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

Death by Burpies

Crossfit, our method of fitness training here in Chiang Mai is certainly keeping me sore and exhausted. Right now the tops of my shoulders complain to me as I type, agitated after our sledge hammer swing workout yesterday. The title of this post is affectionately (not) named after Tuesday's workout where we did burpies (a combination of a jump/squat/pushup) until we just could not do them anymore. The rest of our Crossfit craziness has included regimens of max push-up and pull-up tests, squats, rowing and tire flips (yes, you read that right, the giant 14 wheeler kind!).

The exhaustion that I am experiencing from crossfit paired with everything that has overwhelmed me thus far is settling me into a nice routine of lots of sleep, regular eating habits, and of course school. It's strange to me that this out-of-the-ordinary time in my life is bringing me so much regularity and consistency day to day. Wake up 6:45 am. breakfast at 7, school at 8, home at 5, shower, dinner, homework, bed. Living with an 8 year old has definitely helped :)

I wanted to get a quick post in before we leave for our retreat this weekend with school, but I'm using ISDSI internet which is sadly not fast enough for a picture upload. Here's an update from this weekend and I will post pictures later!

On Sunday we made a family trip to Mae Rim, a rural suburb outside of Chiang Mai where Khun Me grew up and visited her family's rice farm. This was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life so far! Being there reminded me of a mealtime grace my family used to say, I think it is a Vietnamese poverb/prayer or something:

Heaven, please make the rain fall,

So that I may have water to drink,

So that I may plow my rice fields,

So that I may have my bowl of rice,

and my fish in great slices.

Standing out in the middle of the rice field was like experiencing the essence of the prosperity of humanity. Rice is symbolic (especially in Asia, but really worldwide) of success and community surrounding food. In Thai culture, if someone wants to ask you to share a meal, they ask: "Have you eaten rice today?" People here don't go one day without having rice. Being surrounded by kilometers of rice I could feel the core of food culture in Thailand, seeing earliest growth stages of what people survive on, thrive on and share together here in Thailand: the foundation of livelihood! The fields were a patchwork of rice beds, stitched together by raised paths, weaving through the sprouting plants. We were surrounded by foggy mountains, spitting rain came now and then as thunder rumbled in the distance, and the sun peeked through the stormy clouds. Standing out in the middle of it all on the narrow path was surreal, comforting, I felt strangely at home. Everything was peaceful and saturated with promise: the promise of prosperity!

300 Steps to Doi Suthep

Craziest looking fruit, crazy name too: Gnuee (said in bottom of throat with chin sticking out)> words verbatim from my notebook

The flesh of the fruit appears

... and it gets eaten- delish! Photo credit: Rita <3

My room!!

I locked my host mom in the kitchen! That is my “lede” for this post. I was sitting around idly before dinner (as usual… I haven’t figured out how to help in the kitchen yet) but thought I would extend my nightly offer for the 6^th night in a row. Khun me politely declined (as usual), so I tiptoed away to do… nothing, trying not to give off too much of disappointment.

I’m learning that there is a lot of harm in trying too hard not to make mistakes. When you try too hard, embarrassing situations seem to find you even more scar-ingly than you expect. I work myself into a big hole of embarrassment, where my desire to apologize, communicate, or just prove that I’m not as clumsy and forgetful as I come off, overwhelm me in an exasperated heap of silence. There is a point where there is no use making excuses, no use apologizing for a 87^th time, and no use saying it will never happen again, because of a deep fear/certainty that it will.

The previous day, Khun Me had grabbed my arm and pulled me over to the sliding door that I had left open a few inches and closed it tightly. “No snake, no mosquito” she had said, and I had pounded my head against the wall that I had neglected to do something as simple as close the door all the way. Well, back to me walking out of the kitchen: walking away from her in her apron and cooking cap, feeling disappointed and unhelpful, that moment of being taught to close a door tightly was fresh in my head. Wanting to remind myself (and others) that I really am a good house guest, I left the kitchen, and shut that double door tight, as tight as it would go, jabbing the stick we use to lock up at night through the two meeting handles. I brushed my hands together as I walked away, not one mosquito could get through that door... and neither could a human. A few minutes later I heard banging and my name being called, more muffled than usual behind the closed doors, and everything terrible came washing over me. How do you explain why you to put the stick through the handles of the kitchen door locking your host mother inside? I certainly don’t have the Thai vocabulary for that.

I am realizing other things about myself, too: I think of myself as neat, but stood for a few minutes in my room one day, putting myself in the shoes of a host. I am disgusting. There was hair all over the bathroom floor, my suitcases lay open on the ground, only half unpacked next to my giant armoire, my bed was unmade, and all of my personal belongings were in messy piles on the floor underneath the windows. I did a quick clean up, and hope to get better at putting my stuff away! This evening after I had gone in my room, Yod came up the stairs calling my name, so I came out to talk to him. “Excuse me Charlotte, I have to tell you something” he said, and came over to my door. “Don’t slam the door like this,” he said, pulling at it forcefully, “Turn the handle like this and then close” he scrunched up his shoulders and cocked his head poised for a perfectly silent door closing. We had already been warned at school not to “slam” our doors because Thai people think of Americans as noisy. I don’t know why this couldn’t just stick in my head. The Thai word for foreigners is “farang”. When Khun Me talks about the foreign teachers at Yod’s school, she turns her nose up, and pinches it. Yikes. But, for as many mistakes as I make, I put that much more effort into my Thai, so that when we can actually communicate with one another, all of my positive qualities will overshadow these circumstances! Khun Me is very kind, and though I think she understands, I can't help but feel stupid most of the time.

This weekend I want to make homemade pizza for my family. They said someone made it once before, but the crust was too hard, so I am on mission soft-crust. We were supposed to go shopping today for the ingredients and make the pizza for dinner, but by the time we were done with the bathing suit affair it was 5:00pm and Yod had tutoring at 6, so we didn’t have enough time. We came home only to find that Yod’s tutor had canceled, so we went our for pizza… the exact kind they LOVE. I think it is called like the Pizza Palace or something, but they tell me it is “same same Pizza Hut”, and it pretty much was. They were so excited to go, and enjoyed the food so much, I don’t have the inspiration to try to out-bake the processed food perfection. The pizza had like a velveeta coat instead of tomato sauce, then cheese, and then ham, pineapple, and shrimp on top. Not what I personally would have ordered, but it was pretty heavenly, the way that kind of food can be. It was also the first time I had eaten something so familiar since leaving home, so that felt good too.

This week I was definitely feeing the “W”’s that are embedded within the overall W curve of study abroad emotions. There were highs and lows, my low being on Wednesday when I felt like I had no friends, was never going to be able to remember even one word of Thai, and that my host family hated me. But then on Thursday did a complete 180, loving school and friends, and forgetting my Thai notebook in my carpool’s car but coming home with Thai spilling out of my mouth, not even wanting or needing it at all (Hallelujiah, my brain works! Just some minor technical difficulties). Another high came on Friday when we climbed a nearby mountain to visit the Doi Suthep Temple on top. Even though I was sweating barrels and it rained and was suffocatingly hot at the same time and mosquitoes ended up smushed dead into my sweat, it was breathtaking and I got blessed by a monk and a white cotton bracelet for good fortune and happiness. I’m feeling its blessing already :) There is a soft rain outside, kissing my room with cool air… hopefully it will take me less than a sweaty hour to fall asleep tonight!

xoxox

That "filmy" looking layer on this picture is a massive spider web, I hope you can see it...

Chiang Mai <3

The mosts sustainable lunch box... purple sticky rice, chicken and pumpkin greens wrapped in a banana leaf, with a little banana leaf packet of chili paste for flavoring

One of the temples in the temple complex

Doi Suthep

The inside of Doi Suthep

ISDSI! we signed our names on the piece of robe for visitors

Lam Yaiy in Chiang Mai!

We have had a nice, lazy weekend and tomorrow starts school! I bought two uniform shirts yesterday at the market when we went to visit Khun Paw (my host father) at his clothing store in the market. All of the clothes are made by hand! In Thailand all female students wear white button down shirts and black skirts, so I got some spiffy looking button-downs.

Dahlroudee making the Lam Yaiy muffins!

This morning I spent about an hour reading to Yod from Sleeping Beauty so he can get better at his English. Because I don’t understand enough Thai to help cook or do much else, it felt good to really be able to be a part of the “exchange” aspect of being hosted by a Thai family. Khun Me and Khun Paw are very focused on Yod’s schooling: he has Chinese and Thai every weekend, and occasionally English apparently! While we were doing that, Khun Me and Dohlrudee were busy in the kitchen making me “Welcome to Chiang Mai Muffins” I learned when they were ready. 

Khun Me waiting for the muffins to bake <3

I also learned that I am supposed to eat the majority of the 32-muffin batch. I’m glad they are absolutely delicious (or “a-loy” in Thai)! I have already had 6 today so I’m off to a good start :). They told us in orientation that Thai people are especially attentive to our small behaviors. If we take a bit more of something than something else, they immediately assume that it is our favorite food and bring it out every meal. Trying to be overly thankful and praising of everything they feed me, this hasn’t worked out for me too well, and I can’t remember how to say “I’m full” so I have eaten A LOT, not know how to say no. For example, we had papaya last night (delicious), and tonight a heaping plateful was placed directly in front of me for dessert. Already having stuffed my face with dinner I only ate a few pieces and I think they were disappointed. Another example: I slept around 12 hours both last night and the night before, so they shooed me up to bed tonight at 8:00 PM because I need to get up around 6:30 AM tomorrow for school. It is nice to be taken care of, but I wish I could communicate more!

Lam Yaiy muffins!

This is what the fruit Lam Yaiy looks like

I want to blog a bit more about the amazing food I have eaten, and I hope to have more pictures soon! The muffins were incredible, “Muffin Lam Yaiy”. Lam Yaiy is this peculiar little fruit I was introduced to yesterday. It is a round piece of fruit flesh encased in a hard covering that you crack open with your teeth. You then pop the white fruit into your mouth and remove the center seed. It has the texture and taste of very ripe cantaloupe. There were chunks of it throughout my muffins! They were really delicious. We do have rice with almost every meal, and I really enjoy it. For breakfast we have “Chao Tom” a soupy rice with carrots, cilantro, and bits of meat or shrimp, usually left over from dinner. We also had that again for lunch. For dinner tonight we had Pad King (I felt so happy when I recognized this as sounding like something in a Thai restaurant), which was like vegetables and meat in a ginger-y sauce, a vegetable tofu soup that I can’t remember the name of, and a fish/vegetable dish as well. It is all really amazing!

Chaow Tom (breakfast, and occasionally lunch)

Siblings... for a while :)

Yod and I both go to school tomorrow. I can’t understand much of what he and his parents say to one another, but I can tell he rules the house! He is quite a character. We went swimming again today, and played chopsticks on the piano, and had a lot of fun reading sleeping beauty! Thanks, Jordan, he really is like the little brother I never had :) More soon!

Pomegranates... ?!?

OOkulele

The garden

Just swingin'

Our not-real-at-all elephant

Khun Paw!