fun. The attitude is that if you didn't want to get wet, you should have left town. Sounds like a wonderful way to release aggression, pay people back for past transgressions, and to have fun. No wonder Thai people smile so easily.
Bangkok
Bangkok is intense. Noisy, intense, smoggy, edgy, and fast. Mazes of tiny alleyways that lead to whole other communities. Huge Buddhist temples and national monuments. Boat taxis racing along narrow canals. Ladies in front of massage parlors yelling out "Thai massage". Tailor after tailor who accost you on the street ("Where you from") to get you into their shop, but do it with humor and grace so that you are friends after 10 minutes. The problem is that you can make 3-4 such friends in an hour. Tuk-tuk (3 wheeled motorcycle taxis) rides that are wilder than most amusement park rides. There is a place where the SkyTrain runs over the road in a canyon of skyscrapers, and the shadows, artificial lighting, smog, and noise can convince you are on another planet. It reminds me of the car chase scenes through the city early in the movie "The 5th Element".
Most of the western backpackers who come to Bangkok come to Khao San Road, a 3 block street that is the Bangkok tourism trade on speed. People from anywhere can be found there, making it a window on the world. Shops are hidden behind street vendors, and down narrow alleys. Places to have your hair twisted into dreadlocks. Tattoo parlors. Henna shops. Jewelry stores. A thousand tailor shops. I had pad thai, tea, and cereal, yoghurt, and fruit from the street vendors for dinner. And bars. Lots of bars. At midnight, someone is jamming hard on an electric guitar. Further away, I hear a woman belting out a song on a microphone. Some guy is screaming like a lunatic. The restaurants are for the lazy or ignorant, with prices approaching $4 for a meal. Likewise for hotels: $16 gets you a depressing hovel on KhaoSan. But go three blocks over, and the price for a meal is $2. and $16 gets you a very nice room without all the noise.
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And the contrast is not just in price. Just like Chiang Mai, there are hidden communities. If you are brave enough to duck through alleys or go out the end of Khao San Road into the larger city, you can find places that are tucked behind temples, with tiled streets, vegetarian restaurants, a quieter group of street vendors, and with visitors who seem more attracted to the temples than to the bars.
Thailand is a place of contrasts. It can be clean, peaceful, friendly and pretty safe. Or, it can be wild, loud, and risky. There is a Buddhist temple in every small town and in every city neighborhood, but bars are also everywhere. This is a country of great compassion, yet they do not see a problem with torturing baby elephants and a huge underground sex slavery trade is allowed to exist. The people are very friendly, but are perfectly willing to take your dollars if you haven't done your homework. Thai people are laid back: No matter how offensively a driver may drive, everyone else just copes and no one ever gets angry (compare that with New Zealand drivers).
And, in case I forgot to mention it, Thailand is a bargain, even against the incredibly shrinking dollar. Medical and dental care is high quality and cheap. I got my teeth cleaned for $15. A massage is $4. Rent a bicycle for $1 a day, a motor scooter for $3 a day, and an SUV for $30 a day. I can eat my fill of Thai food for $6 a day. Guitar lessons are $10 per hour. Ride from Bangkok to Chiang Mai on a luxury bus, a 9 hour ride, for $10. You can find a nice apartment for $300 per month. A tailored business suit is around $125 - $175, depending on the material.
Epilogue
Despite being stressed and happy to leave the Elephant Nature Park a week ago, I miss the place, the dogs, the people, and the elephants. I find myself repeatedly viewing the pictures and video clips I collected there. I can easily imagine going back to volunteer for a week (but not two). I keep thinking about how comfortable and peaceful my times in Pai and Chiang Mai have been. I find myself eager to rent a motorcycle to explore the more remote areas of northern Thailand and to visit Laos and Vietnam. I've even heard that is possible to walk along mountain trails towards the northwest across a stretch of Laos for a few days and reach the eastern end of the Himalayas in extreme southern China.
I have been looking for a place to live, and I have considered several many places I have visited as possibilities. I find myself fantasizing about Thailand, and I can easily imagine living here during the winters, when the temperatures are cool, the mosquitos are dormant, and the monsoon is over. I think that it would be easy to find service projects (without having to pay a broker) in either a temple school, at one of the universities, or along the Burmese border with the refugees. Or, back at ENP. The problem is that I seem to feel that way for half of the places I have visited. It's likely that I will return, but time will tell for sure.
When I was a graduate student in neuroscience, B.F. Skinner was in vogue. He had developed the notion of conditioned behavior and had convinced the academic world that all animal behavior was simply a collection of instinctive or learned reflexes. By extension, since behavior could be explained solely by reflexes, animals could never be proven to be self-aware or conscious. The extremists like Skinner went so far as to say that animals could not be self-aware or conscious because all they had were reflexes.
Anthropormorphism (the act of projecting human emotions and constructs onto animal behavior) was thus considered a bad word. I think it is a good thing that since the 1970s, scientists have expanded their view. The only person that I can know for certain is self-aware and conscious is myself. I believe that other people are conscious and aware, but the only evidence I have is that I can emphathize with or understand the things that they say, write, and do. Well, if I can base belief for the consciousness of other humans, why shouldn't I believe that animals are self-aware when I see them react in ways that I can readily relate to. They feel happiness and they can suffer. They love, show compassion, and form lifelong friendships. They play. They tease. They get angry. They can flirt. They can be vain. They can panic over something small. They seek comfort from their friends. They can reach the end of their rope and kill. I watched several elephants pick up an appropriately sized stick in their trunk and use it to scratch themselves. They cannot solve differential equations, build a bridge, or compose a symphony, but then, neither can I.
When I looked into the eye of Max, the giant old man of the park, I was convinced that there was someone at home looking back at me.
One last thing: Somewhere along the way this trip, I have learned a lesson about being. When I retired a year ago, a primary reason was to become a better person: healthier, wiser, more compassionate, stronger, more spiritual, more aware. What I realized somewhere along the way is that wanting to become a better person is just another attachment and a another way of being stuck in time, living in the future. Instead, I have found that I am more and more focusing on the moment-to-moment tasks of living and not worrying about the long-term goals. I am simply becoming a better person with each day that passes, instead of planning and working to become a better person by some day in the future. The difference is conceptually and semantically subtle, but one path is filled with anxiety, guilt and frustration, while the other is filled with peace and self-acceptance.
Copyright (c) 2007 by Dick Delanoy
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