Gin Khao

If it seems I write a lot about food on my blog, it's only fitting because in Thailand we talk a lot about food.

My favorite thing about Thai culture, hands down is the Thai meal...sometimes I even like the food. Families, neighbors, or coworkers gather to chat, eat rice, and share between five and ten other dishes or gap khao, literally "with rice."

Having a meal, gin khao, literally "eating rice" in Thailand means never having to choose. Should I have noodle salad or smelly fish? The answer is yes. You should also eat sausage, stir fry, curry, and an omelette as well.

I don't relish the day in 2014 when I'm at restaurant and a patient waiter asks me what one menu item I want,"I have to choose!?"

Maybe my whole family is adverse to rushing through just one culinary offering plus a choice of vegetable. As a foursome we've always favored sharing late night half-priced appetizers along with good conversation at Applebee's to actually cooking and eating just one dish at home.

But unlike at Applebee's with the Langland's, in Thailand you don't have to scramble to eat all the buffalo wings before they're gone; the conversation runs out long before the food. Thai customs dictate you make/order much more food than the group can possibly eat. While you start eating at a pretty brisk pace, the eating slows as the meal goes on; people picking at the lukewarm food while continuing to gossip and banter.

And this gets at best part of all in Thai dining culture, there's no shame in picking. In the States it's considered in poor taste to pick away at near empty bowls or continuing to eat after conspicuously announcing, "I'm so full. Not so in Thailand, announcing, "I'm so full" means you probably only want another half of a serving a rice and will only continue eating your favorite gap khao.

Even at work a meal will go on for hours, people picking all the while. Today was a particularly good food day at the office-much less fermented fish than usual. After a hearty helping of fried rice, vegetables, and Chinese sausages, I proclaimed in English a phrase I taught my Thais, "So full, but so good." One of my coworkers took the hint and dished me up another plate of fried rice. Sometimes I really dig this country.

One Hundred Baht Challenge

My One Hundred Baht Challenge became my Hundred and Fifty Baht challenge Sunday, when I cleaned my house and found an additional fifty baht in change.

In a classic poverty trap maneuver I proceeded to go out and spend the fifty baht on my favorite food and frequent topic of conversation, Som Tam.

So I'm back to where I started and ready to report. In this weeks' episode of This American Life, John Hodgeman suggests have both a "heroic aspect and a declothed, humiliated, embarrassed aspect as well. My cash-strapped misadventures may well shape up to be a good story. Assuming I make it through the month, you may be impressed by my frugality and ultimate triumph, and amused by my self-inflicted poverty and depressing culinary options.

So in hopes this is indeed, one day, a good story, I'll take inventory but not before sharing this disclaimer: every day at work my generous coworkers feed me a well-balanced meal of rice and some other stuff. So I'm only left to fend for my sad-sack self evenings and weekends.

I'll also disclaim that several people have offered to bail me out this month Wall Street-style, including the Bank of Sharon and Elton Langland-with its very favorable interest rates. But I've gotten a number of bail-out packages through the years, mostly in college and maybe I'm ready to learn my lesson. Or maybe I just want the bragging rights to once having lived off three dollars for an entire month. Either way, I have thirteen days to go.

I've already finished off my small stash of fruit leather, granola bars, and a chocolate bar so here's what's left:

1/3 Jar of Peanut Butter
6 Packs of Ramen
1 Box of Kraft Macaroni
1/2 Bag if Wild Rice
1 Box of Quinoa
2 Bars of Dark Chocolate
1/2 Bag of Sweethearts
6 Cloves if Garlic
1/2 Bottle of Tapatio
1 lb. Coffee
1/2 Oyster Sauce
3 Packs M&Ms
Roll of Thin Mints

...and eighty Baht, not including the twenty Baht I need to get to the bank bright and early on the 25th.

Notes from Below the Poverty Line

I'm taking an online course on global poverty offered by MIT through a website called EdX. The professors, Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banjeree are rock stars of sorts in the economic development world. They're renowned for their  groundbreaking and often surprising poverty research. Last week's class was on nutrition and one of their findings presented in the lecture was particularly unexpected to me until I considered my own life as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Duflo and Banjeree found that when families living below the poverty line were given an additional expenditure for food, did not buy more food. Instead they bought tastier food. That us to say poor people, rather than bridging their caloric gap with low-cost staple items just bought junk food.

The world's poor are rational agents and I don't mean to make light of their nutrition challenges but I will use this economic paradox to shed light on my own silly Peace Corps-kind of poverty.

My friend, Sarah, pointed out that this is exactly how a PCV behaves when she gets a similar injection of capital in the form of pay day. Sarah and I have been known to eat ramen noodle soup two meals a day all month long, then go to Bangkok with our pay day surplus and eat nothing but pizza and McDonald's (one of the great ironies of my service is how much more often I eat McDonald's in Thailand than I do in the States).

I make roughly $310 US per month (for those of you following along at home that's about $3600 per year- which makes my parents happy because they can still claim me as a dependent this year), but I don't spend $10 per day. It's feast or famine or me. I've often said that if the University of Wisconsin could see my bank statements they'd take away my economics degree. At site I may spend one or two dollars per day, but on vacation bpai-tiao, vacation,  I spend like I'm still an entry level accounting assisting living with her parents; basically I make it rain.

This counter-intuitive consumption pattern is particularly accurate for me this month, having already blown through most of my monthly $310. Paying three different month's rent this week has left me high and dry.

I have 100 baht to get me through till March 25th. Can I make through the month on three dollars? I'll keep you posted. Lets just say, I'm glad Thailand has so many available flavored of ramen.

If I make it, one day Ill be telling my children (and probably my grandchildren) about the time I lived on $3 for 21 days, then proceeded to spend a hundred dollars on pizza over the course of a weekend in Bangkok.