For almost one month now, I have lived in Mae Rim with a Thai host family consisting of my host mae (mom) and one of my host sisters. In Thai culture, one refers to others around them with a relational and hierarchical title before one’s name. It is common when you meet someone for them to ask you what your age is so that they know what title is appropriate to use to refer to you and vice versa. For instance, students refer to all of the staff at ISDSI who are in their 20s and 30s as “Pi blank”. My host sister “Gift” (pronounced Gip), is 24, therefore, I call her “Pi Gip.” My mom’s name is “Sai,” so I call her Mae Sai.
I wake up most days at around 6 am to get ready for school and have geen khao. Do geen khao? Geen khao literally means eat rice. In Thai it also is the word for meal. Clearly, rice is an integral part of the Thai diet and lifestyle. I eat it as part of at least 2 of 3 daily meals. Breakfast food is often not different (or less plentiful) from what you might think a dinner or lunch meal might be, therefore rice is often included. So is meat. Pork, in particular.
It is always said that food is a large part os certain cultures. I heard this about Thailand before coming here. I really don’t think I understood what it meant until I arrived and lived with a Thai family. On days when I wake up before my host Mae and put together my own breakfast, she always, without missing a beat, asks me what I ate. Even if it is already the afternoon or evening and it occurs to her that she doesn’t know, she will ask. She is very careful to make sure that I am eating a lot and is very quick to remind me that we have more rice that I can get from the kitchen.
After breakfast, I get driven to the stop where I get picked up y a yellow car taxi. This half hour taxi takes me to an intersection with the Superhighway in Chiang Mai where I walk another ten minutes to get to school. Sitting on the taxi is one of my favorite people watching opportunities. Depending on the exact minute that I arrive at the bus stop, different people are riding that taxi, so I have begun to recognize a whole slew of characters: the one male university student with the swooping haircut, the older thin middle aged guy who wore a Von Dutch hat this one time, the woman who sometimes gets off at my stop who sometimes smiles at me, the women who always has a big green basket of things with her.
Then Thai class happens for four hours. count em! it’s a lot. but how else do you learn? an hour for lunch. again, geen khao is a big deal. Then three hours of our seminar course (right now- foundations). Some days crossfit or other exercising happens, then the yellow car back home! When I get home, i take my second (or third!) shower for the day. This is a part of Thai culture and I can see exactly why. The tropical climate definitely calls for more freshening up than the temperate climate of the midwest.
Then? you guessed it! Geen Khao! Most evenings, we buy food or have already bought dishes of food at the market have brought it home to eat. the way the meal works at my house (and many other Thai homes) is that everyone has their own plate of rice in front of them. There are also several varied dishes of meet or vegetables or eggs or any combination of these things. When you want to eat something, you take one spoonful of whatever it is you want to eat and then eat that before taking anymore of that dish or of any dish. Also! everything is eaten with a spoon. a fork is often used to shovel the food onto the spoon, but inevitable the food should be on the spoon by the time it reaches your mouth. Often, fruit will be eaten towards the end of the meal. Thai fruits are delicious and plentiful. I’ve eaten so many fruits that i’ve never even heard of or seen that i can’t help but think about all the fruits left in the world I still have yet to find and try and may never hear of ever.
Every dinner at my Thai house is eaten on the floor of our living room(?). This is always a really nice and comfortable thing at the end of the day. Most nights, we watch tv while eating dinner, which is not something i expected. That said, i think my host family is a little less traditional then the average as far as some things go.
Almost every evening, we watch the same thai lakon (soap opera). Although, i don’t understand most of what it means, I have learned to love it a lot. I think a large part of this is how catchy the theme song is. Listen to it on that video (seconds 10 until 1:30) and you won’t be sorry. It breaks down really nicely at 1:10, so don’t cut out early now!
After that, most nights are pretty early to bed, what with the early rise and everything. Before bed, my sister or I will do the dishes- we switch off nights- and she’ll help me with my Thai homework.
Right now, my mae is teaching me a song called “jan jao” (my thai name). Next week there is a celebration for the students and their families that includes students sharing something if they learned some thai cultural thing from their host families. So! I am dutifully learning Jan Jao. I have already been requested to sing on command for people by my mae. Sometimes it makes me feel a little like a monkey, but mostly I know she is just proud that i can sing this song that was taught to her by her mother who learned it from her grandmother and so on back many generations. This is fun, because I know that I will take song with me wherever i go. What better to take home with me from thailand than song?
Nothing.
Plus, can you see it now? Young jewish teens hiking lake superior learning how to sing a Thai original? I think so.
