Roadside stand operated by Thai feminists.

Elegant, Tired Pots

My Present is one foot in the Future and the other in the Past on this island. It's a rather nifty mix for an Old World romantic who threatens to make a canoe anchor out of his computer once a month, but is hopelessly addicted to the toys of the New World.

I'm guessing that not too many people in the USA remember the days when the Post Office Department (former name of the United States Postal Service – from 1792 to 1970 – when it became a government owned corporation) required all packages to be bound with string, no matter how much tape you used. Well, the Thai postal service still requires you to string along with them. They are polite about it. They sell mailing boxes in the post offices, just as in US post offices, but they don't expect you to have a ball of string in your pocket. Buy a box (a small one costs just under 2 cents, US) and you get a neat little plastic bag with enough string in it to meet their requirements – tape is optional and not required. It puts one of my feet in the past.

In my youth, garbage cans were heavy, galvanized metal containers, but we didn't use them very much. Organic matter was turned into a compost pile, or simply thrown into the garden. Plastic packaging was unknown and paper waste was burned in one of those galvanized cans with a sheet of metal screening over it. There wasn't much money to spend on frivolities, so there wasn't much waste. 'Use it up and make it do' was the frugal rule. There isn't much money here, so the frugal rule is still in force and, while plastic trash cans can be seen everywhere, I think they still don't outnumber the old, charming waste-not-want-not garbage pots made out of spent rubber tires.

Yep... the photo above is of an old rubber tire turned inside out and fashioned into a rather elegant pot with a decorated lid (note how a piece of worn tread has been transformed into filigree): and get this... even the graceful stand it is sitting on is made from pieces of rubber tire. You see them all along the highways and trash collectors empty them regularly. Hell... they are so lovely... A wants one in our living room! I can't imagine what a Thai person's reaction to that would be. On second thought... yes I can... "Crazy Faranges! Don't know enough to put their garbage outside."

Thais are very industrious workers, but most earn very meager wages. Those who don't need all they earn to simply survive, save money. Saving money – what a concept, eh? A country whose populace adopts the habit of saving money slowly develops a strong economy. Americans did it after the depression and the Japanese did it after the Second World War. Watch out for the smaller countries that are doing it now. Instant gratification only lasts an instant.