March 30, 2019

Bangkok, Thailand

I arrive in Bangkok today after a 15 hour bus from Mae Sai. As a side note, I noticed (so far at least) that the further north I went into southeast Asia, the more overseas Chinese there are. In Myanmar for example, there were many Chinese, signs like () that were outside people’s doors. I asked one of them, a currency exchanging lady, how to catch a Burmese songthaew. She was very eager to help as I pulled out my rusty Mandarin.

In Mae Sai, there was quite a lot of Chinese as well. In Chiang Mai, a little less and in Bangkok, I haven’t seen any (yet).

Onto today, I took my first partner dance class today. This is part of the reason why I left my accounting job and took this less conventional route, to meet more women. I’m quite ignorant for now about the opposite sex, and I think partner dancing will aid me in remedying this. The class went reasonably well for a first timer. We did Merengue and Salsa.

Merengue is a partner dance along with salsa. Salsa especially I struggled with. I also feel I need to do a better job in entertaining the women I danced with me being the leader. The Indian girl in particular seemed more entertained with another pair than dancing with me. That’s on me to fix. Perhaps sparking an interesting conversation using the Ford Method. This will get easier as I get more skilled and am less reliant on concentrating on the technical details. The good news is that it seems that the numbers are in my favor, that is there are more girls than boys and that this was my first lesson, so things can only go up from here.

On another thought, I’m conflicted right now, I came to Thailand for Thai boxing, for building myself up physically, for the Fists of Man and to gain the skills necessary to pass on martial arts to the next generation. I did not come here fore Latin dancing. Could I do both, sure. Though my attention would be divided between teaching English, (also skill building), Thai boxing and Latin Dancing. All three will teach me skills I feel will be necessary in my 30’s and beyond, but greatness, true greatness, comes from concentrating your efforts into one thing. There lies the dilemma.

I’m still working on that.

Kingston S. Lim

March 30, 2019

Bangkok, Thailand