The Dog Ate My Homework

How often do you get to write an email like this to your professors?

Dear Professor,

I’m writing to let you know that there is a chance that I will lose access to LMS for a few days. I’m currently living in Thailand, and there is a political party (PAD- People’s Alliance for Democracy) that is trying to overthrow the current government. They have threatened to turn off power and water all over Thailand starting tomorrow if the current government doesn’t step down.

If I lose electricity, it will probably be restored before the end of the week, so it won’t greatly affect my progress in our class. It just seemed like a good idea to let you know.

Here is an article from the New York Times that briefly explains the situation.

One Killed in Thai Protests; Emergency Is Declared

Sincerely,

Jordan Fields


By the way, there's no need to worry about my health. I'm staying far away from the protests. I just might be without a shower or air conditioning for a few days.

Things Are Heating Up

Over the past few weeks the weather around here has finally started warming up to Thai summer standards after an unusually long dry/cool season. How hot is hot? Right now it is 2:00pm and the thermometer outside my door (which is in the shade, by the way) reads 99 degrees.

It’s not only outside that’s heating up. I’ve also been breaking a sweat in the kitchen. My moment of glory was last Tuesday when my friend Bay invited me to her house to do a cooking exchange. Bay would be providing the recipes and ingredients for lunch, while I brought what was needed for dessert.

My plan was to make the stove-top cookies that have kept Joe, Mara, and me alive since we can’t bake. When I arrived at Bay’s I found out that there wasn’t a stove or a sauce pan, just an electric wok. Yes, we made cookies in an electric wok, and they were delicious!

The only thing better than the cookies was lunch itself. The first dish Bay showed me how to make is what I’m calling an Issan version of quiche. You mix a lot of mushrooms, some egg, garlic, lemongrass, shallots, lime leaves, lemon basil, and salt together in a bowl and then spoon the mixture into some banana leaves that you let soften in the sun. You then fold the banana leaves up to make a small package that then goes into the oven until the leaves are about to burn. Bay had a small circular glass oven, I’ve never seen anything like it, and it was fun to watch the leaves cook.

The second thing we made was fried vegetable tempura salad. We cut up veggies and tofu into bite size pieces, coated them in a tempura flour batter, and then deep fried them. I’ve never deep fried in a wok using chop sticks, and it definitely was a challenge not to flick hot oily veggies at myself or Bay. Bay also made a classic Thai sauce made of chilies, lime juice, garlic, salt (non-vegetarians use fish sauce), and sugar to pour over the tempura. It was arroy maak (delicious).

After 2 -3 hours in the non-aircon kitchen, I was very grateful to sit down and share this cross-cultural meal with a good friend.

oral hygiene very good

I’m currently stuck at home for a few days looking like half a chipmunk because I finally decided to remove the wisdom teeth that have been providing seasonal dull headaches for years. Why now and not 7 years ago when the pain started? Cheap and reliable dental care. Although at this juncture I’m starting to doubt the second adjective.

It all started a few weeks ago when Mara and I decided to go to the dentist for a cleaning and I wanted to have someone look at my wisdom teeth. We got a reference for an office whose dentists came from the university where we work, and who supposedly spoke near fluent English. WRONG! Although our visits went very well (no cavities for either of us) our dentist was not so good on the English side. She spoke a little, but could not understand me when I first said wisdom teeth. She was able to communicate that she couldn’t do anything for my third molars, other than show the two erupted teeth to me in a mirror. She then proceeded to blindfold me (very weird) before she cleaned my teeth and told me I had “oral hygiene very good.” She also said “perfect” in Thai, which I hope was in reference to my teeth, but I don’t really know due to the blindfold. I was just happy to understand the Thai.

After a two week recovery from the initial encounter, I went in to make an appointment with the specialist. In order to make sure I got what I wanted across, I had one of the other Thai ajarns at the university write a note for me that said I wanted an appointment with a specialist to look at my wisdom teeth. This apparently didn’t work because they sent me back to the same dentist I saw the first time and she just told me to go to a specialist. I then politely asked her to help me make an appointment with the specialist to make sure everything was clear to the receptionist.

The following day I went for what I thought was a wisdom tooth consultation at 7:00pm. Why that late? No idea. The dentist was nice enough, and her English was pretty good, so I felt a bit more comfortable. She told me she needed an x-ray to see the two upper teeth that had not erupted, and then she told me she could remove the two right-side teeth today. What? Today? Before I could recover from the shock of it, she was sticking a needle in my gums and then sent me off to get the x-ray. When I got back I asked her why we couldn’t remove all 4 today, and she told me that I wouldn’t be able to chew, and that we could remove the remaining two in one to three weeks. She also asked me if I was “excited.” Thai does not have a word for nervous or worried, instead they use excited. Not thinking, I told her I wasn’t very excited. I later realized that was her way of determining if local anesthesia was going to be good enough. Five minutes later, I’m in surgery.

I was blindfolded again (at least this time I was prepared), and took many deep breaths as she wrenched the lower tooth out and closed it with one stitch - took about 5-10 minutes. The upper tooth was not nearly as cooperative. She kept cutting and prying and cutting and prying, clearly using all of her strength as the assistant held my head tightly for leverage. She ended up ripping the side of my cheek open. Finally, after at least 30 minutes, the tooth was free. Turns out the bottom edges of the tooth were outturned, creating a barb that would not allow the gum to release the tooth. It took 4 stitches to close up that upper wound. Before cleaning me up she actually unblindfolded me to show me the crazy angle of the bottom of the tooth.

The local anesthetic was fine for the surgery, but all she sent me home with was Ibuprofen 400 for pain and an antibiotic. The scariest part of everything has been the recovery. It took more than 12 hours for the bleeding to stop, and 72 hours later I’m still swollen like a chipmunk (although considerably less chubby). I’ve relied a lot on the internet for post-op advice (although I know I shouldn’t). Her advice was don’t smoke, don’t spit, eat soft food. She was also trying to explain something about swelling, but she didn’t know the word swelling, so I’m still not really sure.

Through this miserable 3 day (and counting) recovery I’ve definitely felt a lot of frustration for the way everything was handled. It’s one thing to chalk it all up to cultural differences when you have an issue at work, but when you have no time to mentally prepare for surgery, and when you don’t agree with you dentist’s reasoning for why you can’t get all 4 teeth done at the same time (3 days later and my teeth still won’t meet to chew anything), you tend to feel a little hostile, especially since I’m facing the whole thing over again next week when she removes the remaining two teeth and my stitches. At least the bill was nice, only $100 for two teeth, both impacted, one erupted. And that even includes the Ibuprofen!

In the end, I’m mostly just thankful that I speak English. In so many ways I’ve lucked out because everyone here learns English, and I can only imagine how much more horrible the situation would have been otherwise.

Opium? Lady? Elephant?

I was really frustrated by this article in the NYT today, particularly this part:

“Mr. Nattawut makes about 2,000 baht a day, or about $67, selling sugar cane to passers-by, good money in a country where a typical factory wage is 8,000 baht (about $269) a month.”

According to those figures, Mr. Nattawut, a mahout (elephant handler), is making about twice as much as I am, and after basic expenses I still have the money to support myself in a city (which costs a whole lot more than in a rural area) and save money for vacation and moving back home. 8,000 baht is not a lot per month to live on, but it can be enough (maybe not in Bangkok, but living in/near Bangkok is a choice, and most of these workers come from rural areas). I know a lady in Khon Kaen who gets along on 4,000 (which is not enough) and she has a son.

Elephant exploitation is a really important issue, and every time a mahout asks me to buy sugar cane (that he already owns) so his mal-nourished elephant can eat, I feel horrible anger. I understand that everyone wants to make the best living that they can, but that’s no excuse to so blatantly abuse and exploit an elephant. No matter how much I agree with most of the points made in this article (especially about the uneven distribution of wealth between urban and rural areas), I don’t appreciate the NYT giving an unfair assessment of the situation by not providing a fair representation of the cost of living in Thailand.

Although not as extreme as drug dealing or prostitution, this problem has similar causes and results from similar rationalizations. When people are poor and good jobs are scarce, compromising their morals for the often-fulfilled promise of wealth (and 60,000 Baht a month is wealthy*) becomes almost too tempting to pass up. Attempts to control the situation will never really be as effective as examining the root causes of the problem, whether the issue is dangerous criminals, loose women, or dangerous elephants on the loose.

*The latest data I can find is from 2001 (without wading through a whole lot of online pdf files), and then the average combined household income was 12,185 baht.

I (heart) Durian

There are many culinary adventures to be had here in Thailand, and the durian fruit certainly qualifies. Since moving here I have been asked three times by different Thai people if I had yet tried the durian, and I have not been asked that question about any other Thai food.

When another fellow in Joe’s program who is staying with us brought some home the other night (she had never tried it either), how could we say no?

First a little background on durian.

It’s large, about 12 inches long and 6 inches in diameter with a scary thorn-covered outer shell. On the inside are yellow pods each containing a pit attached to the center core. The yellow pods are usually removed and one eats the yellow flesh around the pit. So far not so intimidating, right?

The unusual part of the durian is the way it tastes and smells. I simply can’t describe it except to say that it tastes like farmer’s cheese. Lucky for you I found great quotes on the web (I’ve given up on the live links since they so often fail).

Here is how Alfred Russel Wallace (a British naturalist writing in 1856) describes the flavor:

“A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy.”

And here’s a great quote on the taste by travel and food writer Richard Sterling:

“... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.”

After opening the package and releasing the stench, we told ourselves we would not be put off. I wish I had a camera to catch the look of apprehension on our faces as we bit in and then our various expressions of confusion as we registered the taste. Joe and the other PiA bravely took several bites, but in the end surrendered admitting they hated it (a quote from our friend: “I can’t believe it, I never met a fruit I didn’t like!”). I was baffled for a different reason. I loved it, and I didn’t understand why the others looked like they were about to toss their cookies. In the end it turned out to be great luck for me, because I got to eat the rest of the fruit, and a raw deal for the others since they had to smell it over the next two days while I finished off the supply.