How to Earn Street Cred in Thailand:

When some people come out to visit Thailand, they do it with some apprehension, letting culture shock isolate them as an outsider, only watching everything happen in front of them. When Spencer came out he wasn’t keen to just stand and watch, he did everything himself. When some locals were building at fence in front Sturza's house, he picked up a spade and helped the cause. When there were bugs, blaa-la, or fish eyes on the menu he dug his spoon in to a taste of the real local flavor. When it came time to cook chickens for dinner, Spence wasn’t ready to sit back and watch, he picked up the knife and killed our dinner himself.

We met up at our friend Dave’s place who, out of complete random chance, ends up living on 45 minutes away from me in a small village. It's safe to say that 4 years ago at U of M, the three of us would have never guessed we would be meeting up in Isaan in 2007. But there we sat and watched the village go by, everyone staring at the large number of falangs on Dave's porch, visiting the tiny village all at once. “Falang yurt yat” they said, “tons of falangs.” There were five of us.

Dave works in the Peace Corps and has been living in his village for two years. His best friend there, Pee Tom, is a couple years older than us, and we went to his shrimp farm to have a campfire and make dinner. We bought a case of beer, and he picked up some fresh veggies and two live chickens.

At a palm tree beside a prawn pond we built a fire and set out mats. On an empty bag of rice, Spence learned how to step on the chicken’s wings, leaving he hands free: one to hold its neck and the other to slit it with a knife. There were no chicken’s running around with their heads cut off; once cut they caught the blood in a bowl to be used later in the soup.


Killing it wasn’t enough though, and Dave and Pee Jiap (another Thai friend) showed him how to pluck the bird then how to chop it up. It was a relatively quiet process until the headless chicken, though dead for over 20 minutes, spoke one last time. To cut it up, Spence grabbed its body and out from the neck came an audible “baawk”, the same sound it made when it was still alive. The squawk gave us all a jump but there was nothing to worry about, Pee Tom explained, there’s no such thing as chicken ghosts.


When the chickens were cut up to look like we'd bought them at supermarket, we falang retired to the mats to have beer on ice, sit around the campfire, and try to muster up a song we all knew the words to. For the Thais this was no problem, they could have sang song after song without missing a word. It was rather embarrasing really, us not knowing more than a couple songs we could sing. The Thais wondered if we even liked music. With Pee Ole on the guitar and Pee Tom singing, the rest of us joined in if possible, and otherwise chatted in English and Thai with Dave (whose Thai and particularly his Laos is extraordinary compared to mine) and I translating.

It was great sitting around the fire but eventually everyone started getting real hungry. The fresh chicken wouldn’t cook fast enough and Pee Juap explained that he had gotten a deal on an older bird and so it would take longer to cook. Holding us over, the ladies Pee Wan and Pee Nok cooked sticky rice over the fire on a stick, then passed us Thailand’s salty equivalent to roasting marshmallows on the campfire.


The soup was eventually done and was well worth the wait. The bird was chopped more than I had thought, leaving it in hunks with strange bits of bone. We could never tell which part of the chicken we were eating. We shared large bowls of soup, sticky rice, a hot sauce, finally warming us up on what was a surprisingly chilly night in Isaan. With two chickens there was more than enough for all 10 of us, leaving leftovers for the next day.

That wasn't Spence's final Thai experience in Isaan though. He and his girlfriend Kristin also accompanied me along to school where they helped me teach class for a day. Later we took to one of the only bars in my town for karaoke, and eventually later dipped into the worst of the locals alcohols: Lao Kao. The trip ended there, with a binge on the worst spirits Thailand has to offer and Spencer and Kristin's short visit here didn't miss a single beat.