The House, The Jacuzzi, A Real-life Update

My motorbike is still great, by the way.

And my second more-than-a-week vacation this month went splendidly.

A few people have asked me about the actual circumstances of the rental house, so maybe clarification time has come. The Chinese teachers and the American teachers together rented a house. There are two rooms on the second floor (the main floor) which include the living room and the bedroom, although the bedroom is only put to use as a drunken pass-out locale (and to this day unused by the Chinese and Americans, at least. Thais are lightweights). The downstairs is just a bathroom equipped with a fully functional squat toilet. We all still live in the school, but we now also have a hangout pad. The cost: 71 Baht/person, or $2.20/person for the month. It is frequented three or four times a week.

The British teacher at the school, Brian, recently built a pond. He dug the hole and cemented the walls. I helped him fill it up to calculate the size of the pond--8000 L--and we decided we needed to have a pool party instead. The mental gears turned, a few in the right direction, and we have begun to dig a second hole in his yard for a jacuzzi. Since half of all school days are cancelled in Thailand, we have many daytime opportunities to bust open the ground. As of now, the seats are shaped and the jets are almost in place. The next steps are to create a fire heating system and to cement it into the ground. It should be fun to have a party jacuzzi as well.

I only have a month left at the school, and I have begun to think about my after school travels. The tentative plan: Thailand for two weeks with my father, India for three or so weeks and the south of China for a week and a half or so. After I return home, I hope to have a really cool job (national park or something neat like that), apply to medical schools--possibly in Europe, and then take off again for somewhere also neat. Who knows what will actually happen? Not this guy.

On a final side-note, I would like to point out that I have not suffered from any form of food poisoning so far in my travels. But knock on some proverbial wood.

(Pictures are from Koh Samet and Koh Chang)

Moody Blog DSNT = Moody Travels

I have been informed that my blog comes across as negative. It paints my trip in a bad light and leads people to believe my emotional range in Thailand is Debby Downer to Manny Mediocre. But, as disappointing as this might be, I do not cry in my room every night. Seriously. I am full of life! YAY!!!!! Of inspiration!!! YAY!!!!! Of joy and wonder! YAY!!!!!! General elatedness aside, I want to present to you a few reasons for my apparent displeasure on this here interweb.

1. Sometimes, it's boring to read about happy things. "This week I had a great time traveling to Ayuthaya. I spent one night there. It is the old capitol of Thailand. I rode around on a bicycle and soaked my shirt with sweat. I was alone, so I spent most of my time fiddling with my camera and setting up the timer to take shots of myself. Most turned out pretty awkward; there was even one where I fell over because I was rushing into a pose too fast." I wrote it to be boring to stress a point, and therefore my point might be invalid. BUT, the better parts were the bad parts--sweat and falling over. I had a great time in Ayuthaya, though.
   
   
2. Day to day recitation of activities ruins the beauty of my blog. I like to leave out a lot of experiences from my blog. I prefer to present snippets of this adventure, so that when finished, you the reader can use your magnificent brain to piece together the madness. Try to look at the blog as a whole as opposed to individual posts.
3. Cultural differences are most easily presented as, "What?! That's crazy." I pick on the absurdities of Thai lifestyle because the more normal things are not very interesting. And the absurdities are hard to communicate to someone not experiencing them, so I stress the absurdities maybe a little more than I should so you get the picture. The cultural differences are very love-hate. For instance, Thai Time = show up whenever, don't plan ahead. I like it because I can be late for things and no one cares. I hate it because sometimes I wait two hours for a boat to leave and my entire day's travel is requires adjustment.
   
   
4. Sarcasm sometimes isn't clear in writing. This one is hard to explain. Case and Point.
5. I have always been bad at writing about happy things. If you, family and friends, remember some of my writing in the past, I tended to focus on the sad, depressing, absurd, grotesque, mean, and bad. Remember my poems in 9th grade where Joel and I tried to out-depress one another? Remember that time in 12th grade when I got sent to the guidance counselor because the teacher was worried about my life? Remember that time Junior year of college when I wrote a superb paper about a mourning gorilla mother who carried her child around for 28 days post-mortum? My focus in writing hasn't changed too much. The point is this: even though I write these sometimes horrible things, I am, as illustrated often by my behavior, one of the happier and more lively persons around. So no worries. Mai pen rai.
6. Look at my photos. If writing is my artistic medium for the bad, photography is the medium for the happy.

(All photos from Kanchanaburi and Ayuthaya)

It's a Thai Language Lesson

Here are some of the things you hear most often walking around Thailand, and I'll throw in some swearing and condescension for good measure. (The lettering I use is mostly my own as there is no official transliteration... well there is, but no one uses it).

1. sawat dee -- Hello/Goodbye. Always follow with krahp for boys and kaa for girls.
2. aroy my -- Is it delicious? Thais ask this one all the time. It is very important that their food is delicious to foreigners, it seems. And really, the food is pretty good if you don't eat the food I consume every day at the school. I always answer "aroy" -- It is delicious. my aroy -- It is not delicious.
3. suay my -- Am I/Is she beautiful? I cannot tell you how many girls have asked me this about themselves or their friends. The truth is mostly, "No, you are ugly." (Nicki, if you are reading this, yeah. Yeah.) But that's rude and I don't say that, or I didn't used to say that. I do now, but then I laugh like I am joking afterward so it's all good. suay -- you are/she is beautiful. suay maag -- you are/she is very beautiful. my suay -- you are ugly, fool.
4. poot len -- literally, I speak play, or I am just joking. I say this after I tell the students something offensive or belittling, as in after "No, you are ugly."
5. pie nye -- Where are you going? This is a common greeting, almost like how are you but not. Same-same-but-different style. I usually answer with pie + where I am going, but you can just say pie tee-aw -- I go for pleasure, literally, or just chillin'.
6. The River Kwae (pronounced like quack without the -ck) -- a river made famous by WWII and some movie involving a bridge. Every foreigner, however, mistakenly calls it The River kwy -- The River "river buffalo," and since kwy is also slang for stupid, The River stupid. Still, you have to be careful, because there is also a word kway -- swear word for the male genitals. And be even more careful because of kuway -- banana, the actual fruit. You will defintely want to order and kuway ban -- banana shake, because they are delicious. These words sound painfully similar at times, and you will very likely make a mistake and have a giggling Thai person on your hands. That, or an offended one.

That's all for now. I am off to explore central Thailand for the next week. Found out yesterday that I have the whole week off. Oh Thailand and your last minute decisions. So if you are near Ayuthaya, Suphan Buri, Kanchanaburi, Bangkok, or Koh Samet, give me a call and we can hang.

The Stinky Inkpen returns in: The Man with the Inky Octopus

The saga continues this week as The Stinky Inkpen chases down his elusive arch-nemesis, The Man with the Inky Octopus, a.k.a. Randall. Randall is up to no good again with his new weapon, the Inky Octopus, committing crimes and framing our hero. Leaving ink stains at the scenes of the crimes, Randall has led the public to suspect The Stinky Inkpen of foul play. Unrest in Chalk City reaches epic proportions after the robbery at Mayor Graphite's seaside manor. Art worth one million Slates (3.4 million US dollars) went missing at his residence, and the police have no choice but to go after our Stinky. Will our hero stop Randall in time? Or will Randall succeed and put away Stinky forever?

(If your are confused, look at The Stinky Inkpen's first adventure.)

The comic is coming along, although recently there haven't been too many classes due to exams and winter break and sports day and sports day week and the upcoming arrival of the princess at our school (this is actually a huge deal). So far for the comic, the students have worked on the hero, the hero's background story, the villain, the setting, a basic story outline, and they have looked at the setup of a real comic. I have also given them an action verb set of vocabulary words (punch, kick, ooze, freeze) and a "Monster destroying a city" set (roar, scream, claws, teeth, skyscraper, topple). I have yet to decide on the actual specifications of the comic--length, amount of writing, number of pictures, etc.--so any recommendations are appreciated.

For now, I leave you with an entertaining product of student ingenuity, one that resembles closely a friend of mine, Rahul (well, except for the strong bit).

Hero: Fly man

Power: Strong Arm

Background: He lives with the dirty food. He has a power when he lives with the dirty food. His mother is a human but his father is a fly. And has a baby. his baby like to eat dirty food. After he eat he has a power and become a Super fly.
Secret: His secret is he like to shit.
(The drawing is of a giant fly thing pooping.)

All Thai Songs Considered Blow

Thai music is mostly crap. Bold, but I think true. Every background beat may as well have been created by one of those keyboards which generate a generic version of a type of music, type being "Crappy Love Song" or "Easy Listening" if the song is particularly normal. Every song is slow and boring, with an uninspired and repetitive melody. If you add a mediocre voice and lyrics which are found literally in EVERY SINGLE other song, you get: a Thai song.

Themes of Thai songs are limited to:

• "Gosh, I love you"
• "I will flirt with you because I love you"
• "We just met and I love you"
• "You look good so I love you"
• "I cannot believe you love her and not me"
• "You Bastard! I loved you and you cheated on me"
• "You Bastard! I loved you and you're dating someone else when I was here standing in the shadows just watching you"
• "Don't you flirt with her because I love you and I am murderously jealous"
• "I will kill you if you steal my man"
• "I love you because you are attractive, and that's what love means to me"

Every song, I guarantee, I mean seriously (well as serious as I can get without putting my life on the line) guarantee, has the words "ruk tur"--"I love you"--in it. No joke. Mai phuut len.



Popular Western songs here in Thailand include "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion and "Hero" by Mariah Carey. Bullocks of the non-dog variety for those inclined to British English. These songs are so popular that of 7 songs sung at talent contest, these two were each repeated. They made up more than 50% of the already pathetic show. I find it hard to say this, but Rahul, if you are reading, I cannot say your taste in music is elementary anymore. There, I said it. I played a Beatles song in class today and was shocked by the fact that no one knew who The Beatles were. They asked, "Is he a singer?" I knew Thai children were sort of... ahem... but really? Really?!

A student singing "Hero"

I came here excited to learn about Asian music and find new artists from this end of the world. I am severely disappointed and emphatically recommend that no one ever listens to the bulk of Thai music for musical enjoyment. Rather, giggle at the ridiculousness of the dancing and the inability of Thai stars to show emotions on their faces, at least ones that don't look forced or only involve their eyes.

That all said, if you know of good Thai music, please send it to me or post a link in the comment box. I would like to be proven wrong here.

Typical video
Typical again
Upbeat with great dancing
Not even sure, but there's speak-singing

"Yii-sib sib!"

Hello Team! It's been a while, there was a lot of traveling, and I managed this sort of sun-burn tan thing while in the islands.

Although I never really left Thailand, the Thai people were almost completely absent from my vacation down south. It reminded me of visiting a very touristy town in Mexico, where everything is set up to cater to people with currencies worth at least five times that of the home country. But instead of overweight Americans baking in the sun, there were fit Europeans bronzing beautifully.

I did make one real encounter with Thai people, however. One night I decided to walk to my hotel from some bars while staying on Phuket. Phuket is one of those places where a way of life has been almost completely destroyed and recreated by tourists. Most of the Thais here are jaded by drunken farang (foreigners), and many of the women in the bars are trained to grab you for sex or partying or massage or who knows what. It's not threatening, just disconcerting. I am sure there is an underground Thai culture as well, one that is completely invisible to me and my farang counterparts, but that may be me thinking glass half full.

(This is Leo Dicap's crazed walk in "The Beach")

Anyway, the walk back to the hotel was a significant one at least after drinking, maybe 7 kilometers or so, especially considering that the exact route was unknown. I happened to have my Thai phrasebook with me, not sure why, and I came across a Thai girl with a flat tire. I asked her, to the best of my ability, if I could help her in any way but eventually resigned, saying "choke dee" (good luck) and walking off. Shortly after, I came across four Thais sitting outside a very Thai oriented bar and told them about the girl with the flat tire. They understood my Thai (score), but we all shrugged it off and they invited me to sit with them. They brought me a beer, and I spoke my most significant Thai conversation to date.

The girls told me they loved me (happens all the time with Thais), I told them I didn't love them because we just met (mwah ha ha). Of course, the girls got offended and told me I was gay for not loving them (another not too abnormal thing for Thais). With a very limited vocabulary, the conversation did definitely deteriorate. One girl said, "20 baht, I will dance for you." I said, "No no, it's okay." This happened a few more times and then she started dancing. I didn't look at her. Everyone got up and left. I was alone with dancing girl. I downed my beer quickly and said "I am far from home and need to go." I peaced out. She danced alone on the side of the road. I thought I had found something real in Phuket, but alas.


On a really positive note, I saw monkeys! All over. Again and again. And then it became, oh... monkeys. Most importantly, I had a little tussle with one on the beach, which was particularly amusing to me. I set my backpack down (dumb move) and went to take pictures of some monkeys around the corner. A few minutes later I said to Alida, who was with me at the time, "I should go check on my backpack," thinking that a human might have stolen it. I arrive back at my bag only to find a small crowd has gathered and a silly monkey is ruffling through my bag. I cannot help but think, cool, wow, a monkey in MY backpack. Then he starts to take out my things. MONKEY! I am not exactly sure what to do so I try to scare it. I stick out my arms and make a stupid noise and face at it. It looks at me, thinks "what the effe," and grabs my glasses case and makes a stupid noise and face at me. Repeat that exchange once. And yes, one more time. He then really starts to grab my glasses and looks like he is about to run off with them. So I take my flip flop hold it out to hit him. Fortunately another beach goer distracts him on his other side and I smack him with my flip flop. He turns to me again, thinks "what the effe," and then the other human (go Homo sapien sapien) distracts him once more. Smack. Monkey is not a fan of me and my flip flop, loses track of my glasses, and takes off before he incurs more abuse.


The rest of the trip was incredible, but not really story-worthy. There was a lot of boats, beaches, cliffs, islands, parties, fun, friends, snorkeling, kayaking, rented motorbikes, and tours. Just take a look at the pictures. Happy New Year, all.


(by the way: Yii-sib = 20, and sib = 10)