Smiles

I smile a lot, or at least, I do now. I didn’t really before, but perhaps I heard the old adage that it takes far fewer muscles to smile than to frown. This may be true, but it takes far fewer muscles to frown than to wander around babbling rubbish like that all day, so I shouldn’t listen to it if I was you.

Anyway, Thailand is known for its smiling. Not the country itself, obviously, even Cydonia doesn’t smile (that’s an in joke), I meant the people. So, as I walk along the roads, I smile at people. Even, sometimes, grin.

In England, this is not such a good idea, people give you funny looks from the bridge they’ve just pushed you off. Actually, not so true, they just move to the other side of the road as if you’re advancing along it waving your arms over your head and screeching like one possessed. It’s one way of ensuring permanent solitude. Anyone with any reason to smile walking around in England is either a criminal or a mental patient. It’s an even worse idea in the back streets of, say, New York, where I believe the motto is “Shoot first and seldom bother asking questions.”

So then, as I wonder around, I smile like a demented bag lady in Hyde Park. And usually, people smile back. It’s actually rather nice, you get a warm feeling of having connected, albeit briefly, with another human being. Someone you’ve never met, will never meet again and probably wouldn’t get on with anyway has nevertheless shown you that they too are happy with you standing (walking, skipping, whatever) where you are standing (walking, skipping, whatever) and don’t mind if you keep doing it.

Today I was coming back from town on the Skytrain, smiling away, and I decided in a fit of the utmost senility to walk the distance back home. It was a nice day in Thailand (i.e. overcast. A sunny day kills people and burns their corpses). The distance which seems so short along a busy main road in a taxi suddenly turned out to actually be quite a long way, but no matter, I was committed by this point and suddenly began to find out what “magic patches*” are really all about.

To get to the point of this story then, I was crossing the road on one of the bridges designed for the purpose – this is the only way to do so unless you have an interest in finding out what tarmac tastes like when stained with blood from your severed legs – when I encountered a small boy on his way home from school. Around ten years old I suppose, but I can’t be sure, children go from baby into a middle stage and then become teenagers. Anyway, he was bouncing from railing to railing in the manner of one bored and frustrated with his experience. Here, I thought to myself, is someone I, as a teacher (of sorts, shut up) should help and support.

As I walked by, then, I gave him a thumbs up, smiled broadly (I may have grinned, for my sins) and possibly even winked. I intended this confusion of body language to communicate support, empathy and the idea that he should just hang in there and wait till he’s old enough to drive (about 2 more years, over here).

The look of utter, unswerving contempt he flashed me was palpable, the air turned away in embarrassment and as he continued bouncing away, I went on my way a broken man.

I shall never smile again.

*For the uninitiated, “Magic Patches” are sweat patches in completely random places over your body where you really wouldn’t expect much sweat. Oh, the joy of hot climates – so good for your vocabulary.