Thai Society/Culture – Page 31 – C. Buddha's Hasty Musings

Zato #9 – Adventures of Zatoichi

In a sense, I’ve been employing a Zatoichi of my own here. The baby in Nam’s belly is a week bigger than normal, and Nam feels very heavy, so she goes to get massages 2 or 3 times a week now. I also went last week after my fever, because my shoulders were all bunched up and I couldn’t sleep.
The masseuse is a blind man named Moh Ken (“Moh” is an honorific for doctors and other health practitioners). Moh Ken is a funny sorta guy; he doesn’t carry a cane sword, but he’s strong as hell from massaging people all day. When he massaged my shoulders, I was very aware that he could have snapped my collarbone like a twig any time he felt like it (and yes, this is a funny thing to be thinking during a relaxing massage if you’re not at least a little bit strange yourself). Moh Ken carries around this talking pocket watch that tells him time at the press of a button. His senses are fine-tuned enough to tell when people are moving around huim in the confined space of the massage shop.
I watched him change the sheets on the massage table this last time, and it was just fascinating. On one hand, I wanted to offer help (I mean, he was double-sheeting the table with fitted sheets so that he only had to change them after every two customers – pretty cool!), but on the other hand, I knew he would just swat me away with his rough blind samurai hands…
All previous Zatoichi posts

Quick update

I’ve basically dropped off the edge of the world trying to get over this cold. I think I’ll be back full swing tomorrow.
In the meantime, I caught this article at the Nation’s website about a graduate of our uni who’s stirring up some things in education over in Buri Ram: The school that sets its own course

A Visa Crawl

Long-term foreign residents of Thailand not fortunate (unfortunate?) enough to have a permanent residency or Thailand Elite card must apply for visa extensions, usually every year. It’s pretty much expected to be a long and drawn-out process. This year proved to be no exception. We left Mahasarakham at 6:15 AM and arrived at Mukdahan immigration shortly after 9.
Because the idiots in our personnel department couldn’t get our documents together, our trip had been delayed until one of the busiest days of the year – just a couple days before many people’s contracts (and hence visas) end.
The whole day was long and tiring; I spent most of it standing at the application window watching our stack of applications not moving on the counter for about 5 hours straight and joking with the immigration official, fellow teachers, and other random applicants. Let’s just cut to the chase and say that we left the immigration office after 7 PM, nearly three hours after official closing time.
I have to give props where they’re due and say that the two officials working the window really worked hard and got everybody through with a minimum of fuss, all things considered. They were also very nice, patient, and understanding, which hasn’t been the case in the past at either Muk or Nong Khai immigration.
The next and final step in this process is getting our work permits renewed, and since the aforementioned idiots in Personnel managed to delay our paperwork for this as well, we were unable to go today and are forced to go tomorrow. It has to get done tomorrow, or we have to leave the country and our visas will be canceled. That might cause a bit of a stir, even by the low standards of Personnel, so I’m pretty sure they’ll be ready. I just hope they’re done in the morning like we’ve been promised, because I’m teaching a community learning class in the afternoon…
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UPDATE 9/30: I FINISHED! I FINISHED! I FINISHED! No more of this bullshit for another year (except for reports every 90 days)!!!

Pink Water Buffalo Photos!!

A few weeks ago, Nam wanted to buy some more maternity clothes so we got in the car and headed off to Non Kuan Chang (sp?), a nearby village with the best silk shop in the region. The shop is run by my coworker’s mother-in-law, with several looms and weaving machines on an elevated bamboo work area outside and an extension of their big house used to hold/display finished products. I took photos there the first time I visited Sarakham seven or eight years ago and need to do so again; today I’m not writing about silk though.
Max had fallen asleep in the car on the way, and since it was a cool day I just opened the car windows and parked right in front of the shop so I could hear if he woke up. I walked around looking at this and that for a while (after trying a couple traditional Thai silk shirts over the years, it’s clear that they are simply too hot for me), but eventually got sleepy. I decided to take a nap on the shiny hardwood bench on the porch while Nam and the shopkeeper did their thing. I’m not too ashamed to admit that I woke myself up by snoring and also slightly drooled on a nice shiny silk pillow. I hope it wasn’t for sale.
After Nam chose a really cool piece of mommy clothes, Max woke up and got clingy on daddy so it was decided that mommy would drive home while big sleepyhead entertained little sleepyhead in the back seat. On our way home, on the narrow village road running between the silk shop and the highway, I spotted an apparition straight out of my dreams:

He was a young male being kept by a family under their house-on-stilts. A young boy was feeding him and ran away when Nam stopped the car and I jumped out. His mother came out to see what had happened and I asked if I could take some photos. Unfortunately, I only had my phone.

The coolest thing? He was so friendly! Even though I’m pretty good with animals, I hesitate to approach ones that are big enough to hurt me and not even feel it. This big guy was really calm, though.

I’d been itching to get photos ever since the last time I saw a pink buffalo, so I was very happy. Very, very happy.

Wherein I confront craziness

In the interest of getting everything on the record, we decided to confront the crazy bitch, at her request, at the police station last Thursday, dependant on a couple of things. We first called in a favor and asked about the officer in charge and got back the answer that he had a reputation for being straight, and a good cop. That was a good sign, because a chance you take when going to the cops here in an unclear case like this one is that the cops are either sided with your opponents for whatever reason, or the cops themselves want something. So I wired myself with a cellphone transmitting to my PC at home.
That accomplished, we brought along Nam’s little sister to help watch Max and went to the station. The entire meeting lasted 30 minutes, because everybody except the crazy bitch wanted it to end quickly. She brought along a female teacher from Nam’s university for whatever reason and even she seemingly wanted it to end quickly. Why? Because in those thirty minutes, the crazy bitch never indicated what she wanted until the very end but did manage to tell everyone how she nearly caused an accident in the middle of an intersection when she pulled alongside me, in the lane for oncoming traffic, and expected me to sideswipe some kids on motorbikes to make room for her… And then got so angry because I didn’t accommodate her that she followed me for a kilometer, pulled in front of my car, and slammed on her brakes to cause an accident – WITH KIDS IN THE CAR!!! (and from what I saw, they weren’t even wearing seatbelts, because both of them were thrown forward, hard.)
By the time the cop heard this, he’d pretty much had enough of her so he kept repeating the same question, namely asking just what it was that she wanted. Because she wouldn’t say what she wanted, I got the strange feeling she was waiting for an apology from me but was somehow too embarrassed to ask for it. You’d never guess it, but… Just for the hell of it, I apologized. And guess what? That was that. Rather, that was it. The whole time, she wanted an apology from me for somehow causing her to almost (intentionally) cause two accidents in two minutes. When everybody realized that, it was like light bulbs went on above their heads. Nam, me, the cop, the crazy bitch’s friend. I mean road rage is one thing, but trying to cause accidents and then admitting it to a cop in a police station because you think it’ll get someone else in trouble, all because you want an apology is… fucking crazy, or as the Chinese exchange students at the good ol’ U of T used to say, C-R-A-Z-I-O-U-S.
So, the situation is resolved. I actually felt good about making the crazy bitch feel good, too (by apologizing). I could’ve really pissed her off by letting it get to the “demanding an apology” stage and then refusing to do so – I had every right to – but even though I intensely disliked her, I felt sorry for her at the same time. Someday, when I get to Buddhist anti-purgatory, I expect some fucking deity to remember the time I was nice to a crazy person, and perhaps just temporarily put out the fire burning my ass off.
That is all.

No work accomplished today

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.
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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…

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.
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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 Society/Culture

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).
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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.

Thai Society/Culture

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.
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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.
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This isn’t necessarily the end of the Our New Thai House series, but it marks the end of the first chapter.