Personal Feature: The Family Next Door

I've written several times about our neighbors. We were surrounded by many good folks who looked after us during floods, storms, illness, and household maintainance. Some were very loud, true, but for the most part we enjoyed our living situation. The family next door was very important to us throughout our time in Thailand, so I'll write about them today.

Who lived there, just a few feet south of our windows? The list included Ann (red sweater, in photo), her husband Rat, their son Nong Dae, Ann's mother Moon (flowered shirt), her father Som, her nephew Lek, and her older brother Boon. That list varied from time to time, because Rat is in the military and was often off at his post, and Ann sometimes went to join him for a month or two.

Ann was just a year younger than me. She came over to introduce herself on the day we moved in, and was pleased that we would be neighbors. At that time she worked a low-level job at the school district office. Nong Dae was not quite a year old, and he stayed home with his grandmother during the days. But when he started walking and became too much work for his grandmother to handle, Ann quit her job and had to find new ways of making money. During the course of our two years in town, she tried many different projects: making crepes to sell on the street and at local events, taking in laundry, making roasted corn and eggrolls to sell in the town where her husband was posted, raising fish, signing up with Amway to sell household products and cosmetics to the women in town... (It's true, I became an Amway member while I was living in Thailand as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I bought the detergent.) She never seemed to be able to break even, though, and was often stressed about money and how to care for her family. When we left, she was about to start a bread-baking business. We sold her our oven for a very low price, and I tried to find some recipes on the internet that could be modified for Thai ingredients.

Rat was originally from northeastern Thailand. He was one of the nicest Thai men we ever met. He didn't drink alcohol and was quite devoted to his family. He and Ann met in Bangkok and were married several years ago. He was usually gone for 2-3 weeks at a time, and when
he came home he would do all sorts of household projects -- building fences, stairways, and other quality-of-life remodels. He worked hard and didn't get much rest.

We had many happy times with Ann & Rat. Our first Songkran in Thailand, they took us to the parade in town, and guided us home when the drunken teenagers got too rough. Our first New Years, they invited us over for a beer at midnight. We helped celebrate Nong Dae's second birthday, and watched him grow from a crawling baby into an active three-year-old with a strong personality.

This past New Years, we traveled with several Peace Corps friends to Pai, a town in Mae Hong Sorn province that is popular with tourists. It also happens to be where Rat is stationed, as it's near the border with Burma. Ann, Nong Dae, and Mae Moon were living with him at the time, so we were able to all meet for a day and do some touring together. The photo was taken at a park nearby.

There isn't much about life in Thailand that I miss, but I do think often about the people that we knew there. I wonder how they are doing, if Ann has managed to make any money, if Nong Dae has gotten bigger, if there is a threat of flooding this year.

No Chopsticks with Rice!

We returned to the United States in mid-April, and it was seven weeks before we ate Thai food. Astonishing!

But before we left Washington last week, Robert's parents took us to a "northern" Thai restaurant in Everett. It wasn't very "northern" at all, but the food was still quite good. It made me feel excited about eating Thai food again!

At one point, I looked around the restaurant and noticed that nearly all of the other diners were eating their food with chopsticks. This both surprised and amused me. Here is the truth:

In Thailand, people do not eat rice with chopsticks!!! They eat it with their hands (if it's sticky rice), or with spoons (if it's regular white rice). NO CHOPSTICKS. Chopsticks are used only for noodle dishes -- primarily soups -- and Chinese food. Not with Thai rice dishes. If you used chopsticks to eat rice in Thailand, people would think you were very strange. (As proof, I have provided a photo of a meal in a Thai home, at which we are clearly not using chopsticks.)

To be fair, when our food was brought to the table, the waiter offered us chopsticks. I imagine this was done because so many diners ask for them. Also, our place settings originally included just knives and forks. Thai people don't use knives at the table, and they don't put forks in their mouths -- only spoons. We had to ask for spoons at the restaurant. I would not have been comfortable eating Thai dishes with a fork after living in Thailand for two years!

Also, to be fair, I think that I myself used to use chopsticks when I went to Thai restaurants, because I thought that was how it was supposed to be done, and I thought it was cool. But now I know.