Can We Have a Talk About Facemasks?
"Cover your nose please."
I did as I reflexively do in this situation. I covered my nose while holding the facemask outward so I could breathe. The woman at the counter corrected me.
"No. Cannot." She said sternly. My husband and daughter both registered looks of alarm.
"Mommy?" My eight year old asked me reflexively, her facemask still below her chin. "Are you okay?"
I told myself then that this would be the day that I finally figured out this god damned thing and how people breathed through them. I kept the facemask over my nose, in place without any fiddling. Okay, I said to myself. People obviously breathe in these things all day long. I sucked in the first inhalation of air. I needed this document. Just get through this, I said in my head. Other people do this all of the time now, I said.
The air I inhaled felt horrible. Instinctively I grabbed under the facemask so I could breathe.
"No. Cannot." The woman insisted again. My hand started shaking as my husband went to steady me.
"I'll be okay." I tried to say. My husband grabbed me when he noticed me wobbling and steered me to the outside. I ripped the facemask off once I got halfway to the door, sucking in air. I didn't want to faint again.
I have long been wondering how people in Thailand or anywhere else wear these facemasks for hours on end. I can't keep one over my nose for more than ten seconds. Twenty or thirty seconds tops, if I hold my breath the whole time.
We had to renew my visa to stay in Thailand, a tedious procedure before Covid that has now turned into a walk of living hell for me. I'd been sent away on Friday and this was the last day in my 10 year passport. I made the most of it every page was filled.
We needed a new stamp from the registration office that we hadn't divorced or anything. Like all official buildings, hospitals, airplanes and the like they terrify me now. How many times have I been told to cover my nose?
My first really bad experience of facemask madness occurred in America, on a Delta Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Things had been pretty calm on my prior flight with Frontier Air a little earlier in the summer months of 2020. "Please remember that you need to wear facemasks in Las Vegas until you get out of the airport." A male flight attendant had chided over PA. "But once you get outside, feel free to rip that fucker off." That was the exact quote. Nobody had bothered me more than in a get on the airplane type of way.
I'd been delivering food for Postmates during the Pandemic. It had been a side job before but with publishes drying up and boredom setting in I'd been more than happy to take in my view of Sin City. Las Vegas especially near the infamous Strip was empty. Many of my orders were Wal Mart groceries and the like. During the lockdown in April of 2020 I was seen for the first time in my life as some sort of hero. Nothing had changed other than the empty streets. I just popped open my trunk and groceries were loaded inside. No facemask was required while driving.
One kindly older woman came out during my delivery wearing an N95 facemask. "Why aren't you wearing a facemask?" She asked me, in a nonconfrontational manner.
"It's really hard to breathe through them." I answered back. The heat that afternoon was reaching close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, about 38 or so Celsius. I had a few facemasks in my car and I had tried wearing one once over my nose. It had been a disaster. I had tried to haul groceries up three flights of stairs in near 100 degree heat. I couldn't breathe in it, and since most deliveries were no contact, meaning I only knocked on their door and then text messaged them to tell them that their delivery was outside, it was pointless. I ripped the facemask off of my face as I hauled up a few bags of gallon milk and bottled water. I couldn't imagine how anyone could safely do any type of heavy labor with that thing covering their nose.
Despite claims that Karens were everywhere demanding that I wear a mask, or at least wear one correctly, it very rarely came up. The kindly woman who had ventured out to ask me about it left me a $15 tip on the app. I sometimes think she was looking for human conversation more than she was concerned about my personal preferences. I got an email from Postmates much later informing me that I'd been in the top 97% of drivers. To get that high of a rating without wearing a facemask, during a time that they were technically required, I have to assume that there were a lot less Covid obsessed folks watching me from the windows than they'd like you to believe. But hey I was delivering food and hence serving some purpose.
Covering my chin was not a problem for me. Most non-grocery restaurant pickups that weren't drive through were accepting of that. It was a ridiculous rule after all, to put on a facemask until you are seated at a table to eat, then take it off. A few restaurants had me wait outside, where in the blistering summer heat, nobody technically had to wear facemasks in Nevada.
A woman in a minivan rear ended my car while I was waiting at a stoplight. She was driving alone in a facemask and seemed scared to take it off even as we both got out and inspected the damage. My old Nissan bumper had been pushed in, but I didn't feel like bothering with her. I waved her away, wondering if her lower field of vision had perhaps been blocked with the mask on.
I got by. But I wanted to return to my husband in Thailand. My flight was scheduled for late August after a lot of back and forth insanity with the Thai Consulate. "Thailand is closed!" One woman exclaimed to me dismissively. I tried to explain that I had a Thai husband and Thai dual citizen daughter. I was worried that it would be facemask totalitarian crazy in Thailand, where maybe police would attack me and hold me down as they strapped the thing to my face and hauled me off to jail. I'd seen videos like that from some other countries, and I hadn't been to Thailand since the Covid insanity had taken off. I'd seen my husband on video chat he'd insisted it wasn't like that. I prayed and put my faith in God.
Me and my then 7 year old daughter set off for our trip with a flight from Las Vegas to LAX. My mother gave me a cloth facemask, I had a few surgical ones from a neighbor, and I luckily brought a thin silk scarf that I tied around my neck, in case I was supposed to cover my face somewhere. As I waited for my flight a flight attendant insisted that I cover my nose. I tried for a moment and learned that my mother's cloth facemask was unbreathable. It was even worse than the surgical ones. I put it back down after lining up for my flight. As I boarded the plane another flight attendant warned me that I needed to put my facemask over my nose. I did so, holding my breath. I got to my seat and sat down with my girl, then proceeded to find my crackers and bottled water I had bought. I put the facemask down again and gave my girl and myself some small snacks.
Everybody was seated when a flight attendant approached me again. I still had the facemask under my chin and was drinking bottled water. "Miss? She glared at me harshly. "This is the third warning about wearing your facemask. If you do not cover your nose we will have to escort you and your daughter from the flight."
I did as I was told and tried to suck in some air. The god damned thing was as awful as I remembered. "Miss! Miss!" The stewardess seemed alarmed. I ripped the thing off and put my scarf under my eyes.
"I have COPD I can't breathe in those things!" I said, no longer able to see her. I really didn't want to get kicked off my flight. The loose fitting scarf if I covered up to my forehead had enough space under it to breathe. Thank God I didn't need to see where I was going. I began thinking then that perhaps I should convert to Islam, just so I could wear a full burqa. Obviously those ladies probably figured out a few thousand years ago how to breathe under those things. The flight attendant came back a few minutes later with a few surgical facemasks. Her tone was more sympathetic.
"Here. Take these." I pulled the scarf below my eyes and took the facemasks, then put the scarf above my forehead again as she walked away. Our airplane was taxiing to the runway by then. I realized then that I probably could no longer fly on airplanes domestically in the US.
I was turned away from my first flight to Thailand while I was in the boarding area. There was some paper I was missing for my daughter and the rules had changed. I rented a car out and went to Venice Beach to see the old homestead. The beach was packed and no one wore a facemask by the water. That mistake only cost maybe $1000, but who worries about money during a pandemic and all? In retrospect the Thai woman checking my documents probably thought I was too complacently sipping my coffee as they donned biohazard suits. I was the classic farang not taking the pandemic serious.
My second flight, after my facemask free car rental to LA, went through. Nobody concerned themselves about masks on the near empty 14 hour flight to Seoul, or on the connecting flight to Bangkok. Crackers and water worked.
Things weren't bad in Thailand at first. The 15 day quarantine went by tediously but without hiccups. If I remember correctly I was one of about 1600 foreign passport holders to enter Thailand in the month of September 2020. I tested negative for Covid for the third and fourth and fifth time and was released. To shove that stupid cotton swab into my brain of course, I couldn't be wearing a facemask. Otherwise I was isolated in a hotel room with my daughter. One kindly doctor kept on bringing my daughter dragon fruit as she liked it so much, himself always wearing the facemask under his nose as he did so. There was an exercise area on the roof and Thailand had carved out exceptions to wearing facemasks for exercise. It wasn't awful. It was tedious and expensive and I couldn't imagine too many people doing it who didn't need to be in Thailand, though.
Most places in Thailand were pretty facemask free for the first several months. I could go to the beach or the local market or the farmer's market and only maybe 30% of the people in those places bothered with masks. The Zero Covid strategy of closing borders had worked, supposedly. There were a few mask Nazis and corporate stores still demanded them, but I usually avoided those places. I hadn't been to a bar or nightclub except to pick up food in a decade, nor to a concert or a movie theater. I liked natural things and natural places. I didn't even have a facemask for a few months.
I went to renew my visa to remain in Thailand. I wore the facemask poorly. At first this didn't seem to be a problem, but it was then that I became aware of the Thai habit of punishing non-compliance by putting you at the back of the bus. Eyes would turn down to shuffling papers as I approached the information desk. Somebody would cut in front of me in line to "ask a quick question" and would get acknowledged immediately. Some document was missing, or some photograph was not good enough.
"Please come back tomorrow." Was the common refrain I heard. It's over a one hour drive each way from our home in Maikhao to Phuket Town. The immigration officer called us he needed to see the Tabian Baan house registration again. We didn't have it anymore as another family on the land had taken it to another province to register their child in school. The first visa was canceled and we had to redo it. Every trip back to immigration was a nerve wracking disaster.
I had told myself that my inability to wear a facemask over my nose was due to perhaps some nascent COPD. Both my father and my aunt had died from this, and one of my dad's favorite statements was "Air is precious." I couldn't imagine that he would have been able to wear a facemask had he still been alive. My Dad had told me once that he wouldn't wear a facemask when he worked on a glass crushing floor during the 1970s. I couldn't think of a job where wearing a facemask would be more prudent than being around tiny particles of crushed glass.
The nightmares came back in April or May, however, and I had to confront the dark fact that my inability to wear a facemask went much deeper.
When I was 14 years old somebody put a pillow to my face with such force that I blacked out, unable to breathe. I woke up however many minutes or hours later tied up in a small room. I can't say with certainty what they had planned for me, but for various reasons I believe it was an organized setup. The night that this event happened always bothered me deeply. It was the Summer Solstice, June 21. Decades later on a whim I looked up what the Summer Solstice meant in terms of Satanic Rituals. It represented the day of sacrificing the Virgin.
I wrote about the experience, which was the most difficult thing I've ever written about. A book reviewer called it "The most engaging introduction I've ever read." Coming from a book reviewer, who had presumably read a lot of books, I considered it high praise.
Things went completely mask crazy in Thailand by May of 2021 or so. School was canceled yet again in response to rising case numbers, which began going up right after the vaccines were rolled out. The governor of Phuket put a 20000 baht, or $666, fine on not wearing a facemask anywhere in public, including while driving a motorbike.
Multiple warnings were issued specifically targeting farang, which means foreigner but more specifically tends to refer to white people. This psychological manipulation had been used early on in the pandemic to get Thais onboard with wearing facemasks. Early outbreaks in Thailand were blamed on partying farang and an Italian man who visited a massage girl. This sidestepped the ever compliant facemask wearing Chinese who were present in far greater numbers and inflamed long standing resentment Thais had towards lady stealing rule breaking white people. "It's the ao farang (white foreigners) who refuse to wear facemasks that are spreading this!" Thailand's health minister exclaimed at one point. He was promoted to the W.H.O. not long afterwards.
I knew the fix was in then. There was no way that a real virus would somehow not be spread by the Chinese, who visit massage ladies too, incidentally, but now outbreaks were occuring weeks later all originating from Europeans. What we had was not about the virus but rather the narrative about the virus.
Unfortunately for me it meant I had a double target on my back for my facemask refusal.
In my teens and early 20s I used to get a horrible type of nightmare that resulted in me suffocating in real life. The theme varied in the dreams, with some being about me being buried alive or having my face slammed into a wall. Whatever the nightmare was about I would wake up unable to breathe and unable to move. With great effort I would be able to cry out, and boyfriends, my brother and roommates were all informed to shake me awake immediately if they found me in this paralyzed state talking or moaning.
The doctors at the time diagnosed it as a type of sleep apnea. One prescribed me sleeping pills and another tried to give me some sort of anxiety medicine. I never filled the prescriptions. I was scared that adding pills to the mix might make my nightmares worse.
The bad dreams faded away in my 20s and I didn't have this experience at all for 15 years. I never even needed to tell my first husband about it. But when Covid cases spun out of control leading to ever more repressive disease control measures, they came back. Ambulance sirens, something we heard once or twice a week on the main road in 2019 and 2020, were now going by once or twice a day in the weeks following the vaccine rollout. I was usually able to target a mass vaccination campaign at Phuket Airport on the North of the island from news sources. There always seemed to be a spike in emergency sirens around the same time. The worst was after the Pfizer jab/booster program in early December when ambulances seemed to pass by six or seven times daily and nightly.
By May of 2021 even the local outdoor markets were being extremely vigilant about facemasks. Areas were fenced off and everyone had to go through a mask and temperature check as part of the new control measures. Wearing a mask poorly had been tolerated in Thailand before. But now everything was about covering your nose. I brought a facemask and ventured into the market. "Mask up!" The temperature check woman asked me. I did and held my breath. She glared at me condescendingly as I pulled the mask below my chin after walking in.
I'd been able to get by with a smile before. That was no longer tolerated in the Land of Smiles. A fruit vendor asked me to cover my nose as he glanced around nervously. "Sorry. Police!" I'd read about police checking mask compliance inside markets.I got out of there quickly after nervously sipping a fruit drink. The woman at the gate was not pleased as she saw me take the facemask off entirely right outside the entrance to drive the motorbike home.
"You wear facemask! Police!" She began yelling. This was too much for me.
"Not while driving a motorbike! My husband died in a motorbike accident!" I spat back as I sped off. The insistence on wearing a facemask while driving a motorbike bordered on cringe worthy lunacy. Thailand routinely made number one in the world for motor vehicle fatalities, something I was well aware of as my first husband Oh did indeed die in one in 2018. Forcing people to wear a medical device that impairs breathing, blocks the lower field of vision and fogs up glasses was absolutely guaranteed to make the roads even less safe.
"I can't wear one while driving!" I exclaimed to my husband. "I would crash the motorbike. One million percent." Out of solidarity to my dead first husband I made a vow that night to never wear a facemask at all while driving. This lunacy had to end somewhere.
A police truck pulled up in front of our bungalow about an hour after my altercation with the temperature check lady. I was sure they were called by her the fines and ramping up of hatred especially for facemask noncompliant farang was reaching fever pitch. I wasn't wearing a facemask, of course, but being in my private residence I wasn't required to at that point. I stared at the police truck as I put something in the fire pit. They did not get out of the truck. After about a minute they started the truck and pulled away with no comment.
It was a shot across the bow. Perhaps it was meant as a warning to me. Perhaps they saw our very modest bungalow and realized I probably wasn't the type of farang who had 20000 baht burning a hole in my pocket. Maybe, just maybe, they realized that these totalitarian measures would not be looked at kindly in the annals of history.
I got by during those crazy days. I ran as many others were doing in the morning and evening hours, an activity that was allowed facemask free. I stayed close to the house harvesting fruits, or went swimming at Nai Yang Beach, another activity that I could do facemask free. Local shops, usually after intimidation from authorities, would ask for facemasks. A few were reluctant and dropped the requirement quietly, though the signs remained on the door. Some used brownout tactics of making sure I was dealt with absolutely last. I made a mental catalog of where I could and could not go safely. My travels were greatly restricted.
Police were generally good to me. Something about a farang woman with her second Thai husband seems to touch them. I may well be the only one of my kind in the entire country, at least if the Thai lady joke of "you won't make that mistake again" is anything to go by.
They weren't always though. I desperately wanted them to stop the vaccine rollouts for the inevitable rising case counts and deaths and ever rising restrictions they represented to me. An officer doggedly followed me at Nai Yang Beach market in the fall, insisting that I covered my nose. I passed out after about one minute. It was the only time I have ever fainted. My husband took the facemask off as I got up groggily to a large crowd. I ran out of there to the officer shouting and took off on the motorbike with my husband and daughter like I was a wanted criminal.
"What can I do?" I explained to my husband as I drove. "If they send me to hospital I have to wear a fucking facemask. If they send me to jail I have to wear a fucking facemask." I said explaining my reasoning.
"Mom! Stop using bad words!" My daughter chided me. She often wears a facemask while I'm driving the motorbike simply because "I don't want my Mommy to go to jail." I don't have words for the psychological trauma this stuff is inflicting on children. The repercussions will play out for decades. When the restrictions began rolling in I went to a store that had formerly accepted me facemask free only to find that everything had changed. A toddler of about two years old with one of those cartoon muzzles stared at me in alarm. I couldn't help but wonder if this child would ever know a life at all.
"Facemasks on kids are no big deal!" My sister in law told me when I explained my unwillingness to enroll my daughter in any school that enforced them. "My kids come home and forget they're even wearing them! It's like they'll try to eat a snack and I'm like honey you've got to take that down."
"Just wear the mask!" Was the refrain for a while. It was spoken like so many schoolyard bullies who minimized psychological trauma. It always felt evil to me.
I had nightmares about this. What if I got into an altercation or something and they really did forcefully strap a facemask over my nose, perhaps while being arrested? What if I had a medical emergency? Would I pass out from it? Would I wake up? Would I be able to stop hyperventilating? Would they just sedate me and strap me down? I couldn't live in a world like this.
The woman signed my certificate as I sat outside. I went back to immigration. I had forgotten to photocopy some document again.
"You'll have to come back tomorrow." I was told yet again.
"Today is my last day." I said as I handed her my passport. She spoke tersely to somebody and handed me the last ticket of the day.
"Please cover your nose! I told you that before!" She said, exasperated. It was back outside for me.
I got my passport back at 6:30 PM. I was not leaving without it. By then the immigration police were eating and socializing and not the least bit worried about the maskless farang. I already knew it was an act, but it's a dangerous one. This Thailand wall of perfect facemask compliance makes me fear they're joining the ranks of the country where it all began.
I was reading a story about a Chinese woman terrified of testing positive for Covid because she feared "the wrath of my neighbors." One positive PCR test and a community of 30,000 people could be forcefully locked in their tiny pods, sometimes without access to food or water. I bet everyone wears facemasks perfectly during times like these in China. It's not for fear of the virus. A single malcontent rulebreaker and a fraudulent PCR positive, perhaps doctored up as punishment, and an entire village is forced into solitary confinement. That's not a world I want to bring my children into.
In George Orwell's dystopian classic 1984 he says that if you want to see the future of humanity just imagine a boot stomping into the human face forever. For me it looks more like a pillow being shoved into my face while being held down by two men and raped.
Perhaps Thailand is making progress. I was at the Nai Yang Beach Family Mart. I new cashier, perhaps all of 18 years old, had insisted that I covered my nose as she rang up our things. I told her that I could not and handed the payment to my daughter. This was the third time she'd seen me.
“Cover your nose.” She asked me again.
“Sorry cannot.” I explained back.
“Why cannot?” No Thai had asked me that before. She seemed genuinely curious and unlike with immigration I had a lot less on the line over it.
I started babbling. “Well I got held down against a pillow and raped when I was young. I can't put anything over my nose.” I assumed she would understand none of this. But now she seemed to be the nervous one.
“But Covid.” She said as I walked out with my groceries.
I rolled my eyes. “It's never been about Covid.”