Siam Jai's Weblog

This month we celebrate the second anniversary of our Thai-blog community. What better occasion to recall the past and pay a brief visit the story of how it all started. We have to go back quite a while ago... please follow me.

Where it all began
Once upon a time there was a forum as part of a website called thailandguidebook.com. On this forum, some members started to write regularly about their Thai experiences. It was a diverse bunch even back then: temporary teachers, backpackers, and some expats like yours truly. Even Richard found some spare time and shared language study tips he gained while teaching his students at Srinai.

Shortly thereafter, these stories were moved outside the forum, so as to not look like posts. This was the first time they started to resemble today's blogs - but they were very, very basic. Just plain text paragraphs, that's it. Things like the calendar, RSS, blog-search - basically all the bells and whistles that we take for granted in today's blogs, were nonexistent at that time. Writer profiles were those of the forum; comments were also collected as forum posts. I remember, each of us writers had their separate subforum for blog comments, and we responded there.

The lonely blogger
This highlighted an obvious problem: readers had to be forum members in order to interact with the bloggers. Since at that time the forums had yet to gain their own entity to be the popular ThailandQA we know now, the interest for our blogs was sparse. Most writers became disillusioned about this and have left. There was a period of time when I was the sole blogger on the site!

Thai-blogs to the rescue
Around that time, Richard got this brilliant idea to get a proper blog engine and run the blogs on a unique site. This became Thai-blogs that you are reading now. I remember, we had a problem with the name. Richard wanted thaiblogs.com at first, but it was (and still is) reserved by a cybersquatter. And then we vacillated whether having a hypenated URL will cause confusion amongst readers in the future... apparently it didn't. :-)

Content transplant
So, we had a site, we had a name, we had an enigne. But if it started empty from scratch, we would have lost valuable time waiting for content and readership to build up. Thus all of Richard's and my previously written material has been painstakingly moved to the this new place. The timestamp has also been tinkered with, in order to make the intial posts appear as if they had been written for this site gradually over time. While that was a good idea back then, now it's simply impossible to find our very first blog entry. Oh well... :-)

With time readers and writers started to come. Another important milestone in the history of Thai-blogs was when Richard started to construct the Big Thailand Quiz and Steve helped out with that project. It was through their discussions about devising the questions that got Steve started out here at Thai-blogs, giving another enormous boost to this community. :-)

Plans for the future
In this ever-changing cyberworld one has to keep up with the latest innovations to maintain a quality content presentation. The improvements to our blogs did't just stop here. Richard told me about future plans to further improve Thai-blogs, and without dwelling on them much, let me just tell you that they can take the community to exciting new directions! :-)

I'm glad to see that during these years, Thai-blogs succeeded to preserve its friendly and informative nature, making it an isle of peace in the sea of thai-related sites gone bad. Couldn't have gone this far without writers giving quality content, and readers giving inspiration to the writers. Here is hope that we're going to see Thai-blogs doing great for many years coming. Thanks to you all! :-)

Asking expats why they chose Thailand, you'll often get enthusiastic replies like "Oh, Thailand is such a wonderful place"; "everything is so cheap"; "people are friendly"; "I just love the Thai way of life".

Once you take a closer look at these enthusiastic folks, however, many times you will find that the "thai" life they are so enthralled about, bears very little resemblance to how the majority of local Thais live. Which in itself is no problem, of course; heck, if I made 5-10 times the local wages, I would also sneak in some more "Farang magic" to spice up my all-Thai life over there. ;)

Stuck in the Farang bubble
What I don't really get is when, instead of adding that Farang magic, people start substituting some aspects of Thai life with Farang equivalents. What do I mean by that? Consider this old farang guy over at ThailandQA, who summarily rejects all kinds of Thai food, proclaiming that only Farang food is worth eating. Some other expats are stuck in the Farang bubble, afraid to integrate, because that means leaving the old, safe environment behind.

Can you imagine living in Thailand for decades and not eating a single dish of Thai food? Or hiding out during Songkran with the rest of the candybutt Farang in the safety of air-con flats and malls, while the Thai population crowds the klongs and waterways, having "unsanitary" fun in the April heat? :D

Wonderful Illusion
The "wonderful Thailand" such people talk about is in fact a tiny world of Westernized illusion squeezed into very narrow limits of persistent Farang habits that they are unable or unwilling to break out of. Their professed love for Thailand is only as deep as their wallet goes, because Farang lifestyle is expensive. Would they still be so enthusiastic about living in Thailand, if they were to switch lifestyles with an average Thai worker for a few months? Would they be able to find happiness here on a salary of 4000-6000Bt a month? Doubtful.

Integration = more happiness
No one can love it all. Surely everyone has their own limits to what Wonderful Thailand is about; what's beyond likeable is personal. Basically, the more you integrate into Thai society, the wider this likeable range is, and the easier Thailand can make you happy.

For instance, I'm equally happy munching on sai ua kao nieow (northern sausage with sticky rice) sitting near the klong with a group of Thai friends who don't speak English, as I am while chewing on a juicy steak at Sizzler with a Farang visitor.

The boundaries of your Wonderful Thailand
I know where the boundaries of my Wonderful Thailand lie. Politics, corruption, domestic abuse and sex-tourism are some of the few things beyond my boundaries of happy life in Thailand. What about yours? How wide is your range of things that make you happy in Thailand? How many of those could you retain, if you were to live the life of an average Thai worker?

Long-time readers might still remember the time I started posting about my Thai life on Paknamweb back in 2004, even before the existence of this Thai-blogs community. You have been with me through many ups and downs of my life here, so I want to share with you the recent events that will bring about some of the greatest changes in my life. :-)

European interlude
My girlfriend Cherry and I are about to leave Thailand. Only temporarily though. ;) Cherry is going to France for a few days, where she will present her research work on an international science conference in Paris. Afterwards, she'll spend the next six months doing research at a London university, as the final part of her PhD program.

I will use this time to go back to Hungary for a long-overdue family reunion. I haven't seen them for the last seven years! After the five years in the US at the uni, and now the two years here in Thailand, I really want to see my family again. :)

We'll leave sometime in June. As you can imagine, we're quite excited, and very busy with preparation. We cleared most obstacles already, but some necessities are yet to be done. This evening we'll leave Chiang Mai on a Bangkok-bound bus (trains don't leave CM because of the flood). In Bangkok, we'll apply for the French and UK visas for Cherry. It took a while to get all the evidence together, and we had it checked with the local consulate to be sure, but you never know... so let's just keep our fingers crossed! :-)

I will keep writing to Thai-blogs and Thaiwonders even from Europe. I have more than two years worth of Thailand memories; that should easily last for six months, lol.

Reflections
To move to Thailand was the best decision of my life. I learned much, not only about the wonderful local lifestyle, culture and values, but also about myself. I believe that my life turned out to be better than what I could've ever have in the US, had I stayed there for the additional five-six years necessary for the PhD.

The next six months will be a great time to test and contrast the values I adopted here, with the one I left behind such a long time ago. At the same time, I want to come back to Thailand at the end, nice as it may be to be with family. To me, Europe is only a visit to the past. My home, my life, is here now.

Thanks for everyone who kept reading my life stories through these years. :-)

SiamJai

Reading one of Richard's recent comments reminded me of a really strange but extremely delicious Thai food: fried ice cream. Mmm.. just writing about it makes me hungry! Here, take a look:

Top and bottom view of this unusual delicacy

Fried Ice Cream?
Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like. :-) Instructions seem simple at first glance: take a scoop of icecream, cover it with a layer of batter, and then dip it into boiling oil.

Now some of you may be thinking along the lines of my first thought when I heard about it: "are you crazy? Ice cream in hot oil? It's gonna be a soggy mess!" And sure it would be, were it you or me standing at the frying pan. ;) But in the hands of a skilled Northern cook, this technique can turn even the most boring scoop of vanilla ice cream into a yummy delicacy.

You can see from this cross-sectioned pic that it's not soggy at all; the ice cream inside is still solid and frosty. I guess the secret lies in the thickness of the batter coat, and the time it's spent in the boiling oil. Take it out too soon and the batter doesn't fry properly; leave it in for too long, and the icecream melts inside. It takes skill and experience to get it right.

Oh, by the way, want to hazard a guess how much a scoop costs up here in a Chiang Mai mall? Send answers below in a comment - I'll post the answer later.

Cheers! :-)

Isaan without pink glasses

Isaan is a wonderful place. It's like anything else in Thailand, the whole region has its unique charm. The lush greens of the tropical rice paddies and palm trees, the simple folk, their culture all bring about a certain rustic charm; no wonder that many of us tend to write about it with our pink glasses on!

But an Isaan life can be a wonderful and fun adventure even without the pink glasses on. So this morning I sat down and recollected some of my memorable experiences while I lived there. Below are ten points of the real hallmarks of Isaan life. Although some may sound like complaining, these are all treasured memories, and are expressed with light-hearted fun in mind. Enjoy! :-)

You know you're in Isaan when

-in the shop, thick layers of dust cover Coke and Fanta bottles, while Mekong and Beer Lao bottles are always new and shiny.

-the 6-pm national anthem is the signal to close up shops, go home and sleep.

-the first cry of the rooster is the signal to crowd the markets and blare morlam karaoke for the listening pleasure of the entire village.

-you can drive on a four-lane road without seeing any cars; in fact, in a half hour you'll come across more cow-poop than cars!

-at a restaurant, you ask for a glass of drink, they give you a bottle ("geo").

-the number of local women interested in marrying you is directly proportional to your age - but their age is inversely proportional to yours!

-upon hearing you speak Thai, people assume you must be married to a local gal.

-you see buffaloes and chicken roaming in-and-out of schoolyards.

-you compliment your host for the colorful patterns of the tablecloth, and then you see him using the same thing as a loincloth! And towel! And blanket! and just about everything else you can think of.

-the only thing removed from the chicken in the soup are the feathers.

This is just the top of the iceberg, there are many more; feel free to add yours below! And don't forget: no complaints, just light-hearted fun! :-)

'til next time,

SiamJai

Catching up with life...

Happy New Year! :) It's nice to be back after such a long absence. Work is going as usual, but I've been quite busy lately with a number of exciting projects. Cherry and I are making our own website which also includes a personal blog that we update regularly. Add an overseas trip sometime in June, and you see why our hands are full!

Oh, I think I didn't talk about Cherry here yet. Well, she's a PhD student at CMU; she's kind, smart, fluent in English and she's also the girlfriend of this lucky guy SiamJai here. ;) You can find out more about our lives in our personal blog, Life Wonders. I will still keep writing about Thailand here, but personal life articles go over there.

So now back to the main topic of this post; Lanna-style Songkran.

If you think of a Chiang Mai Songkran, the likely picture in your mind is about throngs of drenched people standing at the canal, merrily swinging buckets full of chilled klong water, soaking each other and the nearby cars stuck in traffic jam. I know – I did just that. ;-)

However, it wasn’t always this way. The now-popular waterfight overshadows the more intricate patterns of Songkran customs, dating back to the times this land was called Lanna. Today I want to tell you about some of the traditional ways we’re celebrating Songkran in the North.

The Northern Songkran festival was originally spread over four days, with each day having a different theme:

1. วันสังขารล่อง (Wan Sangkhan Lohng, Apr. 13): the cleansing
Let’s start the new year fresh and clean! Northern Thais take this literally, and so they spend this day cleaning their houses and taking sacred Buddha images from temples for ritual cleansing ceremonies. They wash the statues gently with lustral water scented with fresh petals of the jasmine flower. The statues are then displayed in a colorful parade of monks, floats and bands. These parades are a great spectacle, and an excellent opportunity to listen to authentic Lanna music.

2. วันเนา (Wan Nao, Apr. 14): the preparation
If you were to see this day in the times of Lanna as an outsider, you’d be disappointed. Nothing special from the visitor point of view. Locals stay inside, busy preparing everything for the big day – tomorrow. Women and girls cook and preserve food for the next day’s offerings, while men and boys are out there collecting sand from the Mae Ping for building sandcastles. (Nowadays, offerings are bought at supermarkets, and sand is arranged by the temples themselves, and hauled by large trucks to the scene). People make sure that at the end of the day everything is ready for the highlight of the celebrations...

3. วันพญาวัน (Wan Payawan, Apr. 15): the offering
This is it; the big day. Everyone wakes up early in the morning, taking the previously cooked and preserved food and fresh fruits for a mass merit-making at the temples. Besides offering food and everyday supplies, people also make merit by releasing captive birds and fish.

Although the calendar says otherwise, popularly Wan Payawan was regarded as the beginning of the new year, and thus much emphasis was placed on proper conduct and good deeds for this day. You see, people believed (and some still do today), that whatever they do in the beginning of the new year will affect the rest of the year. Thus they take particular care and they refrain from bad speech, bad thoughts and actions, as well as abstain from sex. These rules are similar to those of the Vegetarian Festival, and for similar reasons.

Once the offerings were done, people started sprinkling water at each other. This is not to be mistaken with the respectful sprinkling of the elderly – it was a bit more playful and relaxed. Yet, it was still much more reserved than today’s all-out waterfights. People carried silver bowls filled with water, dipped their hands into it, and sprayed water gently over each other by shaking water from their fingers.

4. วันปากปี (Wan Paak Bpee, Apr. 16): the respect
Perhaps the most known aspect of Songkran traditions is performed on this day; the formal respect of the elderly by sprinkling lustral water on them. But in the days of Lanna, there was more to that.

The day began with remembering the ancestors in the morning – perhaps a Chinese influence. Then the younger people gathered around the family elders. (Remember, in those days Thais lived in extended families, many generations under one roof). They approached the elders with bowls of scented water, which they poured on their hands (not over the shoulders as popularly assumed), while saying words of respect. The excess water flew into a red bowl that was placed underneath the elders’ hands. At this time, traditional mor-ham shirts and other items were also presented to the elderly.

After the participants asked for the elders’ forgiveness for any disrespectful behavior in the past, the elders dipped their hands into the lustral water and wet their own heads, while blessing the participants. Finally, they all went to the temple together to perform สืบชะตา, a ceremony to prolong life.

(Thanks to lannaworld.com and chiangmai_chiangrai.com for some of the information used in this blog. All the pictures are from personal collection.)

Until next time,

SiamJai

If you've been following Thailand's news, you surely know about the murder of a British tourist on Koh Samui. If you haven't heard of it, you can read the details on our forums.

A few thoughts to ponder about

Had the victim been a local woman - say, the wife of another fisherman - would law enforcement have been mobilized to such an extent? Would the perpetrators have been found so quickly? Would so much money have been spent on serving justice? Would the justice system have been modified in such a way as to give immediate satisfaction to the relatives and everyone else concerned?

Or let's say that the vicitim was a foreigner - a Bangladeshi woman. Would justice have been served with such fervor?

How about a white foreigner - say, a Hungarian (resident of a tiny country in Central Europe). Would the case have attained such press coverage, elevating it to a priority of national proportions?

Or is that the victim has to be a white foreigner born in a wealthy, influential country, and the murder must happen in a place starving for tourist dollars, for "VIP justice" to be considered?

Thailand values the life of a Farang woman born in a powerful country more than the life of its own citizens, or the life of people from 'lesser countries'. What would the Buddha say about that?

I have no sympathy for the suspects, but it seems that their right to a fair trial has been suspended in the name of the almighty tourist dollars. The normal procedures, months of preparation and the year-lenght trial, are there for a reason. This was all suspended in favor of a kangaroo-court circus trial, with the PM shouting "Kill them!" from the backstage. Wouldn't that just tarnish Thailand's reputation even more?