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:

• 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.