Silence = an expression of satisfaction?

One of the most common dwellings in Sweden is buying an apartment in a house that is owned by a special association. The aim of this association is to hold the house in trust and to manage and maintain its administration – for the benefit of the members of the association. And the members are the people who have bought apartments- or rather, they buy a membership, which gives them the right to live in one of the association’s apartments. (I hope that this construction is not too difficult to understand.)
Being a member of this kind of an association means that you are partly (together with all other members) responsible for the house and its running. The members elect a board (every association has to have a board), which normally consists of a small group of members that are specially engaged and interested in the issues of management of the house. In this way the members delegate the daily managing issues to the board.
Every year there is a special annual meeting, where the board gives a report to the members and it is up to the members to make a critical review of what has been going on.
But a critical review is often interpreted as a sort of criticism and as most people don´t want to cause any conflicts or troubles they are silent. They don´t even bother to accomplish any critical review at all.
The board takes this kind of silence as an expression of satisfaction. A silent group of people is thus a satisfied group of people. Everything is nice, everything is OK.
But this is of course not true. It is just the same old story: the anxiousness of conflicts and the withdrawal of the democratical rights.
How would you act as a member?

When are people at work or at school?

The flight home took eleven hours. I can´t say that I enjoyed it. The plane was completely filled by people – among them several children. Three children behind my back – and all of them did not sleep through the night onboard. “Eeeeeaaaaahhhh” means hungry and tired and don´t want to sleep. I sat close to the midsection toilets on board and from where I sat I could watch the queue that started up already after takeoff. Most people around the thirties and forties or fifties. Some young ones, school ages. Most of them tanned by the sunshine. I guess that they had come from the beaches at Hua Hin or Koh Chang or Koh Samet, or Krabi or Phuket. How come that so many could afford taking vacation in the mid of the ordinary working period? Some of them were perhaps on sick leave, or they could have been kicked out from their job. But in such a case how could they afford travel all the way to Far East?
I remember a chat I had with a taxi driver in Singapore. I asked him how many hours a day he worked. From dusk to dawn he said. And how many days a week? He looked at me, smiled an said: all days, sir.
Or at least six days, sir.
And vacation?
Vacation? Oh, I normally ask for vacation for one or perhaps two weeks per year. I have to work hard, sir. I have a big family that I am responsible for.
How many people in your family?
Wife, three children, my parents, my younger sister, sir. I have to work hard, sir. But I don´t complain. I am a happy man. Everybody that has such a family is very happy, sir.
On the plane I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what happened and what happens in my home country. There are always lots of interesting questions coming up to think about.

New and old friends in Far East

We were proudly invited to dinner last night by our old friend, Capt. Sa-ad, the former Executive Vice President of THAI. We sometimes call him Capt. Nokia (Nokia = connecting people) because he is really good at getting people together. At the table was among others the present Executive Vice President Flight Operations at THAI, Capt. Norahuch; the Head of Bangkok Aviation Center, Capt. Piya; the Managing Director for Sabai Airlines & Tour, Capt. Tanapat; the President and CEO for the IT system consultant company, Kuhn Pheng, the Manager for THAI Flight Crew Recruitment Dpt, Kuhn Phinthiya; the Managing Chairman for some Thai industries, Kuhn Supap.
In a typical Thai way the dinner was elegant and very generous. And I think that my wife and I are lucky to still be remembered for our long term services for THAI.
And today, our last day in Krung Thep for this time, we invited our friends, Kuhn Phinthiya and Kuhn Prasart Mansuwan, the former Thai ambassador to a Japanese buffet for lunch.
Well, at old age there is an obvious regression going on: back to the oral phases where the main enjoyments seem to be…

Tom Ka Gai and Pad Thai Goong

Two favourites for lunch today. Chicken soup with steamed rice and noodles with prawns and condiments. At the riverside. Indoors with A/C – too hot outside. There is something with Thai kitchen that makes you not at all interested in eating bread with butter and cheese. And you are not tempted to eat a lot of sugar fattening goodies as dessert. Fresh sun riped fruit is perfect. And your body screams: yes – this is the food that I want! After a while you are beginning to feel slimmer, healthier – and (perhaps) somewhat more happy. I guess that Thai food is a medicure against depression as well. A lot of Swedes have made Thailand to their second home land. It is good for Thailand and good for the Swedes. I hope it will continue. If the airline companies will be able to keep the air fares on an acceptable level (but I think it is sad that SAS probably will finish its direct flights STO-BKK this year, even if it will be good for THAI though).

Flash back memories

Here I am in the Capital of the Kingdom of the East and several flash back memories come ahead. Once we, some colleagues of mine, were quite a good team, working for a prestigious airline carrier, the national carrier of this country. Due to my rising age I, together with my close co-worker and wife, set up a plan to transfer the main duties to a couple of younger colleagues. The meaning was to continue in the very good and very well proven tradition, including very well established methods. I had no plans to retire completely and I had no plans to leave, just to withdraw from the very upfront position.
But there is corruption and greed everywhere. Chickens want to become roosters and hens (or kings and queens) immediately and then they are tempted to act aggressively to the former leader of the pack. I was after a while very frustrated and very offended by the new team and their management style so I decided to leave. I could not stand it. And I could not accept the new methodological deviations that definitely not were up to the traditions set up by me and my predecessor.
After some months the airline company asked me to try to find a way of co-operation with this new team as it wanted me in a supervising role and still being the up-front man. A very serious meeting was arranged between representatives from the company, my wife and me and the new teamleaders. This meeting led to an agreement: yes, we were to try to find the best solution for all parties involved. But shit happens now and then. Those new team leaders did not give a damn about the agreement, which was shown after some weeks. They denied to cooperate. The curtain fell down between us with a certain thunder. Boom! The trust was gone.
But in my mind I feel pride of my contributions to the company – I had the privilege to work for it during forty years. My not any more trustworthy colleagues will not stay that long in this business. I am convinced about that.

Law offenders everywhere

Boarded the aircraft in SouthEast Asia early. Looked at the passengers streaming in. Most of them had so called hand luggage big as small houses, and not one only, but two. There are restrictions about this and I don´t know how they could pass all security checks and boarding controls with those suitcases, trying desperately to later on lift them up in the compartments over their seats. But my guess is that they (I mean the passengers) don´t care about any restrictions. One big man seated himself next to my seat, picked up his Iphone and started to call and to SMS and to read his emails, such things. When the Inflight Manager instructed all pax to switch off all electronical instruments before takeoff he went on, playing with his iphone toy. My wife looked worried and asked if he had understood the instructions about switching off electronical things. He turned to her, smiled, asking: Are you afraid?
My mind had started to figure out if I should punch him in his big stomach or something like that when he slowly turned his Thing off – during our taxi out to the runway.
I do not trust all these people. Who are they? What is going on in their minds?
But they are probably just sons and daughters of our present culture, which has its certain drawbacks. You know: care about yourself first. Your priority is – you, yourself. Feed your Ego. There are a lot of courses for such things.
Sorry, but I don´t trust people anymore. But a few.

Recession also in Far East

I can smell it in the air. Even though Bangkok has always been a vibrant, hectic, overcrowded, giant city there is a nervousness, a tension, here and there. Lots of the most hip shops in the city’s shopping areas are empty of customers. A lot of hotels have to reduce their prices to get guests. Walking around in the streets and salesmen from the smaller shops are more or less aggresively requesting me to stop and “just have a look, sir”.
Heard from a friend living at Phuket island that the rainy season has started much earlier this year. Rain and thunder several days in a row.
I can smell it in the air. Everything transforms. For the worse – at the beginning. In the long run hopefully for the better.

Krung Thep (The dwelling of the angels)

Krung Thep, Maha Nakorn, Amorn Ratanakosindra, Mahindrayudha, Mahadilokrop, Nopratana Rajdhani, Burirom, Udom Rajnivet Mahasatan, Amorn Pimarn Avatarn Satit, Sakkatutiya , Vishnukarm Prasit.
All these names are alternatives to Bangkok and if you really want to impress a Thai friend of yours try to figure out how to pronounce the complete name of the giant city in the kingdom of East.
Today we are preparing our trip to this tempting city. We will take off tomorrow – for a few days in the heat.

Communication is a part of intellecual skills

If you try to avoid to discuss certain issues and subjects, also the difficult ones, with other people, and if you try to run away from the conflcts that quite often is opened up during or after discussions – you are taking a risk. The risk is that you will in the same time avoid to train your brain functions, especially your verbal reasoning skills. And when you don´t use it you will probably lose it, at least you will in the long run reduce your own capacities. I meet now and then people who don´t want to engage themselves in discussions with me, who say that words, especially the written ones, could hurt and lead to something less of value. But my opinion is the opposite one: even if the words may hurt I have to state that mutual communication and discussions are one of the most powerful tools that we have. In order to develop both ourselves and our surroundings we´d better use these tools, otherwise….well, I think you know what will happen.

Belief systems to everyone in need

There are miracles everywhere. I have just to look out through my window at my home office. The water, at the moment like a living mirror, the island over there with its hills and beautiful trees and masses of bush plants. Looking up: white and grey clouds playing a dance, following the music of the wind, and in between the clear light blue sky. Looking at the photos of my grandchildren: they are miracles, both of them. Affection and love stream inside my body. Miracles everywhere.
It is not easy to really understand the origins of all these miracles. And it is not easy to grasp and to adjust to all horror stories about killings and wars and all other violent actions and famine and starvation and…so on…
No wonder that people all around the world try their best to create visions about the powers that are connected to something unreachable, the spiritual world, also called Heaven, God or the Prophet or the Holy Spirit. All those creations, made up by more or less skilled human imaginative minds, are there because most people are in need of something bigger and greater than we could experience by our own senses. But I have to remind myself that all belief systems, particularly those that are built around churches or mosques or pagodas or temples and thus are named religions, are nothing else than – belief systems. They are attracting billions of people, which means that they have found something that could be called The Very Good Business Idea that easily beats every other ordinary business on the common market.
Most people believe because there are too many miracles and too many threats and too much love and too many horror stories out there. And I myself, who is not a true believer, feel a sort of poverty – because I am not able to create and to really attend the dreams behind all those things that I can´t grasp. I try to stick to the ordinary science and the learnings of psychology. It provides me with parts of important matters of the world and the most dangerous animal living there (the Human Being), but it is almost impossible to find the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth. Amen.