American Impostor

Skyline

Bangkok. December 2018 (Four Years Later)

America has iconic skylines, usually a single group of skyscrapers that has an identifiable look. Bangkok's skyline isn't like this: it's a sea of gleaming steel and glass, a megalopolis seemingly sprouted out of its underdeveloped surroundings. It's as if New York city had been placed in the middle of Wyoming, or London placed in the middle of, well, England I guess.

As Bangkok's lights come into view from my airplane window, familiar memories flood in. It's been a year since I last set foot here. Since then I've been to a dozen or so countries in Europe and the Middle East, but a certain sort of feeling enters my heart when I see this skyline.

A lot of travelers I've talked to hated Bangkok, but to me, they've only seen a single part of it: the famous Khao-san road, a seedy, hyper-commercialized, overcrowded part. A touristy part.

I've seen a different city, an impossible mix of parallel worlds.

It seems like every nationality lives here, or so it seems through the restaurants and neighborhoods-- Japanese, Arab, North Korean, South Korean, Indian, Nepalese, Pakistani, Italian, English, Chinese

Luxury lives besides poverty-- titanic, opulent malls next to street food tents hawking food next to beggars taking baths with a washbucket and hose.

The future flies overhead in a shiny sky train with air excellent air conditioning and video advertisements while tuktuks decorated with decals and ornaments negotiate prices below.

I begin to remember what I loved about the city. I loved spending three hours with a friend trying to find a papaya salad with preserved crab place he'd seen on a youtube video. I loved walking into a seemingly upright massage parlor only to be aggressively offered a handjob. I loved the chic cafes and rooftop bars. I loved the feel of wind on a motorbike. I loved that for its three-day new year, the city just shut down and devolved into a giant water-gun fight, with locals and vendors carrying large tanks of ice water so people could refill and continue the fight. I loved the wild flavors of the food: sweet, spicy, salty all the same. There was something here that excited the senses.

But what I love most about this city is the privilege. It was here I felt privileged for the first time. Not that somewhere-in-the-middle privilege at home. Here I am treated like a god. The faces and skin tones on the billboards and posters here resemble my light complexion more than the usually darker locals. I am everything beautiful and good and strong here, or at least the media portrays me as so.

Women laugh at my stupid jokes. People are extraordinarily friendly. The romantic attention is overwhelming. Wealthy, educated Thais invited my then-broke ass to dinners and parties. This city is my rock at times-- a reminder that social value is subjective, that my value is heavily influenced by my appearance, which in turn is influenced by the movies and shows and ads people watch. That we watch. I prefer darker complexions to lighter ones, because I'm from the US. I am as influenced by what I see as any other. I am as fascinated by subjective beauty as any other.

That's why I'm still thinking about her.

I can still see Fa on the rooftop bar of that hotel: a silhouette smoking against the night's vista, orange highways outlining the grey cityscape.

I met her on the Couchsurfing app when I was staying in Bangkok. She invited me to join her and her friends at a club. I was enamored when I saw her: tall, skinny, unabashedly dark. She looked like a fashion model. She wore clothes that hugged her wide hips. She told me that on more than one occasion she was confused for a ladyboy because of her dimensions. In a "5 ways to spot a ladyboy" article my friend had shown me, #5 was "if she is too sexy, she's probably a ladyboy."