More asses

Both the pretty girls behind the desk grimaced when I told them about the rats.

This is what I would expect of people in the hospitality industry.

In Thailand, it's too much to hope for a refund, but I'll confess to being--call it expectant--of some recognition or sympathy or remuneration.

"Ohh, no, no have here."

If it was worth fighting, it would've been very easy to gather a handful of rat pellets and say, "see?"

Learning Thai

The guy who teaches 5-6th grade math and science and I are complete opposites--he's approaching retirement and looks like a Hershey's kiss when he sits--but our minds work in the same way. It's quite odd finding someone else who spent middle school reading science books in a teacher's classroom, especially when that was in 1952 in Australia, but it's refreshing to meet someone else who's boggled by the utter lack of initiative in a typical Thai classroom.

One of his chief challenges is getting students to think about the minutia without losing sight of the big picture--Instead of, "I got up and went to school," describe turning off the alarm, getting out of bed, getting dressed, all the steps in the process.

I wholeheartedly agreed, but have found myself making the same mistake when asking for a room. Here's what I've learned:

If it does not explicitly say, you need to ask if...

-electricity is available all the time.

-there is an electrical outlet (don't even bother to ask if it's two or three prong--just bring your adapter).

-there is working aircon

-there is a thermostat on the aircon

-"linens" means sheets AND towels

-"Sheets" means a cover on the mattress, two sheets, pillowcases, blankets, or all of the above

-"Towels" means full size shower towels, a bath mat, a hand towel, a roll of toilet paper, or none of the above.

-there has ever been a problem with bugs or rodents.

-"TV" means a working television that receives channels clearly, especially English language channels.

-the "hot shower" has cold water, too.

It's funny to think about coming back, especially with some of the places I've ended up crashing on roadtrips--walking out of the darkness into a place in Butte, Montana, or somewhere between Steamboat and Salt Lake, and saying, "now, will the electricity come on tonight, or do I have to wait for tomorrow? Are there sheets AND towels? What about toilet paper? And it's an in-room, flush toilet, right?" And some burly hotel mistress saying, "ah, no, we just filled up."

On Diving

It was an exciting minivan ride--for most of it, the speedo was pegged toward redline and the variations in what would ordinarily be a smooth road were sending me airborne. And instead of the typical hard rock, the driver was playing odd instrumental electronica, so my earplugs stayed in their tube.

I'd made reservations for a cheap sounding place--great!

It was a dank basement room of the sort where bodies are found.

Place two showed me a great room, then said, "no, sorry, we don't have that.

Place three was triple the price but had a good looking room. I was tired and frustrated and took it.

It's a Thai place, so the only outlet is two-prong and I have to choose whether to plug in my computer, the TV, or the mini-fridge, and the air conditioning unit doesn't really cool the air, just blows it around, but que sera.

And then I was woken up by something making significant noise. It kept up until my head was clear enough to identify the light switch and peek at the sound: a rat in the garbage can.

Okay, I can deal with a rat. But, oh, wait, here are his five friends.

Hmm.

Remember, I'm in a bubble and they'll stay on that side of the room.

Solution: hang the garbage bag (with some smelly-good food wrappers) in the closet.

Which is where the rats gain access, via the mold-streaked hole rotted through by a long-forgotten leak.

Hmm.

Not liking this.

Better just go to sleep.

Nope, I don't live in a bubble. And it was burst most unpleasantly.

This is why you travel with earplugs: to cover up the sound of the rat causeway from the closet to the hallway.

Because what else is to be done? Throw a stink and get moved to another room with another causeway? Maybe the next one will have cockroaches, too!

Better to go to sleep and head elsewhere tomorrow.

And as long as we're on the subject, at least they're on the cuter end of the rat scale--I could be in Chiang Mai, where the rats get to be the size of chihuahuas, but with the beauty and lustre of a lifetime spent in Thai sewers.

It's just that....

It's not that I don't like Thailand, it's just that the series of accidents, injuries, illness, and now the death of my grandmother at an impossibly expensive travel time would've been hard enough at home with a full support system. To throw them all together while I'm halfway around the world and learning to live and work in an entirely foreign culture gets... call it overwhelming. And now my dreamed-of escape stateside won't happen because airline tickets, prohibitively expensive ordinarily, even with a death discount, are up 2-300%.

So back to square 1: see y'all in April 2012.

Bangkok Scenes

Thailand has a market for pedal-driven sewing machines. Any touristy block will have at least one Singer clacking away as smoothly as an oldtimer reminiscing about when he was young and his grandmother did the mending on the exact same model. Which makes sense, given how recently the power grid materialized and how unreliable it remains. It's just odd to see big city traffic and neon advertisements alongside technology from a couple centuries back. Get a block off the touristy stretch and every other storefront/shophouse has one visible, if not in active use.

And what makes it so very Bangkok:

Two Americans could just about squeeze past each other on the sidewalk, so there's just a row of hawkers and two directions of foot traffic. A line of umbrellas leans into the street to keep the sun off, and a few boards keep chairs and tables from falling through holes in the sidewalk.

First is an old guy sewing polo shirts. He has a lot of Chinese ancestry, and is of an age a kid would call ancestral. He reaches to his right, where he has neat piles of green strips of pre-cut fabric. As he finishes, he passes the shirt to his right, where a lady of an equal age--maybe his wife, maybe the one who does the cutting?--sews on buttons and little embroidered patches of either a horse or alligator. She passes the completed shirt to her right, where a somewhat younger lady--maybe a daughter, a sister, a cousin, hard to tell if there's a full generation between--folds it and slips it into a plastic bag that goes on her display table in either the Lacoste or Polo pile.

"Two hundred Baht, two hundred, good price for you. Okey, okey, for you, good price, one-ninety. One ninety, is Polo!"

I've been able to conduct a number of transactions entirely in Thai--"How much? Okay, I'll take one. I'm from Nakonsrithammarat. No, really, I'm a teacher. Oh, before that? Califorinia. Yes, I love Thailand and spicy food is delicious. In a bag, no rice, thank you. Here you are." Of course, I sound like a southerner, so I have a hard time getting through, but there's much nodding when I say where I'm from.

I was especially proud of myself for a negotiation with a DVD hawker. I talked him down and held firm until he broke into English and said, "Okey, okey, I give to you."

I was so proud.

The first disk was in French. The second Chinese. The Third was Korean, I think. The rest were Thai. It made for a good laugh.

Bangkok Christmas

It's interesting that I have twice made the trip up to BKK to visit a meditation center, and have twice been turned away because the center, which is "always open to everybody," was holding a retreat and didn't have room. So it looks like I'll get some extra beach time: all I'm after in BKK is an Apple service center and some discount DVDs. Should be one stop, right--the tech mall with the real Mac service and authentic copies of new and to-be-released DVDs?

Well, the keyboard isn't fixable, the nearest replacement is in Tokyo, and the only way I can get my educational discount is to order it through my school's bookstore. Heh. And there's no way to get a new case for a first generation ipod. Anywhere.

I really thought Apple was about long-haul customers and making use-friendly gadgets, but that took a hard hit today. Maybe if I hadn't heard, "no, is too old" or the equivalent so many times....

And it's hard to believe, but all evidence points to Lord of The RIngs not making it to Thailand. If it did, it was only in English and drew no Thai following, as none of the four places I stopped in the mall had it, and only one of the vendors in two klicks of Sukumwit had even heard of it. But that vendor was a ladyboy who was holding my wrist and petting my arm while nodding his head and saying, "no have," so who knows.

What makes me wonder is that the last cut-rate DVDs I bought were what I thought was an unreleased season of the Simpsons, but believed was legit based on the idiomatic case (don't judge a dvd by its cover). Most of the episodes were recorded in Mississippi, so it makes me wonder where the source is, and why what is arguably one of the most epic moviemaking ventures in history is absent from this culture.

So on the way back to my accommodation, I decided to stop at Soi Cowboy on the way back to my room-hat says ho-ho-ho better?

It's 1900 and I'm in a place where the half dozen girls on the bar outnumber the johns. The next guy down, one bench over and one level below me in the stadium-style benches and bartables loves the ratio as he leans and whops and pounds down triple-priced beers. He is louder than the music thumping from speakers in the back toward a TV blaring from above the front door.

I wish I could say more about it, especially enthusiastically, but there's something about watching a girl watch TV while mechanically stepping from side to side in rhythm with a music only she hears while pulling off a tankini by disinterestedly automatic stages that kills the Christmas spirit, especially when she's wearing a Santa hat. Thanks for the effort, but I wish you hadn't tried....

So I'm back at the place I didn't have the oomph to move from after making a telephone reservation, watching CNN.

Interesting bits:

It's interesting that in CNN's 30 year retrospective, the only blink of hope was Obama's acceptance speech.

There is evidently a new Yogi Bear movie, a new Dreamworks movie, a new Narnia, and I guess a Spielberg take on War of the Worlds. It kinda makes me wonder what else has been going on in the American world that I've heard nothing about.

Also makes me wonder what's going on in American media. After a couple of months on BBC and Al Jazeera, I've learned a fantastic amount about Korea, China, Pakistand and Afghanistan, wikileaks and FIFA debacles, and it makes me wonder at the root of my nigh-on complete ignorance of the rest of the world: was I lazy, stateside, or was the information not so present?

Okay, sometimes I stop on Fox as I pass from BBC to Jazeera, and there have been mentions of stories on the other channels. But for every five times I hear, "an Oklahoma boy's college hopes were destroyed by the Democratic agenda" I hear about bombings, terrorist attacks, hostage situations, or natural disasters elsewhere in the world.

Interesting.

A reminder to drink bottled water

I guess it's just about the same system we have at home, but it's odd
to see one blue 18mm PVC pipe come into the bathroom and split to
service the nozzle over the drum of water (you keep a 55 gal drum in
the bath at all times--very handy when the power or water are on a
break), the ass hose where a westerner would reach for toilet paper
("and do I like the ass nozzle or toilet paper? Ask my hemorrhoids."),
the toilet tank, the urinal, and finally to the sink.
There's just something about the sink being downstream from the toilet
that gives me the willies.

I've been here too long.

I forgot to mention the drainage. As you enter the square of blue
tile, the blue pipe is at 12 o'clock with the toilet, urinal and sink
at 2, 3, and 4. There's a drain at 10, which the w'rn mind takes to be
for cleanimg purposes. Heh.
The sink does have a downpipe. And that is all. Everything that ends
up in the bathroom sink drains across the bathroom floor to a hole in
a gray water drainpipe. Well, bronze water, maybe--the urinal's outlet
is just downstream. But the toilet is on another system entirely, so
breathe easy. And don't think about the other bathroom being right
upstairs.

I say I've been here too long not because I sometimes don't think
about these things but because I'm greatful for a sink, period, and
because a urinal with just a downpope is much much worse than no
urinal at all, and much more common than bears recounting. It's just
that it's so easy to pee in an open hole or squat toilet that my brain
doesn't accept putting in a urinal that drains straight onto your
toes. Especially since most people wear flipflops.

Welcome to Thailand.

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

Silly me: a revelation

Word filtered down to be in the canteen for a present from the director, so all of the farangs were packed around the lunch table.  Travels over next week's break were a natural conversation point, which built to the following:
"Yeah, man, as long as I'm here I'll be a decent teacher, but that's definitely not why I came."
"No kidding.  Like, I won't suck, but teaching is not the priority when it's so cheap to travel around."
"And so easy to make the hookup."  (Referring to reefer type hooking up, but the romantic sort can't be discounted.)
And as the conversation progressed, it turns out there are two basic sorts of teachers: those who can live like royalty on poverty-level investment returns back Stateside, and those who dig the jungle rave ethos.  A third class--those who married native and live here with somewhat stronger ties than the rest of us--is generally not present for such discussions, but happened to be present based on the official summons.  The ones who spoke up said, essentially, that accidents happened and they ended up keeping on because there wasn't any good reason not to. 
Which makes a lot of sense, now that I'm here to hear it--Thailand's a place to party, who'da thought?  But, like the whole "nobody fails, no matter what," it would've been really nice to know about this up front. 

It will be interesting to one day return to American education and get
uncomprehending looks for questions like, "is there electricity in the
classroom? How often does it go out?"

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

And a happy new year

Remember that it's 2553 in the Thai calendar. It's a lunar calendar, so subject to fluxuation relative to the Gregorian calendar, but then it was solidified: Official Thai New Year runs from April 13-15.

It's 2553 and the lunar calendar is fixed, okay? Just go with it.

But we're coming up on New Year's, and banners celebrate 2554.

So in Thailand, the lunar New Year has been fixed to Songkran, April 13-15, but the flipping of the calendar corresponds with the Western tradition of January 1.

So, what year is it, and when does that change?

Exactly.

Just nod and smile, farang.

Welcome to Thailand.

Learning and learning

Here's the thing: any kids who fail will be retested and retested and retested until they pass.  So as I'm administering an oral quiz--what is your nickname, what is your favorite food, what is your favorite subject, when is Christmas--and watching a student squirm away and try to duck from my view, the present and pressing question is how much I want to put us both through before just giving a ten out of twenty possible points and calling it a wash.  

My teacher brain protests mightily, of course, but this is Thailand and things work differently over here.  Students do no fail unless it's in individual competition.  

And at the same time I'm expected to retest and pass everyone ASAP, there are meetings and cancellations peppered across the schedule and I stand to lose a couple weeks of class meetings to catching up with missed tests, and then I'm supposed to be instructing something new for the next evaluation period.

On Testing

If I stand in front of the class and isolate students to ask the
questions we've been drilling all term, there are fewer hints shouted
from the peanut gallery. And it progressively crushes me to see the
blank faces and embarrassed states and "gotta go" hopping in place.
Better for all involved to circulate in a cluster of whispers and
accept that the hints will exist no matter what I do.

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

More education

In America, there was a precedent of pretending not to turn to the
token exchange student as a representative of the rest of the world.
Let Token speak for himself and maybe people in his town, but don't
hold him to a culture across the continent or beyond.
But this is Thailand and I'm not the token in back but the focus up
front. I represent the English speaking world, and I stepped into the
post willingly, if not really knowingly. So now I represent Australia
and South Africa as much as America and speak for Oxford as much as
Chicago and as an obsessive academic who actually read the new
editions of the MLA and Chicago manuals, it gives me great
consternation because here at the American Missionary College the
English Programme uses proper Oxford English. And while I have no
compunctions about ignorance of cricket and no prospect of an
opportunity to use the knowledge, it bugs the hell out of me that I
couldn't properly format a research paper on A4 paper.

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

Welcome to which century?

My classrooms stand to enter the 20th century: if I can figure out how
to record a regular magnetic tape and make an outlet work, I can bring
electronics to the classroom.
So that's what the extra EP bucks bring: not cheezee karaoke disks but
transport to the electronic age.

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

More Matters of Education

What's fun is receiving orders to retest students so all receive at
least a 50% just before walking into a dark, empty classroom.

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

On Haircuts

I came fully intending to grow back the ponytail.

If only other expectations blew such pissant raspberries as they got steamrolled.

Certainly there are times I would love to have the air conditioning of a neck-wrap soaked in ice water, but that thought is followed immediately by the thought of cleaning mold out of the inside of my camera. Just imagine what would grow in moist farang hair....

My first haircut was in Chiang Mai. It was in a mall so it was big enough and developed enough to have English speaking staff, but it was in the basement and, I hoped, a step aside from the worst farang fees. Even better, there was an open chair in front of a guy flaming hard enough to melt a military ramrod from 50 paces.

Flamer fussed and flitted around until everything was to his liking, then passed me off to a pouting girl who'd spent the session flipping through fashion and gossip magazines. She shampooed my hair and gave me about ten minutes of the greatest scalp massage I have ever encountered.

I didn't even flinch at the bill (250 TB).

Little bit different story down here.

I've heard they're holy rollers, I've heard they're Baptist missionaries, and I didn't associate either term with Koreans. But they're my neighbors, two ladies with a beauty shop next door.

They do facials, haircutting and styling, nails, and therapeutic massage. In the front of the room where they sit for meals and sleep on floor pads (still not used to that).

One lady is my personal specialist after two visits. She doesn't need to ask to cut my hair the same way it is, just shorter, and when she gave me a foot massage, she squeezed my feet for a minute, looked up, and said, "Jeb ni," [hurt here] while pointing on herself all the places I was currently hurting.

When she's on cutting duty, she makes a general outline with a buzzer--define the perimeter--then grazes with scissors before graduating to a straight razor. She waves that sucker all over, exciting up stray strands and rebellious follicles to be shorn off before they realize what happened, and then pats things down into a cloud of talcum powder.

Altogether, it takes half again as long as her partner administers the typical schoolboy buzz cut, half as long as a Fantastic Sam cut, and twice as long as is comfortable having someone wave a razor around your head.

And I walk with hair razed into terrified submission for almost 25% as much as it cost in Chiang Mai.

Hmm.

KISS in action

I guess it's another matter of acculturation, but I've seen these signs in a number of places, and they never fail to make me laugh--use the seat for sitting, not squatting.

What gets me is that even where there is such a sign, the rim will still be covered with tread marks from guys squatting on the rim.

And I guess I shouldn't say anything, given my issues with some of the squat "toilets," but climbing up on the rim seems rather precarious and something of a bigger risk than bad aim.

More on street food

The folks across the street--Ma, Pa, Bam, the older daughter who speaks English and deals with me and my pointing and questioning, two brothers and a younger daughter--take good care of me. And they profit well from it, but not absurdly.

You sit on the sidewalk where they've spread a plastic mat under a low and remarkably abused table (there's a good chance it started life as a door, board, or bit of metal siding) and if you are literate you mark up the menu and send it to the carts with one of the girls.

All the action centers on two carts, one table, four hotspots, and three coolers.

Up front, the glass-case cart displays the day's picks, the barbecued goodies, and things still crawling around.

Next to it is the table, spread with finances and aromatics/seasonings--birdseyes, garlic, ginger, fruit, and the five seasonings: lime, fish sauce, fermenting fish, sugar, and palm sugar.

This is Ma making the YamMaMuang for a YamBlahDukFoo.

Pa mans the two propane burners, and is here making YamBlahDukFooMaMuang, a salad of catfish cracklins with spicy green mango. Sometimes, the kids get to make easy dishes, or to experiment on the farang.

One of the brothers mans the grill station and the back cart, where they store plates.

And the coolers hold meat, bought in plastic baggies and tossed on chipped ice.

More Street Food

And here's the menu. Amazing what's possible with a few ingredients and ingenuity.

Column 1

1-7: drinks

1. Bier Sing.... Bier Heineken

2. Bier Chang.... Bier Leo

3. Sang Som...Mekong...HongTong...MuangTong

4. Rodlam...Rubina...Rocca...Soda

5. NamPlaiLuSa...NamKaeng (water firm: ice)...???

6. GratongDeng...NamYen (cold water)...PaiSad...Buree (cigarette)

7. NamAdLom...Lek (small)...Yai (large)

8-17: soup. “Tom” means “Boiled,” and in practice, TomSab, TomKhlong, and TomYam are the same spicy-sour base. LakJim is a clear, non-spicy soup.

8. TomSabKrongNi (Boiled broth inside filter: tripe) Muo (pork)... Nua (beef)

9. TomSabNuaSod (Beef Fresh)... TomSod (spicy soup) Wua (cow)... Muo (pork)

10. TomSabGai (Spicysoup Chicken)... TomSabGradohnOhn (TomSab Bones Fresh/tender: riblets)

11. TomKhlongBlahKugYang (Boiled poetry fish prison barbecue: poetic mix of fish grilled in wire baskets in a spicy broth)... TomKhlongGung (TomKhlong Shrimp)

12. TomKhlongGaiYang (TomKhlong Chicken BBQ)... TomYamRuamMik (TomYam Mixed Seafood)

13. TomYamBlaKapong (TomYam Seabass)...???

14. TomYamHoiBlah (TomYam Shellfish)... TomYamGung (TomYam Prawn)

15. TomYamHongTaLeh (TomYam Seafood)... TomHongKrungNiWua (TomHong Cow Tripe)...Muo

16. LakJimKrungNiWua (Scalded Dipped Inside Filter Cow: non-spicy tripe soup)... Muo

17. LakJimMaSod KobSod (LakJim tender/raw or day-cured)... Muo... Taleh (seafood)

18-28: Yam is the word for salads with chili-lime dressing

18. YamFaiDok (Yam skin break: salad of cured fish skins)... YamRuamMidtTaleh (Yam Mixed Seafood)

19. YamKrungNiMuo (Yam Insides Pork)...Nua

20. YamWunSenRuamMidt (Yam Bean Thread Mix)... YamBlahMeukSod (Yam Fish Ink Raw: Yam Raw Squid)

21. YamHoiDiRong (Yam shellfish)... YamDaKrai (Yam Lemongrass)

22. YamHetKhowRuamMidt (Yam Mushroom White Mixed)... YamMeukRob (Yam Ink Round: Squid rounds)

23. YamMaMa (Yam Mama Noodles: Ramen)... YamKaiDtom (Yam Egg Boiled)... YamGungPuh (Yam Prawn Tassles)

24. YamBlaMeukFoiMaMuang (Yam squid Tassels Mango: shredded green mango with fresh squid)...YamMeukfoi (Yam ink tassel)

25. YamBlahDukFooMaMuang (Yam Catfish Crack'lins mango)...YamKaiMuangDaTaLeh (Yam Egg Mango Seafood: Yam mango/caviar)

26. YamLebMuhNang (Yam Toenails Cured: pickled pig's feet)...YamSahmGrob (Yam Three Flavors)

27. YamSaiDom (Yam Transparent Boiled: Yam boiled tendon) … YamSaiOohn (Yam Tendon Tender)... YamYai (Yam large)

28. YamKohMuoYangHuaPrao (Yam Throat Pork BBQ Coconut)... YamSuhRohngHahiHuaPrao (Yam connect weep coconut)

29. Muo-Gung SaDung (Pork-prawn piled prawn)... GungSaGungLin (Prawn Piled Prawn Tongue)

30. MuoMaNao (Pork Lime-cured)... GaiMaNao (Chicken Lime Cured) … MeukMaNao (Ink Manao)

31. BlaKaPongMaNao (Catfish Manao)... YamKaiYiowMah (Yam Egg Piss Horse: Yam Salty eggs)

32. GungSahb (Prawns spiced soup)... PlaGung (Salad Prawns)... PlaHoi (Salad Shellfish)

33. GungChaeNamBlah (Prawn Soaked Water Fish: prawns with fish sauce)...TodManGung (Fried Firm Prawn)

34. SaiTonTodGraTiem (Intestines Fried Garlic)... Muo, Nua, TodGratiem (Fried Garlic)

35. KaoGreApTod (White chips fried: prawn crisps)... MekMaMuangTod (Pills Mango Fried: mango seeds)

36. TuaKiem (Peanuts Salty)... TuaSahmGrua (Peanuts Three Flavor) Muo, Neua DaedDiow (Cured sunlight)

37. NokTodGratiem: (Bird Fried Garlic)...MeukChoopFangTort (Ink Dipped Crumbs Fried: calamari tempura)

38. GungChoopFangTort (Prawn Tempura) … GaiTortNamBlah (Chicken Fried Water Fish: battered chicken with fish sauce)

39. GaiTodGrob (Chicken Fried crisp/brittle/frame/border) … GradungOonTort (Bone Tender Fried)

40. HoiKrengPao (Shellfish charred)... Lek (small)

41. HoiMalengPob... Pao (Charred)... BlaPaoGlua (Fish Charred Salt)

42. SugIsaan (Cooked Isaan) Muo, Gai, Nua, Taleh

43. KaiYeahowNamPadGraPao (Egg Light Water Stirfried Basil) … Gung, Boh (Crab)... ObWanSen (Roast Day String)

44. KaiPadMekMaMuang (Chicken Stirfried Mango)... KaiJiow, KaiMokDeng (Fried Eggs, egg ant red: fried ant larvae)

45. BlaKapongJianSamRod (Seabass dipped three flavor) … Gung ???

46. SeeFudPadNamPrikPao (Seafood Stirfried Water Chili Fire) … GungKeet (Coconut Prawns)

47. BeekGaiYang (Wing Chicken BBQ)... GaiYang (Chicken BBQ)

Column 2

1. PadPak (stirfried veggies) Gung, Blah, Mook, MuoBah (Pig forest)

2. GangJeutWunSen (Soup mild/tasteless bean thread)... KaiJiowMuo, Gung, Boh (egg fry: omlette)

3. GangKowBohDahm (Soup light crab black).... GangKowMuo

4. GangSoom (Sour yellow curry) Gung, Boh, Blah.... GungObGlua (Prawn Roast Salt)

5. BoPadPonGaree (Crab Stirfried Powdered Curry).... BoPadGeet (Crab Stirfried Coconut)

6. BoPadPrikTaiTam (Crab Stirfried Pepper Free Mouthful: crab with fresh green peppercorns).... PadBengFaiDeng (Stirfried Slit Fire Red)

7. GangMuoGrob (Soup Pork Crisp/brittle/frame/border).... BlahMookYang, Gung, Boh (Fish Ink BBQ)

8. BlahDukYang (Catfish BBQ).... Tok (fried).... LukChinYang (Fishballs BBQ)

9. KrungNighYang (Inside Filter BBQ).... KohMuoYang (Throat Pig BBQ)

10. NamDokNeua (Water Fall Beef: BBQ strips with chili lime).... NamDokMuo.... NamDokBed (Waterfall Duck)

11. NamDokGai.... NeoYangDidMan (Clean/plain BBQ Spread Firm)

12. SuaRongYang (Tiger Crying BBQ).... Tok (deep fried)

13. LinYangMuo (Tongue BBQ Pork).... LinYangNeua (Tongue BBQ Beef)

14. LinTokMuo (Tongue Fried Pork).... LinTokNeua

15. HaehNamYang (Fishnet Water Grilled).... SegLekMuo (Meatball Pork)... Neua

16. DabMuoYang (Liver Pork BBQ).... DabNeuaYang (Liver Beef BBQ)

17. SaiKrogMuoWahn-Ped-Briow (Intestines Pork Sweet-Spicy-Sour)

18. NeuaTub (Beef Bashed)... MuoTub (Pork Bashed)... MahMaMuoYang (MaMa Pork BBQ: Ramen Noodles with BBQ pork).... MahMaNeuaYang (Mama Noodles with BBQ Beef)

19. MahMaTok (MaMa Noodles Fried).... MuoFai (Pork Spray/fiber/filament)

20-24, Lahb: spicy meat salad, usually mincemeat, with chili-lime-garlic-onion juice

20. LahbMuo (Mincedmeat Pork).... LahbNeua (Mincedmeat Beef).... LahbTok (Mincedmeat Fried).... LahbGai (Mincedmeat Chicken)

21. LahbBlahDuk (Mincedmeat Catfish).... LahbBlahKapong (Mincedmeat Sea Perch).... Lahb Sod (Mincedmeat fresh/tender)

22. NaahmGraDukOhn (Pickled Pork Cartiledge).... LahbMahMaMuo...Neua (Lahb with Mama noodles)

23. LahbMuoGrob (Mincedmeat Pork Crisp/brittle/frame/border).... LahbRuamMookTaleh (Mincedmeat Mixed Seafood)

24. LahbKaiMookDeng (Mincedmeat Egg Ant Red).... LahbNaahmLohd (Mincedmeat Pickled Pork Pipe)

25. YamNaahmSok (Yam PickledPork Fresh/tender).... GoiMuoSok (Toenails Pork Fresh/tender).... GoiNeuaSok (Toenails Beef Fresh/tender)

26. SibNeauNiSiMuo (Zipper....Pork)....Neua

27. Kob Wen Neua...Muo

28-33: Som Tam is a salad that begins with pulverizing garlic and chilis with fish sauce, lime, and palm sugar, then adding structural components

28. SomTamTaiBoh (SomTam Free Crab: green papaya salad with lime-chili-garlic-fish sauce dressing and fresh crab).... BoMa (Crab Horse)

29. SomTamMaMuangSaiBoh (Somtam Mango With Crab).... SomTamKaiDeng (Somtam Egg Red)

30. SomTamBlahRua (SomTam Fish Leak).... SomTamDengSaiBo (SomTam Red With Crab)

31. SomTamTai (SomTam Free).... SomTamBo.... (Somtam Crab).... SomSow

32. SomTamFaLang (SomTam Ripe Mango).... SomTamBlahDukFoo (SomTam Catfish Cracklins)

33. SomTamMuoYang.... SomTamRuamMookTaleh

34-46, Khao: Rice

34. KhaoNiow (Rice Sticky).... KhaoSuay (Rice Pretty/Attractive)

35. SenKaNohmJinBlah (Stringer sticky-rice-noodle-with-sauce fish)

36. KhaoPadRuamMook (Rice Fried Seafood).... KhaoPadBoh

37. KhaoPadGung.... KhaoPadBlahMook

38. KhaoPadPrikMuo (Rice Stirfried Pepper Pork).... Gai

39. KhaoPadPrikGung.... BlahMook

40. KhaoPadGrapaoMuo (Rice Stirfried Garlic Pork).... Gai

41. KhaoPadGrapaoGung.... BlahMook

42. KhaoPadGaBee (Rice Stirfried Sword)

43. KhaoMuoDeng (Rice Pork Red: rice with sweet BBQ pork).... KhaoManGai (Rice Firm Chicken)

44. KhaoManGrob (Rice Firm Crisp/brittle/frame/border).... GaoLaoKrungNighMuo (Scratch/drag Sharpen/whittle Inside Filter Pork)

45. RadNaTaleh, Muo, Gai (Rad Nah: Noodles with pan gravy)

46. Pad See Ew, Gai, Gung, Muo, Ruam Mook (Thai version of chow mein)

Brief Glossary

Blah: Fish

Blah Duk: Catfish

Blah Kapong: Seabass

Blah Meuk: “fish ink,” squid

Boh: Crab

Gai: Chicken

Gang: soupy/brothy

Gung: shrimp/prawns

Kai: egg

Muo: Pork

Nam Blah: water fish—fish sauce

Nam: water

Naahm: Pickled pork

Nahm: milk (Don't ask me to differentiate)

Neua/Nua: Beef

Pad: stirfried

Pak: cooking veggies (a specific subset I can't pin down: “Pak” does not contain any component of “salad,” mushrooms, tubers, or aromatics [which are stirfried in other dishes], but it isn't just the leafy cooking kale and cabbage).

Prik: Birdseye chili pepper

Ruam Midt: “Collected Friends”--some of each

Taleh: Seafood

Tok/Tod: deep fried

Tom: boiled

Wua (“woo-ah”): cow

Yam: spicy chili-lime dressing

Yang: BBQ

On Midterms

Grading the midterms was fascinating, and surprisingly easy. It was something of a 4% game: the vast majority either got 4% right or wrong, with very few in the middle.

Yes, it hurt a goodly bit to see how little got through to so many, but I'm not looking at that right now.

More interesting are the general trends, relative to morning or afternoon and most especially class size. Imagine: the class with only 35 had only 3 in the single digits, while the classes of 50+ had, in some cases, 20-30% in the single digits.

No, we're not talking about how so many students could get so many questions wrong.

It'll be interesting dawing up the numbers and eventually writing up a case study, I guess.

But most pressing, I found the greatest nickname I've come across yet: King Kong. And it belongs to a girl. A pretty one, too.

On Rainstorms

During the rainy season, this is an average rainstorm.

It did that for a day and a night straight and the river rose to the brink of flooding. That was two weeks ago.

Since then, we have had at least a couple hours of such rains every single day. Evidently, the surrounding area is pretty flooded. But after the last floods cleared out the channels and gave the guys a chance to troubleshoot the pump equipment, town has stayed above water.

I'm a little bit fuzzy about it in my pedestrian state, but there are a number of pumping stations that channel water through meter-wide pipes to drainage canals that disperse in the countryside or a bigger channel out toward the bay. What's interesting, of course, is that what's pumped from the most expensive muban drains out about two income brackets down. And the top muban really is the top--the only real danger of flooding is around the perimeter of the otherwise elevated properties. Still, those are the first pumps on, and the pumps in best working order, and the drainage channels dump out just above the muban where farang teachers cohabitate, which in turn drains to the muban where farangs who have hitched and gone native live. And so on and so forth until the fields outside of town are ponds too deep for the egrets to wade and the mammalian residents don't have enough cultural clout to matter, so why not keep spouting overspill into the floodwaters?

And just for kicks, here's the site of my last accident. The oil spill is gone, but the mototaxi drivers still laugh about me splattered all over the pavement.

Frying pan to fire?

Receiving a Thai massage tends to be athletic and surprisingly tiring for an activity ostensibly executed while prone and relaxing. And I'll be the first to vouch for its efficacy, it's just an interesting to the western mind that "relaxing massage" is oxymoronic.

And then I started a course in massage. Jump from "athletic and surprisingly tiring" to a point halfway between "exhausting" and "now activating self destruct."

It's surprisingly easy: follow the energy lines up and down with a series of pressures that open things up. Starting from the feet, you work up the calves and thighs, walking up with pole-stiff arms, waking up blood flow with body weight--it's a close cousin of wheelbarrow races at a summer carnival. And then it gets fun: each leg is worked in isolation, bent in various positions.

Here's where the Western audience gets weirded out--the victim's leg is in a figure four the entire time, save during the exciting moments when it's getting flexed and stretched.

It is disconcerting if you're not prepared--first, while you're on your back, your left foot is tucked up in your crotch with the knee splayed to the side in an organic figure four. It's easy, from here, to open up the circulation down the inside of the leg. But then the masseur picks up the leg and starts doing lunges over the poor prone body--imagine standing on the sideline and hugging your knee up to your chest. It's that movement, but you're laying down and someone is lunging your knee to your chin for you.

It's hard enough work when you're on the bottom, but when you're on the top, it's not just that you're holding someone's leg pinned to your hip while you dance around them, it's that you're doing so while on your knees amid the protests of their muscles, judgment, and instinctive self-preservation. And while your right hand is holding their left knee to keep their foot in the crook of your right hip (bad explanation? Yes, but a helluva lot cleaner than the execution) you're doing deep lunges back and forth, and your left arm is posted at various pressure points as you seesaw around.

No mention of the sheer volume of tissue you're digging through to get to the pressure points you're supposed to hit. Really, even if someone isn't Iron Mike or training for a martial arts competition, the thigh has a lot of tissue to penetrate before you're getting to the juicy stuff.

It's one thing to post pole with your arms and dig into something, to go wheelbarrowing around a room, but it's another thing entirely when you have my whopping body weight to penetrate through someone's fat and muscle to hit the sciatic cluster, especially if you're kneeling on your toes and swinging their leg around.

But it's a good thing from any angle: I'm getting to use my arms and body, and in "Help me, Omni-Ibuprofin, you're my only hope!" morning pain. Which is a helluva lot nicer than the aching bones and muscles I've been waking to, not to mention the gastric wakeup calls.

It also gives me another tangible for my time here, with almost as many stories as a good scar.

An interesting turn

Last Saturday, after the English Contest (I guess I should say something about that sometime) I saw a Wal Mart edition of Lord of the Rings trilogy sitting in the office, so I absconded with it.

Generally, I avoid pulp editions: flip over a mass market paperback and check out the ISBN/barcode area (not the same thing), and if there's an X in the triangle, it's what the bibliophilic world calls a strip cover. Instead of returning the book to the publisher to be remaindered and shuttled off to a discount seller, some poor sod has to rip off its cover and send THAT back while avoiding the federal offense of putting the remaining book to any use beyond toilet paper to-be.

But, well, I've read the trilogy once, in the last edition before the movies made a sweep. And I have a second edition, first printing waiting for me. I think. Somewhere.

I've always been bibliophilic, collecting strange and rare and interesting reads, but in recent years I haven't been much of a reader. Grad school and multiple jobs and life sucked up most of the time and interest I had in anything requiring more investment than a comic book.

But, well, I just finished the trilogy, and found that I actually enjoy reading. Again.

Fortuitous timing, too: the bag I schlepped up the stairs yesterday? A goodly part of the weight can be explained by War and Peace and a beautiful hardbound edition of Les Mis (which will be making a one-way flight home with my tuba, hopefully: the rest of the books I can leave to mildew amid an appreciative audience, but that one, and some of the more obscure small-print local history books, I want to save).

New system

For years and years I carried calluses and scars and scrapes and scabs as physical badges of office--my tuba chops, my hiker legs, my waiter hands. And when there weren't marks, there were muscles: the defined forearms, unusually large ribcage, bizarre lip muscles. And now, now there are none. After the swelling abated, after the wrappings came off, after I hit bottom, there was nothing; stripped to the bone, to be melodramatic about it. Now, the defining marks, the characteristics that shaped who I was, the physicality shaped by who I was, are gone. The funky muscle from tapping my toes inside my shoes, the strangely defined tibialis anterior, the rock-hard diaphragm under ill-defined abdominals, fingers that could dance over tuba keys, the ambidexterous lips and tongue have been wiped clean by asphalt and malnourishment.
Now there are no defined muscles, and the painfully worming veins are receeding. Now I have angry pink scars: starburst around the orgin of my right deltoid, something near to a swoosh mark on the outside of my right elbow (already did it, thanks), uneasy skid marks on the inside of either elbow and along each wrist, a small nova on the back of my left hand, an angry and upraised line down the back of my ring finger, a deep mezzaluna chunk crushed from my left pinkie finger, the cheshire-cat smile on the right side of my waist, the cell-phone-shaped patch of skin that rubbed off my right hip, little novae on either knee, and a line shooting down my right shin.
Who knows what happened to the insides as I hit the 40 kilo line.

I miss running and jogging, but yesterday I carried my tuba and a similarly-heavy bag up the four long flights of stairs to my room, so that's an improvement. And that's the regret I allow myself.

What I have instead are beacons for curious little fingers. Students--mine or otherwise--are fascinated by the whitish skin, blond hair, and especially by the bright pink scars. Even more so by the scabs, but here's hoping those stay at a minimum.
What I have, if I allow it, are beacons that draw curious students and open up rudimentary conversations. And even if I don't have the muscles to show that I'm other than a skinny white teacher, I have the memories, and the hope to one day be such again, and in the meantime, I have a crowd of people trying to figure out who I am, where I've been, and what I'm about, and it's my job to foster that.

Widdershins sort of approach, but I'll call it a win.

On Songtaus and Acculturation

Funny moment:
There was a songtau driver standing on the sidewalk. He had just finished pissing on the curb and blowing his right nostril. He was mining for gold in the left when he burped resoundingly.
He saw me picking at a chunk of something in my teeth.
And I was the one being uncouth.

There's a lot to be learned from songtau drivers, actually. I keep flashing to a scene in Ayutthaya: in the middle of the historic park, between Khmer-style ruins, there was a lineup of songtaus sitting out the afternoon doldrums. Most of the drivers were in hammocks slung between the trees lining the avenue built in time immemorial. A few sat in folding chairs around a folding table scattered with lunchtime detritus.
I walked past the next afternoon. A peach of an afternoon thunderhead was billowing up. It appeared that the same drivers were parked in the same spots, but the hammocks were slung in the backs of their rigs.
And otherwise they spend the full day--anytime from an hour before dawn to whenever the farangs quiet down--in their rigs, trolling for ten-baht rides.

Call it the tough love approach to Buddhism.

My biggest lessons have been in letting go. Letting go of expectations. Letting go of assumptions. Letting go of givens. And in letting go, learning to embrace what remains.

There were assumptions about cleanliness, refrigeration, cross-contamination. But yes, you do go pawing through raw meat with raw mitts, then pick through a pile of undies in the neighboring stall, and then stick your nose in a mound of rotting fish to decide which suits your mood. And then you eat a stick of meat that was skewered by the same hands that held the same products with a goodly many more financial transactions. This is how it is. Think of the ants like indoor versions of soi dogs: no matter how much you get worked up about them one way or the other, they will neither care nor leave, so you might as well appreciate the cleanup work they do.

If the smudge marks are a little too thick, take your bubble to another climate.

There was also the assumption of a plastic economy. Only the largest, westernized businesses take credit cards. And the machines are out about 30% of the time. There are no receipts, no records, until you're in the upper levels of the bureaucracy and there are people who take care of it after a bump of a couple hundred Baht. Payday is pretty wild: I get a little plastic baggie--the same size that holds a morning coffee or a couple skewers of whatnots--with a thick wad of bills and a little note with scribbles that evidently have an approximation of my name.

It's a joyride for the first bit, while you're still converting things to dollars--Wow! This super cool place/product/experience only costs a hundred bucks! And then one day you do the math and figure out that the hundred bucks represents most of a week of your life, and you don't feel so bad about the minimum wage job you used to work: "Wow, in local terms, that'd be a three-hundred percent raise!"

So much for the easy assumptions.

There were also assumptions about what constitutes "Music" and "Instruction." Which experience drove out just ahead of the idea that 40 is a big class.

There were thoughts about planning and preparation: this week, XYZ will happen, and next weekend I will go to.... But then classes are cancelled for three days in a row and you're told that you MUST turn in grades and there's a tropical depression where you meant to go but the other coast should be nice.

Most weekend plans are made during Friday's lunch.

Impermanence took a different shape after the bike wrecks. Not just the idea that you wait until today to plan where to go tomorrow, but that tomorrow is not a given.

This is something you know but must learn for yourself.

Granted, it's something I've encountered numerous times, but at my own behest, generally, and of an entirely different quality: there's a fundamental difference between spooking a bear in the backcountry and getting T-boned in downtown.

And the idea of mobility: how bizarre that a twelve-step staircase became more daunting than a mountain, and the 3,000' climb that used to be my morning run became impossible. How bizarre that it's a victory every time I walk up to my fourth-floor apartment.

There were the medical tests: of course the hospital knows what they're doing! Protein Losing Enteropathy is a secondary symptom of something, but not in the heart or lungs, liver or kidneys, not anything phlebotic or intestinal, not AIDS or spru or tropical spru or giardia or crypto or any other microorganisms, no carcinogens, and there's nothing wrong with thumb or leg, just go take some tylenol.

And what the hell, once you can't really walk anymore, what is it to lose the wheels? The nice house in the suburbs?

If you have to confront and accept that your blood won't necessarily circulate and your gut won't necessarily absorb what you put down it, how hard is it to accept changes in the world outside?

Which is how I came back to square one and moved in across the hall from my first room.

Hey, look, I can walk up stairs! I can walk to campus! Sure, it's a broken-in auditorium chair, but it beats the plastic lawnchair I was relaxing on, right?

After so many hospital waiting rooms, the dentist's drill, an optometrist, and the trip in the back of a foreign ambulance, what's to fret about with a coconut husk mattress or unheated showers?

A Buddhist would say that I shouldn't be attached to things anyway. Which I would acknowledge as truthful Buddhist doctrine, and then I would try to pin down where the line between caring about things and continuing existence happens to be. But I guess it's a moot point if existence is the perpetuation of suffering, so maybe I'm not ready to be a true Buddhist yet.

What's in a name

Part of this week's entertainment has been creating rosters for all of my classes. Daunting, with 1200 data points to decipher from student scratch and enter into spreadsheets, but surprisingly quick work with the novelty of the nicknames. What I found most interesting was the contrast with the names in the English Programme. EP classes had at least one Gem, First, and Bright of each sex, and a Boss boy and Jewel girl. My current rosters have Aom, Bank, Arm, Hand, Fist to redundance, with the remarkable addition of at least one Beer in every class.

Half a year later

I can eat som tam bo--green papaya salad with a lime, fish sauce, garlic, pepper, and palm sugar dressing--at local levels with only a nasal drip or two, but on the other hand I buy toothpaste with cartoon characters on it because the refreshing mint is a screaming, burning pain.

Go figure.

Things you don't see everyday

The thing about ordering frogs from a roadside cart is that the suckers are all piled up and staring at you. Granted, so are the horseshoe crabs, but at least you don't see them breathing.

And of course the frogs are delicious: chop 'em up, coat 'em with a thick batter spiked with garlic, lemongrass, chili flake, and panko, then drop them in screaming hot oil that's been cooking other such delectables all night.