There Will Be Cheese

Sometimes it feels like I grew up too fast. It's how I feel celebrating my 21^st birthday in Thailand post-grad. I can’t help but feel like I’m missing out on the debauchery of American 21^st birthdays. A quiet dinner with my host family is not the rowdy climax I anticipated for turning legal.

 Because my birthday would not involve trashy college bars and vodka, I made sure it did include my third favorite thing, cheese ;) Cheese in Thailand comes at a high price. The going rate is 80 baht, which should buy  dinner buy dinner for a family of four. Still a Sconnie needs cheese on her birthday, especially when someone else is paying.

There were other highlights on my special day. Several volunteer friends showed off their art skills and made  birthday cards.  I got lots of birthday hugs. I capped off the workday with a birthday bee-ah lee-oh, Beer Leo.

My host family was waiting in the car when I got home, ready to take me out for a birthday dinner. The food at the restaurant was actually so good it reminded me that I like Thai food.There were relatives and cake and presents. I received a big stuffed penguin. My host family said, "Geng Mak" when I learned the Thai word so quickly (the word by the way, is penguin).

On the way home I couldn’t help but smile to myself. It’s incredible to be half way around the world and have a second family and friends who make sure I had a happy birthday. Growing up too fast lead me to Thailand and I can't complain about that.

And as I final birthday treat to myself, I am about to watch several illegally downloaded episodes of 30 Rock. Then it’s off to bed for some sweet Alec Baldwin dreaming.

A Sanitary Rubber Bag

As someone who used to sleep with a linguist I'm very interested in the co-development of language and culture. It's fascinating how a culture meets it's lexical needs and in turn how the vocabulary that is created further shapes the culture.


 Some may have heard my favorite example of this idea (because I talk about it all the time). Us gringo-farangs, generally think that your future lies ahead and your past is behind. For me this cultural bias wasn't challenged until I studied Quechua. In Quechua, the word  for future shares a root work with the word for behind and conversely the word for past shares a root word with forward. I don't pretend to understand all of the cultural implications of this paradigm but I'm guessing Back to the Future is not an intriguing film.

After a month in Thailand I don't feel ready to make sweeping judgement about the Thai language either, but I'll share an interesting observations. Thai is a mono-syllabic language, meaning that most simple ideas have one syllable words. More complex thoughts are made into words by stringing together several simple words. Here are some of my favorite Thai compound words (so far) broken down for you. Note that it may be impossible to over-emphasize the cultural importance of the first term on this list.



Meal- กินข้าว
gin-khaao- eat rice


Condom- ถุงยางอนามัย
thoong-yaang-a-naa-mai- sanitary rubber bag


Ice- น้ำแข็ง
nam-khaeng- hard water 


Economics- การแจกจ่าย
gaan-jaaek-jaai- the activity of exchanging money


Telephone- โทรศัพท์
toh-ra-sap- remote vocabulary

Nap- นอนเล่น
naawn len- play sleep


Development- เจริญก้าวหน้า
ja-reern-gaao-naa- to take a step towards progress