A sweaty night, stepping off the Bangkok Skytrain Ratchathewi stop and wandering down an alley past street vendors selling cuttlefish on a stick and rows of women saying "Massage? You want massage?" I walked into the shop where for the past five days a Thai man and his Sikh boss had been feverishly working to get my new, tailored suit down to my exact specifications.

While the Thai man got my jacket, the Sikh looked me over. The walls were stacked with fabric swatches. A picture of King Bhumibol Adulyadej hung in the corner.

"Where are you from?" the Sikh asked.

"America," I said.

"Where in America?"

"Chicago."

The Sikh then grunted and nodded at the television. I turned and caught a quick glimpse of a familiar site -- an El train rumbling by a glass-and-steel building under a clear and chilly sky.

The TV then cut to that guy I mainly know as the guy who sort of looks like the guy from "Office Space" but isn't.

"Gary Hobson," the Sikh said. "He gets the paper a day early. I love this show."

Welcome to the Windy City as seen from the Big Mango.

I've spent the last two months on an internship in Bangkok. Despite some early notions of continuing this blog as a Midwest boy abroad sort of deal, I decided to scrap it. No point looking for the soul of Chicago's new underground from a planet away, I thought.

But I'm briefly picking it up again for a few reasons.

• 1. I miss it.
• 2. Today, at least, I have a Chicago-relevant story to tell.
• 3. Most importantly, I've been applying for jobs and I can't let that atrociously maudlin farewell letter I wrote the city be the first thing potential employers see of my mad bloggy skills. I'm funny, damn it. Hire me for your New Media, Web 2.0, cross-platform, synergy integration whatever.

During the next few minutes -- in which the Thai man forcibly inserted me into my pinstripes as I found myself promising the Sikh that I would bring him DVDs of "Early Edition" in return for a discount if I came back to Bangkok -- I started thinking about Chicago from a world away.

My first Chicago-Bangkok cross-cultural unity experience was the first day, the cab ride to from the airport hotel to my Internet-arranged apartment. The taxi had a big sticker on the window saying "We love farang." Farang means foreigners.

The cabbie and I piled into the city, passing ancient temples, towering high-rises and massive public portraits of the royal family. All the while, we chit-chatted about how bad the El is and how Lincoln Square is a really nice neighborhood when it comes down to it. The Thai cab driver used to live on Sunnyside.

I have more experiences, of course. More stories from random Thais and farang about how their sister, aunt, cousin or they themselves used to live there. There was the vacation to South Korea where I sat on the plane next to a woman who lives about five blocks from where I used to. Turns out we went to a lot of the same bars, but she has a better opinion of Daley than I do. The in-flight movie was the Chicago-filmed "The Dark Knight."

I get one of two reactions when I say the word Chicago to a Thai. The first comes with a shiver and a grimace, followed by "Too cold." The second comes with a broad smile as they say "Obama!"

Bangkok is its own place with its own color scheme and lifestyle. It smells amazing, especially during the endless nights. Squid and chicken steaming from a cart. Spices and a sultry damp. Bangkok can smell like the hot breath of an alluring stranger leaning in to tell you a secret.

Other times it smells like someone peed on a dog.

But isn't it nice to know that when we think of this strange, exciting place, they're thinking of us too? Chicago, we're known.

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