One million reds

The road seems eerily quiet at about 10 pm. I only realised the surrounding stillness as I sat down on the couch with a cup of tea. And then I recalled there weren’t as many people on the sidewalk as any other normal weekdays and that traffic was fairly light when I left the office slightly before 8. But then again, it could only be my imagination with the anticipation of the 1 million people in red who vowed to congregate around Bangkok so they can put the entire city to a standstill in the next few days.

As it is, my office issued an official email this afternoon declaring that the office will be closed, in anticipation of traffic being in major gridlock and the impending safety concerns. That doesn’t mean it’s an off day from work though. The “business continuity plan” will still be deployed and so we all need and can work from home via a remote server. Something which I’m really happy to be doing, to be honest; especially on a Friday.

If these reds can pull it off, seeing 1 million people in red hanging out on the streets can be quite a sight! I have my doubts to the authenticity in the intentions of all these reds though. Just this afternoon, some of the maids were telling our staffs that they will not be working for the day as they decided that they would rather join in the mob since they get paid 500 baht a day by just being there. Mind you, besides earning double the amount of their daily wage by joining in the rally, they also get to stand around doing nothing and getting fed for free throughout the day! While I do question their conscience, I also can completely understand their decision. Joining the rally is clearly a better deal versus having to clean up after sloppy office staffs at half the daily salary! That's not even a contention. Screw all morality.

I don’t expect anything major to happen in the next few days, though. The sentiments in the office from fellow Bangkokians reflects a “roll-eyeballs-not-again -this-is-just-annoyingly- inconvenient” blasé attitude. But, I'm curious as to how things will pan out in the next few days. The anticipation can always be quite exciting.