A Weekend with the Kids

Posted on 25 August 2011 by christao408

We have several social circles in our life here in Bangkok. One of those circles is with Tawn’s high school friends, most of whom are married and are starting their own families. Many of those friends are making a concerted effort to involve Tawn and me in their children’s lives. Last weekend we spent two days with three of these families – a total of four children under the age of four – at a “family friendly” resort in Cha-am, a beach town about three hours south of Bangkok.

Both afternoons we spent time in the pool, which thankfully was located so that it was in the shade. The weather was pleasant with a nice breeze, and all of the children enjoy the water. The experience was interesting on a number of levels, not the least of which was a chance to observe some of the differences between Thai and American parenting styles.

Saa with her 10-month old daughter Jaeda (in pink) and Kiri, the 7-month old son of another friend. I debated for several minutes before posting this picture, one of a very few on this blog that show me shirtless. (And, I’m sure you’re hoping, something that remains a rare sight! LOL)

Saa and Kiri. The following afternoon, the weather was just a bit cooler and breezier and when we put Kiri in his inflatable rocket, you could tell he was cold because his upper lip was shivering. It was very cute, but kind of sad, too. Eventually he warmed up a bit. In the background, I supervise as 3.5-year old JJ pulls his little sister around the pool.

This photo is of Job, Saa’s husband, going down the water slide with JJ. There’s a bit of a story here that illustrates some of the differences in parenting styles. Of course, I’m making broad generalizations, but Thai parents tend to be much more protective of their children. For example, Jaeda and Kiri are both just at the point where they have the strength to stand and Jaeda can even take a tentative few steps if she is holding onto something. But they never have the opportunity to fall because someone is always holding them or reaching out to catch them if they lose their balance. The American style is more inclined to let them fall, pick themselves up, and try again.

Now, the first day we were in the pool, JJ decided after about 10 minutes that he didn’t want to wear his floatation devices and wanted to move from the 45 cm-deep pool to the 80 cm-deep pool. He is pretty comfortable in the water and even in the deeper pool his head was still well clear of the water, so that was okay. After about an hour, he decided he wanted to try the slide and kept riding with his father.

The next day, everyone else was still lounging about upstairs so JJ and I went down to the pool together. After a few times down the slide, he decided he wanted to go down by himself. I thought to myself, “Okay, I’m not sure his parents would like this…” but I waited at the end of the slide to catch him if he had any trouble.

By the time his parents came down to the pool along with everyone else, JJ was going down the slide again and again, each time on his own and each time with no troubles. Sure enough, Saa was a bit surprised, but to her credit quickly realized that her son was able to handle himself without any trouble, although she did have to lecture him about not cutting in front of people who were waiting for the slide!

Later the first evening we were at the pier for a seafood dinner and JJ fell down and (ostensibly) scraped his knee. I didn’t see any broken skin but he insisted on having a plaster with blue elephants on it, applied to the injury. Before the plaster, he was holding an ice cube to the injury and then had great fun dropping the ice cube down his shorts leg. His mother did not find this as amusing.

One recurring theme for the weekend was that every time we got Kiri and Jaeda near each other, Jaeda would crawl over to Kiri and try and hug and kiss him, although with her fine motor skills still under development, it looked more like a mauling. Kiri didn’t like the attention, which Jaeda found greatly amusing. Good for her, taking rejection lightly! In this series, Kiri’s mother, Tao, tries to wrangle the two for a group photo.

Eventually, Jaeda caught Kiri at an unguarded moment and was able to plant a kiss right in the middle of his face. That was the end of our attempts to get a picture of them together!

Job and Saa with JJ and Jaeda with Uncle Tawn in the background. Not sure why Jaeda was trying to raise the roof. JJ is currently attending an international preschool where the primary language of instruction is English. Nonetheless, he wasn’t very forthcoming in English and we communicated mostly in Thai until late the second day when he did start using some English.

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In attempting to set up the previous family photo, JJ kept laying down to avoid having his picture taken. So I rotated the angle 90 degrees and got this photo, which I think is kind of an interesting one.

Tao with her son Kiri. Somehow, I didn’t manage to get a picture of her husband Pai. Kiri took quite a shine to me, as he seems to like being lifted up in the air and then dropped down suddenly and I was the only one who would do that again and again and again. Have I mentioned that my left shoulder has been sore since last weekend?

Group photo: Tawn with Jaeda and Saa; me with JJ; Tawn’s friend Jaa with her daughter Nam Ing; and Tao with Kiri.

I’m glad we had the opportunity to spend more time with Tawn’s friends and their children. It is important for them to be exposed to a wide variety of people and while their parents all speak English well, having the opportunity to learn to speak with a foreigner is good for the children.

In fact, in the days since our return, Tao called Tawn to say that she’s enrolling her son in an infant swimming class and was wondering if Uncle Chris might like to come along.

Visualizing Relationships

Posted on 6 May 2011 by christao408

People relate to data in different ways. I’m very much a visual learner and putting data in charts, graphs, or other sorts of illustrations help me understand, absorb, and put the information into context. I’ve also found it useful to track data that is important to me. Many people use tools like this – think of exercise logs to keep track of your progress towards fitness goals. Several companies now provide software solutions that make it easier for people to tabulate whatever it is they want to tabulate, then turn it into graphs and charts.

Recently, I tried out an application from TouchGraph, a New York-based company that specializes in visualization tools and they created this Facebook application as an experiment to demonstrate the capabilities of their technology. Other companies that provide other visual relationship applications include LinkedIn and Daytum.com. After entering your username and password – TouchGraph accesses your information only with your permission – they application generates a variety of charts to map the relationships of your Facebook friends.

Here are thumbnails of increasing numbers of my Facebook friends, from my 100 “top friends” on the left (no explanation on what constitutes a “top friend” in TouchGraph’s scheme of things) to all of my more than 600 Facebook friends on the right. I’m fascinated to watch how the groupings make small shifts as more people, and thus more relationships, are factored into the graphic.

I also found it interesting just to observe how these relationships are mapped out. Using the 300 friends setting, I found nine primary identifiable groups from which my relationships arise. AMC Theatres was my first real job after being a newspaper delivery boy and I continued working with the company through university and even for several years after. Needless to say, a lot of my connections were made there.

One area that is missing is a significant number of friends from post-secondary school. I changed schools twice en route to my degree, and only lived on campus for six months total, so my number of university friends is less than a dozen.

What’s also interesting to me is the California-centric nature of my contacts! No surprise, I suppose, given that I grew up in the Bay Area and lived in Southern California several times. But everyone to the left and above the dashed line is pretty much in California or else that’s where I originally knew them.

Anyhow, that’s more than you probably wanted to know about my life. I found it interesting, though.

Cooking with Friends

Posted on 30 April 2011 by christao408

The past few weeks we’ve had the opportunity to cook at other people’s houses, which is always a fun change of pace. I find cooking outside my own kitchen to sometimes be a challenge – What do you mean you don’t have a potato ricer!? – but also fun because many friends have kitchens larger and more geared to socializing than mine.

Over Songkran we went to Ko and Per’s house. Ko was Tawn’s university classmate and her husband, Per, is from Sweden and moved here late last year. We decided it would be fun to try and make Swedish meatballs although we didn’t have a specific recipe and I’m not sure any of us knew what we were doing.

Nonetheless, we intuited our way through it, and wound up with something that despite looking kind of gloppy, tasted good and seemed close to the real deal. At least that’s what Per said. Maybe he was just being polite.

Ko takes pictures of the meal: Swedish meatballs, roast potatoes, mixed green salad, and I think we made spaghetti with meat sauce, too. It was tasty and, more importantly, the company was wonderful.

Tawn and me after a dinner of Swedish meatballs. Compare that to our picture on the beach after the rough 30-minute ride on an unpaved road on Kauai!

The following week I went to cook at another friend’s house. Chow, who is the author of the must-buy and use guide Bangkok’s Top 50 Street Food Stalls, invited friends over to cook Mexican food in honor (kind of) of the upcoming Cinco de Mayo holiday. Never mind that we were a bit early. Unfortunately, Tawn was not able to make it. That didn’t stop us from having fun, though, and making too much good food.

Enchiladas stuffed with avocado and smothered in red sauce and cheese sauce. Tasty!

Chicken enchiladas baked in a homemade mole poblano sauce. Pronounced “mo-lay”, this sauce has cocoa powder in it, lending an unexpected flavor to its spiciness.

For my contribution, I resurrected a recipe for fish tacos from Michael’s blog, using his avocado cilantro lime sauce. This sauce just goes perfectly on fish tacos!

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And finally, a random picture not related to cooking with friends. We had a visit from Ty, someone who was a very active member of the Xanga community under the username Just2Tyght when I first started almost six years ago. We met in person several years back in SF and while Ty has gone AWOL from Xanga, we’ve stayed in touch through other channels. Glad we had the opportunity to meet here in Bangkok.

Coming up soon… caramel rice flan.

Bangkok Children

Posted on 3 February 2011 by christao408

When I moved here just over five years ago, only one of our friends in Bangkok had a child and she was just an infant. In the years since, there have been a profusion of births, giving us plenty of uncleing opportunities.

Friends Tao and Paii gave birth about three weeks ago to a baby boy whom they’ve named Kiri, a very distinguished, older sounding name. His little nose is as cute as could be!

While at the hospital to see Kiri, another couple showed up with their daughter Jaeda, who has the most adorable cheeks.

Jaeda’s brother JJ, who will turn three on Valentine’s Day, is much too clever for his age and is already adept at playing games on his father’s iPhone. Dad seems very unconcerned, though.

JJ attends an international preschool so is learning both English and Thai. I’m told that he asks after me quite a bit but has always been very reserved in person. Finally, after the visit to the hospital we went to his favorite place – “Funarium”, an indoor playground. His parents took a break while JJ and I climbed the jungle gym, slid down slides, and had a fun time. Along the way I managed to scrape a big chunk of skin off my right elbow! By the end of the afternoon, I was exhausted and JJ seemed to have finally opened up and would call to me “Loong Chris!” – Uncle Chris – if I failed to keep up with him.

The 40th Party

Posted on 17 November 2010 by christao408

Just a quick photo entry. Not too many words. Tawn and I joined a small group of friends at Soul Food Mahanakorn for dinner to celebrate my birthday. The food (Thai) was very good as usual and other than the oddity of being served sparkling wine in regular wine glasses (which the owner caught and corrected), everything was very enjoyable. It rained heavily during dinner, the first rain in a few weeks. Afterwards, the evening air was cool and relaxing.

From the left: Doug, Tae, Tawn, Tod, Matt, Suchai, Ken, and me. We are missing Doug’s girlfriend Bee, who arrived late from work.

Suchai and Ken goof around for the camera.

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The T-Team: Tae, Tawn, and Tod.

Slicing my own birthday cake. How come I’m doing all the work?

Chocolate raspberry torte. Made it myself and will write more about it tomorrow. Stay tuned.

How Does Your Partner View Your Virtual Friends?

Posted on 29 September 2010 by christao408

Virtual friends: How do they stack up in the pecking order of friendships? Are they real? This is a topic that has probably been discussed a thousand times on Xanga but I don’t know if we’ve ever discussed what our partners, spouses, boyfriends/girlfriends think about it. This comes to mind because I recently had a conversation with another Xangan and this person’s significant other is very uncomfortable with the idea of this person having these virtual friends with whom details of his or her life is shared.

I’ll be the first to admit, back in 1997 I dated a guy who liked to spend time on ICQ, the first internet-wide instant messaging service, and I was perplexed and somewhat dismissive of the “friends” he claimed to have made online. When he moved to Los Angeles I had the opportunity to meet one of them, and he and his partner did seem to be genuinely nice people. Still, I was suspicious of how well you could really know someone with whom you only interacted in a chat environment. This, of course, was before blogs really started.

When I started blogging five years ago, I did it just to keep family and friends informed of my experiences moving to Thailand. The idea of making new friends through the blog never crossed my mind. Over time, though, I did start making online friends and eventually had the opportunity to meet several people in person. Initially, they were friends of people I already knew in real life. Then, they were people who were traveling in Bangkok so we would meet for coffee or a meal or I would be visiting somewhere and would make the time to meet them.

I even traveled a few hundred miles out of my way two summers ago to visit the famous Dr. Zakiah and her family. When I was flying on the prop plane from St. Louis up to Quincy, the thought crossed my mind, “Her family must think she’s nuts, inviting some guy flying all the way from Bangkok to stay in her house!” But if they did think those thoughts, they kept them well hidden and were so wonderfully welcoming.

Over the years, Tawn has met many of these Xanga friends and he has found that they usually turn out to be warm, thoughtful, stable individuals. Nobody longing to break up our marriage and tempt me away. Nobody frightening. Nobody trying too hard to insinuate themselves into our lives in an overly-familiar way. So I’ve come to take for granted that he has no worries about my virtual friends and in fact has come to enjoy the company of many of them.

What about you and your partner, spouse, etc? How does he or she view your virtual friendships?

Additional reading: entry on The Change Blog about building positive virtual friendships.

Tawn’s 35th Birthday

Posted on 18 September 2010 by christao408

This weekend, Tawn turned 35 years old. Hard to believe that this is the eleventh of his birthdays I’ve celebrated. Because it fell on Friday, we had a couple of days to celebrate this (what he considered to be a milestone) event.

Tawn and I first met in January 2000 while I was en route to Thailand on holiday. We stayed in touch over that year, with him visiting me in San Francisco several times. In September 2000, I returned for another visit, to help him celebrate the quarter-century mark in his life. The evening of his birthday, we gathered with his friends in a riverside restaurant somewhere on the outskirts of the city.

A shot from Tawn’s 25th birthday.

At the time, I remember it being a loud, difficult to follow gathering as his friends were gossiping in Thai and having a good time. While most of them had studied overseas and all of them spoke English, I was for the most part on my own. Having just met most of his friends, I was struggling to keep up with who was who, what they did, where they knew Tawn from, etc.

Now, a decade later, most of these same people are still in Tawn’s life and most of them were able to come over Thursday night for dinner.

Four of the people from the previous shot are in this picture. Can you tell which ones?

The friends and their husbands and children filled the house with laughter and energy. The two children (we were missing two who stayed home), ages 2 1/2 and 3, were exploring a house that is largely “do not touch!” and there are two more children who will be born before year’s end. Nowadays, I know who everyone is, what they do, and how they know Tawn. It is still hard to follow the conversations, though, since the gossip is filled with inside stories, slang, and multiple layers of simultaneous conversation.

When it came time to blow out the candles, Uncle Tawn was helped by two of our friends’ children, 3-year old Nam Ing and 2-1/2 year old JJ. Nam Ing is the spitting image of her mother, who is standing in the group shot above. JJ is tremendously shy, although he goes to an international preschool and has a surprisingly extensive English vocabulary when he works up the nerve to use it.

After the party, Tawn described how much he enjoys having these friends together as they are like family to him. I keep hoping we’ll see more of them and their children, having these images of weekly get-togethers where the children learn English from their Uncle Chris as we play games and draw and learn “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” and other songs. We’ll see how that develops in the years to come.

Funny video above of Nam Ing and JJ “helping” blowing out Uncle Tawn’s birthday cake candles.

Friday evening we went with another group of friends to Soul Food Mahanakorn, a new restaurant that opened in our neighborhood just over a week ago. I’m very excited to write about this restaurant but need to go back on an occasion when I can really focus on photographing the food. Another of Tawn’s friends stopped by during the day with some homemade baked goods, including these peppermint frosted cupcakes that spelled out “Happy Birthday Tawn”. The restaurant staff arranged them on some serving boards for us.

Saturday morning we received a call from my parents, who wished Tawn and happy birthday and chatted with him for twenty minutes or so. I think Tawn, who enjoys the attention of others, felt a little overwhelmed about all the attention he received this weekend. Of course, next year should really be the year to celebrate as according to the Chinese culture (Tawn’s father’s side of the family is of Chinese heritage), birthdays that mark the completion of the 12-year zodiac cycles are the real milestones. I guess there’s a few months left to plan that.

Being Judgmental

Posted on 17 January 2010 by christao408

“Don’t judge me” seems to be a common defense used by those who don’t like what they are hearing. But what draws the line between being judgmental and showing constructive concern? Recently I’ve encountered two people who both feel like they are being judged but I’m not sure that they really are.

The first person is an internet friend whom I recently met in person for the first time. We have several mutual friends and had corresponded from time to time on Facebook and through other channels. When we first met face-to-face, within minutes he was sharing a very high level of personal detail about his sex life. Suffice it to say, he enjoys collecting a wide range of sexual partners and he documents those experiences in detail.

Now, I’m a man of the world. I’ve heard it all and seen quite a bit, too. So there was nothing he shared that shocked or offended me. Certainly, I can think of things I would rather discuss than how much fun he had in a threesome with a pair of Nordic men the night before, but it is his life and body and I am not going to judge his actions “right” or “wrong”.

Along the course of the conversation he shared two things. The first was that, if I understand him correctly, he is really curious why he hasn’t found a long-term relationship. The second is that he is frustrated with some of our mutual friends because he feels they judge him.

He didn’t say what they’ve done or said that counts as judgment. But based on my own observation, I can only imagine that they’ve seen his behavior and listened to him profess a desire for a stable relationship and perhaps they’ve mentioned to him that one is not very helpful in begetting the other. Does that count as judgment? I don’t think it does. It is a matter of people pointing out what behavior is helpful and what behavior is not helpful in terms of reaching the goals and desires we set for ourselves.

Another case: Another friend, one whom I’ve known for a bit longer, is very desirous of a long-term relationship as well. The people to whom he is attracted are, on a number of levels, not very conducive to the things he wants. He wants a stable relationship with someone who doesn’t just love him for his comparative wealth, someone who loves him for who he is as a person, and someone with whom he can talk about his varied interests.

The challenge is, the people he chooses to date are usually about half his age, come from a significantly lower socioeconomic status, don’t speak English very well, and are neither familiar with nor particularly interested in discussing global economics, politics and other things that are of interest to him. Recently, he has expressed that he is feeling judged by his friends here in Bangkok – me included – about his choice of people to date.

If we hold up a mirror and suggest that he might find the stable relationship he’s looking for if he fishes in a pool that has the right kind of fish, is that being judgmental? I personally haven’t told him that what he is doing is right or wrong, good or bad. I don’t care who he dates. I don’t care how old or young they are, where they are from, what their financial position in the world is, etc. But as a friend, if he says (and shows) that he wants to be in a relationship and is depressed when yet another guy turns out to be not the right one, isn’t it reasonable that I’ll try to help him see how he could improve his chances?

Sometimes I think that people let themselves feel like they are being judged as an excuse to avoid really looking critically at their own decisions and behaviors and the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of both.

The Meaning of Dreams

Posted on 11 September 2009 by christao408

Normally not one to have elaborate dreams, this morning I awoke from an intense, emotionally-gripping one.

The setting was my maternal grandparents’ house in suburban Kansas City. Many different family members were there along with a few friends. We were getting ready for a party and in order to make enough space for guests, I disassembled my grandparents’ bedroom furniture and moved it to another room. The guests, strangely, were for the most part young Thais who were looking for jobs, as if at some sort of career center. While at the party they were preparing resumes, practicing interviewing skills, etc.

When it came time for everyone to go home, I scrambled to get things cleaned up and organized. The bedroom furniture had not yet been correctly reassembled and there were loads of dishes soaking in the sink. My grandparents returned and my grandfather was very upset, fuming that things had been disturbed and I had not fulfilled my promise to put everything back in order. My grandmother was calmer, yet I sensed that she was unhappy with the mess in her kitchen.

Suddenly I was outside the house, in their large front yard with huge old trees. The yard had become a cemetery, though, and I was struggling to get back inside and finish my duties before a group of oddly Victorian mourners approached.

That was the dream.

I would generally describe myself as a person who faces life with equanimity. Many times, friends and acquaintances have remarked about the “calm under pressure” with which I handle the challenges that life presents. Whether managing an oversold film festival event or helping someone through the rigors of relationships, I consider myself a steady rock to which people can cling.

But beneath this veneer of calm detachment, I wonder if I’m not deeply afraid of letting those about whom I care, down. Two themes about which I think this dream may have spoken:

The first is my relationship with my grandparents, vis-a-vis my coming out. When I came out to my family more than 18 years ago, my grandfather was particularly disapproving and there was, for several years, a rift between us. He was never mean, but I come from a very religious family and he and my grandmother are the root of our faith, so he saw the issue in the context of “I love you because you’re my grandson, but the Bible tells us that you are also a sinner.”

(Let’s not get caught up in the religious back-and-forth of believers versus non-believers for the purposes of this post…)

My grandmother was more accepting of the situation and over time, thanks to I don’t know what conversations between them and also my parents, my grandfather’s view moderated. In 2004, when Tawn and I held our commitment ceremony, both my grandparents were there. And while they were not able to drive up to Iowa for our recent marriage, due to the discomfort of a long overnight road trip at their age, they were a part of the reception and a mention of our “civil ceremony” even made it into my grandfather’s weekly email missive to extended family members.

When I invited my grandparents to the wedding, I couched the invitation in terms of, “I don’t know if this is something you would be comfortable with, but it would mean a lot to us for you to attend.” While often preferring to avoid the confrontational issues rather than addressing them, my grandfather acknowledged that his thinking on the topic had “evolved” (his word) over time.

I think it is safe to say that with regards to the first theme in the dream, there is still an unresolved question in my mind of letting my family down, wondering whether I am not the person they expected me to be, even though they have been and become a very wonderful source of support in my life.

A second, related theme emerges from the dream: Recently, a number of friends have shared their troubles. From relationship problems to medical ones, from aging parents to one friend being infected with HIV by a psychopathic partner in the partner’s desperate attempt to force them to stay together, I have received more stories in the past week than I have in a long time.

For each of these people, I want to provide the very best support I can. I want to be a good friend. I want to be there in whatever way I can when they need me.

And I’m worried that I may not be able to.

I know what you’re going to say. There isn’t enough time in this life for us to help everyone or to fix everything. We need to have the serenity to accept the things we can’t change, the strength to change the things we can, and the wisdom to tell them apart. That’s the Serenity Prayer familiar to those in A.A. and other support groups and undoubtedly applicable to each of our lives.

Yes, I know that. And generally that’s what I believe. But if my dreams this morning were any indication, maybe I don’t believe it fully.

Saturday Game Night Explodes

Posted on 19 July 2009 by christao408

Matt and Si invited us over to their place for game night on Saturday, but I asked if we could instead have it at our place instead and invite a few more people. Since Tawn and I are heading out for the US soon (me for 26 days, him for 16) we wanted a chance to see several of our friends before we left. So it came to be that we had our largest party yet.

A tale of two Chais. Chai is a popular Thai nickname, so here we have Suchai and Chairat, commiserating about their respective boyfriends over a glass of something strong.

While it turned out very well and there was plenty to eat and drink and everyone had a good time, it was probably a good lesson for me and Tawn. Sixteen guests is a bit overwhelming in our small house. Quick, break down the wall between units so we can spread our the party!

Brian, Ben, Geng, Matt, Kobfa, Bastian and Benji stake out the kitchen.

It was a fun time, though. I ordered pizzas and made a huge green salad. All the guests brought additional food to eat, so we had a tremendous amount of food left over. Thankfully, people helped us by bringing food home, otherwise we would never have been able to eat it all before leaving the country. As it is, I’ll be eating salad three times a day until Wednesday!

Francois, Ken and Russ wait for the games to begin.

The bar was open and thanks to our guests we had just about every type of drink you could want. Ken mixed something for us that was very nice. I don’t recall the name but it is one part of rum, one part of midori, one part of coconut milk and four parts of pineapple juice. Sweet and vagely Thai, it was a little too easy to drink, if you know what I mean.

Tawn, Geng, Brian, Si and Matt get down to some serious Aggravation.

After the eating, we got down to the game playing. The dining room had Monopoly (Did you know the new version of the game no longer has cash? Each player now has a debit card!), the living room had Uno and Pit, and we set up a game of Aggravation in the bedroom. Tawn was a bit concerned as Thais will generally not hang out in someone’s bedroom, let alone sit on their bed. Not polite. But in this case, our guests, perhaps lulled into relaxation by Ken’s bartending, plopped down for a few games.

Things wrapped up a bit late – the last guests left about 1:30! – and poor Tawn was quite tired, sleeping in the next morning. But it was a fun way to celebrate before our departure, see everyone, and introduce some groups of friends who had not previously met.

christao408

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

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