Husband and I are leaving tonight for a visit to our relatives back in the land of Mom and apple pie.
I'm not sure yet whether or not there will be any blogging while we're gone.
Friday, March 24, 2006
i call it a halfghan
This is the half-an-afghan I knitted for Brother and Sister-in-Law. Luckily I was making it nice and wide; if they turn it sideways and think of it as being vertically striped instead of horizontally, maybe it isn't completely useless.Those are Husband's toes.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
update
For anyone who's been keeping score, my hands are feeling much better.
Knitting is still out, as I discovered when I tried to do it the other day.
But practicing is going fine, so I'm not quite as freaked out as I was a week ago.
I've started doing a regular yoga practice again, which is definitely helping. I think I'm the only person in the history of the world who moved to Asia and stopped practicing yoga. People do hatha yoga here, of course, but the classes are either in Thai or in the expat area of Bangkok, catering to those lucky Americans, Brits, and Australians who are working for companies from their home countries and making corresponding salaries. I'm not up for two hours of traveling each way, plus spending an entire day's pay, just for yoga class.
Home practice is all right, though, and it's only due to my extreme sluggish nature that I haven't kept that up. But I've started again, and this time Husband is joining me. It's really nice to do it together, actually. And it keeps us both motivated to do a complete practice--our natural abilities are opposite, so the types of asanas I'm tempted to skip because they're difficult and unpleasant for me are the ones he's eagerly awaiting because they feel easy and fun, and vice versa.
Knitting is still out, as I discovered when I tried to do it the other day.
But practicing is going fine, so I'm not quite as freaked out as I was a week ago.
I've started doing a regular yoga practice again, which is definitely helping. I think I'm the only person in the history of the world who moved to Asia and stopped practicing yoga. People do hatha yoga here, of course, but the classes are either in Thai or in the expat area of Bangkok, catering to those lucky Americans, Brits, and Australians who are working for companies from their home countries and making corresponding salaries. I'm not up for two hours of traveling each way, plus spending an entire day's pay, just for yoga class.
Home practice is all right, though, and it's only due to my extreme sluggish nature that I haven't kept that up. But I've started again, and this time Husband is joining me. It's really nice to do it together, actually. And it keeps us both motivated to do a complete practice--our natural abilities are opposite, so the types of asanas I'm tempted to skip because they're difficult and unpleasant for me are the ones he's eagerly awaiting because they feel easy and fun, and vice versa.
there were cats and rats and elephants...
This photo was taken during In-Laws' visit earlier this month. We were walking along Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok (one of the main roads, and one of the few where the shops and restaurants have signs in English) when we came upon this guy and his elephant.
There are a lot of elephants in Thailand, and apparently a lot of them earn their keep by plodding up and down city streets like this one. People buy little bags of sugar cane from the elephant's owner and feed them to the elephant. The elephants know the score: as you approach, it starts nudging you with its trunk, looking for the sugar cane it knows you're going to buy. Once you buy it you're supposed to put one piece at a time into its trunk, but again, the elephant knows the score and puts its trunk directly into the bag.
According to the reading I've done, many of these itinerant elephants are out-of-work loggers. In the past, elephants were used as beasts of burden, dragging felled trees and the like, in the logging industry. However, at some point in the recent past (1980s?) the Thai government realized that Thailand was becoming severely deforested, and put heavy restrictions on logging. This left many, many tame elephants with no work to do, putting their also out-of-work owners in a dilemma. The elephants were too tame to go back into the wild, but it costs a lot of money to feed an elephant, so with neither the human nor the elephant able to get any work logging, it often became impossible for the owners to support their elephants.
Some elephants went into sanctuaries, some (like the ones we've seen, including the one in the picture) became urban curiosities, and some, sadly, were just abandoned. There are organizations (charities? companies? nonprofits? who knows?) that collect money to go towards retraining these elephants to live in the wild. Because elephants live so long, there are still a lot of these former logging animals in Thailand. The one in the picture is fairly small, so Husband thinks it may be the offspring of two logging elephants, too young to have done any work itself. But since I'm lacking a lot of data (when the logging stopped, how long elephants live, exactly, and how big they're supposed to be) I'm not sure if he's right about that or not.
There are a lot of elephants in Thailand, and apparently a lot of them earn their keep by plodding up and down city streets like this one. People buy little bags of sugar cane from the elephant's owner and feed them to the elephant. The elephants know the score: as you approach, it starts nudging you with its trunk, looking for the sugar cane it knows you're going to buy. Once you buy it you're supposed to put one piece at a time into its trunk, but again, the elephant knows the score and puts its trunk directly into the bag.
According to the reading I've done, many of these itinerant elephants are out-of-work loggers. In the past, elephants were used as beasts of burden, dragging felled trees and the like, in the logging industry. However, at some point in the recent past (1980s?) the Thai government realized that Thailand was becoming severely deforested, and put heavy restrictions on logging. This left many, many tame elephants with no work to do, putting their also out-of-work owners in a dilemma. The elephants were too tame to go back into the wild, but it costs a lot of money to feed an elephant, so with neither the human nor the elephant able to get any work logging, it often became impossible for the owners to support their elephants.
Some elephants went into sanctuaries, some (like the ones we've seen, including the one in the picture) became urban curiosities, and some, sadly, were just abandoned. There are organizations (charities? companies? nonprofits? who knows?) that collect money to go towards retraining these elephants to live in the wild. Because elephants live so long, there are still a lot of these former logging animals in Thailand. The one in the picture is fairly small, so Husband thinks it may be the offspring of two logging elephants, too young to have done any work itself. But since I'm lacking a lot of data (when the logging stopped, how long elephants live, exactly, and how big they're supposed to be) I'm not sure if he's right about that or not.
Monday, March 20, 2006
another day, another bicycle
Avid readers may recall that my bicycle was stolen last month. Since then I've been riding our spare bicycle. I know what you're thinking: who has a spare bicycle? What kind of opulent decadence is maikaojai living in?
Here's the bicycle story from the beginning.
When I arrived in Thailand I soon realized that I was going to have to buy a bicycle. The walk from my apartment to work was so tiring in the heat that I had to spend the first ten or fifteen minutes at work just recovering...and letting the sweat dry. At the time I was too fearful to take advantage of the usual alternative to walking: the motorcycle taxi. (I've since gotten over that fear, and occasionally hop on the back of one of these motorcycle taxis to get across campus.)
So, a bicycle it was to be. I found the one bicycle shop in town (I later learned that it's not actually the only one in town; however, not having a bicycle, I didn't have any way of getting to the others). Having already learned my lesson about being penny wise and pound foolish in Thailand, I chose the more expensive of the two styles of bicycle they had for sale. I proudly pedaled it home...and then immediately back to the shop. Why? I couldn't work the kickstand. Yeah. I have ten years of higher education. Three degrees. I can rightfully insist on being called "Doctor" if I want to, and I couldn't work the kickstand. Turns out there's an extra lever that acts to prevent the kickstand from being accidentally kicked over. I learned this in a very amusing (for him) demonstration from the shop owner.
Four weeks later Husband arrived. He too needed a bicycle; I hadn't bought him one in his absence because he wanted to choose for himself. We returned to the bicycle shop, and found only one bicycle for sale. Yes, one bicycle. It was the cheaper model. Having no choice, we decided to take it (and paid more than we did for mine). Now, we must pause to note that Thai bicycles are made for Thai people. That is, the frames are smaller, the seats are lower, and the wheels are smaller than typical adult-sized bicycles in the U.S. This is well and good for me--I'm about as tall (if considerably heavier) as your average Thai man. Husband, on the other hand, is six feet two inches of red-blooded American male. The bicycle shop owner shrewdly noted this (no dullard he!), and raised the seat on Husband's new bicycle as high as it would go. This almost achieved the goal of allowing Husband to ride his bicycle without his knees jutting out crazily.
Husband rode his new bicycle for only a few weeks before the unthinkable happened: the seat post began to bend backward. Yes, it seems that in his zeal for customer service the bicycle shop owner pulled it out farther than the metal could bear. The seat situation continued to deteriorate, and eventually Husband decided to buy a new bicycle. We bought this one at Tesco Lotus (avid readers will recognize that name) and had it delivered to our apartment. It's shiny. It's got six speeds (which is five more than my bicycle). Best of all, it's big enough. Husband continues to ride this bicycle.
We attempted to sell his original bicycle to a new colleague. He, understandably, had some reservations about becoming the owner of an already crippled bicycle. So the bicycle sat in our apartment.
Then, in February, my bicycle was stolen. Instead of buying a new one, I started riding Husband's damaged bicycle. The seat post had bent so far that it was low enough for me, but very much farther back than it should be. This was an acceptable solution, until today.
Today on my way home from work, I felt myself sliding down and backwards. I hopped off the bicycle and looked at the seat post. The bottom of the post had broken through the metal of the bicycle frame and was poking out like a grotesquely broken bone. The seat was almost scraping the rear wheel. I walked the bicycle home and decided to buy a new one.
This evening I went to the new bicycle shop behind the market. I bought a shiny new bicycle, and while the shop owner was getting it ready for me (among other things, he had to put pedals on it) I chatted with the two gentlemen who were sitting in the shade of the store. They are graduate students from Nepal, and since my pasty complexion sticks out like a sore thumb, they recognized me from around campus. One of them is in medical school and the other is an engineer. They urged me to visit Nepal on my next vacation.
The bicycle shop owner didn't recognize me, but I recognized him. His bicycle shop may be new, but before it opened he ran a different shop in the same location. During my first weeks in Thailand I visited his shop several times, buying things like waste baskets and collapsible shelves. I really enjoy this guy--he does his best to snow me into thinking he's giving me a great price, all the while fleecing me with farang tax, but he does it with such a twinkle in his eye that I think he has to know I can see it's all a charade. Today when I paid his inflated (but much better than a year ago, and for a better bike!) price for the bicycle, he made a big show of returning 50 baht to me at the end of the transaction, like he just couldn't bear to overcharge me. Right. But he's just so cheerful and friendly, how can I not like him?
Anyway, I hope that this is the happy conclusion of the bicycle story. I've got a bicycle that's slightly better than the one that got stolen and quite a lot better than the sadly broken one that's now sitting in our apartment; Husband has a nice big bicycle that's better than any of the others; and we'd like to continue riding them in peace.
Here's the bicycle story from the beginning.
When I arrived in Thailand I soon realized that I was going to have to buy a bicycle. The walk from my apartment to work was so tiring in the heat that I had to spend the first ten or fifteen minutes at work just recovering...and letting the sweat dry. At the time I was too fearful to take advantage of the usual alternative to walking: the motorcycle taxi. (I've since gotten over that fear, and occasionally hop on the back of one of these motorcycle taxis to get across campus.)
So, a bicycle it was to be. I found the one bicycle shop in town (I later learned that it's not actually the only one in town; however, not having a bicycle, I didn't have any way of getting to the others). Having already learned my lesson about being penny wise and pound foolish in Thailand, I chose the more expensive of the two styles of bicycle they had for sale. I proudly pedaled it home...and then immediately back to the shop. Why? I couldn't work the kickstand. Yeah. I have ten years of higher education. Three degrees. I can rightfully insist on being called "Doctor" if I want to, and I couldn't work the kickstand. Turns out there's an extra lever that acts to prevent the kickstand from being accidentally kicked over. I learned this in a very amusing (for him) demonstration from the shop owner.
Four weeks later Husband arrived. He too needed a bicycle; I hadn't bought him one in his absence because he wanted to choose for himself. We returned to the bicycle shop, and found only one bicycle for sale. Yes, one bicycle. It was the cheaper model. Having no choice, we decided to take it (and paid more than we did for mine). Now, we must pause to note that Thai bicycles are made for Thai people. That is, the frames are smaller, the seats are lower, and the wheels are smaller than typical adult-sized bicycles in the U.S. This is well and good for me--I'm about as tall (if considerably heavier) as your average Thai man. Husband, on the other hand, is six feet two inches of red-blooded American male. The bicycle shop owner shrewdly noted this (no dullard he!), and raised the seat on Husband's new bicycle as high as it would go. This almost achieved the goal of allowing Husband to ride his bicycle without his knees jutting out crazily.
Husband rode his new bicycle for only a few weeks before the unthinkable happened: the seat post began to bend backward. Yes, it seems that in his zeal for customer service the bicycle shop owner pulled it out farther than the metal could bear. The seat situation continued to deteriorate, and eventually Husband decided to buy a new bicycle. We bought this one at Tesco Lotus (avid readers will recognize that name) and had it delivered to our apartment. It's shiny. It's got six speeds (which is five more than my bicycle). Best of all, it's big enough. Husband continues to ride this bicycle.
We attempted to sell his original bicycle to a new colleague. He, understandably, had some reservations about becoming the owner of an already crippled bicycle. So the bicycle sat in our apartment.
Then, in February, my bicycle was stolen. Instead of buying a new one, I started riding Husband's damaged bicycle. The seat post had bent so far that it was low enough for me, but very much farther back than it should be. This was an acceptable solution, until today.
Today on my way home from work, I felt myself sliding down and backwards. I hopped off the bicycle and looked at the seat post. The bottom of the post had broken through the metal of the bicycle frame and was poking out like a grotesquely broken bone. The seat was almost scraping the rear wheel. I walked the bicycle home and decided to buy a new one.
This evening I went to the new bicycle shop behind the market. I bought a shiny new bicycle, and while the shop owner was getting it ready for me (among other things, he had to put pedals on it) I chatted with the two gentlemen who were sitting in the shade of the store. They are graduate students from Nepal, and since my pasty complexion sticks out like a sore thumb, they recognized me from around campus. One of them is in medical school and the other is an engineer. They urged me to visit Nepal on my next vacation.
The bicycle shop owner didn't recognize me, but I recognized him. His bicycle shop may be new, but before it opened he ran a different shop in the same location. During my first weeks in Thailand I visited his shop several times, buying things like waste baskets and collapsible shelves. I really enjoy this guy--he does his best to snow me into thinking he's giving me a great price, all the while fleecing me with farang tax, but he does it with such a twinkle in his eye that I think he has to know I can see it's all a charade. Today when I paid his inflated (but much better than a year ago, and for a better bike!) price for the bicycle, he made a big show of returning 50 baht to me at the end of the transaction, like he just couldn't bear to overcharge me. Right. But he's just so cheerful and friendly, how can I not like him?
Anyway, I hope that this is the happy conclusion of the bicycle story. I've got a bicycle that's slightly better than the one that got stolen and quite a lot better than the sadly broken one that's now sitting in our apartment; Husband has a nice big bicycle that's better than any of the others; and we'd like to continue riding them in peace.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
sudoku is taking over my life
I resisted the Sudoku craze for a long time. Something so trendy couldn't possibly be fun. I had an image in my mind of something like the "Jumble" that used to be in newspapers, and thousands of tragically hip city dwellers feverishly hunched over it.
Then, during In-Laws' visit a couple of weeks ago, I picked up the Bangkok Post. I wanted to read about the political situation in Thailand (which I'm emphatically NOT going to write about--I don't know enough about it to write intelligently), but after reading the front page articles I was irresistably drawn to the comics page, which contains mostly American comic strips like FoxTrot.
There it was at the bottom of the page.
Daily Sudoku.
Mother-In-Law and I were waiting for Husband and Father-In-Law to return from their technology frenzy (from which we were happily excluded), and I thought that the Sudoku might be a good way to waste some time.
It was all over.
It didn't take me long at all to go from "I guess I'll give it a shot" to "Hey, this is kind of fun" and finally, inexorably, to "Where can I find some more of these?"
I found myself typing "sudoku" into Google. I bookmarked this website. I started printing out puzzles. Soon I'd progressed from "easy" to "medium," and you wouldn't believe my excitement when I figured out how to solve them without making lots of little notes in the margins. Our coffee table was recently piled with finished Sudoku (I cleared them off in shame when we were about to have company). I've even got Husband doing it.
Then, during In-Laws' visit a couple of weeks ago, I picked up the Bangkok Post. I wanted to read about the political situation in Thailand (which I'm emphatically NOT going to write about--I don't know enough about it to write intelligently), but after reading the front page articles I was irresistably drawn to the comics page, which contains mostly American comic strips like FoxTrot.
There it was at the bottom of the page.
Daily Sudoku.
Mother-In-Law and I were waiting for Husband and Father-In-Law to return from their technology frenzy (from which we were happily excluded), and I thought that the Sudoku might be a good way to waste some time.
It was all over.
It didn't take me long at all to go from "I guess I'll give it a shot" to "Hey, this is kind of fun" and finally, inexorably, to "Where can I find some more of these?"
I found myself typing "sudoku" into Google. I bookmarked this website. I started printing out puzzles. Soon I'd progressed from "easy" to "medium," and you wouldn't believe my excitement when I figured out how to solve them without making lots of little notes in the margins. Our coffee table was recently piled with finished Sudoku (I cleared them off in shame when we were about to have company). I've even got Husband doing it.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
say goodbye to hobby-wood
I haven't posted anything of substance in quite a long time. I wonder if I've got any readers left.
(Hi Mom.)
The school year is over. Did I mention that? Husband finally turned his grades in yesterday, which means we're both officially finished...sort of.
I have been spending about half of each weekday at my office, sorting through the detritus of one year of teaching. Paperwork, CDs in broken jewel cases, a "My Documents" folder without any discernable organization. Once I got my office into new-school-year fighting trim, I started practicing again.
I've got a recital planned for early August and it's a huge program. It's going to be a real challenge for me. I have decided that since the chamber music situation here is not as steady as I'd like, the best thing for me to do is to burn through as much repertoire as I can by giving two big recitals each year. One in each semester. Each one is a line on my CV. Each one is (if I don't screw up too much) a potential addition to the Job CD, which I have to send whenever I apply for a job. These are things I need if I ever want to come back to the U.S. in anything less than shame.
Anyway, I started practicing again after a couple of weeks off (the end of the semester is too full of student-related obligations for me to do anything like a serious practice schedule), and I was dismayed to find that my hand problems have come back in force.
What could be causing this? I haven't been using the computer excessively (which gave me problems during graduate school). I haven't been over-practicing, God knows. What have I been doing with my hands that would strain my already-damaged nerves?
KNITTING.
No more pretty sweater. No more cute penguin. No more half-an-afghan. No more anything. I think I'm going to have to give it up.
Anyone want some yarn, needles, and half-finished knitting projects?
(Hi Mom.)
The school year is over. Did I mention that? Husband finally turned his grades in yesterday, which means we're both officially finished...sort of.
I have been spending about half of each weekday at my office, sorting through the detritus of one year of teaching. Paperwork, CDs in broken jewel cases, a "My Documents" folder without any discernable organization. Once I got my office into new-school-year fighting trim, I started practicing again.
I've got a recital planned for early August and it's a huge program. It's going to be a real challenge for me. I have decided that since the chamber music situation here is not as steady as I'd like, the best thing for me to do is to burn through as much repertoire as I can by giving two big recitals each year. One in each semester. Each one is a line on my CV. Each one is (if I don't screw up too much) a potential addition to the Job CD, which I have to send whenever I apply for a job. These are things I need if I ever want to come back to the U.S. in anything less than shame.
Anyway, I started practicing again after a couple of weeks off (the end of the semester is too full of student-related obligations for me to do anything like a serious practice schedule), and I was dismayed to find that my hand problems have come back in force.
What could be causing this? I haven't been using the computer excessively (which gave me problems during graduate school). I haven't been over-practicing, God knows. What have I been doing with my hands that would strain my already-damaged nerves?
KNITTING.
No more pretty sweater. No more cute penguin. No more half-an-afghan. No more anything. I think I'm going to have to give it up.
Anyone want some yarn, needles, and half-finished knitting projects?
Monday, March 13, 2006
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Thursday, March 09, 2006
speaking of dessert
I've been posting about food a lot lately. Guess I know which of the Seven Deadlies has my name on it.Anyway, this is one of the crushed ice desserts I described in my post about mango with sticky rice. The bottom of the bowl holds red beans, which are covered with crushed ice. The crushed ice is topped with...um...some red stuff, some white stuff, and some seeds. I think the orange things are canned peaches but I'm not sure.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
bon appetit
Mother-in-Law and I went for a cooking class at a Thai restaurant yesterday. Fun was had by all.
We made kang phed goong (shrimp in red curry sauce), tom kha gai (chicken in coconut soup), bplah sam rod (fish with chilli sauce), and yam woon sen (seafood and glass noodle salad). Yum.
There were only 3 people in the class--me, Mother-in-Law, and a Brazilian flight attendant. This meant that there were a lot of sous-chefs wandering around looking for something to do, so we each had at least one person watching us and helping us if a screw-up looked imminent. No-risk cooking.
Everyone was very nice and accommodating--they found a good substitute for the pineapple (which Mother-in-Law is allergic to) in the fish dish, and they good-naturedly brought me more green chillis. With every dish I asked how spicy they would make it for a Thai person, because I knew that the proportions of ingredients had already been adjusted for farang taste buds.
We made kang phed goong (shrimp in red curry sauce), tom kha gai (chicken in coconut soup), bplah sam rod (fish with chilli sauce), and yam woon sen (seafood and glass noodle salad). Yum.
There were only 3 people in the class--me, Mother-in-Law, and a Brazilian flight attendant. This meant that there were a lot of sous-chefs wandering around looking for something to do, so we each had at least one person watching us and helping us if a screw-up looked imminent. No-risk cooking.
Everyone was very nice and accommodating--they found a good substitute for the pineapple (which Mother-in-Law is allergic to) in the fish dish, and they good-naturedly brought me more green chillis. With every dish I asked how spicy they would make it for a Thai person, because I knew that the proportions of ingredients had already been adjusted for farang taste buds.
Monday, March 06, 2006
admitting you have a problem is the first step...
...or was it "Knowing is half the battle?"
Mangoes are in season.
This means juicy sliced mango. It means thick, cold mango shakes. It means a sea of yellow fruit at the market.
It means mango with sticky rice.
Husband and I have recently come to terms with the fact that we have a problem.
My name is maikaojai, and I am addicted to mango with sticky rice.
Mango with sticky rice is the only Thai dessert that I like even a little. Most Thai desserts involve brightly colored gelatinous matter of dubious origin. Sometimes day-glo syrup is poured over crushed ice, which is itself piled on top of sweetened beans. Sometimes pale green noodles swim in a tank of kelly green goo. Sometimes little sticky balls the color of a Buddhist monk's robe are sprinkled with shredded coconut. These and other delights I eschew.
I'm not sure what goes into sticky rice (and heaven forbid I should ever learn how to make it--I'd never stop!), but there is definitely coconut milk in the formula. By itself, sticky rice is rather uninteresting. But topped with sliced mango it's ambrosia. It's nectar.
Husband and I have developed quite a habit. There is a street vendor who sells mango and sticky rice quite near to our apartment, and we've been visiting her almost nightly. She doesn't seem to work on weekends, though, and last night when we couldn't get our fix we realized that she's got us quite hooked.
Mangoes are in season.
This means juicy sliced mango. It means thick, cold mango shakes. It means a sea of yellow fruit at the market.
It means mango with sticky rice.
Husband and I have recently come to terms with the fact that we have a problem.
My name is maikaojai, and I am addicted to mango with sticky rice.
Mango with sticky rice is the only Thai dessert that I like even a little. Most Thai desserts involve brightly colored gelatinous matter of dubious origin. Sometimes day-glo syrup is poured over crushed ice, which is itself piled on top of sweetened beans. Sometimes pale green noodles swim in a tank of kelly green goo. Sometimes little sticky balls the color of a Buddhist monk's robe are sprinkled with shredded coconut. These and other delights I eschew.
I'm not sure what goes into sticky rice (and heaven forbid I should ever learn how to make it--I'd never stop!), but there is definitely coconut milk in the formula. By itself, sticky rice is rather uninteresting. But topped with sliced mango it's ambrosia. It's nectar.
Husband and I have developed quite a habit. There is a street vendor who sells mango and sticky rice quite near to our apartment, and we've been visiting her almost nightly. She doesn't seem to work on weekends, though, and last night when we couldn't get our fix we realized that she's got us quite hooked.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
preach on
From the Chronicle of Higher Education's discussion forum.
http://chronicle.com/jobs/forums/read.php?f=2&i=58166&t=58166
Nothing I could have written today would be better than this.
http://chronicle.com/jobs/forums/read.php?f=2&i=58166&t=58166
Nothing I could have written today would be better than this.
sweat
The cool season is over. It was a few months of bliss, which I now realize I did not adequately appreciate.
There are three seasons in Thailand: the dry season, the rainy season, and the cool season. At the official changes of the seasons, the King of Thailand presides over a ceremony at Wat Phra Keaw in which the clothes of the Emerald Buddha (the most revered religious symbol in Thailand, carved out of a massive piece of jade and housed in a temple that is beyond description) are changed. Buddha has a different gold outfit for each season. He's still wearing his cool weather gear (we visited the temple the other day with In-Laws), but the time for the change is near, and it's becoming evident that the weather won't wait for the Buddha to be appropriately attired.
It's getting hot again.
After the cool season comes the dry season, which is dry in the sense that it lacks rainfall. However, I am likely to go through it in a constant state of damp. I can't step outside without sweating. Our apartment is beginning to exhibit a secret wish to be a greenhouse. The number of showers I take (or wish I had time to take) each day is growing.
I didn't know how good I had it.
During the cool season, all of the farang are happy. We continue to wear summer clothes. We bask in the gentle breezes and the cool nights, and enjoy the mild days. It feels just like the best summer days back home. The Thai people are miserable. Sweaters appear. Coats, scarves, and even the occasional hat. They shiver and complain.
During the dry season, the roles reverse. The Thai people finally warm up and begin to shed their extra layers of clothing, and we farang, already wearing as little as we decently can, start to sweat. Our faces get red. Our hair gets frizzy and matted. We really don't look good. I know a guy who brings a clean shirt to work in his briefcase every day during the dry season, because he sweats through the first one as he walks from the parking lot to his office. I haven't had to resort to that (yet), but I have started strategically arriving at work early so that I've got 15 or 20 minutes to cool off in the air conditioning before I'm likely to meet any students.
They have been asking me if I plan to go home during the upcoming school holiday. This seems to be for three reasons:
There are three seasons in Thailand: the dry season, the rainy season, and the cool season. At the official changes of the seasons, the King of Thailand presides over a ceremony at Wat Phra Keaw in which the clothes of the Emerald Buddha (the most revered religious symbol in Thailand, carved out of a massive piece of jade and housed in a temple that is beyond description) are changed. Buddha has a different gold outfit for each season. He's still wearing his cool weather gear (we visited the temple the other day with In-Laws), but the time for the change is near, and it's becoming evident that the weather won't wait for the Buddha to be appropriately attired.
It's getting hot again.
After the cool season comes the dry season, which is dry in the sense that it lacks rainfall. However, I am likely to go through it in a constant state of damp. I can't step outside without sweating. Our apartment is beginning to exhibit a secret wish to be a greenhouse. The number of showers I take (or wish I had time to take) each day is growing.
I didn't know how good I had it.
During the cool season, all of the farang are happy. We continue to wear summer clothes. We bask in the gentle breezes and the cool nights, and enjoy the mild days. It feels just like the best summer days back home. The Thai people are miserable. Sweaters appear. Coats, scarves, and even the occasional hat. They shiver and complain.
During the dry season, the roles reverse. The Thai people finally warm up and begin to shed their extra layers of clothing, and we farang, already wearing as little as we decently can, start to sweat. Our faces get red. Our hair gets frizzy and matted. We really don't look good. I know a guy who brings a clean shirt to work in his briefcase every day during the dry season, because he sweats through the first one as he walks from the parking lot to his office. I haven't had to resort to that (yet), but I have started strategically arriving at work early so that I've got 15 or 20 minutes to cool off in the air conditioning before I'm likely to meet any students.
They have been asking me if I plan to go home during the upcoming school holiday. This seems to be for three reasons:
- In Thailand it's polite and socially expected to ask people where they're going.
- They want me to buy things for them while I'm at home.
- They get a vicarious chill that amuses them when I tell them that I can't wait for some good old-fashioned cold.
Friday, March 03, 2006
I've recently been reminded that I am not, in fact, an intrepid adventurer, nor am I a crack linguist, and that perhaps I'm not actually cut out for this expat thing.
I read a book the other day (Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind by Carol Hollinger) that was humbling, to say the least. It's a memoir by an American who lived in Bangkok during the 1960s. There are a lot of these expat memoirs, but this is the first one I've seen that didn't portray the experience of living in Thailand as a half-remembered drunken debauch. Most of these books have titles like Pattaya Princess or Bargirl, and based on what I can get from skimming their contents in the bookstore, they deal mostly with the tiresome details of their authors' sexual experiences. However, I have continued to browse the "local interest" section of the bookstore in the hope that at least one person has written about living in Bangkok who wasn't here primarily to see how many women he could pay to have sex with him.
Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind was very enjoyable to me. The author was an English teacher at another university in Bangkok, and when she writes about work (her students, the university administration, her interactions with her colleagues) she's right on the money--she could have been describing my job. The rest of the book, in which she discusses other aspects of her life, was very interesting as well, but I've come away with a heightened sense of my own failings. This author learned not only to speak Thai, but to read it. She learned to drive in Bangkok, a Bangkok without a Skytrain or metered taxis. She deliberately left the comfort of interacting with fellow Westerners in favor of cultivating friendships with Thai people and taking trips into the rural backountry. She experienced a different Thailand than the extremely limited one I'm dealing with, and she did it (seemingly) without complaint, homesickness, or much sweating.
Mother-in-law and Father-in-law are visiting this week, and I think I'm driving them crazy. It's becoming more and more clear to me that when I first arrived in Thailand I didn't handle things well at all. I found things to be difficult that evidently aren't difficult for normal people, and I've generalized from my own experience in ways that I probably shouldn't. Case in point: I found the process of traveling back and forth from the town where I live to Bangkok to be very daunting at first. Thus, Husband and I wanted to escort his parents from their Bangkok hotel to our town. They, on the other hand, had absolutely no difficulties in doing it themselves. I guess it's not that hard after all--it was just hard for me. Oh well. I am doing the best I can. I guess there's no law saying I have to be competent at everything.
I read a book the other day (Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind by Carol Hollinger) that was humbling, to say the least. It's a memoir by an American who lived in Bangkok during the 1960s. There are a lot of these expat memoirs, but this is the first one I've seen that didn't portray the experience of living in Thailand as a half-remembered drunken debauch. Most of these books have titles like Pattaya Princess or Bargirl, and based on what I can get from skimming their contents in the bookstore, they deal mostly with the tiresome details of their authors' sexual experiences. However, I have continued to browse the "local interest" section of the bookstore in the hope that at least one person has written about living in Bangkok who wasn't here primarily to see how many women he could pay to have sex with him.
Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind was very enjoyable to me. The author was an English teacher at another university in Bangkok, and when she writes about work (her students, the university administration, her interactions with her colleagues) she's right on the money--she could have been describing my job. The rest of the book, in which she discusses other aspects of her life, was very interesting as well, but I've come away with a heightened sense of my own failings. This author learned not only to speak Thai, but to read it. She learned to drive in Bangkok, a Bangkok without a Skytrain or metered taxis. She deliberately left the comfort of interacting with fellow Westerners in favor of cultivating friendships with Thai people and taking trips into the rural backountry. She experienced a different Thailand than the extremely limited one I'm dealing with, and she did it (seemingly) without complaint, homesickness, or much sweating.
Mother-in-law and Father-in-law are visiting this week, and I think I'm driving them crazy. It's becoming more and more clear to me that when I first arrived in Thailand I didn't handle things well at all. I found things to be difficult that evidently aren't difficult for normal people, and I've generalized from my own experience in ways that I probably shouldn't. Case in point: I found the process of traveling back and forth from the town where I live to Bangkok to be very daunting at first. Thus, Husband and I wanted to escort his parents from their Bangkok hotel to our town. They, on the other hand, had absolutely no difficulties in doing it themselves. I guess it's not that hard after all--it was just hard for me. Oh well. I am doing the best I can. I guess there's no law saying I have to be competent at everything.
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