Buttons, bookshops and Bangkok

It began with a button. A button and a bookshop, while on the way to a bar in Bangkok. We never reached the bar.

No.

It began way before then.

It began on Christmas Eve 1958 with a Thai scholar sat in a restaurant on the East coast of the US. He is on his own, reading a newspaper. It is snowing outside

(At least in my head it is snowing - Great white flakes pouring from the skies as the man sits in a restaurant made of red velvet, much the worse the wear for years of over-use. At one point the restaurant would have been grand, but now this young Thai man is experiencing his first Christmas in America and despite the unfamiliarity of the festival, he still longs for family and home - because festivals always create a space for missing family and home when you are far from them. He has come to this restaurant, which he can't quite afford, in order to treat himself. A Christmas Eve with his favourite newspaper and the luxury of a dinner alone and despite its faded glory, the restaurant is still grand enough to make him feel special).

From across the restaurant an old man catches his eye. Something passes between them. Two strangers surprise themselves by looking openly and honestly at each other, almost by mistake, but they are rewarded to find an open, honest look returned. They smile. And both feel warmer for the moment.

An hour or two spins by. The Thai man, with the scholarship that has brought him across the world, sighs and looks at his watch. He gets up and reaches for his wallet. The waittress shakes her head.

"No- it is already paid for." she says, "that old man paid."

The Thai man smiles.

Fifty years later it is holiday time 2008. The Thai scholar has returned home, though his eyes still sparkle when he talks about seminars in Harvard and his university years. Much has happened. Thailand is in a roar of change.

At 10.30 one night he wonders into a book shop only to lose a button. The button tumbles from the second floor of the shop down the steps, past a pair of friends stood laughing at the foot of the stairs. They are on their way to a bar, but got distracted by the promise of English books.

They offer the button back - and the Thai man, now a 72 years old man, with hair died and glasses thick and a whole string of titles and responsibilities looks at these two and sees himself on Christmas Eve 1958.

He takes them for coffee. And after several hours discussing politics and memory they all get up to leave. Something has passed between them. And the two friends from the bookshop, who never made it to the bar, smile.