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Published: July 18th 2006
Here are some other extremely random things that just don't seem to fit into other blogs and emails!
Every day at 8am and 6pm the national anthem of Thailand plays. Every radio station, store, mall, school, building anywhere... the national anthem. And when this plays, all activity stops. If you are walking up the stairs, you stop mid-step until the anthem is over. Conversations pause in mid-sentence. It is amazing.
I have finally figured out how not to pee on my shoes when I am using the squat toilets. A very valuable skill to have for the rest of my time in Thailand.
I think the reason Isaan food doesn't accomodate vegetarians very well is that it is not very creative. To say this seems completely contrary to the way we see Thai food... so many different combinations and so varied! But the thing is, here they have their set dishes and they can't fathom anything beyond those dishes. There are certain vegetables that just may not be eaten without duck. Seaweed goes with chicken. Tofu dishes cannot be super spicy. The first day when Pee Orathai asked me what kind of Thai food was my favourite, I said green curry. And she said oh. But that is with chicken. End of conversation. No green curry for me. And coconut rice? Only with boiled beef. Steamed rice with the rest of the dishes. Since this completely contradicts the idea of Thai food in the Thai restaurants in Edmonton that I have been to, where so many different combinations are possible, I have come to the conclusion that North American Thai restaurants have taken the wonderful ingredients and ideas from the Thais and made them variable and unique. So that, yes, you can have a spicy tofu dish! And you can have coconut rice with whatever you like it with! The Thais can be frustrating in their stubbornness sometimes.
They can also be frustrating in their ironing habits! Pee Orathai in particular...she is obsessed! Every once in a while she really gets on my nerves. One of those times was last Saturday morning, the day we went to Si Saket for the day to get ready for the wedding in the evening. We were supposed to leave the house at 8:00am with Pee Anothai because she had an exam that morning at 9:00am, at the university. Naturally, I was ready at 7:45, since I still can't bring myself to accept the Thai system of time where everything happens later than they say it will. So when Pee Anothai arrived at the door, Pee Orathai was still not awake. She knocked and Pee Orathai stumbled out and calmly began to iron her jeans and t-shirt for the day. It was a SATURDAY. And they were JEANS. She is an ironing perfectionist, so she ironed them for about 10 minutes and then went for a shower. When she came back and I saw the jeans, I truly thought she was insane. They were the kind that are dyed lighter at the knees and hips to make it look like they are worn and creased even if they are not. So all that ironing, just for jeans that were meant to look unironed! AHHH! We ended up leaving a half hour late and Pee Anothai's prof called her on her cell phone wondering where she was for the exam. I was so amazed by her calm answer "I'm on my way, professor." She didn't seem at all upset about us making her late.
Continuing on the ironing story...there is the usual before-school ironing, of course. Then when we get home from school, Pee Orathai goes into her room to get her more comfortable clothes for around the house, irons them, and then changes into them. Normally I think, okay, whatever. People have their obsessions. But sometimes, for no reason, it drives me insane! Why is she ironing her workout clothes before she goes to aerobics? Why is she ironing the scarf she is going to tie around her neck and nobody will ever be able to tell that it is ironed? Luckily she doesn't iron her pyjamas before bed or I don't think I would be able to stand it.
Continuing with the randomness... our school has a typewriter. One typewriter. For the entire school. No computers. The typewriter is on the floor of the English office and it is so big and bulky. Funny.
Corn is considered a fruit here. Fruit salad includes corn. There are three flavours of yoghurt in the store: coconut, strawberry, and corn. Coconut is amazing. Corn is disgusting.
The girls at the school all have exactly the same hairstyle, even the two poor girls in the school with slightly curly hair. The others have sleek, super-straight hair, and all wear it to the bottoms of their ears in a cute bob. At first I thought it was just the "in" thing to do, but Pee Anothai told me that it is actually a school rule! Until they are 18, they must wear their hair like this so that they can't get into bars and pubs. Naturally, when they turn 18 they will start to grow it out. Fascinating! Hairstyle instead of picture id.
One of the very frustrating things about trying to learn Thai (which is coming well despite this frustration) is that sometimes in the middle of a conversation which I understand quite well, I will suddenly have no clue what they are talking about. I attributed this to a lapse in concentration, but one day Pee Ong said, "Oh, sorry, Dawn! We were speaking Lao." Since this province is so close to Laos, often the people slip into Lao without even noticing! It is similar to Thai, but not similar enough for me to understand. Also, some of the students at the school who come from farming families speak the Cambodian language, Khmer, at home. They often use this language as a way to rebel against school -- they can swear at the teachers in Cambodian and speak Cambodian when they are supposed to be using Thai in school. Of couse, the teachers understand Cambodian, but it is considered less classy than Thai and so it is not used in school.
One day when I was out walking I saw a chicken crossing the road in front of me (they just run loose here, going wherever in the town they feel like going). I wondered absentmindedly, "Why is the chicken crossing the road," and then that part of my brain that thinks it is funny (but isn't really) changed it into the past tense and said "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "To get to the other side!" By the time I got back I was laughing hysterically. I tried to explain the joke to Pee Orathai, but I don't think she got it.
The next day, I saw a crab. It was also possibly in the process of crossing the road, but it was going slower than the chicken so I didn't stop to see. I wondered why in the world there was a crab when Khunhan is so far from the ocean. Pee Orathai told me that they live in the rice fields! And to think, I have been wondering for weeks what it would be like to take off my shoes and walk through the rice field: knee deep water, and mud squishing between my toes, and the fabulous smell of rice all around me, and the tall grass brushing my hips... needless to say, if there are crabs (and leeches) in there, that won't be happening anytime soon!
Next point: If I think there is an insect crawling on me, I have learned not to freak out immediately, but first to analyze the possibilites. #1 - Is it moving? If not, it is either a tired spider (unlikely) or an itch, which isn't worth the effort it would take to scratch it. If it is moving then #2 - is it moving up or down? If it is moving down, it is a drop of sweat, because ants never crawl down (or at least, not that I have noticed on my legs). If it is a drop of sweat, also nothing can be done. If is is moving up then #3 - is it moving quickly or slowly? If slowly, it must be attended to immediately as it is a spider and possibly dangerous. If quickly, it must be caught because it is an ant, but it is not as serious. Spiders and ants crawling on my legs deserve to die. However, if on the grounds of a temple where killing is prohibited, the insect must be carefully removed from the leg and placed on the ground to live out the rest of it's life in peace (unless it finds my leg again somewhere outside of the temple, which is highly unlikely).
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eww for leeches! You can contract some pretty nastle stuff from those rice paddy waters. Flukes, worms I saw a ton of photos on them when we were studying parasites *shivers*