生活在清迈：大象眼睛的景色

萨拉·阿沃特·斯托弗（Sara Avant Stover）

If you imagine Thailand to be an elephant’s head in profile, the southern peninsula being the trunk,” someone once told me, “then Chiang Mai is right where the eye would be.” And within that eye dwells much wisdom and cultural appeal. Since 1296,清迈已经建造了300多个庙宇以及该国最好的大学。现代化并没有减少超过100万人的大都市的魅力，居住在市中心内的20万人被古老的围墙护城河包围。

Enticed by Chiang Mai’s seemingly inexhaustible work and leisure opportunities, tourists often become either permanent residents or repeat visitors. You find them watching French films at the Alliance Francais, weaving through traffic on motorbikes, huddling around pitchers of beer during The Irish Pub’s weekly “Quiz Night,” or bartering for a kilo of tomatoes at a local market. They are teachers, volunteers, students, missionaries, business owners, and retirees. Regardless of their occupations or nationalities, all find the slow pace of Chiang Mai living enticing.

清迈的外籍概况

52-year-old玛格丽特·邦宗（Margaret Bhadungzong）has made this northern Thai city her home since 1973 when she arrived in Bangkok with her Thai husband, Goson, whom she met while at college in Ohio. After living in Bangkok for five years with their child, “Bangkok got to be too frenetic and hectic” and they decided to move to Chiang Mai to start a now-flourishing tourist magazine, Good Morning Chiang Mai. Looking ahead, she feels that retirement in Chiang Mai will mean a “very happy life.”

Don Wilcoxarrived in Thailand 19 years ago and found that Chiang Mai reminded him of his home in North Carolina: “I love the city. It feels very much like Appalachia.” Shortly after his arrival, Don married a Thai woman crippled with polio and the two have since started Chiang Mai’s first and only disabled center. (“We’re not a popular cause,” he says, “we’re a lost cause.” “We’re people that no one wants to see.”)

Today the Center—which provides internet access, bike rental, and massage services—works with many foreigners who come to volunteer.

Wilcox advises potential visitors: “Leave personal baggage at home. Leave cultural assumptions behind you and become vulnerable to another perspective. Don’t ask, ‘Can I drink this water? Are there chilies in this rice?’ Dive in. Exercise reasonable caution. Get over ‘us and them.’”

稻田距清迈不远。

八年前，47岁朱莉娅·尤斯（Julia Jus）, then a single mother, followed her inner voice to Chiang Mai. Since then she has raised her two children, remarried, and started Cynergy, an enterprise which includes homeopathic consultations and a 7-day “rejuvenation” retreat. Although her business has been a success, attracting clients ranging from Indian royalty to Hollywood stars, running a business outside of her native culture has been a challenge. Thais, she finds, generally operate according to a very different work ethic than that to which she is accustomed: the “Mai Pen Rai”态度（无处不在的泰语短语“不介意”）并不总是有利于有效地为西方客户服务。

Despite the low costs of living in Chiang Mai, Jus, who feels “this is a great place to raise kids,” made sure that she had adequate savings before moving her family here and beginning her business. “If you don’t have any income,” she warns potential newcomers, “coming here and looking for a way to support yourself is very difficult.”

卡林·麦迪逊（Karin Madison）moved to Chiang Mai from Cleveland two years ago with her husband, Brent, a photographer, after she had worked in Japan as an ESL teacher. Karin explains: “It’s way cheaper to get started here. We traced the trend, the next hotspot for travel and photojournalism.”

Extensive Web research, networking with family friends, and some savings made their transition a successful one.

如果您单身并且知道想要什么样的工作，那么搬到清迈就不困难了。”卡林建议。“您需要足智多谋和积极主动。查看，尤其是在互联网上，您想移动的地方各种资源。”

Americans not only come to Chiang Mai to teach or to start their own businesses. They also decide to study at one of the universities, volunteer at NGOs, or even retire here.马克·伊森斯塔特, a 32-year-old former social worker from Colorado Springs, moved to Chiang Mai to pursue a course in parisitology at Chiang Mai Univ. Like Karin, Mark’s relocation preparations began with Web research.

尽管这里的教育成本比美国要低得多，他的学业和国家都帮助“激发他的兴趣”，但他也对泰国的“ Mai Pen Rai”看法感到沮丧。马克解释说：“您必须在这里调整自己的速度。”然而，好胜过坏了。他现在pm。兰斯（Lans）在CMU攻读国际健康硕士学位，并爱上了一名泰国妇女。马克（Mark）还在当地的非政府组织慈善机构（NGO AIDS Charity）的志愿者Urban Development Project（RUDP）每周一次或两次志愿者，为艾滋病毒受害者及其家人提供医疗，货币和情感支持。

David Spillane是一名来自康涅狄格州纽黑文市的62岁退休人员，于1965年首次访问泰国，从他在越南服役。他曾在曼谷的美国大使馆，位于清迈的美国领事馆工作，并与泰国妇女结婚，现在他与他现在住在杜伊·索特普（Doi Suthep）脚下的清迈（Chiang Mai）。

他解释说：“从那以后，这座城市发生了明显变化。”“二十五年前，这确实是一个困倦的小城市。”尽管污染和交通伴随着最近的增长，但戴维并不孤单，因为他选择在清迈的温带气候和“相当缓慢”的节奏中享受他在清迈的退休。他发现在美国，“每个人似乎都有连线，但是这里没有紧张的水平。”

Westerners who crave efficiency “may find Chiang Mai slightly disappointing,” he says. But the cultural environment supports his interest in Buddhist studies; he frequently walks over to the nearby Wat Umong for the Sunday “Dhamma talks,” given by an English monk.

戴夫说：“佛教以多种方式渗透到文化上，我意识到它对整个泰国文化以及他们如何看待事物及其互动的主要影响。。。从国王下来。”

僧侣在一个佛教综合体中。

无论您是想到进入泰国大象的旅程以创办生意，教，学习还是只是“ BE”，首先要做的就是亲自看看它。

Sara Avant Stoverteaches English literature and dance in Chiang Mai.