magicalhipsterdragon

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Smooth Jazz Covers

Thailand is the master of them. If a song has been successful and is recognizable around the world, a smooth jazz version will be playing in Bangkok cafes and malls within days. It doesn't matter if the song has explicit content either. You'll be on the escalator in the mall, listening to a peppy and go-lucky version of Bruno Mars' "Gorilla", while children walk around nearby blissfully ignorant. Lady Gaga covers are pretty entertaining as well.

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Thai grrr

When you walk over a Bangkok canal and your nose starts to run and your eyes sting.

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Frozen worms or frogs anyone?

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Posted inside the toilet stall. Should I be concerned about using public restrooms? That really is how many Thais use toilets. No joke.

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How to use a squatter. 1. Get over being horrified. 2. If you are in the vicinity of a 7-11, stop everything and go get yourself a pack of tissues. Return to toilet. 3. Place feet on either side of the hole, facing towards the door. 4. Squat. 5. Do your thing. 6. Try hard not to pee on your feet. Some leaning and feet maneuvering may be necessary. 7. Did you pee on your feet? Good, you are normal. Did you manage to not pee on your feet? You have magical powers. 8. Use tissues and (VERY IMPORTANT) throw into basket if one is provided. If you are feeling adventurous, clean yourself first using the spray nozzle provided. You will know it by how it is always damp and dirty looking. 9. No basket? Throw it in the hole and pray that you will not cause a horrendous clog in the plumbing, making Thai people hate foreigners forever because "they can't use a toilet properly". 10. See that basin/bucket of water next to the squatter? That is your flushing power. Use the small plastic bowl with the black staining on it from the hundreds of hands that touch it every day, yes, that one. Use that to scoop out water and pour it into the toilet. Do this many times. No one wants to see your pee, or the evidence that you used tissues. 11. Use the same bowl to pour water on and around the toilet, including the floor. Nobody likes stepping in someone else's pee puddles. 12. If you used a lot of water, refill bucket/basin from the tap, or leave it dripping slowly. 12. Leave feeling like you've done something cultural.

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Fatty’s Bar and Diner. The best place in Bangkok for an affordable burger, chill atmosphere, and friendly staff. A self-proclaimed dive bar, Fatty’s will also make you nostalgic for your friends back home with all the penis jokes that fly through the air. They also often feature some of Bangkok’s best bands, squeezing them into a space among their biggest fans, so the fans become as much of a spectacle as the musicians. If you like music, american diner food, and penis jokes, this place is where you should be.

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Look at this sorry excuse for a napkin. It is such a joke. Unfortunately, this is the common size of napkins in Thailand. If they don’t have this, then they have a toilet paper roll, so you can use a square of tp for your napkin. It’s one of my biggest Thai-grrrs here. You end up using twice the amount of napkins you normally would because they are so puny they barely clean up anything.

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Thai art is beautiful, weird, and useful for holding wires apparently. And it is NOT nice to shoot at Buddha!

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The adventures of khlonging. Bangkok's canal taxi. When you want to get off, you dangle on the edge of the boat until it sideswipes the pier and gently catapults you off. This also allows passengers who wish to get on the boat the chance to make a mad leap of faith, literally, in the hopes that they will make it inside before the captain guns it. They feel they have not given you your money's worth (around 5 to 20 baht, or 30 cents) if they have not gone flying over the wake of a passing khlong taxi. An added bonus is getting splashed in the face with Bangkok's quality canal water, guaranteed to have plenty of trash, sewage, and run-off from Bangkok's equally pristine streets. It'll certainly help you open up your third eye, or fourth or fifth. All kidding aside though, and when I can ignore all the things that could possibly go wrong, it's a pretty fun way to get around Bangkok.

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Purple shirts for the princess. See post below

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If you've been walking around Bangkok this month, you may have noticed the plethora of purple shirts being sold EVERYWHERE. If you are like me, you may have wondered at first "huh, I guess Thai people like purple". Then "oh, maybe it's a common uniform for maids or office workers or something", and then finally "what the hell is with all these purple shirts!". Well, I am proud to say I figured it out without having to ask my sweet Thai gentleman. The answer is: the Princess. One of the things everyone should know if they are planning on visiting or living in Thailand is that the Thai royal family is incredibly respected and loved, more than anything else here. The love of the King is tops. His picture is absolutely everywhere, and I mean everywhere! Every home, every business and most billboards. The only other pictures that can even compete with his are the Queen's and the Princess'. Each member of the royal family has a color that is associated with them. Purple belongs to Princess Sirindhorn, and her birthday is in April. So Thailand is gearing up for the big day by buying, and in many cases already wearing, these purple shirts. They are also putting up huge purple banners at schools and public places. Thailand doesn't mess around when it comes to paying respect.

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Me: do you know what envelope means? My prince charming: envelope? Ooh, sounds sexy! What is it?! Me: um, well, I guess they do get licked…

Conversations with my Thai sweetheart

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The Motherly Affection of Food Ladies

If you are planning on living in Thailand for any amount of time, whether it’s a month or a year or forever, there is one thing that you MUST do in order to dramatically improve your quality of life:

Get yourself a food lady!

Or food man, or food people. I don’t mean hire a cook. I mean go out and find a little local restaurant that makes good food, and force your way into their hearts, so that every time you walk in they get the biggest smile on their faces. You may never be able to communicate fluently in the same language, but you will become that special farang who comes to eat all the time and makes them laugh by speaking Thai so horridly. Your attempts to wai them (hands held in a prayer-like position in front of your face) will charm their boots off, and they will treat you like the awkward lost puppy that you are. 

Out of the 3 places I have lived in Bangkok, I have had 1 food lady, and 1 food couple. I’m currently on the search in my new neighborhood for another. The reason I am posting about this now is because after a 5 month break (in which I went home to America) I finally returned to eat at my old food lady’s place. It’s pretty far out of my way now, so I can’t go very often. The expression on her face when she saw me walk in made the trek completely worth it. She was so happy to see me that she insisted on giving me my meal for free! She has done this before on certain occasions. Even though I try to pay her, she just laughs and smiles and says “never mind”. You see? A food lady is incredibly beneficial for the soul. I wish I could tell her how much she has been a positive force in my life here. 

Many of my farang friends here have had similar experiences with their own food people. Having a bad day? Just mosey on down to your food place and listen to them say how beautiful or handsome you are. It’ll cheer you right up to have a little parental affection when you are so far from home. Be warned though, bring your farang friends to eat with you at your own risk. I almost lost the affection of my food lady when I brought one of my guy friends with me, because she found him so handsome that I was almost completely forgotten. Ever after that fateful night, she has always asked after him with a shy smile on her face. He’s fine!!! Now pay attention to me!!!

If you try to find a food lady but cannot seem to make your way into their hearts, it may be because it’s just not the right place. Or possibly it’s because you are just unlikable, but I can’t really help you there.

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Som Tam, or Papaya Salad. Delicious. 

photo credit to www.greenwoodtravel.nl 

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Thai grrr

I am an oddity here in Bangkok, not only because I am a farang (foreigner), currently have purple hair, and am sometimes seen canoodling with a Thai man in public (but only rarely, because, ew, only so much PDA is acceptable), but because I am not a big fan of Thai food. Yes, yes, I know, I’m crazy, but it’s true. What can I say, rice just doesn’t get me excited. In fact, more often than not, it makes me want to cry. 3 meals a day of rice will do that to a bread-loving person. However, I do my best, I try really hard to expand my Thai food horizon. Except that not liking Thai food much isn’t what really makes me the oddity of oddities. What makes me so special, and what makes my sweet beautiful Thai boy despair, is the fact that I don’t like seafood and I can’t handle too much spice. I also am pretty picky about cartilage, weird meat bits, and untried veggies and fruits. So, you can see how I might struggle to eat here, but by golly do I try.

An ongoing struggle has been my attempts to eat Som Tam. For those of you who don’t know, Som Tam is definitely one of the best dishes you can get in Thailand. It’s a spicy, tangy salad of shredded green papaya, carrots, green beans, sprouts, peanuts, garlic, and tomatoes. It is often served with shrimp or crab, but it can be served vegetarian as well. Which is the option I always try to go for. I say try, because half the time they put shrimp in it anyways, and the other half they make it too spicy. I can speak enough Thai to say “mai ow goong ka, mai ped na ka” or “no shrimp please, not spicy please”, so it’s incredibly frustrating each time I get shrimp or too much spice. However, my pretty pretty boyfriend assures me that this happens to Thai people as well, so it’s not just my inability to communicate, it’s the food vendors f-all attitude. Now, speaking of spice.....

Thai people have been eating hot peppers since the womb. They’re tongues have literally had years to build up a tolerance to spice. A common mistake made by all foreigners is to ask a Thai person “is it spicy?”. Oh you poor newbies. I learned very quickly that a Thai person’s judgement of spice level will take you down a path of tongue-throbbing pain. For example, to them that dish is not spicy, because it only has about 10 peppers in it, and every Thai person knows that you can’t feel the burn until at least 20 peppers. This is also why if you ask for “only a little spicy please”, you’ll want to drown yourself in a giant vat of milk, because there are probably 15 peppers in there. Ok, so I may be exaggerating the amount of peppers, but you see my point. For me, even 1 pepper makes my whole mouth throb and I lie dying in front of a fan with swollen burning lips. I think on average Thai people can eat 3. Do not fear though!!! I have discovered a trick that will help you with your spice conundrum: Ask for not spicy. If they listen to you, and don’t throw peppers in anyways like I mentioned above, your dish will have the perfect amount of spice. Why? Because the remnants of peppers from the previous dish that the vendor made is still in the bowl, and they don’t wash the bowl out in between making dishes, so you get just the right amount of burn, without feeling like a billion bees are in your mouth. The downside to this is if you can’t handle spice at all. If that’s the case, you are out of luck, because eating street food here or eating at a small local restaurant demands you build up some level of spice tolerance. 

Here’s a handy spice tolerance guide to eating in Thailand:

no spice, “mai ped”= bearable to a little painful-for-newbies spice levels

little spicy, “ped nid noi”, 1 pepper= deceptively bearable until it kicks in and is HOT!

spicy, “ped”, 2-3 peppers= I don’t even know, but it makes Thai people sweat

very spicy, “ped maak”, 3-10= if you like pain, and sweating, and are crazy, or you are a Thai person

and with that, I say good night, until the next Thai grr moment, of which there are many, but also are what makes Thailand so unique and funny.