We were really busy running around to our schools and searching for the perfect set of tiles in a dusty warehouse all day, so the rain was most welcome when we pulled up to a roadside stand to buy take out. We sat down as the old couple chopped veggies and ground herbs and performed frying pan magic, and witnessed a most curious phenomenon: To the left of the shop it was raining down in sheets, as if the angry monkey in the sky was throwing buckets of water down at the earth, while on the right, it was merely sprinkling. The shop seemed to be situated right on the edge of the curtain of heavy rain, so to speak, and although it veered about twenty feet to the right of the shop a couple times, it always returned to center so we had a split view of the weather.
In other news, I saw a buffalo bird perched on top of a cow today, and I wondered if it knew it was a cow and just couldn’t be bothered to look for a buffalo, or if lice and ticks and other yummies are all the same to a buffalo bird.
Category: Thai Society/Culture
Nam Nuong
Nam Nuong are the little grilled sausages on sticks shown below, but it’s also the name of this dish. It’s Vietnamese in origin, but I don’t know what it’s called there.
All of the ingredients are laid out on a rice wrapper and rolled up before eating, like a fajita.
The sauce is sweet and spicy, and full of roasted peanuts – the combination of all the fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs (including lettuce, cukes, green bananas, starfruit, mint, kaffir lime leaves, green chilies, and everything else in the photo that I don’t know the names for yet) is something that cannot be described, but must be experienced.
How I found out I’m not shaking my shoes out hard enough every morning
A heart-shaped frog procrastinated loudly when I jammed my foot in. Then, when I tried to pry him loose from the cavernous regions of the toe compartment, he secreted something slimy all over my fingertips. Maybe I shouldn’t leave my shoes outside anymore… Nature always wins in the end.
D&D
Meet thine foe:
The Giant Centipede
These things just look evil, and Nam insisted I dispatch it when we found it in her university’s parking lot. “Dangerous for students walking around,” she said. I tried to kill it with a rock, but it wouldn’t die, so I pried a brick loose from a nearby footpath and ground its head into the hard-packed dirt. The whole time, my skin was crawling.
This was probably the biggest one I’ve ever seen (around 8 inches long, and fatter than your finger), much bigger than the ones in Japan.
Fucking nasty creatures.
Book Recommendation for Thailand
I just finished reading Narrative of a Residence in Siam, a book written by a chap named Fred Arthur Neale in the 1850s. It was, in a word, excellent. The author voices many opinions about Thailand that I can relate to 150 years later, and was a skilled writer.
Actually, the full name of the book is Narrative of a Residence at the Capital of the Kingdom of Siam; With a Description of The Manners, Customs, and Laws of the Modern Siamese by Fred Arthur Neale, Formerly in the Service of his Siamese Majesty; Author of “Eight Years in Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor.”
It was originally published in 1852 and the version I found at Nam’s university library is the second reprint, which was retypeset as well. For a paperback, this book is gorgeous:
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One of the many passages that struck a chord (although these are not the author’s own words, he is quoting another):
SIAMESE LOVE OF GAMBLING
The Siamese love gaming to such an excess as to ruin themselves and lose their liberty, or that of their children; for, in this country, whoever has not wherewith to satisfy his creditor, sells his children to discharge his debt; and if this is insufficient, he himself becomes a slave.
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I can’t recommend this book to people interested in the history and culture of Thailand enough; if you want a taste, it seems that Cornell has a complete scan of the book online although their servers are a bit slow at the moment.
Cheating Problems with Thai Students
This week is the final week for both my regular and weekend classes; the last final for my last class is tomorrow and I just threw a pretty good one together.
I will make a rather blanket statement here and say that Thai students are pretty bad cheaters. Not only is cheating rampant, it’s so rampant that I suspect it must be ignored or even allowed by some of their other teachers*, hence the students are quite bad at it.
I was a pretty good cheater when I went to school(which is not to say I cheated a lot, just that I never got caught – except once when my dad busted me with a “borrowed copy” of a Teacher’s Book for pre-calc in high school), so I know what I’m talking about. And (hold on, let me get on my high horse here) since I’m here to give these kids a well-rounded education, I basically throw down the gauntlet by telling them: I don’t care if you cheat. Cheat all you want. But don’t get caught. It will end badly for you.
To date, I’ve caught two.
They’ve never been seen or heard from again (I sent them to the cornfield, yo).
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*Not only do I suspect it; a teacher was apparently found to have helped a large number of students cheat last term… and wasn’t fired.
Ant Infestation
They appear with no warning
When they sense the rain coming (and they are never wrong about it), ants can move an entire colony inside the house overnight, as happened here. I sat down to type out some morning emails, and a thousand little dots erupted from under the keyboard, spreading out in all directions. I flipped it over to find this – it was pretty much one of the creepiest things to wake up to, ever. Previous infestations have sprung up in laundry pilers on the floor and in my inkjet printer – I was printing out sheets with little black ants embedded in the paper for weeks after that (it was actually a cute stationery effect, although no one actually asked me where I bought the paper).
A Hyperlinky Ode to a Damn Fine Fish – Soft Tilapia Pr0n
Oh, Tilapia, how versatile thy be!
You are on my plate nearly every week, and my favorite New Years repast.
In fact, you are farmed in such numbers, so misused for pest/plant control, and just so damn tough that you threaten every natural environment you visit.
Some even call you the farmed fish of biblical fame.
However.
Now they can make your skin into leather.
… And can hence be used for bust control.
THE END
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Link to the online retailer of tilapia skin products mentioned in the latter Reuters article linked above: angie&penny
I finally found the video most of the graphics used above were pulled from (the others are mine or from Google Images):
Tokay lizard caught off-guard
I swear these are the ugliest, trippiest looking things you’ll ever see… Here’s my previous post on them, with facts aplenty.
Funniest Misspelling
From one of my student’s speeches this year: “I much prefer the wide open rice fields and simple homes of my country village to the confusion and chaos of Bangkok, where the skyline is broken up by ugly skycrappers.”
…Another proud graduate of the School of Justin.