Can't visit? Walk around Chiang Mai anyway

Hey friends,
If you're still with me after that last post, then check this out... you might find it a bit more fun.

As part of my job (actually, my whole job until Josh gets back to Thailand tomorrow) is to work on Search Engine Optimization, i.e. to ensure that our new website lands on the first page of as many Google searches as possible. One way to do that is to generate as many in-links as possible; another is by getting Diggs; then there's also optimizing other searches, like making sure people can find us on Facebook, Wikipedia, and Linkedin. For example, I've spent the last day submitting content to Wikitravel here and here (Wikitravel is great, because Google gives sites credit for links originating there, unlike Wikipedia, which use exclusively "no-follow" links).

You can now find CMRCA by searching for "rock climbing" in "Thailand" on Google Maps, although Google doesn't really understand Thailand's province/district/subdistrict thing, so there are still issues if you search for "climbing" in "Chiang Mai." I went in search of other mapping sites, and found MapJack, which is in its infancy. However, for some reason, they've done street view on Chiang Mai.

So walk around CM for a while! Here's the office, here's where I ate lunch today (it wasn't all that great), here's the market where I catch a bus home every night, and here is the street where a few of the PiAers are living. Pretty cool stuff.

I'm going to be better about actually taking my own photos, but this should hold you over until then. Enjoy!

This is not what this blog is for

I started this blog as a way to share my joy, confusion, and frustration stemming from strange, unexpected, and surreal events occurring in my new home Kingdom. It's post #3, and I've already strayed from that mission. Sorry, but I've been sitting on this for a couple of days, and I just couldn't resist. And if you make it all the way to the end, it's sort of topical.

Several days ago, my Mom (hi, Mom!) sent me this article about Ivy League grads from the New York Times. I imagine many of you may have seen it, too. If not, then feel free to take a quick peek, although if you're a recent college grad, you likely know more about the subject than the author (or, honestly, any of the people being interviewed).

My normal reaction to an article like this is to bring it up at dinner with friends. Since I eat dinner here with people who don't speak English, I thought that might be a little tough. Hence the rant below.

Almost from day one at Princeton, people joked about it: “So, are you going to sell your soul and work on Wall Street when you graduate?” It was something you knew a lot of people did, but you thought you were superior to them, and that you would never succumb to that machine. You were unique. You wanted to do something beautiful and earth-shattering when you graduated. You somehow also didn't want to work more than forty hours per week. And you certainly weren't tempted by that “Lure of a Big Paycheck.”

Then senior fall came around, and you were terrified. Terrified that you didn't know what the next step was; terrified that there were no beautiful, earth-shattering things to do upon graduation; terrified that you might be forced to wait tables forever because you were better than only two quintiles of Princetonians (gasp!).

So what do you do next? You ask for advice from the people who are paid to give it to you: Career Services. You trust Career Services for an informed, balanced opinion. You trust them even though they failed to lure a single major corporation in the automotive, aerospace, or power generation industries to the Science & Technology Job Fair. You trust them even though, nine months later, their Senior Exit Survey will fail to include a check box for a post-graduate service/teaching/international fellowship, an option which, between PiA, PiAf, PiLa, P'55, TFA, Fulbright, Rhodes, etc., about ten percent of the graduating class will choose (I think... who will ever know?). You trust them even though they have less of clue than you do about why graduation is terrifying or about what will make you happy. You trust them, even though you recognize the irony of accepting career advice from people who hold dead-end jobs giving career advice at a university.

And what do they do? They point you to the people who do know what you want, and who know how to give it to you. This is the unstoppable “recruiting juggernaut,” which in most cases is five parts life advice and one part “come work for me.” I didn't go to many corporate info sessions, but I distinctly remember leaving Bain's being much less terrified of graduating and much more excited about what I was capable of; I felt good about the Company, but I felt really good about myself, which is something that Career Services just couldn't pull off.

A recent graduate from a small, community-based college in New England remarked in the article: “We came to Harvard as freshmen to change the world, and we’re leaving to become investment bankers — why is this?”

Because, doofus, as a freshman you are convinced that school will teach you everything, and as a senior you realize that you still know nothing. How the hell am I – that's me! – supposed to change the world? Once you realize that you're not one of three people of your generation to have a truly revolutionary idea, once you realize that there's no fast-track to world salvation, and once you face the reality that you actually have to do something after graduation, you realize that you just don't know where to begin.

But corporate (and frankly, fellowship) recruiters do! They tell you that they will surround you with brilliant people who will stimulate you intellectually, something that is rare outside of Fitzrandolph Gate. They promise to challenge you and to help you to grow. They tell you that they will give you the tools that you need to understand companies, people, and systems, to run businesses and not-for-profits, and most of all, they show you a place where you can make a difference. They convince you, once again, that you can save the world – you just need to do a 2-3 year stint in serious business (or an alien environment) first. Maybe it's all bullshit, but maybe it's not! It's exactly what you want to hear, and well shit, what else are you going to do?

Most intelligent people wouldn't endure 120-hour weeks on Wall St. if an $80k bonus wasn't laid out ahead of them, and I am sure that a few with a "poverty of ambition" pick finance or consulting only because it is lucrative. But that's not really the point. I don't think anyone who is fortunate enough to graduate from college (especially from places like Princeton and that other school up north) is really scared that they're not going to be able to make enough money to lead a good life and be happy. But I think a lot of people are petrified by the thought of leading a meaningless, meandering, misguided, myopic, and mundane life. We all want to have a great purpose, and I think that very few believe that that purpose is money. The best corporations and fellowships lead you to believe that they will help you find that purpose and achieve whatever ends you choose. I just hope they're right, since nobody else is compelling me to believe anything.

Thai Tiao

Yesterday was beautiful. After taking a bus into the city on Saturday to kick it with my fellow PiAers, I decided to go with the flow on Sunday and see what my new Thai family had in store for me.

We went to the market in Doi Saket. Ma Noi sells produce there, usually between 2 and 6am, but apparently her weekend hours are different. Or maybe she sells cooked food during the week, and fresh veggies on the weekends... the jury is still out on that one. Anyway, I wandered around, got pampered by Ma Noi (there was a never-ending supply of sweet things for my enjoyment. Deep-friend bananas come highly recommended) and stared at by everybody else. When things got slow we watched Thai Kickboxing on TV.

Then I slept. Sleeping is how people without air conditioning make it through the hottest parts of the day.

I awoke to much excitement. We were going on a tiao, which translates roughly to “field trip.” And by “we,” I mean 8 or 9 of my favorite Thai family members. Where, you ask? According to my handy Thai-English dictionary, to “a retaining wall.” You can imagine my excitement at the prospect of staring at a large concrete slab; I am sure it must be the pinnacle of modern Thai engineering.

If there is one thing that watching subtitled TV on Saturday should have taught me, it is that there are no good Thai-English dictionaries. After 8 of us piled into the back of the family truck, we were taken to the Mae Kuang Dam, behind which is a beautiful lake that is part Norwegian Fjord and part Hawaiian Island (some pictures posted below, the rest are available in my Picasa album: Mae Kuang Tio)

There is a restaurant/bar on the side of the valley that serves delicious fresh seafood and ice-cold whiskey sodas, which are two things that Paw Teet can't live without. See how happy he is?

After heavy appetizers and more than a few drinks (for Paw Teet, anyway) in front of a breathtaking sunset (yay pollution!), we piled back in the truck, and headed into Doi Saket for some real Pad Thai. Apparently the best Pad Thai in town is sold in front of the 7-Eleven. Scores of teenage boys on motorbikes and one monk wearing an all-white robe seemed to agree.

We returned home, sat on the front porch, and had another drink, and then it's off to bed. Monday means resuming life as normal(?!?) and reporting to Thai class at 8:30am.

And then We Ate Ice Cream

I got home today and had my first amazing, home-cooked, Thai meal. It was the first time I wasn't afraid of anything on the table, and everything was so delicious I actually couldn't decide what I wanted to eat. Except for the pork rinds. I could have passed on those. I think the trick was to ask Ma Noi to cook “phet nit noi” (a little spicy) instead of “mai phet” - I think mai phet Thai dishes are all thin, salty, fish-sauce-related soups with mystery meat floating in them. Thank God those days are over with.

During dinner, I asked about the party we drove past on the way home. They were confused. “Party,” I explained. “Flashing lights. Music.” Still confusion and “mai khao jai.” Miming dancing doesn't help. “Is there a wedding?” I ask, pointing to my ring finger. We understood wedding, but still, confusion about the party tonight. About five minutes later, one of the younger cousins had a revelation. “Oh,” she said, “one of Ma Noi's neighbors died.”

Oh.

I put on my black shirt, and Ma and Paw put on their Sunday finest, and we take a quick motorbike ride over to the “party.” We park and walk under a tent with hundreds of people milling about and talking. There is musical chanting coming in over the loudspeaker. In the middle of the tent, there is an enormous temple-like centerpiece constructed from restaurant chairs, a table, layers and layers of flowers, and about 600 flashing, colored Christmas lights. And a coffin. A bright gold, intricately detailed, impossibly small coffin barely poking through the center of the decorations.

We sit, and while Ma and Paw talked to friends around us, I am mesmerized by the flashing Christmas lights. The whole centerpiece is a little makeshift, but overall it is really nice and pretty classy, except for those damn lights, which just don't make any sense. Those were the lights I saw from the road – it looked like somebody hired a budget DJ for a backyard Bar Mitzvah. And for some reason, the big surge protector is right there, front and center, about six inches below the coffin. The lights keep flickering in different patterns, and the little red switch on the surge protector flickers along with them, lighting the adjacent plugs with a soft red glow. I'm trying to be open-minded, but I can't be the only one who is bothered by the surge protector, let alone the lights. She was 82 years old – I wonder what she thought.

The crowd goes silent and folds their hands in front of their hearts to wai as monks from the local wat began their chant, which is broadcast to those of us in the cheap seats over the PA. The whole crowd is solemn and still, but the lights just dance on, inappropriately unaware of exactly what they have gotten themselves involved in.

The monks finish up, and it seems like it might be time to go home. I turn to Ma Noi, and she just says “Ice Cream!” which takes me a second to process, because I think she must be speaking in Thai. “Ak-skreem? Is-cruum?” I think. I turn around to follow her gesture, and sure enough, headed our way is a short, plump Thai woman carrying a tray of ice cream cups and tiny spoons. I take one. It is mango-flavored and delicious.

Maybe we could learn a thing or two from Thai funerals, after all.

Welcome

Hey Everybody,
Thanks for taking a minute to check up on me as I embark on my new Thai life with my new Thai job and my new Thai friends. I'm going to try to post regularly to keep all of my old friends from my old American life updated on what and how I'm doing, and I'd really appreciate any comments or emails from all of you - I'm sure you're all off doing incredible things, as well.

I'm going to try to make the posts pretty short and image-heavy because I don't actually think that any of you want to read 10 pages about every person I meet here. The goal is to keep you all in tune with the incredible, beautiful, and insane things that I encounter over the next year so that when I see you next we'll be able to reconnect like I never left.

I love and miss you all. Please call, write, and check back soon.
-T