I’ve been thinking about doing this for months, but you know how it is….one thing leads to another and things get in the way. Well, I’ve a couple days off and not much to do except play on the computer, so here we go…
“Jim’s Quiet Musings…” as you all know, is a lie. I’m rarely “Quiet” about anything in my life. Wanda used to say to me, “Jim, you are one of the most assertive people I know…you say exactly what’s on your mind. The trouble is your delivery sucks!”
I learned a lot from that woman. May she rest in peace.
I got to thinking about the “purpose” of this blog. What’s the purpose of any blog? I suppose there are as many purposes as there are blogs. My purpose, I think, is to share my experiences and thoughts about my life with people who may be interested in them.
I must admit, I’ve been remiss about sharing my true “musings,” with the world.
I live in Thailand now, but I have lived in Asia for coming up on two years, and have failed miserably in sharing the minor stuff that is knocking around in my head most times. Being a westerner, one can’t help but compare daily life in Asia to stuff more familiar back home….
That is the stuff that’s interesting!
School lunch
Most days I eat lunch in the school cafeteria. Some days I skip it, depending on what’s being served, but most days I eat there because it’s free and well…I’m hungry.
I wait to eat until just about 12:10 p.m., because that’s the time when there’s a lull (peace and quiet) between Prathom 1, 2 & 3 (Grades one, two and three) and the beginning of lunch for Prathom 4, 5 and 6 and Mathayom (high school) kids.
The school cafeteria is an open concept design. What I mean by “open concept” is, well…it has a roof, but no outside walls. Essentially like an outside picnic area. This idea is not new to Asian culture. The first time I saw this design was in the Philippines. In northeastern Mindanao, I visited a University that had no windows, per se. Just bars on the uh….openings.
My first “western” thought, upon seeing this, was…poverty. Nevertheless, after six trips to Asia, I finally figured it out…it’s the heat. Classrooms are NOT air-conditioned. Air-conditioning classrooms in Southeast Asian heat would be like putting a Band-Aid on every mosquito bite. It’s not only impossible, it’s expensive.
The heat is oppressive, so open concept….well, .works!
So, I waltz through the “open-concept” cafeteria, surrounded and embraced by my loving students, to arrive at the kitchen. I hunt out the plastic bowls and accept a dollop of rice from one of the kitchen crew. I then hunt around through the various huge containers for the Thai treat of the day.
The menu is usually the same, but it’s actually damn good. Yellow curried pork rice with string beans, spicy fried chicken parts, Daikon radish, mushroom and pork rice with vegetables, fish balls in a curried rice stew with rice, beef satay with peanuts and rice…the list goes on. The food is healthy and good, but God I’m so sick of rice!
As a reprieve, the school usually has a “snack” area that is set up for the kids (and me). This snack area offers delicious, unbelievably delicious snacks like: Fried Phatong shrimp, Seafood Wittaya wontons, fried sausage, spicy hot chicken wings, fried cuttlefish on a stick, fried octopus surprise and something that resembles fried tortilla chips in a sweet and sour sauce (sometimes stuffed with crab)…all generously supplied with heaps of sliced (and spiced) cucumber.
The “drink” section features a dark, sweet iced coffee – coconut juice with immature coconut rind, and an “orange juice” which is much more like some sort of powerful Gatorade mix, that is clearly my favorite. Other “special” drinks include “milk” drinks that are usually for the kids (and me) which are made with evaporated milk and something sweet, like cherry, blueberry, or other sweet flavors.
Tables are bussed by the students, which means that if you’re gonna sit down, you had better check out your chair first…as it’s often loaded with food particles left behind from first, second or third graders. Each child has their own assignment…push in the chairs, wipe down the table, collect the drink glasses.
Every day, several local, wild dogs course through the cafeteria, scrounging for food tidbits. The local cats are a bit more discreet. Birds swoop through the cafeteria, landing on empty tables to pick on remnants of rice and other little smidges.
My “Western” mind takes in all of this, thinking to myself: “Kids back home would Freak with a capital “F” just seeing a dog walking through their cafeteria…let alone a bird flying through their protected cafeteria, or a cat winding between student legs in search of a handout.
It seems westerners are so compartmentalized…whereas things here in Asia are just so simple.
Kids here in Southeastern Asia, walk past the dogs, birds and cats as if they weren’t there. I empty my dish in a five-gallon bucket near the cleaning area, often having to push the muzzle of a stray dog away from the bucket that he was eating from…
I think to myself, “All of this would just about totally ‘gross out’ a western kid. Sadly, I feel grateful and happy for the simplicity of life in Thailand, compared to the remorse I feel for the complexity of life in the west.
-Jeeem-
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