Chilling on Koh Samet with the dog that adopted me

[penda]

So there I was, hanging out on Koh Samet (with a bit of a sunburn) when I spotted a chair with an umbrella. 30 Baht later, and the chair and shade was mine for the day. I put my coconut drink down and start to put up the umbrella, hoping that the shade will be enough to let my sunburn heal (despite the fact the sun is super bright and the sand is pure white... thus bouncing most of it right back at me despite any shade I could find), when a dog darts out of the bushes behind me. He takes a long look at my drink, decides it isn't good enough for him, and lays down in the shade of my umbrella... thereby taking up the spot I was going to put my chair in.

He gave me a look that was like "Look, pal, I've been kicked, beaten, and shot at nearly every day since I was born. You don't want to fuck with me. Now sit down next to me and scratch me behind my ear... I've had a hell of a day."

And that's what I did.

Comments

[inevitability.livejournal.com]

So basically, I would argue that they're wealthy in their own right. But many western people would disagree. But anyway, I think the time they have enables them to focus on values such as those.

In the US we don't have a lot of time, but we have a ton of resources and a fairly powerful police state that allows us to enforce those values even if some of our citizens don't understand why. That's a wealth of a different kind. Probably a lesser wealth, since it is based only in arbitrary pieces of paper and brute force, but it is a wealth nonetheless.

You take somewhere like Bangkok, and the citizens neither have the time of the Karen nor the money of the Americans. It isn't surprising that the animals are mistreated. They just don't have the ability to do anything about in their situation.