A Few More Observations from Asia…

Sizes

Upon first arriving in Thailand, we were thrilled to find that our city has a Dairy Queen, complete with DQ bars and blizzards. Blizzards come in 4 sizes: small, medium, large and extra-large. The extra large is about the size of an American “small.” Here it’s called a “Take Home.”

The size conversion seems to apply to people too. When I went to buy a pair of pants last week, the merchant took one look at me and handed me a size “large.” Hmmmm. Maybe I’ll think twice before ordering a “Take Home.”



Exercise

The norm is quickly changing, but in our neighborhood Thai women do not participate in strenuous exercise. Perhaps this explains the portion sizes. I told my tutor that I went for a 10 mile run, and she appeared to be concerned. As if, perhaps, my uterus may have fallen out somewhere along the road.

The one form of exercise that IS acceptable for women here is aerobics. Every night at 6:00 a group of women meet in the grocery store parking lot for an intense hour of aerobic dance. I tried to go a couple of times when my sister-in-law was in town. We spun. We stomped. We kicked. But mostly we just flailed around as helpless foreigners while a professional-looking dancer yelled what sounded like angry instructions in Thai. I haven't given up on my dream of becoming a Chiangmai aerobic junkie, but for this white girl, running 10 miles is so much easier.



Water Fights

The only water fighers we were brave enough to photograph.

There’s a three-day holiday in April (or five-day, depending on your level of enthusiasm) called “Songkran.” It’s basically one big city-wide water festival. Everyone, young and old, rich and poor, douses each other with super-soakers and buckets of water. On the first day of the festival our family walked to the main road to assess the situation. We saw adults piled into the back of pickup trucks, throwing barrels of water on other trucks as they speed down the highway. Meanwhile a gang of high-schoolers stood on the side of the road hiding behind a sign and tossing gallons of water unsuspecting motorcycles.

Last year about 400 people died during the holiday, mostly from alcohol related motorcycle accidents. Needless to say, we decided not to drive anywhere this year during Songkran.



Tones

Sorting tones with flashcards.

The Thai language has 5 tone—high, mid, low, rising and falling. The inflection of your voice changes the meaning of the word. Depending on what tone and vowel length you say the word “mai” in, you can say “wood”, “not”, “new”, “burn”, “calculate”, “widow”, “warrant”, “mile”, “microphone”, “silk”, and “isn’t that right?”



Script

The Thai language has 44 consonants, many of which seem to represent “t” or “k” sounds. When Thais write, all the letters are pushed together sothatthesentencelookslikeonebigword. I still can’t read Thai, but after I get speaking down a little better I hope to work on reading. In the meantime we’re picking up lots of cans at the grocery and thinking, “I wonder what’s inside?” Occasionally we’re terribly mistaken, like the time we bought some Thai version of buttermilk and added it to our fruit smoothie.



Food

If you felt bad for us stumbling through the language and drinking buttermilk smoothies, spare your pity. We’re loving the food here. We can buy a delicious plate of green curry or fried vegetables for less than a buck at the mom-and-pop restaurant down the road. As long as we remember to add in the words “not spicy” (in the right tone), we’re set. I have learned, however, to practice my order before leaving the house. The first time I tried to order green curry, I said it with the wrong tone and a Midwest accent and asked the (rather perplexed) restaurant owner if I could please have a “green prostitute” for lunch.