Kevin Lentz, 131 YinD 

The town center bustles with men hustling their produce to market and women bargaining. Amid the sounds of chickens and loud K-pop from students’ phones, shop boys and girls announce prices, their voices sliding up and down the Thai language’s five tones. The nasal chanting of street singing overpowers the K-pop as an old man sings about his native land. Enveloping all of this; the wafting scents of hot peppers, garlic, and durian move through the market. These noises and smells converge into a single sensation of life for me here.

This half year anniversary of my life in Thailand coincides with July 4^th. The coincidence led me to reflect on my life here and how it is intimately shaped by my life in the U.S. This seemingly obvious fact came as a surprise to me. I arrived in this country thinking I had unsaddled myself from all the unproven notions and beliefs I carried due to circumstances of upbringing. I prided myself on being largely stripped of that national perspective which leaves the eyes cloudy and opaque before a multifaceted world. In a way, I strove to represent the idea of humanity purged of unqualified sentimentality. Somehow, I forgot that to be sentimental is to be human.

Now, I am left staring at the rubble of my blaring, naive idea as I notice my preconceived ideas filling in the blanks when I am at a loss of what is going on around me. In a way, this is normal: ideas tame life. They can order all its chaos according to typologies and theories and leave a sense of comfort in “knowing” or “understanding”. However, this comfort depletes the world I am living in. It paints a vibrant world with one color. Many times, this view takes me away from the heat of life. My inner monologue roars as I am trying to make sense of a situation, and I am drawn towards my collection of theories, away from the present world.

So, as I come to fully appreciate the power of my upbringing this 4^th of July, I also realize that ignorance is only vulnerable when recognized and exposed to a new atmosphere. In other words, I still have a lot of work to do in recognizing and correcting my notions of the world, but seeing this culture in all its vibrant colors is well worth the work.

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