Thai Society/Culture
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Thai to English (and English to Thai) Translation with Google
Note to self: Thai to English Translation: LINK English to Thai Translation: LINK
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I Saw the Queen of Morlum (and Molam and Mawlum and Morlam)
Her name is Banyen Rakgan, and here I must quote Wikipedia: “Banyen was the first national mor lam star, whose appearances on television in the 1980s brought the form to an audience beyond its northeastern heartland. She bridges the gap between traditional and modern mor lam, normally appearing in traditional clothing, but using electrified instruments and singing luk thung and dance influenced songs.” The basic story of how I found myself ten feet away from Banyen performing live is simple: It was serendipitous. //////////////////// I work at Rajabhat Mahasarakham University. There are many Rajabhat universities located all over Thailand. A few days ago I went to the Rajabhat in Ubon…
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New Years in the Fields
As promised, here’s the whole story: On the second day of the new year, our nanny invited us to her village for the bi-annual emptying of a communal fishpond. We piled into our trusty ’71 Crown, picked up a Japanese teacher who wanted to experience village life, and headed out deep into the rice fields. Actually, we first stopped at our nanny’s village so we could follow a pickup out to the final destination. I always carry rubber mats, wooden planks, and a shovel in the back of my car to get out of mudholes and sandy spots encountered in the back country, but with the family along for the…
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Typical Northeast Thai Temple
This is a “side attraction” at Wat Srisawat, located on Srisawat road in Mahasarakham. The other side of the building pictured above features a collection of concrete animals. I took photos of them last year; I’ll try and dig them up.
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Water!
Nam was trying to sleep in this morning as Max has been keeping her up at night for the past few weeks, but the funniest thing happened: A man selling jugs of distilled water drove his pickup by the front of the house yelling, “nam na krup! nam na krup!” (water! water!), so Nam came running out of the bedroom a couple minutes later rubbing her eyes and asking who was here… When she saw the guy selling water down the street she asked me to please kill him.
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New Years in the Fields – Preview
This is a preview to a photo series I shot during our New Years holiday. I’ve been meaning to put it together since I shot it but Max got sick and life got in the way, etc., etc., and so forth (quote from KoS). I’m now busy doing other things, but perhaps I’ll get around to it this weekend. /////////////////////// On the second day of the new year, our nanny invited us to her village for the bi-annual emptying of a communal fishpond. We piled into our trusty ’71 Crown, picked up a Japanese teacher who wanted to experience village life, and headed out deep into the rice fields. Actually,…
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Big C Mahasarakham
In November 2008, Thai superstore Big C opened a branch store in Maha Sarakham, just a few minutes down the street from us. Life hasn’t been the same since, mostly in good ways since we pay less for more and no longer have to venture downtown to the small Tesco with shitty parking inside the SermThai department store. Also, there were certain things – such as sporting goods and bicycles – that were only sold at ridiculous markups at small stores until now, so watching said shops close up forever is satisfying on some very small, very human level. On the flip side, traffic on the main street in front…
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Pu Yai Ban – Village Headman
Do you see what I see? Close up: Now there’s nothing remarkable about village headmen here. Every village has one, and there are presumably thousands of villages in this region alone. What’s remarkable is that (presumably) a village headman has taken it upon himself to advertise his position on his pickup. I wondered about what kind of egotistical twat would have the nerve to do something so tasteless, so pointless, and so retarded… So I waited for him to return to his car for over twenty minutes. Sure enough: One self-important asshole in a pickup, not bothering to look before he pulled into traffic and almost crushing a passing biker,…
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How cold is it in Thailand?
Well, up here in Mahasarakham (educational pearl of the northeast) it dropped to 13.5 degrees C last night (56.3 degrees F). As long as we’re talking units I might as well drop a couple good links here: The Thai Meteorological Department’s page for Mahasarakham (more accurate than any other weather page out there for this area; I’ve checked them all) Converber – A standalone unit converter supporting tricky Thai units like rai Last week it got about this cold so we put Max in between us at night. For the first time since I was a kid, I had a bed peeing dream; you know the kind where you see…
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Rumors of a coup
There are rumors of an imminent coup in Bangkok again. It may happen, it may not. Our house and family is protected by sheer distance. The only reason I write about this at all is in case telecom service is interrupted; there’s really nothing to worry about. Happy Thanksgiving!
