CELTIC, WHAT'S THE FECK!

IN THE WAKE OF ANOTHER PAINFUL AND UNBELIEVABLE DEFEAT (THIS TIME WE LOST 2-1 TO CLYDE IN THE SCOTTISH CUP) I WISH TO PUBLISH WHAT I DID WRITE IN OCCASION OF AN EVEN MORE PAINFUL DEAFEAT… CELTIC FANS KNOW WHAT I MEAN!
CELTIC: WHAT THE FECK!

SUNDAY May 21st, 2548.

Last game of the Scottish Premiership season.
Celtic, "my" Celtic is about to play his last game, a wee win against Motherwell would be enough to secure another championship title.
One simple win at Fir Park, home of a modest team that sit at mid table and we are champions again, yes once again.
Desperately I’m trying to connect my old laptop to internet in order to follow the game on line. After many failed tries I finally succeed.

The game is already started and we are 1-0 up, Chris Sutton scored and our hated enemies, the “unmentionables”, are still 0-0, this means we have now 4 points advantage and ... we are champions.
Middle of the second half, always 1-0 but Mordor’s Orcs scored, we still have 2 points advantage. The internet line is awful, I got disconnected several times but I still manage to follow the game. A second goal would surely ease my tension but we seem to waste so many opportunities up front.

Five minutes to go, both the games are 1-0, but I’m really getting more and more nervous, I fear that we may pay the price of so many wasted chances.... and at the 88th minute, here is the equaliser! F”*%!
I shout, I curse, my wife watches me like if she is unable to recognize her husband anymore! Two minutes later, with the head between my hands, I take another other look at the screen and we are 1-2 down, those "bastards" of Motherwell have scored two goals in the span of two minutes, Mordor’s Orcs won 1-0 and we have lost the championship, f”£*!

I feel bad, so bad, I feel so bad on Saturday evening, and I feel even worse on Sunday. I remain silent all day, no words, just a wee murmur sometimes, nothing else and nothing more.
My wife, poor lady, she does not understand and I cannot expect that she will, but she knows that I suffer for one "stupid" football game and, remarkably enough, she do very much respect my pain.
As time goes by the anger makes room for the sadness and this gives time to
think and to reflect and… I wonder:

HOW COME WE HUMANS CAN GET BOASTED OR PULLED DOWN DEPENDING ON A SPORT RESULT?
WHY WE DO WASTE SOME OF OUR PRECIOUS ENERGIES IN SUCH AN IRRATIONAL WAY?

What make it happen that thousand miles from Glasgow, one Swiss living in Thailand can get deeply depressed because of one Celtic’s defeat?
And at the same time one expatriate receives a SMS from very good friend from Verona, Italy that transmits as much desperation?

Without mentioning the message that I did receive from my dear friend David who, poor guy, lives in Glasgow!
I wonder what makes so strong the pain of defeat?
Is the fact that to our defeat gave the Championship away to our most hated rivals, “the unmentionables”.?
I can surely assert that if we had lost the championship in favour of, let’s say, Hibernian the pain wouldn’t have been so deep and severe.
It surely is he knowledge that our defeat means joy for the "Mordor’s Orcs” that makes our pain much more deep and intense.
This inspite of fair play and sportsmanship.
Are we all potential Hooligans?
Is stronger the love for our team or the hate for our rivals?

And what is the need we have to drive ourselves crazy for a football,
hockey, basket or baseball team?
Isn’t our life already filled with too many worries, stress and pain?
Then why make it even more stressful and complicate with these irrational passions?
What did practically change in my life after May 21st? Nothing at all!
What would have changed if in that same fateful day Celtic had won?
Nothing at all!
Then why I felt so bad and down?
What brings me to support a football team?

Surely, sport in general has always been used by those in power to bring the masses into submission, to promote their own agenda and raise their own rating, and unfortunately many of this governments were and are dictatorial ones.
Sport is surely used to please the sleeping and unaware masses, to hide from them the real existential problems.
Sport derails the anger of people towards a mistaken direction, where it brings no real change and is therefore extremely useful to whose are in power!
But myself, a Swiss from Thailand, why I do have Celtic so much in my
heart? I surely cannot blame any government for this!
Why in my body flows green and white blood?
We, the fans, use to say that this isn’t just a football club, that
we are one great family, Celtic is nothing less than a faith but this enough to explain it all?

The days are passing by, the pain slowly disappear leaving just traces of bitterness but another game is approaching, the Scottish Cup Final.
May 28th, Saturday I will once again try to connect my laptop and follow my Celtic.
In the meantime another thought surfaces my mind.
Isn’t sport also a metaphor of the life?
I think about the Motherwell game, so many wasted chances and then, finally and unfortunately, unavoidable the defeat.
And I wonder how many chances in our life we do waste to do and say
the simplest of things?
To say to our beloved one that we love her/him, to say and daily show such feeling.
How many chances do we waste to embrace and to kiss our kids, our parents, our siblings, our friends and also our enemies?
How many chances do we waste to make peace with ourselves and the others as well?
How many chances do we waste to say sorry to the ones we know to have hurt?
I do believe that we really lose many of these wonderful opportunities to win or at least draw in the match of our life, maybe because we think we are too much busy with our businesses or our pride to realise that there is something more important and vital than that!
The dramatic side of the story is that, contrary to Celtic that always has a next game in which he can try to make up for the disappointment, we, in
our life, not always have this possibility. Better we never forget that!
Saturday, 28th of May 2548:
An Alan Thompson’s goal gives Celtic the Scottish Cup, we beat Dundee United 1-0 and I am very happy.
This has been also the last game in charge for Martin O’Neill, the manager who quickly became a legend for all of us Celtic fans. MoN decided to leave the job to assist his seriously ill wife.
I wish, with all my heart, all the best to both of them.
Another metaphor of the life, the abandonment sense that has hit all us supporters, the refusal of some of us for the new manager who is only guilty of following Martin in being the Celtic manager.
Denial, not acceptance, refusal of any change how many times have we faced those feelings in our existence? Sport metaphor of the life?
In any case all my best wishes to Martin and from the bottom of my heart many thanks for all the triumphs you have given us!
And welcome to Gordon, hoping that you will add more trophies to our glorious club. Good luck!

BAN NAUDOM, North Eastern Thailand, May 29th, 2548

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C / Copyright / Claudio Romano 2005

A WORLD WITH NO "I"

So 2005 is gone, 2006 has come and nothing has, obviously, changed. New Year’s celebration are gone and life is clearly back to normal as it is confirmed by the fact that, driving my way to Bangkok on highway 226, I can see many children slowly walking back to their school.
Business as usual.

It has been the first time I spent the New Year festivities in Bannok and I was kind of eagerly waiting for this moment. It turned out nothing special if not another occasion to observe and try to understand a way of life and a culture that I realise are so much different than mine.
We had a family gathering with my wife’s siblings coming from Bangkok to our matriarch home, few drinks and a dinner with “som tam”, “pra ra” (not too much happy was I as they are the only two things I really do not like about here) and, thanks God, some rice and Tom Kha.
I brought some wine from Europe that nobody really seemed to appreciate… except me of course.

But it was nice, nice to see all those people who were genuinely happy to be together, all this big family made of smaller and broken families. Nobody cared if some were broken families, there was a real feeling of bonding together and this contrary to what may happen in Europe. Our neighbours were having a good time singing a karaoke and, I can tell from the way they were singing, drinking a lot of Leo Beer and Mekong whiskey.

The most beautiful part of the evening has been some kind of lottery which gave so much fun to everyone. Children, “weiloon” and old ladies were meant to draw a number and see if they would get a very simple prize or, maximum, 20 bahts.
It was amazing to witness how such a simple thing could generate so much happiness between all people of any age. It was fun, pure and healthy fun. I really did enjoy every moment of it, I did enjoy the simplicity and the atmosphere, sadly imagining how unthinkable would be having the same kind of “sanook” in Europe where everything is more and more sophisticated.
I am not writing this words with western contempt and the usual bullshit “poor but happy (which is totally false I can tell you after 15 year of social work in India, Nepal and Thailand)”, but it was refreshing for me to be part of such a collective way to enjoy a particular and very happy moment. Wish I had more of the same in the future.

Another thing which is amazing me is the whole concept of family which, in my humble opinion, is so much different than in the west. There (in the west) family is basically made by a limited number of people (father mother and kids) here family has a much wider meaning. What is best? I do not know, and I think is not absolutely important but what I am thinking is that the Thai family structure is likely to offer a safety net for broken families’ children.
In either sides of the world the number of so called “broken families” is ever increasing with mostly negative effects on children.
But while in the west after the parent’s split children are left with a single parent, it seems to me that here in Thailand in the same case scenario children have the “umbrella” of a huge number of relatives who can make them feel their love, care, affection and a sense of belonging.
Of course, this is only my impression which could well be wrong, but as a divorced parent myself I’ve had a lot of soul searching, and pain, on the matter.
In any case I like those big families, where people may come and go but always they will find someone waiting for them, no matter what.

Speaking of which here is another matter that has been in my poor brain for quite a long time.
Naudom is a small, limited society and a world where it seems there is no “I” letter.

It seems to me that everyone is there for each other, always ready and willing to help and forget about himself for the sake of the community.
This makes me wonder if I finally did discover some kind of successful form of socialism.

The side effect of this discovery is that now I can see clearly how still I am self centred compared to the village dwellers.

I think though this may not entirely be my fault, this is how the environment affects the individuals.
To my excuse is the fact that I did grow up in a hugely capitalistic society, a society based on the individual, on competition which is actually putting each one of us against the other.
The illusion of success turns us into beasts ready to kill (metaphorically, but not only) each other, with no mercy, no regards and respect for our fellows humans.

In a rural and simple society made of farmers this kind of wicked competition appears to be totally missing, this is a mutual society where everyone helps each other where all that matters is common welfare and not the individual success.

And even though everyone can tell I am always ready to help too, bring some sick old lady to hospital, helping carrying heavy rice bags but how many times I did that with joy in my heart?
Or instead how many times I thought… “Oh God, I have to do this and that again”?
Honestly too many, seldom I did it a smile on my face and in my heart and this appears to be is the big difference between me and them.

This is probably the biggest hurdle I have to overcome to finally blend in the village society’s life. Shall I try to put the community first and “forget” about myself a bit more.

Living in Ban Naudom is bringing me back to the root of human existence, but somehow I still am unable to cope with this process, I suppose it will be still a long hard road for me, to fight my inner demons and leave behind all the wicked influence that have tarnished my personality and my person.

Or am I being once again too hard on myself?
Am I idealizing a place, seeing what I wish to see and not what really is there to be seen?

I have, as usual, no answers just questions but one sure fact it is that I have still a lot to learn about life and myself and every day is a new lesson for this old Khun Phu and I would like to thank my wife and Naudom people for those lessons.


BAN NAUDOM, January 2nd 2548

C – COPYRIGHT / Claudio Romano

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD

Is there any better way to start the New Year than having a peaceful bicycle ride through Surin’s countryside roads?
Not for me, at least.

On the afternoon of January 1st, I found myself surrounded by the dried rice fields and their total silence.
The only visible living beings were few cows, some bullocks and some beautiful white feathered birds.
The sky was as blue as it can be only decorated by some white clouds that sometimes were hiding the shining sun.
I was slowly riding my bike, looking around me when an old and beautiful song started playing in my mind, it was like I could listen to Mr. Armstrong’s voice singing: “...what a wonderful world”.
Yes is still a wonderful world to live in, no matter that a minority of human beings are trying their evil best to destroy it, this remains such a wonderful world.

And as I was approaching my village I heard some noises, some music still coming out from a New Year’s Party loudspeaker and some children laughing and shouting.
I looked at my right and I saw few kids diving, jumping and swimming in a small pond having lot of fun… and once again I told to myself “… what a wonderful world”.

All this just reminded me that life is basically a simple and wonderful thing, even with all its struggles, pain and grief, and I felt lucky to be still part of it… and while thinking about this another questions popped up my mind…”Who actually needs Siam Paragorn, a Platinium Fashion Mall and always much more extreme consumerism?”
Not me, at least.

For this old Khun Phu a really nice and quiet way to start another year.

Ban Naudom, January 1st, 2549

C – COPYRIGHT / Claudio Romano