See You from Memory Journey by Tanaad

Memoir Essay:

Miho with her mom, Noriko and her family.
( See this memoir photo at thanrasa.com/memoryjourney-en )

I went to Japan for two weeks to meet her family for the first time at their home in Tochigi. Miho returned to Japan to study Mashiko Pottery for at least one year. Her family was really kind to me. Some of them had traveled to Bangkok a few months ago, including her mom, when they were Bangkok I had helped Miho to take care of them. We stayed together in Noriko’s home. Today is “Higan Day”, some of her family came to her home and we had lunch together on a “kotatsu”, a low wooden table in her living/dining room that made people warm because of the electric heater beneath it. I can’t meet her dad during this trip because he just passed away from throat cancer about two years ago. She told me that her father had a similar respectful characteristic to that of a zen monk, really calm, and he always told her to be herself and be in the moment. In the dining/living room is a “Butsudan” shrine with her dad’s picture, almost every day they pay respect by putting some rice or fruits in the Butsudan, light incense and candles, and ring the “Rin”, a little standing bell to worship family members who have passed away. We also went to a temple in her neighborhood with her mom’s car to pay homage to her dad at the cemetery.

After the family meeting, Miho and I went to Tokyo together for the weekend. Then back to Tochigi again and then I went back to Bangkok alone. We hugged each other and say goodbye before I took the bus to Narita Airport. It was the first time we had stayed far from each other long term but thanks to video calling technology that allowed us to meet, even though only on the screen.

During that time, Thailand had an election for the first time on 24 March 2019 since 2014 coup d'état by the right-wing military. I kept following the elections even though I failed to do the early overseas vote for the Future Forward Party. The new party that talks about human rights and equality also offering the most democratic policies in Thai political history. As a person who was born and raised in this country, I have never experienced good politics and economic development here. I saw that we have never solved the issues at the heart of the problem, that I can define as the political and economic system controlled by a right-wing, monopoly, mafia. I knew from deep inside that this mafia will extend their power after this election with the 2017 constitution that they made up to keep their grip. Even after the vote, the election results were not immediately announced, and finally on 5 June 2019, Thailand got Prayut Chan-o-cha as same prime minister again, the leader that also led the coup d’état in 2014.

When I’m in Japan even though they’re under Abe’s right-wing nationalist government now, they have a working political system and a developed economy. I saw people in the countryside do not have too big a gap between the rich and poor like my country, also there is a good welfare system. However, there’s a lot of countries that have never experienced an advanced economy in the past 50 years because they are ruled by a dictatorship, a primitive system that is outdated. We can’t solve many problems using this inefficient model so basically, we need to fix the system first. So many people work hard and still pay taxes with low income but this dictatorship system does not allow them to share a life with the financial comfort that this nationalist elite enjoys which actually come from their taxes. Dictatorship does not pay enough attention to everyone’s opinions. With narrow choices to financially survive some poor people see no choice and start committing crimes or even suicide. Anyway, I still have hope in this world filled with inequality, I try to be one small part in this universe to improve the equality of people and everything. For me, the easiest way to do it, is just start perceiving people and everything as equal, right here and right now. Many possibilities will show itself to the universe. I’m try not to judge people as though they lower or higher, better or below, I’m try to make understand first.

thanrasa.com/memoryjourney

Tracklist

6.	See You	5:20

Credits

from Memory Journey, released June 24, 2019
Vocals : Yellow Fang

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