Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
I threw together a bunch of leftovers and it turned out real fine… Pon Yang Kham beef is the best in Thailand, from a Thai/French cattle hybrid. It will never be world class, but it’s the best of what’s available in Thailand.
Tropical Storm Podul (North Korean for “willow”) has been dumping on us since around midnight and I spent the day trying to prevent everything we own from being flooded including vehicles, property, and cats, as well as preparing to sign a lease for our new juku and organizing teaching materials for a seminar at a vocational college in Roi Et city tomorrow (which just got postponed until next week).
My home:
My work:
The highway we were supposed to take:
The area we were supposed to go:
A new skyscraper being built in the shape of a wot (alt spelling: wode; the circular pan flute of Isan):
The newly-created Roi Et Coast Guard station:
And finally, a common sight in the countryside that always brings a smile to my face:
That’s the road to Max and Mina’s school, a couple minutes from our house on the old Maha Sarakham University campus. Nam also found a big pla salit (gourami) stranded in our driveway, and I pushed his armored side along until he could swim back down into the flooded street. When she told a friend about this when we went shopping later in the day, he asked quite seriously why we hadn’t eaten it!
Note: Most of the photos on this page are borrowed from social media and were forwarded multiple times before I used them here. Please let me know if you’d like attribution.
It’s quite possible this is an alternate spelling of “Nick.” But somebody should talk to them about it. Maybe their website is a bit more low key? Nope.
When Nam is driving, I like snapping photos from the passenger seat. Up here in Isan, this type of photo is defined by capturing the camera in the side mirror and long green fields of rice when it’s the right time of year. Otherwise, it’s just a big, hot, dusty expanse.
Instant noodle conundrum, yo.
UPDATE: Indo Mie FTW.
I’ve been teaching the new freshman classes of Chinese students from various forestry and agricultural universities on exchange programs with Rajabhat Maha Sarakham University (my workplace and soon to be alma mater) for several years now. They keep getting more and more open-minded about the world, and the most recent group of 35 from Honghe University was the best yet…
The groupthink is slowly disappearing and real independence is just starting to show. I used this as an opportunity to accelerate their learning with memrise, YouTube, IG, and Facebook.
I’m thinking about writing a paper about how to most effectively stimulate their natural curiosity and independent thinking with only online tools, although it may be not looked upon so kindly by their minders… We have talked in class extensively about what will happen after they leave Thailand the day after tomorrow – their online profiles outside of the great firewall will become stagnant and wither… or will they? It’s said there are cracks in every wall.
Anyway, one of the kids just posted this on FB and sent me the translation, and it made me happy.
“Our English teacher is an American Japanese and I like him very much. The way of class is too humorous. When the teacher is in class, he will give us a game. It’s too exciting. Although my English has gone backwards after the college entrance examination, I just want to take English classes. Because the English class will make me very happy. The teacher also asked us to go to his house to cook. There are three kittens in his family. It’s so cute, I sometimes go to tease the cat. There is also a teacher’s daughter who is super beautiful. The teacher also said that he wants his daughter to marry at the age of 50. Absolute daughter slave haha “
Rad.
We were down for approximately a day because I was coordinating the change while on a trip to Laos last week.
A pox upon whoever bought JaguarPC and ruined a once-great webhost. My new host is much, much better, and I’m paying less than a quarter what I was to JaguarPC. I was with them for over twelve years – the last few years, their service got worse and worse and finally, they tried to double their fees on my yearly invoice, so fuck them. Want an honest webhost review for Jaguar PC? They are dishonest. They are slow. They suck. Great, hope that helps someone makes a decision.
Here’s a test photo of a mosquito eating apple slices:
Click to see the entire Mosquitoes Eating Fruit Series.
