An effort in joining the snail revolution. By Mim Koletschka, illustrations by Kittiya Pooh-rod

It’s a rat race. And there is no stepping off the wheel. Go to work, clean your house, snag that promotion, plan your vacation, make that money, go to the gym, please your date, watch your weight, and wake up the next day and do it all over again. In our present era of the fast buck, fast technology, fast food and a fast fuck, there is no slowing down. Even in our land of “sabai sabai;” the hustle and bustle of modern life reverberates through all our lives.

But there are some who say it doesn’t have to be that way. From an initial focus on food, the “slow philosophy” movement has now evolved to touch all aspects of our lives: slow cities, slow sex, slow shopping, slow design, slow sports, slow travel, slow homes, slow work... the list goes on. As a whole it has come to stand for the protection of culture, tradition, the environment, our time and our health. Put simply it is a fight-back against the rapid and homogenizing culture of capitalism and big business in today’s broadband speed world.
Websites, like www.slowplanet.com and www.slowmovement.com, are championing the cause, numerous non-profits groups are popping up, and more and more people are jumping aboard the slow life bandwagon.

You could argue that we Thais have been embracing the slow movement for centuries. Still with us all having to face up to the remorseless creep of capitalism this may just be the perfect time to embrace the concept of slow life. After all, slowing down some aspects of our daily lives maybe just what us harried Bangkokians need.

Slow Work

Work not only puts rice on our plates, but ulcers in our stomachs. The stress and anxiety of the daily grind doesn’t just affect our health but also the way we work. To meet every deadline, get ready for your third presentation of the day, greet clients, multitask, grab a bite to eat and then sit through a conference call while you check your email for the 100th time, it can seem like work has become a never ending race to an imaginary finishing line.

As a result of these growing demands on our time it’s no surprise that slow work has emerged as a popular theme of slow living. Slow work is not ignoring that request from your boss but about becoming a more efficient worker; less about speeding through the workday and acting busy but more about focusing on producing quality work. According to Carl Honore, one of the godfathers of the slow living movement, it’s about “changing gears throughout the work day.” The faster we go, the more mistakes we make, but by knowing what pace to take (slow, fast or 0 miles an hour) the emphasis shifts to quality, not quantity; less working hours, but higher production values.

One way that slow work has an impact is by creating periods in the day where relaxation is key, giving you, the worker, time to recharge your batteries, time to prepare for the next challenge. It’s already a popular concept overseas with offices introducing yoga, meditation, free massages and even time for a little siesta into their working day.

While technological advancements are heralded as a means to increase productivity, in many cases it has lead us to become more muddled and bogged down. Trying to Skype on line, talking on our iPhones, and sending another group message to our fellow workers doesn’t necessarily make us work faster. Instead of increasing productivity, our closeness to the slew of new gadgets and gizmos have turned them into our essential crutch, rather than our streamlining tools. Slow work is about bettering our relationship with technology. Dan Russell, an executive at IBM has started and is championing the slow email movement, by signing off in his business transactions, “Join the slow email movement! Read your mail just twice each day. Recapture your life and relearn to dream.” Always being plugged in to every technological outlet and checking your mail 50 times a day is a waste of time and actually reduces your ability to communicate and get on with the task at hand. Instead, put this effort into your work not technological ocd-ness.

Tied in with this working concept slow thinking has also become an emerging part of the movement. With our head down ready to win the race, thought becomes mechanical instead of original. Slow thinking asks that you actually allot time to breathe and think about personal projects, new ideas, to analyze, recollect and reinvent.

So far this movement has not yet taken Thailand by storm, and it maybe a while before your boss actually thinks it’s a good thing that you’re catching 40 winks at your desk. Dr. Pronome Thavarej, the director of John Robert Powers in Bangkok, believes that for the movement to be implemented in Thailand, “It would be quite a challenge because we’re all used to our own way of working.”

But there is hope, some companies are beginning to embrace the principles of slow. KTC (591 United Business Center 2, Sukhumvit 33, 02-665-5000) is one such organization that has tried to bring a more relaxed attitude to the workplace. Their smart office is a casual workspace with massage chairs, a meeting room full of sofas, a corner of sofa beds, pinpong tables and foosball. Each employee has his or her own laptop so they can choose to work anywhere, instead of being chained to an over-cluttered desk. With relaxed working hours, an employee can leave for the day when his work is complete, there is no need to stay and act busy just to punch in the clock. 

But this is not the norm, and as Thavarej explains, “Everything starts with the management team, which has to understand this concept enough to make changes in the corporation’s way of working.” 

Like anything in life real change has to come from the top down. So, if your boss doesn’t read BK, it might just be worth xeroxing this article and dropping a copy on their desk; then you and your fellow workers can start enjoying the benefits.

“Once slow work is put into practice, everyone will be happy, work efficiently, and see that this is a win-win situation for both sides,” says Thavarej.

After all, a happy workplace is a productive workplace.

Slow Travel

We’ve all found ourselves saying it “I need a vacation from my vacation.” All the planning, the rush to see every monument and tourist spot, the overwhelming obsession to capture every moment in a picture, the packing, the bus tours, the airports with long lines and screaming kids. Travel is no longer about relaxation but has become a headlong rush to consume and see as much as possible. What should be a way to slow down, and relax has actually become an added stress to our lives. Slow travel is a revolt against this frenetic approach and has seen more and more people opting for home stays for their two-week break. These offer the chance to truly relax in one spot, and give people time to fully incorporate theselves into the local community, learn new things and discover new cultures.

Perhaps more than any other aspect of the slow philosophy, it is this concept of travel for relaxation and education that is proving most popular in Thailand and not just among visiting tourists. A growing number of young Thais are foregoing the pleasures of the beach or action packed city breaks to spend their precious holiday time on rural religious retreats.
Nakwan Sriarunothai, a 25-year old designer who lives in Bangkok, is just one example of this growing trend. He first found out about the Thai Plum Village (www.thaiplumvillage.org), which holds regular group meetings and organizes retreats twice a year, through a friend. His reason for attending will reverberate with many busy Bangkokians looking for an opportunity to truly get away from the rat race.

“I went on the retreat because my life was stressful with work and I needed to relax, recharge my batteries.”

Thai Plum Village was set up in 1982 by the Unified Buddhist Church (Eglise Bouddhique Unifieé) which was founded in France in 1969 by Vietnamese monk, poet and peace activist Thay Nhat Hanh. Hanh looks to teach “The art of mindful living,” and the motto of the group is “Do not hurry enjoy the present moment.” It is a simple approach to the Buddhist concept of the moment since anyone and everyone can participate. Various methods of meditation are employed and discussion groups and guided sessions comprise much of the retreat, but it is not a regimented program, most people go there to slow down, learn a new perspective and just relax.

“My point of view definitely changed. I became more optimistic. I am less stressed and I know how to release my anger, to slow down, to know how to stop. But the key is to keep practicing when you come back from the retreat, because it’s hard to keep that environment in the real world,” says Nakwan. The group’s next retreat is on September 22 in Saraburi and Chiang Mai.

Perhaps perversely it seems that it’s not only young Thais who are beginning to join the slow travel movement, big corporations are also picking up on this new demand for slowing down. For example, Jet Airways is currently offering a nine-day package to Mumbai for B30,000 for a chance to study with meditation guru S.N. Goenka (call Nisco travel 02-510-4924, www.niscotravel.com) and there are now countless rejuvenation and meditation packages available at five star hotels around the Kingdom.

Slow Sex

For all those who were wondering, yes the tentacles of the slow movement even extend to the bedroom. But what exactly is slow sex? Well, Dr. Pansak Sugkraroek, OB-GYN and sex counselor argues that slow sex is healthy sex. Like travel and food, it should be done in a manner where the flavors and the sights along the way are appreciated—not just the destination.

Dr. Pansak believes that our materialistic world has led us to develop a kind of tunnel vision, a goal-oriented view-point where it’s a race to the finish line. And that mentality has seeped into our bedrooms, where it’s become a race to the orgasm. But healthy sex isn’t about the finish line, it’s about enjoying the journey.

For all those lazy lovers who always like to be on the bottom, slow doesn’t necessarily mean slow motion, but rather taking the time out to communicate sexually. “When we talk about sex, it’s like talking about food. It’s like going to dinner with someone you love: you want to spend as much time together as possible. You start with appetizers followed by the main course and after that you should have dessert and coffee. For sex it’s the same.”

There should be three courses in sex: foreplay, the sexual act, and afterplay. Foreplay is the warm up and this can and should go on for a while. Afterplay is the time after climax where the couple just take the time to appreciate each other.

Research has shown it only takes men 3-5 minutes to orgasm but it takes women 13-15 minutes. The 10 minute gap between men and women has to be filled if both want to have a truly good time. Therefore slow sex is the middle ground. So if a man wants to be a good lover he needs to know how to pleasure his woman during foreplay.

The benefits of slow sex isn’t just a better relationship, better communication but also a higher caliber of pleasure. For both women and men slow sex is the best way to reach the multiple orgasm. Indeed Dr. Pansak states that men cannot achieve a multiple orgasm with fast sex. Rather the multiple can only be achieved through slow sex. Dr. Pansak states, “A man can achieve a multiple orgasm if he is in good health and practices withholding ejaculation. If he just rides his horse to get to the destination, he will only get one orgasm. But if he rides the horse for a while, enjoys the scenery walks around and gets back on the horse, that is the way.” And if you can’t enjoy the scenery then should you really be having sex in the first place?

Slow Exercise

While this might seem like an oxymoron it seems that slow exercise is another form of taking time to appreciate one’s body and health. So instead of rushing to the gym before work, hoping that half an hour on the treadmill will cancel out last night’s whiskey binge, slowing down your exercise routine can benefit not only your body but also your mind.
 According to Daniel Remon, the managing director of Fitcorp Asia who run programs on workplace health, “Slow exercises are modalities of exercise that help calm the mind while continuing to train the body, leaving you feeling, less stressed, healthy, fit and more energized.”

The types of slow exercise are many and cover a spectrum from the physically demanding to the spiritually relaxing. Tai Chi and less intense levels of pilates and yoga are physically relaxing types of exercise that can also help to calm the mind. But for a demanding session, power yoga, advanced levels of pilates and slow movement weight training still let your body know it’s been through a workout. These physically demanding exercises states corporate fitness executive Ryan Meo of Fitcorp Asia “put much more demand on the muscles and heart rate levels, while at the same time, keeping the mind calm and body movements slow.” All these types of slow exercise are ways of de-stressing and de-cluttering our often over-worked minds.

Slow Food

With the slow philosophy originating from a protest against Mcdonald’s and other fast food outlets back in 1986 in Italy, it’s no surprise that food is still a central tenet of the movement. As the Slow Food organization state on their website (www.slowfood.com) their central belief is that everyone “has a fundamental right to pleasure and the responsibility to protect the heritage of food, tradition and culture that make this pleasure possible.” In simple terms, they see this concept of eco-gastronomy as a recognition of the “strong connections between plate and planet.”

Many restaurants in Italy who follow the organizations regulations will hang the sign of the snail (the symbol of the organization) in front of their business. While the snail insignia might not have crept over to our region yet, we can still find the culture of slow food tucked away in our fast-paced city.
Owner, chef and namesake of Gianni Ristorante  (34/1 Soi Tonson, Phloen Chit Rd., 02-252-1619. Open daily noon-2:30pm, 6-10:30pm), Gianni Favro believes that the organization is all about protecting the small producers and growers. Gianni was approached by the Slow Food organization to be their reference in Thailand, but due to the long hours involved and his already busy career, he reluctantly declined. Nevertheless, Gianni is a true believer in the movement and its fight against the power of big business and the monopolization of production.

While he agrees that it is not yet such a pertinent issue in Thailand, Gianni does believe that, “Thailand has a deep culture of food, it is a food lovers’ country and we need to preserve that.” Gianni demonstrates his loyalty to the movement through his personal search for slow ingredients in his restaurant.

Executive chef of Enoteca Italiana (39 Sukhumvit Soi 27, 02-258-4386. Open daily 6pm-midnight), Stefano Merlo, is also a loyalist of the slow food culture. “I am against Mcdonald’s and fast food, because it’s cheap. It’s for people that don’t know what it means to have a nice meal or good food.”

For Stefano slow food is about taking the time to eat and enjoy what you are eating. This means spending a couple of hours over dinner with friends and a good bottle of wine. There is no rush, just enjoyment. At Enoteca, Stefano says they do not rush their customers, and they don’t push tables, so customers can really have time to enjoy the evening and the experience.

Slow or Fast?

What started as a protection of tradition, culture and small businesses has now morphed into an all-encompassing umbrella of slow. But before jumping on the bandwagon and starting slow extremism, just take a breath and realize that there is more to life than running the race.