Posted on 22 May 2008 by christao408

Every third Wednesday of the month, the Bull’s Head Pub on Sukhumvit 31/1 hosts a trivia night. Tucked away behind the Villa Market, next to a Japanese bakery, the Bull’s Head is one of a half-dozen pubs in the mid-Sukhumvit area designed to cater to the expat Brits and Aussies who live in our fair city.

Stuart had previously invited me to attend the trivia night and this time the stars aligned and my schedule opened. I discovered a scene much different from the smokey, crowded contestants-put-on-the-spot-by-a-witty-host scene that I had imagined. This is in part due to recent legislation that bans smoking inside pubs and restaurants and also in part to the fact that Wednesdays are a slow night at the pub and they are trying to encourage, not discourage, potential customers.

Participants operate in teams of their own making, composed of as few or as many members as they choose. Stuart plays with two other people, a British man named Richard and a Thai one named Jay. Each team sits at their own table and food (and of course, drink) can be consumed as the match occurs. When ordering, the waitress asked my name, which I thought was quite unusual and forward of her until Stuart explained that they did that so as to keep separate bills.

The match is composed of five rounds of ten questions each. The host announces the topic categories for each round prior to the match and each team can select a “joker” round, for which they will earn double points for correct answers. Last night we chose “Current Events 2007” as our joker round. Other topics were “Music”, “Sports”, “General Interest” and “Sci-Fi Shows”. As the host reads the questions, the team writes answers on a sheet of paper. Afterwards, teams exchange papers and score the answers.

Questions favor British and UK references and on several political and sporting questions we would have been at a loss without Richard. The music questions (in which snippets of each song were played with one point given for correct artist and another for correct title) were all about very contemporary artists so Jay’s knowledge of music was helpful. The sci-fi show questions were actually a sheet of thumbnail pictures of different shows’ casts and we had to identify the shows. Stuart and I were able to help with that although I was very disappointed that “Doctor Who” was not a correct answer.

We concluded the first round with a massive lead over the other six teams as it was our joker round. After the second round we had a narrow lead. By the third we were a bit behind and by the fifth we were in third place with the leaders (who apparently win every time) a good 20 points ahead, out of 120 possible points. The winning team received a bottle of vodka. Members of the second and third place teams received a warm bottle of Heineken each. Lower-placed teams received a variety of useless crap.

Still, it was good fun. We need to expand our team by at least one person to incorporate some additional general knowledge expertise. If you have such qualifications and will be around the Big Mango on the third Wednesday of the month, please let me know.

In other important news, the Japanese Tourism Authority has announced that Hello Kitty has been signed on as an official ambassador for the Yokoso Japan! (Visit Japan!) campaign. The cartoon feline, created by Japanese company Sanrio, is one of the world’s most recognizable characters and will be used to target potential tourists from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, where she is especially popular.

Kitty’s online profile indicates that she lives most of the time in London, so one wonders if she is planning on relocating back to Japan for the duration of her assignment as animated ambassador.

Left: Kitty in kimono accepts this prestigious assignment. As usual, Kitty was speechless as she apparently has no mouth.

Spontaneous Singing in the Boarding Area

Posted on 21 May 2008 by christao408

Above: Not quite 5:00 in the afternoon and yet the sky is dark as a storm consumes the central part of downtown Khrungthep. Picture taken from the Thong Lo station looking northwest.

According to the guides, charts and historical patterns, we’re a little bit ahead of the normal rainfall for May, which as I understand it, marks the first of the two monsoons (the other is in September, the wettest month by far). For the better part of the past two weeks we’ve had daily rains. Not just the late afternoon thunderstorms mind you, but drizzly, temperamental rains that come at all hours of the day and night. Our power cut out twice yesterday evening and once again while we slept last night, waking us up a while later when the unconditioned room became too warm because the air conditioner had been reset by the power interruption.

The rains are okay by me as they keep the temperatures cooler, especially with the dark clouds blocking out the tropical sun. Sure, you have to plan a bit so you don’t get caught on the back of a motorsai without protection, as Tawn did on his way home this evening. Actually, he had protection, but he sacrificed his sweater to wrap his bag.

I encountered this funny advertisement on, of all things, airliners.net. It is for a British travel website called lastminute.com and as far as I can tell from a bit of research, the advertisement is exactly what it appears to be: a Candid Camera-type moment in which a group of professional actors conduct an ad hoc musical performance in the waiting area at London’s Stansted Airport to the surprise and amusement of those in the lounge.

From my perspective, this is pretty much the story of my life: breaking out in spontaneous song to drive my personal story line forward. Does that happen to you?

Pigeon-holing Farang

Posted on 20 May 2008 by christao408

When I lived in the States, I felt that I was a more tolerant than average person. I made a conscious effort – and largely a successful one, I think – to not prejudge people I saw or met. Walking down the street, I would not categorize people on first look and I tried to radiate compassion towards everyone.

Somewhere along the process of moving to Khrungthep, my compassion burned out, my prejudices returned, and new ones were born.

As much as I’m ashamed to admit it, when I’m walking down the street here in the Big Mango, I make perfunctory judgements about many of the people I see. For the most part, I’m making these judgements about farang as I don’t know as many of the cultural signifiers for Thais as I do for westerners. There are some exceptions, of course. I can spot the Money Boy and the Hi So pretty easily.

Among the farang I can recognize instantly the Clueless Tourist, the Angry American, the Drunk Aussie (easily confused with the Drunk Brit and somewhat less easily with the Drunk German), the Sexpat (homo and hetero versions), the Lonely Planet Backpacker and the Gone Native.

Let me be the first to admit that it is inherently unfair to others and unskillful to my own growth as a person to have relapsed into this prejudicial shorthand. I know that and am actively trying to relearn the lessons I was much better at living while in the United States. It just seems that there are so many people who so readily live up to these various categories of farang that it is easy to lazily slip into the habit of categorizing them instead of getting to know them first.

All of which must make me the archetypical Self-Righteous Expat, subgenus Holier Than Thou Anthropologist.

Hopefully that is not the case!

A pilot and a flight attendant get married

Posted on 17 May 2008 by christao408

Moving from the subject of same-sex marriage to the subject of different-sex ones, Saturday we went to the wedding of Tawn’s school friend Bua and her fiancee Pom. Their engagement party was thirteen months ago and it is hard to believe a year has passed so quickly.

Bua is a Qantas flight attendant and Pom is a first officer with Orient Thai Airlines (a mostly domestic Thai carrier) and so their engagement party and subsequent wedding was airline themed. Here’s the wedding invitation:

We arrived at the Hyatt Grand Erawan with Pim and her husband Arm to find the area just outside the ballroom converted into a check-in lobby, completed with two “Love Airways” podia, below.

We sat at a table of Tawn’s school friends, all of whom have had babies recently. Unfortunately, with 600 guests the bride and groom were never together long enough for me to get a picture of them! We had plenty of time to visit with our friends, though, and to play with the babies. Actually, there were a lot of guests with young children. Bua had arranged for a play area outside the ballroom complete with small jungle gyms, toys, and a clown armed with incredible balloon animal making skills. He made a good Mickey Mouse, a passable Ultraman, and an amazing Little Mermaid.

Below left, Tawn and a shocked Nam-ing, Jaa and Teuk’s 6-month old. Below right, me with Jae Jae, Saa and Job’s 3-month old, in his cute little jeans. Unfortunately, Pim and Arm’s nearly 3-year old daughter, Tara, decided she would rather go visit her grandparents this evening. Tawn even tried to convince her by telling her that her Uncle Chris would be there, but that didn’t seem to be much of a selling point.

The food was a Chinese banquet with an especially tasty Peking duck. The skin was super-crispy and the plum sauce was unusually not sickeningly sweet.

Another mysterious visitor

Posted on 17 May 2008 by christao408

Quite a number of people read this blog, few of whom I actually know. Every so often I will receive a random message from someone and it invariably starts out, “You don’t know me, but I read your blog…”. This has led to any number of interesting acquaintances and more than a few friendships, so on the whole I think it is a good thing.

A few weeks ago I received another one of those messages, this one from Mario in Chicago. A United Airlines employee (my former employer, Tawn’s former employer, my father’s former employer, the former and current employer of many friends, etc.), Mario stumbled across my blog while reading trip reports on airliners.net. As he was heading to the Big Mango on a business trip, an opportunity existed to say hello and to meet up.

Friday evening, Tawn and I picked up Mario at his hotel and then met Ken (who is also a former UA employee who also met me through airliners.net) at the Saladaeng Cafe. This restaurant, run by the Jim Thompson Foundation, is a pleasant nice-but-not-stuffy Thai restaurant located off Thanon Sathorn.

Right, Tawn with the food, which was tasty but definitely seasoned for western tastes. No chilies at all!

We had a fun time visiting and of course the common aviation industry background provided plenty of fodder for the conversation, what with merger speculations and rumors being the news of the day.

Ken and Mario actually know several people in common, so we spent a while playing the “do you know so-and-so” game. I’m not sure who won. Also, since Mario used to live in San Francisco there was another point of commonality there.

Below from left: Mario, Chris, Ken and Tawn. The picture behind us is pretty strange, I think. The green and blue long-necked women look like zombies.

After dinner we stopped by the Millennium Hilton for a drink and some jazz music at 360, their top-floor bar. It was a pleasure meeting Mario and we’ll have to find ourselves in Chicago one of these days for another visit.

Speaking of visitors, a spate of them are arriving. Darrin will be in town very briefly on his way from San Francisco to India. He arrived last night late and leaves early Monday morning, so I think we’re meeting up for lunch. Big Michael will be in town from Hong Kong the week after next, and we’re already looking ahead to Bruce’s visit in October.

CA Justices strike down limitations on marriage to only different-sex couples

Posted on 15 May 2008 by christao408

The war for equality is far from over but another important battle has been won. Yesterday the California Supreme Court ruled that statutes limiting marriage to only between a man and a woman are not constitutional. The 4-3 ruling drew heavily on its 1948 ruling in a case that ended restrictions on interracial marriage.

The opinion is a fascinating read and you can find the full text here. Some key thoughts:

The court ruled that differential treatment provided to same-sex couples (through domestic partnership laws) did not serve a compelling state interest:

“…permitting same-sex couples access to the designation of marriage will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage…”

“…affording same-sex couples only a separate and differently named family relationship will … impose appreciable harm on same-sex couples and their children, because denying such couples access to the familiar and highly favored designation of marriage is likely to cast doubt on whether the official family relationship of same-sex couples enjoys dignity equal to that of opposite-sex couples.”

“…providing only a separate and distinct designation for same-sex couples may well have the effect of perpetuating a more general premise – now emphatically rejected by this state – that gay individuals and same-sex couples are in some respects ‘second-class citizens’…”

As mentioned before, conservative forces in the state are gathering momentum and will likely place an initiative on the November ballot to change the state constitution and define marriage specifically as between a man and a woman, a move that would invalidate Thursday’s ruling. There is also the question of if – and how – the court’s ruling will play out in the Presidential campaign.

There seems to be good reason to think that it won’t carry the weight that it had in the 2004 and other previous elections. Matthew Dowd, one of Bush’s chief strategists in the 2004 campaign, was quoted in the NY Times talking about the effect the ruling will have in the general election: “At best, it doesn’t move voters, and at worst for the Republicans, it moves them against them. Not so much on the issue, but it becomes, ‘Why are we having a discussion on this issue when we should be talking about things that matter, like the economy, or health care, or the war?’ “

But don’t relax and let your guard down. Christianists – those hard-line fundamentalist Christians that have more in common with their Jihadist brethren than they do with the teachings of Jesus – won’t rest until the world is remade in their own image and each of us either march in lock-step with them, or are (in their assumption of how it will work out) roasting in hell.

Tonight, though, Tawn and I will open a bottle of sparkling wine (with Mario, a visiting guest from Chicago) and toast the victory in this battle. In doing so, I will make a wish that those who would oppress us will perhaps be moved upon seeing that even in their loss, the world has not ended: Marriages will remain marriages, faith will remain faith, and respect and compassion will remain the abiding ways with which we should treat each other.

California Supreme Court set to announce gay marriage ruling

Posted on 14 May 2008 by christao408

On March 4th the California Supreme Court heard case S147999, in re Marriage Cases. This is a compilation of six appellate court cases that have been filed on the issue of whether California’s statutory ban on marriage between two persons of the same sex violates the “equal protection” clause of the state constitution. The recording of the arguments before the court and the questioning by the justices is available here in the audio archive. It is 214 minutes long and is tremendously fascinating to listen to.

One of the most interesting challenges the justices made to lawyers on both sides of the case was about the fact that California already gives domestic partners virtually the exact same rights and responsibilities as different-sex couples receive through marriage.

For the petitioners on behalf of overturning the ban on same-sex marriage, the justices asked why, when the state already gives the same functional rights and benefits to same-sex couples as different-sex ones, is it discrimination?

For the petitioners on behalf of sustaining the ban, the justices asked whether the very existence of a “separate but equal” status proves the discriminatory nature of the ban.

My general impression after listening to the audio is that those in favor of sustaining the ban faced much tougher scrutiny by the justices. This makes me hopeful that the justices will rule in favor of overturning the ban.

Right: Does its visibility in popular culture mean that the nation is ready for gay marriage?

Already, there is an effort underway to put an initiative on the California ballot that will alter the state constitution to define marriage as only between one man and one woman. If this were to happen, it would be a tremendous setback. I’ll be asking for your support whether or not you are a Californian (or even an American) to encourage the voters of the state to make the choice that preserves the rights and liberties of all the state’s citizens and does not enshrine discrimination into the constitution.

The court has announced that it will release its ruling on Thursday, May 15th at 10:00 am PDT (5:00 pm GMT). Stay tuned as the announcement, regardless of the ruling is, will represent an important and significant milestone in the march towards equal rights for gay and lesbian people.

It is worth noting that it was this same court that in 1948 was the first supreme court in the nation to rule that anti-miscegenation laws (prohibiting marriage between people of different races) were unconstitutional in the case Perez v. Sharp. This landmark ruling preceded the nation’s Supreme Court ruling on the same issue by 19 years.

I hope that on Thursday the state supreme court once again serves as a bellwether of changes to come across the nation, so that one day Tawn and I will have the legal right to be married in the United States and enjoy federal benefits such as immigration rights.

Baked Stuffed Peppers

Posted on 13 May 2008 by christao408

An entry a few months ago by Sonny got me thinking about stuffed peppers. Stuffed peppers were a regular dinner main when I was growing up, one that I had mixed feelings about. In general, I liked them. But there was something about the taste of the green peppers after they were baked that I didn’t enjoy, finding them slightly bitter. In fact, Roka won’t eat green peppers, pointing out – rightly – that they aren’t ripe yet, so maybe there is something to that.

Tawn has been saying of late how he’d like to eat at home more. Unlike in the United States, it is actually easy to spend less money and eat more healthfully by eating out here in Thailand. This, of course, assumes that you are eating Thai food, which is inexpensive, freshly-prepared, and free of most of the bad things that eating out in the US provides you.

The two things, Sonny’s entry and Tawn’s entreaty, came together and I decided to pull together a meal of stuffed bell peppers. Since Tawn is avoiding red meats and poultry, I had to come up with a vegetarian option. The various recipes I found online were not satisfactory so I concocted my own recipe.

The main ingredient was Job’s Tears, a barley-like grain that is indigenous to parts of Southeast Asia. I added to that a sauteed mixture of celery, corn, Japanese onions (like leeks but a stronger flavor), the chopped tops of the peppers, and garlic. These were sauteed in a little olive oil, a jigger of vermouth, a few tablespoons of dark soy sauce, and a teaspoon of wocestershire sauce. After the veggies were softened, I added a teaspoon of brown sugar and some tomato sauce, cooked it for a few minutes to blend flavors, then mixed it in to the Job’s Tears and added three chopped boiled eggs. I added salt and cracked pepper to taste then chopped several handfuls of fresh basil leaves and added that with about 1/2-cup of shredded Parmesan cheese.

While the mixture cooled I parboiled the peppers for about two minutes each then cooled them under running water. Stuffing the peppers and arranging them in an oiled baking dish, I cooked them covered with foil for 40 minutes at about 350 F until the interior temperature reached 150 F. I uncovered the dish, added a dollop of ketchup on top of each pepper and another shaving of cheese, then baked for 15 more minutes until finished.

The result was delicious and beautiful. There’s still a little something missing, a meatiness that is not there yet. I think I could pan-roast some mushrooms to concentrate the flavor then chop them up and add them to the mixture. Maybe.

Out of forest fires grow new trees

Posted on 12 May 2008 by christao408

On a grey, overcast and relatively cool morning here in Khrungthep it is possible to feel depressed about the state of world affairs: Killer tornadoes have ravaged the American midwest; a 7.9-magnatiude earthquake in China has killed thousands has trapped 900 students in a collapsed secondary school; tens of thousands have died and hundreds of thousands more continue to suffer after the cyclone in Myanmar a week ago.

Each new tragedy brings with it fresh tears and worries. But each tragedy also provides another opportunity to demonstrate the resilience of humanity. We rally together to support our fellows, we provide aid, we give generously and we make sacrifices. And out of these tragedies new lives are built, lessons are learned and sometimes life even improves.

Greensburg, Kansas was wiped off the map last year by a tornado, right. Today the once-dying town is rebuilding in an economically and environmentally sustainable way with a new optimism and new opportunities that didn’t exist before.

Aceh Province in Indonesia, the hardest-hit area in the December 2004 tsunami, had suffered from twenty-nine years of war between the central government and rebels of the Free Aceh Movement before the waves devastated the province, killing nearly a quarter of a million people. While the physical reconstruction has been painful and sometimes slow, the tsunami helped bring about a peace agreement between the Indonesian government and the rebels and the first free elections in December 2006.

Hopefully, from the tragedies of this past week will bloom similar opportunities, change and rebirth.

Monk Sponsorship

Posted on 11 May 2008 by christao408

Tawn’s employer is celebrating the tenth anniversary of their office here in Thailand. As part of their anniversary celebrations, Saturday morning they held a tam boon ceremony, literally “make merit.” Tam boon ceremonies are a large part of what Buddhist monks do. You call up the temple, arrange for a certain number of monks to come over on a certain morning and then they do the ceremony. In return, you make a donation to the temple.

Tawn was in charge of arranging for the monks. Saturday morning we arrived at the temple next to Ekkamai BTS station, Wat Tat Tong at nine and met the monks. The senior monk was a kindly man in his fifties, with a friendly disposition and eager to ask me questions to see how much Thai I know. As we were waiting for the van, he grabbed my arm and, repeating “come take a picture, come take a picture”, led me to one of the main chanting halls to show me one of the Buddha images. He gave me a lecture about how the main image was from Sukkothai and was several hundred years old, made around the same time as an image at another temple down near the Hualomphong train station. It was difficult to keep up. So I took some pictures (below), agreed that it was a very pretty image, and then we went back to the van. You’ll notice that this wat is decidedly more modest than the Grand Palace and other Thai temples you’re used to seeing pictures of.

The monks each had a prominent characteristic, reminding me a little (and I mean this in a respectful way) of the Seven Dwarves. The head monk was like Doc since he was in charge. A second monk was a jolly, large fellow who upon learning I was from San Francisco was trying to remember the lyrics to a song about the city and then started singing, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”. I complimented his memory and asked him whether he liked to sing karaoke, until he explained that “no singing” is one of the 256 precepts that Buddhist monks have to obey.

Whoops! Faux pas.

As we sat in the van waiting for a third monk who wasn’t answering his phone, he came hustling over to the van still wiping his wet head with his robe. “Sorry, I just got out of the shower.” he explained. I’m not sure which dwarf he would be. Tardy?

The other two monks were junior, “Summer Monks” on break from school. They don’t get nicknames because other than one’s relatively small ears, they didn’t say or do anything that particularly distinguished them.

We headed to Tawn’s office where about the staff was waiting having already set up the mats, chairs and other necessities for the ceremony. The monks were seated and then started about twenty minutes of chanting in Pali, the Sanskrit-derived language that is the Buddhist Latin. (Or maybe Latin is the Catholic Pali?)

Afterwards the monks were fed. They have to take their last meal of day by “mid-day” which is usually described as somewhere between 11:00 am and noon. While it is usual for the monks to be served seated on the floor, in this case they were set up at the conference room, an image that I thought was very funny, below. Maybe I’ve just seen so many corporate meetings where all the participants were dressed in the same charcoal gray suits that it tickled me to see a conference table filled with people tressed truly identically.

Here’s a short video of the first two steps of the ceremony:

While the monks were eating, several of the employees went downstairs to the back of the building and presented offerings at the spirit house. This isn’t part of the Buddhist ritual as the spirit houses comes from more of an animist / Brahmanist / Hindu background. The spirit house literally houses the spirit (spirits?) of the land that were displaced when the building was constructed. Offerings included little portions of food and beverage as well as a single stick of incense per person, below.

Returning upstairs, the monks were still eating so Tawn and his colleagues messed around and took photos of each other, being playful as Thais do so well, above.

Finally, when the monks were finished, we did the second part of the ceremony which is the blessing with the holy water. There was further chanting and then the head monk used a bamboo whisk to splash water on everyone. Seeing me near the back of the group, he flicked a very experienced wrist and a large amount of water sailed over the heads of Tawn and his colleagues and gave me quite a splash, right.

With the air conditioning on high, I nearly caught a cold afterwards!

Something to notice, if you will: in the picture below the monks are chanting behind ceremonial prayer fans. The purple one on the left used by the head monk was presented to him by the Crown Princess. The one to the right, used by the happy monk, is interesting because I wasn’t aware that corporate sponsorship was a common practice in Buddhism. “This merit-making ceremony brought to you by Accenture. Accenture: High performance. Delivered.” Kind of like public radio, I guess.

The head monk then proceeded around the office, splashing holy water in each room, along the hallways, on the equipment (taking care of the computers and the photocopiers), driving away the bad fortune in much the same way that our exterminator sprayed along windows, doors, and the floor to drive away pests.

Chalk up another interesting cultural experience.

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

Monthly Archives: May 2008