Living Writer's - Rattawut Lapcharoensap

"In the Nineties" (after Leonard Michaels)

by Rattawut Lapcharoensap (Many thanks to John Francis Lee who kindly transcribed "In the Nineties")

http://www.robinlea.com/pub/InTheNineties.html

Everywhere you looked in the nineties something was being torn down, something new being built in its place. Canals were filled in for city roads, slums were leveled, highways completed. Buildings inched higher and higher into the smog. Offices, hotels, condominiums, banks. Foundations for the sky-train were laid and ground had been broken for a subway system, a new international airport, a 'world-class' convention center. Out of fields emerged shopping malls, housing developments, sporting arenas, parking lots. Gargantuan overpasses rose to span the city's more congested intersections. Kong Pan and Silom, Satorn and Lum Sali. The future was everywhere in the nineties, we were always being reminded of it, it was bein constructed all around us, above us, under us, you practically had to wear a hard hat to keep from being hit in the head.

Some of our parents bought their first car in the nineties, some finished paying their mortgages, air conditioners were installed, kitchen appliances were purchased : microwaves, water purifiers, food processors. We started shopping at supermarkets in the nineties, abandoned the morning markets.... For more transcription, visit http://www.robinlea.com/pub/InTheNineties.html