The trick to being a good teacher--not to say I have it--is not to convey material as much as to connect with students. Which is to say, I'm toast.
Thai people have a fixed worldview. Every word has a set tone. Never will odd inflection leave a Thai person wondering if a sentence was a question or command. Misplaced inflection will render anything nonsensical babble. Consider: any syllable can have rising, falling, high, middle, or low tone, and a completely different meaning with each. And there are forty-some symbols for twenty-some sounds, so you have two, three, or four consonants producing an "S" of various elevations and durations, and each completely alters the meaning of any given syllable. All of which is as completely self-evident as the difference between "live" and "live" (give and hive), so only a simpleton or absolute buffoon would err. What's funny is when students are blindly repeating anything I say and end up repeating Thai phrases. Where I find this singlemindedness most revealing, though, is in food.
A Thai menu is fantastically easy to analyze from pretty well any perspective. Monikers like "a la King" do not exist in Thai food, save for imported dishes, i.e. "American Fried Rice" is ketchup fried rice with hotdogs and fried eggs. Otherwise, Thai food is exactly what it says: fried vegetables with chicken; beef with oyster sauce; deep fried pork; spicy-sour raw shrimp; spicy-sour boiled shrimp; bland soup; spicy soup; stirfried rice/egg/wheat noodles with pig/chicken/shrimp in soy sauce/pan gravy; stirfried spicy pig/chicken with bamboo/palm/vegetables and coconut (or not); rice with egg; rice with beef and vegetables; rice with shrimp in tamarind sauce; chicken on rice with brown sauce; chicken with yellow sauce....
Describe a dish in Thai and you've named it. More interesting is that each has a unique sauce.
Thai seasonings consist of fish/soy sauce (salty), oyster/tamarind sauce (sweet), chili sauce/flakes (spicy), lemon/vinegar (sour), brown/palm sugar, and MSG. The difference between the seasoning in tom yam and oyster-fried beef is leaving out the chili paste. Stirfried veggies with shrimp differs by swapping amounts of oyster and fish sauce. To make cashew chicken, add garlic. Sweet and sour: tamarind instead of garlic.
But each sauce has a definite name and purpose: chicken on rice with brown sauce; chicken on rice with red sauce; red pork on rice; boiled chicken on rice; chicken on yellow rice....
Thing is, if you change any component, it reduces to gobbeldygook.
A westerner looks at "Shrimp and corn with tamarind sauce" and "beef and mixed vegetables with oyster sauce," thinks, 'I hate oyster but I love tamarind,' and says, "I'd like the beef with mixed vegetables but in tamarind, not oyster, sauce."
To the Thai, this is, "Mable! Gimme a blueplate with hobnobblekish!"
Consider the distinctions between seasonings for rice. That's the American interpretation: rice, fish sauce, vinegar done. Ya gotcher meat, potatoes, and ketchup goes with anything (God for the days....)
Consider what would happen if you ordered "Chicken with fried potatoes and gravy." You get a hunk of chicken with sauteed, par-fried and sauteed, or deep fried potatoes and some sort of seasoning sauce. A fancy person would say, "gravy made by shocking the pan with bouillon and reducing with ketchup and lemon pepper." It can be used on pig, beef, chicken, (maybe fish), potato, yam, or any vegetable sauteed in butter, or anything else cooked in a pan. And it's called gravy.
The fancy person also distinguishes between species of potato--much better to bake russet and fry Yukon Gold. Nevermind whether it's sauteed, par-fried, or deep fried, let alone what the respective oils contain.
Chicken and potatoes with gravy--it doesn't matter whether there's Worcestershire or Tabasco or Lowry's, it's gravy; it doesn't matter what species, they're chunks of fried potato. Here's your ketchup.
But this is Thailand, so you have steamed rice, sticky rice, boiled rice, yellow rice, fried rice, toasted rice, sweet rice, custard rice, banana-leaf rice, sweet-steamed rice, soupy rice, and each grain has a distinct place in the harvest season, age since it was harvested, location in the paddy, type of paddy, elevation of the paddy, location of the farm, and quality of the year's harvest.
The Western epicurian describes three spices in a sauce.
The Thai toddler says, "This is B grade rice from a low-elevation field on an off year, grown in the middle of a shady paddy, harvested in Blahdebluk during rain and dried in Kamneblah for a little more than 18 weeks."
And while fish sauce goes on any entree, put fish sauce on sticky rice and you're up for hanging. Sticky rice with pepper vinegar and pepper fish sauce are okay, though, as is chili powder. To put fish sauce on steamed rice is only natural; put fish sauce on sticky rice and you're up for hanging. Vinegar on sticky rice is okay, though, and vinegar or fish sauce with peppers is okay with fried rice. If you're eating yellow rice, wait for a Thai person to season it for you or you'll be forced to start over.
Ketchup goes with noodles, vegetables, meat, juice, whatever else.
In Thailand, everything has a specific place. Vinegar with peppers goes in soup vinegar with cucumbers goes on yellow rice; just try ordering fried pork with sticky rice and asking for vinegar with peppers.
Part of me really wishes to be incorporated into a culture based upon such defined values.
Thai people have a fixed worldview. Every word has a set tone. Never will odd inflection leave a Thai person wondering if a sentence was a question or command. Misplaced inflection will render anything nonsensical babble. Consider: any syllable can have rising, falling, high, middle, or low tone, and a completely different meaning with each. And there are forty-some symbols for twenty-some sounds, so you have two, three, or four consonants producing an "S" of various elevations and durations, and each completely alters the meaning of any given syllable. All of which is as completely self-evident as the difference between "live" and "live" (give and hive), so only a simpleton or absolute buffoon would err. What's funny is when students are blindly repeating anything I say and end up repeating Thai phrases. Where I find this singlemindedness most revealing, though, is in food.
A Thai menu is fantastically easy to analyze from pretty well any perspective. Monikers like "a la King" do not exist in Thai food, save for imported dishes, i.e. "American Fried Rice" is ketchup fried rice with hotdogs and fried eggs. Otherwise, Thai food is exactly what it says: fried vegetables with chicken; beef with oyster sauce; deep fried pork; spicy-sour raw shrimp; spicy-sour boiled shrimp; bland soup; spicy soup; stirfried rice/egg/wheat noodles with pig/chicken/shrimp in soy sauce/pan gravy; stirfried spicy pig/chicken with bamboo/palm/vegetables and coconut (or not); rice with egg; rice with beef and vegetables; rice with shrimp in tamarind sauce; chicken on rice with brown sauce; chicken with yellow sauce....
Describe a dish in Thai and you've named it. More interesting is that each has a unique sauce.
Thai seasonings consist of fish/soy sauce (salty), oyster/tamarind sauce (sweet), chili sauce/flakes (spicy), lemon/vinegar (sour), brown/palm sugar, and MSG. The difference between the seasoning in tom yam and oyster-fried beef is leaving out the chili paste. Stirfried veggies with shrimp differs by swapping amounts of oyster and fish sauce. To make cashew chicken, add garlic. Sweet and sour: tamarind instead of garlic.
But each sauce has a definite name and purpose: chicken on rice with brown sauce; chicken on rice with red sauce; red pork on rice; boiled chicken on rice; chicken on yellow rice....
Thing is, if you change any component, it reduces to gobbeldygook.
A westerner looks at "Shrimp and corn with tamarind sauce" and "beef and mixed vegetables with oyster sauce," thinks, 'I hate oyster but I love tamarind,' and says, "I'd like the beef with mixed vegetables but in tamarind, not oyster, sauce."
To the Thai, this is, "Mable! Gimme a blueplate with hobnobblekish!"
Consider the distinctions between seasonings for rice. That's the American interpretation: rice, fish sauce, vinegar done. Ya gotcher meat, potatoes, and ketchup goes with anything (God for the days....)
Consider what would happen if you ordered "Chicken with fried potatoes and gravy." You get a hunk of chicken with sauteed, par-fried and sauteed, or deep fried potatoes and some sort of seasoning sauce. A fancy person would say, "gravy made by shocking the pan with bouillon and reducing with ketchup and lemon pepper." It can be used on pig, beef, chicken, (maybe fish), potato, yam, or any vegetable sauteed in butter, or anything else cooked in a pan. And it's called gravy.
The fancy person also distinguishes between species of potato--much better to bake russet and fry Yukon Gold. Nevermind whether it's sauteed, par-fried, or deep fried, let alone what the respective oils contain.
Chicken and potatoes with gravy--it doesn't matter whether there's Worcestershire or Tabasco or Lowry's, it's gravy; it doesn't matter what species, they're chunks of fried potato. Here's your ketchup.
But this is Thailand, so you have steamed rice, sticky rice, boiled rice, yellow rice, fried rice, toasted rice, sweet rice, custard rice, banana-leaf rice, sweet-steamed rice, soupy rice, and each grain has a distinct place in the harvest season, age since it was harvested, location in the paddy, type of paddy, elevation of the paddy, location of the farm, and quality of the year's harvest.
The Western epicurian describes three spices in a sauce.
The Thai toddler says, "This is B grade rice from a low-elevation field on an off year, grown in the middle of a shady paddy, harvested in Blahdebluk during rain and dried in Kamneblah for a little more than 18 weeks."
And while fish sauce goes on any entree, put fish sauce on sticky rice and you're up for hanging. Sticky rice with pepper vinegar and pepper fish sauce are okay, though, as is chili powder. To put fish sauce on steamed rice is only natural; put fish sauce on sticky rice and you're up for hanging. Vinegar on sticky rice is okay, though, and vinegar or fish sauce with peppers is okay with fried rice. If you're eating yellow rice, wait for a Thai person to season it for you or you'll be forced to start over.
Ketchup goes with noodles, vegetables, meat, juice, whatever else.
In Thailand, everything has a specific place. Vinegar with peppers goes in soup vinegar with cucumbers goes on yellow rice; just try ordering fried pork with sticky rice and asking for vinegar with peppers.
Part of me really wishes to be incorporated into a culture based upon such defined values.
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