A short but increasing list of observations about KK

The public transportation system in Khon Kaen is basically a fleet of slightly elongated pick-up trucks with metal roofs over the beds.  This is what I use to get to work every day.  Many people use them, in fact.  It's the kind of thing that could never happen in Manhattan because on the first day, someone would fall off on purpose and sue the city, state, and every passenger who did nothing to help.  But here, women with canes, who walk about as fast as I can crawl without my arms, step up the two metal steps onto the sometimes already creeping vehicle.  The funny part, however, is the system to signal for a stop.  Like an MTA bus, the "Song taews" as they're called, have little buttons above head level that say "stop" on them.  What happens when you push the button, however, is something unpredictable.  Sometimes a buzzer goes off, loud but only a little startling, in the front of the car.  Nobody even looks, but the first time I pressed it, I jumped and almost elbowed the man next to me in the face.  The second possibility is the sound of a doorbell.  A clear, two note, ding dong.  Then there's the airhorn, which is actually an airhorn, not muted at all and in your face, just like when you're dick friend in middle school got his hands on one and whipped it out at a sleep over after everyone fell asleep.  Still, none of the Thai people on the bus look, and I stare at them one by one in disbelief.  Yesterday, however, when I pressed the button, it sounded like a car alarm, or maybe like I'd opened the emergency exit door at the back of a Sears.  "Woo oh woo oh woo oh," it said.  To my surprise, everyone looked up at me for a barely perceptible fraction of a second, then back down as if nothing had happened, but I still caught them and smiled to myself.


Every day, Every Single Day that is, there are several public aerobics classes around the lake in front of my apartment.  The background music, a necessity for all aerobics classes, is club techno remixes of songs like "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "Numb" by Linkin Park.  The playlist for the class right outside my window is, in fact, always the same.  The participants are almost all women, most older than thirty I think but who knows.  Then there's the instructor, a Thai man who looks to be about forty, wearing sweat bands on his head and elbows, fingerless gloves, a lower back brace, and boxing shoes.  He has a wireless microphone attached to his head so that his voice is louder than the music, which plays through a few five foot tall speakers that are permanently installed on either side of the lake.  (On some Saturday afternoons they play smooth jazz covers of American pop songs, some of which are the same songs from the aerobics remixes.  You can't argue with the classics.)  The best part, however, is the genuine, unselfconscious participation.  These women (sometimes one or two guys, maybe one day this guy) really try.  They do the light stretching, arm pumping, and side stepping with what I can only call gusto, and they don't care if anyone's watching.  Although they might care if people actually watched them, but no one does because it's as normal as your grandma on a motorbike.


This is more of an anecdote about my growing love for the Thai language.  I went into a stationery store, of which there are about a dozen within five blocks of my apartment, I don't know, Thai people just love the stuff, and anyway, I went in to buy some stickers.  I heard they might be useful for commending students on homeworks well done.  Thai college students would actually appreciate stickers apparently which, I realized, I'd probably like too, but I'd pretend not to.  Now, my Thai passes in superficial situations.  I can talk about some everyday things, people, places, hobbies, but for this task, my was under fire.  I didn't know the word for sticker because I never thought I'd have to buy any.  "Mii gradat lek gap sii maak mai?" I asked the woman at the register.  This literally means "Do you have small paper with much colors?"  The lady looked at me like I'd just asked her to help me shave my legs.  "Uhh," I tried to continue.  "Mii gradat gap ruub mai?"  (Do you have paper with pictures?)  She took me to the photo paper, then the colored construction paper, and I started feeling bad about wasting her time.  "You know what, mai bpen rai."  (It's ok).  I stood there, not willing to move even though I'd already told her to forget about it.  In Thai, the word for computer is "com-pyu-tuh," and I wondered if maybe, just maybe...I looked up at her again.  Tentatively, I said, "Mii stick-kuh mai?" her eyes lit up.

"Ohhhhhhh, suh-tick-kuhhhhhh.  Mii, mii."  I laughed and we both threw our hands up in relief.  Then I felt the urge to explain why I was buying such childish/girly things, and that I'm usually pretty cool so don't judge me on this, but then I thought to myself, come on.


There are traffic cops around the university whose job, it seems, is to stand in the middle of the street and blow a whistle as loudly and often as possible without having any effect on the traffic other than making people drive around them.  Since more than half of the vehicles on the road are motorbikes, which can't really be stopped because of their bi-wheel weavery, the militarily clad officer puts his hand up to signal a halt only to be met with an onslaught of sneaking Suzuki Ninjas (and Hondas, etc.).  At this point, he usually gives a continuous blow of his whistle in the direction of the already victorious vehicular delinquents, which serves to reinforce for the viewer (me) how little power he has.  He usually gives up after ten seconds or so of what could only be called professional blowing.  Then steps back and shakes his head in disappointment.  Or sometimes he'll make an exaggerated movement to indicate that he's mentally noting a license plate number, which is absurd, and no one notices.


There are live musicians in almost every bar here, and every night said musician plays the "Happy Birthday" song.  Every night.  And they replace "Happy birthday to [your name here]" with "Happy birthday, happy birthday."  When I asked a Thai friend why they do this, he said, "Just in case."

You can order almost any cooked dish "hawkeye," which means encased in a plain omelet.  Like, "pad see ew hawkeye" means fried think noodles in a thin sphere of (sometimes duck) egg.  OK it's not exactly "hawkeye" but more like "haw kai" which means something like "wrapped in egg."  But eggs come from birds, and hawks are a type of bird that lays eggs, so.

Because there are bugs everywhere, there are also lizards that eat the bugs.  They're usually on ceilings and near big lights.  I have one or two in my room.  I think they're included in the rent, which is the equivalent of a little less than $150 a month.  You'd probably have to pay that much just to ship a batch of these reptilian teddy bears to America.

More later.