Tom Robbins on Bangkok

"Simultaneously a frantic, high-tech juggernaut and a timeless Asian dream, Bangkok straddles like no other metropolis the boundary between acrid and sweet, soft and hard, sacred and profane. It’s a silk buzz saw, a lacquered jackhammer, a steel-belted seduction, a digital prayer. Its numerous temples and shrines are obscured by clouds of mephtic exhaust, its countless vices and crimes by smiles of tender delight; and through it all, Bangkok manages to maintain the most graceful balance, a grace no less genuine for being well-rehearsed and no less pure for being supported by con men and whores."

- Tom Robbins (Villa Incognito)

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For those of you who don't know Tom Robbins, this post-hippie writer spent much time in Thailand and out of this time spawned a number of books. In my creative writing class, he was recommended to me after I read some pieces that included my experiences in Bangkok. I decided to look him up online and ran across this quote from one of his books which struck me as a profound (if secular) view on the paradoxical nature of Bangkok.

Bangkok is a nation of smoke and mirrors, the land of smiles masking (as he says) vices and crimes in the form of political corruption, human trafficking, massive pollution and prostitution.
And so it is that Bangkok draws people escaping from pain into a place where Hedonism brings meaning. Or at least that is what "Bangkok" represents to the west.

What do I hope to see? This summer I hope to press in and discover who actually lives, breathes and works, beneath the gilded exterior that is promoted to the rest of the world. How do they live? How do they interact with the dual reality that is Bangkok? What does justice and shalom speak prophetically with judgment and hope to a well-rehearsed grace, that is ingenuous and supported by con artists and whores...