The Karaoke Played On

Maple Shade High School class of 1974 class trip. Where can I get that "Beach Bum" tank?

The girls chatter on, their rapid fire conversations punctuated by giggles and words that jump to my ear, "Twilight" "Lady GaGa" "Taylor Swift" jarring pop culture familiars juxtaposed against an unfamiliar language. They share headphones and are prone to random harmonizing. They share everything really, snacks, mirrors, hair brushes, lip gloss, shoulders for sleeping, magazines, nothing it seems, is mutually exclusive. In every group of 5 or so girls there is one boy, laughing and hanging on their arms, walking hand in hand.

Later it will be told to me, although the confessions aren't exactly shocking, through an exaggerated, limp wrist wave that these boys are gay. This is pointed out by students and then cheerfully reiterated by teachers, "Yes! Gay."

The majority boys sit in the back. Exchanging brief comments and quick punches, screaming to each other at random intervals. I wonder if I was prone to such jackass behavior, I know the unfortunate answer.

This is the bus ride from Phitsanulok to Chiang Mai for the senior class trip. During all of it karaoke is screeching from the bus speakers. At 5 am the bus pulls out of the dark school with a police escort. Perhaps a bit of overkill seeing as the streets are completely vacant.

At 5 am the karaoke starts and it will not stop for another 3 days.

At 5:15 am the blue and red lights ahead of us give the impression we are carrying an important political figure or rolling into a city for a championship football game, we are doing neither.

At 9 am the bus slows as we are climbing a hill, the pace becomes painful. People walking could pass us.

At 9:23 am children crawling could pass us and at 9:30 am we are officially broken down, piling out of the bus and waiting for a new one to arrive. Even as the bus dragged to a halt, the karaoke did not stop. Like the band on the Titanic, the karaoke played to the bitter end.

The side of the road is hot compared to the frigid interior of the bus where blankets have been handed out. It is also quiet.

At 1 pm we are in Chiang Mai, scaling the steps to the Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep. After a curving ride to the top that had me fearful the half digested lunch of the student sitting next to me would soon end up on my shirt or in my lap, we make it. My coordinator seems to have grown tired of my pestering questions about Buddhist rituals.

"For good luck Tim. For good luck. Everything for good luck."

Simple enough but it's the specifics I'm looking for. If I want to hit the lotto do I need to light incense or ring the bells? What about landing a dream job? Should I float a flower in the water or hang up a charm? Making the karaoke stop? A bracelet from the monk? Would that do it?

At 10 pm we arrive at the "hotel". The term "hotel" is used loosely here. Most hotels are not located at athlete training facilities above a pistol range and most rooms do not house 20 students and teachers each. This "hotel" has all of that. The set up had a summer camp feel to it with the subtraction of the bunk beds in favor of long mattresses that ran the length of the walls. We sleep in neat rows. The whole thing would have made some predatory old priests gleeful.

The gay students who were announced to me with such enthusiasm earlier in the day sleep in the girls rooms. They also use the girls bathrooms. Someday one of these kids is going to pull Terri Griffith-esque stunt and this whole house of cards built on sexual preference is going to come tumbling down.

At 4:30 am we wake up.

At 4:32 am the students begin playing the guitar and bongos.

At 4:35 they begin to sing together, not quite karaoke but close. They chase each other down the halls, echoes reverberating the length of the building. I bury my head in my pillow and wonder if I was ever prone to such jackass behavior, I know the unfortunate answer.

At 8 am we arrive at the Queen Sirkit Botanical Gardens. Botanical gardens are like zoos for plants, museums for trees. This one is particularly nice. I travel through the climate zones of the world without leaving Thailand. Lots of strangers ask for pictures with me. At one point this request stopped feeling awkward and now I just smile, then I usually laugh thinking about people showing their friends and families the photos of a vacation they went on that I some how became part of. A living room filled with relatives clicking through the summer slide show, that techy uncle running the whole thing, trying to get the self timing down, when a picture of me pops up. I wonder what type of caption I get? What type of commentary frames why I'm there? By my count I've been photographed by roughly 15 strangers and those are just the ones I've posed for. I hope the candids caught my good side.

At 10 am excitement is at a new high. Students are giddy. The Chiang Mai Zoo is home to three pandas. The black and white of their coats have become the unofficial colors off the city. People are extremely proud. A baby panda named Lin Ping was born here in May and has captivated Thailand since. I hear there is a 24 hour television station dedicated to her. People come across the country to see her. We have joined the pilgrims.

Zoos in general are much like television sets. They are false environments, replicating real ones. The best television sets can fool you, if only briefly, into thinking you are seeing the true thing. The best zoos should do the same. The Chaing Mai zoo does not accomplish this in the slightest. I should note here that before going to the CMZ the number one position on my list, which I have quite a number of because writing lists makes me feel as though I'm in control of some small part of life, of most disappointing animal viewing experiences was held by the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston, Mass. The empty cages there, I was told, were due to poaching Bostonians. Any zoo where animals have been shot by neighborhood residents should instantly negate the title zoo. In fact it is probably more dangerous, at least in the wild the poor bastards have a chance of running away.

The CMZ is crowded. People are swarming across the walking paths, through flower patches and standing three deep at the railings of the various animal exhibits. I saw donkeys in the African safari. I saw ostriches whose feathers had started to fall out leaving their naked, bumped flesh exposed like a turkey before roasting. I saw people hand feeding hippos so closely they tapped them on the nose. I saw penguins, penguin shaped figures to be more accurate through murky, rotten fish water. I saw a primates whose homes looked like lab cages. I saw a 7-11 in the middle of all this.

Then, I saw Lin Ping, but not really. What I did see was a live video feed of Lin Ping, who for some unknown reason cannot currently be viewed by the public, broadcast on a flat screen TV inside the panda house. Her father, whose name I have forgotten and was put on a diet lat year to make him more attractive to his mate, was in the exhibit, gnawing on bamboo and shitting much to the delight of the hundreds of people pushing to get a picture, he looks like he has fallen off the diet. The camera wielding mass makes the hordes of celebrity chasing paparazzi look tame by comparison.

There is a place to get commemorative photos with the pandas. I realized that by pandas they mean a massive weatherman green screen that superimposes you deep in a bamboo forest surrounded by the creatures. I politely decline.

I recounted the Lin Ping experience to a friend who pointed out that the video could very well be on a constant loop and the whole thing could be a fraud. I begin to wonder.

At 4 pm we have escaped the CMZ. Back on the bus, karaoke on. We stop at the walking street market. The strictly planned, managed fun breaks for a few hours and we walk freely.

At 6pm everyone halts. In Thailand this could be my favorite part of the day. The national anthem is played and people everywhere stop in their tracks until it is finished. I try my best to be in extremely crowded areas when this happens, the effect is really highlighted with more people. What I find particularly entertaining is that there is no uniform direction to turn, no flag to look at. Just stop. Red light. The biggest game of freeze tag where a country's population has been vocally deemed "it".

At 8 pm we begin a a senior send off ceremony. From what I can gather the Thai version of Vitamin C's "Graduation Song" is played and the tears begin. The tears become sobs, the type of air gasping, physically painful sobs that leave your eyes puffy the next morning. The teachers go around and give words of wisdom to the sniffling students. Even with the language barrier I'm put in line to pass on some advice.

What I want to say is that university is going to be great, that you won't have to wear a uniform or get cracked with a stick when you don't pay attention, that some gym teacher on a power trip won't go Full Metal Jacket on your hair when it touches your collar, that you should break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend because it won't work, to never take the top bunk (for a variety of reasons), to not be that kid who pukes everywhere the first night because you'll spend an entire semester trying to live it down, that smoking pot a few isn't going to turn you into some shivering scratching back alley addict like the posters at school depict (Barack is doing just fine), to never under any circumstances turn down an impromptu road trip, that there are a handful of occasions where drinking before noon is acceptable and most of them will come in college, that their is much more than the information scrawled on white boards or printed in text books, that there will be more friends and more laughs and late nights and moments of unabashed stupidity, that for four years you can say "Fuck you" to the world in the name of higher education. But I can't. I simply wish them good luck, tell them it will be fine, give a lot of hugs. Keep it simple.

At 10 pm girls are found drinking whiskey out of Coke bottles. A teacher cries. She is disappointed. I laugh, in private. You can go around the world and find the same tricks. Maybe they will do just fine at college. I wonder if I was ever prone to such jackass behavior, I know the unfortunate answer.

At 4:30 am the jam session starts again and at 8 am we are rolling back towards Phitsanulok.

At 12 pm we stop at an electrical plant. A man drones on through 50 slides of technical information in a very expensive looking conference room. I understand next to nothing, the students understand less because they are all sleeping. I slip out the door to go to the bathroom and walk around the main building. It's the type of place where a conspiracy thriller could take place. Giant corporation, hidden agendas, international politics, Matt Damon. I know I'm constantly on camera.

At 1 pm we stop at a market for lunch. 90% of the product being sold is pork rinds. No sign of the other parts of the pig. The pork rinds are delicious.

At 9 pm we reach Phitsanulok. Pillows and stuffed animals clutched the students trudge down the steps of the bus to waiting parents. The karaoke stops.