Merry Christmas!

Santa has already come and gone on this half of the globe, but I wanted to take a second to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I miss you and love you, and cannot wait to be reunited in 2009!

Spending Christmas in a Buddhist country, where the holiday is at best a novelty, is pretty strange, especially if you are like me and have never been away from home for the holidays. But it was great to have Meghan and Adam here, and we had a very relaxed and fun day, and while it would have been nicer to be home, it was pretty good here, too. Plus, Santa didn't forget to stop by my little townhouse, so I guess he got the memo.

We booked tickets today to go south to Koh Chang for New Years, and we have a visit with my host family and a day at the Elephant Nature Park scheduled between then and now, but I'm going to really buckle down when we get back to try to get this blog current!

Thanks again for reading - friends and family that care enough to visit here are the only present I really care about. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and good night!

The Big Mango

The first two things I noticed about Bangkok were that the taxis were all sorts of crazy, bright colors, and that people keep to the right when they walk on the sidewalk.

In Chiang Mai, the taxis are all a dusty, deep red, and people walk on the left, which is where you would expect them to walk in a country where you drive on the left side of the road.

That - and the fact that a fresh cup of coffee is surprisingly hard to come by - are all I really have to say about my trip to meet my parents in Bangkok, which ended roughly a month ago. The rest is pretty well-documented in the captions of my photos, which you can find here. It was great to see my parents, and even better to tour Bangkok with them and live the high life for a few days, but I think you can get the gist from the photos. Much more on watching Mom and Dad navigate Asia in a forthcoming post about showing them around Chiang Mai.

One thing that went almost completely undocumented was the Yara Bangkok Challenge, the adventure race I did with Elena just 12 short hours before my parents arrived. Afterwards, I said that the race was by far the hardest thing I'd ever done, and Elena, who has run a marathon and summitted Kilamanjaro (separate incidents), agreed. After 6 hours and 23 minutes of exhausting Type-II fun, we'd biked 46km and ran 16.5km on roads, through temples, and across rice paddies; swam 0.5km upwind across a lake wearing backpacks and lifejackets and dragging a truck-tire innertube; kayaked 4.5km in the midday sun; accidentally waded through a sewage pit; and crossed the finish line 21st out of 39 teams (or 4th of 9 in our Mixed division).

Some lessons were learned: 1) Eat bananas beforehand. I was dealing with major leg cramps for the last 2.5 hours. 2) Don't eat a lot of GORP in the morning, and only drink water before the bike sections. Your body doesn't have much blood left for digestion, and all of the liquid bouncing around on the runs just doesn't feel good. 3) Bring sunblock. 6.5 hours of sweating and swimming is too much for even the heartiest lotion. 4) Pick your teammate. Elena and I were having a great time, in spite of cramps, sunburn, and exhaustion, while the guys we were battling for the last two hours were swearing at each other the whole way. We named them the Assholes. (Their name ended up being the STUDS, which is somehow unsurprising.) Guess who won?
[Full results, times, photos (none of me) and distances are here, if you care!]

Battlezone, Chiang Mai

No, this isn't about the much-publicized political protests and airport closures in Bangkok.

This is about Loi Krathong, the Thai holiday that occurs on the full moon in November. This was two weeks ago, but things have been a little crazy, so I'm writing about it now.

Loi Krathong is a festival of lights, but where the Jews light candles, the Thais light fireworks. Big fireworks. Which include homemade bombs packed into terra cotta pots with short, unpredictable fuses. Real fun stuff.

But I digress.

Loi Krathong is a time for Buddhists to make merit and give themselves good luck by floating handmade boats down rivers, in lakes, etc. at night time. In fact, Loi means "to float" and Krathong is the name of the little barges with candles and incense on them. This means that (even without the "googled" phenomenon), Loi Krathong is both a verb and a noun, and both singular and plural. This leads to such usages as:

"I need to go home (to, for) Loi Krathong."

"My girlfriend is mad at me because I didn't Loi Krathong with her."

"My Krathong didn't Loi."

And my favorite, "Loi that Krathong."

And here I am, just before I Loi that Krathong:

In case this seems potentially boring, it is all made much, much more exciting (read: terrifying) by the fact that, as you Loi your Krathong, you are an exposed target for every male over the age of 8 to shoot fireworks at. Any supposedly serene, peaceful, or romantic moment is erased, as everyone's yearly Krathong wish becomes "Please, Buddha, just let me survive Loi Krathong."

I don't know if I can adequately express the terror of the three days of Loi Krathong, except to say that no matter where you are, you are never safe. I was sitting in my living room, just after sunset on the first night, and I kept jumping out of my seat as random explosions took place just feet from my front door. One bomb was so big that it set off car alarms on my street. And there aren't even cars on my street.

Anyway, I managed to make it through Loi Krathong with all of my fingers and toes, and although I'm not sure that my hearing will ever recover, it was kind of worth it, because I also got to take part in one of the oldest and most beautiful Thai traditions. About three days before the Loi-ing officially begins, there is a festival at a local university at which about 10,000 fire lanterns are released at once. It was truly an incredible sight that I'll never forget. A friend got pretty good video of it a few years ago, so you can get some kind of an idea. (Click the photo to view; requires QuickTime)

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In other news, the airports in Bangkok have been closed for three days, with no forseeable end in sight. Everyone is hopeful that this will resolve itself by the King's birthday on December 5th, but nobody really knows for sure. Mom and Dad are rebooked on a flight back to the States on the 8th, and with any luck they'll be able to get home then.

But as long as you're not trying to go anywhere, life in Thailand, and particularly in Chiang Mai, goes on, unaffected.

Out of Hand

Thanks to several of you for concerned calls and emails over the past 24 hours. Things seem to have gotten a little out of hand down in Bangkok at the moment, but everything is, as always, completely normal in Chiang Mai. The only remote concern that I have is that Mom and Dad won't be able to fly down to Bangkok on Friday, and then to the States on Sunday. However, we're all pretty optimistic that the 50 million Baht/day cost of having Suvarnabhumi airport closed will push the otherwise-sluggish Thai bureaucracy to find a solution quickly. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, the trip to Bangkok was incredible, and Mom and Dad's visit to Chiang Mai has been even better. I leave you with this gem as a teaser:

And I'm Off!

Leaving for Bangkok in about an hour! It's going to be a fun-filled and action-packed trip. I'm staying with Alanna on Friday night, and then I'm doing an adventure race with Elena all day Saturday. The parentals get in on Saturday night, and then it's two or three days of touring the big city before bringing them back to Chiang Mai! Next weekend my Thai family is having a two-day housewarming extravaganza, and my (um, real) parents and I are sleeping in the new house, which should provide for some funny cross-cultural moments.

I'm going to have a lot to write about, so stay tuned!

Halloween

Alright, so it's been a while, and I've got some catching up to do, so I'm going to keep this short.

I went out for Halloween last week with my roommate, Dao, and some of her friends. The rich culture of Halloween is sort of lost on the Thais, but the collegiate spirit remains the same: it's viewed as a night when you can go out hard, and nobody really looks at you twice for looking or acting a little strange.

After dinner, we headed to Tawan Dang, a huge, warehouse-sized bar and concert hall in Chiang Mai. I think it's named after the much more famous German brew house and live music venue in Bangkok, but that's about where the similarities end.

If Halloween is a night when little abnormalities are overlooked (if not celebrated), then Tawan Dang is the ideal venue for such an occasion. Functionally, it's pretty much like any other Thai mega-bar. There is a huge stage, absolutely no dance floor, and a couple hundred tables that are waited on by cute girls wearing 100 Pipers or San Miguel uniforms. People order bottles of whiskey and soda water, and you sit or dance around your table, having a good old time.

Except Tawan Dang is kind of Facist. Tawan Dang means "Red Sun," and around the border of the whole bar are 20-foot tall portraits, the kind you would see at Mussolini rally or in V for Vendetta. And there are certainly a few portraits that hit the mark: a couple of Thai generals are the first thing you see when you walk in.

But then things get weird. Turn to your left, and you see these guys:

 

That's right: Elvis, Che Guevara, and Karl Marx. Turn your head a little more, and you see a Marx-sized portrait of Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Thailand is a strange, strange place.

[More pictures of Halloween]

Work: An Introduction

So some of you (namely my mother) have been asking for more details about work and life in general. I'm at work, and don't really have a lot of time to write at the moment, but I thought a glimpse at the company iTunes would give you guys a good glimpse of what it's like to work here.

Keep in mind that we have a stereo system installed, so these choice selections are routed through the entire office and looped all day long.

Express Your Vote

Technology is amazing!

Finally, today, after months of eager anticipation and repeated ballot reapplications, I received my absentee ballot... by email. I was pretty excited until I realized that my ballot has roughly one week to make it to the States, which would probably set some kind of speed record for Thai post.

So I went to the Chiang Mai US Consulate web page, which informed me that the consulate will be closed from October 23 - November 11, for no apparent reason. Great.

However, then I dug a little deeper and was led to this page, my saving grace, called Express Your Vote. EYV is a joint initiative between the Overseas Vote Foundation and FedEx that allows US citizens living abroad to FedEx their absentee ballots for a special rate. In Asia, that special rate is FREE.

So I'm going to fill out my ballot later today and swing by the Chiang Mai FedEx branch early tomorrow. My ballot is guaranteed to be in Cook County two days later, and I get a FedEx tracking number to make sure. I heart FedEx.

All that said, I know pretty much nothing about Illinois, Cook County, or Winnetka politics, so please feel free to tell me how to vote. If, say, you have a beef with Judge Themis N. Karnezis of the 12th Circuit Court, now is the time to air your dirty laundry. I'm especially riveted to hear peoples' thoughts on the proposed Illinois State Constitution Convention.

All Good

Despite a few concerned emails to the contrary, I still have both of my legs attached firmly to my body. Swelling is down, nothing is infected, and the bruise is fading. I never had a fever and therefore never needed antibiotics.

It's all good.

I'm planning on exacting my revenge on Class Insecta by importing Cane Toads. That should show those buggers.

Small Amazing Things, pt. 4: Bugs

Taking this series to its most literal extreme, I wanted to talk a bit about tiny little things that are everywhere around here: bugs.

I have been in Thailand for nearly four months, and I swear that I have seen a new, different insect every single day. The biodiversity, nevermind the population size, is astounding, and really makes you wonder why we humans think that this is our planet.

Some are beautiful, some are strange. Some are huge, and others tiny. I have watched spiders hunt, stuck my ear up to a stingless bee's tube hive, and fed ants to Antlions (NERD alert: definitely the inspiration for Luke's mode of almost-execution at the beginning of Return of the Jedi). As I noted last week, I've even seen bugs wrestle.

 I've eaten bamboo worms, grasshoppers big and small, bees, ants (mostly unintentionally) and giant water bugs:

 

I occasionally swat at cockroaches at home, and have waged a pretty impressive chemical war against mosquitoes.

Until Saturday, I would have said the Ted v. Bugs scorecard would have shown me with a considerable lead. And then everything changed.

I was driving my motorbike on the highway to go climbing early in the morning when I felt something hit the inside of my thigh. This happens occasionally: trucks kick up gravel or sand, and it stings your shins, thighs, or chest.

Except the stinging didn't stop. It actually got much worse. I instinctively reached down and pulled an enormous wasp out of my leg. I then freaked out, pulled over, closed the face mask of my helmet (so nobody would hear me?) and started screaming in pain. I waited about five minutes to make sure I wasn't going to pass out, then I got back on my bike and drove on.

I climbed all day in spite of the discomfort, although I could tell something was definitely not quite right. That night, I went out to stay with my host family, had a few beers, and forgot all about it.

In the morning I woke up to a stiff leg, and a red lump on the inside of my thigh that was about the size of my palm. But things kept getting worse. By Sunday night, the swelling had wrapped around the back of my leg and down towards my knee. My skin was stretched tight like a drum, and the inner half of my leg felt half-asleep and half-itchy.

Right now (about 62 hours after the sting), my right thigh is about double the size of my left, and the inside is turning from an irritated red to a bruised purple. I tried to take pictures, but it's my hairy, pale thigh, and you don't actually want to see that.

If it's not better in the morning, I'm going to the hospital. You win, bugs. You win.

Much-needed catch-up post

Okay, so I've been delinquent lately, especially with posting photos. So, risking a really bulky post, here's a blow-by-blow of the last three weeks or so [photos].

Kwang's Wedding. Kwang, a guide at CMRCA, got married three weeks ago [photos]. The wedding itself was a surprisingly small part of this weekend spectacle. The company rented a van and drove south to Nakonsawang, about 6 hours away, where Kwang's wife, Boy, is from. We had a student program the day before the wedding, so we left at about 9pm. Taw drove while the rest of us drank beer in the back. We were tired, and they are Thai, so it didn't take long for things to get interesting.

We arrived at about 3am, and the wedding started roughly 4 hours later, at the auspicious hour of 7:39am. This is so it could end at 9:39am, the luckiest of all times of the day (3 is a lucky number in the Thai culture; 9, or 3 3's, is the luckiest). The wedding went roughly like this: we sat in plastic chairs under a tent. Monks and everyone important went into the house and did a bunch of things we couldn't see or really hear. Then we each gave our blessing to the new married couple by pouring fragrant water over their hands, and gave them a gift of cash in the envelope that we received our wedding invitation in. A short reception followed, but it was hot, and the late morning, we were all exhausted, and the music was uninspiring, so nothing to great went down.

However! then the fun began. We raided the reception's leftover whiskey (of which there was a LOT - that's what happens when your reception begins at 10am) and drove to a large lake nearby. The drinking began in earnest as the CMRCA group and a couple of other climbers from Bangkok and Krabi relaxed on the beach eating Som Tam. There was a lot of typical Thai (read: 12-year old) fun and shenanigans, such as throwing people into the lake, burying people in the sand (and adding Kathoey anatomy), and telling stupid jokes. It was a hell of a good time.

The next day, we made our way back to Chiang Mai, but the normally 6-hour drive took about 10, since we stopped and made quite a few detours to hit up famous shops, stands, and markets, including one that sold massive dried fish, another that was a big candy store (not that impressive), and a third that sold just Guava. Guava is widely available in Chiang Mai. I have no idea why that stop was so important (or exciting). We also drove a bit out of the way to have lunch at Pui's house in Uttaradit, which was really nice. And the whole thing was very fun, and typical of a Thai Tiow.

Climbing. I have been climbing a lot, partially because it's been amazing, and partially because I'm slowly realizing that there's not a lot else to do here. Went bouldering with some friends a few weeks ago at a beautiful spot next to a river about a third of the way up Doi Suthep, just east of Chiang Mai:

I've also been heading out to Crazy Horse quite a lot, and am starting to feel really good about the way I'm climbing. I'm on-sighting routes that I couldn't touch when I got here (6b+!), and I climbed my first multi-pitch last week.

Homestay. I've been going out to visit my Thai family about every other week, which has been fun, grounding and relaxing. Last time, I learned a game that apparently small children and drunk men alike play.

It goes like this: 1) Clap your hands on your thighs 2) Clap your hands together. 3) Simultaneously, grab your nose with your left hand and your left ear with your right hand. 4) Clap your thighs 5) Clap your hands. 6) Grab your nose with your right hand, and your right ear with your left hand. Repeat, and increase the pace. Try not to poke yourself in the eyes or grab both your ears.

It is also Kwang wrestling season (chone kwang), so the markets are all abuzz with the large beetles. Boys buy them as pets, and keep them tethered to sugar cane with yarn or locked up inside of a takeout soda cup. Men force them to wrestle, and gamble on the outcome. Here's a short video of the action, but I also took a few pretty pictures.

The Kwangs don't appear to actually get hurt during the fight... those big teeth are actually just horns that they use to scrape away sugar cane. It's incredible how much fun it can be to be in a big crowd and watch one insect try to push another off of a stick.

Work. I've been working outside a lot lately, which is fun, but also exhausting. Monday and Tuesday of this week we had a group of 16 students from Pacific Discovery. This was a really hard program to run, because it was CMRCA's first-ever two-day program, plus we set up our new Tyrolean traverse for them, and got them really muddy by taking them down into the Furnace cave. The real problem was that nobody had been in the Furnace cave in 3 months, since it's flooded during the rainy season. It's a squeezy-crawly type cave, and mud gets washed in with the rain. Plus, there were a couple of, um, bigger kids in the group. So on Sunday about five of us from CMRCA spent 5 hours in the cave, digging the passage wider where there was a lot of mud, and scooping (I think) around 2000 gallons of water out of the deepest section to drop the water level about 8 inches so it was passable. It was pretty funny watching small Thai men try to approximate the size of someone with a 48" waist, and really, really impressive to watch Taw engineer a mud dam and devise a system that allowed us to easily drain water. Crawling in a hot, wet cave and moving mud and water around is exactly as exhausting as it sounds. But also as fun as it looks:

Adventure Racing. Elena Olivi and I are signed up for the Bangkok Challenge, an adventure race just outside Thailand's capitol. There are biking, kayaking, swimming, and trail running (with obstacles!) components in the 6+ hour race. Because we are hard core (and because we didn't want to get shafted with a shorter race), we signed up for the "Extreme" division, which is for "For very fit competitors and experienced racers," instead of just the lame "Adventure" division. Currently, "very fit" and "experienced" is a less-than-accurate description of Elena and me, but I'm determined to be as "Extreme" as possible, so last week I bought a bicycle, some bike shorts, and a Lance Armstrong jersey, so I'll at least look the part (Floyd and Levi for president!).

Today I went for my first real training ride up Doi Suthep. It was really amazing - about 100 times better than I thought it could be. Hopefully more on that tomorrow.

Small Amazing Things, pt. 3: Food, or: Sharing is Caring

Sorry that I've been away for a little while. As things have been deteriorating in the States, I've been spending more and more time reading the news, and less time writing about little ol' me.

James O'Toole was visiting this week from Khon Kaen. It was really nice to have him around, especially now, when I think I've definitely entered phase II, and I'm finding more of these small Thai things to be less Amazing, and more Annoying.

But in an attempt to buoy my spirits and beat out culture shock, I'm going to focus on the things I really love about this place.

Before I came to Thailand, people talked a lot about the food, how delicious it is, and how lucky I was to go to Thailand because I would eat so well, etc. Well, the food certainly is delicious, although it took some getting used to, but that is not what this post is about.

I really love the communal aspect of Thai food, and not just in the family dinner sense. Food here is really the stitching in the social fabric: eating is never a solo affair, and there is no social or even business event that can occur without food. If there is any food out in any circumstances, it is impolite in Thailand not to encourage others (especially your elders) to "eat up."

Today we had a small student group go climbing with CMRCA, and on our way home from the program, we stopped by the restaurant that caters our food (i.e. fries rice) to drop off their tupperware. Two uniquely Thai things happened:

There was a handpainted cardboard sign on the front door of the restaurant/guesthouse complex that simply said (in Thai) "Closed 7 Days." There was no explanation, or even a date. Just "Closed 7 Days" and a locked door. Of course, they didn't want to inconvenience us (greng jai!), so they cooked lunch for us this week anyway, and we let ourselves in.

We had all been active all day, and so Muad and Phi dug out a half-eaten omelette and a box of chicken, and we all had a little snack before handing the tupperware over to be washed. I guess our "Aunt" at the restaurant noticed we were hungry, because she emerged a few minutes later, without any warning, with a huge, steaming hot bowl of "Young Pumpkin Curry" (gaeng fucktawng awn).

We each paid for some sticky rice, shared a Coke, and enjoyed an absolutely delicious meal that was prepared by a people whose restaurant wasn't even open. It was a such an incredible gesture of kindness, and yet I bring it up more beacuse it's a good example of something completely commonplace than because it was an extraordinary act by unusually kind restaurateurs. What wonderful people live in this place.

Small Amazing Things, pt. 2: No OSHA

I didn't realize what a pervasive force the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was until I got to Thailand. In the past, I always considered OSHA to be silly, and their rules, standards, and recommendations to be insanely cautious.

But I didn't realize how ingrained all of that stuff is in me! There's a certain amount of common-sense safety that we grow up with, and I see things here that make me squeamish all the time. Whether it's guys at work using a precariously-balanced stepladder, bricklayers working high atop bamboo scaffolds, or people using huge cleavers to debone chickens in the market, I can't help but think about what will inevitably go terribly wrong. I've been amazed in the past that so many people here still have all of their fingers and toes.

But nothing beats what I saw this morning: there was a construction crew ripping up the road that I take to work every day. It was nothing too unusual, just a typical road-resurfacing job like what you'd see in the States. And then I saw a guy operating a JACKHAMMER in bare feet.

I really almost stopped to take a photo, but I was on my motorbike in the middle of three lanes of traffic. I'm planning on going back this afternoon to see if he's still at it.

Cubs Win, and Small Amazing Things, pt. 1

This short post is about two things that happened this week that make me happy. First off, the Cubs are the National League Central Champions! Take that, Milwaukee. Of course, this incredible event has Cubs fans all over the globe thinking just one thing: Dad, when are you going to buy a Slingbox?

I'm really going to try my best to keep up this idea that I mentioned last time of just putting up short posts about things that make me happy here. I've decided to title this series Small Amazing Things for two reasons. First, it's a rip-off of the title of my favorite climbing short featuring my favorite climber, Dave Graham. Second, it can be pronounced "small am(asia)ing things" by people in the know.

My first Small Amazing Thing is, oddly enough, Uma Thurman-inspired. In Pulp Fiction, Vincent Vega takes Marcellus Wallace's wife out to dinner at Jackrabbit Slim's, and Mia Wallace goes to the bathroom to, um, powder her nose ("I said GODDAMN!"). When she comes back, she remarks, "Don't you just love it when you go to the bathroom, and you come back to find your food waiting for you?"

Yes, Mia, I DO love that!

I think Thai people must be the most observant and caring people in the world. If I sniffle in the morning, someone asks me if I'm sick before I even realize that I sniffled. When I stay up late, people somehow know I'm tired. If I try to sit in a way that is polite, but subtly shift my weight a few times, Thai people tell me to make myself comfortable and not worry about where my feet are pointing. When I was in my home stay, if I had a little bit of a hard time shelling a clam or deboning a fish, before I even knew what was going on, my Thai mom would place a small pile of extracted meat on my plate. And of course, when I'm drinking, if my glass begins to approach empty, it is instantly refilled.

I've been spending a lot of time with farang (white people) lately, but last night, I went back out to visit my Thai family, and everybody's awareness hit me like a ton of bricks. Mae Noi and co. had about twelve people over for dinner, and at one point during the meal the conversation got pretty lively, and I got pretty lost. I tried as hard as I could to listen for a few minutes, but then I figured that I would take the opportunity to slip away unnoticed, go to the bathroom and return a text message. When I got back - maybe sixty seconds later - Pi Aed was still on his rant, but my plate had a fresh pile of steaming food, and my glass was overflowing with ice cold beer. I think it was Mae Noi's small, amazing way of saying that she hadn't forgotten about me.

A really stupid post. But it's true!

Sometimes things are almost too good to be true.

Today, less than 24 hours after complaining in my PiA report about my total inability to find a decent bag in Chiang Mai, I was climbing after work when my friend Ben came by the office. After a few seconds of hellos, he asked me:

"Are you looking to buy a bag, by any chance?"

"Have you been reading my blog?" I asked.

Ben owns a beautiful, 1-year old Patagonia messenger bag that has a separate, padded pocket for a laptop and an extra strap to secure the bag when you're on a bike. It is big enough to hold a notebook and a change of clothes, but still smaller than my backpack. It is exactly (EXACTLY!) what I have been looking for.

Ben had, in fact, not been reading my blog. Ben, like some of my female friends (and I think my Mom would say my Dad, also), has a bag problem. He loves bags, and buying new bags. He even says he buys too many purses for his girlfriend. He thinks he has about twelve backpacks.

So Ben is purging some of his less-loved bags. And I happen to be standing in the right spot at the right time to hold back his hair.

On Friday, we're making it official, and I will finally be able to stop using my hated bag that causes me nothing but stress because the shoulder strap likes to unbuckle itself when I walk around or drive my motorbike.

My life will be complete.

Life, Work, and Everything

A lot of you have been asking me about more details about my daily life. I am truly flattered that you care enough about me to really want to know about all of those boring details, but I understand your curiosity.

That said, I no longer have an objective framework with which to answer your questions. I realized that this morning when a friend asked in a chat, "so what's the best thing so far?"

I honestly have no idea. I like life here quite a lot, but it's really difficult to point out or to remember all of the little things that make me happy here.

I think I'm going to try to turn this into a journaling exercise over the next week or so - I'm going to do my best to carry around a notebook and a camera, and document every little serendipitous or cultural detail that brings me joy. I think it should be fun, too.

However, for those of you who can't wait, or who really just want to know about the nuts and bolts of my existence here, I give you my whopping six-page 3-month PiA Fellow Report. You now get to know all about wonderful things like my job responsibilities, my salary (and rent!), how much I spend on food every day, etc. The audience is really PiA applicants, but I tried to extrapolate as much as possible, keeping you all in mind.

Another post should be coming soon about the wedding last weekend. Let's just say it was fun. Very fun. Although none of my pictures turned out, so I'm kind of waiting on a few others to roll in before I post.

Finally, my DVD drive doesn't work, so I may be handing in my computer for a few days to get it replaced. In that case, I'll still have email at work, and Skype will just forward to my cell phone, so it shouldn't really make too much of a difference. Although it may waylay my wedding-blogging plans.

See you around! And thanks for reading!

Weird Week

Okay, so these past few days didn't go quite as planned. This week absolutely flew by, and what have I accomplished?

Well, I went to Burma, for one. This was not quite the trip that I had hoped for. Tachileik is not a place that anyone should ever aspire to visit. Ever. I needed to cross a border, or my Thai visa would expire, and so I figured I'd make like everybody else in Chiang Mai, and hop a VIP bus to Mae Sai, and cross the border to Tachileik, which is less than four hours away.

I figured I would be gone for about nine hours, so I packed a backpack with some water, snacks, a rain coat, a book, my camera, iPod, etc.

During all of this well thought-out preparation, I neglected to pack my passport, which, of course, was the only item necessary for a successful trip across the border. Whoops.

Luckily, all of this hit me like a ton of bricks about 10 minutes before my 8am VIP bus was scheduled to leave Chiang Mai (and VIP it was! Fully reclining leather seats, water and snack service, and plenty of room). I booked it home, grabbed my documents, booked it back to the bus station, and managed to get a seat on the 9:30 bus, which was decidedly un-VIP.

12 stops and 5 hours later, I was in Mae Sai, the Thai border town. Mae Sai is nothing too remarkable: one wide, well-paved street, some cool-looking shops, a big wat, a typical Thai market, and pictures of the King. A short motorbike taxi ride, and I was there, at the border with the "Union of Myanmar." I couldn't wait to get across, hand over my passport, and be issued a Myanmar ID card. How cool is that?!

The Myanmar immigration office was by far my favorite part of the whole country, if only because of its apparently deliberate attempts to assert its country's unique identity. In the corner were two clocks, one labeled "Thailand," and one labeled "Myanmar." The "Myanmar" clock was defiantly set one half-hour behind. On the opposite side of the room from the dueling clocks, there was a framed picture of Than Shwe, which looked like somebody just photoshopped one of Thailand's ubiquitous framed photos of the King. The immigration officers were nice, but stern. I wanted to thank them in Thai, but thought that would probably be rude. I was mildly worried that I would never see my passport again.

Things literally went downhill from there. I exited immigration and crossed over the Mae Sai river, which was seriously flooded. Half of the town's market, which is locally infamous for its cheap DVD's and knockoff everything, was either under water or covered in four feet of thick, rank mud. I'd never actually seen a major flood in person before, and it's pretty surreal to see a two-storey restaurant operating only out of its top floor.

Immediately, I made a friend who wanted to sell me Viagra. "No, thanks." He didn't get it. I tried in Thai. "I don't need that - I'm capable; phom gang khrap." What about some Chinese-rolled "Marlboros?" No? How about some heroin? I have porn, you like little girls? [Taking me by the hand] Why don't you come meet my daughter; she would think you are very handsome. Come, shop in this market, we have very nice things. You want lady? You want lady? You want lady?

This guy followed me for a quarter of a mile. I wanted to push him and scream, but I figured that the last thing I wanted was a trumped-up assault charge.

Josh, my boss, is big into experiential education literature - CMRCA uses it for all of our student group programs (like the one tomorrow!). There is a pretty popular model that we refer to as growth zones. The idea is that, when you are comfortable and everything is familiar, you aren't learning much about yourself or the world. Then, with increasing discomfort comes increased growth, learning, and understanding - to a point. At some point, things become so uncomfortable that you enter your panic zone, and effectively shut down.

It was at this point that I entered my panic zone, and stayed there for the rest of my time in Burma. This isn't to say that I had a panic attack, broke down, and cried (which I didn't!), but I was so uncomfortable and unhappy that all I wanted to do was leave, and I was unable to really experience or enjoy anything. I was unable to trust anyone, and was even paranoid about the government. I forgot to take any pictures, and even when I remembered, I was afraid, and thought that I "probably wasn't allowed."

I finally lost my first suitor, and wandered over to a little watch shop, where nobody paid me any attention (thank God). I was looking idly at digital watches when I guy came up and started speaking to me in perfect American English. We actually had a pretty pleasant conversation, although it was clear the whole time that he wanted to take me sightseeing or to his favorite shops, and I was having none of it. He was a nice guy, but his kind smile betrayed his betel-stained teeth, and his T-shirt betrayed his track marks. I nicely explained to him that I wouldn't be staying in Burma for long, thanked him for his help, and wandered on alone.

I bought some sunglasses from a guy, and paid too much for them, because I figured Ray-Bans would make me feel better, and I just wasn't in the mood to haggle over sixty cents. Plus, as he pointed out, they have real glass lenses.

The rest of my time there (about 15 more minutes) was a blur of the same cheap stuff being hawked at me over and over again. Strangely, a popular item was a pack of U.S. Most Wanted playing cards, with Sadam Hussein on the ace of spades. One little girl offered a pack for "100 Baht!" No, thanks. "Okay, 50 Baht!" Really, I just don't want them. "10 Baht!" Umm, no.

I walked back to the border (I figured 30 minutes was long enough for them to process me, and I wanted to catch my original VIP bus back home), past a gaggle of Viagra dealers and begging, starving children. I handed in my Burma ID card (and instantly regretted not photographing it), and was relieved to get back my passport, complete with a Tachileik stamp.

I can honestly say that I have never been so happy to be anywhere in my life as I was to be back in Thailand. Seeing the huge picture of the King in the Mae Sai town square made my heart overflow with warmth, and as I snuggled up behind my motorbike taxi driver and looked around at the totally average markets and stores and read a few signs in the now-familiar script, I was proud to call Thailand home.

---

In other news, I'm going to a wedding this weekend: Kwang, a guide at CMRCA, is getting married. I'm really really excited. I promise to take lots of photos and write about that one soon.

Also, I finally got around to posting pictures of my apartment. These photos are predictably boring. I did my best. I was just going to take photos of my motorbike, too, but after reading Max's post, I figured that [insert your clever name here!] deserved better, so I'm going to hold off until I take [him/her] someplace a little more scenic. No, my bike does not quite look like Max's.

I love and miss you all. Thanks for reading!

Weekend Update

Just got back from a 3-day cultural orientation/leadership training/teambuilding seminar/retreat that CMRCA ran for the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute. It was a good weekend, surprisingly fun, but a little long, and I'm exhausted.

Because of some work permit difficulties, I may be making a border run to Burma on Tuesday or Wednesday. Don't worry, this isn't scary Burma. This is nice, organized, touristy Burma that sells knockoff DVDs and T-shirts for a fraction of what they cost in Thailand. There is actually a whole industry based around  expats in Chiang Mai and elsewhere that have to cross a border to renew their visas, and there's a little border town in Burma that has taken this to the extreme. I pretty much jump across a line, buy something really cheap, and then get my passport re-stamped as I enter Thailand. Takes 7 hours roundtrip.

As I mentioned below, you can all call me now. Really! It's true, it won't cost you a thing. It makes me sad that nobody has taken me up on this yet. I've been away all weeekend, but I'm going to start initiating my own calls tonight, so brace yourselves.

That promised post about my bike and apartment is poised to hit newsstands tomorrow night. Miss you all.

[Update Update: About 5 minutes into calling my sister, I barely nudged my desk lamp, and the light bulb exploded into a thousand pieces and scattered all over the room. It took me over an hour to clean up because:

1. Although we have a broom, we have no dustpan, and I thought it was irresponsible to sweep broken glass out our front door and onto the sidewalk. Somehow I had to coax everything into a plastic cup.
   
2. Glass managed to land in my hair, in my Nalgene, in my guitar's sound hole, in my backpack across the room, in between the seams of my leather desk chair, and miraculously on the other side of a 6-foot tall Japanese screen/room divider.
3. We have no potatoes, so I had to find another way to get the broken bulb out of the lamp.
4. I spent at least five minutes trying to decide whether or not it was okay to walk around my living room in shoes. This thought process was complicated by the loud bang and "Oh Fuck!" that I was sure had woken up Dao, who I really didn't want to see me wearing shoes in the house. I tried to put on her slippers, but she has tiny Thai woman feet, and my size 14 clunkers just weren't going to fit. I ended up wearing my flip flops. Dao did not wake up.]
   

A Series of Tubes

No, this post isn't about everyone's favorite new political sensation from Alaska!

It's about the latest (and certainly the greatest) way that you all can contact me! Today I bit the bullet and signed up for a Skype subscription, so I can call any line in the U.S. (and also Spain and Singapore!) for free. Which means expect calls to your phones in the near future.

The big bonus is that it also gives me a U.S. number that you all can call, which will then route to my computer, and possibly eventually to my cell phone. You can access this magic by calling:

The bottom line: I now have a U.S. phone number. That's all you really need to know.

This was, of course, spurred on by a complete lack of calls, and a number of emails/text chats with people who "haven't set up Skype yet." This makes it extremely convenient from your end.

However, if you'd like to video chat, or speak completely for free, I'd still recommend getting Skype. You can download it by clicking here; setup takes exactly three minutes. They couldn't possibly make it simpler or easier.

I'm also constantly on Google Chat. I'd recommend getting Google Talk, because it's a Gmail notifier and chat client wrapped up in one. Also, Google Talk supports voice, which gChat through Gmail does not.

Okay, that's enough for now. I look forward to actually speaking with you soon!

Hunky-dory

Hey everybody,
As things are getting a little intense (like camping) down south, I just wanted to check in and let you know that everything is totally normal and safe up here in Chiang Mai. If the protests weren't all over the local and international news, I would never even know that anything was going on.

However, we all know that things can change quickly, and we're preparing just in case. PiA, Mom, and others are sending me updates, and my trusty Google Reader is subscribed to Bangkok Post headlines.

Coups in Thailand are frequent and always bloodless, since the new government's success depends entirely on its approval by the King, who would never condone violence. During the last coup (18 months ago), a couple of tanks rolled down the streets of Chiang Mai, everybody got the day off of work, and that was about it. Regardless, I'll be careful.

The only thing I'm worried about is that Jay, who is visiting right now, won't be able to fly back to Singapore tomorrow because his flight is routed through Bangkok. However, it looks like the police have pretty much secured Suvarnabhumi Airport, so everything should work out fine.

Of course, it would be a real shame if Jay had to extend his visit. Then we'd have to go out again, and I'd have to take more photos like this:

Enchantment/Disenchantment

Last week, I took a few days off of work, and Julia and I took a trip up to Mae Hong Son province in northern Thailand. The goal was for me to get away from work for a few days, and for us to explore a really beautiful part of the world (you can find pictures in Picasa). For me, the trip ended up being much more than that. I've tried to take some time to delve into exactly what I found, so this is a long post, but I hope that I'm not the only one who finds it interesting.

Our first stop was Pai (actually pronounced "Bye"), a hippy-dippy tourist town four hours north of Chiang Mai where the expats outnumber the locals. Pai is famous for being a beautiful place to relax for a few days and listen to really really good live music at their many bars. It also has a large artist community that I'd heard good things about, but from what I could tell they just spent their days making really mediocre T-shirts.

Pai is a bit peculiar because even though it's in the middle of nowhere, the Thai people there speak better English than probably anywhere else in Thailand (it's exponentially better than in Chiang Mai). The owner of our guest house actually had an American accent. Of course, this is because there are SO many native English speakers around, either living there or passing through. As a result, there are fantastic, Italian-style pizza places, gourmet French bakeries, and more (no guide books recommended any Thai restaurants in Pai). Pai is a strange little island of western yuppydom inside of a poor, rural, but breathtakingly beautiful province.

In Pai, we decided to rent a motorbike to continue the trip north to Soppong and Cave lodge. After an early slow-motion encounter with a drainage ditch when the bike lost power going uphill (sorry, Julia), we cruised for about two hours through beautiful, mountainous countryside. I think "Big Sky" sums things up pretty nicely: we had beautiful, soaring views of the forested Himalayan foothills and limestone cliffs for the entire drive.

In Soppong, we stayed at Cave Lodge, which is a bit of a Mecca for outdoorsy people in Thailand. Cave Lodge is owned by John Spies, who is the foremost caving expert in Thailand. Originally from Australia, John has been living in Thailand for thirty years, originally as a beach bum (he went to Koh Samui when there was a single bar and no hotels - he and some other travelers would sleep in the sand), then as a trekking guide, and then finally as a caver and the owner of Cave Lodge.

Under John's guidance, we went on a couple of excellent day trips, kayaked through a massive cave, and watched a few hundred thousand Split-tailed Swifts fly back to their nests in Tham Lod (video here).

John has written a book about his time in Thailand that is actually quite good, and he lets the manuscripts float around the lodge. Julia and I both spent our nights sitting up in the lodge's common space, reading the dirty, water-damaged copies of John's life story (he has published copies for sale, but it's way more fun to read the original manuscript, which is held together with binder clips and has 3x5 photos Scotch-taped inside).

I have an enormous respect for John. He is truly a kind man that has really given and gotten a lot from Thailand, and has engaged this place in a way that most of the other long-term expats simply have not. Twenty years ago, John made a living here leading treks with his first wife to the most remote Hill Tribe villages (mostly Black Lahu), and his experiences there cultivated both a deep respect for their culture and a concern for their way of life.

Hill Tribe people are a bit of an uncomfortable subject for me, because I find their way of life both beautiful and tragic. On the one hand, they lead a self-sufficient life in a beautiful part of the world, and each tribe has its own heritage, language, and culture. They are famous for their incredible costumes and colorful woven scarves. Many of them practice an unusual animism that involves music, fire, artwork, and dancing to both summon and scare away spirits.

On the other hand, the Hill Tribes have been exploited by one group or another for the past half-century. For decades, they were virtually enslaved by drug lords and addiction as they grew, used, and sold opium. Now that the Thai authorities have virtually eliminated the drug from this country, the Hill Tribe people have become dependent instead on tourists. Innumerable "Hill Tribe Treks" leave daily from Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Chiang Dao, Soppong, Pai, and pretty much anywhere in northern Thailand. The treks promise exposure to beautiful ceremonies, old-fashioned ways of life, and hand-made crafts.

In truth, visiting a Hill Tribe village is a bit like visiting an American Indian reservation. The people are destitute, and whatever "culture" is on display is just that: on display. Upon walking into town, you are literally surrounded by women in traditional dress wanting to sell you woven scarves and handmade teak knickknacks.

Don't get me wrong - this isn't a polemic against Westernization (or "development") or a tirade against tourists and backpackers. Before coming to Thailand, I was given Tiziano Terzani's book, A Fortune Teller Told Me, which I find absolutely appalling. Terzani, an affluent German journalist, spends 400 pages bemoaning the proliferation of capitalism at the expense of spirituality and culture in Asia without once considering that the people who are actually living the life that he finds fascinating to observe have chosen to embrace capitalism. Terzani, as he moves about noting "money mongerers" and "spiritualess Mongolians" and celebrating cultures of centuries past, somehow neglects to note that the people's real quality of life (i.e. their infant mortality, starvation, and drug addiction rates) has simultaneously and very substantially improved.

In his book, John Spies writes about his friend, an elder in a Black Lahu villiage, who nightly laid fetal by the fire as he smoked 16 or 17 bowls of opium in order to lose his shakes, as his wife laid in another room, trying to sleep as her pregnant stomach turned hard before she gave birth to her opium-addicted baby three months prematurely. I am not ignorant enough to believe that nothing has been lost in the "development" of northern Thailand, but Terzani's paternalistic, normative condescension towards a people whose previous suffering he cannot possibly comprehend is disgusting.

I wish that this could just be me waxing philosophic, but my memories observing and wrestling with Thailand's changing cultural dynamics are my most salient from that trip north. Reading John's memoirs only compounded the problem: he engaged, connected with, and befriended Shan and Lahu people (John speaks fluent Shan) in a way that seems impossible now, when the tribes' commoditization of their own culture throws up barriers that makes genuine contact with people difficult at best. Julia and I passed through two villages in order to hire guides to take us to nearby caves, and both times I was really uncomfortable. I hate to be crude, but it's a bit like being in a zoo where the animals have chosen to be there, and somehow you've been made their unwitting jailor. It's not that I disapprove of the choices that they have made in order to support themselves without opium - it's just that when I was there, I couldn't help but feel complicit in creating a market for this cultural prostitution, and I just wished that there was some other way for these wonderful, kind people to earn their living.

[Note: As it so happens, there is. The King of Thailand has started a large-scale organic farming project that he hopes will bring sustainable agrigultural practices to the Hill Tribes that will allow them to thrive as farmers in their old way of life without growing opium. "Organic Hill Tribe Coffee" and other such products are all the rage among the expats in Chiang Mai. From what I've heard, it's been a huge success, and made a big difference in the past few years.]

Of course (of course!) this is all really a corollary of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal: it is impossible to observe an event without affecting it. The irony of all of this is that most people (and I certainly include both myself and Terzani in this category) wish that things could be the way they used to be simply so that we could see it! Because it must have been truly spectacular to see people live in a way that is so foreign, and inspiring to see them believe so deeply in something so unusual. Because isn't that why we all came to Asia in the first place? To witness something and have an experience that is truly Amasian? (Big shout-out on that one). But what can you do when your very being there prevents anything of note from happening?


John recommended washing dishes. The Hill Tribe people are known for their incredible generosity and hospitality, and will welcome you onto their porches or into their homes. John suggested that when this happens, we walk back into their kitchens and start washing dishes.

At the time, I thought he was crazy, and during those two days, I did not wash any dishes. But now I think I see the simple brilliance of that suggestion. Because how better to let someone know that you are interested in who they really are (rather than who they think you want them to be) than by helping them with the most mundane and ordinary chore of their day?

John's son is a student in Chiang Mai, and a sort of part-time, unpaid intern at Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures. We ran into John's family a couple of days ago outside of the movies, as Julia and I were coming out of Wall-E, and they were going in. I promised John that I'd be headed back to Cave Lodge in the coming months, and I promised myself that I'd leave time for washing dishes.

Being Political

I use Google Reader to read through blogs, news, and my favorite websites. It's really really great. Today, I noticed that the McCain and Obama campaigns are using Reader to "share" articles.

I found it very interesting to note the differences in the articles being shared. McCain's page is a laundry list of every negative article run on Obama. Obama's page features articles that only tangentially mention McCain. I'm sure those of you back in the states already have a feel for the tone of the tone of the race, but I found it almost shocking how transparently different the two campaigns are being run.

Also, to contrast how intellectual an audience they are targeting, I offer you this: Obama featured this article, and McCain featured this one.

Not making any judgements... I mean, our Pres had better be a baller, and who better to make that call than Dick Durbin? Oh, wait. That's not what he said? Looks like that metaphor went right over everybody's head.

Because there's never any time!

Just a few quick notes to hold you over for now:

• Work is moving along. We ran a teambuilding program for 105 7th- to 12th-graders on Friday. Our hours (and hours) of preparation were more or less squandered by the fact that we were drastically misinformed about the English language aptitude of our students. There may be nothing more exhausting than trying to corral, excite, instruct, and debrief hordes of middle schoolers who don't really know what you're saying and don't really want to try anything you ask them. Oh, and since this was at the American-Pacific International School, speaking Thai was outlawed.
  
• Julia is in town, spending three weeks in Chiang Mai between meditating in southern Thailand and learning to be a yoga instructor in India. It's great to have her here - she's been in Thailand for quite a while, but we both know such different parts of the country. She teaches me about Bubble Tea, and I teach her about soda straws. We make a good team.
  
• We just got back from a 4-night trip north, to Pai, Soppong, and Cave Lodge, just 3 kilometers from the Burmese border. This trip was really incredible and affected me quite a bit. I have a lot of thoughts that have been jotted in note form, and which I hope to turn into a post when I have some time in the coming days.
• I bought a motor bike! She's a real beaute - a 10 year-old Honda Dream, with 125cc of unstoppable two-wheeled power. A post on my bike and my current living arrangements whenever more interesting things stop happening. At that time, I'll be holding a bike-naming contest, so get your creative juices ready.
  

I've spoken with some of you recently, and I've expressed that my only real disappointment thus far with my New Thai Life is that I haven't really had much time to just decompress, process, read, write, reflect, and keep in touch. I'm working on re-prioritizing.

See you back here soon.

Of Medals, Medals, and Metal

Today, on the first day of the Olympic games, Russia won a Silver Medal and also killed 1,500 people. In the ensuing days, their Olympic team of over 500 people will be painted as heroes, while their political team of precisely two will likely be vilified. Just one of Lioubov Galkina's air rifle pellets failed to find its mark, but as many as ten Russian planes were shot down over Georgia.

Remember eight years ago in Sydney when governments weren't quite so keen on shooting each other? When words like "self-determinism," "ethnic cleansing," and "insurgency" didn't appear in headlines next to "Michael Phelps Wins Gold?"

My housemate, Jeff (more on my new house in a later post!), is a big Free Tibet activist and is friends with a lot of people who are getting arrested in protests throughout Beijing. Jeff himself was arrested in Dharamsala earlier this year. He's been watching things very, very closely, and we've both been expecting some disturbances and are aware of the obvious China Olympic/human rights hypocrisy that has been getting plenty of press.

But I sort of think that Georgia and Russia take the cake on this one. Since the Soviet Union fell, Georgia has attempted to hold on to Southern Ossetia, a province that contains predominantly ethnic Russians. Southern Ossetia won "de facto autonomy" from Georgia roughly fifteen years ago, but for some reason this week Georgia decided to roll the tanks through that region, removing UN Peacekeeping forces and effectively invading Russia; somewhere between 60 and 1,500 civilians died during the clash.

Russia responded by bombing a city that is in Georgia proper, roughly 30 miles south, extracting a matching death toll of 1,500.

I'm writing this now, in a bit of a state of shock, because I had no idea that a war had started until I checked the New York Times website 30 minutes ago. I watched a fair bit of Thai TV today, and there was absolutely no mention of it. News here is censored heavily, and frankly, it makes sense why this story wouldn't be allowed to be published: there are eerie parallels between the situation in Southern Ossetia and Southern Thailand.

The population of Thailand is approximately 95% Buddhist, but the four southern-most provinces (adjacent to Malaysia) are predominantly Muslim. For a number of years, these Muslim groups have been asking for independence so that they can join Malaysia, which, as a predominantly Muslim nation, would surely welcome them. There is ongoing terrorist activity in the south as the Thai Muslims not only vie for independence, but also for basic human rights: for the past few years, partially using the violence as an excuse, the Thai government has failed to provide roads, electricity, water, or education to the Muslim populations in the south.

So in both parts of the world (not to even mention Tibet...), we see the same pattern: a locally dominant ethnic group wishing to move a border so that they can be a part of a nation that shares a history and ethnicity with them and that would surely provide them with better services. And why don't we just let this happen? Why can't we let marginalized populations near borders determine their own nationality?

For the same reason that we love for our team to win in the Olympics! Pride! Nationalism! A completely artificial sense of internal harmony while embracing Diversity!

So doesn't it actually make sense that this war would have started today, when an athlete becomes merely an agent for his Nation, and when people around the globe are glued to their TV's to see how many medals the people who were born on the same side of some line on some map as they were manage to accrue?

Do Purple Hearts count?

Word Games

Loyal readers,
I've been shocked by how quickly time passes here. And not in the I'm-on-vacation-and-I-can't-believe-it's-already-been-8-days way. This is more like the holy-crap-is-it-really-midterms-week-already? way. I was kind of anticipating a relaxed lifestyle that included lots of free time to read and reflect. I found a rather hectic lifestyle full of errands and activities. I love it, don't get me wrong, but when I look back at what I thought life would be like here a few months ago, I think it's amazing how off-base I was.

But it's time to take a little step back from that and play with words for a little bit. As most of you know, I've been taking Thai classes every morning, which include both spoken and written components. Then I go to work, where I hear (if I don't exactly speak) a lot of Thai, and then I leave work and hang out with mostly Thai people, white people who speak a fair bit of Thai, and other PiA fellows who are convinced I have mythical language skills and who therefore like to practice Thai with me.

Thai is fun for two big reasons: 1) It's not at all based in roots like Latin/Greek languages are, and 2) It's totally based on roots/compound words in a way that is artistic, fun, completely non-intuitive, but actually really logical.

Let me explain: We like roots. It's how we learn vocab and study for the SAT. We expect that if we know part of a word, we can figure out the rest of it from context. This does not apply to Thai. At all. Some examples:

• Pĕe means "ghost." Sêua means "shirt." What does "pĕe sêua" mean? Butterfly! (of course, flying butter isn't really sensical either)
• Dtèun is the action of waking up. Dtên is the action of dancing. Any guesses? "Dtèun dtên" means "to be excited."

This leads me to my next point, which is that literal translation of Thai can yield wonderfully simple explanations of complex feelings. How excited would you have to be to wake up dancing??

Lots of words in Thai are based around "jai," which means "heart/mind/spirit." A kind person has "jai dee" (a good heart) or "nám jai" (a heart of water). An excited or excitable person has "jai dtên" (a dancing heart). Someone who is startled has "dtòk jai" (a heart that has tripped/fallen). A stubborn and unyielding person has "jai kăeng" (a hard heart). Someone who is impatient has "jai ráwn" (a hot heart). When you understand someone, you "kâo jai," or enter their heart. There are literally dozens of "jai words" that can describe pretty much any feeling. If I were taking another 8 weeks of Thai classes (which unfortunately I'm not), I would spend several days learning about them.

What's interesting, though, is that there is nothing that differentiates between words like "Dtèun dtên" and words like "jai dee." In written Thai, there are no spaces between words, so there is absolutely nothing to clue you in to whether a pair of words that you know can each be taken separately, or whether you need to consider them as a single word.

What's even more interesting, is that native Thai speakers don't consider "jai" words (or others like them) to be two words that work together to form a single meaning: they are a single word, and have a unique definition. In Thai, being polite and showing respect to elders is extremely important, and the way that you speak changes drastically depending on your audience. But what I find crazy is that individual words can transcend their impoliteness if they are just part of a larger, compound word.

"Kêe" is possibly my favorite word in Thai. It means (in the words of Benjawan Poomsan Becker, author of the best Thai-English English-Thai dictionary around) "shit/excrement/to defecate." It is probably roughly as impolite as the English word. The guys at work like to screw with each other a lot - Thais love slapstick - which inevitably results in the tormented guy telling the others "bai gin kêe" (go eat shit).

But "kêe" also pops up in dozens of other words! There are termites that live in wood doors here that cause little brown spots to appear on your door jamb. How do you tell your 80-year old neighbor/grandmother/landlady that you have this problem? "pŏm mee kêe bpratu" (I have door shit). What's the clinical term for the gunk in your eyes in the morning? "Kêe dta" (eye shit). How about earwax? "Kêe hŏo " (ear shit).

Strangely, "kêe" is also a prefix that means "characterized by, given to, having a tendency to." This confused me for a couple of weeks, while my Thai mom kept saying to me "kêe leum" (i.e. forget shit): she was just commenting that I was forgetful. Similarly, "kêe dtèun" is someone who is excitable (prone to waking up?!), "kêe mow" and "kêe ya" (drunk shit and drug shit) are alcholics and drug addicts, and I suppose that this whole post makes me "kêe kêe."

Going Places

I spend two hours every day commuting between home, school, and work. Except this commute is a lot more fun to write about than other commutes. It's absolutely ridiculous how people get around this country.

[Note: People drive very differently here. Things that would be insane in the US are actually quite safe here. Why? Because of the widespread chaos, people actually focus when they drive. They don't talk on the phone, read the paper, drink coffee, fall asleep, or do any of those other insane things that we do in the US when we “drive.” Thai drivers understand traffic flow, anticipate people around them, don't speed, and give each other space. In some ways, complete disregard for lanes, laws, or lights actually encourages better driving. And with that...]

Every morning I jump on the back of my Thai Mom's motorbike for a short ride out to the main road. It is beautiful: you can see across rice paddies to Doi Saket (the hill for which the town is named), and even the 300+ stair staircase (like when licking a Tootsie Roll Pop, I lost count. It was too hot to start over.) cutting through the trees on the side of the hill leading up to Wat Doi Saket.


At the main road, I flag down one of the many yellow songtaews, which are like local buses that run a straight route. Except they're not buses, they're pickup trucks with converted beds. A songtaew should carry about 16 people. I've been on one with 27: 3 in the cab of the pickup, 7 on a bench down each side of the bed, 2 sitting on the floor between the benches, 5 hanging off the back, and 3 on the roof.

It's hard to explain how this feels normal or safe, but it actually does. I vividly remember my first ride on a crowded songtaew: it was my very first day on the way to school, and Taw, the head guide at CMRCA, was riding with me to show me the ropes. On the way into town, the songtaew started to fill up, and Taw explained: “When the truck gets full, the men have to stand on the back, so that the women and nawng (children) have a place to sit.” At the next stop, he stood up to let a girl have his seat, stepped onto the grate welded to the back of the pickup, and held on to a couple of the many steel bars that are welded into the back of the truck.

I was terrified. Taw is a very, very strong guy, but I could see the muscles in his forearm bulge a bit as the truck accelerated back onto the highway. What if we hit a pothole and he slips off? What if we get rear ended? The songtaew slowed and another man hopped on the back. The grate flexed slightly under the extra weight. The welds look rusty. What if the grate breaks off? I think I should warn him. Should I warn him? I think I should. It started to rain a little. He's going to slip. He's going to slip off and get run over and everyone at work is going to hate me because I killed Taw. My eyes were practically bulging out of my sockets and my shoulders started to ache from the stress. I felt about ready to pass out by the time we made it to my stop.

I ride on the back of a songtaew every single day – it has become just as comfortable a part of my routine as eating with a spoon or using a squat toilet. Standing can actually be quite nice and refreshing sometimes – it's good to stretch the legs a little (songtaews are made for Thai-sized people) and get some fresh air in the morning (relatively – the pollution is horrendous). For some reason, songtaew riders are predominantly female, and tend to be considerably older or quite young – I guess everybody else rides a motorbike around. After five weeks, there are a lot of familiar faces, and they always treat me very kindly.

I've only ridden on the roof once. It was on the return trip, from Chiang Mai back home to Doi Saket. As we pulled out of Gat Luang, the bus was already quite crowded. I left work late that day, and I think it may have been the last songtaew for the night, so I think the driver felt bad about leaving anyone behind. The bus was full when it started its journey, and, to my amazement, entertainment, and incredulity, we continued to stop and pick up people. To make room for an old lady, a 12 year-old boy gave up his seat. Rather than join us on the back (he would have been the 7th), he scrambled up the side and onto the roof, which I'd never seen anyone else do. I figured I'd be better off up there with him than continuing to be squeezed on the back, so I joined him. We both sat cross-legged and I put on my new motorcycle helmet. I snapped a couple of pictures:



In a few minutes, we were joined by a third man, who was quite talkative, and found it hysterical that I was wearing a helmet on the songtaew. We talked about America, and about how gas costs just as much here in Thailand. I really liked that guy.

Back to my daily grind: In order to get to school, I meet a motorbike taxi at an intersection where the songtaew drops me off. This taxi is driven by Joe, who I call 'Pee' Joe, because he's older than me and it's Thailand, and you do that sort of thing here.


I'm finding it hard to express with words the affection I feel for P' Joe. He picks me up every morning and greets we with the kindest "Hi! How are you!" that you can imagine (Joe speaks exactly five words of English: 'hi', 'how', 'are', 'you', 'bye bye'). He often brings his 3-year old child with him (who sits on the kid's seat you can kind of see folded out in front of Joe in the picture). P' Joe and his kid wear matching helmets. I love them I love them. It breaks my heart that in a week I will buy a bike of my own and no longer need Joe's services. Seriously - if I could afford to just keep P' Joe on permanent retainer instead of buying my own bike, I would.

P' Joe drops me off at school, where I learn Thai. I say goodbye to Joe and his kid. My heart wants to jump out of its chest.

I'll post about class at some point.

I leave school on a "Red Truck" taxi. They have a monopoly over the campus, and it's expensive. Nothing too interesting here.

The red truck takes me to work. More on work in a later post, I'm sure.

After work, it's another red truck ("rote dehng") to Wororot Market ("gat luang"), where I catch a yellow songtaew home. If I time it right, I get to enjoy glorious sunsets over Doi Suthep. Now you get to enjoy one (poorly photographed):


I call Noi, and she picks me up on her motorbike. We go home, drink, eat, and make merry.

Thai People, Dear Reader

Loyal friends and (let's be honest, mostly) family:

Thanks for hanging in there. It's been a crazy two weeks, and I haven't had enough time or internet access to keep you all in the loop. According to Google, I've gotten many, many more visits than I expected, so I really do promise to most more often. Starting now.

A quick overview of things that have happened since last time:

• Went to a super-cheezy and totally lame 4th-of-July party at the Consulate. There was a Watermelon eating contest and the beer wasn't free. Apparently there are a lot of Mennonites in Chiang Mai. I think those two sentences pretty much do the party justice.

• Went caving the next day. It was pretty darn cool, and very, very muddy. I guess that's what you get for crawling around underground in the rainy season. The best pictures are here. (Pictures are captioned in Picasa, too)
  
  

• Went to the Buatong Waterfall with the family. It's about an hour outside of Chiang Mai, and apparently a popular spot with the locals. It's set up like a state park, so you just drive right in, and there's a nice picnic spot at the top of the waterfall. It's not the highest or largest waterfall ever, but it's really cool, because the whole waterfall is a flowstone that you can actually walk up. Pictures are here. More on the picnic below.
• Work has been really busy. We had two big meetings with school-group travel agents/vendors, and we needed to set our new season's prices and make a new catalog. Hence the no blogging at work. However, I'm taking on an alarming amount of responsibility here, which is fun and makes the job worthwhile.
• I've been hanging out a lot with my New Thai Family. My Thai has really been picking up, and it's really fun to try to talk with them... sometimes it ends up being a game of found poetry: how to describe this idea with the 300 or so words that I know? I am officially supposed to move out on Sunday, but I'm going to stay with them for a few extra days because 1) they like me and have offered to host me for the year, 2) they're free, and 3) I can't move into an apartment until the 1st anyway.
• Went for a bike ride around my neighborhood on Saturday. It was hot, but there was this river/irrigation canal and a Thai Gazebo next to it, so I sat in the shade for a bit, watching a waterbuffalo flick his tail while lying in a rice paddy. It was a good day.

Okay, so here it is, the best picture I've ever taken:

Let me explain. We arrive at Buatong at 11:30 in the morning and unroll a big mat for a Thai Family Picnic. Forty minutes later, we've all eaten our fill, and Uncle Tao and Brother Gaw have housed half a bottle of whiskey. Then Tao pulls out this bowie knife that he bought a few days ago. They admire its heft and its serrated edge's ability to cut small sticks. They pose, unwittingly framing their half-empty bottle of whiskey. They don't understand my bliss... it's noon.

Topics for upcoming posts include: The house, my commute, the office, etc. All will be wonderful, eloquent, and fun. Stay tuned. Miss you all dearly! More from me soon.

A Good Weekend

Sorry if this is poorly written and kind of long, but I've been exhausted, and I just really needed to post something before I accrue more to write about this upcoming weekend. Also, blogger is being really annoying, so not many embedding pictures in this one. Click through to Picasa for pictures. Sorry.

I had a pretty darn good weekend last week. Things started on Friday night, when I came home to the Thai version of grilling out back... there was a charcoal fire in a small bucket, on top of which was a slotted metal plate for grilling pork, chicken, and buffalo, and surrounding the grill was a trough of broth for boiling mushrooms, noodles, and other unidentified tasty things.

Small kids were there doing adorable things. One of my little Thai cousins speaks two phrases of English: “shake hands” and “happy birthday to you.” Actually, he knows the Happy Birthday Song. It might be the cutest thing ever. His parents make him shake my hand every time to say hello, but then he runs right back to his dad, because I think he's afraid of my pale skin. Anyway, it's adorable, and it's just so nice to be around little kids after 4 years of living in a dorm.

On Saturday I headed into Chiang Mai and met up with PiAers Nick and Ali. We rode motorbikes up Doi Suthep (actually, they drove and I rode), which is the perfect way to see a beautiful mountain. I, like an idiot, forgot my camera in Nick's apartment, and have no pictures. Will steal some from him when he posts, or I'll just take twice as many next time I go, which is likely to be soon.

Spent Saturday night in the city, and met up for dinner to celebrate PiAer Lexi's birthday. There was much rejoicing.

Sunday morning I met up with the Chiang Mai Rock Climbing crew for a totally different celebration. Marshall, an old friend of Josh's (and of the company) is leaving Thailand to go back to the States semi-permanently, so we threw him a going-away party. Except for outdoorsy types, that means doing something really really cool outdoors.

So we got up pretty early and set out for Mae On, where there was this cave that supposedly had amazing crystals inside. I say “supposedly,” because this cave was on private property, and the owner didn't appreciate people stealing crystals from his cave, and generally was very hostile to anybody interested in exploring.

Anyway, after a lot of hard work, someone found someone who knew how to get to the place and would take us there for a small fee, so six of us were able to spend most of Sunday in this super-secret/illegal/beautiful crystal cave. I have a few pictures, but they really don't do anything justice, especially because none of my pictures from inside the cave turned out at all – all of the ones here are just from the entrance. One member of our group is a real photographer, and took a few hundred photos, so if I can get my hands on any, I'll be sure to pass them along (although he's understandably nervous about posting any, because he's kind of a big deal, and needs to keep the locals happy).

Anyway, here's Marshall explaining how these things form (it's a geothermal cave with calcium carbonate and argonite crystals, for those interested). Marshall's really into caves, and did a lot to develop CMRCA's caving programs. Plus, he's a cool guy, and loves rocks. We are all sad that he's leaving us.

And here's my best effort at documenting what this place looked like. It's really unbelievable – inside there were crystals on every single surface. Some looked like huge cauliflower; others were dusted with red dirt and looked like roasted marshmallows. Some were like icicles sticking in every direction, and other formations looked exactly like freezer burn. The crystals are rock, but are pretty fragile, and now that the cave is opened, they have stopped growing – that means that the crystals are in better shape now than they ever will be again, and I feel extremely lucky to have seen them.

Anyway, this coming week(end) promises more fun. There's a 4^th of July BBQ at the US Consulate in Chiang Mai that should be fun, and then I think I have above-ground outdoor fun lined up for Saturday, so all-in-all, there should be plenty more material for next week's posts.

Sorry again for the half-assed post.