IF THE CLOWN SHOES FIT WEAR THEM
Part 1- “The Big Funny”
Living low profile in Chiang Mai Thailand, because the less money you have the lower you live, and bouncing around town wearing my usual work clothes of Thai multi colored very baggy pants and my flip flops, or sometimes , and usually I am on a rented scooter or am using the ubiquitous tuk tuks for transport, I am in the business of buying and then exporting Thai art to Sayulita Mexico where I have an Art Gallery selling high end Asian art to wealthy and worldly Mexicans and American tourists, I am also a partner in a restaurant in Chiang Mai called “Trekkies” which has zero to do with Star Trek and the minions of ”Trekkies”, but more to do with mountain climbing and real not make believe finding new worlds, anyway we are serving gourmet burgers, dogs and sandwiches to ex pats and Thais maxed out on Thai food, and life is good.
My mission this day is to find saa paper, why you ask, and what the f is Saa paper? Saa paper is made from the bark of the Mulberry tree , the tree that silk worms eat the leave of to spin produce their silk threads, and it is the paper your beautiful textured holiday cards are made of, there are several large commercial factories in the Chiang Mai area that produce this paper, but I have been told the best sources are in the countryside where local families operate the production and sale of Saa paper from their homes.
So I scooter on up north near Chiang Rai about two hours North of Chiang Mai to find a source that has been recommended to me, I find the home which is located in the middle of a no fancy name forest . It’s mid-morning and the patriarch greets me at the front door and introduces himself in Thai English, his name is Sarawut, as I enter his family home/factory and as customary in Thailand, Asia and other civilized countries, I have taken off my footwear/flip flops before entering, he then introduces me to his wife and four young daughters; all have that beguiling Thai smile, to me the world’s most enchanting hello, and all are busy at work sorting Saa paper in the great room, most of the home is dedicated to the Saa paper business, the family sleeps in a small bedroom at the rear of their home factory. We chat in his basic English for quite a while about many things including Saa paper, and I get prices etc., but as it is now late afternoon and I want to make sure I see all that there is to see Saa paper wise, so I bid my adieus and tell the family I will return later in the afternoon, this area has many home Saa paper factories.
I head further north and get lost big time, and as it is now almost dark I decide to play it safe rather than be sorry and head back to my original first stop and buy my Saa paper from Sarawut and his family. I head back (hopefully) towards Sarawuts home, towards being a key word here, dense forest, no road signs, or rather road signs that I have no clue as to their meaning or significance, for example this is Park Avenue in Thai: พาร์คอเวนิว, bottom line after much searching and scootering I finally recognize the home from a distance, it is now pitch black outside and I have no idea where I am or what time it is, it was only by chance I came upon the house.
But the home is as pitch black as the night. I do not want to wake the family abruptly and frighten them , so I scoot as quietly as possible on up to the home, just then all the lights in the house go on, and Sarawut comes out to the front porch followed by his wife and four children, all are dressed for a good night’s sleep, then? Taking something from behind his back Sarawut lifts that something above his head and to his left in the air, at first I am bewildered as the porch has no lights, , and the lights inside the home cast whatever it is in a shadow so at first I cannot make out what it is he is holding, but then when an obviously amused Sarawut wiggles the object in the air, and I think I know what I am viewing, but to be sure I look down at my feet and low and behold I become enlightened as we Buddhist’s like to say, I have no flip flops on, I am to be very kind- dumb founded, no magic trick here, I forgot my flip flops at the front door hours ago, and never noticed!, at that moment the entire family starts howling with laughter, for it is one thing to forget flip flops and quite another not to notice they are not on your big feet!
The children were the most amused I might add, all holding their shaking bellies and tossing their heads backwards and then slapping their thighs and pointing at me and then pointing at the flip flops!, one of the girl’s actually fell to her knees she was laughing so hard!, and then Sarawut says in broken Thai- English: Mr. Jeff. Mr. Jeff: “You make us BIG FUNNY- BIG FUNNY!!”, (in English he meant I gave his family a good laugh, though perhaps he was making his own verbal faux pas joke at my expense) all the while using his flip flop filled arms and hands spread far apart to qualify BIG, and once again uncontrollable laughter, indicating FUNNY, they did not say it but what they were thinking was: what a silly Farang, ( Thai slang for a foreigner) he was totally correct as far as I was concerned, I joined in the laughter, because though laughing at me, it was not really against me, a subtle difference, justifiable hilarity I would say, I thanked them all, got my flips and went back to Chiang Mai. Laughing all of the way.
Part 2- The clown is clueless-
Flash forward two years and Thailand is no longer my home, I am headed to Margarita Island Venezuela, but decide to spend the soon to be summer months visiting old friends in New York before leaving for South America. My schedule in the early evening is to go to the Gym, my gym outfit is my Thai everyday outfit, baggy pants, but no flip flops, I replace them with red and orange high top Ked sneakers, and a red sweatshirt, seems a perfect fit for the Gym to me, and I would occasionally wear the same outfit out on the street, though I did notice some strange looks going my way when I would wear them at the local library, though no one ever said anything and in fact seemed to do their best to avoid interaction with me, I wrote that off at the time as a personality trait innate to library cellar dwellers, that being having no personal interaction with readers other than pointing to the sign that says ‘quiet’ and then rolling their eyes, the ones above the glasses they wear on a string around their neck, but as I figured out later this distancing was more out of fear than from respect, but I never got those fearful looks in the Gym as everyone there only sees their own reflection, bottom line is that I had no CLUE that I looked like a clown! anyway during that summer sometimes on the way back from the gym to I would first stop by a small Italian restaurant to work on negating any progress I may have made at the Gym.
One of the waiters there is a young twenty something kid named Miguel, he is from Nicaragua, we become friendly acquaintances, he practices his broken English with me and I practice my broken Spanish with him, this schedule goes on for three or four months and soon I am scheduled to depart for Venezuela, one more Gym day, one more Italian restaurant stop and chew.
This night Miguel is busy with other tables, but as he passes my table by he seems to hesitate as if about to say something and then thinking better of it says nothing, finally he does stop at my table and very politely and hesitatingly asks me if he could ask me a personal question, I said sure, he then says:
Mr. . . . . Jeff, are you a clown?,
I bit my lower lip to suppress my laughter as I did not want to embarrass him and said, No I am not – though many people seem to think so. That answer served two purposes, one is that it made me laugh inside at myself and two, he took it literally, some humor does not translate well between cultures, especially self-perceived wit. That was it; now he knew! Mr. Jeff is not a professional clown he just looks like one, and many of Mr. Jeff’s friends think so also!
Miguel went back to work knowing the answer to a question he probably had wanted to ask me from the moment I first stepped into the restaurant with my Thai clown outfit on a few months back, and explained the attitude towards me previously mentioned of my fellow library dwellers who apparently had a fear of clowns, (not uncommon in adults) hence declined to ask the question that Miguel asked without fear albeit with trepidation, Mr. Jeff was not a real clown he just wore clown clothes! I finished my meal, got in my car, made sure I was out of sight from Miguel and the restaurant and began laughing uncontrollable. I could not help but think- if it walks like a clown--------talks like a clown, looks like a clown- it be clown!
Then later that night it hit me, I realized I had really missed my calling in life, the best moments of that life so far and by far have been when I have been able to make someone laugh, most especially children, an American a Thai, Chinese, Balinese, Venezuelan or any child laughing needs no translator, too beautiful for words to express, children are the world’s best clowning around audience, it’s their most joyous albeit ephemeral time of life before the world by its nature bit by bit strips them of their innocence, my fondest memories of travel are infused with the laughter of children. Laughter is the common bond, it’s a universal language, and as it’s a bit late in life for me to enroll in Clown College, I will continue my free-lance clowning around with or without costume. All is one. Life is after all is one Big Laugh/Big Funny-
The End- The Bottom