Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
The Awa Odori is originally from Tokushima, but there’s a fair sized turnout in Sumoto every year as well. This year, both the crowd and the number of dancers were the largest I’ve ever seen.
I will post more photos after I find the time to edit them.
E-mail: cosmicbuddha AT gmail DOT com
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Skype name: cosmicbuddha
Old mullet point, down near Suhama bridge.
Originally by Dave Barry, I believe, but mailed to me from a friend in Singapore. Universal truths are indeed universal:
1. Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings.”
3. There is a very fine line between “hobby,” and, “mental illness.”
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours.
5. And when God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, He WILL NOT use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.
6. You should not confuse your career with your life.
7. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.
8. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.
9. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
10. Never lick a steak knife.
11. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
12. The most powerful force in the universe is gossip.
13. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
14. Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.
15. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
16. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
17. The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.
18. A person who is nice to you, but is rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.
19. Your friends love you anyway.
20. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.
This one is for the Big Ho, who once wrote to me about his one-eyed cat and how it likes eating used Q-Tips:
WHY DO CATS LIKE EATING EARWAX ??
I personally prefer training my cats to eat used snotrags, but also to never accept any from strangers.
A tribute to everyone who visited/called this weekend:
The Undrinkable Cocktail
Thanks to you all for leaving the airag at home… Last night I watched the fireworks and slept very, very well.
…has been postponed for the time being in lieu of:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
Celebrations started early this year, and I have one last party to get to before the night is over. I’ve completely recovered from the heatstroke/food poisoning/mid-life crisis barfing thing the other day, so thanks to all those who wrote.
Nam performed Thai dance at the Awaji Westin today, perhaps for the last time, and I took around 500 photos with my new DSLR, so I’ll be posting about that soon.
Until then,
Justin Yoshida I
King of Awaji Island and Benefactor of Surrounding Territories
… for I will never eat sharkfin soup again.
Yesterday I was in Himeji on a business trip. After our meetings, we went to the top of Himeji castle in the miserable heat and walked our clients a fair distance to their posh hotel. We then walked to the inconveniently located and much crappier hotel that we were staying at (a pox on our financial dept.), changed out of our dripping-with-perspiration dress shirts into casual ones, and immediately headed out for Chinese food back at the client’s hotel restaurant.
I was on my third small glass of beer before the food came, and had just finished my bowl of sharkfin and crab soup and a couple of light entrees when I felt the rumbling in my stomach. An ominous rumbling.
To make a long story short, I suffered from either:
A. Heatstroke
B. Dehydration
C. Food Poisoning
D. Thermal shock, or
E. All of the above
I did not make it to the restroom in time.
Cupping my hand over my mouth only resulted in directing the explosive stream of sour vomit all over my shirt and slacks. My shirtfront was covered with semi-digested bits of crab meat and black fungus from the soup, plus other sour beer-smelling detritus.
I finally made it into a stall, got lightheaded, and almost dunked my head in the toilet before I realized there was an unflushed turd in it. This made me purge even more, after flushing a few hundred times (even I cannot sink so low as to puke on another man’s turd).
After I washed off my face and most of the puke off my clothes, I attempted to dry my shirt so as not to make it immediately noticeable that I had lost my cookies when I returned to the table. I fooled nobody for very long, since I turned green after smelling the greasy Chinese food again.
I excused myself before the next wave of nausea hit, weakly stumbled to the hotel lobby and hailed a cab outside. The cabbie was being a fucking cunt and seeing my still-damp shirtfront, asked if I’d been drinking. I said “what’s it to you,” and he threatened to stop the car and kick me out. I threatened to puke on the floor if he stopped before we reached my hotel… Thus I got back in a precarious state of stalemate.
I collapsed on the hotel bed and the world went away for a few sweet, blessed hours. I woke up before midnight feeling completely restored, and was unable to sleep again. I took a walk on the empty streets of the city, swearing off sharkfin soup and remembering the most important things in life.
With work, I am disenchanted.
The most important thing in life, at any given time, is not to be puking your guts out.
Himeji monkey.
Himeji castle.