Oh! The Drama!

Thais can be pretty dramatic, real Drama Queens sometimes. Like the vocalized bodily functions, described with such pithy wit below, some time ago, the screaming puking, the audibly maximized coughing. Thais can’t even sniff up some snot without alerting all of the ships at sea.

It all overflows with drama, like the long, pretentious speeches at the drop of a hat, for little things, like initiating an English Camp. Or it can be very serious, like murdering a wayward boyfriend, or the new girlfriend.

This new flu, this H-whatever-N-whatever, Swine Flu 2009 (don’t worry if you had the flu that went around in 1918, you’re immune). It’s at best a minor annoyance in Thailand, some cases, no many, maybe twelve people dead in a country of sixty million plus. There are signs everywhere, in malls, luxury condo complexes, at bus stops, with Doremon like cartoon characters in surgical masks, telling people how to avoid the flu. More and more people wearing masks. Cheap masks, high fashion masks, cartoon masks, it’s a big market now. I attending a big meeting/seminar today and they gave out masks with the brochures. Embracing the drama.

You’d think it was the Black Plague or something, when in reality it’s not even the Avian Flu, and certainly not even a pale shadow of the hint of AIDS.

It’s the old substitution routine, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Don’t worry about the state of the local economy, the mis-steps of your elected officials, and please forget all about political shenanigans in general.

Sounds like my own miserable country.