4/1/2001 - General Observations

We thought we would send you all a quick update about some general things we’ve encountered here, not specifically in the last week. We have had occasion to attend several large parties and have found them rather fascinating, and we have experienced several months of Thai traffic.

Recently we went to yet another big dinner party – we feel that we need to describe these to you so that you get an idea of what happens. People throw large parties in their yard or the yard of the nearby school to celebrate weddings, the construction of a new house, or the ordination of a young male as a monk. Basically, at these housewarming/ monk initiation/ fill in the blank receptions, there are a few dozen tables set up each with 8 to 10 chairs. There are multi-colored fluorescent lights hung as decoration not only around the party grounds, but also along the roadway for half a mile or so. There is generally a large stage that is intended as the center of attention. As the ceremony/thank you speeches are performed on stage, one will note that not a single conversation at the tables stops, nor is there a single person actually listening to what is said on stage. Often the presentations on stage consist of various community leaders walking onto the stage and giving the host family a bouquet of flowers (which has been provided for the party by the host family – yes, please present me with those flowers I bought for my self, how nice!). When presentations and speeches are through the entertainment starts up again, which consists of a lead female and a lead male singer who take turns singing, generally with a live band backing them up and occasionally with a live band standing there looking bored and a CD backing them up. Along side (and often surrounding and hiding) the singer is a poorly choreographed dance team wearing atrocious outfits that qualify as crimes to humanity under the Geneva Convention. Sample outfit (and I’m NOT making this up): Pepto-Bismol pink sequined cheerleader type dress (complete with baby pink feather boa on the hem of the skirt), chartreuse and red feather headdress, black knee-high socks, and white tennis shoes. The dance team members (and I use the term “dance” loosely here), change their outfits every 3 or 4 songs (with a break of a song or two), so one gets the whole array of colors. The high end entertainment groups actually have two sets of dancers who rotate so one does not miss any of the action. The dinner is usually catered (apparently by the same company because we eat virtually the same meal every time we go to one of these things) and consists of a six or seven course meal. Often the food is unidentifiable, so we ask for the name of the dish in Thai, then ask our language teacher the next day to translate it. We were testing the theory “eat first, ask questions later,” but we did not get the desired results so our revised theory is “eat first, and quite frankly, I don’t want to know what it was.” Ignorance is bliss.

This is similar to the approach one needs to take when driving and riding a bicycle in Thailand. Officially traffic drives on the left side of the road here. Officially. Most local two-lane roads have copious potholes and people drive around the potholes without regard to which side of the road they are occupying or how much traffic is headed their way. Roads with 4 lanes or more are almost always divided by a median with a break every few kilometers for U-turns. The median is, of course, to keep the head on traffic separate to avoid major accidents, however it is in no way uncommon to see people driving the wrong way down the street to get to the next break in the median. Which brings up another interesting aspect of the roads and sidewalks here in Thailand – people definitely have the opinion that they paid taxes for the road and the sidewalk, so they might as well use them. When you are in an urban area with sidewalks it is uncommon to find space where a pedestrian can actually walk on the sidewalk because the space is all occupied by vendors selling primarily clothing and food. Often this is just additional stock from the store that fronts on the sidewalk, but in many cases it is a portable vendor stand. The banks here each have a beautiful edifice and sidewalk space that is unoccupied during banking hours, but as soon as the bank closes the vendors will come and occupy the Bank’s share of sidewalk space. On roads with 6 lanes or more it is not uncommon to find food vendors with carts occupying the outside lanes. These are the McDonalds of Thai food – drive up in the second lane and order your food without ever getting out of the car. But you’ve got to watch out when you do this because the inside lane is generally reserved for the wrong way traffic, so when the food vendor has the first lane, and the customer has the second lane, the wrong way traffic starts to get more daring. Honking and flashing your headlights here is mostly the drivers way of announcing their presence and that they are NOT going to stop, or in the case of a bus it is the announcement to people at a bus stop that they need to hurry out to the road or they will miss the bus. Busses to not actually STOP at the roadside bus stands, they coast by slowly and as soon as everyone has at least one foot in the bus they begin accelerating. Busses stop only at large bus stations, and whenever else the driver feels like stepping out and getting a bite to eat or have a smoke with his favorite local vendor. There are really only 3 other rules of the road in Thailand – roads have as many lanes as there are vehicles willing to squeeze in (lane markers are solely for decorative purposes), unless you are at an intersection with a stop light you never EVER stop (most towns do not have traffic lights and if you are polite enough to wait for oncoming traffic you will never move), and you must replace your brake pads a lot because people drive radically different speeds on the same roadway and if you want to drive fast you’ll be using your brakes a lot!

Bonus Pic – we have enclosed a picture of the Wat in our local community where we have been living during training. The Wat and the school at which we have been learning and teaching are adjacent – Wat’s have historically been generous with their land for schools. Pictured is the temple part of the Wat – the decorative part where the most elaborate Buddha images are and where the fanciest ceremonies are held. There are two other significant buildings at the Wat – one a is a large mundane looking meeting hall where community Buddhist celebrations take place (things like potlucks), and there is a tall structure (currently under construction at this Wat) where they cremate people as part of the week long funeral celebration.

Hope all is well,

Denny & Lisa