Who woulda thought that "winter" in Thailand would actually mean feeling cold part of the day for a few weeks? After the first few months here I certainly never thought I would ever be cold in this country. I have been proven wrong.
Each night I clothe myself in a pair of long, comfy pants, socks, a t-shirt, and sweater not before heading outside, but before heading to bed. I curl up in my bed under my two light blankets and prepare myself for the night. My room is not insulated, has 14 ft ceilings, tile floors, and no heater. At night time the temp. may reach 49 or 50 degrees, sometimes lower. It may be a degree or two warmer inside, but not too much more.
Now you may be saying to yourself, "That's not that cold. Why is she complaining?" It's true. In most areas of Northeastern America these temps. aren't that cold. A huge thing to remember though is that at that temp. everyone would have some sort of heater running and everyone lives in houses that have insulation and sealed windows and doors.
I've made a list of the pros and cons of living here during the winter:
The good parts:
• I don’t have to use my air-conditioning (less money to pay at the end of the month)
• I’m not sweating all of the time (This makes me look a lot better not just because I’m not gross looking all of the time, but because Thai people don’t sweat. When I do, I look abnormal)
• It’s comfortable to be outside during the middle of the day
The bad parts:
• All building are designed to facilitate air flow and keep the rooms as cool as possible (When its 50 degrees outside, while its not freezing, it’s chilly enough that you don’t always want the room you’re in to be the same temperature as outside. For example, my office windows do not close. When it is windy outside, it’s windy in my office)
• Not a single building that I have been in has heat. (Imagine that your bathroom door opens to the outside and does not have a heating unit AND you have to take showers in a room that’s around 50 degrees. It can be pretty chilly)
• Most people here have a motorbike for their form of motorized transportation. I do too. (When it’s 45-50 degrees at night time and you have to drive somewhere that is 20-25 minutes away, you’re pretty damn cold by the time you get there. You have nothing protecting you for the rush of air as you drive and once you arrive you have no where to warm up)
• Most activities are done in open air rooms or outside at all times of day and night. (Eating dinner at an open air restaurant at night requires on to be bundled up an cold through most of dinner)
Now even as I'm finishing this post up, wintering is beginning to end already. It had a short run of a few weeks. I knew it was over today when I started sweating when I simply stood out in the sun. Here comes the hot weather :/
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Monday, December 15, 2008
While my landlord's son used my shower....(Part II)
I awoke on Sunday with the same hopes of having a productive day that I had, had the day before. I went for a run then I set to work on my papers and made a fairly significant dent before lunch time came around. I went out to the cafeteria on the corner of my soi (tiny strett) and got some kao pad gai (literally "rice fried chicken") to go.
I had just started eating when there was a familiar knock on the door. I opened it to find Tom and Oom, her older son at the door with a tray of food. They had come to join me while I ate my lunch. We spread out some newspapers on the floor and Tom proceeded to tell me about the food she had brought up. While she repeated the names of the food a couple of times, sometimes Thai words just slip in one ear and out the other. I do know how to describe them in English though. One item was a flat, crunchy rice cake. She told me in her fabulous part English, part Thai, part miming way that she usually talks to me that it was sticky rice with sugar mashed up then spread out and cooked until crispy. The rice cakes were delicious. There was also a stew almost of ground pork, morning glory (a green, crunchy veggie), chilies, and some fabulous spices. She had bought some som tum and explained the differences between the kind we had made on Saturday and the kind she had just bought. She had some fried rice for herself and she brought up some fried eggs for us to share. We ate well.
After lunch she asked me, as the three of us found comfortable positions on my bed, if I wanted to learn how to cook Thai food. This was my moment. I have been trying to find the right time to be able to ask for some cooking lessons. I guess I some how did a good job of conveying this desire because she asked me instead of me having to ask her. I was so happy to know that more cooking lessons would be coming.
Fat and happy Oom began to play with my computer and Tom laid down with my pillow to take a nap. I popped in my new copy of Mulan and Oom and I watched it together in Thai as I slowly continued grading. We sat like that for nearly two hours until Tom got up to go find Oi.
They returned as the movie was ending, towels and fresh clothes in hand. I knew what they were planning, but I still have yet to figure out why. Occasionally my landlord or her sons will shower in my bathroom. I don't really know why, but it certainly makes me wonder. I have no problem with it whatsoever, but it is a little curious. The boys took their turns showering and made sure to take full advantage of the spray hose attached to my toilet. They love that hose. They like spraying it all around my bathroom, filling up the my bucket and my toilet. What little boy wouldn't love this? What fun...until they spray my new roll of toilet paper until its thoroughly drenched. Ah I guess there had to be some down side.
As the showers were ending, I had to rush off to meet a friend. I felt perfectly comfortable leaving the three of them in my personal apartment to finish up their showers and leave when they wanted. I've found true comfort with my little Thai family that lives across the driveway. They make my home away from home complete.
I had just started eating when there was a familiar knock on the door. I opened it to find Tom and Oom, her older son at the door with a tray of food. They had come to join me while I ate my lunch. We spread out some newspapers on the floor and Tom proceeded to tell me about the food she had brought up. While she repeated the names of the food a couple of times, sometimes Thai words just slip in one ear and out the other. I do know how to describe them in English though. One item was a flat, crunchy rice cake. She told me in her fabulous part English, part Thai, part miming way that she usually talks to me that it was sticky rice with sugar mashed up then spread out and cooked until crispy. The rice cakes were delicious. There was also a stew almost of ground pork, morning glory (a green, crunchy veggie), chilies, and some fabulous spices. She had bought some som tum and explained the differences between the kind we had made on Saturday and the kind she had just bought. She had some fried rice for herself and she brought up some fried eggs for us to share. We ate well.
After lunch she asked me, as the three of us found comfortable positions on my bed, if I wanted to learn how to cook Thai food. This was my moment. I have been trying to find the right time to be able to ask for some cooking lessons. I guess I some how did a good job of conveying this desire because she asked me instead of me having to ask her. I was so happy to know that more cooking lessons would be coming.
Fat and happy Oom began to play with my computer and Tom laid down with my pillow to take a nap. I popped in my new copy of Mulan and Oom and I watched it together in Thai as I slowly continued grading. We sat like that for nearly two hours until Tom got up to go find Oi.
They returned as the movie was ending, towels and fresh clothes in hand. I knew what they were planning, but I still have yet to figure out why. Occasionally my landlord or her sons will shower in my bathroom. I don't really know why, but it certainly makes me wonder. I have no problem with it whatsoever, but it is a little curious. The boys took their turns showering and made sure to take full advantage of the spray hose attached to my toilet. They love that hose. They like spraying it all around my bathroom, filling up the my bucket and my toilet. What little boy wouldn't love this? What fun...until they spray my new roll of toilet paper until its thoroughly drenched. Ah I guess there had to be some down side.
As the showers were ending, I had to rush off to meet a friend. I felt perfectly comfortable leaving the three of them in my personal apartment to finish up their showers and leave when they wanted. I've found true comfort with my little Thai family that lives across the driveway. They make my home away from home complete.
While my landlord's son used my shower....
I came to realize my true reason for wanting to leave my perfectly comfortable existence in the states, my loving fiance, my supportive family and friends, my cats and every part of my life as I knew before June 29, 2008. I came here to be able to start a new, yet oddly temporary life. To make new friends and even a makeshift family. To create a new community different from any other I had experienced before. I came to explore myself in a place drastically (or is it really?) different from any existence I had known before.
While my previous rantings are over course overly idealistic and simplified, I did reach a point this past weekend that in some ways makes my journey here and any tribulation I've faced thus far worthwhile.
Saturday morning I had planned my day to be exceedingly productive. I was going to grade, grade, grade; write in my blog; respond to emails sent long ago; and many other very important tasks. All of my desire for productivity vanished when my landlord (I can't even think of an adjective that perfectly describes the wonder that she is) knocked on my door and came in just to chat. She wanted to know where I was going over break, to see where I lived on a map, to find out what state in the US was the most similar to Thailand, and a few other things to satisfy her ever present interest about me, English, and other parts of the world we share.
We spoke together about many things while both of us speaking in our own broken Thaiglish. She made herself comfortable on my bed and slowly flipped through my Thai/English dictionary in search of new words. We found a type of comfort with each other than made me feel right at home with her, like she was family.
Tom left a short while later, but returned soon after telling me to go buy "gai bing" grilled chicken from the stand down the street. She was going to teach me how to make som tum (Thai spicy green papaya salad) and we would eat together with her kids (her babies, as she calls them).
When I returned with the chicken, she took me into her covered outdoor kitchen and told me to sit on the floor. She has out her big, earthen mortal and pestle, small tomatoes, limes, long beans, chilies, and a big bowl of shredded green papaya. She instructed me to cut up the tomatoes and proceeded to show me how to perfectly pound together the aforementioned ingredients with some sugar, salt, fish sauce, and to my surprise her own home brewed fermented fish sauce.
We gathered up our feast of chicken, som tum, sticky rice, omelet, and some sort of vegetable that came from a vine to dull spicy things and sat down on a wooden mat outside of her house. We feasted with her too sons in the shade. Tom and all of the her many neighbors who game to visit were quite impressed at my ability to handle spicy things. (I guess I can thank my father for the ability to stomach spicy things).
After lunch, Tom's sons Oom and Oi came to play in my room and spent another 30 or 40 minutes giggling in my room as I attempted to finish my work. While I can barely communicate with the two of them, I guess there are certain things that are universal with kids. We thrive on those connections and I'm so glad to have them around me.
Saturday ended with a few more random visits from the boys and Tom. I felt like I was just up in my bedroom in a house that I shared with them. While sometimes the lack of personal space in annoying, on Saturday it was a wonderful gift.
(the moral of the story to be continued later)
While my previous rantings are over course overly idealistic and simplified, I did reach a point this past weekend that in some ways makes my journey here and any tribulation I've faced thus far worthwhile.
Saturday morning I had planned my day to be exceedingly productive. I was going to grade, grade, grade; write in my blog; respond to emails sent long ago; and many other very important tasks. All of my desire for productivity vanished when my landlord (I can't even think of an adjective that perfectly describes the wonder that she is) knocked on my door and came in just to chat. She wanted to know where I was going over break, to see where I lived on a map, to find out what state in the US was the most similar to Thailand, and a few other things to satisfy her ever present interest about me, English, and other parts of the world we share.
We spoke together about many things while both of us speaking in our own broken Thaiglish. She made herself comfortable on my bed and slowly flipped through my Thai/English dictionary in search of new words. We found a type of comfort with each other than made me feel right at home with her, like she was family.
Tom left a short while later, but returned soon after telling me to go buy "gai bing" grilled chicken from the stand down the street. She was going to teach me how to make som tum (Thai spicy green papaya salad) and we would eat together with her kids (her babies, as she calls them).
When I returned with the chicken, she took me into her covered outdoor kitchen and told me to sit on the floor. She has out her big, earthen mortal and pestle, small tomatoes, limes, long beans, chilies, and a big bowl of shredded green papaya. She instructed me to cut up the tomatoes and proceeded to show me how to perfectly pound together the aforementioned ingredients with some sugar, salt, fish sauce, and to my surprise her own home brewed fermented fish sauce.
We gathered up our feast of chicken, som tum, sticky rice, omelet, and some sort of vegetable that came from a vine to dull spicy things and sat down on a wooden mat outside of her house. We feasted with her too sons in the shade. Tom and all of the her many neighbors who game to visit were quite impressed at my ability to handle spicy things. (I guess I can thank my father for the ability to stomach spicy things).
After lunch, Tom's sons Oom and Oi came to play in my room and spent another 30 or 40 minutes giggling in my room as I attempted to finish my work. While I can barely communicate with the two of them, I guess there are certain things that are universal with kids. We thrive on those connections and I'm so glad to have them around me.
Saturday ended with a few more random visits from the boys and Tom. I felt like I was just up in my bedroom in a house that I shared with them. While sometimes the lack of personal space in annoying, on Saturday it was a wonderful gift.
(the moral of the story to be continued later)
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