I’d like to share my experience and reflection as a Thai person in the U.S during the attack by terrorists. I’d love to hear from other Thais in the U.S. as well.

I woke up on the morning of September 11, 2001 oblivious to what has happened.  I had finished my breakfast and was getting ready for work. It was 9:00am Central Time and I was already late. I turned on the TV to see a footage of a plane hitting the World Trade Center.

My first thought was whether I should call my parents and let them know I am not in New York or Washington D.C. I didn’t think it was necessary because Dallas is so far away. I called them anyway. I am glad I did. My parents were watching the evening news in Thailand and were worried. I guess parents always are. My Indian friends weren’t so lucky. It took them hours to reach their parents.

At work, no one was really focusing on work. Many people crowded around cubicles of those who had radios. Some employees walked over to the hotel next door, which had TVs in the lobby. All www.cnn.com and www.usnews.com websites were initially down but were brought back up with fewer graphics. I finally got most of news from www.msnbc.com which seems to withstand the increased traffic fairly well. I checked Thai’s newspaper but none really had in-depth news that we want. But I did find out from www.nationsmultimedia.com that there were 12 Thais in the WTC building. For almost half a day, everyone at work was talking about the attack. I emailed other Thais in the company and friends in the U.S. to make sure that they are safe. I left work early to donate blood at the Arena Stadium. They would not take my blood because I just had a immunization shot as required by the INS for immigration purpose.

One the day after the attack, the flights were still grounded. I live about 15 minutes away from the Dallas-FortWorth International Airport. The evening skies are usually littered with planes except for the last two nights. It was a strange sight. I decided not to mail my bills since they weren’t going to get anywhere without the air transport.  Many activities, meetings, sporting events were cancelled. The stock market is still closed. People wonder if they should sell or short the stocks one it opens. I was planning to fly to Florida next month. I checked the ticket price – they were 20% less expensive than 2 days ago.

Depending on the source, the death toll varied between 2000 and 40,000. There were still no news of the group responsible for the attacks. I was fearful most for my Muslim friends. Only a few newscasters were making listeners aware of differences between Muslims and the extremist. Unable to distinguish between Muslim and extremists, vandals shot bullets at a North Texas mosque causing slight property damage.

A friend in Thailand an email about Nostradamus predictions. (See details in http://www.nostradamus-repository.org/cityofgod.html). The same message was sent in 1993 after the WTC bombings. This time around, whoever started the rumor added “two metalbirds would crash into two tall statues in the new city and the world will end soon after “. I replied to his email telling him disproving that the passage was authored by Nostradamus.

On my way back home, I made sure I filled up my gas tank. If the world is going to end, I’d better have enough gas.