Very odd that it was drizzling this morning when I woke up and then continued through the first half of the day. Normally in Thailand the mornings are dry and any rain comes in tropical afternoon storms.
It was also quite cool all day, breezy and overcast. The high was listed as 30 C / 86 F but I don’t believe it. At 7:30 pm it is only 24 C / 75 F and I don’t think the temperature dropped that much this afternoon.
Must be sympathy for the eastern United States.
Today is Wan Makha Bhucha, an important Buddhist holy day marking the auspicious occasion when 1,250 of Buddha’s adherents spontaneously congregated to hear him give a sermon. Merit-making ceremonies are held during the day at temples throughout the country, while at night, triple candlelit circumambulations (walking around the temple three times) are staged around major temples.
So it is holiday from work for Tawn and the rest of the Kingdom. For me, it is still a work day, but at least I don’t have to go to class in the morning.
Where to Get a Guest Mattress?
With our friend Ryan arriving from the US on Thursday morning, it was time for us to finally get some sort of guest accommodations. We had explored many options, from buying a hide-a-bed sofa, to getting a futon sofa – those both were ruled out because they are pretty uncommon here and Tawn had his heart set on the leather sofa we ended up with. We had also looked around for more Japanese-style futons, but the only “temporary” beds they have are really insufficient pads that would be the source of instant backache.
Then a few weeks ago, while we were at the massage place on Soi 23, I noticed that the massage mattresses – about the size of a twin mattress but only about 3 inches thick – were very comfortable, firm but with just a little give to them. Of course, I failed to enquire about where one buys massage mattresses while I was at the massage parlor. When I returned this past Friday, the English-speaking manager was away for the long weekend. Thanks to Tod, who was available via hand phone, the ladies working the massage parlor understood what I was looking for, which apparently is not the kind of question one normally receives at a massage parlor.
One of the ladies was making a not for her manager with my number when the other one remembered they had a unused mattress in the storage room, so she took me upstairs to see it and sure enough, it had the tag of a distributor on it. Everything was in Thai except the name of the company and the phone number. So I wrote it down, thanked the ladies profusely (they had brought out a cool towel and a glass of iced tea, thinking I was a customer), and headed home.
It turns out the mom and pop business is located on Thanon Srinakarin, way, way out to the East of the city halfway to the new airport. It wasn’t too hard to find, although making a U-turn on Srinakarin, which is basically a 3-lane highway with business along it, was a nightmare. The owner was very enthusiastic and appreciative of the referral from the massage place. I get the impression he doesn’t do a lot of retail business, mostly wholesale. So we arranged to buy one of the slightly wider than twin size mattresses, paid an extra 300 baht ($8.00) to have it delivered, and headed home.
Saturday evening, Tawn had a dinner function with his colleagues from the China offices of H&K. You may recall that back in December, we made a trip to South Korea with Tawn’s office mates here in Bangkok. The trip made by the Chinese employees was the same sort of annual “thank you” trip, but they chose to come to Bangkok for their holiday.
There was a dinner held at a nice Thai restaurant over on Thanon Sathorn for the entire group, which numbered about 100 plus the people from the Bangkok office who decided to join. Because various VPs and other important people from the company would be there, Tawn saw it as a networking opportunity and attended.
Somewhat as I predicted, it was not a simple “I’ll be back by 8:30” type of affair. The group then went to see some cabaret show (with female impersonators, think La Cage aux Folles) and then were heading to yet another destination when Tawn was finally able to beg off and head home at about 11:00.
Since Tawn was not going to be at home, I was facing the prospects of a relatively boring evening. Fortunately, though, when we got out of our late afternoon yoga class I saw that I had a missed call from Rick Yang, one of our flight attendant friends at United. He was in town and would be free for dinner after 8.
Rick and I met up at Bella Napoli, our favorite Italian pizza place over on Sukhumvit Soi 31, a 15-minute walk from home. He’s been busy with work and is dating a guy in Bangkok (so that would be long distance from Taiwan) who, interestingly, is from the same province, Buriram, as Tawn’s father.
Since Rick had a 5:00 am pick up time (United’s only daily departure is at 6:45 am, way too early), he headed back to the hotel right after dinner. I took the Skytrain back and waited another hour for Tawn to arrive.
What to Do on a Sunday
Ambitious plans that are half-fulfilled. That’s the answer. We did get our weekly shopping trip to Carrefour, France’s answer to WalMart and then headed down to Siam Square, the heart of the shopping district, to meet Tod for a movie. We had taken a taxi but traffic was so heavy on Sukhumvit that as we approached the Nana Skytrain station the driver suggested we should probably just take the Skytrain instead – very cost-conscious of the driver. Tod arrived at the grand old Lido before us and bought the 100 baht tickets for the 2:00 showing of “Prime”, the Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman comedy/romance/drama.
As we exited the cinema (the film was okay, pretty good storyline but the screenplay itself was choppy and not fully developed) we discovered there was a torrential downpour and the streets were quickly flooding. Trapped without umbrellas – there hasn’t been rain in Bangkok since before Christmas so why would we be carrying them? – our only option was to duck into a Pizza Hut for a quick lunch. This is the only time I’ve eaten Pizza Hut in years and I’m terminally embarrassed to eat there while overseas.
Our plan was to go across the street to the new Siam Paragon shopping center, where the Bangkok Int’l Film Festival was hosting a free outdoor screening of West Side Story. The rain washed those plans away, unfortunately. So we completed a few shopping errands and then headed home once the rain had stopped. The evening concluded with a trip to the local massage place for a one-hour foot and leg massage and then we ate al fresco pad thai at the street vendor who sets up each night outside the 7-11. Yummy, but we didn’t drink the water they served us which Tawn warned was tap water. Thankfully, with 7-11 right there, we just purchased some beverages and brought them outside.
The final accomplishment for the night was to install and test the two web cameras I purchased. Now Tawn and I are both up on Skype and can stay in touch with each other for free while I’m in the US next month. Then we’ll leave one camera and headset in the US for my sister and her family to use.
First things first, even though I seem to be increasingly in the delayed picture posting mode, here is a picture of Ryeroam (Jaturong), the Thai guy in Mexico who I’ve been chatting with through airliners.net. As you may recall, he was here in Bangkok a week ago visiting his family and Tawn and I met him for coffee and dinner. Not having my digital camera with me, I had to wait for his return home to receive the pictures. The first of his trip reports on his round-the-world journey has been posted on a.net. Click on the photo for a larger view.
Now to today’s main story, my amazement with technology:
For millions of people each day, receiving a package from United Parcel Service or UPS, is a routine occurrence. The clean, professional brown-clad drivers pull up in their clean, professional brown-painted vans and trucks, scan the packages with their rugged brown computer devices, have you sign your name, and then hop back in their trucks with you left holding the bag… or the box, as is more usually the case.
But then yesterday, I needed more information that what I already had and that is where I encountered and was stunned by the level of technological sophistication that exists in this world.
Ryan Lam, a high school friend whom I first met as Chien Tang (and later became Chien Lam en route to becoming Ryan Lam – an interesting story that is probably not mine to share with you), will be arriving here next Thursday for a two-week visit. Always one to take advantage of any carrying capacity someone has in his or her Bangkok-bound suitcase, I asked if he would be willing to bring over some coffee.
Tawn and I are big fans of Royal Blue Organics’ Cafe Mam coffee – organically produced, shade-grown coffee cultivated on small, family-owned farms in Chiapas, Mexico. RBO is a small operation out of Eugene, Oregon and I was first turned on to the coffee when I first moved to 330 Eureka in San Francisco.
Nina Hall, Colleen Brennan (now Connors) and Anita Mak were my roommates and Nina had discovered this coffee from her days at UC Berkeley and was ordering it. Once Nina left the States, I continued to order and have done so faithfully since then.
RBO is the nice kind of small business that you can just email or phone and say, “Hi, it’s Chris in San Francisco – can you send me five pounds of Italian Roast, whole bean?” and that’s all you need to say to place the order.
Since Ryan was willing to bring over the coffee, I went ahead and dropped Erin at RBO a line and she made sure the coffee was roasted the same day and shipped out.
So back to yesterday, Ryan and I were exchanging emails in preparation for his visit and he asked when the coffee would arrive. Erin had emailed that it would be there no later than Tuesday – the day before Ryan departs for Khrungthep – but it occurred to me that since it was travelling by UPS I could actually track it.
And that’s when my revelation occurred.
Copying the tracking number from Erin’s email, I went to the UPS website and entered the number into a tracking field on the home page. The results astounded me (screenshot attached): I was able to trace the package on ever step of its journey from Eugene to Milpitas, and could tell that at the particular moment that I replied to Ryan’s email, the box was at the UPS sorting facility in Sunnyvale and would be delivered to his house, six or seven miles away, the following day. What incredible detail.
Now the rest of you may well be sitting here (espcially you high-tech types) thinking, “Duh, that’s been around for ages!” But you have to understand that the last time I used UPS to track a package, it just simply had some text saying something like “In Transit.” I’ve never been able to see such explicit detail on my package’s progress and I would imagine that if the package was misrouted or lost along the way, I’d be able to see that, too.
That, I think, is the ultimate in transparency. This lets the customer see the company’s performance in near real-time. Now I know how you’re doing with the business I give you. This, in my mind, is immensely cool.
Despite all best intentions, I haven’t gotten around to captioning the photos from the wedding two Sundays ago. I’ll ago ahead and post one of the pictures just so I can enjoy some sense of accomplishment.
The father of the bride is a colonel (or something like that) in the Bangkok Metropolitan Police Department. As such, the honored guest at the wedding was the youthful governor of Bangkok, Apirak Kosayodhin. Khun Apirak is an up-and-comer in Thai politics, notably winning the Bangkok governor’s race in 2004 as the opposition candidate to the very powerful (nearly ubiquitous at this point) Thai Rak Thai party that is headed by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Only 58 years old but looking a decade younger, Khun Apirak stayed more about 90 minutes at the banquet, spending time visiting with the wedding party and guests, making a brief speech in both Thai and English, and tosting the newlyweds. He gracefully posed for photographs with nearly every guest, including Tawn and myself, and throughout the evening whenever he was greeted or thanked by someone, his wai (the prayer-like position of your hands, used by Thais in greetings) was higher (e.g., more respectful) than the person wai-ing him: a good sign of humility in a politician with loftier goals!
The pace of learning at Union Language School has picked up considerably – acquisition of Thai characters is increasing at a nearly exponential rate. The first day we learned seven consonants (out of 44). The second day we learned five vowels. The third day we learned seven more consonants and four more vowels. And today we learned another ten consontants, all of which have the same sounds as vowels we’ve already used including one that is not actively used but we have to learn it nonetheless.
Sunday evening we attended the SE Asia premier of Richard Wagner’s “Das Rhinegeld”, the first of four operas in the Ring cycle. It was my first experience with a Wagner opera and it definitely didn’t have the “catchy” arias of a Puccini. Talking with our friend Albert Moore, a regular opera-goer, he was surprised to learn that the Bangkok production of Das Rhinegeld had no intermission. The four act opera lasted the better part of three hours and the audience was definitely restless near the end. Perhaps some advance announcement of the lack of intermission would have made it easier to enjoy, without constantly thinking, “this does arrive at some sort of a stopping point soon, doesn’t it?”
How about this for a Friday evening: Tawn had a management dinner with his colleagues at H&K and I had more work to do for my job, upon discovering after a full day of updating two particular documents that an old presentation is still available online using a link that is included in the documents. So the question this evening with the US was, what is the correct link?
Then Tawn called about 9:30 to tell me he was on his way home and two friends were coming over (and would beat him back) because one of them is having boyfriend troubles and needed to commisserate. So the living room is occuppied by a conversation that doesn’t even begin to touch upon the vocabulary I’ve been learning in Thai classes!
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Okay, the Thai characters below have been corrected so they should now actually appear as Thai characters instead of miscellaneous symbols. Of course, if you didn’t know Thai you might just assume the symbols were, in fact, Thai.
Good news: Chihiro explained in more detail how to make udon noodles. The key is to get the dough to the consistency of the fleshy part of your earlobe. Interesting technique. I’ll have to see if I’m inspired enough to try this weekend.
This morning I returned to Union Language School for the start of Module 3. The dreaded Module 3. Where we not only phuut phassa Thai, we also learn to aan kap khien phassa Thai. That’s right: reading and writing. No longer am I just trying to order an iced coffee from a street vendor. Now I’m setting my sight higher: to turn all those curlicule squiggles into meaningful letters and words.
On the scale of relative langugae acquisition difficulty, reading and writing Thai isn’t the most complicated one in the world: with an actual alphabet that is phoenetic in nature, Thai is easier to handle than, say, Chinese with its 5,000 characters.
We began today with the consonants. There are 44 consonant characters in the Thai alphabet, divided into three classes: high, middle, and low. We began with the low class consonants, which are divided into to sub-categories: khuu and diaw (pair and single consonants). So today, the khuu low class consonants. Click on the transliterations next to the symbols to link to the recorded sound at www.thai-language.com.
Interesting thing about the class: we ended up Module 2 with only 4 students including myself who were continuing on to Module 3. However, when I arrived today, I discovered that there were 13 students signed up! A number of them are students who have been away the past term and have returned. Some of those are taking Module 3 for the second or third time (quite common, I’m told). Other students – who knows where they came from? Hopefully we’ll be in another, larger classroom tomorrow.
Also found out today that Chihiro, the young Japanese lady in my class, knows how to make Udon noodles (wide wheat noodles) from scratch. Very easy, she says. I’m trying to convince her to show me how. Yum.
Saturday evening we went to the Siam Society to attend the wedding of one of Tawn’s former United colleagues to her Malaysian groom. The bride’s father is a police colonel, quite well connected, so the guest of honor was none other than the mayor of Bangkok. Lots of nice pictures to share, but I need to get Tawn to help caption them all. Stay tuned for more details.
On another note, Tawn, Tod and I went to watch the Jennifer Lopez, Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman movie “An Unfinished Life.” We quite enjoyed it. The story was good, the acting very strong, and the scenery beautiful.
Finally, I received a request from a friend to remove the picture of him and his partner from this blog because they could face career, political, and criminal repercussions based on where they live and the laws of that country. I honored that request, a bit disappointed in myself for not having considered the ramifications of my posting the picture in the first place, but also thankful for the opportunity to be reminded that while times have changed by and large, there are still many miles left in the journey toward equal rights for all people.
The second module of my Thai lesson is quickly winding down, the final examination occurring on Tuesday. Hard to believe that another twenty days of instruction are almost complete. There is a lot of vocabulary to learn this weekend: body parts, the names of the months, and prepositions.
“The hand is on the arm. The arm is beside the body. The body is in front of the house. The house was purchased in November.”
Picture 1: Union Language School is located on the seventh floor of the Church of Christ in Thailand’s building near the Ratchatevi Skytrain station.
Or, as comedian Eddie Izzard pointed out in his “Dressed to Kill” concert, you learn the most bloody useless phrases (“The cat is on the chair,” “The monkey is in the tree”) and then you have a heck of a time using them. Partial transcript of the funny parts:
And I learnt French at school, up to the age of 16, and then I just kept talking it endlessly after that. And at school, the first page I ever learnt in French was full of things that are quite difficult to get into conversation, things like “the mouse is underneath the table” – la souris est en dessous la table. Just slip that when you’re buying a ticket to Paris: “Le train à Paris, oui? C’est ici? C’est maintenant? Cinq minutes… la souris est en dessous la table…”
The other line was, “the cat is on the chair” – le chat est sur la chaise – slightly more easy to fit in; and “the monkey is on the branch” – “le singe est sur la branche.” Very difficult to get into a conversation! Not a lot of jungle in France… monkeys thin on the ground… thin in the air… just generally pretty trim!
And yes, so it just wasn’t working.
In the end, the only way I could get that line into a conversation was I had to go to France with a cat, a mouse, a monkey, a table and a chair, and wander around heavily wooded areas. “Come on, come on! Someone’s coming, someone’s coming! Quick, positions! Les positions, maintenant! Boulot, boulot! Tout de suite! Vas-y! Vas-y!
“Bonjour!”
“Eh, bonjour. Qu’est-ce qui se passe?”
“Bonjour, je suis Anglais, je suis ici en vacances. C’est très belle ici, les couleurs, les bois, très belle.”
( inhaling ) “Tu est un travesti?”
“Oui, je suis un travesti, mais pas un travesti typical. Je suis un travesti executive… Un travesti d’action!”
“Très bien…”
“Mais, la souris est en dessous la table, le chat est sur la chaise et le singe est… est… le singe est disparu.”
Anyhow… the highlight of the week was a trip to Bella Napoli restaurant with my classmates and teachers. We’re experiencing some splintering in the group as different students decide whether or not to continue with the program, so we decided to get together while we’re still all at ULS. Actually, along the way, our group has reduced from 13 students to seven, with only four of us continuing to module 3.
So on Thursday evening the lot of us, including our current teacher, our teacher from module 1, and everybody’s spouses or faan (girl- or boyfriends), met up at this charming little Italian pizzeria on Sukhumvit Soi 31 that Guido, our Italian classmate, had proclaimed to be the most authentically Italian restaurant he’s found in Bangkok. Tawn and I had been twice before and really enjoyed the food and atmosphere. Picture 2: Chris, Carlos, Yoichi, and Damon.
We were an international lot: Americans, Thai, Japanese, Italian, British, Israeli, and Bolivian. Damon and his wife are a British couple with two daughters, 4 and 8 years old. His wife teaches at an International School in Bangkok, along with the girlfriend of Guido, an Italian who towers over the rest of us and has lived for a long time in Britain. Yoichi and Chihiro are the Japanese students about whom I wrote a few entries ago, when with uncharacteristic directness, Chihiro asked Yoichi whether he likes boys or girls. Chihiro is here living with her Japanese-speaking Thai boyfriend. Yoichi is in the computer 
technology industry and… we don’t know why he is here, except to drink sake and smoke. Tim (also known as Vladimir or Kim) is the Israeli of Russian heritage who asked lots and lots of questions in Module one and decided to repeat it instead of continuing to module two with the rest of us. Carlos is the young, lanky Bolivian who studies martial arts and has previously lived in Japan and China on his quest for new experiences. Kari, along with her husband Ron who is several modules ahead of us, is here from Texas as a Christian missionary. Everyone has their different reasons for being here. Picture 3 from left: Khruu Lakkana, Khruu Phimjai, Kari (in red), Tim, Yoichi (partially hidden by), Carlos, Damon, Chihiro, Guido, Guido’s girlfriend (whose name I forget), and me. Damon’s camera-shy wife Carole is hiding behind me. Picture 4: Ron and Kari Harmon.
Picture 5: Guido and his girlfriend. Picture 6: Kari and Chihiro. Picture 7 from left: Kim, Chris, Khruu Phimjai, Guido, Chihiro, Carlos, Damon, Yoichi, Khruu Lakkana, Tawn, and Kari.
The food was good and the company more so, and I was very suprirsed that, all things considered, our Thai conversation was pretty good. Of course, it was pidgin Thai, but for only two months of study, it was impressive. Tawn and the other spouses had a good time, although he was the only one of the lot who actually understood the Thai conversation.
After dinner, we combined our two tables and the fun began. The post-dinner conversation mirrored our classroom conversation, often deviating from the curriculum, the Thai language (or at least Thai grammar), and largely based on teasing one-another. Numerous jokes about Yoichi’s supposed substance abuse.
Things ended with Khruu Lakkana, who taught us in module one, singing the elephant song (“chang, chang, chang, chang, chang, nong khuey hen chang ruplau?” – elephant, elephant, elephant, elephant, elephanht, brogther have you ever seen an elephant?) The song, of course, includes acting out of the different parts of an elepant: ears, trunk, and tusks – pictured here.
The biggest mystery of the night was why Khruu Phimjai didn’t get who Tawn was. She kept asking questions of him like, “Where do you live?” Tawn replied that he lived on Soi Asoke. Khruu Phimjai said, “Oh, that’s near where Chris lives.” Everyone else got it, but she seemed to not understand that Tawn was a feen, not a phueng (friend). Oh well, so it goes in Bangkok.
Odd sight on the way to work today. Walking along Soi Asoke, which is a major thoroughfare into the heart of the city, there was a promotional stunt occurring for Nescafe instant coffee. Both sides of the street were lined with people wearing Nescafe t-shirts, holding placards and signs, and chanting pro-Nescafe slogans. There were groups of people, four to a group, wearing a single large shirt between them, with a banner hanging on the front. It really looked like a political rally or something, and stretched over about three blocks.
Given the number of cars just sitting there, inching into town, visibility for the brand was high.
If only I had brought my camera with me!
Related in an unrelated way, once of the students at class announced that she had heard that there will be a large rally at Lumpini Park on February 4th, organized by opponents of Prime Minister Thaksin. She said – although I have not found any verification of this story searching online – that at a similar rally last year several people were shot. Might be worth grabbing the camera, going for a look-see, and staying clear of anyone with a gun.
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