Today marks the one month anniversary of my coming to the land formerly known as Siam. Hard to believe.
Went to Ayutthaya this past week, as you probably deduce from some of the pictures posted on here. Ayutthaya was the capitol of the Kingdom of Siam between the years 1300 and 1767, when those pesky Burmese sacked and destroyed the city and the capitol moved to its present location, Bangkok. The European travelers who visited Ayutthaya during her glory years called it the most spectacular city in the world. It's a medium-sized Thai city now, but has loads of ruins around town that make for some interesting hikes. On the first day we took a boat tour, and on the second we biked about the town. The guy working at the guesthouse there quickly became a friend, and I look forward to getting up there again in the future (and since it's only an hour and a half bus ride from the Big Mango, it's an easy visit.)
Other than that, just teaching, reading Foucault, and trying to stay cool. Hail Progress!
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Two more reasons...
Two more reasons I love living in The Big Mango -
Anti-Smoking capaign:
The Thai government has launched a vigorous anti-smoking campaign after the King, in a speech to the Thai Parliament, stated that Thais must do more to stop smoking. So there are funny commercials on TV where a guy tries to light up in a restaurant, but the waitress, instead of filling his water glass, pours the water on his cigarrette. But the best part are the equivalent of the Surgeon General's warnings that are on cigarrette packages back home. Instead of a stearn message about the possible health issues with smoking, they have photos of skulls, wrinkled old women smoking, tar-stained teeth, a respirator, and best of all, black lungs. A not-so subtle reminder about the issues of lighting up. I will try to get a picture of one of the packs and post it on here in the near future.
6:00 pm:
Every day at 6 pm in Thailand, the Thai flag is lowered for the evening. Therefore, at this time, every activity in Thailand is interrupted as the National Anthem is played. All TV shows are interrupted, songs are interrrupted mid-verse on the radio, and so on. One of my first experiences with this happened when I was here two years ago. I had just crossed the border back into Thailand from Laos, and as I was in the back of a truck waiting to get to the next town. 6 pm hit, a man working at the border crossing blew a whistle, and everyone stood up in the truck to salute the flag. I didn't know what was going on until after the song was halfway over. My second experience was riding home from work in the bus one day. The radio was on, and the song "Feel Good Inc." by the Gorillaz had just finished (a really good song, in my opinion) and some rather sappy ballad in Thai was playing. All of a sudden, right in the middle of the song, the national anthem begins playing. The Anthem finished, and the song resumed in progress. The third time was by far the most interesting, and I really wish I had had my camera with me. I had gone to the Hua Mark sports center, the centerpiece of which is Rajamangala Stadium, seen in some of the pictures below. The Hua Mark sports center is a pretty nice facility, complete with running tracks, cycling tracks, the stadium mentioned above, a cycling track, lots of takraw courts, (a sport that seems to be a hybrid of volleyball and soccer, played with a ball made of wicker), and an indoor sports facility amongst many other things. The architechture looks like one would expect the architechture to look like had Bangkok made a bid for the 1968 or 1972 Olympics (I don't know if they did,) and hosted the 1998 Pan-Asian games. Anyhow, I go there to run every now and again or else just to watch people playing Takraw, which is immensely entertaining. I was walking around one early evening, and there was a massive aerobics session going on, with hundreds of people participating. Leading it was a lady-boy looking figure (I'll discuss more about the ambiguous nature of gender in Thai society in a future posting,) showing everybody what to do while dancing atop a very large bank of speakers blaring out annoying, fast-paced aerobics music. Anyhow, 6 pm came. Everyone running stopped in their tracks. The soccer and takraw games ceased immediately. The aerobics music cut off, and the Thai National Anthem started playing. As soon as it was over and the flag had been lowered, everything resumed again as if nothing had happened.
It's good to know that the US doesn't have a monopoly over hokey, excessive, over-the top nationalist flag worshipping.
Hail progress!
Anti-Smoking capaign:
The Thai government has launched a vigorous anti-smoking campaign after the King, in a speech to the Thai Parliament, stated that Thais must do more to stop smoking. So there are funny commercials on TV where a guy tries to light up in a restaurant, but the waitress, instead of filling his water glass, pours the water on his cigarrette. But the best part are the equivalent of the Surgeon General's warnings that are on cigarrette packages back home. Instead of a stearn message about the possible health issues with smoking, they have photos of skulls, wrinkled old women smoking, tar-stained teeth, a respirator, and best of all, black lungs. A not-so subtle reminder about the issues of lighting up. I will try to get a picture of one of the packs and post it on here in the near future.
6:00 pm:
Every day at 6 pm in Thailand, the Thai flag is lowered for the evening. Therefore, at this time, every activity in Thailand is interrupted as the National Anthem is played. All TV shows are interrupted, songs are interrrupted mid-verse on the radio, and so on. One of my first experiences with this happened when I was here two years ago. I had just crossed the border back into Thailand from Laos, and as I was in the back of a truck waiting to get to the next town. 6 pm hit, a man working at the border crossing blew a whistle, and everyone stood up in the truck to salute the flag. I didn't know what was going on until after the song was halfway over. My second experience was riding home from work in the bus one day. The radio was on, and the song "Feel Good Inc." by the Gorillaz had just finished (a really good song, in my opinion) and some rather sappy ballad in Thai was playing. All of a sudden, right in the middle of the song, the national anthem begins playing. The Anthem finished, and the song resumed in progress. The third time was by far the most interesting, and I really wish I had had my camera with me. I had gone to the Hua Mark sports center, the centerpiece of which is Rajamangala Stadium, seen in some of the pictures below. The Hua Mark sports center is a pretty nice facility, complete with running tracks, cycling tracks, the stadium mentioned above, a cycling track, lots of takraw courts, (a sport that seems to be a hybrid of volleyball and soccer, played with a ball made of wicker), and an indoor sports facility amongst many other things. The architechture looks like one would expect the architechture to look like had Bangkok made a bid for the 1968 or 1972 Olympics (I don't know if they did,) and hosted the 1998 Pan-Asian games. Anyhow, I go there to run every now and again or else just to watch people playing Takraw, which is immensely entertaining. I was walking around one early evening, and there was a massive aerobics session going on, with hundreds of people participating. Leading it was a lady-boy looking figure (I'll discuss more about the ambiguous nature of gender in Thai society in a future posting,) showing everybody what to do while dancing atop a very large bank of speakers blaring out annoying, fast-paced aerobics music. Anyhow, 6 pm came. Everyone running stopped in their tracks. The soccer and takraw games ceased immediately. The aerobics music cut off, and the Thai National Anthem started playing. As soon as it was over and the flag had been lowered, everything resumed again as if nothing had happened.
It's good to know that the US doesn't have a monopoly over hokey, excessive, over-the top nationalist flag worshipping.
Hail progress!
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
I Keep on Fallin'...
Despite a recent bout with the phenomenon affectionately known as "TD," which is traveler's speak for "traveler's diarrhea" (known as duan thong in the local parlance, literally translated to "walking stomach,") I am beginning to fall in love with the Big Mango. I'm not sure if it's the way my students say "tee-CHAAA, tee-CHAAA, please no mark late" as they shimmy into class ten minutes after it has started. Or perhaps it's the way people gracefully wai at me (see the Ronald McDonald picture below for an example of a wai) whenever I eat somewhere or buy something. Or maybe it's the thrill/terror of riding on a motorcycle taxi down the street, which entails riding on the back of a motorcycle while hanging onto the driver's shoulders as he weaves in and out of traffic, speeding up to hit rapidly-closing holes between trucks and busses or briefly posturing to play "chicken" with motorcycles coming the other way who are also driving down the center line, while I pray to every deity I can think of. Or perhaps it's dropping 20 Baht (about 50 cents) and getting a bag half the size of a standard plastic grocery bag full of a variety of wonderful fruits that don't even have names in English. Or maybe it's a combination of all of these things. Any way you look at it, I'm falling in love, and I'm falling hard.
One more thing to describe for you. First of all, the toilet situation in Thailand. Most places have the "squat and drop" style of toilet, not terribly different from the ones in Japan. On campus, thankfully, every bathroom has at least one western-style toilet, which I still prefer by far. Very few toilets have toilet paper on hand, and for those that do, there's a bit of a twist to what we're accustomed to back in the Western Hemisphere. The plumbing in most places is not equipped to handle toilet paper, so there's a small trash bin next to the toilet specifically for receiving the soiled tissue. It takes a while to get used to not just dropping the paper in, and as this hard to break habit could lead to toilet overflows on a frequent basis, it's a habit that you want to break quickly.
However, most Thais don't use Toilet paper. Beside most toilets, there is a spray nozzle, not at all different from the ones on kitchen sinks pretty much everywhere in the US. This spray nozzle substitutes for TP. I'm beginning to get used to this manner, actually, but you have to hang around a bit longer if you want your shorts to stay dry.
Anyway, enough "scat" for now. Some of my students gave me Roseapples (chompuu in the local parlance) and Jujubees in my classes. That was nice, and makes for a good breakfast. See the picture below.
Enough for now. Hail progress!
One more thing to describe for you. First of all, the toilet situation in Thailand. Most places have the "squat and drop" style of toilet, not terribly different from the ones in Japan. On campus, thankfully, every bathroom has at least one western-style toilet, which I still prefer by far. Very few toilets have toilet paper on hand, and for those that do, there's a bit of a twist to what we're accustomed to back in the Western Hemisphere. The plumbing in most places is not equipped to handle toilet paper, so there's a small trash bin next to the toilet specifically for receiving the soiled tissue. It takes a while to get used to not just dropping the paper in, and as this hard to break habit could lead to toilet overflows on a frequent basis, it's a habit that you want to break quickly.
However, most Thais don't use Toilet paper. Beside most toilets, there is a spray nozzle, not at all different from the ones on kitchen sinks pretty much everywhere in the US. This spray nozzle substitutes for TP. I'm beginning to get used to this manner, actually, but you have to hang around a bit longer if you want your shorts to stay dry.
Anyway, enough "scat" for now. Some of my students gave me Roseapples (chompuu in the local parlance) and Jujubees in my classes. That was nice, and makes for a good breakfast. See the picture below.
Enough for now. Hail progress!
Saturday, June 11, 2005
The Divine Land Unconquerable
The title for this posting, by the way, is one of the many epithets for this city from its full name which is Krungthep Mahanakhon Bovorn Ratanakosin Mahintharayuttahaya Mahadilok pop Noparathratchathani Burirom Udomratchanivetmahasathan Amornpiman Avatarnsathit Sakkathattiyavisnukarmprasit. Yes, that whole thing. The full name of Bangkok is the world's longest place name. Future postings with titles similar to this are all part of the official name of this place.
The activities of the past few days have been rather interesting. One of my colleagues, a guy from Boston named Bryan McGuiness, and I went to Bangkok's spectacular temple that is one of the symbols of the city, Wat Arun, which means "Temple of the Dawn." There are pictures of it below. It was cool, and it afforded good views of the Chao Phraya River, which is historically Thailand's major artery of transportation. Another cool part about this trip is that we took lots of water transport, which is as authentically Bangkok as it gets. River taxis and klong boats all the way, with a short cab ride in between.
following the trip to Wat Arun, we went back to crazy Khao San Road in search of that elusive Israeli Restaurant I had been craving. We succeeded in finding it this time and enjoyed some Falafel and Hummus. Following dinner, we thought that since we were already at Khao San, why not have a couple of beers? It all started out fine, and we found an Irish pub with a decent deal for happy hour. Well, after one bottle of Singha (which is a local brand of beer), we met this Irish guy. A short time later, we met six Irish women, and then 5 more Irish guys. It all went downhill from there. About three hours later, after two Thai women had tried to take me home with them (I asked them what their jobs were. Both said they had none: Red Flag!), we made it back to Hua Mark. It was a fun night and all, but I gotta stay away from Khao San for a while - dangerous!
I have a student whose name is Pak Man. Not his nickname, but it's the name that's registered with the University, the name his lovin' parents gave him. No, I'm not making this up.
The Hua Mark Campus, which is the one where I live, isn't as opulent as the Bang Na one described in earlier postings. But it's pretty cool. It has a Thai Pavilion (Salaa in the local parlance), a mini-jungle with a pond, and wireless internet. My room has CNN and BBC, which is good for keeping up to date on things. The TV also has MTV Indonesia (I'm not sure why, as there is a Thailand MTV,) TV5 from France, a couple of Hong Kong channels including Star Sports, which seems to show nothing but billiards, F1 racing, and tennis, and a channel from India. There are five local channels in Thai as well.
Hail Progress!
The activities of the past few days have been rather interesting. One of my colleagues, a guy from Boston named Bryan McGuiness, and I went to Bangkok's spectacular temple that is one of the symbols of the city, Wat Arun, which means "Temple of the Dawn." There are pictures of it below. It was cool, and it afforded good views of the Chao Phraya River, which is historically Thailand's major artery of transportation. Another cool part about this trip is that we took lots of water transport, which is as authentically Bangkok as it gets. River taxis and klong boats all the way, with a short cab ride in between.
following the trip to Wat Arun, we went back to crazy Khao San Road in search of that elusive Israeli Restaurant I had been craving. We succeeded in finding it this time and enjoyed some Falafel and Hummus. Following dinner, we thought that since we were already at Khao San, why not have a couple of beers? It all started out fine, and we found an Irish pub with a decent deal for happy hour. Well, after one bottle of Singha (which is a local brand of beer), we met this Irish guy. A short time later, we met six Irish women, and then 5 more Irish guys. It all went downhill from there. About three hours later, after two Thai women had tried to take me home with them (I asked them what their jobs were. Both said they had none: Red Flag!), we made it back to Hua Mark. It was a fun night and all, but I gotta stay away from Khao San for a while - dangerous!
I have a student whose name is Pak Man. Not his nickname, but it's the name that's registered with the University, the name his lovin' parents gave him. No, I'm not making this up.
The Hua Mark Campus, which is the one where I live, isn't as opulent as the Bang Na one described in earlier postings. But it's pretty cool. It has a Thai Pavilion (Salaa in the local parlance), a mini-jungle with a pond, and wireless internet. My room has CNN and BBC, which is good for keeping up to date on things. The TV also has MTV Indonesia (I'm not sure why, as there is a Thailand MTV,) TV5 from France, a couple of Hong Kong channels including Star Sports, which seems to show nothing but billiards, F1 racing, and tennis, and a channel from India. There are five local channels in Thai as well.
Hail Progress!
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
The Fires of Hell
An hour or so ago, I ate the single hottest food that I've ever had the misfortune of eating in my entire life. I ordered what was listed on the menu as lemon marinade roasted pork. Sounds nice enough - I was expecting pork with a citrusy flavor. Not so. It was lemongrass marinated pork. Lemongrass has a nice enough flavor, but man, they loaded the pepper sauce on this baby. My lips were burning a half an hour after eating it. One of my colleagues suggested asking for sugar, as that would neutralize the spice. I tried this, and it worked well enough at first, as my lips were no longer burning. However, I quickly discovered that the sugar disolved by the time it reached the back of my mouth, which meant my throat was burning for a half an hour instead. I only had about four bites. Quite possibly the most miserable food experience I've had since the chicken in Japan gave me salmonilla.
So I've not blogged in a while, as I've been working and trying to prep lessons and all of that. Classes have been going pretty well. The Thai students all look so young and wear uniforms, so in many ways it feels more like I'm teaching high school than at a University. But I enjoy it, and I think the students are enjoying me. My policy is firm but friendly, and I've grilled a few chronic latecomers already and made it clear that such things will not stand, but I've done it with a smile. I had an interesting interaction with a girl who has been late for the third time in three classes today. I caved to her yesterday and didn't mark her late (even though she was 20 minutes late) as she was whining and begging. Today, she tried the same tactic, but I said that for the third time, I wasn't going to tolerate it any longer. She told me she was busy right before the class. I told her I thought that was curious, since there is a half an hour before the class for everyone at the university. She knew she'd been beaten then. And so it goes.
Made another follow up with my doctor, but this time dealing with Hypertension issues. She told me to lay off of fried food (hence my trying of the above food) and do some exercise. I haven't been able to get out and run at all, but I no longer take the elevator. Considering I live on the 13th floor, this may not exactly be sufficient, but it's definitely having an impact.
According to the scale at her office, I've dropped 15 kilos (33 lbs.) now since my first visit to her office two Saturdays ago. I find this hard to believe, as one would think that clothes would be falling off of me. Things are a bit looser, but not THAT much. But I sweat my brains out every day and the food is in rather small portions, so undoubtedly I've dropped some.
I killed a cockroach in my room with my umbrella the other day. There was also a gecko running around. I like geckos, but can do without papa roach.
Last Saturday I took one of the canal taxis to downtown. It was awesome - 14 baht (just under 40 cents) for the fastest ride to downtown Bangkok other than a helicopter. The only problem is that the canals, or klongs as they are known in the local parlance, hold what may be some of the nastiest water in the world. So you have to be careful to not be splashed by the water, which is mostly averted by the tarps along side the craft, but a bit does splash over from time to time, particularly when another boat is passing the other way. But the klong boats are the truest form of Bangkok transport there is, so it was cool.
On the way back from the trip downtown, one of my colleages was so drunk that he vomited inside of the cab. That was pleasant, and made the driver rather happy as you can imagine. Thankfully, it didn't hit me at all.
Hail progress!
So I've not blogged in a while, as I've been working and trying to prep lessons and all of that. Classes have been going pretty well. The Thai students all look so young and wear uniforms, so in many ways it feels more like I'm teaching high school than at a University. But I enjoy it, and I think the students are enjoying me. My policy is firm but friendly, and I've grilled a few chronic latecomers already and made it clear that such things will not stand, but I've done it with a smile. I had an interesting interaction with a girl who has been late for the third time in three classes today. I caved to her yesterday and didn't mark her late (even though she was 20 minutes late) as she was whining and begging. Today, she tried the same tactic, but I said that for the third time, I wasn't going to tolerate it any longer. She told me she was busy right before the class. I told her I thought that was curious, since there is a half an hour before the class for everyone at the university. She knew she'd been beaten then. And so it goes.
Made another follow up with my doctor, but this time dealing with Hypertension issues. She told me to lay off of fried food (hence my trying of the above food) and do some exercise. I haven't been able to get out and run at all, but I no longer take the elevator. Considering I live on the 13th floor, this may not exactly be sufficient, but it's definitely having an impact.
According to the scale at her office, I've dropped 15 kilos (33 lbs.) now since my first visit to her office two Saturdays ago. I find this hard to believe, as one would think that clothes would be falling off of me. Things are a bit looser, but not THAT much. But I sweat my brains out every day and the food is in rather small portions, so undoubtedly I've dropped some.
I killed a cockroach in my room with my umbrella the other day. There was also a gecko running around. I like geckos, but can do without papa roach.
Last Saturday I took one of the canal taxis to downtown. It was awesome - 14 baht (just under 40 cents) for the fastest ride to downtown Bangkok other than a helicopter. The only problem is that the canals, or klongs as they are known in the local parlance, hold what may be some of the nastiest water in the world. So you have to be careful to not be splashed by the water, which is mostly averted by the tarps along side the craft, but a bit does splash over from time to time, particularly when another boat is passing the other way. But the klong boats are the truest form of Bangkok transport there is, so it was cool.
On the way back from the trip downtown, one of my colleages was so drunk that he vomited inside of the cab. That was pleasant, and made the driver rather happy as you can imagine. Thankfully, it didn't hit me at all.
Hail progress!
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Papa Roach
Learning the hard way has been the operative theme of the past two days. Namely, learning the hard way about life in Bangkok’s Rainy Season. This evening, for the second time in as many days, I was stupid enough to be caught in the downpour. Now, it’s not like these downpours are some sort of sudden, unexpected occurrence. For the past three or four days, every night somewhere between 6:30 and 7:30 pm the sky opens, and it remains open for an hour and a half to two hours. The Sois flood, and the water can get up to middle-shin depth in some places. As I write at 10 pm, I can see that Soi 24 is still flooded. (A Soi is like an alleyway. They branch off of major streets and are numbered. For example, my address is Ramkhamhaeng Road #24. #24 is the Soi I live on.) Considering that Bangkok is anything but a clean city and the Sois have mangy dogs, cockroaches, rats, and all sorts of nasty things running around, walking through this water is not advisable to say the least. Well, yesterday evening, after making my return to Ramkhamhaeng Hospital (where I was given more medication for my tonsillitis and told to exercise more), which I could have done at 5 pm and avoided the monsoon, I was forced to wade through Soi 23. I got home, took off my clothes, and showered, praying that I had no open wounds anywhere on my feet. Thankfully, I was wearing flip-flops. This evening, I went to the Big C to get an umbrella (ironically enough) and a few other supplies. Although cloudy, the sky didn’t look threatening when I left at 6 pm. At 7 pm when I walked out, well, the monsoon was in full effect. I was still wearing my work clothes and my backpack, and despite that umbrella I purchased, which had the same effect of wearing anti-perspirent in Bangkok or putting the Minnesota Vikings’ defense on a football field, I was pretty much soaked to the bone from my stomach down. In my backpack, I had some rather important papers for work, which are salvable but need to be dried. However, my playing cards appear to be beyond repair. And so it goes.
At the hospital yesterday, the weigh-in showed that I have dropped 9 kilograms in less than a week. For those of you not familiar with metric, that’s 19.8 lbs. A week in Bangkok, with it’s sweatbaths and smaller portions of healthier food, seems like a pretty easy diet plan…
Miss Universe was here in Bangkok today. Canada won. Bummer…
We toured the Bang Na Campus, which is the suburban portion of Assumption University. It blew my mind. It was opulent beyond opulence. Everything is made of marble, and there are beautiful bas-relief carvings, murals and even Michaelangelo-esque paintings on the ceilings of some of the buildings. The architecture is a peculiar hybrid that seems to be a hypothetical product that would be seen had the Roman Empire ever extended to Ancient Siam, with statues of St. Peter and characters of the Ramayana staring each other down. The classrooms look like miniatures of rooms that the US Senate uses for hearings. It was rather eerie, as there were no students and only a few staffers walking around these spectacular facilities. It felt like it was the palace of some dictator such is Kim Il-Sung.
Finally, to the title of this posting. Cockroaches, known as malengsaap in Thai, seem to be my new roommates. Two days ago, I found a half-dead small one in my bathroom which I promptly flushed. Tonight, as I was brushing my teeth, there was one about as big as my thumb sitting on my toilet paper. I grabbed the shower head and hosed him down. Of course he was too big to be washed down my sink. He recovered and climbed down into my shoe, which I had in there drying out as a result of the downpour described above. As the shoes were already soaked anyway, I brought out the shower again. I’m not sure where he went after he left the shoe, but he wasn’t in the shoe at least. On my next trip to Big C, I’ll be getting some sort of roach spray or repellent or something.
Hail progress!
At the hospital yesterday, the weigh-in showed that I have dropped 9 kilograms in less than a week. For those of you not familiar with metric, that’s 19.8 lbs. A week in Bangkok, with it’s sweatbaths and smaller portions of healthier food, seems like a pretty easy diet plan…
Miss Universe was here in Bangkok today. Canada won. Bummer…
We toured the Bang Na Campus, which is the suburban portion of Assumption University. It blew my mind. It was opulent beyond opulence. Everything is made of marble, and there are beautiful bas-relief carvings, murals and even Michaelangelo-esque paintings on the ceilings of some of the buildings. The architecture is a peculiar hybrid that seems to be a hypothetical product that would be seen had the Roman Empire ever extended to Ancient Siam, with statues of St. Peter and characters of the Ramayana staring each other down. The classrooms look like miniatures of rooms that the US Senate uses for hearings. It was rather eerie, as there were no students and only a few staffers walking around these spectacular facilities. It felt like it was the palace of some dictator such is Kim Il-Sung.
Finally, to the title of this posting. Cockroaches, known as malengsaap in Thai, seem to be my new roommates. Two days ago, I found a half-dead small one in my bathroom which I promptly flushed. Tonight, as I was brushing my teeth, there was one about as big as my thumb sitting on my toilet paper. I grabbed the shower head and hosed him down. Of course he was too big to be washed down my sink. He recovered and climbed down into my shoe, which I had in there drying out as a result of the downpour described above. As the shoes were already soaked anyway, I brought out the shower again. I’m not sure where he went after he left the shoe, but he wasn’t in the shoe at least. On my next trip to Big C, I’ll be getting some sort of roach spray or repellent or something.
Hail progress!
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