One more tidbit

I was leaving a restaurant the other day when a portly guy in a windbreaker approached me. He explained in broken Thai that he could tell I was a teacher and that he needed my help. He gestured towards a shadowy stall off the street, where he said I could do some translating for him. Pretty much all my red flags were up by now, so I asked to see what needed translating. He pulled out a much-folded computer print-out of an imdb.com page. It was a description of the newest Rambo movie, called the Eye of the Serpent or something. In about five seconds this had gone from threat of bodily harm to comedy.

The guy explained, again in barely understandable English, that he had heard that Rambo IV was being filmed in Chiang Mai next week. This guy had his hopes set on being a translator on the set, because he knows English, Thai, and the hill tribe dialect of the people being used as extras in the film. All he needed was for me to explain the premise of the movie to him. Well if he couldn't read this piece of paper, I was frankly skeptical of his chances of working with Sylvester Stallone, but I kept that opinion to myself. I guided him through the torturous plot twists of some threatened missionaries, dangerous Thai gangs, and Rambo's call out of retirement (like many other white men past their prime he has retired to Bangkok, perhaps with a young Thai girlfriend? or boyfriend? or kathoey? that's the part of the story I want to know about). Needless to say, the film looked absolutely terrible.

Expatriatism

I can put most Westerner residents in Chiang Mai into one of three categories: 1) young and with a Thai girlfriend, settling down to start a new life in a cheaper country; 2) old and retired, looking for easy living; 3) backpackers of any age, pausing while on an Asian saga of undetermined length. The first two want to stay in Thailand for good, and the latter couldn't say where they'll end up.

What this means is that I am in the tiny minority of farangs in Chiang Mai with concrete plans to return to my own country. This has led to many frustrating conversations for me. I will talk to some guy at a bar, or maybe a fellow teacher, and we will agree of the cheapness of Thailand and the easy living and the great weather and the beautiful Thai girls. And then I will tell him that I don't plan on staying more than a few more months here. People will look at me with pity, like it's a shame I don't really understand Thailand. I have heard from people how they backpacked through here, returned home to make some money, and then when they were able they moved here permanently. I know right now that when I leave here it won't be to come back permanently later. I will just leave and go home.

I end up feeling defensive that even after seeing the beautiful and easy Thailand, I still prefer my own country. But I don't think that's so strange. People travel all the time and return home better for it. I'm travelling because I want to go home, because I want the life I already have to be improved by this travelling.

Guys here speak of finally finding real happiness after years of wasted time in their home countries. They talk about falling in love with Thai girls and finally getting motivated to get a job and settle down. I say take happiness where you can find it, and I've learned a lot talking to these guys, but there is still nothing that I want to escape from in my current life and that sets me apart.

Two Experiences of the "Only in Thailand" Variety

1) I was biking home at like 10 o'clock and I had just stopped at a stoplight. I hear a motorbike pull up behind me and then some frantic whispering in Thai. And then some little kid squeaks "Hello how are you?" I turn around and there's a mother on a moto with a rolling squid stand attached like a sidecar. In her lap is a tiny kid, who she's prodding to speak to me. She figures, hey free English lessons from the farang for as long as the light stays red. But I'm thinking in the same moment, hey- possible Thai lesson. So they talk in English and I in Thai and we work out that we're both going home, we're both tired, and we both will be turning right when the light turns green. I bike the rest of the way home with them behind me, still trying to converse.

2) I went out to eat with the English teachers and staff from the International English Club where I tutor at night. We went to a really Thai place outside the city and had all kinds of dishes that you don't see in the farang-friendly places, and dishes that are too complicated to be made on the street. At dessert time, the Thai men at my end of the table started crowing about goong dten, and the girls were hiding their faces and saying mai chai, no. Someone told me that goong dten means dancing shrimp. So the waitress brought out a little bowl with a lid on a plate surrounded by salad. It looked pretty innocuous, so I lifted the lid to take a peep at the shrimp. And they jumped out of the bowl onto the table, because they were still alive. Dancing is a euphemism for live shrimp. People were freaking out and the shrimp were jumping everywhere. So the waitress put the lid back on, took the bowl and shook it like you would shake a martini. She uncovered it and the shrimp lay there, docile, pickling in a marinade of lemongrass and ginger. You had to pop them in your mouth and bite down before they woke up and started moving again. I had some hesitations after watching Aliens the other night, like these little guys were going to go into my stomach and then burst out my chest. But they were actually pretty good. It was a real affirmation of who's higher on the foodchain.

ALL THAT MAIL THAT"S BEEN STACKING UP, SEND IT ORIENT-WARD

The pony express-spice route lanes of communication are now open:

P.T. Residence #430
51 Sirimangkalajarn Rd.
T. Suthep A. Muang
Chiang Mai, 50200 THAILAND

If you write I will write back. I have been collecting postcards while on my travels. Please specify whether you want quaint, home-made, funny/botched English, American culture four years too late, or incomprehensible. I think it's about a month travel time for postcards, maybe three weeks for letters.

If you're really concerned about it getting to me, email me and I'll send you a .jpeg of what the Thai characters for the address should look like.

A Portrait Of Our Hero

In full regalia. VIP Guesthouse, Chiang Mai 12/24/06

at long last home, and a bit about authenticity

I have finally moved into an apartment. Almost three months to the day of arriving in Asia, I finally stop living out of a suitcase. I live in a place called the P. T. Residence, a giant block of apartments located halfway between the old city of Chiang Mai and Chiang Mai University. A few days ago was the CMU graduate schools' graduation and a lot of students live in my apartment, so everywhere there were people walking around in robes and hoods. The ceremonies lasted five days. It made me think of Hogwarts or an abbey.

A bit about my neighborhood. I live down the street from barbershop called Hair Champions 2003. Tonight as I biked home I passed an elephant being walked down the street. And around the corner is Wat Suandok, an international Buddhist temple and university with more than 1000 monk students from every country in south-east asia. Three nights a week they have monk chats, where farangs sling questions at the monks and the monks brush up on their English.

But know too that I live around the corner from a Starbucks, three 7-11s and one of the most expensive day spas in the city. I live near Nimmanheiman Rd, which is the heart of the new rich nightlife and there are countless coffee bar/night club combinations within earshot of my porch.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that I do not believe that the traditional Thai life of elephants and monks is any more authentic or legitimate than the 7-11s that are on every street in this city. I have met a lot of tourists in the past month here, and so many of them arrive already thinking they know what the real Thailand is, and that they will find it on a trek to look at hill-tribe people or inside a wat. They are skeptical of places like the 7-11 and the malls for a variety of reasons. Like they want their vacation to be exactly the way they imagined it at home, filled with quaint images of monasteries and women with metal rings on their necks, and no trappings of Western culture or consumerism to taint that.

Why must Thailand remain a postcard to be authentic? In my short stay here I have come to find that Thai culture has many startling incongruities that Thais don't even blink at. Haute cuisine and street food side by side, loose traffic rules and looser schedules, a king that is revered beyond reason next to a prime minister who no one takes seriously, and the blend of Thai and Western consumerism that pervades daily life. The people in Thailand who moved in from outlying towns to serve the tourist population are just as real as their relatives who stayed at home.

It's naive and perhaps ethnocentric to think that America at its most real can be a melting pot or forerunner of a cultural evolution and at the same time ask that another country promote some false conception of untainted roots for the sake of your vacationing pleasure.

Just Clearing Up Some Misconceptions

I've spoken to a few people from home about life in Thailand and invariably they ask me how my Thai is. I say it's getting there and they tell me to say something over the phone. I say a sentence about ordering food, and then they laugh. Yes, 90% of my Thai vocabulary is food-related, but I don't want people to be thinking, "Oh that boy's an eater all right, just listen to him talk about his food."

In truth, right now without a Thai teacher the only time in the day where I am guaranteed contact with Thai language is when I eat. I have to eat three times a day and so I can count on three different opportunities to try out my language chops. The other thing about food words is that there is a very clear relationship to what I say and what happens. I can try out small talk with someone in an elevator, but if we don't understand each other no one might ever know. But if I go into a restaurant and order khao nieaw instead of khao sawy, I will be eating sticky rice instead of white rice. And so it's like a oral quiz, three times a day. If they don't understand me, or I read the wrong thing on the menu, I either get something gross like cubed blood (leuek), or something totally bland because they assume the farang doesn't know what he's talking about. But when I pass the quiz, let me just say the results are delicious. Khao mok gai, khao kaa muu, pat ka naa, muu bping, etc, etc.

UPDATE

It was recently brought to my attention that unregistered readers of my blog were not allowed to comment on it. I have changed the settings now so all you anonymous readers out there that have been itching to talk back, it's open season.

Chiang Mai Report

I have finally secured employment. I have two temporary teaching jobs with language schools in Chiang Mai. Both end in a few weeks, but they are a foot in the door. One program director I talked to said Chiang Mai was the most difficult city in South-East Asia to find teaching work in. So that may have not been a great choice by me, but I will keep plugging away. In the mean time I am exploring cheaper and cheaper food options. My new favorite is a place called Khao Soy Feuan Fah, a Thai-Indian place located in Chiang Mai's miniscule Muslim neighborhood. Literally this street is like four buildings long. But they serve khao mok phae (goat biryani) along with the usual combinations of rice, chicken, and pungent sauce. It's hidden right around the corner from the city's mammoth night bazaar, but it closes right before the bazaar opens. A sign of legitimacy in my eyes, like maybe it doesn't want to act in concert with all the pirated dvd vendors and Thai boxing touts, all catering to the tourist crowd.

In other news, today I was running by the Chiang Mai University resevoir when I saw a guy in a tree with a rifle. My stomach jumped, like maybe this was some kind of spin-off from the Muslim unrest in the south where they're burning schools and killing teachers. A few days ago I saw a kid pull a pistol out of his shorts that I was 95% sure was a toy but I ran away anyway. So this guy's perfectly still, crouched about 15 feet off the ground in the branches of the tree. He sights his rifle, points it at the water and shoots. I see a writhing in the water and I realize he's gunning down fish. Like the proverbial fish in the barrel, except this doesn't look easy. There's also some kind of attachment to his gun that looks like a tin can that fires after the fish and I had this idea that he was catching live fish in tin cans or something. I'm curious so I strike up a little conversation. Here's how it goes:

Me: Sa waa dii kap.
Gunman: Kap.
Me: Are you shooting *I cock my finger and thumb* fish?
Gunman: Hello.

And then I wrack my brain for anything in Thai that could communicate my interest, confusion, or desire to shoot the gun myself.

Me: Sanouk dii (good fun).

So that's about where my language is right now. I can order goat biryani in a restaurant and I can tell fish shooters to have fun. Tomorrow's goals: the word "for" and a successful order of khao ka muu.