Of Textiles and the Body

It's 9:15 at night Monday and I'm sitting in the little garden outside my spartan guesthouse. The garden is tiny, but not spartan: lit, teak platform, koi in a pond on two sides, a gently burbling large pottery vase fountain, hanging plants...and about 40 steps off a street festival heavy with T shirts (many featuring Bob Marley, if you get my drift), street performers (a guy on a bike--heavily adorned with advertising--blaring music, a juggler/illusionist who wasn't tossing anything but was manipulating 3 and then 4 crystal balls in a mesmerizing way, so that they stay stable in space while he moves his hands over, under, and around them), beer girls outside their restaurants (all in formfitted miniskirt dresses: the Heineken girls are in green with the brand name blazoned up their side from hip onward...); and throngs of people, mostly farang: westerners. Yes, I am amongst the oldest people I see. But I figure I've lived with teenagers my whole life since I was one, so I can deal. Here in the garden it's quite serene.

If the mosquitos don't get too bad out here I'll try to tell you about my day. It was a great one!

You may find this stretches credulity, but there was another Karen on the dig, a little older than me, from Connecticut, hair redder than mine now is, Ph.D. in sociology, AND A SERIOUS TEXTILE PERSON. For a gallery in NYCity, she is currently making small stitched and embellished pieces (10" square) for walls based on photographs she took last time she was in Thailand of modern wedding gowns that preserve the folding details in the front of the skirt that are depicted on the apsaras at Angkor Wat. She also makes large pieces (8' square) that are asymmetrical but rhythmic piecings of traditional Thai fabrics. It's been really fun to have someone who is more nuts than I am for fabric. She also has a more generous budget to work with--so she's bought a lot. (I've bought some, I admit.)

Anyway, this other Karen had a connection with an American/Thai woman who is the curator for a major collection of textiles (some 1,800 pieces) that is in the care and keeping of an upscale American ex-pat law firm here in Bangkok. Karen had an appointment to meet with this woman and view the collection today, and invited me along. So we spent nearly 4 hours viewing the works on display. Fabric from the collection is how they decorate the interior walls, in a new oval building, with glass allowing views 360 degrees on the perimeter. They are on the 26th floor. Then she took us into the curatorial storage space, which is state of the art...think Metropolitan Museum. Climate controlled stacked ranks of large stainless steel trays with cotton muslin wrapping for each piece--kind of a morgue for fabric--and library style rolling units to maximize storage. She showed us lots of priceless pieces from Laos, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, and Sumatra, in many different techniques. I learned a TON about symbols, etc. Will share with those of you who are curious when I return!

After that, I took a taxi to Wat Po, a gorgeous temple famous here for three things: the largest reclining Buddha in the world (I think); chedis of many of the Thai kings of the past; and--on the premises--a famous center of training for Thai massage. The Buddha is really great. He's 46 meters long, so half the length of a football field, wonderfully serene, lying on his side at the moment he attains enlightenment. The bottoms of his feet are inlaid with mother of pearl in intricate designs depicting animals and lotus and lots of iconography I couldn't place. He just barely fits in the beautiful building built around him, where every interior inch is painted: the ceiling is brilliant red with golden designs on it, the window shutters are black and gold, and the walls are painted in multicolor panels telling the whole story of the Ramayana, floor to ceiling. Quite stunning, really.

The chedis are elaborately decorated with tile mosaic, much of which incorporates gold leaf and sparkling multi-color glass so they are pretty stunning in the late light of day.

And, yes, I did avail myself of a 30 minute Thai massage, right on the grounds of the temple. (This cost about $8.) It was great. Thai massage involves rhythmic heavy pressure on the fully clothed body. Here, the massages happen in a large room with the same red/gold elegant ceiling, and beds (not Western style massage tables, but Asian style platforms) five across with an aisle down the middle, and sculptures of yogi in various postures along the walls. The room is quiet, and you are served iced green tea before and after the massage. Painful at moments, but altogether quite fine.

Then, as the sun was setting, I walked to another temple--Wat Matharat, for those in the know--which is one of the centers of teaching Thai style meditation. I took a 90 minute practical class in walking and sitting Vipassana meditation. The walking part was new to me, and pretty neat. This is insight/mindfulness meditation, not concentration meditation. There was just one other person in the class--a young woman from somewhere in Europe, but since we weren't speaking I don't know where--and the class was taught by a Thai(?) woman who really seemed to know her stuff and upended preconceptions by wearing heavy eye makeup.

So I am off to bed--to practice lying down meditation, I kid you not--and thus escape the mosquitos, who are making something of a dinner of me.

Tomorrow is my last day in Bangkok. It's hard to imagine it can top this, but there are plenty of things to do and see, even with out hitting the upscale commercial district!

Rest well.

Karen