Making mistakes here is a part-time job. If it paid well, I'd be rolling in a steady bankroll.
Two days ago my host mother (Mae Noi) asked to see a picture of my girlfriend, and so I pulled up a picture of the two of us on my computer. "Ohh! Boot-tee-full," she said with the charismatic Thai smile, "How ole?" Still wrestling with Thai numbers, I thought to myself, Okay she's 21 so I have to say "sip-et" and not "sip-nyeung." "Sip-et." I said confidently, only to recieve what was quite possibly the most disgusted look I've ever seen from everyone around me. Oh shit. Sip-et is 11! "Oh no no! Yee-sip-et! Yee-sip-et!" Again, they looked at me quizically, counting out on their fingers the way up to nine. I was confused. What's so weird about a two year age difference? I wondered. "Nine years difference?" my host brother Thom asked, trying to clarify. Wait. What? Nine years? Ohhh they thought I said yee-sip-paedt (28). "No no...yee-sip-et!" I said with particular emphasis on the et, and finally they got it. Only in my failed attempts at Thai could I go from being a pedophile to dating a cougar in two seconds flat.
I've been to two night markets in the past two nights, people milling about from stand to stand, the smell of fried squid and freshly squeezed sap-ah-rhot seeping through the crowd. Here in Thailand, much like Japan, putting a smattering of English words on a shirt is hip, regardless if there is any true meaning behind it. Sometimes I don't think that the people truly know what they're wearing, although I suppose American shirts with foreign script probably are about the equivalent. I bought matching shirts with my host brother, that read "Latino Groove Work Out" in big letters, mine lime green and his neon yellow. Although, I could've opted for the VIRGINS WANTED shirt, but I decided declaring being a manwhore wasn't really on my to-do list. Now with my height, coupled with the contant barrage of new stimuli, I rarely, if ever look at the ground. Right after I bought it, I turned around and took one step, feeling the ground squish slightly beneath my feet. I looked down, my Chaco having made a perfect shoe imprint into a now squashed pile of shit. Everyone in sight laughed at me, and I couldn't help but laugh...I was that American kid that stepped in dog shit.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Welcome to the Jungle
Life would be boring without mishaps. If everything went according to plan, there would be no stories to tell, no adventures to be had, no mistakes to be made. Some of the beauty of life lies in the unplanned anarchy that takes over our lives now and then, burning our expectations, and from the ashes growing something surprising, something beautiful. As a foreigner in Thailand, anarchy is King, and I love it.
Every Friday our class has what has been cheesily dubbed “Fantastic Fun Fridays,” where we all pack up and head on a trip somewhere. In the case of this past Friday, we headed up to Crazy Horse Buttress to go rock climbing and spelunking. After taking the hour-long Rhot Dhang (the sketchy-ass red Suzuki pickup taxi) ride, we all piled out and split into our groups, mine heading off for the rock climbing portion first. I’ll be honest. This is the point in which language fails to convey adequate meaning, in that it is impossible to describe exactly how beautiful and mesmerizing the bamboo jungle was. One point I can accurately convey though with words: it was hot as hell. As a novice climber, climbing up the hundred foot jagged rock faces in approximately 110% humidity was a nothing short of a workout; adrenaline coursed through my every vein as my hands held on for dear life, trembling violently across the razor-sharp holds, slicing my hands in a few places. My pores were dilated as wide as they would open, pumping gallons upon gallons of sweat, trying to cool my overheated body down and not stopping short of sweating like a whore in church (thank my dad for that wonderful phrase). After drenching ourselves (having one of the best times ever doing it, might I add) we trekked up the mountain, everyone wheezing when we finally got to the top; even our guide had to put his hands on his knees and take a break. We squeezed into a tiny hole in the side of the mountain - tiny by my 6’4” standards at least – and proceeded to explore the internal cave system. Again, words nor pictures do it justice, although I did manage to finally find that Flickr lets me download my photos at a snail’s pace (http://www.flickr.com/photos/41999588@N08/). We ziplined across this deep crevice to a wall, hooked into a rappelling system, and rappelled the 120 feet down. It was unbelievable. Maybe when the onslaught of pictures are posted on facebook, I’ll try and upload some to give some semblance to how gorgeous it was.
One shower, meal, and thrashed pair of running shoes later, I was exhausted and passed out in bed for 12 hours until 9 the next morning. Saturday was spent doing laundry, reviving my shoes and clothes from the crypt. I washed my underwear by hand, because in Thai culture, it is forbidden to wash your clothes with your socks and underwear because they are seen as impure and personal belongings. I’ve actually become fairly domestic, seeing that I iron my shirt and pants for school every night in front of a rousing episode of “Love Trail, Sin Trail,” a melodramatic Thai soap opera that my family loves to watch while taking part in the ritualistic nightly ironing process. The show, at least as much as I can understand, follows a Thai village 1000 years ago and a bunch of women who try to poison, stab, or use a myriad of different ways to kill each other because they all want the same man. Kind of like a Thai version of Grey’s Anatomy, but slightly more violent and everyone’s pregnant.
But I digress. Later in the day, I asked my host brother what he was up to later that night.
“…Up to later tonight?” He asked, confused. We don’t realize it, but we have about no less that 100 different ways of greeting each other, especially if we use slang. After spending quite a while explaining what that meant, he asked,
“You want to go to the pub with me later?”
Now he explicitly said pub. Since I had had a fairly boring day, I decided why the hell not. I threw on a polo and he suggested I wear some jeans. Either it’s getting cooler, or I’m getting used to the sweltering temperatures, because I didn’t sweat the whole night. We drove an hour in some unknown direction and pulled up outside of a building, the neon yellow words “Monkey Club” glowing over top of it.
“Uhh…Thom…are we going there?”
“Yeah! It’s like my second home!”
I laughed. Clearly, there was a slight language barrier, and after explaining the difference between a Pub and a Club, we walked inside, people packed shoulder to shoulder like sardines. The smell of Johnnie Walker whiskey wafted above the crowd as they awkwardly swayed to the live band playing on stage and watched the Liverpool/Bolton game on the screens above the dance floor. I got more looks than Big Bertha at the freak show as I towered over the people, most of which who were about 5’6”. Now the Thai night out is different from our interpretation of a night out. Every group gets a small high round table and generally orders a fifth of whiskey, the type of whiskey denoting your status within the club. Most college-age people were drinking 100 Pipers or Johnnie Walker, so I’m assuming that’s the low end of the social totem pole. Our table got a fifth of Johnnie, and after that fifth, in addition to three 40’s of Heineken, our group was pretty relaxed to say the least. After the live band was finished, a DJ came in and got the place going with American music, mostly rap, although they slipped in Green Day’s “Wake me up when September Ends” randomly. We weren’t standing all that close to the speakers, yet I could feel my skin flapping from the bone-jarring bass, unable to hear anything other than the music as Thom’s friends tried to talk to me in broken English. I think I toasted no less than 72 different things, most of them being to my favorite Futbol team, which I randomly decided was Chelsea because it was the first team that came to mind, although it’s really Bolton or AC Milan.
It was an epic night, to say the least.
Just as a side note, I ususally am writing these posts when I'm horrendously tired, so I apologize if some of my sentences make absolutely no sense or my grammar is off. Just to clarify if you're staring at the computer screen trying to figure out what the hell I'm trying to say.
Every Friday our class has what has been cheesily dubbed “Fantastic Fun Fridays,” where we all pack up and head on a trip somewhere. In the case of this past Friday, we headed up to Crazy Horse Buttress to go rock climbing and spelunking. After taking the hour-long Rhot Dhang (the sketchy-ass red Suzuki pickup taxi) ride, we all piled out and split into our groups, mine heading off for the rock climbing portion first. I’ll be honest. This is the point in which language fails to convey adequate meaning, in that it is impossible to describe exactly how beautiful and mesmerizing the bamboo jungle was. One point I can accurately convey though with words: it was hot as hell. As a novice climber, climbing up the hundred foot jagged rock faces in approximately 110% humidity was a nothing short of a workout; adrenaline coursed through my every vein as my hands held on for dear life, trembling violently across the razor-sharp holds, slicing my hands in a few places. My pores were dilated as wide as they would open, pumping gallons upon gallons of sweat, trying to cool my overheated body down and not stopping short of sweating like a whore in church (thank my dad for that wonderful phrase). After drenching ourselves (having one of the best times ever doing it, might I add) we trekked up the mountain, everyone wheezing when we finally got to the top; even our guide had to put his hands on his knees and take a break. We squeezed into a tiny hole in the side of the mountain - tiny by my 6’4” standards at least – and proceeded to explore the internal cave system. Again, words nor pictures do it justice, although I did manage to finally find that Flickr lets me download my photos at a snail’s pace (http://www.flickr.com/photos/41999588@N08/). We ziplined across this deep crevice to a wall, hooked into a rappelling system, and rappelled the 120 feet down. It was unbelievable. Maybe when the onslaught of pictures are posted on facebook, I’ll try and upload some to give some semblance to how gorgeous it was.
One shower, meal, and thrashed pair of running shoes later, I was exhausted and passed out in bed for 12 hours until 9 the next morning. Saturday was spent doing laundry, reviving my shoes and clothes from the crypt. I washed my underwear by hand, because in Thai culture, it is forbidden to wash your clothes with your socks and underwear because they are seen as impure and personal belongings. I’ve actually become fairly domestic, seeing that I iron my shirt and pants for school every night in front of a rousing episode of “Love Trail, Sin Trail,” a melodramatic Thai soap opera that my family loves to watch while taking part in the ritualistic nightly ironing process. The show, at least as much as I can understand, follows a Thai village 1000 years ago and a bunch of women who try to poison, stab, or use a myriad of different ways to kill each other because they all want the same man. Kind of like a Thai version of Grey’s Anatomy, but slightly more violent and everyone’s pregnant.
But I digress. Later in the day, I asked my host brother what he was up to later that night.
“…Up to later tonight?” He asked, confused. We don’t realize it, but we have about no less that 100 different ways of greeting each other, especially if we use slang. After spending quite a while explaining what that meant, he asked,
“You want to go to the pub with me later?”
Now he explicitly said pub. Since I had had a fairly boring day, I decided why the hell not. I threw on a polo and he suggested I wear some jeans. Either it’s getting cooler, or I’m getting used to the sweltering temperatures, because I didn’t sweat the whole night. We drove an hour in some unknown direction and pulled up outside of a building, the neon yellow words “Monkey Club” glowing over top of it.
“Uhh…Thom…are we going there?”
“Yeah! It’s like my second home!”
I laughed. Clearly, there was a slight language barrier, and after explaining the difference between a Pub and a Club, we walked inside, people packed shoulder to shoulder like sardines. The smell of Johnnie Walker whiskey wafted above the crowd as they awkwardly swayed to the live band playing on stage and watched the Liverpool/Bolton game on the screens above the dance floor. I got more looks than Big Bertha at the freak show as I towered over the people, most of which who were about 5’6”. Now the Thai night out is different from our interpretation of a night out. Every group gets a small high round table and generally orders a fifth of whiskey, the type of whiskey denoting your status within the club. Most college-age people were drinking 100 Pipers or Johnnie Walker, so I’m assuming that’s the low end of the social totem pole. Our table got a fifth of Johnnie, and after that fifth, in addition to three 40’s of Heineken, our group was pretty relaxed to say the least. After the live band was finished, a DJ came in and got the place going with American music, mostly rap, although they slipped in Green Day’s “Wake me up when September Ends” randomly. We weren’t standing all that close to the speakers, yet I could feel my skin flapping from the bone-jarring bass, unable to hear anything other than the music as Thom’s friends tried to talk to me in broken English. I think I toasted no less than 72 different things, most of them being to my favorite Futbol team, which I randomly decided was Chelsea because it was the first team that came to mind, although it’s really Bolton or AC Milan.
It was an epic night, to say the least.
Just as a side note, I ususally am writing these posts when I'm horrendously tired, so I apologize if some of my sentences make absolutely no sense or my grammar is off. Just to clarify if you're staring at the computer screen trying to figure out what the hell I'm trying to say.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Running on Empty
Oftentimes we don't realize how much we truly rely on familiarity to get us from day to day. We see the same friends, all talk in the same common dialects, and are always bound by the same cultural expectations and norms. It's a predictable system, one that we find comfort in. Being here in Chiang Mai, I now know what it feels like to be that awkward ass exhange student, smiling and nodding at what someone is telling you although you don't have the slightest clue as to what their saying. I am constantly walking on eggshells as I try not to culturally offend my family, trying my hardest not to put my feet up on the table or pat my cute host cousin on the head when she stands next to me, calling me "giant" in Thai.
Hell, familiarity comes in forms that we take so far for granted that you don't appreciate them until they're stripped from you. In the past three days - which have been a nonstop whirlwind as it never seems there are enough hours in the day or just enough available brain cells to separate the Thai word for shower from the hundred or so we now know- I have been clamoring for some sort of familiarity, not out of desperation, but for simple comfort.
For example, take what I've ingested today alone. This morning I woke up around 5:30, showered, and wandered out to the breakfast table still half asleep to find a large bowl of rice porridge (I'm assuming that's what it was, either way it was some base rice dish) with what looked like insect legs poking out from the soupy abyss. Halfway through my breakfast, I bit into something crisp. I stopped mid-chew as an aqueous fluid spilled into my mouth. Fire bathed my tongue, causing me to choke from surprise as tears began streaming down my face. Apparently, as I found out after my host family had stopped being doubled over in laughter, I had bitten into some pepper that was hotter than a jalepeno. Don't get me wrong, the breakfast was delicious though, knowledge of what the contents were aside.
Later that morning, our class went to the market, assigned to complete a scavenger hunt to utilize the first parts of our crash course Thai language base. We felt like fools as we ran around and awkwardly stumbled through phrases like "So-wat-de kraap. Teenai Dok Rrug kraap?" (Hi. Do you know where "Dok Rug" is?") We managed to buy everything on the list after consulting upwards of twenty people, and proceeded to eat our spoils on a bridge over the market street. We ate fried silk worms, deep-fried grub, and some sort of spicy sausage. Silk worms tasted remarkably like lima beans, with roughly the same texture, and we all decided that the fried grub resembled the taste of Bugles.
We took the taxi (covered pickup truck) back to ISDSI (the International Sustainable Devlopment Studies Institute, or where I go to school) for lunch. They had two pans of a delicious chicken dish, which I assumed were just a copious amount of the same recipe, as did a few other people. Five minutes later, several of us were continually rushing back and forth from the water cooler, trying to drown the fire raging in our mouths.
Later in the evening as I sat down for dinner, I wished for the first time in my life I wasn't a biology major. I gazed into my dish and saw, without a doubt, what was stuffed pig intestine. I knew it was intestine because it still had the mesentery tissue connecting the ileum together. It had a rubbery texture as I chewed it, and I closed my eyes and pretended it was a just a rubbery sausage. Once I was mentally convinced it was sausage, it was actually not half bad.
Every once in a while though, something familiar does appear. My host family still thinks I love bananas - which I do - so it's nice to have a taste that I recognize after being constantly bombarded with new scents and flavors, although I discovered by word of mouth on Tuesday that bananas are the one fruit that are a natural anti-laxative. Even with only three days of intensive Thai under my belt, I can start to communicate with my family in very basic sentences, and when they talk to each other, it now sounds like conversation rather than like they're uttering complete gibberish. My class began learning the Thai alphabet yesterday, - a lot more sounds and letters than just 26 latin-based ones - and on the ride home, a recognizable letter would appear amidst the jumble of other heiroglyphic consonants and vowels. We even spelled my name in Thai in class with only a few hitches, but when we tried to spell Ellen's name, all I could think of was how much we probably looked a gaggle of illiterate dyslexics, making failure after epic failure in trying to ram random letters together to phonetically form "Eh-lehnn." Honestly, we sounded like Hellen Keller trying to say her own name for the first time as we repeated it over and over again, mapping out each syllable. Ajaan (professor) Wilasinee was laughing so hard tears were streaming from her eyes.
These probably sound like really insignificant things to be appreciative of, but when in a world where nothing is familiar, it's nice to have the little things every once in a while.
Oh, and speaking of familiarity, to the Thai, my name is associated with a very popular type of beer: Leo Beer. I get asked if I drink Leo Beer every day.
Hell, familiarity comes in forms that we take so far for granted that you don't appreciate them until they're stripped from you. In the past three days - which have been a nonstop whirlwind as it never seems there are enough hours in the day or just enough available brain cells to separate the Thai word for shower from the hundred or so we now know- I have been clamoring for some sort of familiarity, not out of desperation, but for simple comfort.
For example, take what I've ingested today alone. This morning I woke up around 5:30, showered, and wandered out to the breakfast table still half asleep to find a large bowl of rice porridge (I'm assuming that's what it was, either way it was some base rice dish) with what looked like insect legs poking out from the soupy abyss. Halfway through my breakfast, I bit into something crisp. I stopped mid-chew as an aqueous fluid spilled into my mouth. Fire bathed my tongue, causing me to choke from surprise as tears began streaming down my face. Apparently, as I found out after my host family had stopped being doubled over in laughter, I had bitten into some pepper that was hotter than a jalepeno. Don't get me wrong, the breakfast was delicious though, knowledge of what the contents were aside.
Later that morning, our class went to the market, assigned to complete a scavenger hunt to utilize the first parts of our crash course Thai language base. We felt like fools as we ran around and awkwardly stumbled through phrases like "So-wat-de kraap. Teenai Dok Rrug kraap?" (Hi. Do you know where "Dok Rug" is?") We managed to buy everything on the list after consulting upwards of twenty people, and proceeded to eat our spoils on a bridge over the market street. We ate fried silk worms, deep-fried grub, and some sort of spicy sausage. Silk worms tasted remarkably like lima beans, with roughly the same texture, and we all decided that the fried grub resembled the taste of Bugles.
We took the taxi (covered pickup truck) back to ISDSI (the International Sustainable Devlopment Studies Institute, or where I go to school) for lunch. They had two pans of a delicious chicken dish, which I assumed were just a copious amount of the same recipe, as did a few other people. Five minutes later, several of us were continually rushing back and forth from the water cooler, trying to drown the fire raging in our mouths.
Later in the evening as I sat down for dinner, I wished for the first time in my life I wasn't a biology major. I gazed into my dish and saw, without a doubt, what was stuffed pig intestine. I knew it was intestine because it still had the mesentery tissue connecting the ileum together. It had a rubbery texture as I chewed it, and I closed my eyes and pretended it was a just a rubbery sausage. Once I was mentally convinced it was sausage, it was actually not half bad.
Every once in a while though, something familiar does appear. My host family still thinks I love bananas - which I do - so it's nice to have a taste that I recognize after being constantly bombarded with new scents and flavors, although I discovered by word of mouth on Tuesday that bananas are the one fruit that are a natural anti-laxative. Even with only three days of intensive Thai under my belt, I can start to communicate with my family in very basic sentences, and when they talk to each other, it now sounds like conversation rather than like they're uttering complete gibberish. My class began learning the Thai alphabet yesterday, - a lot more sounds and letters than just 26 latin-based ones - and on the ride home, a recognizable letter would appear amidst the jumble of other heiroglyphic consonants and vowels. We even spelled my name in Thai in class with only a few hitches, but when we tried to spell Ellen's name, all I could think of was how much we probably looked a gaggle of illiterate dyslexics, making failure after epic failure in trying to ram random letters together to phonetically form "Eh-lehnn." Honestly, we sounded like Hellen Keller trying to say her own name for the first time as we repeated it over and over again, mapping out each syllable. Ajaan (professor) Wilasinee was laughing so hard tears were streaming from her eyes.
These probably sound like really insignificant things to be appreciative of, but when in a world where nothing is familiar, it's nice to have the little things every once in a while.
Oh, and speaking of familiarity, to the Thai, my name is associated with a very popular type of beer: Leo Beer. I get asked if I drink Leo Beer every day.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Shock Price! Just Buy!
For anyone who's never woken up to roosters, they are loud. Apparently they crow at approximately 4:30 in the morning, as soon as the first crack of sunlight makes it over the horizon. One rooster lives right outside my bedroom window, and loves screeching across town to the others, forming a choral harmony with the stray dogs and crickets who start barking and chirping at about 4:40. How they sleep through it, I have no idea. I asked my brother Thom this afternoon why they crow so early and his response was, "They do?"
My host family gets up very early and is in bed usually around 10 or 11 at the latest. Tomorrow I start school, so I'll be able to at least get a little routine down.
My host family has seemed to come to the belief that I absolutely love bananas and have given me no less than a dozen in the past 24 hours. Every meal I've had so far is some base rice dish with these little fried anchovies with little beady eyes that look up at you from the sticky abyss as if they're saying "Help...I'm drowning in rice." I'm trying to coax my family into cooking something spicy for me, but no luck so far. My host father at least put out red pepper this morning for breakfast to spice things up.
This afternoon I went with Thom, rocking out to Brittany Spears' "Circus" as we made our way to the mall in an ancient Toyota that rattled so violently that I was sure it was going to fall apart in the middle of the road.
We drove to a sidestreet somewhere and picked up his girlfriend. The Thai drive on the left side of the road, which you don't even realize until your mind wonders why the hell it's taking so long to make a right turn. Some man walking his elephant walked out in front of us and blocked traffic, causing mopeds and cars to go screeching around him. Motorcycles - which are more like dirtbikes than what we think of as motorcycles - are about what half of all the people here drive to get around. That, or they ride in the back of pickup trucks. The lines in the road are more like guidelines, the motorcycles swerving inbetween the cars and building a pack in front of the light.
The mall was fairly overwhelming, much like an American mall, with but more intensified color and advertisements plastered in every available location. The billboards here are absolutely massive and span long stretches of the street. There Thai culture is slowly start to make my mind feel like a word search; everywhere I look is completely foreign and then every now and then there is a glimpse of familiarity that comes in the form of an English word, perhaps in an advertisement or a familiar label such as Coke. The Thai mall is humorous, with many advertisments using words that are clearly lost in translation (i.e. "SHOCK PRICE!!" which is supposed to mean that the price is so low that it will shock you...I tried explaining that in America we just have the words sale and clearance and failed). Their was also a Ronald McDonald who was Wai-ing. Slightly bizzarre. The Thai mall clowns are just as creepy as American ones though.
After five hours of shopping, I bought a cell phone for about 1000 baht, which is the equivilant of about 30 dollars. Everything here is dirt cheap. I can call the US for 1 Baht/minute...once I figure out the instructions that are entirely in Thai.
This evening I celebrated my host cousin's birthday, which was met with a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" where they just repeated "Happy Birthday to You" over and over again. The fried pork over open coals in red-pepper sauce was delicious though.
Tomorrow is my first day of school, so more to come later.
My host family gets up very early and is in bed usually around 10 or 11 at the latest. Tomorrow I start school, so I'll be able to at least get a little routine down.
My host family has seemed to come to the belief that I absolutely love bananas and have given me no less than a dozen in the past 24 hours. Every meal I've had so far is some base rice dish with these little fried anchovies with little beady eyes that look up at you from the sticky abyss as if they're saying "Help...I'm drowning in rice." I'm trying to coax my family into cooking something spicy for me, but no luck so far. My host father at least put out red pepper this morning for breakfast to spice things up.
This afternoon I went with Thom, rocking out to Brittany Spears' "Circus" as we made our way to the mall in an ancient Toyota that rattled so violently that I was sure it was going to fall apart in the middle of the road.
We drove to a sidestreet somewhere and picked up his girlfriend. The Thai drive on the left side of the road, which you don't even realize until your mind wonders why the hell it's taking so long to make a right turn. Some man walking his elephant walked out in front of us and blocked traffic, causing mopeds and cars to go screeching around him. Motorcycles - which are more like dirtbikes than what we think of as motorcycles - are about what half of all the people here drive to get around. That, or they ride in the back of pickup trucks. The lines in the road are more like guidelines, the motorcycles swerving inbetween the cars and building a pack in front of the light.
The mall was fairly overwhelming, much like an American mall, with but more intensified color and advertisements plastered in every available location. The billboards here are absolutely massive and span long stretches of the street. There Thai culture is slowly start to make my mind feel like a word search; everywhere I look is completely foreign and then every now and then there is a glimpse of familiarity that comes in the form of an English word, perhaps in an advertisement or a familiar label such as Coke. The Thai mall is humorous, with many advertisments using words that are clearly lost in translation (i.e. "SHOCK PRICE!!" which is supposed to mean that the price is so low that it will shock you...I tried explaining that in America we just have the words sale and clearance and failed). Their was also a Ronald McDonald who was Wai-ing. Slightly bizzarre. The Thai mall clowns are just as creepy as American ones though.
After five hours of shopping, I bought a cell phone for about 1000 baht, which is the equivilant of about 30 dollars. Everything here is dirt cheap. I can call the US for 1 Baht/minute...once I figure out the instructions that are entirely in Thai.
This evening I celebrated my host cousin's birthday, which was met with a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" where they just repeated "Happy Birthday to You" over and over again. The fried pork over open coals in red-pepper sauce was delicious though.
Tomorrow is my first day of school, so more to come later.
"Saa-waat-dee kraab."
Alright so I’ve stopped moving and now I have no idea what to do. We made it to Chiang Mai safely after having bummed around the Bangkok Airport for three hours at 5:30 in the morning their time. We’re all sort of punch drunk and fairly lost; somehow it’s Saturday afternoon after taking off on Thursday. The airport is kind of humorous and seems like something out of a sketch comedy act…most people walk around holding masks on their face in fear of swine flu (“HEY YO. SWINE FLU!”)
So to give you an idea of Thailand…there really is no way to summarize it in a simple blog post. First off and not surprisingly, it’s hot. Not like it gets at home where it pushes 85 and everyone dives into their air-conditioned houses, but a sticky, sopping heat that saps every ounce of moisture out of you as soon as you step outside. Honestly, if the Thai find sweat offensive, then I’m straight up SOL thanks to my dad. Inside isn’t all too much different; Thailand seems to stay cool by utilizing archaic oscillating fans straight from the 1950s. Hell, I’m sitting in front of one right now writing this.
Second of all, when they talk about it being the rainy season, it lives up to its name. The skies open up here like God wants us to build another Ark and round up all the animals. The rain clouds come at 11:00 every day, almost predictably right on time, ominously overtop the mountains and black as the darkest night. The raindrops are just under the size of silver dollars and have the ability to give a rock concert a run for its money in the ability to deafen someone. Speaking of mountains, I realized I’ve never seen legitimate mountains before now. Michigan’s “hills” seem as flat as a Kansas cornfield.
Third of all, the culture here is very interesting. Here is an abridged breakdown of some of their beliefs/cultural values:
1. The King is the shit. Do not diss the King. Everyone loves the King here (as evidenced by the two King calendars posted around my host family’s house – I’ll get to them in a second)
2. The head is the most sacred part of the body, with the feet being the most impure. Don’t pat anyone on the head, especially kids. Or the King…that might yield instant death. Don’t point at things with your feet. Especially at a monk; showing the soles of your feet towards someone is like flipping the bird.
3. Thai families are very generous, especially when it comes to food. If I lose weight while I’m here and they notice it, it’s apparently regarded as poor caretaking on their part while gaining weight is a sign of a good host. Good thing I’m not picky. Although, I’ve already eaten quite a few things where I honestly have no idea what the hell I’m eating. My host father gave me these cookie-like biscuits that have some sort of fruit in them and I can’t decipher the almost hieroglyphic-like text on the wrapper to figure out what they are. That, and I had something on the plane called Puff & Stuff, which, might I say, was not in any way puffy or stuffy. It was more like solidified blue gel with coconut inside. I’m still excited to try real Thai food though.
So anyway, I’ll share more Thai culture with you later. After arriving in Chiang Mai, we got our baggage and piled into the back of trucks (covered pickup trucks that have been converted into taxis) and went to the ISDSI for orientation (the ISDSI being the institution that is hosting our whole program). The air pollution here is pretty rough…I don’t think I’ll be running on the ghetto treadmill that my host father showed me that was essentially a tread on 18 rolling pins. After orientation, our host families arrived and took us off to our respective houses. My host family consists of my host dad, mom, two sisters (one around 16 or 17 and the other who can’t be a day older than 3; she’s adorable), and two host brothers. None of them speak a lick of English except for my host brother Thom, which I just found out via phone a few minutes ago (he’s probably about 24 and works all day). When I figure out the names of my host family, I’ll let you know. Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing but it’s a riot. I gave my host father a miniature statue of the Grand Haven lighthouse…try explaining the concept of a lighthouse to a man who’s never seen one nor a large tanker before and the only words he understands are “very good” and “hello.” Not that I really can complain; the only words of Thai I know are hello (“Saa-waat-dee kraab”) and thank you (“Kawb-koon”). They’ve gotten me by so far…I’ve been smiling and playing a lot of charades. The language barrier is actually quite comical. My family was showing me my desk which doesn’t rise more than eight inches off the ground and trying to tell me that they didn’t know I was so tall and that I wouldn’t fit in front of it and that they would get me a new one. I just spent the last 20 minutes defacing the top of my door with my host father – literally defacing with a band saw and a hammer – to install a locking mechanism on my door to keep my belongings safe. It’s a strange culture, if anything.
Anyway, I will write more later, but I’m starting to crash from lack of sleep. I have to stay up as late as I can to make the jetlag transition easier, but unfortunately it’s only 3:34 in the afternoon and I’m lying on my mattress with my wonderful Mickey Mouse covers.
So to give you an idea of Thailand…there really is no way to summarize it in a simple blog post. First off and not surprisingly, it’s hot. Not like it gets at home where it pushes 85 and everyone dives into their air-conditioned houses, but a sticky, sopping heat that saps every ounce of moisture out of you as soon as you step outside. Honestly, if the Thai find sweat offensive, then I’m straight up SOL thanks to my dad. Inside isn’t all too much different; Thailand seems to stay cool by utilizing archaic oscillating fans straight from the 1950s. Hell, I’m sitting in front of one right now writing this.
Second of all, when they talk about it being the rainy season, it lives up to its name. The skies open up here like God wants us to build another Ark and round up all the animals. The rain clouds come at 11:00 every day, almost predictably right on time, ominously overtop the mountains and black as the darkest night. The raindrops are just under the size of silver dollars and have the ability to give a rock concert a run for its money in the ability to deafen someone. Speaking of mountains, I realized I’ve never seen legitimate mountains before now. Michigan’s “hills” seem as flat as a Kansas cornfield.
Third of all, the culture here is very interesting. Here is an abridged breakdown of some of their beliefs/cultural values:
1. The King is the shit. Do not diss the King. Everyone loves the King here (as evidenced by the two King calendars posted around my host family’s house – I’ll get to them in a second)
2. The head is the most sacred part of the body, with the feet being the most impure. Don’t pat anyone on the head, especially kids. Or the King…that might yield instant death. Don’t point at things with your feet. Especially at a monk; showing the soles of your feet towards someone is like flipping the bird.
3. Thai families are very generous, especially when it comes to food. If I lose weight while I’m here and they notice it, it’s apparently regarded as poor caretaking on their part while gaining weight is a sign of a good host. Good thing I’m not picky. Although, I’ve already eaten quite a few things where I honestly have no idea what the hell I’m eating. My host father gave me these cookie-like biscuits that have some sort of fruit in them and I can’t decipher the almost hieroglyphic-like text on the wrapper to figure out what they are. That, and I had something on the plane called Puff & Stuff, which, might I say, was not in any way puffy or stuffy. It was more like solidified blue gel with coconut inside. I’m still excited to try real Thai food though.
So anyway, I’ll share more Thai culture with you later. After arriving in Chiang Mai, we got our baggage and piled into the back of trucks (covered pickup trucks that have been converted into taxis) and went to the ISDSI for orientation (the ISDSI being the institution that is hosting our whole program). The air pollution here is pretty rough…I don’t think I’ll be running on the ghetto treadmill that my host father showed me that was essentially a tread on 18 rolling pins. After orientation, our host families arrived and took us off to our respective houses. My host family consists of my host dad, mom, two sisters (one around 16 or 17 and the other who can’t be a day older than 3; she’s adorable), and two host brothers. None of them speak a lick of English except for my host brother Thom, which I just found out via phone a few minutes ago (he’s probably about 24 and works all day). When I figure out the names of my host family, I’ll let you know. Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing but it’s a riot. I gave my host father a miniature statue of the Grand Haven lighthouse…try explaining the concept of a lighthouse to a man who’s never seen one nor a large tanker before and the only words he understands are “very good” and “hello.” Not that I really can complain; the only words of Thai I know are hello (“Saa-waat-dee kraab”) and thank you (“Kawb-koon”). They’ve gotten me by so far…I’ve been smiling and playing a lot of charades. The language barrier is actually quite comical. My family was showing me my desk which doesn’t rise more than eight inches off the ground and trying to tell me that they didn’t know I was so tall and that I wouldn’t fit in front of it and that they would get me a new one. I just spent the last 20 minutes defacing the top of my door with my host father – literally defacing with a band saw and a hammer – to install a locking mechanism on my door to keep my belongings safe. It’s a strange culture, if anything.
Anyway, I will write more later, but I’m starting to crash from lack of sleep. I have to stay up as late as I can to make the jetlag transition easier, but unfortunately it’s only 3:34 in the afternoon and I’m lying on my mattress with my wonderful Mickey Mouse covers.
Just. Keep. Moving.
Airports have a funny way of bringing people together. People who have no commonalities, other than that they happened to have bought a ticket for the same flight and have seats next to each other, would have never crossed paths if it weren’t for this random series of events. Take, for example, my flight from Traverse City to Denver this afternoon at 4:30. After it was delayed a half hour due to pouring rain, we finally were herded on like cattle, baggage spilling out of the stowaways to the dismay of the stewardesses. I plopped down in my seat and scanned for who would sit next to me as more people were prodded onto the plane. A somewhat greasy man wearing a jet-black leather jacket with three wolves clawing through the embroidered moon on the back sat down in front of me, his long scraggly hair and body odor creeping over the top of the seat. Behind me, as my dad had predicted long before I got onto the plane, hopped two little children who proceeded to dribble their legs against the seat for the next two hours. Next to me sat a pleasant blonde woman who was white-knuckling the seat as we taxied out onto the runway.
“Don’t like flying?” I asked, trying to make conversation.
“Nah it’s not so much of the flying as it is the claustrophobia of these small planes. My next flight should be better. I hate these puddle jumpers.”
We got to talking and I told her about how I was heading to Thailand to study abroad for college.
“Oh where do you go?”
“Kalamazoo College…it’s a small liberal arts school down in Kalamazoo.”
“Oh no way! That’s where I graduated from in ’99! I went to Ecuador!”
I’ll save you the rest of her life’s story. No matter where I go though, the world seems to get smaller and smaller.
We landed into Denver at 5:59 and taxied into gate 89. I looked down at my ticket to LA…it took off at 6:15 from gate 44. Shit. I had fifteen minutes to make it to the door. All of my running over the summer came in handy as I sprinted the 45 gates along the moving walkways, rushing past baby strollers and absentminded tourists. The last few people were filing through the gate as I ran up, entirely out of breath. No more than two seconds after I got there, an Indian man clad in a business suit and red power tie sprinted up and sidled up along side me, the two of us wheezing together as we handed the stewardess our boarding passes.
“Shitty day, eh?” He joked as we started walking down the hallway to the plane.
“You said it.” I joked back. An announcement came over the plane’s intercom, announcing that the overhead storage was full for the plane and that the last few passengers would have to ride with their carry-ons on their laps. Turns out, the Indian businessman was sitting next to me.
“Good Lord. This shit would never happen with Continental,” he sighed, “Do they take credit cards? I need something to drink like it’s my job.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure they do. They have to at least take Visa.” We got to talking again, and I gave the abridged version of what I was doing, hiking around Thailand and whatnot. He began telling me his life’s story, coming from India at 22 to come work as a software engineer and working his way up to the senior engineer for a decent sized company. He stopped in the middle of his story to text his partner ten rows up about how hot the brunette stewardess was. When she came down the aisle with drinks, he bought two beers and slammed one down onto my tray table.
“I like you kid. You look like you might need this.” Considering I’m 19 and the last thing I needed for my 17 hour flight to Bangkok was to be dehydrated, I said he could have it.
“Alright! Bonus beer!” He proceeded to show me photos his last trip to Israel and India. It amazes me how friendly some people are. In comparison, the older gentlemen across the aisle gave us no less than nine death glares during the trip, one with particular menace when I asked him about his girlfriend[s] (jury’s still out on if there was a plural involved).
~~~
Now it’s 24 hours later, and I’m still on my flight to Bangkok with about two hours to go. My watch reads 4:25 PM, yet we have been in darkness for over 12 hours. I apologize if this post really has no direction…I’ve been running on a cumulative five hours of interrupted sleep. They’ve fed us three surprisingly American chicken concoctions, with the exception of some bizarre jello-like substance that had coconut in it and their offering of free wine or Cognac to drink. The reality of that I’m entering an entirely different culture is starting to sink in, particularly when the pilot comes on the intercom and speaks in what sounds to be like a completely fabricated language, followed by choppy English. The past 24 hours have been a rollercoaster of emotions, bowing out at missing home and my friends and then rising to extreme excitement with the reality that this whole trip is happening. This is the moving phase, the adrenaline phase. I’ll let you know when we stop.
“Don’t like flying?” I asked, trying to make conversation.
“Nah it’s not so much of the flying as it is the claustrophobia of these small planes. My next flight should be better. I hate these puddle jumpers.”
We got to talking and I told her about how I was heading to Thailand to study abroad for college.
“Oh where do you go?”
“Kalamazoo College…it’s a small liberal arts school down in Kalamazoo.”
“Oh no way! That’s where I graduated from in ’99! I went to Ecuador!”
I’ll save you the rest of her life’s story. No matter where I go though, the world seems to get smaller and smaller.
We landed into Denver at 5:59 and taxied into gate 89. I looked down at my ticket to LA…it took off at 6:15 from gate 44. Shit. I had fifteen minutes to make it to the door. All of my running over the summer came in handy as I sprinted the 45 gates along the moving walkways, rushing past baby strollers and absentminded tourists. The last few people were filing through the gate as I ran up, entirely out of breath. No more than two seconds after I got there, an Indian man clad in a business suit and red power tie sprinted up and sidled up along side me, the two of us wheezing together as we handed the stewardess our boarding passes.
“Shitty day, eh?” He joked as we started walking down the hallway to the plane.
“You said it.” I joked back. An announcement came over the plane’s intercom, announcing that the overhead storage was full for the plane and that the last few passengers would have to ride with their carry-ons on their laps. Turns out, the Indian businessman was sitting next to me.
“Good Lord. This shit would never happen with Continental,” he sighed, “Do they take credit cards? I need something to drink like it’s my job.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure they do. They have to at least take Visa.” We got to talking again, and I gave the abridged version of what I was doing, hiking around Thailand and whatnot. He began telling me his life’s story, coming from India at 22 to come work as a software engineer and working his way up to the senior engineer for a decent sized company. He stopped in the middle of his story to text his partner ten rows up about how hot the brunette stewardess was. When she came down the aisle with drinks, he bought two beers and slammed one down onto my tray table.
“I like you kid. You look like you might need this.” Considering I’m 19 and the last thing I needed for my 17 hour flight to Bangkok was to be dehydrated, I said he could have it.
“Alright! Bonus beer!” He proceeded to show me photos his last trip to Israel and India. It amazes me how friendly some people are. In comparison, the older gentlemen across the aisle gave us no less than nine death glares during the trip, one with particular menace when I asked him about his girlfriend[s] (jury’s still out on if there was a plural involved).
~~~
Now it’s 24 hours later, and I’m still on my flight to Bangkok with about two hours to go. My watch reads 4:25 PM, yet we have been in darkness for over 12 hours. I apologize if this post really has no direction…I’ve been running on a cumulative five hours of interrupted sleep. They’ve fed us three surprisingly American chicken concoctions, with the exception of some bizarre jello-like substance that had coconut in it and their offering of free wine or Cognac to drink. The reality of that I’m entering an entirely different culture is starting to sink in, particularly when the pilot comes on the intercom and speaks in what sounds to be like a completely fabricated language, followed by choppy English. The past 24 hours have been a rollercoaster of emotions, bowing out at missing home and my friends and then rising to extreme excitement with the reality that this whole trip is happening. This is the moving phase, the adrenaline phase. I’ll let you know when we stop.
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