Bangkok is definitely visible from outer space these recent nights. Since just after Thanksgiving the whole city has been lit up like a...well, like a Christmas tree (it got to be a cliche for a reason, right?). But what's interesting is that, while they definitely enjoy the decorations, the people here aren't really celebrating Christmas, or not primarily, anyway. Sure, there are Christmas trees (and until you've seen a PURPLE fake Christmas tree, or fake-Christmas-tree-guts twisted into the shape of an Astroturf puppy, you haven't seen Christmas trees!) and Santas, and a few stockings here and there, but the two major reasons for all this wattage are the King's birthday (which was a couple of weeks ago) and New Year's Day.
It makes me think about winter holidays and light. To what degree are all these celebrations (and so many traditions have them at this time of year), or at least the decorations we choose for them, reducible to some pre-religious lust for the sun that everybody feels around the time of the winter solstice? Not a new idea, I know, but if every idea I had was required to be brand-new I'd spend a lot of time waiting around and drooling.
This is the result of graduate school: to make me consider everything within the paradigm of original research. "Mothers, tell your children / Not to do what I have done..."
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