Lao Voices

I received my magazines yesterday in the mail and found an interesting article in Kwanreun, June 2007 issue, written by Yamila in Thai Language, and I thought some of us might enjoy reading.

About 10 years ago, paparazzi was a new term for Thai people, but not anymore, we’re familiar and understand the term fully well, they are the ones that would go out and take photos of famous people, they’d take candid shots, often in an intrusive manner. Seems awful, but there’s a good thing of what they’re doing; they somehow manage to bring the distance between famous people closer to ordinary people. We’re so use to seeing these famous people looking so glamorous on the cover of the magazines, but in reality, they don’t look that much different from any of us.

There’s always a distance between people to people, we might not be able to measure the distance in miles but we knew it’s there. Assuming that we’d measure it by inches, feet, yards, or miles; those that are living next door might seem as if they’re living miles away because there’s no interaction with one another; not communicating is a clear indication that the person is creating a distance for him/herself…all of us are good at this, even when we’re talking to someone, we still need some distance, we called it our private space.

For some, the distance seem greater, especially those that are in a different social class, or economic class, which seem as if we’re living in a different world, examples rich people and poor people, robbers and monks, factory workers and high profile politicians, the braves and the cowardice, and the list goes on.

Big cities create distance between people, more so than small towns. It’s rather strange because people are living a lot closer to one another, sharing space in the subway or bus, walking shoulders to shoulders on the sidewalk, but these don’t seem to bring people any closer (from my personal experience while living in NYC, you don’t make eye contact to anyone, and mind your own business, and that’s the city mentality, after moving to a small town, sadly I still carry that city mentality with me). Many city slickers seem to be lonelier than those living in a small town, mainly because they like to create a distance for themselves.

When we were little, it didn’t seem that difficult getting to know another person, even if we had never met him/her before. It might be because children don’t know how to create wall for themselves, unlike adult that like to create wall that is thick and tall to surround ourselves at all times. However, it seems that people that I meet like to create distance, some might be my next-door neighbors, but how often do I talk to them, maybe once or twice a year (a good example was the VA Tech shooting, they interviewed the neighbors, all knew very little about the family because the most they’d exchange is ‘Hi, ’ ) For some that are working in the same place, it seems normal not to even say hello….after getting used to this distance that we’re creating for ourselves, we feel uncomfortable being closed to someone; we became very selective as to whom we want to be closed to, and for those that we don’t want or have no used for them anymore, we’d create that distance, and communicating less and less, and eventually that annoying person will just go away. If you’re doing this and not aware, this is the wall and space that you’re creating for yourself.

We are living in the era of seeing the importance of people by their material possessions or social class. We determine how close they are to us in distance such as if they’re in the same social class as us, even at the movie theater, or the mall, we measure them by the vehicles that they’re driving …

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Well, I hope you all like the article, I think it’s rather interesting, many of us don’t think that we’re creating a distance or a wall for ourselves, but the one on the other end might feel it. Just like when you made a comment on someone’s post and received no reply, the poster is creating a distance for him/her, and not just a distance but building a thick brick wall, might be as thick and long as the Great Wall of China.