Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
From my student’s essay on problems in Thailand:
“If I were Prime Minister, the first thing I would do is help beggars in Thailand, because the beggars are pathetic. They can’t find a good job…”
She must be a transfer student from Public Administration.
WARNING: If you are vegan, watching these videos will melt your eyeballs.
There couldn’t possibly be a western equivalent to this horrifying act of culinary cruelty, right?
Wrong:
Attributing this reaction to ionic exchange somehow doesn’t make it less difficult to watch (again and again).
A couple weeks ago, we went to my coworker and good friend’s father-in-law’s place for his new house celebration. He’d built a new house on top of the foundations of an older one at his 15 rai (1 rai = 0.4 acres) property five minutes walk from our home. There are several fish ponds on the site, stocked with all kinds of fish including tilapia, catfish, snakehead, etc.
Max was so excited about going fishing for real, he couldn’t sleep the night before. Until then, we’d been practicing for safety with hookless tackle (a rubber door stopper tied to the line) at the ponds in our neighborhood, but Max was ready for the real deal. When morning rolled around, we went out into our garden and dug up worms for bait, which both Max and Mina couldn’t believe just lived in the ground around our house…
Just before noon, we headed over to my friend’s FIL’s place and found that Max was unwilling to eat; he was completely enthralled with the prospect of actually fishing, so I pulled a couple of bass rods from the back of our car and set up with light rigs. Then:
This was actually his second fish, perhaps a bleeker, related to carp in any case. We were fishing the shallows in 1 meter deep water with fallen submerged trees everywhere, so my sliding sinker rig did a perfect job. The total for the day was five small fish between Max and his friends, and typically, they all got bored after pulling in their own fish. Max was scared to actually touch the fish, just as I remember being, so it was a good learning experience for everybody.
On the deep side of the pond we were fishing they apparently catch 7-8 kilogram catfish of various species (giant Mekong cats included!) on a regular basis; I saw some they pulled that morning in the 5kg range waiting to be prepared for eating, so I don’t doubt it. I was trying to keep the kids from being traumatized by a leviathan, so we stayed in the shallows!
FYI: This is what happens when you insist that daddy draws on your face with mommy’s lipstick pencil.
There are some great photos in this set that I’ll post later.
You may understand part of the pain and frustration we experienced if you can recognize the complete set of gaskets and ferrofluid engine mounts (replaced with solid urethane mounts). Yes, the whole front end of our Cefiro A33 (USDM: Infiniti i30) was taken apart and put together again. It runs really sweet now, except for a noisy power steering pump, another set of wheel bearings, some paint bubbling up on the roof, etc., etc., and so forth…. And my car, the 40 year old Kujira Crown, will be totally done sometime this year, hopefully (that’s a story in itself; not enough space or patience to cover it here).
Wow… memories…
Taken (shakily, sorry!) at dinner gathering for the International Conference on Science and Social Science / International Conference on Science and Agricultural Technology held at Rajabhat Maha Sarakham University in Thailand.
Being MC for an event means you get the closest seat to the stage!
I announced that it’s common practice to tip the performers if you like them, and I think the girls and the band made out pretty well…
…and was very proud of it.
I’m socked in with extra work this week MCing for an international conference to be held at my school, Rajabhat Maha Sarakham University, tomorrow and the day after. This morning we held a rehearsal. To get in the mood, I poured cold water over my head after waking up and watched an episode of Louie before heading in — this is the best prep for public speaking that I’ve found.
A friend showed me some homework his students turned in last week (the assignment was to bring in examples of different charts, graphs, diagrams, etc.) and I had to pass along the joy:
Yes, they will be graduating university in a few years, and yes, you may pay them minimum wage.