The Special Farang

Friday, 1 October 2004

Tonight, Miss Matt took us to Soi Sawng in her car (we are so used to just walking, but she thinks it's far to walk about 5 blocks, so she drove us) - me, Christy, Tik, and Aw. We had pad thai, and Christy's now popular pineapple/coconut blended shake (although she prefers no salt). Then, we wanted to get Som Tum (the very popular Thai green papaya salad). So, we walked to Tik and Aw's favorite stall, near the Hello coffee shop. On our way there, Aw was telling me that Tik was the sister of P' Aw's husband (who owns the coffee shop and P'Aw is our principal's daughter). I had no idea. Everyone is related at our school! It's funny! Anyway, as soon as we got to the Som Tum stall, the funny cook (Imagine this old, chubby fellow with no shoes, no shirt, a beer belly, and a long apron) at the next stall over brought us chairs to sit on to watch the 8 o'clock news. Every night at 8 o'clock here, all the news stations show about a twenty minute story on what the Queen of Thailand and her family did recently. Usually it consists of visits to schools, other countries, and many ceremonies and giving of gifts. It was funny to be sitting on plastic stools in the street, amongst motorcycles, both parked and whizzing by, as the woman made our Som Tum salads near the canal, with us watching the 8 o'clock news.

I wished I had my camera for this next part though. Suddenly, the man brought over this huge ornate silver bowl (uh, excuse me, but I think I ordered a LARGE cappuccino.) with ice water and a straw and handed it to Christy. We all started cracking up, as she was getting such royal treatment. None of us got a special silver bowl of ice water! Then, he brought over and gave us three very small glasses of water. We were all laughing so hard that Christy started choking on her water! We teased Christy about her being a "special farang" (the light hair and light skin sort of gives it away), and then the man started asking her something in Thai, but of course she had no idea what he was saying. Then, he turns to me to ask me, and I tell him in Thai that I don't speak Thai and that I am from America too. After about 15 minutes of chatting, laughing, and drinking water, our Som Tum salads were ready (they take a long time to make as the papaya is shredded fresh and the spices and ingredients are custom made to order depending on if you want crab, shrimp, and how spicy you want it) and we headed home to eat and enjoy our salads while watching very sappy Thai TV shows.

As I went to sleep last night, listening to my now favorite Thai cd Endorphine on my discman and reading a book, it started raining really hard. The lightning was so bright it looked like strobe lights coming through the windows, and the thunder rumbled so loudly that it shook the whole house for a good five seconds each time, as if we were having an earthquake. It was crazy! Hope Dan is not caught drenched in the rain somewhere, as he might stop through Nakhon Pathom on his way back from Kanchanaburi, a nearby province, to visit.