Holiday Season

It’s not only you back at home that are currently enjoying an abundance of festivities. Here in Khon Kaen, we also just kicked off a “holiday season” of sorts, both Thai and American.

It all began last Thursday at the Sofitel. For the past year, Joe has been reminiscing about their Thanksgiving dinner. Some of the promised vegetarian offerings included real cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes (western style potatoes are relatively rare here), and PUMPKIN PIE. As you can imagine, we’ve been dreaming about this for weeks. Come November 22, my mouth was literally salivating all day, especially for that pie. We left school as soon as both of use were finished with classes and rode the motorbike straight to the hotel to meet a few of our friends. As we rushed past the giant 3-D cardboard turkey in the lobby, the hostess didn’t even need to ask “ThanksgiVING, mai ka?” She took one look at eager eyes and led us to the nearest table. Alas, after a short perusal of the buffet, a sinking feeling came over me. Where’s the cranberry sauce? I do see potatoes, but they’re roasted. There’s pie, but that’s way too yellow to be pumpkin. The only change from their normal extravagant buffet was the addition of Turkey. Great. Turkey. Making the best of situation, we ordered extremely overpriced wine (the first we’ve had since March when we ate with my parents at an Italian restaurant in Chiang Mai) and I attacked the cheese and bread. I suppose I can’t complain too much, there was enough western food to fill me up, if not overstuff me. And nothing tempers food-disappointment like good conversation with friends.

Later in the week, the Loi Kratong festival gave us the Thai version of Thanksgiving; thanks to the water as we give it lots of Kratong boats. Loi Kratong marks the end of the rainy season, when the waterways are at their fullest. It is also the most beautiful time of year since all of the freshly watered plants are in full-color bloom. The festival is celebrated by building small boats out of leaves (palm, banana), flowers, incense, and candles. Sometime between sunset and midnight, everyone lights candles and incense, makes a wish, and releases their boat into the nearest waterway. If your boat stays afloat (hopefully moving toward the center of the lake) and your candle stays lit, your wish will come true. The effect overwhelms your senses. As you approach the water, you are crammed together with so many other people, but it is wonderful because the air is thick with sweet incense and the water is so breathtaking with all of the tiny pricks of light illuminating the flowers covering the lake.

The floating of the Kratong is just one part of the festival. There is a parade, which is the first Thai parade I’ve seen since. The main part of the festival is run by university students and takes place on campus, and we recognized a lot of our students in the parade. Most of the groups in the parade were various faculties or departments from the university performing Thai dances. It was beautiful, but I didn’t envy the groups that decided to go the traditional route and forgo shoes. Each group paraded with its own huge Kratong to enter in the University competition. Most departments also had their own booth at the festival where participants could play games for charity. There was also the usual abundance of street food and night-market type booths selling everything you can imagine.

The entire experience was more breathtaking and emotional than I could have ever imagined, and although I can’t wait to be back for the typical tofurky American Thanksgiving next year, this year’s festivities were definitely an experience I’ll never forget.

Pink is the New Yellow

Every Monday, hoards of Thai people leave their houses and head to work. This is probably true for most countries around the world; however, in Thailand, about 90% of the population will be wearing yellow. It’s actually quite disconcerting and a little too cheerful that early in the week for my taste.

Monday is the day of the week on which the current King of Thailand was born and ever since the 60th anniversary of the his ascension to the throne (June 2006), Thai people have been honoring him by wearing yellow “king shirts” every Monday. Some people actually wear them every day, although I’m not entirely convinced they just don’t like deciding what to wear in the mornings.

But now, a new trend is spreading. Pink is the new yellow. This recent fashion development started recently when pink was declared an auspicious color for the King’s 80th year on Earth, which begins this December 5th. (Wait, does that mean he became king at age 11? I never put that together before.) As if the declaration of an astrologer were not enough to sway the Thai psyche, last week the King was released from the hospital wearing a pink shirt. Now he technically should have been wearing green (every day of the week has an official color: Mon-yellow, Tues-pink, Wed-green, Thurs-orange, Fri-Blue, Sat-purple, Sun-red), but his choice of hue was seen as a clear message to the people: WEAR PINK!

So now everyone in the country is running out to buy a new pink king shirt to replace the billion other yellow shirts they already own. Secret marketing deal between the monarchy and clothing manufactures, or a discreet message to the Thai people that not everyone looks good in yellow? You be the judge.

Spice of Life

One thing that friends always ask me about in emails is...What do you eat? This was something I worried a lot about before I came, and the anxiety increased as my bus on the way to Khon Kaen for the first time passed nothing but meat stalls (meatballs-on-a-string, meatballs-on-a-stick, links of meat on a string/stick, various pieces of meat drying on a string in the sun, entire cow legs and pig heads...I could go on). Luckily, Thailand does have vegetarians (even if most of them only practice for nine days a year--but I’ll get to that later) and Khon Kaen has several vegetarian restaurants.

The initial challenge became not whether I could find meatless food, but rather whether I could find a dinner that would not leave me literally crying with huge swollen lips. Thai food is spicy, and Issan (NE Thailand--where I live) is spicier--supposedly the spiciest in Thailand. In order to enjoy all of the culinary delights of my temporary homeland, I needed to acclimate. Every day I ate something that was a little spicier than the day before, pushing myself a little closer to the point where I was certain my head would explode. I’m really not exaggerating, all of the face on your skin pulsates and you feel like oxygen isn’t getting where it should. Try holding your breath for as long as you can and you kind of get the same sensation (without the burning pain in your mouth and the tears, of course). At home, this food is liable. Karl, a teacher we know who’s been living here for more than 10 years and goes back to the U.S. for a visit almost every year, cannot get anyone to make him food that is a spicy as he gets here. They are actually afraid he will sue them.

I wince recalling those first few months, but all that pain has paid off because I now enjoy, with great preasure (spelling intentional), SOM TOM. The spiciest of spicy Thai food, som tom is a staple of the Issan diet. Traditionally, it is made of shredded, unripe, green papaya tossed into a mortar and pedestal with several handfuls of tiny deadly chilies (their name, translated, is “mouse shit”), fish sauce, spicy sauce and several other ingredients and pounded together to make sure there is a little chili in every bite. I actually wake up to this sound almost every morning since I can hear a woman next door pounding her som tom for the day at 7:00am. This concoction is eaten with sticky rice, scooping up each bite with your hand. I eat the vegetarian version, which is no less spicy.

Speaking of vegetarians, there was a festival celebrating no-meat-meals last month. The Vegetarian Festival is celebrated by Thai-Chinese and mandates that participants eat no meat for NINE WHOLE DAYS (rough, I know). Down in southern Thailand, the festival is an even bigger deal with lots of merit-making at temples that escalates to self-mortification as participants do things like pierce their faces with any available sharp object and climb ladders made of swords. I don’t really understand this since one of the reasons I’m a vegetarian is that I’m against pain in general, but if piercing your cheek with a sharpened golf club makes you feel better about eating animals 356 days a year, be my guest. Strangely, they don’t have this festival in China. Only Thai decedents of Chinese people are this crazy.

Up here the festival was really just a pain for those of us that practice all year since the veggie restaurants were overflowing with people and they switched to buffet-style instead of order off the menu to make sure they could keep up. After the festival, all of the restaurant owners took a week or two of vacation to recover, leaving us without anywhere to eat.

Since food is one of the few things that is really, truly different in Thailand, it’s my intention to highlight some of the specialties in future blogs. That is, if I can remember to bring my camera to dinner.