And you thought your Christmas was strange

And then you saw the pictures from our high school Christmas bizarre, where katooeys could only sit and watch for so long before taking over the stage and re-inventing the holiday altogether. It started quasi-normally when some students sang Christmas carols and I gave an unrehearsed speech about Jesus Christ and the history of Santa Claus in front of the whole school, but then they turned up the speakers and cranked out Shakira and Tata Young and the katooeys came out in colorful outfits shaking it for Santa or perhaps for Jesus or who knows why, and it was at that very moment that, of the hundreds of days I have spent abroad, I felt so very far away from home, sitting there on a plastic chair drinking instant coffee and watching 16 year-old katooeys dressed in colorful drag, suggestively dancing with chairs. In such a conservative place I still wonder where they learned their provacative moves but I've learned better than that, I know not to ask questions I don't really want to know the answers to.

Then there was this beautiful young, girl, boy, katooey, whatever, that did her/his own show in which she sang a tradition Pattaya song bemoaning over a heart broken by her/his lover's disgust and shock over his/her sexual ambiguity. That's all I could pick up over the first two parts of the song, but then in the third, the big finale, the katooey picked up momentem and started to tell her man to take her/him as she/he is and he/she vowed never to lie again. And as he/she did this, he/she started to reveal her true identity, throwing the pads she/he stuffed in his/her bra out into the crowd, then ripping of his/her wig off and throwing it as well. Then, in the final show of his/her ultimate love, or no, sadness? Confusion? I suppose we'll never know, becuse whatever the strong emotions that supposedly took over at the end of the song, the Katooey took out a fake small pistol and shot himself/herself in the head, falling to his/her death. The crowd roared as I wasn't sure what to do.
And there it was, our Christmas show, unlike any Christmas show ever before and I can only wonder if I'll ever have a Christmas again where, when sitting around with family and friends, that I don't start telling a story by saying, "This one Christmas in Thailand, there were all these katooeys dressed like they were color blind and running around with their arms flailing like little propellors swinging off their shoulders..." and on and on. Or maybe I worry that the old Christmas days will never do, and that I'll need something strange, something shocking, more so than a talking snowman or a reindeer with a shiny red nose and I'll always look back on December 25th, 2006 and say, "now that was a memorable Christmas."

My Thai Comforts

It’s becoming more and more apparent that I’m comfortable living in Thailand. It’s all the small things I don’t think twice about. Like putting ice in my beer. It’s bloody hot out here and the beer’s shitty. The ice not only cools it down, but it makes the bitter yet bland brew go down easier. I also consider it responsible drinking, since I’m drinking water as well.

I drink every bottled, canned, or bagged beverage with a straw. Well, I have to drink the bagged ones with a straw, it’s impossible to sip Coke from a plastic bag without spilling. That’s right, I drink from plastic bags. If I order a bottle of coke, and they fill a plastic bag full of ice, poor the coke in, poke in a straw into the drink, and pass it over by the handles. Then I walk around told, holding my drink by my side, unable to set it down anywhere.

When I buy fried chicken, the leg always has the foot. Whole chickens still have a neck and head. When I buy fish, I never buy a fillet, I buy the whole fish, rubbed with salt and its throat stuffed with lemongrass before it’s grilled. At the market I don’t give barbequed rat, grilled frog and cow stomach a second look. I already know it’s disgusting, why look twice?

When driving I never hesitate to drive on the wrong side of the road if it’s faster than going the long way to make a u-turn. When driving on the correct side of the road, I never assume the rest of the traffic is as well. Lane markers are suggestions, and the speed limit is only the fastest your vehicle can possibly go.

I speak the grunts and umphs of the Thai language. A simple “uh”, quickly jerking my face up with my chin means yes. If I just hum the “uh” and draw it out a bit, it’s equivocal to our “duh!” or “no shit” back in the States. “Luh?” lazily pronounced and leaving my mouth open after indicates disbelief, a Thai version of “really?” If something is particularly expensive or someone says something I find impolite, a quick “oi” while retching my face back clearly indicates my disagreement. You don’t find these in Thai phrase books but it’s how we talk.

Squatting over a hole-in-the-floor-toilet no longer bothers me, I’m always sure to have at least several squares of TP in my back pocket. And flushing by pouring buckets of water in the hole to flush no longer seems weird either.

When I have boogers, I pick them. Whenever I want. It’s not a big deal, it’s not impolite, I just have a booger that is bothering me and I pick it. People have boogers all the time. I just picked one right now. Like you don’t have boogers. And really, it’s not that gross, I don’t wipe them on people or anything.

And when I have to fart, I fart. Nobody smells them anyways. There’s always a more pungent odor to mask it in Thailand, especially in Bangkok.

I smile at everyone. It’s the Thai version of waving. Most people smile back. Others see a smiling falang in their village and freeze in disbelief as if it were a ghost that just drove past on a motorbike, grining at them.

I am uncomfortable wearing shoes indoors. I feel impolite when exposing the bottom of my foot. I cover my mouth when using a toothpick. I bow my head low when walking in front of older people. I never touch peoples head’s. I tell everyone they are beautiful.

Perhaps best of all, I’ve mastered the polite decline of generous offers. It’s even more simple than I had ever imagined. When someone tells me to do something I don’t want to do, I just repeat their offer while laughing. A Thai teacher will tell me I have to speak about Jesus Christ in Thai to the entire school at a moment’s notice. My comeback is simple: “Me? (laughing) You want me to talk about Jesus Christ? (laughing) In Thai? (laughing heartily) No, no, I can’t. (laughing) Me? Talking about Jesus in Thai… (laughing slowly into a final sigh, returning to normal.) And then I walk away. In Thailand, one can basically say whatever they want as long as they’re laughing or as long as they say “krup” at the end of the sentence. If I’m polite about it, I can do whatever I want.

Flat Tire

It’s a strange feeling being woken up by a stranger on an overnight bus. I don’t know who’s waking me, or why and then when I realize I’m on a bus, the next obvious question is where am I? Coming home from a long weekend in Bangkok, this time the answer was that I was home, back in Buakhao.

Collecting our things, Taraneh and I stumbled off the bus, our eyes half open our brains half asleep. Outside it was freezing, way colder than Thailand is ever supposed to be. A small group of men were huddled together, warming their hands over a fire in a metal bucket. Some of the men got up and approached us asking, “Where you go?” They were the tuk-tuk drivers. The cold doing very little to wake me up, I could barely think of where we needed to go. I looked at my watch. 4:30 am. I just wanted to be home.

The tuk-tuk ride was so cold it hurt. We weren’t warm again until a half an hour later, overdressed under every blanket I had. A power nap later it was time to drive Taraneh out to Khao Wong. The sun had come out but still hadn’t warmed the earth any. Like the tuk-tuk drivers, many families made small fires along the roadside and I imagined they were warming me up as well.

25 kilometers down the road, I dropped Taraneh at her house and turned back around to make the journey home. My knuckles frozen white, I pulled back on the accelerator and tried to get home as quickly as possible. 2 kilometers out of Khao Wong, 23 from Buakhao, I heard something pop and my bike started to shake uncontrollably. I slowed down, then tried to speed back up but I couldn’t keep it under control. I stopped and looked back. My tire was dead flat.

A small consolation for my bad news was that I no longer had to endure the wind. I felt warmer already. I sat on the bike and asked myself aloud, “Now what?” It was 6:30 am. I could call my Thai family but they wouldn’t be awake yet. I could call Taraneh but she didn’t have any form of transportation. I could call Lara but on her bike it would still be a half an hour before she made it out. Not knowing what to do, I just sat there. There was no one else on the road that early, nothing moving as far as I could see. I actually felt quite peaceful for a moment.

Knowing I would have to get home soon or show up late to school I decided to call Lara. It was a desperate call, and I wasn’t sure exactly what I expected her to do, but at least she could explain to the school why I hadn’t showed up. As I started to explain my situation to her, in the distance I saw a truck approaching. I’m no stranger to hitch-hiking in Thailand but I know you have to pick and choose your vehicles. In Khao Lak we used to let beat up pick-ups go by and wait for newer trucks with A/C. I couldn’t afford this luxury this time, and without seeing what kind of car was headed my way, I tried to wave it down. It flew past me and just as I thought it was gone, I looked back and saw brake lights. I told Lara I had to go and ran up to the truck.

The back of the pick-up was fully loaded with tiny whicker baskets that look like disks. It smelled like rotten fish. I wondered how they would have any room for me in the cab or whether I’d somehow be sitting atop the stench of stale fish. Behind the wheel was a middle aged Thai man and next to him was his wife. I explained my situation and my need to get back to Buakhao to teach. Thank Buddha I can speak Thai. The wife happily moved to the back seat and let me ride in front. Fluent in the basics of Thai conversation I chatted the couple up the whole way home. They told me about the fish in the back of their truck and explained they were driving market to market selling it. They mentioned the name of the fish, confirming my guess of what type of fish they were selling. These small fish are a traditional Isaan dish, one of the few I can’t stomach. They asked me if I had eaten it and whether I liked it or not. I smiled and lied and said that I liked the fish very much, that it was surprisingly delicious.

When we arrived at my home and thanked them profusely then offered them gas money. They refused and then the man got out of the truck and headed towards the back. He reached into the stacks of whicker disks and pulled out a pair of fish for me. A gift. My favorite fish. This is why I love Thai people, because they are incredibly generous. I took the fish up to the house and saw Pee Meaw was up. I offered her the fish. She gave me a confused look and asked me where I bought fish this early in the morning, then added on, “I thought you didn’t like those fish.” I explained and all she had to say was, “Ajarn D, why do you have so much good luck?”

The Dusit Zoo

I’ve always found zoos to be depressing places but I can’t resist going to them to see animals I wouldn’t otherwise be able to. I say depressing because the animals are always depressed by their tiny cages and end up pacing back and forth wearing a rut into a patch of grass. At the Dusit Zoo it was sad to see the tiny enclosures for the animals but perhaps even worse to see the visitors’ interaction with them.
Near the entrance I watched a dad pick leaves off a tree so his daughter could feed them through a fence to emus. The scraggly emus, though finding the leaves unappetizing, kept coming back to fence to take more just in case the family had given found something different to feed them. It wasn’t harmful to the emus but I was just wondering, what the hell are they doing?

A large Sun bear stood on a rock and swayed back and forth in an unhealthy way, sometimes reaching his claws to paw into the air at nothing. Only a small moat separated the visitors from the bear and the people took this opportunity to throw french fries at the crazy old thing. The bear didn’t even eat any of them, the fries just bounced off of him and fell into the water where they were eaten by the huge orange and white goldfish in the moat.


The Dusit Zoo had oddly enormous collection of plain, uninteresting turtles. There were more than a handful of non-descript concrete pools in which the turtles laid in the water or swam in small circles. For what I assume to be for good luck, all the Thais flipped coins into the pens aiming for the turtles’ backs. One Baht coins shined at the bottom of the pools and all of the turtles who chose to relax near the edge of the visitors’ side had coins resting on their backs.

I think perhaps the tigers were the most content of the animals because they were allowed to lounge around all day since they didn’t have to worry about hunting. Or maybe I just caught them all during their mid-day nap, just before they too started to walk around in monotonous circles.


In of all places, Thailand seems like it would take care of its elephants. The elephants here had little-to-no room to roam and all four of them appeared to have long gone crazy. The one here was swaying, taking one step forward, one step back, staring at the wall. All I could think, about the rest of the animals as well as the elephants, was: they don’t belong here.

Chinese Festival

For five days the Chinese carnival came to town here in Buakhao. A huge market selling plastic junk and knock-off clothes was nothing new, but along with it came a ferris wheel, bumper cars, numerous rigged games and nightly Mor-Lam dance shows. The scene was always strange and often disturbing. Young children inaccurately shot BB guns at targets and they lady running the game was holding her infant in her arms. Along with the classic stuffed animal prizes each of the stands dared adults to play as well by offering beer and whiskey as prizes.

Tempted by the huge stuffed animals and the beer, I made the usual, wrong assumption that the games were winnable, and started to take my chances. At one point I popped five balloons and was excited to have my choice of a stuffed animal for Taraneh or a beer for myself. Then when I pointed to the beer, the lady smiled and shook her head before offering me the choice of a Coca-Cola bottle-opener key chain or a flimsy Budweiser pen. Why or how they had Budweiser pens was strange enough, but the real question was whether to quit while I had only paid 20 Baht for my lame key chain or to keep playing. Having seen this played out before, I quit and kept my bottle-opener key chain.

One game, in which one must knock over a pyramid of cans with three tennis balls, was obviously rigged because the cans were weighted at the bottom and sprang back up after being knocked down. Worse than that, but making the entire scene funny is that fact that Thais are inept at throwing. The most common sports here are soccer, takra (like volleyball but played by kicking a whicker ball over the net), volleyball, and badminton. Throwing a baseball, and especially a football, is entirely foreign to Thais. Asking them to throw tennis balls at the cans is like asking me to spike a whicker ball over a volleyball net with my foot; there’s no way in hell. I’ve seen girls more accurately shoot darts out of their….er… wait, that’s a different story.


Anyways, the prize of beer and whiskey was too great a temptation for many men and they continued to take their shots at the cans. Many thought that strength was the ticket, but ended up coming closer to knocking over the bottles of beer instead. After watching many failed attempts, I finally shucked out 20 baht and took my three tennis balls. With my first throw I knocked over all but two cans, which were re-stacked on top of each other. By then, the crowd standing around and walking by stopped to watch and had collectively started cheering for me, presumably in defiance of their inability to take home a prize themselves. With the second throw I was able to hit the two cans down, but the bottom one miraculously sprang back to its feet and stood again. Still, the crowd cheered and I could hear the excitement for the third throw. I knew that if I could knock the final can down everyone would cheer as if I had won a keg for everyone. I hucked the third ball and whiff….missed the can entirely. The crowd, disappointed, unexcitedly cheered me for my attempt then moved up to the front each taking their turn and winning a prize.

After watching for a while longer I saw one older man finally knock down all the cans and when the lady handed him his bottle of beer her cheered and hugged as if he were a child winning a teddy bear.

There wasn’t anything really Chinese about all of the games, but hidden in the back corner of the festival was a brightly lit neon stage with actors in strange neon customs and what I am guessing to be traditional Chinese make-up, singing in perhaps the worst voice I’ve ever heard. These women sounded like something in between alley cat in heat and a dying giraffe. Even stranger were all the young Thai kids who were standing near the stage, motionless, staring at the show. They were hypnotized by the women and their high-pitched whining. I could stand the music just long enough to take this picture before I had to get away.