Thai Language Update

My spoken Thai is back to about where it was the last time we lived here. Navigating activities of daily living is easy. Thais in stores and restaurants often ask, “How many years have you been studying?”

But they’re just being polite. My vocabulary is smaller than most kindergarteners. And the words I need now are the ones I won’t use every day. So I still don’t do too well on the phone, or when conversations veer suddenly. Unfortunately, I can’t count on Jip to translate. When I talk to the caregivers, I usually want to talk about Jip, so using her as a go-between isn’t appropriate.

The good news is that unlike eighteen years ago, I’ve figured out the alphabet, so now I can pick up new words without having to hear them first. But being able to read doesn’t help when I have some complex, important idea that I really want to get across, and nobody around speaks any English.

To supplement my flashcards and audiotapes, I signed up for a tutor, to begin next week. With a little work, 2006 (or 2549, according to the Thai calendar) will be the year of speaking beautifully. Happy New Year!

Over the River and through the Woods

Rarely have I made New Year’s resolutions, and even more rarely have I remembered them. But in 2005 I’ve been dreaming for a long time about making a trip to Jip’s home village and her 95-year-old grandmother. Last weekend we managed it.

I hadn’t been confident that we would really pull off the five-hour drive, so I didn’t say anything about it to most people. Even as our rented van pulled onto the highway, I still was half expecting Jip to insist that we turn around. She didn’t do that, but she did kind of whimper much of the way. Not surprising--she was nervous about what we would find, about the interruption in her routine.

What we found was a full moon, a sky full of stars, and no trace of the two-foot-high floods that had made a mess of the house just a month before. Jip grew up just a mile or so from the Gulf of Thailand, in the skinniest part of the country, where many of the 400 plus villagers depend on the sea for their livelihood. There’s nice air there. A strong breeze was blowing through the coconut trees as we rattled the front gate to wake up Jip’s mom.

Grandma got up too. To see the sparkle in her eyes as she came into the kitchen, you’d have never known she was sleeping a few minutes before. Jip’s eyes couldn’t see her, and Grandma’s ears couldn’t hear Jip, but despite the senses they’ve lost, they both knew the other was in the room, and their grins lit up the place. Lovely to watch.

In the morning it was as if we’d been there for years. No special changes in the routine on our account. Jip’s oldest brother, who hadn’t been roused by our late night arrival, waved on his way to the market, but otherwise was very low key about greeting the sister he hadn’t seen for about four years.

Meanwhile, I was thinking of all the ways the village reminds me of the place on Lake Michigan where I used to spend time with my grandmother. The sound of that breeze, the smell of the closets, the way it gathers the family. In fact Jip and I had weddings in both spots.

Now and then grandma would make her way over to where Jip was sitting. Jip told me later that grandma had said, “It’s good you came. I might never get to see you again.” Very casual. Buddha grandma. No fear of what comes after this life.

A week later, Jip says she doesn’t remember much of the trip, but if you’d have seen her face on the way back you’d have known it was worth making. She was as serene as I’ve seen her in months. Buddha Jip.

Nostalgia Travel

The caregivers say they’d rather have the money than the time off, so I’ve been free on these extended weekends to explore a bit. Two weeks ago I took a trip down memory lane by going to the Thai-Cambodian border, where Jip and I first met nineteen years ago. My specific destination was a series of Khmer-style temples that were built around the turn of the last millennium.

Some of them look a little bit like Angkor Wat in miniature. Within a 150-mile radius dozens of them still stand, many of them apparently intended originally by their
builders as dwelling places for the gods. I was most interested in seeing Prasat Phnom Rung, where I recall many of us going for picnics in the late 1980s.

At that time the temple was missing a large carving, known as the Narai lintel, which was traced to the Art Institute of Chicago. The Thai newspapers back then were full of editorials demanding its return. So it was fun to have our friend Marjorie take my picture beneath it, and to remember the friends from the refugee camp days who used to enjoy outings there.

Month of Holidays

A bonus of working for a two-country collaboration: we celebrate both governments’ days off. That has meant several long weekends for me, beginning with Veterans’ Day, followed by Thanksgiving (but not the day after), last Monday’s national birthday party for the king, and finally the Thai Constitution Day on December 12. Nice duty!

World AIDS Day was a work day, naturally. Despite the breaks, I’ve been busier at the office lately than I was during the first month. Most people know me now and know why I’m there. My steep learning curve has begun to flatten out—initially I had lots to learn about the disease, public health procedures, and spending the taxpayers’ money—so now I actually put my experience into practice.

The annual report and a renewal of the collaboration’s first five-year agreement will both keep me scribbling away over the next few weeks. My business card says “writer/editor,” but mostly what I do is look around for what others have already written, synthesize it, and then spread the word. So it’s part librarian, part grammarian, part knowledge manager, and part public relations guy.

Things never seem to get too heavy—hey, this is Thailand—even when deadlines come around or big meetings are on the schedule. Last Friday everyone called it quits early and went outside for the first installment of the six-week-long interoffice sports competition. With a schedule like this, who needs Christmas?

Seen in a Bangkok Supermarket

For wet agriculture you apparently have to go direct to the rice paddy.