Thai Food II

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to once again take you on the culinary adventure that is Thai food. Today: weird fruit and northern Thai dishes.

To begin with, check out this weirdness:

Your eyes do not deceive you, this is a real fruit, even though it looks like something out of a Dr. suess book. It's actually pretty tasty.  Here's the inside.

Next up, we have some northern Thai dishes from an alumni event at the nursing dorm. The first one is made from "raw" or unripe jackfruit while the second is made from "raw" mango. These are similar to the more popular (not pictured) papaya salad made from, you guessed it, unripe papaya. I didn't care for the jackfruit one much. The mango one was okay. Papaya salad isn't bad, but too spicy for me. 

And here we have "khanom jeen," or as I like to call it "why exactly do people think Thai food is so great?" 

Khanom jeen is made of noodles that have, to my taste, a seriously unpleasant slimy texture and zero actual flavor. But that's okay because they add an extremely spicy broth mixed with blood to make up for the blandness. And if that wasn't appetizing enough, the dark chunks you see are bits of fried blood. MmmmMmm! I think I'll order seconds. Now that I'm a little more prepared for the weirdness of Thai food, I was actually brave enough to eat one of the blood pieces. If you can get over the texture and the knowledge that it's blood you're eating, it's actually pretty awful. The drink on the left is made from some sort of plant that grows on a bush. It's kind of sour. The green things you see are actually a sort of sweet snack wrapped in banana leaves. Imagine a cross between jello and pudding with a sort of unidentifiable purple center... 

The meal ended with a Thai dessert I'd never tried before. The photo is of the assembly process with the finished product in the bowls on the bottom left. It's kind of like a sno-cone with a mystery-flavor pink syrup. And beans and corn mixed in, because obviously those are logical dessert foods. My tastebuds were seriously confused. Plus it melted after about five seconds so that it basically resembled a bowl of pepto-bismol.

I will end this post with a less confusing but equally strange dessert. Presenting "D-milk."

D-milk is, I guess, a sort of chain. Like Dairy Queen or something. They specialize in milkshakes that have very elaborate toppings. The kicker is that the actual shake tastes like the leftover milk from a cereal bowl. And I'm not talking your boring Fiber One adult cereal. I'm talking Lucky Charms. You can choose up to four toppings to go with your leftover cereal milk, like sprinkles or cornflakes. It is definitely strange but not bad. It mostly makes me want to go watch saturday morning cartoons. 

p.s. I was watching "Foyle's War" on YouTube the other day (excellent show! I highly recommend!) and in the episode one the characters was eating a sandwich. It looked soooo good. Add that to the list of foods I'm going to eat when I come home. And steak. And macaroni and cheese. Maybe all at once. You see, living abroad makes you appreciate the little things. 

Actual Easter Post

Now that I'm done geeking out over Bach's unlikely marriage with the Punch Brothers, here's some actual life news.

I am very excited to announce that the theology student I was tutoring last semester is now my coworker! Jew has become the chaplain of the nursing dorm and lives just two floors down. I can't even begin to tell you how much easier this will make my life. For one thing, Jew is Thai and can translate things for me, as well as help me to avoid unintentionally breaking the rules or making slip ups in this working culture. I suspect she will even be able to function as a line of communication between me and the staff of the nursing dorm. Because Thais avoid confrontation, the only way I've found out if I've been doing something wrong has been through third parties. What's more, Jew will provide a great link between me and the nursing students since we'll be working together on a lot of student activities. Plus she's just a spiffing person, so you can see why I'm very pleased to be working alongside her.

I had heard rumors that Jew might become the chaplain at the nursing dorm, but I didn't realize this meant she would be living there. To be honest, I'd kind of forgotten about it what with trying to figure out my own job. so I was very surprised to see her on the premises on Friday. I immediately congratulated her and invited her to join me for the Good Friday Tenebrae service at the chapel. If you haven't been to a Tenebrae service, it's a very reflective and moving way to spend Good Friday. It was a good evening of fellowship, and doubly so as I was able to celebrate Jew's recent employment with her over dinner.

On saturday, Mai had planned another excursion to the "sticky waterfall" because she has a friend from home visiting. I didn't have other plans, so I decided to come along. The group was a rather random mix of people, some from Thai class and some I'd never met before. But we had a good time although I got a little sunburnt and somewhat sore. I must be getting out of shape... This time we stopped at a cave that's been turned into a sort of temple. It was pretty neat. There was a giant statue of Buddha inside and some other ornaments. It made me wish we could have church in caves.

I decided to call it a night early as Jew had invited me to come to Payap Church's sunrise service on sunday. since I haven't had any morning commitments in a while, I haven't really been getting up before 9:00 a.m., so I wasn't sure if I could pull it off. But somehow I managed to drag myself out of bed four hours earlier than usual and make myself look somewhat presentable. It was good to do something special for Easter, even if it was an overwhelming amount of Thai for 6:00 a.m. Luckily they have a translation service, and I had a personal translator besides. Afterwards there was a potluck of sorts, and I was dreading the prospect of Thai food so early in the morning, but I needn't have worried. Along with the boiled rice there were eggs, sausage and donut along with the usual offering of nescafe. The breakfast of champions! Afterwards I'll confess I went back to bed for a few hours before attending my usual church's Easter service. '

That evening I'd promised Jew I would attend and help with an Easter presentation she'd put together. It was mostly with members of Christian Endeavor, but some of the students were Buddhists who were simply curious about this foreign holiday. Jew had asked me to share my understanding of Easter briefly for them, say in five minutes or so as she didn't want the event to go over half an hour. Trying to explain the meaning of Easter to people who maybe aren't familiar with it in a way that is easy to understand and/or translate in under five minutes is a bit of a challenge. Plus I had an M. Div student sitting next to me. I didn't really get through everything I had planned, but Jew seemed to appreciate my effort and it was neat to share my faith in a low-pressure setting with people who were genuinely interested. I'm looking forward to doing more with the Christian Endeavor group and am glad that I'll have Jew to help direct me.

Today I finally got myself back in a practice room after an inexcusable hiatus. I've actually made out a written practice chart that I've posted on my door in order to keep myself accountable. I was looking forward to my English class in the afternoon, but it's exam week so nobody showed up. such is the life of a volunteer English teacher in Thailand.

A bit on teaching, since I haven't posted much about it. Teaching English here is a unique challenge because of the culture. Because of the concept of saving face and also because of the traditional mode of instruction, Thai students are very reluctant to ask questions or tell you if they don't understand something. I can very carefully explain an activity in English and then ask "do you understand?" and be met with a room full of nods and smiles. But as one of the books Esther assigned us to read points out, this often means little more than "I acknowledge that you have said something to me." To admit you don't understand is to lose face, or to make your instructor lose face. It is the same with asking questions. I cannot rely on the expectation that my students will ask questions when they don't understand something. To do so would be disrespectful and make me as a teacher lose face. It is an interesting challenge considering I cannot communicate with them in their first language.

This evening I accompanied Jew to dinner and, knowing how important inclusiveness is in Thai culture, I invited her to come and watch tv in my room since hers doesn't have one. I never watch tv here for the simple reason that I can't understand anything, but Jew was a good sport and explained to me what was going on. We watched a Japanese game show involving people dressed up in costumes that looked like pokemon. They had to compete in different contests, including racing toward a giant fan, performing a vault, sumo wrestling and my personal favorite, keeping a balloon attached to them intact while being attacked by an army of children. Gotta love Japanese entertainment.

And so life continues to be an interesting mix of new experiences, or non-experiences as with the case of my all-too-frequently cancelled classes. Pohb gan mai ka.

Bach Meets Bluegrass - Happy Easter!

I absolutely agonized over what to post this weekend for Easter. I just couldn't decide. At first I thought I'd do the finale of the st. john passion, or maybe the st. matthew passion, or even part of the B Minor Mass. But none of those pieces really seemed right. Then I thought about Mahler's "Resurrection symphony," but no. Perhaps I wasn't being creative enough. Maybe a gospel arrangement of the Hallelujah Chorus? Nah. I even thought about posting Rimsky-Korsakov's "Russian Easter Overture," if only to commemorate when Dr. strauch nearly got hit on the head by a falling light fixture in Music History. But I realized that what I really wanted to post was my favorite of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. To me this piece is Pure Joy, which I figured was appropriate enough for Easter. And that is when I stumbled across this, and I knew it was meant to be. Let's just say, I know my audience. :-) Happy Easter!

Good Friday

Ben Brody introduced us to this piece in Music History I and I don't think I've found any other piece that captures the crucifixion quite so well. The Latin translates simply to "For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. "

Classical Music PSA

This is a bit premature but it's Palm sunday and I've got more Easter music than I know what to do with. I just have to share the opening of Bach's "Johannespassion" or auf English "st. John passion." I personally just cannot get over the fact that a group of people can just get together and, with the help of some bits of wood and string and things, make something like this! It just blows my mind.

Herr, unser Herrscher, dessen Ruhm
Lord, our ruler, whose glory
In allen Landen herrlich ist!
is magnificent everywhere!
Zeig uns durch deine Passion,
Show us through your passion,
Dass du, der wahre Gottessohn,
that you , the true son of God,
Zu aller Zeit,
at all times
Auch in der größten Niedrigkeit,
even in the most lowly state,
Verherrlicht worden bist!
are glorified.

songkran

This week is the traditional Thai new year, known as songkran. songkran is a pretty big deal. It's basically a week-long water fight, kind of a way to keep cool during the summer. The nursing dorm is closed all week, so I've moved in to Esther and Rob's place. They're still on tour in the states, but there are plenty of other people around.

Even though songkran officially started on Wednesday, the city began preliminary festivities around Monday. When crossing the Ping River, I was showered by some sprinklers that I can only assume the city installed for the week. In the preceding weeks, stores were selling all manner of water guns. You could not go shopping anywhere without encountering a display of super soakers. My favorite model thus far was a Hello Kitty themed weapon, complete with Hello Kitty backpack for the storage of extra water. There are many of these backpack guns, generally featuring cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse or Winnie the Pooh.  

Tuesday was my first legitimate experience of songkran. I was on my way to get some dinner when I spotted one of the nursing students in a group lurking outside of 7'eleven. They saw me approaching and the student called out "teacher!" excitedly. I had no intention of eating my dinner in soggy clothes, so I skillfully maneuvered around them. I felt a bit bad depriving them of their fun, so on my way back from the restaurant I let them get me. They were actually very polite about it. My student poured a bucket of water over me while saying "sorry! sorry!" and kindly avoided getting my hair or purse wet. My other encounters around Esther and Rob's neighborhood have been similarly tame. 

On Wednesday, I had been planning to go and check out the festivities around the old city, but I awoke to rain and cold temperatures. It had been gradually getting hotter and hotter and the last couple of days had been stifling, but somehow we had another freak rainy day. This is very unusual for this time of year I am told. I have really lucked out on the weather. Last year was one of the hottest summers in living memory in Chiang Mai. Anyhow, a water fight in the rain didn't sound like tons of fun, and I knew that I would have plenty more opportunities to witness the festival. All I usually want to do on rainy days is grab a cup of tea and read a good book, so that's exactly what I did. Maybe it was a bit lame, but I enjoyed my day and I'm apologizing to no one. But today the weather was perfect and I managed to make it down to the moat area and witness the craziness that is songkran. I carefully selected a set of clothes that I didn't mind getting wet in nasty moat water and then joined Vicky and Mai in walking down to the base of operations: sarah's boyfriend's apartment.

The closer we got to the moat, the crazier things got. Not only were there people at random spots on the side of the road, waiting to douse passersby, but there were several pickups driving around with huge jars of water in the back, from which people would make sort of mobile attacks on pedestrians. By the time we made it to our destination, we were already soaked. since Kevin lives right across from the moat, our "base" was right in the thick of it. It ended up being just the three of us for the day, although we ran into a few others. For a while we stationed ourselves in the driveway, where one of the other tenets was maintaining a full barrel of water. We all bought plastic buckets and began to throw water at people from said barrel. People were driving by on motorcycles or in the back of pickup trucks at a snails pace. As far as I can figure out, what most people do for songkran is slowly drive around the moat several times while throwing water at each other and drinking beer. Things were actually a lot tamer than I had expected. I'd been told to go in a group because the drinking can get out of hand, while there were plenty of high spirits (and spirits of other kinds) I never felt like it was out of control. That's not to say it's completely safe. I guess there are plenty of drunk driving accidents during this week. 

After holding down the fort for a while, we decided to walk around a bit. We were attacked mercilessly by other people stationed around the moat. I tried not to think about what was in that of water. As long as you don't think about how unhygienic it is, it really is a lot of fun. It's like the mother of all water fights. In fact, Bangkok broke the Guinness World Record for the largest "water pistol fight." 


Unfortunately I didn't want to risk my camera, so I don't have any photos of songkran in Chiang Mai. You'll just have to imagine rows of people lined up on both sides of a moat, all throwing water at each other using buckets or water guns or whatever. some people even had supplies of ice, which made for some freezing cold showers. People were blaring music out of loudspeakers and there were some live bands along the way. Mai and Vicky stopped at one of these and joined the people moshing in front of the stage. since this type of dancing isn't really my thing and by now I was feeling quite tired, I decided to head off on my own. I walked around a bit more, wanting to get a good feel for the festival. I poked my head in a temple along the way, where there were opportunities to make merit. I'm not sure exactly what was going on. Perhaps some day I will be brave enough to actually initiate a conversation with one of the monks. For now I can only guess and occasionally ask a Thai acquaintance about it. 

I cut my way back across the city and returned home, extremely tired and footsore. On Friday I went out again in the late afternoon, but only briefly. I felt I'd experienced the holiday sufficiently. It was pretty fun, but very tiring. Loy Kratong is still my favorite Thai holiday, but it was nice to have an excuse to walk around the city and cool off a bit. My favorite was encountering little kids waiting  outside their family's small business with their parents. There's something about getting attacked by little kids with super soakers that just makes life better. 


As usual, I can't seem to really describe it adequately, but I think you get the idea. Bangkok Post has some good pictures up if you feel curious. http://www.bangkokpost.com/multimedia/photo/231834/water-fun-begins. 

Jazz PSA

somehow I've gotten stuck on listening to a lot of Maroon 5 lately. I'm not a huge fan of all of their music. Adam Levine's soulful singing can be a little grating at times. But some of their songs just grab you, you know? I was trying to figure out what it was about them that sets them apart from the general blahness of most pop artists and I realized it was the blues influence. You can hear it in their most popular songs. The lead singer uses blues inflection all the time and "sunday morning" is built on a ii-V-I progression.

My point is that the blues has given a lot to American music (huge understatement), so I thought I'd feature a blues master this week: Gene Harris. And since it's summertime here (and super hot again), I found a clip of him playing summertime. Unfortunately, it gets a little out of sync, but I don't know what is hotter, the weather or his playing.

Ode to a Cockroach

I thought I would overcome it with time, but it seems that I have a deeply held irrational fear of cockroaches. The sight of a single cockroach alarms me more than a swarm of bees or a giant spider. I tell myself that they can't hurt me and that I'm being silly, but it's no good. No amount of rationalizing will make me brave enough to approach the critters. They are gross and disgusting and yucky.

Which brings me to yesterday, when both of my English classes were cancelled due to the fact that today is a public holiday. I found myself with a lot of extra time and not much to do. In the course of my boredom, I ran across this gem, a collection of haiku about cats. Yeah, don't ask. Anyhow, I was inspired to write a series of haiku about my experiences with cockroaches in Thailand. I'd never written a haiku before, but I solved that problem by reading a wikihow article. Okay, so they're not legit haiku. The point is, it kept me busy.

My sworn enemy

is brown with icky long legs,

it scuttles around.

Cockroach on the floor.

Me on my desk, throwing things --

limited success.

I will kill it dead

with my shoe on the broomstick.

Crap, where did it go!

Behind the toilet

it waits for me to sit down --

I put on shoes first. 

It goes down the drain.

I put a bowl over top --

the bathroom is wet.

And I even wrote one in spanglish:

La cucaracha

ya no puede caminar

porque yo smasho.