I wanted to get some midterm grading done the past five hours, but I ended up entertaining Max instead. He wouldn’t go to sleep and Nam was busy putting together slides for a presentation in Bangkok at some lexicographical conference in ten days – it takes precedence over my work so I had to watch the baby (of course, pretty soon he will be the toddler and there will be a new baby).
I really need to get as much grading done as I can in chunks because with 11 classes (7 different courses; 3 which I’ve done before but am improving and 4 new ones), a few hundred students, and 35 hours in the classroom a week, it’s impossible to finish all at once or very quickly.
//////////////////////////////////////////
Something else also popped up this evening: A couple cops came by the house and asked us to call another cop about a traffic accident or something. It turns out that some crazy bitch who tried to make me rear-end her because I wouldn’t let her cut me off while making a dangerous turn into a signal-less intersection (whew!) reported my license number to the police… I remember it very well because it happened on my birthday last week and I was really pissed off, but refrained from cussing her out because I felt bad for the kids in the car… I couldn’t believe that she cut in front of me, waited for my car to get close, and then stomped on the brakes to try and cause an accident with kids in the car. Of course, there’s really nothing she can do unless she makes a bullshit claim, so we’ll see what happens. Basically the cop who Nam called asked us to work it out because this woman came and complained about me “teasing” her… That would be the part where I told her she was a horrible driver and should be more careful with kids in the car…
I feel the cops really have no business asking us about anything or to do anything since nothing happened (apparently by her account as well as mine), but maybe she has a brother on the force or something. If it comes to a “who has bigger friends” contest, though, I will be prepared and show no mercy…
Category: Thai Society/Culture
Where do stolen Japanese bikes go? ????????????????
Well, many of them end up in Thailand:
One of two bicycle stores in town selling only stolen bikes from Japan that we visited this week (we’re looking for a Japanese-style child seat). This shop is the bigger one and has perhaps 50 bikes in stock. They park the merch on the dirt in front of the shop (a townhouse across from Big C Mahasarakham) during the day.
Anybody in Japan want to call Mr. Makino and tell him where his mountain bike is? He can have it back for 3,500 Baht plus shipping. I should get an award from the police or something for doing their jobs.
It’s been a long trip from Yamazaki.
A Saitama mama(chari).
Another defector from Saitama.
From what I could see, the majority of bicycles were from Saitama, Aichi, and Osaka, but seeing the registration stickers (sorry – officially they’re known as “Anti-theft Registration Decals”; LOLZR) is a bit like reading all the passing license plates when on a road trip in Nippon – a smattering of place names that either bring back memories or inspire further wanderings.
I saved the best for last; this bike has an intact warning issued by the bicycle parking enforcers that this bike is parked illegally and will be taken away… It doesn’t specifically say that Osaka city workers will load it on a flatbed and that it will eventually end up for sale (2,500 Baht) in Northeast Thailand, but hey – times are tough all over and at least someone got something out of it.
This is by no means a new trend overall, but it’s interesting that there’s such a number of these stolen bikes here now for there to be ample supply even hundreds (thousands?) of miles away from their port of entry. It’s also the same for motorcycles here. Sometimes you come across these shops where they sell big rice burners that all start with a screwdriver because their ignitions have been pulled.
/////////////////////////////////////////////
I apologize for my photos being so blurry. I was holding squirming baby and trying to take photos discreetly. I actually really want to find out where these bikes are sourced from, but somewhere down the supply chain the answer is “bad people,” so I’ll perhaps go ask sometime with a savvy Thai pal.
Thai funerals are chill
I went to a funeral over the weekend; a coworker lost her father.
I always find it remarkable at funerals here because they’re such pleasant affairs. Is this a Theravada thing, or a uniquely Thai thing? I suspect Laos is much the same but I’m not sure about Cambodia, Myanmar, or Sri Lanka…
At a typical Thai funeral (I’ve actually been to around fifteen and driven by hundreds), blue canvas pavilions are rented and placed in the street in front of the house for guests to sit under. Monks come from a local temple and their amplified chants fill the streets for all to hear. This is one social occasion when people generally arrive on time, so they can be there to offer prayers and light joss sticks in front of the coffin and photos of the deceased inside the house.
The family of the deceased doesn’t cry or even seem overly distressed. It’s the strangest thing coming from countries where people cry at funerals to one where they don’t. At first it feels like something’s missing. Then people sit down at tables, food and booze is served, and the transition from funeral to wake transitions so smoothly they can hardly be classified as separate functions (and indeed, they aren’t here).
—-
A man at my university lost his son to the Nam Chi (river) a few months ago. The boy had been gathering shellfish on the banks with his friends, but got swept out in the strong currrent. His friend tried to save him and they both drowned. Tragic, right? It made me really sad just hearing about it at the funeral from the father, but I noticed how matter-of-factly everyone around me accepted this information, so I acted the same way. My normal reaction would be to try and console, or express regret, or…. I realized at that moment that it’s kind of better this way. I mean, the situation is obvious. Everybody feels crappy that it happened, but no lamenting or carrying on at the funeral is going to change a thing. If you don’t need the release of crying and being patted on the back being told its going to be alright, there’s really no reason for it, is there?
I don’t know if I’ve done the wonderfully natural and sincere atmosphere at Thai funerals any justice here; it’s quite hard to describe. I feel that a lot of what people attach to death back home is, quite frankly, bullshit. I’m just saying it’s nice to attend a funeral where all of that is absent.
Plagiarism in Thai Universities
I stumbled upon an excellent article on plagiarism over at Inside Higher Ed: LINK
Plagiarism is such a deeply rooted and widespread problem in Thailand, I think it deserves its own course for first year students. Most students understand that it’s bad for some reason, but their attitude is basically that they can’t do the work without plagiarizing.
Interestingly enough, most Thai students will immediately admit to plagiarizing if confronted, and the same goes for copying homework or cheating on a test. There’s definitely some good Asian moral richness blended into their transgressions.
///////////////////////
As a side note, when Nam and I were studying at Tenri University, we had a sad, sorry excuse of a teacher (you know who you are and I know you read this blog) who declared that cheating was OK for the Chinese students in our class because it was “part of their culture.”
I could use the same reasoning to turn a blind eye to what regularly transpires in the classes here, but somehow I just can’t let it slide..
Our New Thai House Part 5 – The Blessing Way
The end of 2007 coincided with the milestone of 98% or so of the basic house being completed, so we decided to move in on New Years Day. We invited some monks for a blessing ceremony and they did us up well.
It was the first time we were living in a new house. This coupled with the fact that we were one of the very first houses up in the neighborhood and hence kind of solitary made for a strange but very relaxing time coming home after work every day. I mean, in front of the house was our pond and around us was future house plots and rice fields. It was very cool. We bought some golden lions to protect our house, and they have worked out very well.
//////////////////////////
This isn’t necessarily the end of the Our New Thai House series, but it marks the end of the first chapter.
/////////////////////////////
Our New Thai House entries:
Our New Thai House Part 1 – Picking a Plot
Our New Thai House Part 2 – Foundations
Our New Thai House Part 3 – Groundwork
Our New Thai House Part 4 – Roof and Walls
Our New Thai House Part 5 – The Blessing Way
Landscaping Our House – Before and After
Working Around Planned Obsolescence
All of the PCs I’m using at home are ones I brought over from Japan in 2006 so they are all either very well-used or broken now. My main laptop is a Latitude x300 which was manufactured about 150 computer years ago*, and the screen hinge broke so it’s held open with a bent metal ruler I jam in the gap between the large-sized battery and the main body every time I use it. All 3 desktop PCs failed in some way or another so I broke them down into parts to create a super franken PC which would have kicked serious ass about five years ago but is now just kinda OK.
I’m not complaining about this state of affairs – it’s just something that comes with the territory when spending so much on baby consumables and hospital stays and barriers and sterilizers and car seats, etc. – but it is kind of funny to think about how much has changed the past couple years. I basically traded money for happiness and never looked back; life is great in that regard. I guess what I’m trying to say though, is that I really appreciate living in a place where I can try and save money in creative DIY ways.
Case in point: I brought two LCD monitors over when I came, a Mitsubishi and an Iiyama, chosen at the time of purchase (early 2005?) for cost performance and 100 – 240 volt capability out of the box (all of the electronics I bought between 2005 and 2006 were “world voltage” and NTSC/PAL compatible). The Mitsu (typically) broke first, something wrong with the control unit. It’s basically a brick since the cost for real repairs is more than the cost to buy a new one, and the back room soldering repair dudes with burnt fingertips and flux in their hair were unable to fix it. So it sat in my work area gathering dust for about ten months. The Iiyama is a cheap piece of shit Nam was using until the Mitsu broke (and her desktop PC broke at about the same time, so we just starting sharing the aforementioned franken PC)**. The fluorescent bulb(s?) burnt out, so half the screen is dark. After doing some research on the net, I decided that the bulbs themselves were probably interchangeable if I could get to them, since they were both sourced at around the same time and are used in the same size monitor (4:3 res 17″).
So I took both of the monitors apart last night and was able to remove the bulb assemblies (2 assemblies per monitor, 2 bulbs per assembly). The wiring is a bit different, but I think it can be figured out by one of the back shop soldering pros. So the the next step is to take the assemblies down to my favorite shop run by an old man who wears magnifying glasses. I’ll tell him what I want and he should be able to figure out how to rewire the Mitsu bulbs to the Iiyama assembly after desoldering them all. I predict the work will cost a few dollars, which most Thais would consider expensive but which I’m totally willing to pay as long as its done right. Now, if he gets the wiring right and if I can get the monitor back together correctly (there were a couple of tricky ribbon PCB connectors in a tight space I might need to make a special tool to close shut), and it all works correctly and safely and all – I’ll be really happy. And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll be forced to buy a new, bigger, shinier monitor. So I guess that’s OK too. It’s just that driving a 38 year old car and using ancient PCs and teaching (not this term, admittedly) in a 40 year old building with warped wooden floors and uncleanable black boards puts one in a strange state of mind sometimes, where the idea of new is viewed as wasteful and godammit, why the hell should I buy new shoes when the holes in these aren’t even that bad yet?
I guess what I really wanted to say is that the new photos of Max I was going to post are trapped on my monitor-less desktop PC, and will be posted as soon as functionality is restored.
*6 human years. I love this little notebook and think it’s one of the best designed systems, ever, just really old now of course.
**A completely unrelated piece of trivia interesting only to me is that the Iiyama is either an OEM piece of shit made by NEC or the Chinese company that put it and its sister NEC model together felt that having only slightly tweaked control buttons was a big enough differentiation between the two.
Learning to speak Thai
Andrew Biggs (I always think of him as the Dave Spector of Thailand although that’s far from being accurate) wrote a couple of great columns over at the Bangkok Times:
RAMKHAMHAENG SECRETS (PART ONE)
The first farang student at the world’s largest semi-open university discovers the intricacies of trying to master the Thai language
RAMKHAMHAENG SECRETS (PART TWO)
more.
near wild heaven
An old woman came by my table at an outdoor restaurant, selling this (plus another similarly-sized chunk) out of a basket. It was the last of her merchandise so she let me have it for 50 Baht ($1.50 US); about 30% off the going rate.
There is nothing more delicious than wild honey, even just a very small amount (It’s the reason Pooh bear is such a fat ass, after all.).
on the troubles
A few people have asked how we are faring here with all the troubles in Bangkok. Thanks for your concern!
We live six hours away from the capitol by car, and are completely unaffected by disruption of the ASEAN summit, the blocking of intersections by pro-anarchy taxi drivers, and all the other bullshit caused by idiots who are seemingly intent on running their own country into the ground.
The only real effect it had on people here is that those who want to make an easy 500 – 1,000 baht per day being hired by the pro-Thaksin red shirts to “demonstrate” all started making the trip to Bangkok late last week. Oh, and also, it seems the government has extended the Songkran holiday period until Friday the 17th (today was supposed to be the last day). I was supposed to teach a remedial reading class on Friday to failing seniors. Oh, well. It seems that Thailand can always use more taxi drivers.
UPDATE: As of Tuesday, the official road deaths count for the Songkran period was at 272… This ridiculously high number is mostly thanks to drunk assholes and retarded water antics involving people dancing on the back of pickups while hurdling down wet roads at high speed. So it was safer to be among demonstrators surrounded by guns, tanks, and tear gas than it was to be on the road!
Steamed Beetles
BEFORE:
Not sure what kind of beetles these are, but they need to be soaked (drowned?) to induce excretion before cooking.
AFTER:
Steamed with lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves. This preparation is typical of Thai/Laos peasant cooking, and very healthy, AND very delicious.