Trying to be true to my promise, I have finally managed to put my experience in Isaan down into words. It’s always difficult to write a story about your experience after-the-fact, but I think I’ve managed to get most of my true experience and feelings into my story.

Those of you who follow my blog will hopefully enjoy some of my humorous experiences in the Northeast of Thailand, where although their lifestyle is set in poverty, they live a very enriching life.

I caution you ahead of time, the chronicle of my experience is a long one, best read if you save the webpage for off-line viewing at your leisure, unless, unlike me, your Internet time is unlimited.

If you decide you’d like to view my experience, you can either click HERE, or go to the left-hand column and click on the link next to my Beijing, China experience.

-Jeeem-

Religion…a subject about as touchy as politics or right-to-life issues nowadays. This touchy topic has confused and eluded me over the years, if not left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

I had religion crammed down my throat as a kid and being raised a Baptist, grew to learn the crooked ways and misleading tithes of the church. We all watched Jimmy Bakker and his mascara-laden wife Tammy Faye go down in flames for screwing their religious followers out of their pocket money and savings. Jimmy Swaggart wasn’t far behind with his lewd lifestyle and hypocritical exploits.

All these antics aside, I was thoroughly convinced that religion wasn’t for me after my mother’s death. She had donated her home and all its contents to the local Baptist church, which was okay with me since she and I had been estranged for many years. But, when I arrived in El Paso to conclude the burial arrangements, I sat in horror as I listened to the church pastor suggest a pine box covered in felt for my mother’s burial casket. All this, after she had given the church her $90,000 dollar home!

I listened to an argument once, about the fact that politicians and religious leaders were human. Although true, these ‘humans’ took on service positions that are based on peoples trust in them. So, when that trust is betrayed, the infraction takes on a more powerful aftereffect.

Presently, my wonderment of religion is based on why people feel the need to believe in anything other than their selves and life in general? I understand the need to believe in something other than oneself, but for some reason, belief in something intangible evades me.

This brings me to the subject of my life mate’s chosen belief in Buddhism. I’m not going to attempt to even hint at the fact that I understand Buddhism, because, like other “religions” I don’t have any reason, nor interest to study it. But, that’s not to say I’m not a bit intrigued about the practice.

Here in southern Thailand, the predominant beliefs are Muslim, Taoist, Buddhism or, although not a ‘belief’ per se, Atheism. Catholicism has its place, but is certainly dominated by the above-mentioned faiths. Aside from a passing appraisal, I really didn’t take much note of the goings on of these religious practices until it was right underneath my nose.

My first sign was the incense.

Lots and lots of incense. Asia must have an edge on the incense market, that’s for sure. They burn it in front of Buddha images and any other place imaginable. Mam and I have a little Buddha image upstairs, outside our bedroom, poised on a wooden pedestal attached to the wall, about six feet off the ground. Mam adorns this pedestal with little vases of flowers, candles and food offerings now and then, and frequently burns incense to ward off “spirits,” worship Buddha and all the above.

When I say “spirits,” I’m talking about ghosts. Yep, ghosts. Mam says to me the other day, “You believe in ghost?”

“No, I don’t,” I reply.

“I know you don’t believe, but I do,” she says.

“That’s fine,” I remark, not really knowing what else to say.

But the real clincher occurred over the past few days…

As I’ve previously blogged, I suffer from the annoying malady of bronchitis. I am afflicted with it every year, sometimes several times a year, and sometimes it lasts two or three months. This encompasses a slowly increasing difficulty in breathing, typically at night, along with severe coughing fits and the production of industrial amounts of phlegm.

Mam was witness to this malady over the past few days and it scared her something awful. She kept prodding me to go to the hospital, which I refused, choosing to wait it out and subsist on cough remedies and antibiotics.

After a particularly rough night of coughing and wheezing, Mam got on the phone to her mother in Chum Phae and proceeded to spout out a plethora of animated Lao and Isaan dialect, peppered with the occasional, “Jeeem blah, blah, blah.” This phone call was soon followed by an incense burning session out on our back porch, and some whispered “prayers.”

When I asked her what was going on, she informed me she had asked her mother to visit a local Shaman in her village of Wang Hu Gwang, and speak to him about her series of recurring headaches and my breathing problem.

This necromancer, upon being approached by Mam’s mother, soon informed her that he was fully aware of our maladies and had been silently awaiting contact from the family. He “prescribed” a few incense burning sessions, followed by prayers and food offerings, stating that he needed to “eat” with us. I have no doubt that there was much more to this whole shebang, but upon further questioning, Mam simply said to me, “Ah! I don’t know how to say in English!”

That afternoon I returned home to find all of our shoes placed in a different spot on our porch. In their usual place was a huge “offering” complete with a fully cooked chicken, large bowl of rice with spoon, sweet treats, incense, fruit and some liquid for the “spirit entity” to wash it all down with.

My faithful readers would be proud at how I managed to appear serious and truly interested in these practices and going’s on and tried very successfully to appear grateful.

Oh, and did I mention that my bronchitis promptly got better? Ha! Chalk it up to those antibiotics, I say!

-Jeeem-

After many stressful years living in the U.S., playing the all-American money game, I am finally resigned to a relaxed, peaceful life in Asia. Alas, part of this relaxed, peaceful life is contingent upon humor and when you live in a foreign country; definitions of humor are decidedly different.

Thai humor only mildly amuses me, so I turn to more familiar sources such as the Bangkok Post newspaper, which is Internationally inclined and in English. The Bangkok Post has many familiar contributors to its humor columns, such as Dave Barry, Roger Crutchley and other local favorites.

The “funny pages” as I am used to calling them, offer more comic relief, peddling my familiar favorites such as Garfieldâ, Peanuts®, Monty®, and Bizarro®.

But all this humor is not sufficient. So, I have included a new source of humor to my daily readings…”Miss Manners,” Judith Martin’s widely read column on the code of (supposed) correct conduct according to (ahem) social standards. Martha Stewart is old news, so I’m tramping on new ground now.

Knife or fork? A recent reader wrote in to Ms. Manners, in a quandary over whether a knife should be used on a normal broken salad, especially with a whole cherry tomato and a salad plate included in the equation.

The reader states she (he?) was taught that a salad fork must be used to cut the salad, but their “partner” says that as a cherry tomato tends to scoot across the table when attempting to cut it with a salad fork, a knife should be used. The reader adds, “Can a knife be used if the lettuce is not sufficiently torn?”

Jesus freaking Christ!

After I stopped laughing and rolling about on the floor, I read Ms. Manners answer…

”Miss Manners recommends dropping whatever else you are doing to go hunt for salad knives. It will not be easy, but the small knife, also sometimes called a tea knife or a youth knife, is the only correct one to use. You need them, because you are at an impasse. You are right that meat knives should never be used on salad, but your partner is right that one has to defend oneself against inconsiderate and lazy salad-makers.”

To knife or not to knife, that is the question. Tis…

My God! Who are these people?

I try very hard…(okay, I try sorta hard) to value other people’s opinions and cultural differences, but there are just some things that I consider weird…and Ms. Manner’s column exposes a good majority of them.

Another article is titled: “Use Patience.” The patient writer states that her husband maintains that it is rude to blow on hot food to cool it.

Hey, sounds cool to me…(pun intended)

However, the husband’s troubled spouse maintains that her husband’s practice of cooling the food by inhaling as he takes a bite is rude, since he makes a slurping noise while doing so. She goes on to point out the inherent dangers of children practicing this, “inhaling food” practice, since they can accidentally ingest large pieces of food whilst inhaling.

The answer? Ms. Manners states that both parties are wrong and neither should inhale or exhale on their victuals, but rather have patience and wait until their dishes have cooled.

Lord help me.

I use any convenient knife I can find to cut salad, meat or anything else on my plate, and I use (horror) mason jars for drinking glasses. When knives are not convenient, I rip things apart with my bare hands or cut them with my pair of industrial bandage scissors. I have no clue what a tea or youth knife looks like, nor would I ever purchase one if I saw one.

When food is hot, I blow on it, inhale when eating it, and even go as far as turning on a nearby fan to further cool said grub.

Miss Manners, my hat is off to you in regards to your getting paid to actually answer this obvious foolishness and walk away unscathed. I will continue to monitor your column for my regular humor boost, and I suggest you continue to laugh all the way to the bank.

-Jeeem-

Once again, like a bad habit, I’m back to blog yet again.

This time it was computer problems of the fatal kind and my laptop is all but dead. I’m trying to salvage the data on its hard drive, but have yet to make any headway. So I’m back in business with a new computer (PC) purchased at Tesco Lotus, but not without annoying snags.

It was difficult enough just securing a loan for the computer, being a foreigner in an Asian country. I had to come forth with my passport, up-to-date bank statement, work permit, teachers license and a gob of other documents before they would even consider giving me the loan, and even then they wouldn’t allow a two-year loan since my visa and work permit are limited to one-year renewals.

Once the computer was home and hooked up, I hit another brick wall. The operating system was Linux / Unix based and on top of that, it was all in Thai. So, back to the drawing board it was for me. Mam, my lovely counterpart, took the CPU into Tesco to have Microsoft Windows installed and ended up causing a major disturbance since security thought she was lugging a bomb into the store.

Once home, we discovered that although Windows was installed, several programs such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel were still in Thai. So, we finally ended up contracting with a local computer repairman who spent three days converting my CPU into an English friendly unit.

As many of my faithful readers may be wondering, my trip to Chum Phae in Isaan was a wonderful one. The train ride took three days and my layover in Bangkok was long and grueling, but worth it. Mam and her small entourage of local villagers met me at the Khon Kaen train station early in the morning and I can’t say that I’ve ever met friendlier people.

We drove from Khon Kaen to Chum Phae in a small pickup, piloted by Noi, a rather attractive lady boy, if I say so myself. I have to admit that it took me a while to notice that this “woman” was really a man, but if you know Thailand, katoey’s, as they are referred to, are about as commonplace as rice.

Most of the first day was a blur because of my lack of sleep, but once I arrived in the village, the hustle and bustle of meeting everyone (and I do mean “everyone”), didn’t allow for time to be tired.

Mam’s mom was awesome and greeted me with a huge hug. Her father was cordial, but all in all fairly accepting, which according to Mam, is a bit of a stretch for him. Her father is a rather eccentric, yet interesting man who lives away from the home in a small house on his rice farm. He chooses the tranquility of the farm over the hustle and bustle of the village. Several times during my stay of just over two weeks, Mam and I traveled out to his farm to bring him food and provisions and he seemed polite, if not a bit guarded.

Naturally, being a farang (westerner) and the major love interest of a popular, local village girl, I was in high demand. Everybody wanted to meet me. This was novel for the first few days, but became rather annoying after a week or so (We Westerners so covet our privacy and quiet time you know). My Thai is rudimentary at best, and my Lao and Isaan dialect is non-existent, so communication often came to an uncomfortable standstill since Mam often had difficulty translating what the villagers were saying to me.

Nonetheless, I had a wonderful time with these wonderful, gracious and exceedingly friendly people. My personal favorites were three women… Paan, Jaanta and Phuta. Paan is Noi’s mother. She owns and operates a beauty salon next to Mam’s home and openly jokes about her son/daughter’s gender issue.

Jannta and Phuta are two local villagers who have more character than could possibly be put down into words. Both these women are very dark, with deeply wrinkled, yet attractive faces from long hours in the hot Northeast Thailand sun, cutting rice in the rice paddies. Both typically wore turban style headgear and greeted me with red, syrupy smiles and blackened teeth, from years of betel nut chewing.

Waving sharp sickle knives about, they greeted me enthusiastically one particular morning, sputtering Lao and cajoling me to join them in the rice paddies to cut rice. As banal as this may seem to the reader, I must say it was one of the highlights of my visit and an experience I will not soon forget.

About fifteen to twenty of the local villagers showed up that day to cut rice in the burning sun, including Mam’s aged, yet agile mother. Once finished, the villagers were paid 100 baht (the equivalent of about $2.50) apiece and treated to a meal of duck. I, meanwhile, was graciously complemented by the landowner, as a (near) rice-harvesting expert.

It’s impossible to list all my experiences here, so I plan to blog about them as my memory banks retrieve them. At present, however, Mam is here with me in Songkhla and adjusting to life in the deep, restive south, quite well. Two months into Mam’s stay, we suffered a massive deluge of monsoon rains, which flooded the river basin and inundated our village. Mam and I were lucky though, and only had water enter our carport, up to the third step leading to our front door.

I hope to be contributing to this site more often now that I’m set up with a new computer, and I hope all of you who read my stuff had a safe and peaceful holiday season.

-Jeeem-

I'm leaving for Isaan to meet my honey's family!I've got my train tickets and I'm ready to go! I'll be leaving Hatyai around 5:00 p.m. and arriving in Khon Kaen at 5:50 in the morning on the 14th. Mam and I will spend a good two weeks together, before departing together on the 26th, to Hat Yai.

I'm really looking forward to meeting Mam's family, but it'll be a challenge as they don't speak any English and probably nothing more outside of their local Isaan dialect or Lao.

But Mam speaks not only traditional Thai, Lao and Isaan, but also English. She's excited about the train ride back, as she's never been on a train before, and we're going first class all the way.

We'll be back on the 28th, so look for more posts then...

-Jeeem-

Eating weird stuff...101.


To carry on with my past theme of “eating weird shit in Asia,” I’ve gotta say that it’s a never-ending episode here.

Having changed my routine somewhat, and beginning to head out later at night for my daily victuals run, I’ve happened upon an interesting food stand that offers very “different” sorts of food. Some of these “different” sorts of food are pretty nasty, like the preserved, salted egg in oyster sauce…but others are not only good, but actually entertaining!

I’d eaten at this place maybe three times, witnessing their nightly fireworks display, as they dumped a dishful of vegetables into hot, flaming oil and stir-fried this mixture for maybe three minutes. Flames shot up three feet from the frying pan as the woman winced, spatula in hand, while stir-frying this mixture.

Finally, a Thai friend in tow, who speaks good English and even better Thai, found out for me that this flaming mixture was actually stir-fried morning glory.

Yep, you heard me right. Morning Glory.

But hold on…before you start envisioning blue conical flowers, climbing vines and hallucinogenic seeds, it’s not like you think.

I’ve done my research, but as with any research done here in Southeast Asia, it’s all subject to change upon the “more reputable claims” by other groups.

Morning glory…or “Asian water spinach,” is very different than the climbing vine variety that you are thinking of, however, it’s from the same family of plant.

An online news article states: “Ipomoea aquatica has become a significant invasive species in the waterways of Florida, and is therefore illegal in that state.”

…..Well, maybe you should employ some Southeast Asians in your local restaurants!

Upon final discovery, I cautiously ordered some stir-fried Morning Glory. The woman chopped up my meal, added a dash of mystery sauce, a dab of diced chilies, some soy sauce, and who-knows-what-else and all of it went flying into a huge ball of flame.

The result?

Absolutely delicious! Crisp, hot, spicy vegetables in a semi-oily base, with a spicy snap to them!

In my research, the Cambodians claim initial rights to this dish, called “Ta-Koung” or simply “Takoun.” But…this popular dish is known in China as, “keng xin cai,” or ‘empty heart vegetable’ because of the hollow stems. It’s also known as “ong choy” in parts of China, “pak hung” in Thailand, “kangkung” in Indonesia and “rau muong” in Vietnam. Just in case you were wondering.

Many of you might scoff at these “language lessons” but believe me, they are “SURVIVAL” here in southeast Asia.

-Jeeem-

When it comes to learning languages, I’ve always sucked.

Looking back at my first grade Spanish class in El Paso, Texas, I remember that old witch Miss Velasquez (God rest her soul, as she’s certainly dead by now) who surely hated my guts because I couldn’t pronounce “Orange” or “Nose” correctly in Spanish.

I can pronounce them now, but as they say, “Too little, too late.”

Miss Velasquez wore her glasses around her neck, on a chain, and carried around a foot long “switch” that she hit us with if we weren’t paying attention. I remember too, that her breath always smelled like cloves.

I was hit a lot, since I was what the faculty dubbed, “A Dreamer.”

Well, everybody dreams right?

Yeah, but you’re evidently NOT supposed to dream during the day…else, you’re labeled the horrific, “DAY DREAMER.”

Nothing much has changed since those early days…I’m still a daydreamer, and I still suck at learning languages.

My payback?

My Buddhist karma has placed me in the opposite position in the classroom…as the LANGUAGE TEACHER, and as luck (did I say luck?) will have it, as a GRADE ONE through THREE English teacher of Thai students.

Wanna venture a guess about one of my biggest problems with these students?

Damn! You folks are quick!

Day Dreamers.

A whole slew of them.

No, I don’t wear my glasses on a chain around my neck.

No, I don’t hit the kids with a stick when they pronounce, “School” as “Sakoool,” or “Kitchen,” as “Chicken.”

But I do spend a fare amount of time cuing Chu, my Thai classroom partner, to get the kids attention when I’m teaching a lesson.

Today, for whatever reason, I was reminded of myself, some forty-four years ago…, which caused me to smile, and shake a finger at one of those dreaded…

DAY DREAMERS!

-Jeeem-

For the love of Pete...(literally?)

Google search strikes again!

While doing an image search for "Running Snake" I came upon this image for Butt Cream.

I'm trying to prepare a lesson for my kids using "Can & Can't," so I was going the animal route..."A fish can swim," "A snake can't run," etcetera, etcetera, when I discovered BUTT CREAM.

I'm not sure about the connection between "Running Snake" and "Butt Cream" and I'm not even going to try and figure it out.

-Jeeem-

I learn something every day!

Last year, while teaching my students the "Family," theme, I had a couple students mention that they had two fathers, two mothers, or both. I laughed it off, assuming, in my western mindset, that the kids were from a broken family.

I didn't think twice about it until this year, when I introduced "Family" again and received another, overwhelming response of kids claiming two (or in some cases more) fathers or mothers.

This time it caught my attention, so I asked my Thai assistant and good friend Chu, (Wichuda Kaewphibool), "What is this thing about two mothers or fathers?"

It seems that some rather large Thai families, (some are incredibly large, with as many as twelve or more children), may offer out their children (some or all) to surrogate parents for certain days of the week, the weekend, or other arrangements.

Mae Bun Tum: Means second mother.

Por Bun Tum: Means second father.

As Chu explained to me, some families may turn their kids over to the second (or surrogate) parent on certain days, or whenever needed.

The second (surrogate) parent is most often a single woman, often divorced, who has no children, or has free time to spend, giving his or her time, affection, and knowledge to the greater good of the kids.

Although it isn't as common for children to have a surrogate dad, some do, often naming their surrogate father as their father, rather than the one who is most absent from their lives.

-Jeeem-

The monsoons here are incredible. I can't say enough about them.

Perhaps it's because I came from a dry climate...The desert southwest (southwest Texas).

I've experienced rains in many locales and countries and nothing seems to compare to the rains here in southern Thailand.

After school today I decided to stop off at my favorite Thai restaurant. I ordered one of my favorite dishes, fried pork, mixed vegetables over rice with soup (pork vertebrae with bean sprouts, green onion, and flavorful broth) and a side dish of cucumber and raw green onion, all mixed with pungent, aromatic, and spicy Thai peppers...of course.

After finishing my meal at 2:15 p.m., it had begun to rain.

Five minutes later, it was a solid downpour, and by 2:35 p.m., I was soaked to the bone even though I had my umbrella with me.

It seemed as though the rain was coming in from every angle.

Now I'm home. It's 4:00 p.m. The rain is only now beginning to let up.

Over an hour and forty-five minutes of heavy rain...

This kind of rain in southwest Texas would kill people.

Looking out my front door, I can easily understand where the metaphors, "Curtain of rain," and "Sheets of rain," come from.

The thing that baffles me, is most of the soil here is clay...red clay...clay doesn't absorb water. So, I wonder, "Where the hell does it go?"

People here are used to the monsoons and seem to coexist with them well, but, I've seen pictures of past years when flooding took its toll on southern Thailand and still threatens to wreak havoc again.

What will this year be like?

The anticipation leaves me breathless.

-Jeeem