Legacy

There's this really funny story the ladies at my Tessaban, office, tell me during lunch at least once a week. It's hilarious. Ready? Here it is:

One time Shelby cooked lunch for us. She made vegetable stir-fry. She put all the different kinds of vegetables in it. The end. 

First you should know, Shelby is my Peace Corps predecessor. She served in my village, Takhob from 2010-2011. And then you should know how much the Tessaban  raconteurs love this story. They can't spit it all out before breaking into raucous laughter. It's apparently comical and a little scandalous. And though I can't tell you definitively why this is a funny, much less scandalous story,  I will say outside-of-the-box cooking is not a thing here. Adding all the vegetables, unheard of. Ergo hilarious?

What strikes me most about Vegetablegate, is that it's Shelby's Takhob legacy. This is how she is remembered.  Shelby herself told me she worked on water buffalo diary, solid water disposal, and environmental education. But what does our community remember? The time she cooked pak tuk yang, all the vegetables. 

This has got me thinking of my own Peace Corps legacy. I'm approaching the one-year mark and "How will they remember me?" is the burning question. I like to think I'll be remembered for my ground-breaking community development projects. But if no one remembers Shelby's cool projects, the chances they'll remember my composting efforts are remote.

Still, I'm sure when I'm gone they will still mention their second favorite farang from time to time. The only clue I have, as to how I will be remembered by my T-ban, is the "stories" they currently share about me with the same raucous laughter. Here are some candidates for my legacy:

This is our farang, El. She puts a whole spoon of chili peppers in her noodle soup.

El's parents send chocolate for American holidays. Oh man, we love that chocolate. 

El wears her shoes in the house. She is such a silly farang.

The farang made spaghetti one time. It was not spicy.

Our farang is beautiful like a Thai person, she has many Thai shirts. But her hair is not like a Thai person's. 

El has a weird purse she got in Cambodia made out of trash. I bet it only cost one baht.

Look what happened to El when she was at the beach! She is much uglier now that her skin is black.

El loves to have fun. She smiles a lot too.

I hope it's the last one. If I can't be remembered for my work as a volunteer, maybe I can be remembered for being nice.

Election 2012: A Spectator Sport

Sitting in an internet cafe waiting for the exit poll data to start trickling in, I am seriously questioning my expat lifestyle. Leaving the office this afternoon and looking forward to a whole night with no internet was unbearable. I knew I had to get to the nearest pay-to-use computer as soon as possible to feed my burning election desire.

I thought I had kicked my punditry addiction this election cycle. I missed all but one of the debates and I'd only been checking the Gallup poll once a week. But this morning my political cravings were back with a vengeance. I warned my Thais I could not be bothered to sit around and eat mangoes, "It's election day!" or as one Thai put, "erection day."

I'm typing rapidly, hoping to finish this post before the sun goes down, rural Thailand shuts down, and I am forced back into my unwired row house. Tomorrow when I wake up I may be the last to know if America has a new President and if the state of Minnesota did the right thing. I feel uneasy observering an election I have so much stake in from 20,000 miles away.

I may be inhaling election coverage sorrounded by fifty plus twelve-year-old boys playing World of Warcraft but my heart is back on my couch in Minneapolis sitting with my parents eating flaming hot cheetos, drinking root beer floats, and praying that we'll have the same president when we wake up.

Great Balls of Fire

I did not take this picture.

"The fireball experience is much more than just watching a few small lights rise from the river; it's mostly about watching Thais watching a few small lights rise from the river."
               -Lonely Planet

When  a local Nong Khai news crew interviewed me for a story they were doing on the Naga Fireball Festival, I echoed Lonely Planet.

I warned my fireball-watching compadre, Leslie, that we probably wouldn't see any Fireballs since I'm not the luckiest  PCV. But after my suspicions were confirmed, I explained to the reporter that, actually seeing fireballs would have been great, but it was almost as fun to pretend to see a fireball, jump up and point, sit back and enjoy mob mentality and work. Watching Thais watching fake lights rise from the river. I also told the reporter that with without jing jing fireballs,  most of the night was blissful: full moon, floating laterns, candle-lit boats.

What I didn't tell the reporter was that some fo the night was more harrowing than fun. After a floating luminary and attached sparkler almost landed on our picnic blanket I wanted to grab the microphone from the boring semi-dignitary was speaking to the crowd and do an impromptu lesson on stop, drop, and roll, People of Thailand, during tonight's  festivities, many of you will catch on fire. Here's what to do...Although distressing, this part of the event it inspired my new community development project: Festival Fire Safety 101.

We went up to Nong Khai to watch some tiny fireballs inexplicably shoot out of the Mekhong River, what we got was an undeniably Thai experience, danger included. At the end of the interview, the reporter asked if I would recommend the festival to my friends living in Thailand, "You should definitely go to the Festival just not with me, I'm not that lucky."

The Negotiations



This is not my house, but it might as well be.

 My "house" in Sukhothai came with one piece of furniture, so when I finally broke down and bought a small table to put my fan on, my household furniture increased by a staggering 100%. You would think the bar was set unbelievably low for my next rental, but things here have a way of not quite meeting your expectations.

Last week when I got the pitch for my would-be ban chao, rental house, it was touted by my counterpart that there would be lots of kids around for me to play with, "It's nice and small so you can clean it all by yourself! And you will have lots of friends for play dates!" There was a curious lack of promotion for more adult domestic perks. I was getting the pitch for a kid's tree house.

"Does the house have a fridge?" I asked not yet understanding the kind of playhouse I was getting."

"No, no fridge."

"How will I cook?"

"Don't worry, it doesn't have a stove either. You won't be cooking."

"What kind of bed does it have?"

"Oh, you want a bed?"

What is this, Peace Corps Africa? I resented not being seen as "grown-up" enough to deserve a house with adult appliances and a bed. I felt sorry for myself.  I posted something on Facebook just cryptic enough as to solicit lots of comments.

After reading said post, my friend and- I would say- mentor, Kathleen called. She was ready to give me the tough-love kind of pep talk I was ready to resist. But Kathleen has a way of getting through to you,  I realized to actually be a grown-up I had to take responsibility for my own happiness; that meant negotiating a soft place to sleep, a place to stir-fry my vegetables, and a place to store my leftover pineapple. When Kathleen tells you to negotiate, you negotiate.

So I channeled my inner-Kathleen and got myself a bed, a stove, and a fridge. My landlord must have been impressed by my new-found bad-assness, because he threw in a free washing machine.

Last night I went home to my charmless row house carrying a few groceries to put in my new fridge (the fridge actually had not been installed yet, so that was actually kind of a bummer). There were indeed lots of kids running around. I smiled. There was a lot of satisfaction in knowing I got what I needed to be happy in what I'm calling my "First Real House of Adulthood." I negotiated and I won.

Eavesdrop

Like most blonde pre-teens from the suburbs my sister, Claire and I couldn't wait to get cornrows during our 2003 Spring Break trip  Mexico. Claire and I were too shy to practice our mediocre Spanish with the less-than-friendly ladies braiding our hair, so we just listened in silence as they talked shit about us. Arguably their lowest blow was to Claire. My sister's stringy adolescent hair reminded one of the women of a cat's, "tiene pelo como un gatito" "she has hair like a kitten."

Eavesdropping can hurt! At the end of the braiding session, I indicated that I had probably understood most of the ladies' banter, by asking, in decent Spanish, what the total would be. At the time I was sure the ladies were mortified. They probably weren't.

Som Tam, or papaya salad. Let's talk about it.

Eavesdropping can be fun! Listening-in on people speaking another language yields the juiciest gossip; I make a point to listen in on everyone speaking Spanish in public places. It was exciting when I finally knew enough Thai to spy. I was sure I would gather licentious tidbits of people's personal lives. Not the case.

Recently on a long bus ride, I was picking up on a loud conversation from behind me. "...mai chop! mai chop leui!" "...I don't like it! I don't like it at all!" This kind of yelling conversation was what I'd been waiting to eavesdrop on since I got to Thailand. What doesn't he like? What inspired this kind of passion?. Is his lover cheating on him? Is this women next to him the mother of his unborn bastard child?

I didn't have to wait long to get my answer. The yeller's female companion fervently agreed that the papaya salad they had for lunch at the bus stop was not very good.

And this is as good as Thai-language gossip gets. Listening-in on to the locals, you will mostly hear snippets about things you eat with rice, because that is what people talk about. Spicy shrimp soup, green papaya salad,  fried pork, sweet green curry, this is what the people talk about. It's like Eleanor Roosevelt says and, "Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people; and Thai minds discuss food."

So if you're hoping to pick up some juicy foreign language gossip the next time you're out and about, I suggest you learn Spanish.

Let's Go to the Mall



The Mall in Korat. If you can't read the
sign well,it says, "Kingdom of Pleasures"


Saturday at 8 am my Thai counterpart dropped me off at The Mall. Saturday night she left me there. She said she would pick me about around 4:30pm. So around 9pm I started to worry. I gave her a call. And because she's Thai and didn't answer her phone, I assumed she'd been in a fatal car crash. I called her six more times.   

Things that might be considered desperate/borderline stalkerish to you or me  (e.g., calling six times in a row, liking every one of my Facebook posts since 2008) to Thais, are not at all desperate. So when a Thai does not relentlessly call you to ask if you've eaten yet, the only logical explanation is her death.

At 9:30pm I gave up, and found a hostel, grumbling about how much this little trip to the mall was costing me. Before going to bed I tuned into the local news in case they were doing a story on the tragedy that had befallen my counterpart.

The next morning she calls to say she had had phone troubles but later I heard her say to a friend she forgot me. I thought I would be mad but my counterpart is really good to me. She doesn't make fun of my Farang accent and she doesn't call me fat; she's not very Thai. So as with Thainess, you take the good with the challenging; you appreciate the boundless generosity and try to shake off the sharp criticisms. And when your friend, who doesn't fit the national mold, forgets you at the mall, you appreciate that she didn't call you all day to ask when you're going to rice, and try to shake off being left at the mall. (And as a fellow flake, how can I really stay mad at one of my people?)

Now enjoy a different kind of trip to the mall:



Same Same or Different?

In Southeast Asia everyone says, "same same." It applies in a variety of situations, some of which make sense. And because this particular phrase is in English, they think you say it too.  I'm not sure when "same same" came to be it's here to stay. The Thai boy band, Same Same, and the popular German film about Cambodia,  Same Same but Different, must have helped solidify the phrase's place in ASEAN lexicon.

My friend, Sara Kline and I spent a week last month in Cambodia, visiting the sites and eating snadwiches. So besides the French bread, are Thailand in Cambodia really same same? Let's play a game and find out. For each picture choose T for Thailand or C for Cambodia and we'll see how you do.                     

Feel free to comment with your guesses. I'll let you know if you're right.

      

Unless your are a Facebook devotee and recognize these pictures, you will probably not be able to tell the difference between Rice Paddy K and Rice Paddy L. They look same same. Cambodia and Thailand's similar geography and shared ancient Angkor history have left the countries with almost indistinguishable landscapes. Though the traumas and destruction of Cambodia's more recent history- inflicted by French colonization and the Khmer Rouge- have left the Khmer people to rebuild from the ground up.

Religion, education, art, traditional dance and most other non-agricultural pursuits were banned under Pol Pat. Traveling around Cambodia, I think you can see a country, thirty plus years after the Killing Fields still looking to define it's modern institutions and culture by drawing on its rich Angkorian traditions. Traditional Khmer Heaven Dance is back, ready for tourists and Cambodians alike to enjoy. It's not uncommon to see twenty-somethings with shirts that say "Khmer and Proud of It." Pol Pat called the traditional bowing greeting as bourgeoisie and banned it; three decades later, and it's back.

Because of its  tragic past it's tempting to try and pinhole a poor country like Cambodia; reduce it to one of two development cliches:

 1) Cambodia has suffered suffered. They may never overcome the horrors of their past. The government is plagued by corruption and the people are so poor. Cambodia is a sad place.

 2) Look how the beautiful people of Cambodia have suffered and how their resilient spirit has helped make their country one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The cities are clean and fully of happy hard-working people. Cambodia is a success story.

I think these two paradigms both apply to Cambodia. It is riddled with corruption and it is growing really fast. They embrace traditional Khmer culture but remember the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. And I think this dichotomy is really what distinguishes it from Thailand. Their shared history is easy to spot, but their divergent histories define Cambodia. Same same and different.