The Great Diversion

I’d only begun to appreciate mangoes last summer. It took a month of joining the rural workforce at a Thai chicken farm for my high regard for this fruit — abundant in my mom’s home province of Zambales — to come to fruition. Maybe it was the inordinately fertile soil of the Chachoengsao province in Thailand that made them so plump and delicious. Then again, it was probably the fact that they were one of the few things one could truly look forward to after a long day of blue-collar labor in the middle of nowhere.

Rural Juror

The arrangement was that I’d become a regular farmhand for a month in order to learn, in the most manifest way possible, the business of poultry farming. My parents had invested a sizable amount into the construction of a few poultry houses and I was the son chosen to bring back the instructive bacon — or rather, the chicken strips of information — on bird breeding. Being an incoming college senior itching for freedom from academic life and an all-too predictable summer of Boracay trips and whine-laden Manila nightlife, the experience seemed like the only imperative at the time. So in the span of three days, a plane ticket was booked, a farm tech company representative had driven me about 100 kilometers east of Bangkok, and I’d found myself rising from a maxi-pad-thin floor mat at six in the morning to attend to the needs of the couple thousand chicks I was suddenly responsible for.

Life on the S. Pattana Farm was certainly the obverse of the charmed existence I led in Manila. Tasks like feeding chickens or noting poultry house conditions were to be done before breakfast, which was usually a mucus-inducing dish considering the hefty amount of chili thrown in. Mealtimes under a rundown shed were a chance for the 25 or so members of the tiny community of farm workers to roll up cigarettes and shoot the shit about God-knows-what. As expected, their English was limited to simple nouns and verbs (“Eat food”; “Go market”; “Look buffalo”), which didn’t leave much leeway for intense conversation but was sufficient enough when they’d ask me to fulfill menial tasks such as refilling water dishes or overturning soiled pine shavings. Sometimes, upon the bidding of a farm supervisor I called Mr. S (I couldn’t really pronounce his name), I was privileged enough to fill my time collecting dead birds, killing the diseased ones by slamming them head-first against the floor, or swabbing up stool samples from the chickens’ anal cavities.

Sure, regrets about agreeing to this total change of lifestyle crossed my mind several thousand times, especially when my iPod charger had ceased to work, leaving me wide awake on some nights listening to a symphony of frogs and crickets, or having to battle the swarms of bugs that tried to cling to my body during bath time. But then there was a sort of release in letting go of all the cushy familiarity and urban urgency; an ease in the stillness that came with my absolute displacement from all the trivialities I encountered back home. Leading such a no-bull existence was sobering, to say the least. Life was lived day-to-day and there were the few simple joys to look forward to, like acknowledging the wind as your friend when it dried the sweat off your clothes, seeking refuge from the glaring afternoon sun by lying under the grain silos and daydreaming, and gorging on the mangoes that the farm girls (nicknamed Pak, Bo and Ke; I know) picked from the forest and sliced into a large bowl as an after-dinner dessert. I’d developed a liking for the fruit and would later accompany the three on their post-work excursions, following them through thickets, stepping on brambles and finding myself in a clearing of countless mangoes trees. Interestingly enough, the girls would pick the mangoes that had fallen on the ground, biting into these in order to taste whether they had that sweet and extraordinarily succulent quality that was worth putting them in a basket for; something that reminded me about childhood — when you could dig your teeth into anything.

There are a lot of things you reacquaint yourself with — or realize, rather — when you’re alone amid the unfamiliar. There’s a price you pay when you’re young, restless, and sheltered in Manila and my work as a farmhand felt like I was paying penance for all that, yet the adventure brought on by such a new and strange experience was most definitely a good thing. Whether it was taking those weekend trips doing the DiCaprian backpacking rounds in Bangkok — almost getting gypped of a thousand baht by a few tranny hookers in Patpong and meeting a variety of in-transit foreigners on bustling Khao San — or enjoying Thai whiskey, murky frog soup and deep-fried insect grub with my newfound farm buddies after a day of hauling crates and grain sacks, finding myself by my own means and follies was invigorating.

let go, bite in

It’s been more than a year since my stint as a chicken farmer and a lot of the serene sensibilities I’d soaked up have been lost in the speedy rat race that greets every fresh college graduate. I’d left Thailand with a sense of what was important in life — the breaks, diversions and new experiences needed in order to realize oneself — yet this was forgotten as soon as I was back to the grind of the city with the main objective of getting my final year of college over with in the speediest and most painless way possible while putting in some work on the side at a magazine publishing company. ‘Course, as soon as graduation day came and other kids were promising themselves a year off to “find themselves,” I’d forgone attending the ceremony for typing away at an office computer with an overpowering feeling of pleasure in that I’d finally entered a world of true autonomy and real merit — and where this rabid need to make something of myself consumed me.

But professional cockiness wears off and you soon find yourself disenchanted by your daily dealings, clocking in for work and clocking out almost nightly in bars, assuming a vacant stare as you down Cuba Libres to combat the stress that accompanies your job. During this “downtime,” I’d remember that month I spent in Thailand, sitting under the silos or watching the trees sway as I lay on my makeshift hammock, and the vow I took to infuse quality in both work and life; what I’d learned from a bunch of people I couldn’t even understand in the first place. To enjoy the unfamiliar every now and then and submerge myself in every new experience, especially when I’d grown weary of where I was.

So last week, I decided to quit my job. A great first job and once a dream job, no doubt, but that instinctive need to seek new experiences grabbed at me once more and I knew that it was time to move on to other things. I wasn’t looking to abandon my iPod, find a sturdy shelter of logs and branches in the Zambales backcountry, and go all Walden pond on myself, but it was time to move on to other things and maybe take some time to get reacquainted with myself, even if it meant loafing around my room and finding strange amusement watching the Hallmark Channel or getting out of the city and going for a long drive across the expressway. A lot of my friends have been experiencing this first-job fallout — reevaluating their occupations and realizing that they really want to do (and not do) in life — but I guess Pak, Bo and Ke were onto something. Maybe life just comes down to a case of picking the right mangoes, even at the risk of being attacked by an army of killer ants or thinking you’d found the perfect one and realizing, upon first bite, that it wasn’t yet ripe enough. Thing is, you’ve got to keep picking those suckers — whether off the bough or from the ground — and throwing them into a basket of experience. Just pick and bite into ‘em until you’ve found one that is savory to the last bite. So whether I find myself living out my pretentious NYC fantasies or pitching a tent in the wilderness, there’ll be people to meet and experiences to undertake, and I’ll relish every damn mango that comes my way. Life is just more palatable that way.