25 March 2006
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The Festival Endeth
So after eight very intense days of film festival operations, it is over. Just as a town in the aftermath of a tornado, my mind is a scattered mess. It was a very fun ride, though. Over lunch the day after with a former festival colleague, I came to the conclusion that something that I’m experiencing less of in Bangkok than I did here in the States is intellectual stimulation.
Through a combination of schedules and circumstances and just getting settled in to life there, Tawn and I don’t have a lot of people around us who are interested in things like films, theatre, books, lectures, travel, etc. There are also very few people around us who are engaged in the arts, nonprofit organizations, or other causes that are driven by passions and convictions. These few weeks here in SF reminded me of the sense of engagement and vitality that is largely absent in our lives right now.
Tawn and I have talked about this before and have considered ways to build more of this into our life. Of course between full time jobs, studying, yoga, and visiting Tawn’s parents, I’m not sure where exactly the time comes from. But as I leave San Francisco, while I do know that I’m glad I don’t live here anymore, I also know that there’s work to do to further develop my life in Khrungthep from being just a place I live with my husband to a fertile field where I can grow as a person at all levels.
Too deep…
Comments (2)
Oh, I thought you are leaving for Bangkok, Kansas City?
It was fun, really. why not move back to SF?
That’s a good question. When I arrived in SF on this trip I almost immediately sensed that it was no longer home. A nice place, yes, but a place that suffers from a provincialism that decontextualizes people’s experiences relative to what’s happening elsewhere in the country and the world. San Francisco is the Xanadu and its residents are the Charles Foster Kanes of the US. My opinion still holds at the end of these three weeks.
Sorry, that may come across a little harsh.
An example of this would be the experience of being a gay man in San Francisco. Yes, it is a mecca for gay men. But living in mecca, they come to take for granted the freedoms and protections they enjoy there. Instead of building on those freedoms to help gay men elsewhere in the country and world, mamy of the men instead indulge in a superficial, hedonistic existence that largely smacks of internalized homophobia.
And that’s not limited to gay men in SF. It is a wonderful liberal bastion and that makes it a nice, safe place to be. But it isn’t the real world. For all its charms, I can appreciate San Francisco more as a former resident.