Our American neighbors

Did I push it too hard or did the off balance caught up with me?  Or more than likely we encountered some stomach bug in one of our recent meals, but whatever it was, both B and I were out of commission for the whole weekend.  So it was basically watching movies on TV and eating some fruits that I went to get at the Tops supermarket in the building.  This was our 4^th weekend in BKK and probably counting the 1/3 of the way into our stay here.   So this was our way of celebrating our one-month anniversary.  Monday is already looking better, B is already at work and I feel a little better although not 100% just yet.

Even though I was not in the mood for eating, I went to accompany B to have her lunch so I took the usual daily walk by passing the American Embassy.  We’re actually surrounded by the Americans, well, not quite, we’re surrounded by embassies but it happens that the Americans take a lot of space.   Actually walking north on Wireless Rd (that’s our road) you’ll find the Vietnam Embassy pretty much the next building after ours. But right across the street is the American Ambassador’s residence.  A really nice spread that looks more like a park than a residence.  But going south towards B’s work you pass on the right hand-side of the street, the American Embassy and on the left-side of the street is the Consular Section of the American Embassy.  There is an elevated walkway between both sides of the streets and on top of it there is usually a Thai guard wearing an American uniform.  Of course, there is so much security that some times I don’t even want to look to either side of the street for fear of being confused with someone thinking the wrong thing, but quite often I do make eye contact with either the guard on the walkway or any of the ones guarding the front entrances, and they all seemed like very nice and friendly young people.  Not what I was expecting but nice to see.  Not sure if they are just being Thai, which usually means that they are just  nice people, always smiling, or whether that may actually be in their job description, to be nice to people so the locals don’t feel resentful of the Americans.  Of course, I haven’t done the research to see if they see me as a foreigner anyhow and only foreigners get that treatment, but regardless, I’d be a nice strategy to keep the American-looking Marines and guards inside out of everyone’s views and keep the friendly local guards outside smiling and being watchful but nice.

It’d be interesting to know if this would be the same opinion that the dozens of people that are lining up every morning at the doors of the Consular Section waiting for their dreams of a visa to come to reality.  I’m just glad to be a foreigner at a place where they actually don’t mind foreigners and on the contrary †end to be nice to foreigners and locals alike.