20. Nong Khai, Waxing

20. Nong Khai, Waxing

.Is there anything more scarying than being waxed in a country where people usually dont?As I lay down in the table and watch the gorgeous mysterious thai girl slowly try to figure out what to do I feel a silent despair. why do I wax anyway? My mind is taken back to the English guy in Camden Town who took 5 minutes in a complicated choreography to open for me an overpriced coconut. That day I could see in my head the 10 year old northeastern Brazilian children taking 3 moves in 3 seconds to do what obviously had been embodied by them. Why was buying coconut water in England was what I wondered then. And just like waxing although it did not make any sense It made me happy.

As I think of this about 3 different girls come up. They speak Thai, they consult each other. And I try in broken language to explain what I want. That is obviously a terrible idea. Too late anyway.

I look at the beautiful girl and it is suddenly so obvious to me how much worlds I had changed. The chaos of Hindu India, to the silence of Buddhist Thailand. The male domianted public Indian world where all masseurs, and waiters, and cooks were male, to the female public dominated Thailand. In India I met women after women who dated Indians, and Tibetans. The. foreign guys were secluded from this intercultrual dating scenario there. In Thailand girls grab foreigners in the street. As I look the gentle gorgeous Thai girl it seems so obvious to me why. The are really like a fantasy. Smiling, kind, fragile, mysrerious. At least at first before these foreigners have to confront the difference of cultural reality, or till they might experience the anger of a Thai girl when she does not get what she wants.

Yes the burn me. Yes they have no clue what they are doing. They seem to be doing s Thai massage but with wax. They compress the wax on me on familiar thai massage moves. They pull slow and upwards rather than fast and close to the skin. Before they do that they look slightly terrified. They smile and say appologetic things in a language I dont grasp. I laugh too. It is a really funny situation.

Even as they not very profiiciently enough remove the cloths with wax causing even more pain than usually I feel happy. Everyday I now do yoga with Julian seing the Mekong and Laos on the other side. Everyday I now sleep under a blue mosquito net that makes me during the night look up and feel like I am in a fairy tale. Everyday I have a conversation with someone new. Everyday I meditate. Life is simple and it feels good.

The Thai girl asks me where I am from. "OH Brasil?" She is excited, she has never met someone from there before. She likes Kaka. I am surprised. How is it that I can thank these Brazilian football players for making people react to me with joy. They know where I come from not bc of wars or imperial power. I am always met by smiles bc of ronaldinho or carnaval. The worse it could ever be attributed to being Brazilian is the latent mystified jungle like sexuality foreigners think of. That way easier to deal with then deep rooted resentment because of the poliical history of ones country that as an indicidual one hss almost nothing to do with.

It is painful. It is terrifying. And it is at the same time great. That is really the greatest problem, I have to deal with here. The rest is simple and pure joy.