A Brief History of Globalization, The Portuguese in Siam, Airplane Food, and an Island in Thailand

January 2021

My recent explorations took me along the Chao Phraya River to a former Portuguese trading post and later a Portuguese settlement in Bangkok.

What is now a popular waterfront mall, was once a great trading port where the east and west exchanged goods from around the world. I used to think of globalization as a modern concept, but it has been happening for hundreds of years. Even the Scandinavians have been trading with Asia for over a thousand years. At one point, an estimated 10% of the wealth in the Roman empire was used to purchase Asian silks. My western education lead me to believe that modern civilization and the first great empires began in Greece and Rome, then developed into Europe, before spreading to the Americas. While Greece, and Rome did make great contributions to the advancement of western civilization, what was happening in Asia up to the 16th century was far more impressive and advanced than what was happening in Europe.

In school I learned about the Athenian creation of democracy and the organization of the Roman Empire, but learned very little about the largest continuous empire to ever exist, that of the Mongols in the 13th and 14th centuries. The Mongol empire stretched from China into eastern Europe. While the Europeans were relatively easy for the Mongols to defeat in battle, the Mongols decided Europe was not even worth concurring and they needed to focus on the territory already under their control. Europe did not become so rich and powerful until the discovery of the Americas at the end of the 15th century, which allowed them to exploit great mineral and agricultural wealth from the indigenous people using their guns, germs, and steal to kill by the millions.

I remember being briefly taught that Genghis Khan was a cruel savage brute, but not so much about him being one of the greatest strategists in history. It is certainly true that the Mongols did horrifying and cruel things to those who opposed them. Though this was often a strategy for reducing casualties during conquest, somewhat similar to the United States dropping two nuclear bombs on Japan at the end of WW2. Because the United States used the atomic bombs, the actual cost of life was significantly lower than the estimated cost of life had a land invasion of Japan occurred. When the Japanese saw the horrific devastation the United States was capable of inflicting, they knew they had to surrender. Additionally, the USA was motivated to use the bombs because they wanted to be the ones to defeat Japan. Had a land invasion occurred, it may have been the Soviet Union dictating the terms of surrender and spreading communism.

A similar strategy of intentional atrocities to reduce casualties was used by the Mongols. When the Mongols, under Genghis Khan and his successors, decided they wanted to concur a city, they would brutally attack villages and towns outside of the city. Word of the approaching Mongol horde would reach the city, and often the city would surrender without bloodshed and pay tribute to the empire. Once within the Mongol empire, trade, arts, and religious tolerance prospered. The Mongols sought to learn from, and share information with, all of those under their vast domain and many cultures were represented in the Mongol court. All religions were allowed within the empire and it was common to have public debates between priests, monks, imams, and rabbis.

I often think of Christianity as predominately a religion of the west, but for a long time is was widespread in Asia as well. Religion and trade (money) often go together and Christianity spread throughout Asia along the Silk Road. The Silk Road was a land based trade route between Europe and Asia, going through Constantinople (present day Istanbul, Turkey). For hundreds of years Constantinople was controlled by, the formerly Roman, Christian Byzantine Empire. When the Muslim Ottoman Turks, under Mehmed II, concurred Constantinople in 1453, renaming it Istanbul, they put an end to the Silk Road linking European and Asian commerce. With the land route cut off, Europeans turned to the sea for access to Asian markets to obtain their highly desirable spices and goods.

A little known part of history is that Christoper Columbus, a devout Christian, admirer of Marco Polo (13th century Venetian merchant who traveled the Silk Road to the Mongol court of Kublai Khan), and ruthless business man seeking a sea based trade route to Asia, carried with him a letter intended for a Christian ruler of Mongol descent in east Asia, proposing a military alliance. In addition to seeking new trade routes to Asia, Columbus wanted to launch another crusade against the Muslim held Holy Lands and retake Constantinople, attacking with a Christian European army from the west and a Christian led Asian army from the east. Thus establishing a predominately Christian Eurasia, in which trade could flourish and the Christian world becomes rich.

As we know, Columbus inadvertently discovered the Americas and history took a very different turn. Spain went on to become the world’s leading power by brutally exploiting the Americas and many other European countries followed suit. Portugal was another of the European powers to take advantage of the New World through trade, largely slave trade. In fact, during the period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, approximately 310,000 African slaves were imported into the present day United States. Over 5,000,000 African slaves were imported into present day Brazil, giving Brazil the second highest African population in the world, behind only Nigeria.

Between the exploitation of the Americas and newly discovered sea trade routes to Asia (by going around Africa, Vasco da Gama, Cape of Good Hope), globalization began to take off. By the end of the 15th century, the Portuguese were trading goods across Asia, in particular with the Kingdom of Siam (present day Thialand). Through this global trade, new agricultural products were introduced to different parts of the world. This included the potato coming to Europe and the chili peppers arrival in Asia, both originally from South America. It is interesting how things we strongly associate with one country, only came to be as a result of trade with another country.

Commerce in action.

What was once a beautiful home in a Portuguese settlement area of Bangkok, Thonburi.

Churches and mosques on one side of the river. Buddhist temples on the other side.

Today, over 90% of world trade travels by water. Many of these trade routes now go through the Suez Channel, which is controlled by Egypt. This greatly reduces the maritime travel time between Europe and Asia.

Siam Kingdom became Thailand in 1948. The two World Wars changed many boarders. In fact, the world as we know it today is a pretty recent construct. My sister is older than present day Germany.

Walked through Wat Pho and saw a really long Buddha. (Wat means temple)

Restoration work in progress.

You can purchase a small bowl of coins and drop them into a long line of bowls, making a wish for each coin.

2D x 3 kind of looks like 3D. This art was created by three pieces of semi translucent fabric placed about a foot behind one another.

Chang Chui Creative Park is an awesome night market.

You can eat on this plane at a great restaurant called Na-Oh.

Definitely the best meal I have ever had on a plane.

Dinner: squash soup, Wagyu beef, and tropical ice cream.

No pandas were harmed in the taking of this photo.

Light show with dinner.

Checked out a fun place for illusion pictures, Art in Paradise. It was really nice being the only people in the place.

Close call, glad hippos only live in Africa.

First bowl gutter, last bowl strike. Stick with it, you can always get better.

Checked out the Flower Market.

This mask smells so good.

Took a day trip with friends to Koh Lan (Koh means island). Drove to Pattaya then look a 30 minute speedboat to get to the island.

Great swimming water.

Living and loving the coconut life.

Can’t quite pull off the hair flip.

After some island time, we headed back to Pattaya to get dinner. My Thai friend showed me two nice looking options for dinner, with only a glance I choose the first place because it had a cool looking jungle lounge vide. I had no idea what I had chosen, and neither did my friends who had never been there either.

Mong Chang cafe, looked pretty cool on arrival.

Was pleasantly surprised when I saw they had elephants there.

Then was really sad to see they had elephants there. These types of places should not be allowed to exist. The elephants were all chained to the ground. I have enjoyed going to elephant sanctuaries in Thailand, where they rescue elephants from places like this. I do believe it is possible to have good relationships between animals and humans under the right circumstances. In the good sanctuaries, the elephants have large spaces to roam freely, are fed hundreds of pounds of food a day, and get frequent mud massages. The sanctuary elephants seem happy and have a pretty great lifestyle. I hope this place gets closed down and these elephants get rescued one day. I would never intentionally support a place like this. It is absolute animal exploitation.

Despite the bad conditions, I still had fun feeding this clever elephant, who stole the basket of bananas right from my hand while I was trying to feed her one at a time.

The trainers here have a very different relationship with the elephants to that of the handlers at the sanctuaries.

This beautiful, intelligent, and powerful animal should not be so confined. Both ankles are chained together so he can only move around his cage inches at a time. I cried when I saw this.

When we got back to Bangkok, I got to meet a friend’s pet sugar glider. She peed on me, I’m hoping this is an act of endearment in sugar glider culture.

Played badminton for first time since I was a kid. It is a really fun game and much more popular in Asia than in America.

These guys sure know how to make an organic salad.

That’s a wrap.