Small Town - The Good Side Of Things

[bina]

a very prominent woman member of our kibbutz died two nights ago after a very very long bout with mastizied breast cancer. what makes it so interesting is that up until the past two weeks, she was up and about, managed to orchestrate the childrens' bar mitzva play (a very huge affair, professional even)and surprise surprise, orchestrated her own funeral.

she was surrounded for the past month by family and friends from the kibbuzt and outside, from the 'bohemia' in the arts/music communities... she held various 'goodbye' dinners/luncheons, several i catered for her; she had a goodbye party for the kibbutz in general in which she thanked people, apologized to those she felt she had 'stepped on their toes thru out the years she was on various committees including the equivalent of 'pu yai baan'.

ironically she died soon after the 'hupa' for a wedding being held for one of our kibbutz daughters. she managed to tell her family to go to the wedding for a while, when they came back, she literally told them : i'm ready, and an hour later she died. one of my best friends filmed the whole thing on video, by the dying woman's request. her family is a crazy mix of 'spiritual new age' and orthodox jewish. the family spent much time reading the tibetan book of the dead and also parts of the kabala. the funeral she orchestrated, including mini stage, arranged which songs she wanted to be sung, pieces from various plays and musicals to be read, etc. people walked from the wedding to her house the nite she died in order to say good bye. it reminded me of the way the thais do when someone dies and they have the body set up for a few days for everyone to say good bye. this being a small kibbutz, that is about 300 members plus all the rest of the community going through thehouse, meaning everyone brings food/drink also. the day of the funeral we closed our mini market, the evening laundry /clothing store, and every one who wasnt absolutely needed in their work, got up to go tot he funeral.

i find this interesting two fold: 1. the family's way of dealing with death and dying and 2. us as a small community and our participation in every part of life from birth to death.

i brought this up in response to the many disparaging posts usually in 'other' parts of the forum about thai small towns, gossip, stores closing for 'no reason', all the plethora of complaints that big city farang tend to complain about. it shows the 'good' side of small towns, of lives intertwined for good and bad and the interdependance one person has with an other. in large cities and also, i think, in many western communities, this has all been lost. people checking in at our hotel kept asking what the long line of people walking along the road are doing, and why there was only one person working... small towness at its best/worst.

[PhilHarries]

Nice piece bina and I think you are correct, we have lost our sense of community. Only recently the results were published of a poll that suggested that a high proportion, can't recall the numbers, of British don't even know the names of their next door neighbours.

It seems that even with the plethora of hi-tech communication aids we have these days we interact with each other on a diminishing basis. People prefer to twitter endlessly into the void of cyber space than actually meet another person face to face and talk.

[Samuian]

May she RIP!

Courage and/or knowledge about what death really means...!

[StreetCowboy]

Nice piece bina and I think you are correct, we have lost our sense of community. Only recently the results were published of a poll that suggested that a high proportion, can't recall the numbers, of British don't even know the names of their next door neighbours.

It seems that even with the plethora of hi-tech communication aids we have these days we interact with each other on a diminishing basis. People prefer to twitter endlessly into the void of cyber space than actually meet another person face to face and talk.

True enough; The last time I knew the name of my next-door neighbour was when I lived in a terrace in England.

I was a long-stay inmate in a hotel in HK once, and one preferred not to know one's neighbours for fear of what might be mentioned to third parties...anyway, least said, soonest mended...

The other thing is, though, that in a small town quite often one's lives are far more closely entwined with one's neighbours - in a city there may be half a million people working between your office and that of your neighbour, while your children might go to school five miles apart, and you may never use the same supermarket. Not like back in the old country - one school, one supermarket, one set of police cells to spend the night in, all neighbours together. Not that I ever did that, of course.

I think its different if one lives in what is quaintly known as "an expat ghetto" here, though. Despite being a prejorative expression, the reason why so many of us choose such places to live is for the same reason as always - not necessarily fear or dislike of the host culture, but the lack of social infrastructure that we leave behind when we leave our home country; you can't expect a housewife just arrived from England to be able to quickly find an electrician or plumber or whatever in Thailand, but one of the neighbours in the ghetto will give a recommendation...

I'm not sure how easy it is to assimilate into a small town, though; in a city when you arrive, everyone treats you like a stranger, and five years or 25 years later, when you leave, they're still all strangers.

When we arrived in the old town 43 years ago, we were strangers, but now my dear old mother is treated just like a local.

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[sbk]

Small town life, everyone knows everyone else and everyone knows everyone else's business.

can be good can be bad. It takes years to become accepted as more than just "spouse of so and so" in small communities as, at least where I live, they are extremely tight knit and outsiders are outsiders. spouses are accepted but simply as spouses. It took me years to become accepted and known in my own right and, for some people, I am still simply farang wife of Mr. sbk.

that said, when they pull together, they really pull together, and there are some family members and some relatives that would drop everything to come help me. Its nice to walk into stores and know everyone, its nice to go to weddings and be greeted by three quarters of the people there.

But, it does have its drawbacks, the gossip is incredible and if you are a bit of a troublemaker then no matter how hard you try to change your reputation thats the one you will be stuck with for the rest of your life (my brother in law attempted to quit gambling and got "you can't quit" from nearly everyone).