I started my Thai lessons this week, waiving goodbye to the complete freedom I have been enjoying, and returning to the real world of alarm clocks and appointments. On Monday I had to swallow my apprehensions about learning a new language, one so very different from my own, and just dived in, taking one-on-one lessons for two hours every morning. It helps having a good teacher, and mine is awesome; she is in her early seventies, about 4 and a half feet tall, and has me laughing out loud at least a few times a day. After my lessons I have been striving to use as much Thai as possible during my day, and to practice what I have learned in the morning, be it asking for certain foods, for directions, or about peoples lives when I meet them. Thai is not without its pros and cons, and on the plus side, Thai has no tenses, only context, which makes learning verbs a breeze. However, it is not without its share of yang, the most notable being the bane of my Thai education: tone. There are five tones in Thaihigh, low, middle, falling and risingwhich make learning the language like learning both the words and melody to a song, only the song is different for ever sentence that you construct. The language is full of traps, and the wrong tone completely changes the meaning of words, making horse into dog, tiger into mat, and no into wood.
The language is also full of interesting insights into the Thai culture. For one, there are few homonyms in Thai, but one of them is thook, which means both cheap (the opposite of expensive) and correct (the opposite of wrong). Indeed the cheapest way is repeatedly the right way, a philosophy readily evident in the ingeniously adaptive practices of so many people living in this developing country.
To say eat a meal one says gin kaew, which translates literally to eat riceas in, Have you eaten rice yet?regardless of whether you are going to have rice at the meal or not; however, this being said, most meals do indeed center around a shared plate of rice. Along the same line, the word for family (khrap krua) comes from the root krua meaning kitchen, belying the importance of food, and its consumption in defining relationships in Thailand. Eating alone is a real rarity here, and the cheesy saying about the importance of the company one eats with rather than the food, is certainly seen as true. As a result, I have come to see Urts comment about eating alone (see Wednesday) as giving much more insight into his life, as eating here is such an important affirmation of relationships.
The notion of family is emphasized as dishes remain on communal plates on the center of the tableá la family style restaurantsfrom which each person eats. There are usually no serving utensils, but one is expected to eat directly from the communal dishes with ones own spoon and fork (so there! mom), and in as many cases as not, individual plates are not even provided. Indeed, among conservative Thais, it is a real taboo to pick up a communal dish and move it towards oneself (much more on traditional Thai eating coming soon, dont worry).
In a serendipitous encounter at the vegetarian restaurant next to my school, I came to understand more about food as it plays into Thai culture and hospitality. In the restaurant crowded during the lunch hour, I took the only available table, soon to discover that a Thai man had already been sitting there. I apologized, but he insisted that I remain, offering me the chance to practice the Thai I had just been learning. As the two of us introduced ourselves, and our food came, he insisted on my trying some of his meal, and proceeded to order more when he found that I liked it. He was impressed that I was learning Thai, even though I had only been in Chaing Mai for a week, and asked how old I was. He replied that I was the same age as his son, a picture of whom dressed in a military uniform he quickly produced from his wallet. When I asked how old he was, he said that today was actually his birthday, and thanked me for sitting with him, insisting on paying for the whole bill. He was grateful for the company I provided him, not wanting to spend his birthday alone; content to be have the company of a surrogate son, regardless of his being a farang; and happy to be able to host, asserting his own success.
On Tuesday, Pee Ann (Pee is a label of respect for ones elder, a consideration that most Thais are intensely concerned with, frequently asking your age within the first five minutes of meeting you), announced that she would be making dinner, and that I should come and begin my culinary education in Thai cuisine. She made a vegetarian red curry (Pee Ann is also a vegetarian) with tofu, along with pink sticky rice, egg noodles, popadums and a tomato and cucumber salad, and everything was delicious. I ate so much that in trying to explain my refusal of any more was forced to début my Kobayashi-inspired belly, to much enjoyment of everyone present.
Pee Ann was happy to have my help, and was careful to show me everything that was going into this nebulous yet scrumptious curry. She was excited in my interest in Thai cuisine and accepted my appeal to study under her tutelage. She asked about what I like to cook, and I resolved to introduce her to Mexican cuisinesimilar in tastes and ingredients to Thai food, yet a world apart, in more ways than one.