Thailand memories
Sep. 21st, 2018 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lonesparkI don't remember having culture shock when I moved to Thailand when I was five.
I sure as hell had near-constant disorienting, sometimes painful culture shock when I came back, tho.
That was two years later, in second grade, when I was seven.
In between I
made a lot of friends,
learned to speak Thai at a 1st grade level,
rode around on the back of my parent's bicycles,
learned to read Thai,
eventually reluctantly kind of learned to read English,
ate all the rambutans forever and still want more,
once ate entirely too much jackfruit in one sitting and never want any again,
fell on a screen door and got a bad-ass scar across my cheek that I had for 25 years,
visited a lot of parts of Thailand as well as Indonesia and the Phillipines, watched Return of the Jedi at least 15 times,
made up stories with my brother and bonded in the way you do when you're the only two kids who speak your language,
established "Indonesian railroad bathroom" as my standard for yuckiness,
used squat toilets and liked it,
got used to sharpening my pencils with a tiny folding blade,
got used to walking to the left on stairs and sidewalks and everyone driving/riding/pulling carts full of oranges/chickens/etc. on the left side of the road,
expected major holidays to include Songkran and Loy Kratong and maybe something about presents with a pine tree made out of cardboard in December,
became enraptured with UHT milk,
woke up to roosters,
stopped with the rest of traffic when they played the national anthem,
learned the flag poem, which actually tells you what the colors represent,
watched a bunch of movies I wish I could find again with yahks vs aliens or impressive kung fu grandmothers,
once had a thokay gecko chirp(?) 7 times on my 7th birthday in 1987, which is like the luckiest thing ever,
got used to little geckos running on the walls and eating bugs,
was once dressed up as the Statue of Liberty but she was called the Queen of Peace, makeuped within an inch of my life, and paraded on a float in the Children's Day parade,
witnessed my brother with similar levels of lipstick, etc. in a sarong with a fake knife doing a dance performance in 2nd kindergarten,
visited a lot of cool ancient temples where we had to wear temple sashes,
once had to lend my mom my shoes when someone stole them from outside a temple,
got used to feet being rude but never mastered sitting with your feet tucked under you sideways so they wouldn't point at anyone,
learned to love warm sprite from glass bottles with noodle soup for breakfast,
ate all the shrimp forever and now I'm mostly done,
ate a fair amount of duck and kinda want some now,
went to a place where ladies boiled silkworms and spun silk and wove fabric and made these amazing parasols and umbrellas,
threw a huge fucking shit fit over cutting my hair to the school-mandated once inch below your ear and somehow got away with it, probably because I was white and the only blonde out of 2000 kids in the school,
subsequently got lice and holy fucking crapballs was it a godsdamned pain to get rid of them, almost like they had that hair rule for a reason,
really enjoyed wearing my school uniform with my name embroidered on it, tho I could have done without the goofy little tie,
allegedly got poor marks in English for not copying the teacher's pronunciation,
rode on a donkey once to see the sun rise over an active volcano, mostly remember that it was so cold I thought I'd die, also that was the trip with the scary bathroom, and the train leaked so we had no dry warm clothes, and my mom was reading The Hobbit out loud
was denied the opportunity to play soccer due to being a girl, and THE HELL YOU SAY I'M GOING TO PLAY SOCCER NONSTOP FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE,
once had a monkey climb into the back of our tourist songtow and STEAL MY ICE CREAM!
I sure as hell had near-constant disorienting, sometimes painful culture shock when I came back, tho.
That was two years later, in second grade, when I was seven.
In between I
made a lot of friends,
learned to speak Thai at a 1st grade level,
rode around on the back of my parent's bicycles,
learned to read Thai,
eventually reluctantly kind of learned to read English,
ate all the rambutans forever and still want more,
once ate entirely too much jackfruit in one sitting and never want any again,
fell on a screen door and got a bad-ass scar across my cheek that I had for 25 years,
visited a lot of parts of Thailand as well as Indonesia and the Phillipines, watched Return of the Jedi at least 15 times,
made up stories with my brother and bonded in the way you do when you're the only two kids who speak your language,
established "Indonesian railroad bathroom" as my standard for yuckiness,
used squat toilets and liked it,
got used to sharpening my pencils with a tiny folding blade,
got used to walking to the left on stairs and sidewalks and everyone driving/riding/pulling carts full of oranges/chickens/etc. on the left side of the road,
expected major holidays to include Songkran and Loy Kratong and maybe something about presents with a pine tree made out of cardboard in December,
became enraptured with UHT milk,
woke up to roosters,
stopped with the rest of traffic when they played the national anthem,
learned the flag poem, which actually tells you what the colors represent,
watched a bunch of movies I wish I could find again with yahks vs aliens or impressive kung fu grandmothers,
once had a thokay gecko chirp(?) 7 times on my 7th birthday in 1987, which is like the luckiest thing ever,
got used to little geckos running on the walls and eating bugs,
was once dressed up as the Statue of Liberty but she was called the Queen of Peace, makeuped within an inch of my life, and paraded on a float in the Children's Day parade,
witnessed my brother with similar levels of lipstick, etc. in a sarong with a fake knife doing a dance performance in 2nd kindergarten,
visited a lot of cool ancient temples where we had to wear temple sashes,
once had to lend my mom my shoes when someone stole them from outside a temple,
got used to feet being rude but never mastered sitting with your feet tucked under you sideways so they wouldn't point at anyone,
learned to love warm sprite from glass bottles with noodle soup for breakfast,
ate all the shrimp forever and now I'm mostly done,
ate a fair amount of duck and kinda want some now,
went to a place where ladies boiled silkworms and spun silk and wove fabric and made these amazing parasols and umbrellas,
threw a huge fucking shit fit over cutting my hair to the school-mandated once inch below your ear and somehow got away with it, probably because I was white and the only blonde out of 2000 kids in the school,
subsequently got lice and holy fucking crapballs was it a godsdamned pain to get rid of them, almost like they had that hair rule for a reason,
really enjoyed wearing my school uniform with my name embroidered on it, tho I could have done without the goofy little tie,
allegedly got poor marks in English for not copying the teacher's pronunciation,
rode on a donkey once to see the sun rise over an active volcano, mostly remember that it was so cold I thought I'd die, also that was the trip with the scary bathroom, and the train leaked so we had no dry warm clothes, and my mom was reading The Hobbit out loud
was denied the opportunity to play soccer due to being a girl, and THE HELL YOU SAY I'M GOING TO PLAY SOCCER NONSTOP FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE,
once had a monkey climb into the back of our tourist songtow and STEAL MY ICE CREAM!
no subject
Date: 2018-09-21 09:26 pm (UTC)That sounds like quite the experience. /s Thanks for writing this up, it makes a fascinating read.
Monkey! Rude.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-23 10:50 pm (UTC)Excellent to share the love of rambutans...