somtam wtf? (or: only in Bangkok)

I went to eat at my favorite som tam place (real name unknown, mentally referred to as “ladyboy som tam”) only to find a “we’ve moved” sign there. Going to the new place, it didn’t *seem* like my old favorite. Sitting down and looking at the menu, I questioned the waiter, an old woman:

Me: Is this the som tam restaurant that used to be *over there*? (pointing)
Old woman: yes, yes, we’ve merged two restaurants together into one.
Me: (Not really believing her) The menu is different, are the recipes still the same?
Old woman: yes, yes, everything is the same.
Me: (looking dubiously into the kitchen) What about the ladyboys? Are they still making the som tam? Where are the ladyboys?
Old woman: Yes, yes, we still have ladyboys. Look into the kitchen, there’s not a real man or woman in there!
Me: Well, ok, then. *orders*

theories foreigners tell me about Thai people

Move over, Margaret Meade. Here is a list of “observations” foreigners have made about Thai people. I weep , I weep for human kind.

1) “What I love about Thai people is they’re not materialistic”

Saying Thai people are not materialistic is like saying Americans are thin or the Japanese lack imagination when it comes to pornography: you start to wonder if they’ve ever been there.

2) Thai women are so feminine and mesmerizing, they keep their Thai men waiting until marriage.

Writes a Western woman:

When dating, even seriously dating someone for many years, many of them are still virgins when they marry, yet they’re experts at getting
men to fall in love with them. As a Western woman who is more used to the freedom of sexual relationships in the West, to some extent I now find myself agreeing with the Thai way and admiring Thai women and here’s why.

I have two words for this woman: Ratchada Boulevard. For non-Bangkokians, Ratchada is lined with dozens of enormous Las-Vegas style brothels, gentlemen’s clubs, massage parlours for Thai men, most of which are probably not waiting for marriage.

3) “Thais love fat people.”

They do. That is why the BTS shows ads for weight-loss clinics and products every two seconds.

Many foreign men have told this to me. I swear some people get all their cultural information from what hookers tell them in Nana plaza.

4) “Meet my friend, the tuk-tuk driver”

Tourists are always getting buddy-buddy with pot-dealing tuk-tuk drivers and shifty bartenders who smile and make jokes in bad English (“same same”) while they overcharge them. I dread meeting the Thai friends of tourists as much as I dread meeting the farang friends of Thais. On that note, dear Thai friends, no, I don’t care to meet Sven the Sexpat, even if we have so much in common by both being white and he’s your BFF.

an Issan Christmas

One of the local construction sites had arranged a big Christmas party for all the construction workers. Right in the middle of the steel girders and stacks of wood, they had erected a stage, with tables for all the people. Can you guess what kind of music they were playing?

Of course, it was Issan music!

There was a live band blasting Issan music, an MC, and lots of drunk happy people dancing. What’s cool about Issan people is they’re always ready to rock out some dance moves, which makes for much funner concerts than a bunch of Toronto hipsters standing around arms crossed because this “having fun” thing everyone keeps talking about would mess up their hairstyle.

In retrospect, I should have probably just skipped the party I was on my way to crash their party. Their party probably didn’t have English teachers bragging about how hard it was to not fuck their students. Actually, even staying home and listening to “Noam Chomsky deconstructs Christmas” would have probably been more fun, but hey, you live and learn.

happy holidays!

Merry Christmas to everyone and happy New Year!

One important thing to know about French-Canadians is that we never let having any taste cripple us in the having fun department. This holiday song is from a concert in JULY, but see if you can stay in a bad mood while listening to it. NOT POSSIBLE.

La Cuisiniere — La Bottine Souriante

For humour value, the chorus translates to:

“Oh, isn’t it good?
To share a glass of beer with the cook
in a dark corner
And if it’s good?
Laugh while you’re doing it
there’s no harm in this
in the New Year”

Happy holidays!

do they know it’s christmas?

I got this puzzling holiday card in the mail from the property developer for this condo building. Here is the text on the front:

Aspiring to City Living
A life in purposeful motion. Tender emotions. Modern yet timeless. A world bursting with color. Simplicity. Travel hub. Relaxation. Fun. Urban living. A life of quiet and serenity.

That’s Asia for you. We might suck at human rights, but we’re #1 when it comes to vague, meaningless sentiments.

What’s up with “Aspiring to City Living”? I already live in a city of 10 million + people, I’m not aspiring to anything.

Maybe they mean the migrant workers who built this 20-story condo building, most of which come from villages with no buildings taller than a 2-story Chinese shophouse, who lived on this construction site with their tiny lean-tos and tin shacks until the project was finished.

My favorite is “travel hub”.

what big eyes you have

At my neighborhood bank, all the tellers sit on fuzzy Hello Kitty cushions. Sometimes big crates of money are next to them, inch-deep stacks of 1000B bills casually just thrown into plastic boxes.

It reminded me of something I read, how in the first waves of the popularisation of cocaine in America, drug dealers in Miami (the port of arrival for the drug from Columbia and South America) would bring trolleys of cash to the bank to deposit. “What I remember about cash in those quantities”, one dealer said, “was how boring it was to count it all.”

Once I went to change some coins for bills, and they refused to do it. Stubbornly, I just sat there and waited for a teller, who then took my coins and changed them without even counting them.

Today the teller was looking at my passport picture. Gesturing towards it, she said: “Wow, you have really big eyes”. “A lot of people say that”, I said. “REALLY big”, she said.

here is a mix for y’all

I’ve been learning how to use Ableton Live to put together DJ mixes. Here is a mix from me.

It starts with my favorite track in the entire world, Township Funk, by DJ Mujava, in its original version. I’ve heard about 30 remixes of this track by every famous DJ you can imagine, and to me, nothing matches the stark, haunting quality of the original. It ends with Anya Marina’s accoustic cover of T.I.’s Whatever You Like, which isn’t particularly an electro song, but I was so obsessed with this plaintive song about love and money that I had to include it. Love and money is quite apropos for Bangkok, where you can’t escape the constant golddigging even if you try. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, so here is a mix about love and money.

Share and enjoy!

(Ps. Special thanks to James Alexi (DJ James) for teaching me the basics of AL!)

Golddigger:
Download (13 MB):

Tracklist:
1. Township Funk, DJ Mujava
2. Hustler, Simian Mobile Disco
3. Untrust Us, Crystal Castles
4. Kiss, Kiss, Kiss, Clazziquai Project (Yasuka Nakata remix)
5. Audacity of Huge, Simian Mobile Disco (I love me some SMD)
6. Whatever You Like, Anya Marina (T.I. cover)

bangkok wtf, part n

“Siam Paragon looks like it’s having a seizure” — friend, on mall Christmas decorations

We might not have clean air, or attractive male expats, but nobody beats Bangkok when it comes to sheer WTF-ness.

Despite not being Christian, Bangkok gets into Christmas big-time, as it gives people an excuse to show off and buy things. All the major malls and hotels have big, impressive displays, but you don’t always get the impression that people really “get” Christmas. For example, the Four Seasons Hotel on Rachadamri Christmas display features:

- A picture of the His Majesty the King of Thailand
- A real palm tree decorated in lights
- A fake pine Christmas tree decorated in lights
- A snowman
- A wooden house with frosted windows, etc, indicating winter
- THE SEVEN DWARVES

bangkok fashion challenge, solved with nerdiness

If one had to name the top fashion complaint of female expats in Thailand, I’m sure #1 would be the difficulty of finding flattering clothes in Western sizes. (#2 would surely be the difficulty of finding a hairdresser that can cut curly/wavy hair).

I’m 5′5, which means that every top made for a Thai woman barely goes past my navel. I’m not particularly big, but I seriously missed my calling as a booty model for rap videos. In a country where most women barely top 5′2 in heels and are as flat in front as in the back, the clothes are designed to give volume and curves to silhouettes with none. If I wear that shit, I look like a giant balloon.

What is a girl to do?

Unless you want to wear export jeans from MBK for every occasion, the solution is Pratunam. Now I shop around for a dress that I find flattering at Pratunam, Bangkok’s wholesale clothes market, and buy it in EVERY SINGLE COLOR, at wholesale prices. Dresses are the best thing to wear for nerdy girls, because one dress in an entire outfit, not as hot as wearing pants, and somehow they make people think you put in some special effort, even though you took all of 1 minute to get dressed.

What are your Bangkok fashion tips?

not quite there yet

A young Thai labor activist was telling me about an inspiring group of factory workers who decided to cut out the middle-man, form their own factory, and take commissions from customers directly. Their factory had shut its doors without giving them their firing benefits (under Thai law if you let someone go, you have to give them a certain number of month’s salary as a letting go benefit) and they protested in a large group at the Thai government. During this protest they started talking and dreaming about having their own factory, where they could work with more dignity. All and all, a pretty inspiring story for here, the land of the sweatshop.

The young activist was helping them by designing brochures and a web site for them to help them get customers. It seems rare that people here concern themselves with people outside their own social class (really, outside their own family) so i was impressed that he was doing this kind of work. I want to know more. “I’m hungry, I’m going to grab some Indian food, do you want to join me?”, I asked.

“No thanks. I don’t like Indian people.”

Sigh.