Updates

Here is the rest of the story about a few things mentioned here recently:

• My favorite tree species, which blooms in Seattle for about a month, hasn’t stopped blooming here at our apartment since we arrived over six months ago. It’s been joined by several purple orchids, which hang down from a trellis outside the entrance. We are lucky to live in such a nice building.

• Back in September, after seeing her at the opera, I wrote that I wouldn’t be surprised to run into the princess again. It didn’t take long. She showed up at a conference I attended last month about digital libraries. The Thai Library Association is under royal patronage, and she is the designated royal. Lots of pomp and cameras … very fun to watch.

• The same two women still take care of Jip. I had thought when we arrived that turnover might be high, because they would never really get to know her, at least not in the way her Seattle caregivers did. But perhaps enough of the wit and sparkle still shines through, despite the increased communication difficulties.

• At mid season the BC Casuals are 2-10, good for 12th place in our 14-team soccer league. If you know any goal scorers, please send them our way.

The Rest of the Story

I don’t know whether this has ever happened to you: something triggers an interest in those old stories that a favorite aunt has been telling you all your life… but then when you get around to asking her for more details, you discover that the opportunity has passed, because she isn’t quite up to it any more?

That’s kind of how it is with Jip these days. When people bring up a subject she knows lots about—either to make conversation, or because they really are curious to know more—she usually doesn’t feel like sustaining it. She still knows all the details, but she’d rather talk about what’s for dinner or when we are going to do something about the dust in the apartment. Her focus has narrowed to the here and now.

In Chiang Mai, my former teacher toured me around a cool temple and monastery known as Wat Umong. Its forest setting made me think Jip would like it there. I then met a guy for dinner who remembered Jip showing him that temple several years back, when he had been new in town. He even said it was affiliated with a school of meditation teaching that I knew she was once interested in.

I couldn’t wait to ask Jip more about the place when I got back to Bangkok. It had all the ingredients for a fun chat—distant past, happy affiliations, high significance and appeal. But she dropped it like a stone. No longer on her radar screen.

The effect of this disease on her speech is an even bigger obstacle to communicating with Jip. Often her words all run together, or her voice rises and falls like the sound of a car that won’t start. At this point I get about ten percent of what she says … and I do as well as anyone.

So I rely on facial expression for much of my understanding. (Her great smile means so much more to me nowadays than ever before.) That’s why when I pray for miracles, I no longer pray for Jip’s eyes or legs to work again. I would just love to be able to hear the rest of the story.

Chiang Mai Revisited

I took another trip north, to continue scouting around, in case we move there some day. The small town connections in Chiang Mai surfaced again. This time I called on a former Thai language teacher of mine, who has returned there recently.

As we were sitting on her porch, peeling oranges and generally passing a lazy afternoon, I happened to mention the cat guy. My teacher’s husband said, "Oh, Ed! I haven't seen him for years! Let's all go out to dinner with him tonight." Ed suggested, as we worked our way through plates of delicious shrimp and Thai vegetables, that the guy I should really hook up with is his friend Christopher. He takes care of a handicapped brother somewhere on the outskirts of the city.

The next morning Ed drove me to Christopher's house, which turned out to be a healing center, presided over by Christopher's wife Homprang. She teaches about massage, herbs, and various other traditional Thai treatments. Christopher’s brother requires round-the-clock care, which Christopher hires from a nearby rehab hospital.

Even without knowing much about her disease, Christopher and Homprang had good ideas about what might help Jip. They also knew, without my having to explain, what it’s like to be Jip’s husband at this stage.

Afterward I walked around the hospital grounds, which were full of the biggest trees I've seen in Thailand. Lovely people smiled from every bend in the road that circles the little island on which the hospital is built. I’d been up north less than 24 hours, and already it was starting to feel like home.

Merry and Happy

Our holidays were low key—the real festival was a couple weeks before, when we traveled down to Jip’s village. Over Christmas, we had few visitors or calls, but somehow it felt just right. The days around January 1st are the ones people in Bangkok look forward to. It seemed as if half the city headed back to their home province, or to the beach, or something.

My friend Davin, who lives in Beijing, came through on a vacation with his family. They’re used to traveling in Asia, so this town isn’t exotic for them. We took my favorite bike ride and went out for a couple of fun meals. I especially liked being around the kids, listening to them switch seamlessly between English and Mandarin.

One of Jip’s nursing school classmates dropped by. As a physical therapist, he wanted to see how she moves. They giggled their way through a few new exercise routines that I hope will help her become even stronger.

In general Jip has maintained her physical abilities since we arrived here. There’s still no sign of heat affecting her negatively, as many Seattle docs worried that it would. (We were also told that the Thai health care system wouldn’t know what to do with her, which has proved wrong. How easy it is to underestimate a system that one has no experience with!)

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.

Turkey Day

Some people I know managed to track down the traditional Thanksgiving dinner in this town, but they always qualified their assessment of it with “not like home,” or words to that effect. Instead I opted for plaa pad kee mao, which translates roughly as “drunken seafood noodle stirfry.”

What made the day feel festive was the company. My brother Tim (who ordered duck) happened to be in the country, spontaneously stretching the four-day weekend into a 10-day diving trip. It was short notice—he sent me an email after he was already on the ground in Bangkok—but good timing. We caught up a bit over dinner, then toasted being together at an open-air bar on the roof of a 62-story hotel.

Just goes to show that if you’re feeling grateful, it doesn’t much matter how or where you celebrate this holiday. In one sense this year’s version was one of our most appropriate ever, as the voyage that Jip and I have made to a new world is going very well.

Loy Krathong

The twelfth full moon of the year in the traditional Thai lunar calendar appeared a week ago. It’s a night to seek blessings for the next year and ask that bad luck from the past year be carried away. All around the country, people head to a river or canal and float small lotus-shaped vessels (krathongs), bearing candles in homage to the goddess of the river.

Jip’s take on this holiday is to boycott. She doesn’t get the logic of adding junk to a river whose goddess you are trying to thank. (Krathongs sometimes also contain food, flowers, fingernail clippings, you name it.)

But I kind of like it. Those famous Thai smiles are out in force. Families and couples share krathongs as nice symbols of togetherness. One-night entrepreneurs spread their wares on mats or blankets, lighting them with lamps powered by car batteries. After grabbing supper at a crowded market, I took a boat home. Watching the candles along the river’s edge, I got the sense of a giant, nationwide picnic.

Change of Seasons

The outdoor temperatures are steadily dropping (down from the mid-90s to the mid-80s), though I still walk around with a small sweat moustache almost everywhere I go. Jip often asks for a blanket. She’s not alone: once the thermometer dips into the 70s, many Thais dig into the back of their closets and pull out extra layers.

Lately the weather has seemed unable to decide. It’s been strong sunshine in the morning, followed by a good downpour in the afternoon and sticky humidity in the evening. But just a few days ago, at a ceremony in the country’s most famous temple, the prince formally changed the clothing worn by the emerald buddha.

In case I had missed that sign of the “cool” season’s overdue arrival, department stores and hotels today drove home the point by putting up Christmas trees, or at least hanging ornaments from the palms outside their front doors. I saw at least half a dozen of them on my way home.

At the bus stop, a woman wearing a wool scarf was coughing and looking miserable. Tonight’s predicted low: 71°.

Speaking of Food Choices

You know how, at restaurants and fast food places in the States, you sometimes have to navigate an endless decision tree before your order is finished? Ranch dressing, or Italian? Sprite or Coke? Mashed or fried?

Thai waiters never put me through that maze. Half the time, they don’t even let me finish my sentence. I’ll start to ask for something, and before I know it they have supplied the name of the food they think that I really want. (Or perhaps the food that they have been having trouble getting rid of lately?)

And I am so grateful. I’ve ended up with some delicious meals that were chosen for me. I’ve learned the names for some dishes that I’d happily order again. With Thai food, it’s hard to go wrong, so the risk of getting something inedible is small.

Lately my favorite thing is to approach a dessert counter that is full of 101 different colors and shapes, and to basically say to the people serving, “you decide.” Sometimes the resulting bowl is full of wiggly sweet pasta-like stuff under ice shavings; other times, beans soaked in syrup; once in a while, soft tofu in a ginger sauce. I can’t miss.

What’s on the Menu: Update

Recently fish and kale went off the list of a dozen or so comfort foods that Jip will eat, and were not replaced. She says she’s tired of them, which I can understand. But I suspect that taste isn’t the issue.

As in many other areas of Jip’s life, routine and risk-avoidance are her priorities. When I’ve brought her something
that was prepared outside the house, she has wrinkled up her nose at it because it might contain MSG or some other nastiness. (Come to think of it, she may be right about that.)

Jip’s niece Boe, who is majoring in culinary arts at college, cooked a wonderful dish with fresh ingredients, on our very own stove. Jip ate it happily, until she remembered that Boe had worn some perfume on a previous visit. From that point on, the food tasted “stinky.”

Holy basil, Chinese morning glory, and a weird looking veggie known as a winged bean remain favorites. She gets plenty of protein, thought it’s almost exclusively from tofu and pumpkin seeds. And we’re always running out of her favorite fruits. Jip cleans her plate. All the food groups are represented.

So why do I keep urging her to add more variety to her diet, or at least to throw in some Thai specialties now and then? To me, it’s a shame to be surrounded by the world’s best cuisine, and not to broaden one’s food choices. I know, I know … I need more to worry about.