06 November 2008 Changes

Changes
06 November 2008

Changes were noticeable in Isaan today. Changes are occurring everyday and everywhere but often we are too occupied to notice. More often than not we are too afraid to recognize or admit to the changes around us. But the changes continue oblivious to our existence or psyche.

In Isaan we are approaching the season to harvest the rice crop. Heads have formed on the stalks and the grains are becoming larger each day. The harvest will be fully engaged in one month. Some disappointments are already being manifested for the harvest to come.

Portions of the rice paddies are filled with rice plants that have fallen over (lodging) so that their heads are only slightly above the water. This condition will make harvesting much more difficult. There is no apparent logic for the patterns of lodged rice. They appear to have been laid down by very small swirling gusts of wind or knocked over by two people carrying a piece of wood between them. I originally thought that some people had tried to start their harvest too early and gave up. Duang explained the condition to me. With everyone's preoccupation with phii (ghosts) here I decided not to mention crop circles.

Today there were several large trucks on the main road from Udonthani to Bangkok. These trucks were carrying huge loads underneath tarps. Special frames had been inserted in the back of the trucks to allow their loads to extend over the sides of the truck bed and to far exceed the height of the truck cab. It appeared that the trucks were carrying something light like rags or harvested cotton. I had not seen trucks like that before. I asked Duang and found out that these trucks were carrying rice hulls from the rice mill in Udonthani south to the rice fields in the surrounding villages to be used for the next crop. After the rice is harvested, it is milled - either in a small facility in someone's yard or transported to a commercial facility. The milling removes the hull or chaff to expose the white kernel that we are familiar with. Farmers then use the discarded hulls to condition the soil for the next crop. A similar process is used for sugar cane.

The debris from sugar cane processing is a dirt like material that smells very strongly like rotting sickening sweet organic matter. Duang and I call it "key oih" (sugar sh*t). The pile outside the sugar refinery on the road to Tahsang Village was huge last season. It was about 900 feet by 900 feet by 60 feet high. Today it is only 50x50x25. The rest of the matter was sold to farmers who used it amend the soil for this years crop.

This year's crop of sugar cane will start in earnest after the rice has been harvested. However some farmers have already started their small harvests. These were not commercial harvests but appeared to be for personal use only. When the commercial harvest is underway the roads from the outlying villages are overwhelmed with tandem trailers stacked at least 15 feet high with cane. These trucks run essentially 24 hours a day to transport the cut cane from the fields to the refinery.

I was also made well aware of changes this week while continuing to go through my papers and documents that I imported from the USA. I am in the process of reviewing over 35 years of professional books, articles, manuals, papers and drawings. To reduce the number of boxes and document to store here, I am reviewing the documents to determine their validity and relevance.

I am surfing the Internet to see if the information is available there so that I can eliminate the need to keep hard copies here. As usual the Internet is a wealth of information and I can recycle a great deal of the paper. What was surprising to me though was the amount of change over the years.

Many companies are no longer in business. Large and at one time successful companies no longer exist. Some companies have been bought up by other companies and now operate as subsidiaries or divisions. Some of the new parent companies are foreign entities. There were a couple companies that have been sold two times in the past fifteen years.

Some of this is due to the litigation involving asbestos. Some is no doubt due to mismanagement. But the fact remains that huge changes in the building industry have occurred.

I started investing in 1992. I invested in some well known and highly rated mutual funds at that time. Last year while looking at my portfolio, I was amazed at how many of those original funds or for that matter how many of the original companies no longer exist. Many of my funds were bought up by other companies or merged into existing funds at other companies. Examples are Fremont Investments, Berger Funds, Scudder, and Brandywine. This list would be even more dramatic to include the changes that have occurred in the banking industry this year or even this year since June! My conclusion is that the smart guys were not all that smart in the end. I took the time to research and managed my money for myself. If I didn't understand it or if it didn't make logical sense to me, I did not invest in it. I had to say "No" to many people, and passed up on many "great opportunities".

Most of my life, like most people, I resisted change. Much of my energy was spent trying to prevent changes in things that I had no control and often no influence over.

I now try to spend my energy and efforts to make the best out of changes. Changes offer as many opportunities as challenges. Our success and happiness is dependent upon our ability to adapt to change.

Change has come to the agricultural cycle here in Isaan. Change has come to the building industry. Many changes have occurred in my life in the past two years. Change is happening to the USA political landscape.

The changes will continue for all.

We do not have to approve or be able to explain the changes. But our happiness and success depends upon our willingness to take advantage of the opportunities that our presented and our willingness to take responsibility for our actions in response to the changes.