3rd day

I stopped for a man in a turban and beard because he said he wasn't selling anything, which was true, in a way. I expected something of a religious nature, and a combination of politeness and curiosity made me stop. There was a spiritual aspect, but a very vague, nonspecific one. He used the word 'believe' a good bit. Mostly, it was a magic trick. He handed me a crumpled piece of paper and said, "You will believe!" He pulled out a notepad and asked me to tell him my favorite flower. I thought, "I don't care enough about flowers to have a favorite," and I said, "Okay, a rose." I should have said rhododendron, or something obscure.

He wrote down rose, and then the numbers 6, 7, and 8, and asked me to choose one. I chose 7, because it's a good number, and it was right in the middle. He said, "Okay, sir, now you will believe, and you will listen to me. Unfold your paper." On it was written the word rose and the number 7. I said, "Oh, good job." He quickly wrote down the numbers 1,000, 2,000, and 3,000, and said, "Now choose your price, and I will tell you your mother's name, and then you cannot deny me." [1,000 baht is about 30 dollars.] "You are a rich man, sir," he said. "No, I'm not. It's too much," I said. I wished him luck, and gave him 40 baht, because I felt bad that he should have to expend so much effort for nothing. As I walked off, I was curious as to whether he could actually have told me my mother's name.

So many people here speak English. The neighborhood must be half Westerners, too many. And so many locals want my money.

One day in Korea, I met a Pakistani about my age or younger on the train. He wanted me to know that not all Muslims were violent. He talked about his factory jobs in Korea. Some of them paid as much as I made as a teacher, but those ones sounded extremely dangerous. He hadn't been home to see his family in a long time. Sometimes I couldn't understand him, so I simply nodded my head in agreement, or said, "Oh wow," when it seemed appropriate. But he could speak 2 or 3 languages well, made less than me, and had no job security. Why wasn't he working as a translator somewhere? His position, and the position of others like him, seems similar to that of Mexican laborers in the U.S. When I stepped off that train, I wondered why I deserved to be who I was.