TO JUMP OR NOT TO JUMP

Skyline of Bangkok seen from my building in 2008.

(Above photo is subject to copyright -Pantau Foundation.)

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Today I was watching television while writing a scene for my new novel. I zapped through a few dozen non-European channels and landed at a Thai channel. I only pretend to speak Thai, thus the reporter sounded like: Rak loei leeuw loy loy kap chai leeuw ha sip….” Blablabla. And then a logo appeared with Breaking News and some live pictures of a girl sitting on the balustrade of a very high high-rise building. The reporter kept mentioning the words Krung Thep Mahanakorn and Ratchadapisek and Huay Kwang, and I know those words. Krung Thep Mahanakorn is what we Bangkokians call Bangkok in Thai. Bangkok is a foreign word for the Thai capital, only used by foreigners, never by Thais. Krung Thep means: The City of Angels. Ratchadapisek is the name of a long Avenue. Along the Avenue one can find a dozen international 5-star hotels, 15-story high mega-brothels, Carrefour, Tesco Lotus, the Thailand Cultural Centre, L’Espanade, Fortune Town, Club Hollywood and the Chinese Embassy. Huay Kwang sounded familiar to me too. I live in Huay Kwang district, a yak spit away from the Chinese Embassy, just a short walk from Ratchadapisek Avenue.
The girl sitting on the balustrade was filmed by a news crew standing on the street below. From the angle of the footage, I could tell that this girl was on a very high floor of her building. And she didn’t look happy.
I heard wailing sirens approaching. I kept watching television. Would the girl jump or not? I am not stupid. I knew this was another live-suicide-on-Thai-television-item. And then I thought: that balustrade looks just like the one we have in our building.
When the news crew made a total shot of the building, I realised that they were filming my building. I guessed that one of the hiso concubines that live in our building wanted to make a point to the older gentleman she served. The concubine probably thought he spent too much time with his wife and children. She may have had one of 300 other reasons to be unhappy about as a concubine. I wondered whether it was one of those very beautiful former Tiffany-showgirl-transsexual-turned-concubines. Perhaps her western boyfriend told her he would NOT pay for her operation.
I got up from my bed and walked onto our balcony. I looked down and saw a large plastic mattress being pumped up right below me at 9 o’clock. The girl was sitting on the balustrade of the 20-something floor.
I love media coverage. A little demon inside me said: Pantau, go and sit on your balustrade with your book in your hand. Great promotion. Just shout in Thai: “Buy my book! Visit my website!”
The girl didn’t jump. I watched the rest on television. An hour later we were bombarded by a heavy monsoon shower.

I love the monsoon in Thailand. It's way past midnight when I write this. I didn’t finish writing the scene. Suddenly I feel bored. I think I am going to empty an astray.

THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD

I was going over a poll the other day. They came up with a list of happy nations. The top three included Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland. I was surprised that the United States of America wasn’t even in the top 10. So I thought: well, as a Dutch person I must have made a very stupid mistake by moving to a country that isn’t even in the top 100. Thailand, the Land of Smiles is obviously not happy. And the weather is always nice. I wonder what makes those Low Landers and Scandinavians so happy then. Is it the amount of alcohol they drink in Helsinki? Is it the amount of grass they smoke in Holland? When I was in Holland in March, I didn’t see that many smiles, instead, I read that out of 14 million ethnic Dutch residents, each year 200,000 of them immigrate to unhappier countries. Does that make any sense to you? In 2000, I was one of those immigrants. I immigrated to India and found my happiness there for 7 years. There wasn’t one single day that I felt lonely or alone. Interestingly, every Indian I spoke to said to me: “Madam, why do you want to live in our country? Every Indian dreams about living in Europe.”
And so do the Thais. At least most of them. I guess that explains the long queues of western men and their Thai girlfriends at foreign embassies, trying to get some papers for those money-girls to travel abroad.

GIVE IT 2 ME.. NOW!

Chinese Thai man writing my name in Mandarin on Yaowarat Road in Chinatown, Bangkok.

A friend asked me whether I ever felt like going back to the Netherlands.
“You mean, whether I would want to live there again? The answer is no.”
I explained to him that I am no longer a westerner who can live in the West. Nor have I become an Asian, but I do call Asia my home. When I think of home, I first think of Bangkok. Every night, when I am in Bangkok, I stand on my balcony high up in the air, about 5 miles away from the skyscrapers of downtown Bangkok, and look at the skyline. “I have Bangkok at my feet,” I often hear my inner voice tell me.
I live atop of a concrete mountain. And when I think of mountains, I think of the Himalayas, because for seven years I called a tiny room with a tiny balcony atop one of those mountains my home. When I think of home, I think of Varkala Beach. Especially that little palm leave rooftop hut atop the cliff that stood behind the home-annex-shop of my best Tibetan friends; a couple and their children. For months now I feel homesick. But do I feel homesick to the Himalayas, the way I lived my life among the Tibetans; people I hold so close to my heart? Or do I even think of Varkala in the south of India? I am homesick to India and yet I am in high spirits as I am working on a book and whenever I am working on a book, I feel content. My stories are my home. I never think of the Netherlands as home. I wonder why.

“You want to go out with us tonight?”
“Like, for a beer and maybe a show or something?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, get in the car then.”
While driving to the city centre, I told my friend about my gadget. I have a gadget thing attached to this weblog so I can see how many people are actually interested in reading my stuff. 50 percent of my dear readers are Americans, 49 percent are people from Thailand, probably expats, and 1 percent is made up of people from 39 other countries, including India. Only 1 person from the Netherlands visited this site once and never returned. I think they don’t read English in Holland!
I appreciate the people from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore who keep coming back. Zero people from Mainland China, as everything with my name attached to it gets banned in China.
So later tonight, I was drinking beer with some friends. We visited a club and one friend asked me: “Did the Tibetans get upset when you moved to Thailand and started hanging out with Chinese men and even started writing a book about a Chinese love story?”
“No, Tibetans are okay with everything I do.” I answered. “My western readers were more confused, some upset. They think I need to live in the backyard of the Dalai Lama to be a good Free Tibet activist and they don’t like it when I make out with the Chinese. I inspired many people to become Tibet-activists. And those people don’t understand that I don’t hate Chinese. I can be pro-Free Tibet without being anti-China. I have mentioned that last sentence so many times, it has become my logo.”
I put my beer down and observed the line-up of 15 young men in their underwear and number tags getting off the stage. “I think the show is going to start soon. Do you guys have any questions about Buddhism? Celibacy, abstinence, something?” I turned my face back to the stage that was right in front of me. Five guys started their life-sex-gay-orgy performance.
“You know, I finished writing the first chapter of my new book,” I said, while observing the show. “It is very difficult to write a first chapter. That is why I started with chapter 9. But last night I wrote chapter 1 and I hope it’s good. I need to send it to a few people. That one guy on the left has a nice butt. Jesus fucking Christ hanging on the cross, but if I had a penis right now, I would stick it in that butt big time. What was I saying? O my book. O actually I have something new to tell. In two weeks I am flying to Phuket Island to visit my friend Sanguan who's a surgeon. He is about to return from a spiritual retreat. He’s been a monk these past six weeks and he’s anxious to talk to me about his experiences in the monastery. He likes to talk to me about monastic life. I think because I was a nun and yogi in India and still dress as a yogini during the day. So I am going to spend a week with him in his operating room, the only place where we can really talk for 8 hours straight. He’s quite a busy man and he has a family.”
There was no response from my friends.
“I am going to ask him if he can re-create a penis for me.”
Now everybody was looking at me.

“Just kidding. As long as I have this pussy, I can have plenty of penises.”

I continued watching the show. “I am not into male whores. After 15 or 20 or so I didn’t enjoy it any more. Do you guys think they are actually going to come on stage this time? I mean, they all seem horny. I cannot believe that some of those guys actually have their penises injected with silicon to make them look thicker. Look at that one on the right. Doesn’t look natural. Bad silicon job really. Poor boys. Can you imagine that when they’re fifty their penises have all rotten away by silicon. How would they explain that to their lovers?”
“They won’t have lovers at that age. They go and live with their mothers and cry at night alone in bed.”
I nodded. “You know, I don’t think I have anything to complain about. How many housewives my age get to drink beer with a bunch of queer people like you guys in a Thai gay-gogo-club and actually see a group of handsome young men having sex with each other right in front of my face for the price of a beer.”
“Can you please shut the fuck up, bitch! They’re about to come,” one friend said to me.
“How do you know?”
“The DJ changed the music to Give It 2 Me, by Madonna.”
“O, so that is the signal that the boys need to come?” I lifted my beer glass. “Cheers.”

And then the boys came.

Two hours later I am laying on my bed with a cigarette, feeling a little tipsy, and typing this story. Will it spice up the number of returning visitors?

AN OBJECT OF BEAUTY

The following post will be very different from what I have been writing so far on this web log.

Last night, I had a conversation with an American friend about Beauty. We discussed the beauty of certain buildings, paintings, streets, cities, flowers, countries, behaviour, and finally…men.
I told my friend about a Japanese boy I used to be friends with in India. When I saw that boy the first time, I felt the need to ask him if I could take 1000 photos of him. He was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. He was perfect.

I met the boy first near my home in South India in 2005 but he would later stay with me at my home in the Himalayas. We started a friendship that would last for about 8 months. I managed to take about 1000 photos. I even wrote about our friendship in my book Pholomolo. I hope he doesn’t mind me showing his beauty to the world, this time not in words, but in pictures.

KARMA

Nothing is what it appears to be. This beautiful royal building is made of polystyrene and is part of a Thai film set near Kanchanaburi, the place best known for its bridge and the River Kwai.

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First I would like to thank the hundreds of people who spend more than half an hour reading my posts each day. I can recommend some stories I have posted in January and February.

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Someone asked me what question I would ask the Dalai Lama if I was granted a personal audience with him. I said: “I would ask the Dalai Lama if he had a question which he would like to find an answer to. After that I would ask him a lot of questions about karma, especially regarding killing living beings.”

1.2 million of 6 million Tibetans perished after the Chinese invaded their country, during the initial war, during the Great Leap Forward, the Great Famine and Cultural Revolution, and in addition 20 to 30 million Chinese died. There were only few people who were responsible for this devastation, only few people who ordered the soldiers to kill and torture, and let people starve. Would a person create bad karma for himself if he were to kill someone who is responsible for so much misery? If I had lived and killed Adolf Hilter in 1940, would I have created bad karma for myself?

I agree, these issues are difficult to answer.

I love Thailand but even when you live in an urban area, whether it be a shack or a high-rise condominium, everybody has to deal with ant armies. It is impossible to eat inside your home and leave out a plate with some leftovers for more than a minute, as the ant army will march in to take anything away. Even a sugar-coated birth control pill will be taken away by the army. I had one of those pills taken out of its packing and left it next to the sink for a few moments in order to fill up a glass with water. To my surprise, the pill turned black and started moving away towards the power socket.

Perhaps that is why most Thai houses are spotless. You just can’t afford to leave anything around that appeals to the tiny Thai ants that are even interested in birth control pills. Our domestic ants live in a nest behind a power socket in the master bathroom. We leave the ant nest untouched. I could ask our staff to clear the house of ants, but would I create extra bad karma by asking other people to kill living beings, no matter whether they are ants or not? Don’t ants deserve a good life and no suffering?
I was able to get rid of a nest that had found shelter inside my laptop computer. I decided to get them all out by putting some sweet strawberry flavoured chewing gum on top of the computer. Within minutes all the little ants had come out of the interior and had gotten stuck to the chewing gum. I was able to dispose of the entire nest.
The computer ants made up just a small platoon, but I still haven’t taken any measure to get rid of the large regiment in the bathroom’s power socket, nor the battalion that is creating a highway from a lamp on the wall towards the aircon-unit a few metres to the left. I have considered spraying the area with anti-ant poison, but I am not bothered enough by them to start taking such drastic measures. They may nest in the aircon unit and screw it up, but…what about karma.
I don’t mind flushing a few ants through the sink when I am washing my hands or cleaning my teeth with my fancy electric Braun Oral B- toothbrush. I consider that those ants were just unlucky, they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. I do feel bad about them because would you want to be flushed away through a sink…in Bangkok? I said 108 prayers to counterbalance my bad merit of killing small sentient beings every day.
The first vow I took as a Bodhisattva was not to kill any sentient being. Killing hundreds or even thousands of ants would give me bad karma, wouldn’t it?
But what to do with the living parasites in our intestines? This is Asia and a few times a year it happens to all of us that our arses start to itch and then everybody knows that their intestines are infested by worms. They take a few pills that can be bought at any pharmacy for only 30 baht to kill those little wormy creatures.
So how does this work? As a Buddhist I am not allowed to kill living beings, but how kicks karma in when I am killing creatures that may harm me and my loved ones? If I can avert danger to humans by killing parasitic creatures, malaria mosquitoes, or even another human being, will that create bad karma for me?

The Tibetans are very practical people and we often spoke about this. They consider the life of a human being more precious than the life of an intestinal worm, thus killing the worms would save the life of the human. The same thing applies to malaria mosquitoes. I vaguely remember a story told to me by a lama. There was a ship with 500 men aboard. One of them was the captain who received news that one of the crew was a crazy lunatic who had plans to kill everybody on board the next day. The captain couldn’t change the crazy man’s plan to kill the entire crew and passengers. The captain decided to kill the crazy man, saving the lives of 499 people, and preventing the crazy man from creating bad merit, as he would not be able to kill 499 people, thus be reborn with better karmic conditions. (Long sentence: read it again!) Did the captain create bad merit? I don’t think so. He saved the lives of many men.

In Tibet it is very difficult to grow fruit and vegetables and their diets are poor. They have their yaks and sheep and barley flower but that is about it. So they need to eat meat. In order to eat meat, one must slaughter an animal. The Tibetans rather have one large animal killed than many small animals, as they consider taking the life of one large animal adding less bad merit to their account than killing many small living beings. In the old Tibet there were Chinese Muslim butchers who would slaughter yaks for the Tibetans, as no Tibetan would want to create bad merit by slaughtering a yak themselve.
I used to have long debates about this solution. “If the Tibetans would refuse to eat yak meat in the first place, the Muslims wouldn't need to kill yaks...for them. Don’t you think this way of avoiding bad karma is flawed?”
Even the Tibetan lamas would shake their heads, smiling and often rely on silence. They didn’t have a clear cut answer to this matter. Their reasoning was: “Well, when the butcher slaughters a yak, the animal is already dead. So when you buy that meat and eat it, it doesn’t give you bad merit. It’s a waste to throw the meat away.”
And with such answers I had to retreat to my room and meditate on what I would allow myself to think, say, or do. I do believe in karma, I do believe in the law of cause and effect.

THE MAGIC BOWLER HAT (continued)

Speaking to my friend with the scratched Bentley, I continued to tell him about the special bond I have with my English bowler hat. I started off by telling him about Pan Tau, a character created for a children's television series in the 1960s. 33 episodes were made in Czechoslovakia in cooperation with German TV network WDR from 1967 on. The project ended with a feature film in 1988. Pan Tau was played by Otto Šimánek (1925 – 1992 in Prague).
Pan Tau was a friend of children. He was famous for his magic bowler hat. By tapping on his hat, Pan Tau was able to change his appearance into a puppet, to conjure up miscellaneous objects or to do other magic. His most characteristical behaviour was that he would help children who were experiencing some sort of difficulty. Together with his unusual dress and his magic bowler, Pan Tau possessed a further distinguishing feature - he didn’t speak.

In the spring of 2000, I was the only survivor of a plane crash in the Himalayas. I was found by a Tibetan man. After I was released from hospital, he took care of me in his home in Dharamsala. Over the next few weeks, amazing things started happening to me.
Some people in Dharamsala started to believe that I was the reincarnation of a Tibetan freedom fighter who was arrested by the People’s Liberation Army and died in 1962 in a Chinese Hard Labour Camp. His name was Pantau.
In April 2000, I met the Dalai Lama at his home in Dharamsala and shortly after it was decided that I would change my name, which was done during a special ritual at the Dalai Lama temple on my birthday in May 2000. A new name was bestowed on me: Pantau Lhamo. That day I also founded the Pantau Foundation to help children in need.
Pantau means ‘to be helpful’ and Lhamo ‘Deity’. Many Tibetan girls’ second first name is Lhamo. Tibetans do not have last names. From that day on, I was proud to carry this new name, however, I soon dropped the Lhamo, and every Tibetan and Indian would call me Pantau. In Thailand people simplified my name and everybody here calls me Tau or Tao. Tao is actually a Thai name, meaning ‘Yin-Yang’, and also a Chinese name, meaning ‘peach’.

When I was in my late teens, I went to an auction house. I was interesting in acquiring a Tiffany lamp. There were also some old costumes and hats for sale, including an early 20th-century top hat, worn by some famous man who had travelled on the Titanic. Next to it was an English bowler hat, size 57. It was believed the hat had been worn by an English lady as its size was rather small. It fit my head perfectly. I was informed that the lady was rather controversial, as she enjoyed dressing as a man. That day I didn’t return home with a Tiffany lamp, but with an English bowler hat that, curiously, had stuck inside a card depicting The Joker. The last time I wore my hat was in the Netherlands in March. When I wear my hat, I wear it with the card visible on the outside.

Today my friend with the damaged Bentley gave me a call.
“Well, I read your last post and the comments today. So now you are calling me a typical male gay bitch in public?”
I smiled. “Yes, I think I did. But I wrote that sentence with a lot of love and respect for you. You criticized me for not being complete about my possessions, and in return, I called you a bitch. That’s called karma; the law of action and reaction. You say something bad about me, and something bad will fly back to you and hit you straight in your gay face. Karma is one of my favourite topics.”
“I always wondered about Karma. Can you tell me more about it?”
“Sure. Let’s have dinner tonight and discuss the law of action and reaction….”

Pan Tau talking to his small puppet-character that is in fact himself.

THE MAGIC BOWLER HAT

A friend who read my last post popped over today to have a chat.
“You’re not very complete,” he said to me. “You have more possessions than you summed up in your post. Yes, you don’t have many clothes, I agree, but I know for a fact that you have an electric toothbrush and lots of other stuff in your bathroom that you didn’t mention in your post. You have a handbag, and if I remember correctly, there is a Louis Vuitton cigarette case in your bag. You also have your cardboard altar with pictures of the Dalai Lama and other lamas and you also have an expensive umbrella with a wooden handle. I always see you walking around with your umbrella. You didn’t mention the fact that you have a passport that is nicely covered by a Louis Vuitton Passport cover. You have a very expensive pig-hair hairbrush. No mention of that in your post. And then you say you….”
“Okay, stop it! Did you come all the way over to my home to tell me that I actually have a few more things that wouldn’t even fill up a shoe box?”
“No, I wanted to return your 16GB Flash drive. I downloaded a few films for you to watch. Oh, by the way, you neither mentioned that you own five 16GB flash drives, each costing 600 baht. You didn’t mention your Sanyo digital camera either. You didn’t mention all that painting stuff you have; bamboo brushes, gouache paint, paper.”
I stared at him.
“Okay, you’re right. I wasn’t complete. I also own a bowler hat that I didn’t mention either. This is such a stupid conversation. Okay, I own a few things more than I came up with yesterday. I also didn’t mention my collection of vibrators! I am so sorry. But I still think I don’t own more than 25 kg. Did you know that when I owned a river-front duplex penthouse condominium in the Netherlands, I owned more than 100 cubic metres of possessions; designer furniture, walk-in closet with 3 metres of clothes, two cars, one of which was an exclusive red sports car, a waterbed and lots more. I have come a long way since then, don’t you think? By the way, are you still enjoying your new Bentley?”
“No, somebody scratched the door with a scooter.”
“That’s what I mean. I never have to worry about scratches on vehicles that I don’t own. By the way, I received this strange request two days ago. The editor-in-chief of a major magazine in the Netherlands contacted me. They wanted to do an article on transsexuals. They wanted to make a photodocumentary of five Dutch transsexuals and interview them about their fashion sense, what they like to wear et cetera. I answered them that fashion didn’t apply to someone like me, a yogini, and that my life is all about absence of fashion. I told them I wear a habit during the day. I also wonder why people think that transsexuals are only interested in their looks? I think those people still confuse us with transvestites or drag queens.”
“Ignorance, I guess, Pantau. By the way, why do you think people feel the need to buy stuff that they don’t need?”
“Like your Bentley? Are you able to pick up more lovers with you Bentley? Why do people like you buy a new pair of shoes every week, or why do they buy new clothes while there are still new items with labels hanging in their closet? I think they buy stuff because when you treat yourself to something new you feel a little happier, less lonely, less sad, less dissatisfied. Every time a lover leaves you, you go out shopping and spend more money than I do in a year. Maybe people like you also buy stuff to impress other people. Or both. It can feel good to go out shopping, buy something new, come home and play with it for a while, but the joy doesn’t last very long, does it? You always worry about your car. In India I came to understand that material things don’t make me happy. My electric toothbrush is very practical, so are my other rechargeable vibrating devices.”
“Okay. I get you. So tell me about your bowler hat. Somebody told me it was a magic hat.”
“Yes, it is. My hat means a lot to me. It has a lot of history. I will tell you all about it. It’s quite a story….”

To be continued.

IMPLEMENTING BUDDHISM IN DAILY LIFE

A view of the Dauladhar from a spot close to my home.
Me standing on a flat piece of rock where I would meditate on emptiness.

Someone asked me how I implement Buddhism in my daily life. In short, I could say: I try to be a good person in order to find enlightenment, but that is a little easy, right? During my 7 years in India, I would often listen to the teachings of various lamas. They would teach me meditation techniques and give me an understanding of the true nature of things. Living in the Himalayas I would often find a quiet place somewhere on a mountain, close my eyes and calm the mind by focusing on my breathing. In addition, I would always bear in mind the 168 Buddhist vows I took in 2001. Therefore, there are many things that I need to do or refrain from. Not always easy, as I sometimes like to drink an ice-cold beer and enjoy smoking a cigarette.

If there is one thing that has changed me through Buddhism is my mind. It has become a calm mind. I don’t get upset anymore (unless someone talks bad about Barbra Streisand in my presence), I don’t get angry if people wrong me. I accept things the way they are and practice tolerance if people make a mickey out of me. Negative things don’t bother me anymore.

I never raise my voice, even if I have every reason to do so. I sometimes cry when people hurt me, but I no longer feel the need to fight. In addition, my overall happiness is high and the need for materialistic stuff has only decreased. I moved from India to Thailand with 20kg of personal possessions. Now I own even less. Everything I have fits in one suitcase. I do not accept gifts from people. They may treat me to a nice meal or other things to enjoy, but I don’t want to add to my personal possessions. If the world would be full of people like me, there wouldn’t be any economy I guess.
People often don’t understand why I live like this. Many Thais are materialistic. In Bangkok, I am surrounded by people who have some money to spend, especially the people closest to me. They always see me in the same clothes.
In October 2006 I bought three pairs of jeans, one pair of shorts, one yellow and one black polo shirt.

I have three 50bt black tops and one bra that I only wear when I go dancing in a gay club in Bangkok (most of the time my top tends to get off after some time in order not to stand out to much among those fine scantly clad men, thus I need to wear at least a bra which I normally don’t have to). I have three pairs of socks. I have one pair of sandals, one pair of trainers, and one pair of leather shoes. I have one yogini habit. I have one old laptop computer, a small electronic Chinese/Thai/English dictionary, and a simple mobile phone that I hardly ever use. I have one bikini and a small cardboard box with some makeup stuff. I have five pairs of underwear. I have one tailor-made black blazer (in case I need to appear somewhere dressed up casually but nice).
In India, I have a tin box parked at a friend’s house with my traditional Tibetan costume and a Buddha statue. That is about everything I have. Correction: A few things I accepted as gifts; a wedding ring with a flawless 1-carat diamond, and a Rolex watch.

I must admit that having next to nothing has been very helpful to feel content and free from most daily worries.

In addition, I would attend yoga-classes in India a few times a week. Yoga is more than being able to hold your body in intricate positions. Yoga is a way of life, a way of thinking, acting, eating and so on. I still do one hour of yoga every day and I swim about 1 mile in the pool as fast as I can. I often use the time in the pool to think up new scenes for my new novel. After swimming, I do my yoga without any thinking.
I don’t eat processed food. I always smile, even when walking alone. I have also been told I sleep with a smile on my face....

REMEMBERING THE DEAD

The National War Monument in Amsterdam

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In May 1945, the Canadians, British and Americans liberated my country from the Nazis and since then, on the forth of May, the Queen and my people commemorate the dead, all those souls who lost their lives during the war and occupation. And every year, on that day, before the clock strikes eight in the evening, the Queen appears from her palace and bows to the Dutch flag flying at half-mast at the National War Monument. She addresses her government and nation and speaks beautiful words about growing towards a loving, compassionate and tolerant world without war, where people can live in peace and freedom; words of solidarity with troubled nations.
At eight o’clock sharp, the entire Dutch nation comes to a complete standstill. No car, clogs, bicycle, bus, boat, wheel barrel, truck, tram, train, plane or people will move. For the next two minutes, the entire country is silent. Reflecting, crying, and praying for the well-being of other nations. Then the Dutch flag is hoisted to the masthead while the nation sings their national anthem.
One day later, on the fifth of May, the Dutch celebrate Liberation Day. All happy people; young and old, thin and fat, tall and even taller, smart and stupid, black and white, gay and straight, males and females and anything in between, yes, they all celebrate freedom; freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of religion, freedom of politics and freedom of way of life, yes, they celebrate total freedom and self-determination. They are proud to live in the most liberated and liberal country in the world.

To me freedom and freedom of speech are the most important things that matter to me. Though I haven't lived in the Netherlands for over 9 years now and abandoned most western and Dutch traditions including Christmas, I still celebrate the fact that I was born in a free country. I now live in Thailand (Prathet Thai, as the Thais call their country) which literally means: The Land of the Free.

DRAMA ON QUEEN'S DAY

The 30th of April is a special day in the Netherlands. It’s called Queen’s Day
Every year on that day the Dutch become one family engaging in the grandest and most joyful celebrations of the year. The Queen and her family connect to the public, walking through the crowds, shaking hands, playing games, singing songs, hugging and kissing people, riding bicycles and so on. The Dutch love the royal family. They go about in public with unarmed security guards; they don’t ride in bullet-proof cars… because no one wants to harm them. Until now.

Yesterday, a premeditated act to hurt the royal family occurred when a man in a speeding car crashed through barriers, mowed down dozens of onlookers with the intention to crash into the open vehicle that carried the entire royal family. Only metres away from the royals, the terrorist crashed the car against a monument in front of the royal palace. 5 people died instantly, dozens of bystanders, police, journalists, and camera crews were seriously injured; people and body parts were flying through the air. It was a bizarre scene.

From now on Queens Day won’t be the same any more.