So one of the advantages to the Asian lifestyle is the convenience that comes in their bathroom planning. Whereas we in America are wasteful and feel the need to have two whole separate areas for acts such as peeing/pooing and showering, Asia says "Nay, we don't need clutter like that." So what do they do? Each bathroom in our guesthouse comes complete with a little shower head connected to hot and cold pipes. The floor includes, of course, drainage for this practice. However, regardless of the circumference of the drain or the strategic placement of your body, the result of Asia's space concerns is a pretty wet bathroom.
Now, nine tenths of the time, this isn't a problem. In fact, for a long time we used it to our advantages, allowing shower time to be synonymous with red-biting-ants-that-are-infesting-our-bathroom-killing-time. The one day we chose to attempt (read: FAIL AT) washing our own clothes pretty much saw an end to those twerps.
That one tenth of a time that the wet bathroom is a problem though, that time is a bitch. We (TinMan and I) woke up a morning or two ago to the sounds of pounding on our door. Being closest to the door, I saw it as my duty to determine who should attend to the knocking problem. As I lay sleep-deprivedly, I say to TinMan "TinMan, I'm pretty sure there's someone at the door." In his nap-needing manner, he replies "Nah, I don't think so." This is followed momentarily by another knock, to which I say, "That was definitely a knock." TinMan procedes to venture out of his bed, still clad in his drawers and wife beater (a manly set of PJs I must say), and pull the door as open as the tiny chain lock allows it. Hiding behind the door, sticking his head into the gap, and my sleepy feet in full view to whoever lurked beyond the wooden seperator, TinMan discussed the fact that he did not, matter of fact, know the location of one of our travelers. He closed the door and, noticing that our alarm was to go off any moment now, decided to shower.
I laid around while he cleansed his outer body (his soul remaining as dirty as ever) and decided, upon his emergence from his water capsule, that I should get some dirty laundry together in order to have it cleaned. Quickly after sitting up for the first time, it came to my attention that peeing was a must. I bolted (being my first mistake) into our drenched (the forgetting of which being my second mistake) bathroom to relieve my obviously pregnant blatter.
Entering the water closet is when things went south. Literally. Quite literally actually, assuming you consider south to be synonomous with down. Because my first step into the washroom decided that stability was unnecessary and rather sent my feet sliding forward, my ass backwards, and the rest of my body metaphorically south. On my way down, I did what most in said scenario do, I reached out for things to slow my fall. In this case, that was embodied by the sink to my right. After it failed at preventing the fall, I landed, hard, and looked to my right to notice that the sink, once somewhat firmly attached to our wall, was sitting next to me on the ground.
For the first moment, I experienced little but shock at the whole event. The second moment included savage fear that the room would start to fill with water from the unhinged sink. The third moment was figuring out how to reattach the sink as nonchalantly as possible. TinMan questioned my wellness, to which I assured him that I was still in one piece. After hooking the sink back onto the wall (because indeed that was all keeping it up in the first place), I proceeded to adjust the toilet seat I had kicked off the toilet in my tumble. Then I peed. It was great.
After the ensuing shower that I felt I deserved, my eyes found the gigantic crack that had grown in our sink. Assuming no responsibilty whatsoever, I refused to believe it was from the earlier events. I tried using said sink, only to be met with an amount of water on the floor that rivaled that that came out of the shower moments earlier.
It wasn't until later that I found the gash on my foot.
They fixed our sink today, at no charge to us. Rad.
1.22.2009
Farang Relations
In case you were wondering, "farang" is the Thai word for foreigner. You should probably know that before you continue to read this story:
During our stay in Chiang Mai, we are expected to attend a class on the Thai language. This, of course is a handy skill to have in a foreign country, so I have no complaint. However, I have to sometimes wonder if the teachers who are giving us our lessons have any clue as to what they are making us do:
Over the past few days, we have been learning the basics of the Thai language, such as how to introduce ourselves, give information about our whereabouts, and how to say we are hungry and should go to the cafeteria. We have also learned how to ask for that information from other people. Up until yesterday, we had practiced our Thai on our fellow classmates, thus saving us the embarassment of having to butcher someone's language in front of them. we practiced by the a-jaan (teacher) giving us a small sheet of paper for us to fill up with the information pertaining to our fellow students, with slots for name, last name, nickname, and something concerning where they are from. Easy, right? Well yesterday, the teacher announced that we would be going outside for part of class. Seeing as the weather is beautiful here (75 and sunny), we had no complaint. That is, until she handed a full sheet of paper with more slots than could be filled by our class. That's right, we had to go talk to actual Thai students.
Now this might seem like a good idea. Who better to practice with than someone who speaks the language, right? Well that would work if the students knew we were coming. So the teacher led us to a group sitting in a study hall, where most of which were working on their homework and such, and let us loose. She also hadn't told us the phrase in Thai to explain that we were asking these questions for a class assignment, so these students had to deal with a bunch of farang showing up out of nowhere and asking the following questions without ay sort of introduction:
What is your name?
What is your last name?
What is your nickname?
What Province are you from?
and (my favorite) Where are you staying?
You should also know that after they gave each answer, we would quickly write it down on a sheet of paper, which I'm sure helped us look a lot less sketchy.
Being that they had no idea who we were, most of the students were generally helpful when it came to answering the questions. When they would tell us their name, only to be met with a blank stare, they would laugh and save us the trouble of trying to spell it out. But when it came to the last question, most would give us a weird look and say something indecipherable. Some would give us numbers (which might have been in referece to the dorms, I can't be sure), others would tell us random words like "Ho-ha" or "Moshi", and another student stold us outright that she would not tell us. She also gave us the last name "Gitaway" which gringo and I believe is probably not her real name.
I'm not sure what the point of this assignment was, other than to embarass us in front of a decently sized group of Thai students. Or maybe the lesson was that if you are a white student at a Thai university that can barely speak the language and have to constantly write stuff on a sheet of paper, you can pry all sorts of important information from unsuspecting Thai people.
Though if that's a good thing, I'm not so sure.
During our stay in Chiang Mai, we are expected to attend a class on the Thai language. This, of course is a handy skill to have in a foreign country, so I have no complaint. However, I have to sometimes wonder if the teachers who are giving us our lessons have any clue as to what they are making us do:
Over the past few days, we have been learning the basics of the Thai language, such as how to introduce ourselves, give information about our whereabouts, and how to say we are hungry and should go to the cafeteria. We have also learned how to ask for that information from other people. Up until yesterday, we had practiced our Thai on our fellow classmates, thus saving us the embarassment of having to butcher someone's language in front of them. we practiced by the a-jaan (teacher) giving us a small sheet of paper for us to fill up with the information pertaining to our fellow students, with slots for name, last name, nickname, and something concerning where they are from. Easy, right? Well yesterday, the teacher announced that we would be going outside for part of class. Seeing as the weather is beautiful here (75 and sunny), we had no complaint. That is, until she handed a full sheet of paper with more slots than could be filled by our class. That's right, we had to go talk to actual Thai students.
Now this might seem like a good idea. Who better to practice with than someone who speaks the language, right? Well that would work if the students knew we were coming. So the teacher led us to a group sitting in a study hall, where most of which were working on their homework and such, and let us loose. She also hadn't told us the phrase in Thai to explain that we were asking these questions for a class assignment, so these students had to deal with a bunch of farang showing up out of nowhere and asking the following questions without ay sort of introduction:
What is your name?
What is your last name?
What is your nickname?
What Province are you from?
and (my favorite) Where are you staying?
You should also know that after they gave each answer, we would quickly write it down on a sheet of paper, which I'm sure helped us look a lot less sketchy.
Being that they had no idea who we were, most of the students were generally helpful when it came to answering the questions. When they would tell us their name, only to be met with a blank stare, they would laugh and save us the trouble of trying to spell it out. But when it came to the last question, most would give us a weird look and say something indecipherable. Some would give us numbers (which might have been in referece to the dorms, I can't be sure), others would tell us random words like "Ho-ha" or "Moshi", and another student stold us outright that she would not tell us. She also gave us the last name "Gitaway" which gringo and I believe is probably not her real name.
I'm not sure what the point of this assignment was, other than to embarass us in front of a decently sized group of Thai students. Or maybe the lesson was that if you are a white student at a Thai university that can barely speak the language and have to constantly write stuff on a sheet of paper, you can pry all sorts of important information from unsuspecting Thai people.
Though if that's a good thing, I'm not so sure.
1.21.2009
Thai food coming back at you
The professor coming along on this magical trip to Thailand, Bob Drexler, informed us all that at some point early in the trip, we would all get sick. Not from any nasty Asian virus, but rather from the food, in that the bacteria and such within our new diet would be different than the critters in our normal American eats. This was nothing to be worried about as the effects were temporary, but for a day or so each and everyone of us would become violently ill.
Guess what happened yesterday.
When I woke up, I noticed that I had a massive stomach ache. I figure it was from the duck nodle soup I had eaten the previous evening and that after a while it would go away. At breakfast, to stay on the safe side, I decided to eat some banannas and yogurt, something which shouldn't cause to much trouble for my stomach. However, towards the end of this deliciously simple meal, things began to get a little rumbly down south. I made a break for the bathroom where some emergency poo-ing took place. Feeling better, at least relatively, I finished my breakfast and got ready to do some exploring of the city before class. However, gringo, myself, and a good friend of ours only made it about two blocks out before I again had to make a break for the bathroom. Again with the poo-ing. By about this time, the song tau (which is essentially a pickup truck with benchs in the back) had come to pick us up for school. At this point I wasn't feeling so hot, but I didn't want to miss the first day of class. So I got on and we headed off to the University. The biggest lesson from yesterday was that (upset Asian stomach) + (bumpy Song Tau ride) = launching all the contents of your stomach, including duck and bananna, on to the street. Four times.
It was gringo's hope that I might have caused an accident by causing the vehicles behind us to swerve, but he had no such luck.
In case you were wondering, I am feeling much better today, if not a little empty in the stomach...
Guess what happened yesterday.
When I woke up, I noticed that I had a massive stomach ache. I figure it was from the duck nodle soup I had eaten the previous evening and that after a while it would go away. At breakfast, to stay on the safe side, I decided to eat some banannas and yogurt, something which shouldn't cause to much trouble for my stomach. However, towards the end of this deliciously simple meal, things began to get a little rumbly down south. I made a break for the bathroom where some emergency poo-ing took place. Feeling better, at least relatively, I finished my breakfast and got ready to do some exploring of the city before class. However, gringo, myself, and a good friend of ours only made it about two blocks out before I again had to make a break for the bathroom. Again with the poo-ing. By about this time, the song tau (which is essentially a pickup truck with benchs in the back) had come to pick us up for school. At this point I wasn't feeling so hot, but I didn't want to miss the first day of class. So I got on and we headed off to the University. The biggest lesson from yesterday was that (upset Asian stomach) + (bumpy Song Tau ride) = launching all the contents of your stomach, including duck and bananna, on to the street. Four times.
It was gringo's hope that I might have caused an accident by causing the vehicles behind us to swerve, but he had no such luck.
In case you were wondering, I am feeling much better today, if not a little empty in the stomach...
1.20.2009
The Quest Is Defined
gringo up and left for Asia. Go figure. Here, he's called farang, essentially the Thai version of gringo. I think there are jokes to be made centering on this, but really, that's not the purpose of this blog.
The purpose is, as the title suggests, to find us some Panda-Gator. Now on the surface, indeed, this Panda-Gator notion is a joke, a strange and inspiring mix breed of Asia's ever-loved Panda and its ever-feared Alligator. This creature was thought up and illustrated by this blog's co-author, TinMan AKA Spatsy. He'll be coming at you soon enough, I would suppose.
So, you may ask, "How are you two ever going to find a creature you know in your hearts you made up? Do you really expect your fictitious creature to be roaming the wild lands of Thailand? You do realize that Pandas are from China, right?"
The truthful answer to all of these questions is, we don't care. Panda-Gator is a mythical beast, and we understand that. It represents the mysticism, the wonder that enchants a land we have yet to explore. The odds of us stumbling across the Panda-Gator (especially in this, its mating season) are slim to none, but the odds of us coming across another, equally wondrous (but tangible) are extraordinarily high. That is our mission and the adventure has just begun.
P.S. Future posts will be less douchey.
The purpose is, as the title suggests, to find us some Panda-Gator. Now on the surface, indeed, this Panda-Gator notion is a joke, a strange and inspiring mix breed of Asia's ever-loved Panda and its ever-feared Alligator. This creature was thought up and illustrated by this blog's co-author, TinMan AKA Spatsy. He'll be coming at you soon enough, I would suppose.
So, you may ask, "How are you two ever going to find a creature you know in your hearts you made up? Do you really expect your fictitious creature to be roaming the wild lands of Thailand? You do realize that Pandas are from China, right?"
The truthful answer to all of these questions is, we don't care. Panda-Gator is a mythical beast, and we understand that. It represents the mysticism, the wonder that enchants a land we have yet to explore. The odds of us stumbling across the Panda-Gator (especially in this, its mating season) are slim to none, but the odds of us coming across another, equally wondrous (but tangible) are extraordinarily high. That is our mission and the adventure has just begun.
P.S. Future posts will be less douchey.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
