Welcome to Our Neighborhood

When we came to Thailand, some of my family had visions of outhouses and kerosene lamps. We do have an outhouse. But we also have not just one, but TWO, wonderfully western looking toilets and fairly reliable electricity. Our neighborhood is a mix of traditional living and modern conveniences. Perhaps some pictures would show it the best.

DORMS

The view from our dining room.

 

If you exclude the local cockroach population, most of our neighborhood’s residents are college students. Hence lots of dorms. This one (along with several others) towers over our home and peers into our back-yard. (Or should I say back concrete. The “yard” part in the back of our house is about 6 inches wide, but it yields several delicious pineapple plants. Not a bad trade-off in my opinion.)

We love living in this proximity to the students that attend the school where Nate works.

BARS

View from our front gate early in the morning after the night owls of our neighborhood have gone to bed.

Unfortunately, a plethora of bars sometimes accompany college students. Within 100 meters of our home, there’s at least 5 bars. Some tame and some not. As of yesterday one of them was a strip bar, but by God’s grace we think this is in the process of being shut down. Praise God!

CHURCH

Learning about God's creation.

 

Despite some of the lesser desired establishments, Christ is becoming known here. There’s a tiny Thai church that meets behind our house consists of 12 college students and 20-some neighborhood kids. The pastor and his wife, good friends of ours, are on fire to share God’s love with this community. We're excited to see what God does through these believers.

FOOD

Thai chicken noodle soup. Delicious and spicy.

Ahhh. One of the many things I love about Thailand. Within another ¼ mile there are literally dozens of little restaurants and food stands. It’s a wonderful thing. Minus the MSG and pesticides. And the occasional congealed blood. For $1 you can get a plate of delicious stir-fry or curry and sit down for a chat with the restaurant owner. BONUS: Thai people love kids. They'll hold the girls while we eat and don’t even seem to mind the mess of rice and egg that we always seem to leave on the floor.

NOISE:

The view from our bedroom window. A pile of shoes in the morning from the students who spent their entire Saturday night gaming.

With so many people and souped-up motorcycles on one street, noise is inevitable. But the greatest source of noise (now that the strip bar is shut down anyways) is from the internet café next door. College students and teenage boys stay there all night (literally) playing online games. When we wake up in the morning there’s usually still a dozen shoes outside the door indicating the number of (shoeless) gamers still playing inside.

There’s also stray dogs and fights. And trucks that drive by with loud speakers announcing various services. And firecrackers exploding at all hours of the day and night. (Last week we even saw the gas station attendants smoking and lighting firecrackers beside our local gas pumps. Perhaps the laws of science work differently here? Or perhaps I don't understand the mechanics of the local pumps? I didn't stay around long enough to find out.)

On the upside, our girls can sleep through anything. I mean ANYTHING. This is the blessing of living in such a crazy environment and never having the windows closed.

THE PEOPLE:  

One of the many vendors who has graciously extended friendship to our family.

We think our home is very nice, but there ARE many “cleaner” parts of town we could choose to live in. Yet the thing that we love the most about our community is not the fact that I can walk down the street and buy fresh coconuts and mangos. Or the fact that I never have to worry about our kids or music being “too loud” for the neighbors. Or even the blessing of Nate having a 5 minute commute (by foot!) to work. The thing we love is the people. Fun-loving, kind, generous, people. People who, just like us, are in need of a Savior. That is why we hope we can stay in this community for years to come.

Loving Both Worlds

The question we’ve heard the most in the last 3 months has been, “What do you enjoy most about the USA and Thailand.” The most obvious answer is, of course, people. I wish we could transport our US relatives and adopted Thai family wherever we go. But beyond that, here are a few things more superficial things we love about each culture:

Around Town...

USA: Drivers who stay in their lanes, stop at traffic lights, and use lights at night.
THAILAND: The convenience of going the wrong way down a one-way street after I miss my turn.

USA: Understanding every written and spoken word at Walmart.
THAILAND: Being oblivious if every other word turns out to be a swear word.

Food...

The rice aisle at our grocery

USA: An entire grocery aisle dedicated to cereal. (Almost as big as Thailand’s rice aisle.)
THAILAND: Fresh papaya and mango smoothies for breakfast.

USA: Flavorful Mexican restaurants and real ice cream.
THAILAND: $1 plates of Thai food.

Climate…

K's first time going out in the snow

USA: Not waking up in a puddle of sweat every night.
THAILAND: Never needing to make the bed. (It’s way too hot for sheets and blankets.)  

USA: It’s cool enough to play outside for more than 30 min periods.
THAILAND: No need for hats, coats, gloves, or even long sleeves.

Parenting…

THAILAND: Warm air and sun to bleach cloth diapers.
USA: Disposable diapers that don’t leak.

THAILAND: A trip to the doctor only cost $10.
USA: I actually understand what the doctor is trying to tell me.

Ultimately we find that Thais and Americans live life very differently, but at the core, we are all the same--people created by God in need of a Savior. We love the USA, but look forward to returning to our other "home."

Thai Holidays

There are at least 16 public holidays in Thailand. Unlike many holidays where I come from, these events involve very little marketing and lots of celebration. Schools close, business stops, and firecrackers fill the streets. As a foreigner, I have yet to understand some of these holidays—most of them actually. But a few stand out as noteworthy.

Songkran

Songkran has its root in a solemn religious ceremony involving sprinkling water on the shoulders of the elderly, but the tradition has been…uh…adapted. Imagine taking a city of junior high boys, loading them up with barrels of water on the back of a pick-up truck, and letting them drive down the highway tossing buckets of water on each other. That pretty much sums it up. Except that it’s the grandmas, the college professors and the pig-tailed preschoolers participating in the fun. When you run out of water you simply stop at a good Samaritan’s house, grab a hose and refill your industrial-sized trashcan in the back of your truck.

If you step outside during the days surrounding this three-day festival you WILL get wet. Trucks fighting on the interstate maintain relatively normal speeds. When you get closer to the town center, however, the crowd is so thick that it takes 1 hour to drive a 1 mile stretch of road. (Nate thinks 2 hours is a more accurate number. We can’t remember the exact amount of time.)

Sadly, Songkran is not all fun and games. Last year 321 people were killed and 3,040 others were injured during the event. (Mostly due to motorcycle accidents.) You can see why we were glad that Baby "A" chose to arrive late, avoiding the need to drive to the hospital (located by the busiest part of town) during this festival.

Loi Krathong and Yi Peng
Now imagine taking those buckets of water and turning them into flaming lanterns and firecrackers. That’s sort of what these festivals feel like, at least in our neighborhood. Again, the roots go back to making floating offerings to the water goddesses and making merit by lighting lanterns. But to the Westerner, one of the most apparent pieces of the celebration is beautiful FIRE. And lots of it.

During our first year here we took K to a neighborhood celebration that felt like a giant walking potluck happening in the middle of the street. All the restaurant owners brought out their three-gallon pots and served up free, delicious (well, mostly delicious) delicacies of…stuff. Mostly made hot peppers, rice noodles, and a few undefined animal parts. Since the event began after sunset, it was too dark to tell exactly WHAT we were eating, but at every table, a smiling neighbor would add another paper plate of food to my already full hands.

Most of my memories from that night revolve around trying to balance five paper plates of food (with no idea where to dispose of any of them) while trying to keep K out of the way of the exploding fireworks that seemed to be sporadically taking off from random people’s back pockets. It was crazy. And amazing. Partially amazing because we all got out of there with all limbs intact.

The rest of the celebration involves lots of lanterns (think mini hot-air balloons.) Our friends taught us how to launch these. With their expertise, we were mostly successful. But from our balcony view I could see quite a few less successful lanterns burning in trees and in the road. Again, no one else seemed concerned. Thai people are amazingly adept at keeping the combustion under control--or at least pretending it doesn't exist. This event taught me that my (perhaps paranoid) view of fire safety is radically different from my neighbors.

While Loi Krathing isn’t actually a holidays, (it’s one of the many festivals that goes above and beyond the 16 “official” public holidays) it’s definitely worth experiencing.

Royal Plowing Day
Not all Thai holidays are high drama. (At least not in the eyes of the foreigner.) I still have yet to figure out the ins and outs of Royal Plowing Day. It involves hooking up oxen to plow the rice fields, offering them a variety of food like beans and rice whiskey, and then predicting the outcome of the farming season based on what they choose to eat. It’s sort of like groundhog day except that it’s taken a lot more seriously and schools and businesses close for it. Who can complain about that?

Considering the amount of rice that is consumed in Thailand, it totally makes sense to have a holiday to kick off the season, and it’s great to see the community (including the Royal family) rally behind it.

Children’s Day

Ahh…There’s the event I missed out on as a kid. It’s just what it sounds like—a day to honor, spoil, and celebrate kids. Hallmark is missing out on this one.

While we do miss gathering with our families during our traditional American holidays, we can’t complain about a lack of celebrations happening in Thailand. I also can’t complain about the Thai style of skipping the commercialism and going straight to the main event. This Thanksgiving when you’re eating your cranberries and turkey, know our celebration is, well, turkeyless. But we’re having the time of our lives making friends, eating chicken feet soup and avoiding those fireworks…this year from the safety of our balcony.

The Market for Beauty

The market for “beauty” looks different in every culture. I first noticed this when I went to buy deodorant in Thailand. No deodorant on the shelf made claims to make the buyer smell better, perspire less, or feel fresher. Instead they claimed to turn the buyer’s armpits a few shade whiter. Yes, whiter. While my western friends are lying in the sun and investing in tanning sprays, my Thai friends are purchasing soaps, shaving cream, and lotions to make them paler.

Even food is not exempt from this marketing scheme. Today I found a whitening smoothie on my menu.

Other attractive features in Thai culture seem to be large, broad noses and small biceps for college boys. I’ve been told that some of the guys even take feminine hormones to try to decrease their muscle size.

Again, from my American upbringing, this makes no sense. But who’s to say that desiring tan skin and large biceps makes sense. And why do we make such a big deal about everything from the color of our hair to the width of our toes?

Man looks at the external appearances, but God looks at the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7) For those of you who stare in the mirror every morning and can’t stop thinking about how undeniably gorgeous you are, perhaps this might be sad news. But for the rest of us, we can rejoice that God made us in His image. Tan or pale, large or small, brown eyes or blue eyes, we all have a chance to harvest beauty in our heart. Stop stressing, people, (I include myself in that exhortation) and stick it to the marketing companies. God made all people and all cultures beautiful AS THEY ARE.

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.

Cultural Differences We've Learned to Embrace

There’s a fine line between making fun of another country and finding enjoyment in the other culture’s differences. This treacherous line has kept me from blogging much during our early months here. There’s much to love and respect about the Thai community. Because of our love for this country I’ve decided it’s time to share. Here are a few glimpse of everyday life that make me smile.

• Driving skills
  
  
  Some Thais can fit an entire family (including the pet dog) on a bike. I’ve also seen sheets of plywood, piles of suitcases, and kitchen tables on bikes. Meanwhile, the driver is talking on his cell phone. Another favorite was an elephant being carried across town on a pick-up. Thais possess of level of driving skill that I may never reach. I am learning, however, how to drive a stick shift on the left-hand side of the road. I’ll just pass on adding in the “texting while driving” feature.
  



• Creativity.
  
  
  We’re proud owners of a 91 Sunny Nissan. We have to pull the choke to start the engine. I didn’t even know what a choke was until last month. Apparently most cars stopped using them in the 80s. Our car also has a few rearranged parts. For example, the original level for the choke must have fallen off, so the mechanic replaced it with the level that opens the hood. (We call this our anti-theft security system. You can’t steal a car if you can’t figure out how to start it.) Somewhere along the way our turn signal switch must have fallen off too. It’s been replaced by a screw. I can’t wait to see what happens when the wheel falls off.
  



• Ingenuity.
  
  
  One day when our power was off we saw this view from our balcony. Our electrician’s bamboo ladder is being propped up by a mass of electrical wires.

• Safety regulations.
  
  You may have guessed from points 1-3 that regulations are a little looser here. For example, fireworks are often included in local celebrations. During one event we attended we saw fireworks being lit IN the crowded streets while people, motorbikes, and pickup trucks zoomed by. There’s no age requirement for buying and lighting fireworks, so each holiday seems to be every junior high boys dream. I wish I had a picture of the more dramatic moments, but quite frankly, when I see fireworks going off 30 meters from my feet, my first thought isn't "Hey, what a great photo opp. Let me take my toddler closer." Instead, here's a picture of our Thai friends helping us light a latern from our balcony.

• Safety.
  
  
  Despite what we’re described above, when we’re not driving and we’re not walking through fireworks, we feel incredibly safe here. Most Thais have an extremely strong ethics code when it comes to stealing or harming others. We’re thankful for our new home and our Thai friends who are helping us navigate this new culture.

Househunting

House hunting has been one of our early objectives here in Thailand. Some homes have “for rent” signs which we’re learning to decipher in Thai. Others have English signs, like the one we saw today advertising a “3 bedroom, 2 bath, fartly furnished home.”

In reality, most Thai homes are rented without furniture. This means there’s no couch, no cabinets, and usually no water heater or kitchen sink. You have to add those in on their own. The fact that there’s a sealed up concrete building make a home “nice” in our neighborhood. And really these homes are "nice." I’ve been in much more poverty stricken places than Chiang Mai, but this is the first foreign city that Nate and I have chosen to call home. The discrepancy between the rich and poor has made us question what sort of lifestyle we want here.

Living a comfortable life here would not be difficult or expensive. We found a beautiful fully furnished 3 bedroom home 20 minutes outside the city in a semi-American neighborhood. As we looked at the home it was easy to envision chatting with our English speaking friends on the back porch while watching K climb a mango tree. We could live the American dream here.

And yet we didn’t come to Thailand to live a comfortable, isolated life. And we certainly didn’t come to spend all day mowing grass, cleaning house, and washing windows. There is a time and place for that, but now is not the time for us. We came befriend, serve, and learn from Thai people.

Ironically, as we considered our housing options, God showed Nate a passage in Haggai 1.

“Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this
house (referring to God’s house) remains in ruins?...Give careful thought to
your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house
(of the Lord) that I may take pleasure in it and be honored.”

God has called us to live in the city among the Thai people so that we can help build HIS house.

We’re not saying it’s wrong to own a large home or to live among people who speak a similar language. We know hundreds of people who have built beautiful homes and are using them to share God’s love with others. In fact, we still have dreams of living in a larger space one day where we can host parties and let K run freely in the yard. God calls His people to neighborhoods of all shapes and sizes, so we can never judge another person’s love for God based on the size of their land.

What we ARE learning, however, is that God cares about how we use our home and how we relate to our neighbors. For this season of life, that means our best shot at ministry may look like living in an apartment building that’s filled with college students. Don’t get us wrong. Our apartment is still very nice, and we are incredibly excited about moving in. But our goal has shifted from wanting a home that’s “comfortable” for us, to wanting a home that allows our family to serve together in ministry. Please hold us accountable to this goal and pray that God will give us the grace to keep the right focus during this season of language learning.

Be Careful What You Ask For

Last night we went to a large Thai supercenter (like a Thai Walmart) to get household supplies. One item on our list was shampoo. We managed to find the hair care aisle (I think), but didn’t see English writing on the Thai products. Hoping the word for shampoo was universal, I picked up a pink bottle that I assumed was shampoo and pointed to it.

“Shampoo?” I asked. The lady nodded confidently. I pointed to another bottle of the same brand. “Shampoo?” Again, she nodded and repeated the word. Glad to know that the Thais use the same word as us for hair products, we bought the bottle and left the store.

Tonight I found myself flipping through the Thai phrasebook reading random words. Apparently “champoo” means pink. I don’t know what substance is in the pink bottle we bought, but hopefully it’s meant to clean hair. If it’s a dye that turns our hair pink, then we’ll have a whole new series of blogs for next week.

Flooding in Chiang Mai

There’s a reason why the guesthouse where Nate and I are staying is called the “Riverside Guesthouse.” It’s right by the Ping River. Apparently that river floods every decade or so. Today happened to be the lucky day. Our room got flooded, but thankfully none of our stuff was damaged and the owner graciously offered to put us up on the second floor for the remainder of our stay here.

Our normally busy street is now filled with sand-baggers and teenagers wading in knee-deep water. The amazing part of it all is the attitude of the Thai people. Men are pushing motor bikes down the street bowing at each other as they pass. Women carrying their children through knee deep water holding their babies and smiling as if they were out to smell the roses. Meanwhile small trees are floating downstream. There is no yelling, no rushing, and no sign of distress. I wouldn’t know a Thai curse word if I heard, it but if there’s rude words being exchanged they are done so with the most gentle attitude I’ve ever seen.

I realize that I have much to learn from the Thai culture. If it was my car, my house, or my store, I may not be so quick to blow it off with a smile. Life is short and possessions are ultimately meaningless. I’m thankful for God’s provision today, but also thankful for the Thai people who are teaching us to let go of materialism.

Good Morning Karis

Daddy gets more than a smile from Karis...