The Endings, the Beginnings and the In-Betweens

This is my Thailand-apropriate bathing suit, 
no more hiking clothes!

I wanted to write a post with a point right now but I’m not in the right frame of mind. I haven’t blogged in about a week, and I want to keep up! So I am just going to write to write.

         Right now I am sitting in a café at on the bottom level of our apartment complex using the WiFi and catching up on the mounds of reading we have for school. Monday starts our Agroecology Block (the second of four units of curriculum during our time here), and with this comes quite a bit of work. Friday afternoon I went home with a large, juicy stack of untouched, unruffled, uncreased stack of books and field journals all to be read, written in and filled over the next 4 weeks of our course. There was something so cozy about being enveloped in things to learn, and the best part is, I feel SO ready and enthused to learn it all. Different from what I have told my parents, I feel as though I have almost never been able to make my school work my top priority, but I am in Thailand to LEARN. And the best part is, this is my stuff, my “thing” my passion I guess. (I think) Our course is called “Sustainable Food Systems”. Thinking about it sends me into zaps of anxious glee! THIS IS ALL I WANT TO DO/LEARN ABOUT!!!!

         Yesterday we moved into apartments for the rest of our time in Thailand, which meant leaving my host family. This was really bittersweet for me, because although I felt as though I had to provide a lot of closure, they are certain we will spend lots of time together in the future. I do hope to go back and hang out with them on weekends. Perhaps the most endearing part of leaving them was reading my host brother the thank you note that my mom wrote to his Mom, asking him to translate to her in Thai. As he spoke he kept getting choked up, teary eyed, was blinking rapidly. Embarrassed, he covered his face and ran out of the room, overwhelmed with emotion. He has taught me so much, and I am so lucky to have him.

         My school hosted a farewell dinner as part of our leaving our families, we all dressed in traditional Lanna clothing, and there was a talent show performed by the students. Yod and I sang two Thai songs, "Lam La Bam Ciao Ko" and "Chang, Chang, Chang" about elephants. That night I didn't stop smiling for like an hour and a half. All of my classmates got up on stage and did the most cutest, impressive, talented tasks mostly thrust upon them by their host families including singing, dancing, and playing music. It was awesome.

         Living with a family here has really reminded me of the importance of Family. There is nothing like being loved. I really respect the decisions my host parents have made in their raising of Yod, and I can tell he is everything to them. Being able to share in the tight bonds they have with one another is really special.  Just a few pictures to share until another update sometime this week :)

I introduced us in Thai, and Yod introduced us in English

The room full of families, I have 26 classmates, all with large host families!

We sang a thank you song all together

The flower I presented to my Mae

The Thai class! We have SO much fun together and have the best, most loving Ajaan (prof) from L-R Andrew, Jenny, Ajaan Budsakorn, Cassie and Me

Farm to Table: Chiang Mai Style

Chick cupcakes!! One of my favorite recipes...

Happy Bakers

        This weekend all I did was bake… and eat. Apparently Khun Mae is one of the only people in Chiang Mai with an oven. I’m pretty sure she is also the person in Thailand/Southeast Asia/maybe even the entire world who owns the most cooking supplies. There is nothing this woman doesn’t have, and she uses about 10% of it on a daily basis. Her kitchen is half inside half outside, with walls of glass shelving units housing heaps of bowls, spoons, dishes, tools and machines to make every kind of food you could ever imagine. She has a bread maker, kitchen aid mixer (gifted by a previous host student), flame torch and deep frier. She has every size and shape of pan, bowl, muffin mold, spatula and nifty slicer/scraper/shaper. (Oh, except a grater, she could use one of those). And, like I said, she has an oven, which scores major points here. This weekend we made apple cake, chick cupcakes, pie crust and chocolate chip cookies. I managed to accidentally dump the chick cupcakes in the sink, and they were ruined. If Lucrecia and Brian are reading, they will find this extra funny because the last time I made these I did the same thing… only that time was on the carpet, frosting side down. The chocolate chip cookies were to bring to school… I kind of went to town (a quadruple batch, 100 cookies plus some dough for snacking).

         Cooking with my Mae has been an unmatchable bonding experience. I learn so much about her through her fascination with food. We still can’t say much to each other, and even though I nod and smile when she talks to me, she knows I still don’t really understand her. I decided to start simple and go with some “classic” desserts/snacks. Most of the recipes I suggested had already been introduced to her by her previous host students, so we got a little more technical. They love apples, so apple cake was easy, and Khun Mae miraculously remembered the chick cupcakes from a photo I had shown her 3 weeks ago and asked to make those too. I like that recipe because they are cute and delicious. But today we went to a book store and spent about an hour browsing the cooking section, making big plans for the rest of my stay. Our list includes chocolate cheesecake, cream puffs, banana upside down cake, and crème brulee. Like I said she has a flame torch, and wants to buy ramekin cups- a worthy investment in my opinions. This is really fun for me because it makes me feel like an expert on Farang food, and it makes me feel like I can give her something in return for the wealth of knowledge she is giving to me in the magical and “authentic” realm of cultural cuisine known as Thai food. More to come about cooking that stuff…

Yod using the new apple slicer

We also made spaghetti with white sauce for dinner, Yod got a little talk about eating all of the food on his plate.

Beautiful Chiang Mai

         Back to rice. I learned a bit more about it today from a reading I had for class from Charles F. Keyes’ Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as a Modern Nation-State: “… rice is a basic of life for all who live in Thailand. Rice (khao) is equated with food in a basic sense, all other foods being considered as ‘that which is eaten with rice’. From rice one acquires not only nutrition but something that is also spiritual in essence. All of the peoples in Thailand, like their neighbors elsewhere in Southeast Asia, conceive of rice as having ‘vital essence’ that is the same as possessed by human beings. Rice not only unites people in Thailand, it also serves to distinguish them… For most people in Thailand the main food to be eaten with rice is fish, in some form. Fish Sauce made from salted fish is used as either the base for hot sauces or as seasoning. Fish sauce in particular is to Thai food what soy sauce is to Chinese or Japanese food” (11). This is pretty much my experience in another man’s words. He tells it like it is. Thailand must also be spoken of in relation to the countless tropical fruits that grow here that the people thrive upon! Passion fruit, guava, man koot, gno, pineapple, watermelon, farang, and countless others are staples in a Thai diet.

         Being the foodie that I am, and having visited a rice field and eaten rice every night, I can’t help but wonder where all of this food comes from. According to my host parents (and granted, there is still a degree of language barrier to be factored in here), all of the rice served or eaten in the city of Chiang Mai is grown in the surrounding suburbs (Mae Rim, Lampung, Doi Sukhet) on rice farms. In fact, The surrounding areas of Chiang Mai grow so much rice that much of it is sold to Bangkok or even exported. Additionally, when visiting the markets here, one gets a sense that everything being sold is coming from the surrounding area, there is no fancy packaging or pre washed and weighed kind of deal. This observation was confirmed at a presentation we had from someone at the city planning association in Chiang Mai, who seemed to think that having food grown in the surrounding suburbs was not quite as good as it could get. Now, of course all of this food is coming from so close by because of the climate, and the ability of the people to grow/raise this food year round, but needless to say I am still very impressed.

Learning about growing our own food,
and growing 2 plants in the same pot!

         Additionally, many families (like mine) have small gardens where they grow greens or raise chickens. This food significantly supplements each meal. I recently learned of the “Sufficient Economies” model that is a declared goal for all of Thailand to basically become self-sustaining. The way to do this is to have small communities primarily sustaining themselves with small amounts of exchange or transport of certain items throughout Thailand. Last week we visited a small functioning community/village inside the city and went to visit a man who sustains his own consumption of produce. It was really interesting to hear about his goals for his family in the context of the “Sufficient Economies” model, and how he has explored many farming methods and techniques to be producing all of the crops he needs throughout the year. Supposedly this movement is taking off, and it will be interesting to see if Thailand achieves this goal. I think they are very capable of it in terms of production, it will be the organization that will be the most important.

The garden we visited

Bananas!

         With that, I reach the climax of this post, our “Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai” dinner we had tonight. We had a pork dish that is a Chaing Mai recipe/favorite, with all Chiang Mai ingredients, including greens on the side from our garden. Ugh, local food comes so easily here…

All these veggies are from the garden!

This is a Chiang Mai dish, spicy pork. In the north, we like our food spicy.

To all of my K friends, good luck with classes today. Thinking of you!

 

** Side note: much of this food is grown with terrible chemicals and unsustainable farming practices. I will learn more about this soon, and will definitely update you, but I have decided that when I have to make the choice I prioritize local over sustainable.

The cave we rock climbed, ziplined, and repelled in on friday.

Back to Kindergarten: Learning a New Language

My handwriting notebook, you know... just tracing :)

There are a lot of things that are really hard about trying to become a child again in order to learn a language. For one, I am not a child, and my mind had developed to work like a 20 year old (I think…). I am starting to realize that I am too smart for my own good. The method through which we are learning Thai (not sure if it has a name) is basically to learn through hearing and experiencing new words in context. Our Thai Ajaans (professors) speak to us and expect us to infer and imitate their use of each word to adopt it into our growing vocabulary.  If we feel the urge to speak in English or translate a new word, we are asked to pause, and “swallow” this urge.

Now, of course we are trained student machines. Every piece of information we receive we acknowledge, contextualize and add it to our learning schema as efficiently as possible, and for languages this means translating. Even though they ask us not to we whisper translations to each other, and write them in our notebook… it’s involuntary, and we resort to it every once in a while. But, there are some class periods where it takes us around 45 minutes for everyone to understand a single new word. We resort to countless repetition and theatrical interpretation of its meaning and each student slowly has an epiphany as to the meaning of the word. At the end of it we all slump back in our chairs… isn’t that enough for one day? But we have 5 weeks to learn in Thai what I have been learning in English for 20 years.

Before coming to Thailand I was told that learning Thai was pretty easy. When I got here I was thinking, no way. And now I’m kind of in the middle. I remember when my host family pulled up to pick me up. After saying “Sawadeeka” (hello) over an over again for about an hour (asking my friends every five minutes, “Wait, what is it again?”) preparing to meet them I thought I was ready for an evening of Thai. My host brothers name put me over the edge. “Yodbordin” “What?” “Yodbordin”, “Sorry, what? A bit slower?” and because I couldn’t resort to asking him every five minutes, “Wait, what is your name again”, we went with Yod. But this is how the first week carried out… learning a new word, and within a minute: “Wait, how do you say that again?” I became frantic, bringing my notebook with me everywhere. But what I was soon to realize is that the first week was so hard because the sounds were so unfamiliar to me. There would be days that would go by where NOTHING would stick, and I would panic, and then I would wake up one morning with everything in my head.

When learning how to read, we use a combination of these two charts: one to sound out each letter, and the other to superimpose the tonal inflection of that particular combination of letters.

The key to this, like anything is practice. The hardest part about that is disciplining myself. I try to practice about an hour a day, plus pronunciation sessions with my host parents. Thai is a tonal language. I never really knew what that meant or thought it was a real thing until I was told I had just said “bad luck” instead of “beautiful”. Each combination of letters has five tones it can take: rising, falling, flat, down or up. Because I can’t speak much yet I try to communicate with body language, and vocal inflections of my voice. But this gets me into a LOT of trouble. Where English speakers might say: “Yuck, I absolutely HATE this game… can’t we play something more fun?” with some attitude and maybe a facial expression at the end. In Thai those vocal inflections completely throw off the person you might be talking to because they can’t detect the proper meaning of the words you are trying to say. That is the hardest thing for me: abandoning my instinct to convey my timidity, confidence, regret, joy or sense of humor I might be feeling through the way I say the words. Thai is a language where you say what you want to say: if it’s a question then ask it if it’s a statement then make it… none of that other fluff. That is really hard.

This is the little dictionary I have made for myself with phonetic spellings in English (this is a page with no translations though I have many in my notebook)

Tonights homework (ah!)

How we learned the name of every possible family relation today (ok, we didn't get to great grandparents/aunts/uncles)

Pictures from last week, a temple in Mae Rim

Putting a little gold spec on the Buddha's heart

เพิ่มคำอธิบายภาพ: Thai for "caption"

As promised: pictures from the rice fields!

Rice

A worker pulling crabs and snails out of the patties (like weeding)

A resting shack (usually it is unbearably hot)

cows

I want this to be me in the near future

MY DEAR HANNAH CAME FOR DINNER! this pic was taken on the automatic timer (thank god for that feature!)

Hannah and I cooking... she took such good care of me and her Thai is so good! Such a role model <3