Writer, Unblocked

 I haven't blogged in a long time. I thought about blogging. I wrote a couple paragraphs on a variety of seemingly interesting topics. But I had succumbed to writer's block. I could never flesh out any of my stories into a worthwhile post. 

This may be because my in first year of Thailand blogging I drew from a deep well of bitterness and snark and unfortunately for Siam I Am the liquid bitterness in that well must have evaporated and been replaced by Nitrous Oxide because I've spent most of my days since April walking around with a huge dopey grin. I can't even wipe the Forest Gump-look-on-my-face off long enough to eke out a slightly cynical and self-deprecating post.  

The other possible source of my writer's block was a dearth of material. It's not that ridiculous  things never happen anymore. My Thai nickname, for example is Jasmine (or as I like to imagine it being spelled, Jazzmyne- which if you've read Freakonmics puts the education level of my co-teacher who gave the nickname at about 11th grade). Speaking of ridiculous, last month I went to an uber-phallic Thai fertility/ghost festival, definitely possible blog-fodder. Then there was the time I was an ASEAN princess. I went to a Thai rap concert. There was the time I went to a tropical island, swam in a waterfall, and made a sandcastle. Who could forget the time I got lost near the Laos border with some friends and was force-fed Mango salad. I frequently help distribute welfare payments and pose for pictures with the paraplegics to prove they're disabled. Once a heard a meow and found a stray cat in my house, still not sure how the cute little ball of trouble got in. But I just don't look at these things the same way this year. It all would have felt so much more preposterous in 2012; 2012 was the year of "preposterousness."

         Sandcastles in the Sand

         The time I swam in a waterfall.

   Ghost with Penis

 ASEAN Princess, Jazzmyne

              

  That cat wouldn't go home.

           

  Thai Rap

                   

        Adventures near Laos

     

This "quotidian absurdity," if you will, just doesn't merit a 500+ words in the blogosphere. Cultural idiosyncrasies that once would have driven me up the wall and inspired any number of ranting posts are now hilarious. Events like Thai'knappings are so commonplace I hardly remember them. 

That being said, something absurd and irritating enough happened to me and award-winning blogger, Sara Kline, yesterday to inspire my first post in four months. So what was it that finally unblocked my inner-writer? Lets see how many words I can expound on the subject.

 Sara and were kicked off a tour bus and left on the side of a highway somewhere in Northern Thailand.

Okay, so maybe just Twenty words. Guess it wasn't that great of a story after all. This writer is still blocked.

     Bus pulling away.

                

The March 2013 One Hundred Baht Challenge

I read this essay to a group of fellow volunteers and PC staff at a conference this week. The first few paragraphs are excerpted from a previous post but the rest is new.

I'd like to thank my PCV friend, Mike Hamby for his editing help.

I'm taking an online course on global poverty offered by MIT through EdX, one of those free online class websites. 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. One of the lectures topics for the class was on nutrition. Some of the presented material was particularly unexpected to me, until I considered my own life as a broke Peace Corps Volunteer.

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

A fellow Thailand PCV, also taking the class, pointed out that this is exactly how a PCV behaves when she gets a similar injection of capital in the form of pay day. I’ve been known to eat Mama, Thai instant noodles, twice a day all month long, then go to Bangkok with my pay day surplus and eat only things with cheese.

At site, I may spend one or two dollars per day (well, not this month), but while on bpai-tiao, vacation, I spend like I'm still an entry level accounting assisting living at home, basically I make it rain.

100 Baht, All I Had to My Name

This counter-intuitive consumption pattern came into sharp focus this past month. The events leading up to my self-imposed “March 2013 One Baht Challenge" are something I don’t care to relive, but suffice to say at the beginning of last month, after bpai-tiao in a quaint Northeastern province on the 
Lao border, I still owed several months’ rent and my bank account was tapped out – if the University of Wisconsin could see my bank statements they'd take away my economics degree. I found myself with 100 baht to last until Pay Day- for those of you following along stateside, that's about 3.22 USD.

The "One Hundred Baht Challenge" became the "One Hundred and Fifty Baht Challenge" on a Sunday when I cleaned my house and found an additional fifty baht ($1.60) 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, Spicy Papaya Salad.

Could I make it the month on roughly three USD? Would the money last till Pay Day in a Hanukkah-esque miracle? I was lucky Thailand has such a wide offering of instant noodles.

Ill now add the disclaimer that several people offered to bail me out Wall Street-style, including the Bank of Sharon and Elton Langland with its very favorable rates. But I've gotten a number of bailout packages in the past and I felt ready to learn some lesson. So, this is what I had to work with:

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

It was clear I would need to supplement this inventory by adding the generosity of the Thai people to my list.  I was  on the hunt for free food. And in unexpected ways this selfish quest changed my life at site for the better.

As most of you know I started out my service in Sukhothai, a Northern province that served as Thailand's first capital in the 13th-15th centuries, and as most of you know I'm no longer there. Security concerns triggered by aggressive overtures from the Nayoke, mayor, meant I would be move to Isan, the culturally Lao Northeastern region. The Safety and Security Officer, Phanuthat, and I took a road trip and I arrived in Nakhon Ratchasima with a van full of stuff and more emotional baggage than I had planned on bringing along.

In Sukhothai I had a very caring relationship with the women of my sub-district office. In the aftermath of the security incident I thought my Tessaban ladies would have my back, in a way the hierarchical political structure didn't allow. In hindsight, I can understand many of the cultural constraints on my relationship with these women, but I left Sukhothai feeling burned.

The incident, in my mind, really highlighted my status as an outsider and caused me to turn inwards instead of out to my community when searching for stability at my new site. I sought to be highly self-sufficient, hoping my “healthy boundaries” would endear me to my colleagues and neighbors in my new sub-district, Takhob. I knew they would appreciate how well I could make it on my own. I never asked for rides. I came and went without fanfare. I did all my own cooking. I spent lots more time cultivating relationships with other PCVs.

But after a few months of feeling increasingly isolated, I began to wonder if one man’s "healthy boundaries" are a Thai man’s unnecessary emotional walls.  My attempts to stay an emotional arm’s length may have been seen as disinterest in my community.

I had trapped myself in a negative feedback loop. As I projected “okayness” to my community members, they rightly assumed I was “okay” and reached out less. Un-ironically the less they reached out the less “okay” I was.

This destructive cycle might have continued had I not completely run out of money, and in a surprise twist, came to my senses.

Now, let me now disclaim, if things had gotten "that bad," someone would have sent me money. But after taking stock of my meagerly stocked house, I realized if I really wanted to turn my humiliating tale of poverty into a heroic one, I would need to rely on the people I had assumed I should not to rely on.

Sharing a meal

The very gracious teachers and karatchagan, civil servants, at my schools and Tessaban respectively, always offer to share lunch with me. Typically, I wouldn't take them up on it, in an effort to not be a mooch. In March, having no money to speak of, how could I refuse their generosity?

Civil Servants having lunch at the Tessaban

Kuhn Yai, the grandmother, across the street called out nearly every day for me to join her family for dinner. I had previously erred on the side of self-reliance, but now thought it was as good a time as any to sit down to a meal with my favorite Yai.

Kuhn Yai Dancing at a Monk Ordination

When passing a monk ordination or a wedding on my bike and I would smile yell, "sawatdi ka," hello, and keep riding, basically ignoring calls to join in the festivities. During the challenge month,  hunger coupled with  no pretense of anything better to do, led me to stop and partake in the food and dancing.

Now, I would like to point out the I'm not a complete monster. I absolutely planned on replaying at least a little of the generosity. When I got paid I would really doll out the kanoms, sweet Thai snacks.

A new feedback loop started to take shape, this time a positive one. The more I sat down with my coworkers, neighbors, and fellow party-goers, the more comfortable it was. I felt better about sharing and enjoying the abundance in my tight-knit farming community. I reached out, not because I had to but because I wanted to.

I can't help but be reminded of the familiar "Rom Com" trope: boy using girl or girl using boy for some ulterior motives before the rouse turns into real love. This is the plot for half of all movies.

My integration attempts may have started out with, albeit benign, ulterior motives but they became as genuine as a Hypothetical Male Lead’s contrite confessions.

Maybe unsurprisingly to you the reader, when I started reaching out instead of in, things began to change. Not only did my community endear itself to me through their generosity and kindness, but...

In my efforts to radiate self-sufficiency, I neglected to realize that it's not highly valued here. There are a few English phrases that almost everyone here knows and uses with some frequency. One is: "take care." That "taking care" is one of the primary ideas Thailand would like to convey to the English-speaking world tells you a lot about its culture of generosity.  This didn't manifest itself to me until I began to let them do just that, "take care". I realized I needed taking care of and many people jumped into to do just that. And completely surprising to me, they seemed to enjoy it. They showed me nam jai, generosity, and I learned just how powerful and genuine this core Thai belief is. Literally, nam jai means water heart or the essence of the heart, but it's more encompassing definition of generosity, thoughtfulness, hospitality, and charitableness is reflected in every aspect of the social sphere. Letting my friends, neighbors, and coworkers "take care" and show me nam jai was letting them share a part of their culture I had thus far neglected to appreciate.

By the kindness of neighbors, my sad-sack self ended the month with a few servings of quinoa and two cloves of garlic, then behaved exactly like the economists predicted by going out and spending a bunch of money on junk food at Tesco Lotus, Thailand's answer to Walmart. I survived the self-inflicted poverty but the lion’s share of credit goes to my Chumchon Takhob, community for showing me the nam jai I finally learned to accept.
  

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.

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."

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.

Nastiness

Just by living in Thailand you are losing the war on nastiness. Bugs are winning. Geckos are winning. Dirt is winning. Bacteria is winning. Sweat is winning. Frizziness is winning. And I'm sweeping, brushing, and disinfecting just to keep from losing more ground.

Two weeks ago after a decisive victory in the Battle of the Ants, I conquered some important territory in the kitchen.  But nastiness is way ahead in out latest skirmish. When I cut my finger a week ago slicing a tomato, I had no idea nastiness was planning a full-on attack on my face.

During a delightful weekend in the Gulf of Thailand with my aunt, nastiness in the form of sea water took hold. The cut I ignored swelled up and started oozing. I'll spare you details and pictures, but I will say my left pinky is multicolored and the size of New Jersey.

A doctor prescribed an antibiotic but before it could start to work, nastiness working through my body's compromised immune system stuck two huge cold sores on my lips. And if I didn't feel enough like a monster already the sun burn I also contracted on my forehead at the beach has starting to peel. Needless to say:

In the States, if I had been struck with this perfect storm of nastiness, people would've pretended not to notice the puss-filled lesions on my face. In fact, in college I walked around for weeks with double black-eyes from  falling on my face and people quietly presumed my boyfriend beat me.

Here (and I'll admit it's out of love and concern), every person I encounter approaches me, cocks their head, stares, and asks what's wrong with my lips, forehead, and finger. Not being able to explain in Thai that I am nastiness' latest casualty, I just yell, "I'm a monster!"

S.E.A.P.

"Why'd it have to be snakes?"

I scoured my whole pineapple stall today. Not because the old adage, “cleanliness is next to godliness” finally hit home. It was because I had another nightmare about snakes.

I had my first in a long series of snake nightmares, the week my Peace Corps invitation came in the mail. Once I knew it would be Thailand, I knew there would be snakes involved in my service.  Though I've only seen two live snake in Thailand my nightmares are along Raiders of the Lost Ark lines. 

I cleaned my house because there must be no place a snake can hide. It's now a compulsion that I be able to see every inch of floor space in my shed, so there's nothing left on my floor. There isn't a crumb to be found because crumbs attract vermin and vermin attract snakes. I live in the cleanest two rooms in Thailand.

There is a small gap between one of my window pains and its sills. I stuck a broom out the window to fill the space as an extra snake-deterrent.

My pathology has driven my eyes to to complete a full inspection of the bathroom every time I enter. I'm just now realizing how psychotic this is. I read somewhere that some snakes live in sewers and could enter a home through the drain pipe. The drain pipe is that first place my eyes scan before I enter my bathroom.

All this caution prompted me to wonder what I would actually do if I found a snake in bathroom or hanging out under my one piece of furniture. So yesterday, I enacted a Snake Emergency Action Plan or SEAP for short. It’s a work in progress, but here is the plan so far:

1. Scream

2. Run 

More for Me

"More for you"

Americans are coddled meat-eaters. In a land apparently renowned for its steak eating (everyday someone asks me if I miss sa-take), we're pretty choosy about our meat. Skin, gristle, and blood are all discarded and only tolerated in hot dogs. If it's not chicken breast or a quality filet mignon, most Americans say, "give it to the dogs."

Thais feel very differently; their dogs don't get perfectly good pieces of pork skin. To a Thai, pork just tastes better if there's skin on it and the skin still has few stray hairs sticking out of it. Chicken fat is first scooped into my bowl of rice to make sure I get some, and then later scooped out to make sure it doesn't go to waste.

My spoiled American diet confuses my Thais. And the confusion goes both ways. The hummus I brought to our potluck lunch was not embraced. Cheese is looked down upon. And although salsa is almost exactly like Thai food, it is poo-pooed.

Though now we've reached a kind of understanding. If we're eating curry, I'll pick out most of the vegetables and a few skinless pieces of breast meat and everyone else will eat the marrow, liver, intestines, and- if there's fish- the head. People have given up on saving the prized chunks for me. They don't understand our culture's organ meat aversion but now they don't have to share.

Our stalemate might best be described by the  phrase I taught my office on hummus day, "More for me." The Tessaban ladies felt guilty for not liking hummus, "it doesn't taste good with rice." No shit. It's not supposed to go on rice. But I just smiled and explain why it's okay because now there's, "more for me."

The new expression has really caught on.  And it's meaning has expanded. Like today, Bob Dylan's 71st birthday, I played Desolation Row in the office. My friend Ning gave me a confused smile and said, "More for you."

This is Why You're Fat: Thailand Edition

Thais are deeply afraid of cheese. I can't mention the word without someone saying, "that's why you're fat, Nong El." And that may be why I'm fat but Why are you fat?You can't blame cheese. Cheese may help explain the obesity crisis in Wisconsin (though beer probably does a better job) but it doesn't explain why heart disease, diabetes, and obesity are on the rise in Thailand.

Could it be the four to five bowls full of white, fiber-less rice everyday?

This is why you're fat, Thailand.

Mi Strip Mall Es Su Strip Mall

Of the five or six qualifications for any building to be considered a house, my stall has about four of them. It makes the cut in the bedroom department ;)- meaning it has one- it also has a bathroom. And that's where it stops being a house. My stall, in a long row of stalls just like it, lacks a kitchen, furniture, and a real door. It's probably a better venue for selling pineapple than living in, but I like it.







I have an English-speaking neighbor. I live between two restaurants, competing for my loyalty with free sticky rice and wine coolers. Painfully slow wi-fi is included. My morning commute is down to 6 minutes.There's plenty of space to do yoga, if I ever decide that's something I want to do. My toilet is of the western variety. And one day soon I'll buy a stove so I can make tacos.
Home sweet strip mall.

#Yumster

"Yumster!"

Most people who know me, also know of my ongoing quest to, “make yumster happen.” The word yumster was born while trying to find the perfect description for a deep-friend candybar, and was immediately shot down by everyone that loves and cares about me.

Everyone says, “(El)mily, yumster is so not happening.” But I think all the controversy surrounding yumster is proof that yumster is so happening. And thanks to my one man propaganda machine, yumster is now happening in at least three Midwestern states. And now…Thailand.

My Thai coworkers are like American slang sponges, eagerly sopping up any colloquialisms I may spill.  Here's a list of their vocabularly so far:

        “OMG!”

        “Let’s bang.”

        “I want a lady on the street, but a freak in the bed.”

        “Dog, you nasty!”

        And now, “Yumster!”

I had the perfect soap box from which to share my joyful yumster message when my friend and coworker, Ning asked me if Americans, when describing food say, “Delicious!” or “Yummy!” more often. I tried to mask my excitement with sincerity but I snickered and said, “Actually, most people say yumster.”

Ning tried it out, “Yumster! Is that what cool people say?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. You should definitely say it all the time.”

Miss Songkran 2555

 

Drenching old people is still
an important part of Songkran.

It's 101 degrees and the nationwide water fight is underway. It's Thai New Year, or Songkran, and the centuries-old tradition of washing the feet of elders has devolved into three plus days of water guns,whiskey,  dancing, and general tomfoolery.

Songkran, like almost any event in Thailand starts at the Wat. On the first day, it's almost pious as the younger generation lines up to pay respect to their elders and the Buddha. But it's just not a Thai festival until somebody cracks open a case of 70-proof Thai whiskey and passes out a communal bottle. And just like that the piety is gone. But don't judge too harshly, it's actually amazing that anyone can do shots when the temperature is in the triple digits, these people are to be admired.

Sprinkling water on Buddha's
image is considered good luck.

Everyone one of these seniors offered
up their grandon for me to marry.

The next day of Songkran, the religious pretense is gone. It's all about "len naam," literally playing water. Every kid in Thailand (and the occasional Peace Corps volunteer) stands on the side of the road and throw water at passing motorcycles. The temptation to use  water gun is there, but don't let the Super-Soaker suck you in,  a good old bucket is a lot more efficient. Occasionally some drives by and asks not to be dumped on, they are promptly ignored. But it leave me wondering why you wouldn't want to be sopping wet when it's so damn hot.

Watch out kids!

Some prefer to watch the madness from the shade.

In my tambon, community, the holiday winds down slowly- people are still throwing water three days later. But on the last official day of Songkran, all the neighboring communities gather for a parade up and down the main drag. For the procession the tambons dress up their most beautiful young women in traditional Thai garb. Because I'm a novelty, I was also dressed up. I felt a little guilty, the other women had earned their  titles of Miss Songkran, I just showed up one day with white skin and usurped all of the attention. 

Three or so minutes into the parade started it started pouring. The three hours every gay man in my village spent making me Miss Songkran was for not. But the pictures remain as proof that for two hours I was a Thai princess. And after the parade we dance and drank whiskey in the rain.

My coworker and I are dressed from the Lanna Period.
It took three hours for me to look like this.

30 seconds late it started to rain.

Soom-Saam

I'm clumsy, like this elephant that fell in a hole.

In terms of frequency, Soom-Saam, is in my top ten Thai words. It means clumsy and I say it at meals when I spill my water, at work when people comment on my latest bruises, and when I'm veer my bike off the rode while trying to read a Thai sign.

The clumsy friend who taught me this word said it will be the most useful thing my Thai vocabulary, he was right. It actually captures my essence. I've always been clumsy, but lately I've really stepped up my game. I haven't gone a whole meal without spilling in weeks. From all of my bruises you would think I either had an abusive boyfriend or didn't eat enough bananas. Neither is true.

My theory is this: just living my life in Thailand takes so much concentration that I don't have any left for simple things like not falling. By the time I go to work, come home, and feed myself, my concentration reserves all used up and I'm doomed to jam my knee in an excerisize machine.

Frog Blog

This is the frog that lives in my bathroom, or rather in the pipe where all my bucket-shower water goes. When he's not in the pipe waiting to pop out at me just as I've shampooed my hair, he's hanging out next to the pipe blocking my access to the toilet. I live in  fear of this little guy.

Thai Leslie Knope

“Yellow haired female… likes waffles and news.”

“The bankrupt government of Pawnee has been shut down all summer so it’s been three months of no work, no meetings, no memos, no late nights, nothing. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.” -Leslie Knope


The Sub-District Administrative Office, or Tessaban, where I work is bureaucracy incarnate. It's decentralization and inefficiency nicely packaged in a three-story air-conditioned building. Basically, it's TV's Parks and Recreation. 
Like it's Indiana doppelganger, the Pawnee City Hall, my Tessaban concerns itself primarily with community development- canvassing, event-planning,  focus goups, taks forces and yes, park-building. As the blondest person in the office, I am by default, Leslie Knope. But if I'm Thai Leslie, who's Thai Ron Swanson?

Dek Dek

Dek Dek- Children
เด็ก ๆ

Last Thursday I taught Pre-School English. Now, before you shutter, let me tell you that I like Thai kids. The same language barrier that keeps me from cultivating profound relationships with my peers, helps me make friends with Sukhothai's younger residents. We don't have a lot to talk about, but there's a competitive spirit that keeps it interesting. Like yesterday, I had a conversatin with a baby that ended with me saying, "Ha ha, I speak Thai better than you."

I also like Thai kids because they have funny nicknames. English is King in the ASEAN countries and parents try to keep ahead of the curve by giving their newborns a practical Enlgish-language nickname. But mostly they fall short and you meet kids named, Neptune, Pizza, Fat, Benz, Golf, Noodle, or Seven Eleven. My favorite example so far is the twin girls in my pres-school class nick-named, Nick and Name.

They may be too young to actually learn anything, but I'm looking forward to teaching English to six-year-olds for three to four hours a week.

Tequila! or why this Post is not about What You Think it is About

In 6^th grade after getting as good as I'd ever be at the violin without practicing, I decided to try my unpracticing hand at the French horn. In the first week of 6^th grade band I learned to play Hot Crossed Buns. By Winter Concert I could play Hot Cross Buns and the few measures of the 1958 hit, Tequila! (I wouldn’t understand the exclamation after Tequila for several more years).

Tequila! Was the first song in the set.  I played a few bars and sat back to pretend to play for the rest of the concert. Actually, sitting back might have been my first mistake, as this is not the proper posture for French Horn playing. I would press the keys and inflate my cheeks unconvincingly. While pretending to play I’d be distracted by the unlit scoreboard or a sneezing parent.  Then I’d go back to making chipmunk cheeks for a few bars until I started fantasizing about the trumpeter I had a crush on. My first visit to Sukhothai was a lot like my first French Horn concert.

In Sukhothai, my soon-to-be coworkers drove me around in a government van to meet every dignitary (and I use this word loosely) in town.  At each office, after I flashed a big toothy Thai smile and wai’d like a pro, the Tequila! charade would begin.  My three minute Thai introduction was much like the first few notes of the song, well-rehearsed but hard to listen to. My Thai elevator speech prompted each administrator to turn to my counterpart for a Thai-to-Thai translation. From then on I was bypassed in all my conversations. I sat back and listened as the more competent people played the songs…I mean spoke Thai.

I would try to pay attention. There was a lot to be gleaned from the 40% of my own resume I understood. Luckily I’m more motivated to learn Thai than I was brass instruments. But there were so many things to look at, things much more interesting than anything in the Sandburg Middle School gym.

For one, in the early stages of reading Thai, every word is like a puzzle I must solve. It won’t surprise you to learn that I dig puzzles. For me, all of Thailand is covered in the New York Times Friday Crossword (Friday because I can only get about a third of it). I dare you to conduct an interview in a room wall-papered in crosswords.

Strange Mountains in Sukhothai

Then in the conversation I catch the word “gaan-ga-seet.” Oh okay, I know this one…agriculture. I’m going to be working in agriculture. I focused my attention on whichever unfortunate low-ranking official I was meeting with, smile and repeat, “gaan-ga-seet.”

Suddenly I’m in fine sixth grade form, puffing my cheeks like a pro, feigning comprehension and interest. I fix my attention on the Director of Informal Education but just behind are these weird round mountains that just demand attention.

I think my PC Training Manager worried I might lack concentration because during me Placement Interview she asked me if I get bored easily. I wouldn't say bored. My own thoughts scare me but they never bore me. I told her no. 

My band director probably worried the same thing but playing in the band never bored me either, I had plenty of thoughts to keep me busy while my classmates played instruments. 

I've gotten a little better at covering my tracks. In 6th grade when everybody stood up to yell, "Tequila!" at the end of the song, (is this appropriate for middle school?) I just sat there stupidly realizing much too late I missed my cue. At the Office of Agriculture I zoned in just in time to give another wai and thank the officer very much for his time. And my character has developed some too. After the winter concert I quit band so I would never have to play in a concert again. After Sukhothai I went back to Sing Buri to work my ass off learning Thai so I will rock all future interviews.

Dawn of Language

Sukhothai

This is a translation of my new Thai language Sukhothai elevator speech. I think my weak language skills really come through:

I will live in Sukhothai. It's in North Thailand. It has lots of fried peanuts and a historical park. It has some mountains and lots of chickens. The name means Dawn of Happiness. The people are nice in Sukhothai. In Sukhothai I will work at an office and help farmers.

Historical Park