Designer jeans, knobby cassette players, wide-striped running shoes--anything and everything in a department store manager's wildest dreams--rushed past me at dizzying speeds. I stumbled backwards, as feverish from culture shock as from the Thai summer heat. From the open door of a fancy discotheque came the sounds of Hank Williams' hit Cheatin' Heart, while the giant figures of Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds stared down at me from a marquee.

Dumbfounded and soaked, I collapsed onto a lawn chair beneath an umbrella of Civil War flags. Why hadn't anyone told me America now had 51 states? Was this what the travel posters had meant when they had exclaimed, "Thailand--Asia's most exotic country!"?

"Drink, sir?" purred a waitress straight off the cover of Cosmopolitanmagazine.

I couldn't answer, at least not verbally: my eyes were pressing too tightly against my upper lip. On her tray, glaring at me like some haunting specter of a long forgotten past, was a glistening longnecked bottle of Budweiser beer.

"Maybe you like watch American football?" she asked. Then, pausing as if she was waiting for my eyes to plunk into my lap, she added: "Today, inside on big screen, we have Super Bowl."

Super ... Bowl?--The Super Bowl? In Pakistan and India hardly anyone had ever heard of such. But now, in a land I had expected to be the most primitive yet, I was being offered the most sacred of all American spectacles as casually as I might have been offered a cup of coffee in a Park Avenue eatery.

"Ma'am, is this really Thailand?" I wanted to ask.

What I had forgotten to take into account were the effects on the Thai society of a recent bit of history known as the Vietnam War. Though probably not well known by most Americans, Thailand was a major part of our military's logistics. Separated from the long length of Vietnam by only Laos in the North and Cambodia in the South, the ancient Buddhist kingdom, formerly known as Siam, was a strategic place to put bomber bases and supply depots and to provide recreation for battle-weary soldiers.

Thailand is still an extremely popular "R&R" spot for the U.S. Pacific and Indian Ocean naval fleets. As such, the Thais have been subjected to a continuous influx of Western culture not known by most Third World nations. Like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, Thailand has taken eagerly to the overwhelming American culture. Unlike India and most of the Muslim countries I have walked across, the government here has not gone to any great trouble to stem Western materialism or influence. To the contrary, the Thais have taken to both the good and the bad of American culture with a fervor that makes most of their Asian counterparts seem mild by comparison.

The more I explored Bangkok, the more that question I had wanted to ask the waitress kept creeping to my lips. As I roamed the interiors of what seemed innumerable new malls, department stores, jewelry shops, banks, and hotel/restaurant complexes, I was amazed to find a contemporary architecture and luxuriousness that often rivaled anything in the very heart of Los Angeles.

Unquestionably the Thais' willingness to take Americans to their hearts and tills had brought them wealth that otherwise would have been unimaginable. Instead of the largely poor, chaotic, and backward society I had expected in Thailand, I was surrounded by perhaps the most modern, efficiently run, monied society I'd seen outside of Europe.

Nowhere outside of my own country--not even in London or Rome or Athens--had I seen such a concentration of consumer and luxury goods from all over the world, particularly from the USA and Japan. It was almost as if those two economic behemoths had found in Thailand a perfect arena in which to do battle for the consumers' bank accounts. Without a doubt, Bangkok was the "great shopping paradise" of which I'd always heard, but had never really found.

With the prices for luxury and electronic items reputedly being some of the very lowest in the world, Bangkok was filled with Europeans and Americans scurrying about exercising their credit cards. With their arms loaded down with everything from fake Rolex watches to alligator-emblemed country club polo shirts to fake gaudily-carved elephant tusks that would inevitably end up in an attic, these red-faced shoppers seemed to have an awful lot of "friends" back home needing presents. At the main post office, which conveniently had an entire department set aside solely for the rapid fire packaging and mailing of tourist purchases, the Western shoppers could hardly stand to take the time to scribble down their mailing addresses before rushing off again to load up on more 24-hour-made silk suits and whatever
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For the serious shopper, Bangkok was a dream come true. From sapphires to Mercedes, they were there--and cheap, very cheap. To many Germans and Americans I talked with, flying to Bangkok to do several days' of shopping and bargaining (an accepted and expected part of any purchase) was as ordinary to them as it might have been for me to hop in my Jeep back home and drive to the closest shopping center.

Steven