Jim Thompson House

The Jim Thompson House wasn't on my plan at first. I stayed near it, and walked there by the way to Siam shopping center.

When you don't except something very much, it maybe surprise you in another way. According to the guide book, I didn't recognize Jim Thompson House was an interesting spot to see and added it into the ”whichever category ”,  a list of spots I wouldn't visit if no enough time. I didn't think it was so popular, that lots of visitors were there. And it was wider that I thought and more delightful. 

Several Thai-style building stands in the jungle. The first thing attracted me is the jungle landscape. I can hardly tell it's a house with garden or a house in jungle. The tropical plants are great. They grow well and the largest tree almost covers the whole main building. A pond lays in the jungle, the source of which comes from a vase held by a Bodhisattva. Among the green color, red-colored structures are outstanding. A few small rooms are scattered in the jungle and the main one faces a canal. In past time, boat was the principal mean of transportation in Bangkok. The main gate of Jim Thompson House is just beside the canal, and was used until Thompson's missing.

Other attractive thing about this place is the owner, Jim Thompson. He is a fabulous person who worked as an architect, an American spy and a silk designer. He is the father of Thai silk. His life is a legend and his death is a mystery. In 1967, he disappeared. No one knows where he's gone and the house he left became a tourist spot telling his story to the world.

On Arrival Visa

I went to Thailand without getting a visa in advance, and supposed for on arrival visa. Matching the cheap air ticket, the fight arrived in Bangkok lately in the midnight.

After changing money and a long walk, finally, I reached the counter where I could get a application form to fill. But I didn't find any clean forms. There were no staff there but at a mini photo studio for people who forgot to take a photograph. I got one form from them, fill in it and started the endless waiting. 

The first section is check documents. There was only one officer and a mountain of people before me. I must say that officer was really a slow one. Did getting documents together take so much time? After standing more than half an hour, I faced to the officer at last. He said without opening mouth, and worked like a snail. I received a number card and went to the next section, stamping passport. This section was quite quick, and I could waiting on a seat. The stamp of Thailand visa is a big purple one with traditional pattern. 

Since the long wait drove me crazy, I decided to take advanced visa if I would visit Thailand again. But I regretted thinking like that soon. When I got out of the airport joining the line of waiting taxi, I met the old lady sitting beside me in the plane. She had an advanced visa. But now, she just in front of me on another line. 

Anyway, I arrived in Thailand and was waiting my turn to take a taxi in the midnight. I was very tired. 

Tama Cemetery's afternoon

I went to visit Sorge at a warm winter afternoon with a nostalgia for hero. 

Richard Sorge was a Soviet Union's spy who worked as a journalist and arrested and executed  in Japan. Sorge was a genius spy. He collected lots of exact information for Soviet, whereas Stalin didn't believe it and even did no effort when Sorge was arrested. Sorge was hanged at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, the place where 7 Japanese Class A war criminals was hanged, in 1944, 3  years after the arrest. His Japanese lover Hanako Ishii buried him in Tama Cemetery and had been buried with him in 2000. 

Because there was no sign about Sorge's grave, I found it not that easy. However, I knew the gravestone that I've seen in the TV, so I was confident that I could recognize it immediately. Sorge and Hanako's names was inscribed on a black gravestone with Russian and Japanese respectively. There is also a natural stone beneath it, on which Sorge's name was written in Japanese and English. I supposed it was the original one Hanako settled for him, since Soviet Union refused to admit that Sorge worked for it until 1964.

I wanted to bring a bunch of flower for him, but there was no flower shop around the gate I entered. Glad to see it, someone has come with flowers though they've withered now. 

Beginning with a story

Before I went to Thailand I also read a book about it and learned its history roughly. The history of Thailand as a unified nation is short, and the names of people and temples are difficult to remember, so I went there without well studying.However, I am interesting in other people's stories, and read some posted on blogs.

There is one. 

A Japanese man visited Thailand with his family. Some day they were going to some place with other Japanese visitors by a mini-bus. His daughter, a little girl, was so thirsty that couldn't keep crying. The man asked the driver to stop wondering to buy a bottle of water for her, but the driver pretended not to hear him. The man was worried and got angry, and finally he shouted to the driver loudly :"The child is crying! Stop you car!" The car stopped. All Japanese in the car looked at him weirdly and likely wanted to keep clear of him. Because shouting to others is rude and impolite in Japan. 

I assume what will happen in Japan with the same affair. The driver will stop without doubt. Moreover, he will find a comfortable place to stop where the man buy water easily. So there's no necessary to shout to anybody.

This man isn't a typical Japanese, I think. He said on the blog that shouting is a crisis management and there were too many manners in Japan. If he couldn't get water for his daughter, he didn't know what would happen to her. I understand him very much since I've shouted several times at Thailand. They made me do it. People do different actions to suit various environments. That is. 

Funaya

Location: Ine-cho, Kyoto-fu

I thought about writing a series blog of Japan, but where should I begin with? Then I recalled funaya, an architecture style in Ine-tyo of Japan Sea coast. It's very special and leaves me many beautiful unique memory.

"Funa" means boat, and "ya" means house, so funaya is a boat house. Maybe it doesn't make sense to you. Let me take an instance. You must have seen a house with parking spot -- the ground floor is the space for parking and the second floor is for living. So does funaya, however, not a car but a boat. 

Residents in Ine-cho live closing to the sea, as close-sea fishery is the main industry there. They build house on the edge of the water along a little bay. Their boats was parked in the first floor that they can drive them out at any time.

Ine-cho is a small fish village and really remote, only bus can get there. I went there in a late March's afternoon. It rained now and then, and I also heard thunder sound. The local people said thunder meant snow's coming in March or April, for it's the cold Japan Sea side, not like the other side faces to the Pacific Ocean. However, not snow coming, but a heavy rain just for a while.

The sky after a heavy rain was clean, likely could be seen through. A large numbers of sea gulls were flying low or staying on the jetty. The village was quite, no one on the road. I just walked along the coast, took pictures, and breathed fresh air. It was a shangri-la.

I had dinner in a local restaurant, one of the few opening shops. The middle-age chef was curious about me -- a single, Chinese, female, traveler. He said there was nothing but scenery. I had heard the youths in the village almost worked in big cities, probably because "there is nothing". I said scenery was enough. Then I tried to assume I was a young woman living there from I was born. What should I do? Go out? Or became a fish woman? There, one point of travel came out -- to see, feel and think about different life styles, and try to understand them.

I stayed in a funaya alone. The whole funaya belonged to me that night. I lied under the window. The moon was bright, and so was the water. I got to sleep with the sound of waves. I've never heard a silent sound like that before. It seemed I was sleeping on the sea.

I woke up early in the next morning. The sun didn't rise up,and some stars were twinkling. Sea gulls got up earlier than me, and sang their morning song. I took the 7:30's bus to leave Ine. I loved there, but I can't image what should I do if I stay for an extra day. There's just scenery there. 

Panmunjon -- the past and the present

When I was in primary school, one long desk was shared by two students who called each other "same-desk",  having a meaning of close relationship. However, these two same-desks often had a quarrel with each other. As a solution, in the middle of their desk, we draw a line that body and things belonged to the child in the other side could'n't cross. We called it "38 line".

I didn't know exactly what did it mean and the long story on Korean Peninsula at that time. But I did really have heard of a place named Panmunjon by a book's title though I've never read it. After I grew up, I learned more about history, and got to know the true meaning of the 38th parallel -- a scar on the Korean Peninsula. 

I joined a tour to go to Panmunjon, officially called JSA, Joint Security Area, as a guest of United Nations. In contrast, visitors, mostly Chinese, come from the north won't be UN's guests, but North Korea's. So maybe I can say this is a place North Korea VS UN. 

Label

According to our guild, today's JSA isn't the real Panmunjon where Korean Armistice Agreement was signed. The real one, at north of the present place,  is controlled by North Korea, and only Chinese visitors can see it. The houses on the boundary are used for a conference by two Koreas. The blue houses belongs to the South, and the silvery ones belongs to the North. Soldiers don't stand there usually, but when visitors are coming. Visitors come through North and South won't enter this area at the same time, just like the Koreans living in both sides of the 38th parallel -- they never meet each other.

Blue houses 

Our guide spoke the history about the division of Korean Peninsular all the way. I thought someone of her family might be in the North now, because she said that emotionally and full of anger and sadness. A lot of families were broken by that line, and the members in one side maybe not meet ones in the other side for ever.

There is a bridge in the JSA named "No Return". It's on the boundary. When the Korea War was over, prisoner of the war were put on this bridge to choose south or north. At that time, their fate, was decided.  The same thing also happened in 1949, China. Many people faced a choice -- going to Taiwan or not, and their fate became different from that moment. 

The bridge of no return

Tips: In the tour, the drinks of lunch are always NOT FREE. But nobody there will tell you before you drank them. They are really expensive. 

About Japanese administrative divisions

I'd like to talk about my traveling experiences in Japan by listing the administrative divisions in this series of posts.

There are one "to", Tokyo-to; one "do", Hokkai-do; two "fu", Osaka-fu and Kyoto-fu; and 43 "ken". All of these are on a state or provincial level, however, Hokkai-do is much larger than the others in square.　And except Hokkai-do, the other prefectures are divided to several regions:


Hokkaidō

1. Hokkaidō

Tōhoku

2. Aomori (haven't been to)

3. Iwate

4. Miyagi

5. Akita (haven't been to)

6. Yamagata

7. Fukushima

Kantō

8. Ibaraki

9. Tochigi

10. Gunma (haven't been to)

11. Saitama

12. Chiba

13. Tōkyō

14. Kanagawa

Chūbu

15. Niigata (haven't been to)

16. Toyama (haven't been to)

17. Ishikawa

18. Fukui (haven't been to)

19. Yamanashi

20. Nagano

21. Gifu

22. Shizuoka

23. Aichi

Kansai

24. Mie

25. Shiga

26. Kyōto

27. Ōsaka

28. Hyōgo

29. Nara

30. Wakayama (haven't been to)

Chūgoku

31. Tottori

32. Shimane

33. Okayama

34. Hiroshima

35. Yamaguchi

Shikoku

36. Tokushima

37. Kagawa

38. Ehime

39. Kōchi (haven't been to)

Kyūshū

40. Fukuoka

41. Saga (haven't been to)

42. Nagasaki

43. Kumamoto (haven't been to)

44. Ōita

45. Miyazaki

46. Kagoshima

Okinawa

47. Okinawa

Hokkai- do and Okinawa-ken are special, because they became a part of Japanese territory later than other prefectures.