Thai Friends!

Last night Andrew and I were eating dinner at our local place. The same restaurant that the elephant would come to but it hasn’t been there in a long time L.  Anyway we enjoyed our delicious meal of BBQ chicken, rice, and papaya salad. Just before we asked for the check a group of five girls sat next to us. Being friendly Thais, they said hello to us. We started talking with Ma, a girl who knew English well and we ended up staying to talk to them for an hour longer. They are very friendly.

Sitting at a street restaurant near our house

They give compliments to us all the time. Ma is the only one who speaks English well enough to communicate but with her English and our nit noy (little) Thai we can talk about a lot of things. That night we asked them where to find a bigger house. Andrew and I are looking for an American type apartment with a kitchen, living room, dining room, bedroom and bathroom. Not a studio/hotel like we have now.  They offered to help us find a place. So tonight we met them to search for a new place to live.

This time only three girls came Ma, Nan, and Koy. They are all 26 and work together at a road building company. Nan wants to learn English so she can travel to England but she doesn’t know much yet. Koy is very funny, she doesn’t speak much English but I can tell she is funny. Ma is the easiest to talk to and is awesome too. I know if we could speak the same language we would be all be great friends. But even with the language barrier we are becoming friends.

Tonight they took us to look at another apartment like the one we have. We said we wanted two rooms so they showed us two rooms across the hall from each other that were exactly the same. I’d compare them to hotel rooms. We then had to explain that we want one room for sleeping and one for eating and living, in the same apartment. Someone once told me that the Thai language doesn’t have a word for living room so I don’t think living rooms are very common. Since this word doesn’t exist this was hard to communicate. Ma even called her friend who knew English well to translate what we want. We communicated with him as a translator over the phone for 10-15 minutes. It was very nice of him to help.

I’m pretty sure the only way to get another room is to have a house not an apartment. I’ve seen living rooms but only in farang (foreigner) houses. We’ll see. We are looking at a house tomorrow. Part of me is thinking maybe we should just live like the Thais do. It is VERY cheap to live in a mansion (the English word used for the apartment we are living in). It was a total of $150 USD for this month and Andrew’s job pays for $130 of that. We paid $20 USD in rent for two people last month. Maybe we should just make it work in the studio/hotel room, see what it’s like to live like the Thais do and appreciate all the rooms when we get home to America (and not appreciate the price). The reason I wanted to live abroad in a foreign country (more foreign than New Zealand) was to get to know the culture. I suppose this is how.

After we looked at the mansion we all went to eat dinner. We drove for a long time (in a real live car. not a motorbike). Andrew and I were talking about how far it was from town. The girls asked if we were scared. We were driving outside of town on dark streets but I wasn’t scared, I was just trying to orient myself. They worry about emotions a lot and said “don’t worry we friend.” I trusted them.  But we drove so far I’m not sure I could find the restaurant again.

They took us to an awesome restaurant by the river. I think the name of the restaurant translated to House of Love.  I did love it there. We let them order for us and tried many types of food. I tried everything. We had a lot of fish and chicken. One dish looked like small pieces of fried chicken but then I tried it and it had the texture of bone. Ma used her electronic translation device to tell me it was tendon, or chicken elbow. That was the only thing I did not like. The rest was good. We ate a lot of food. I was the most full I had been in a long time! Thai food portion sizes are usually small but in this case we ordered many dishes. I wonder if my table manners were ok. The girls kept filling up my plate and soup bowl. I didn’t do that :/ maybe next time I should. Dinner was very nice. We talked a lot about school, parent’s jobs and traveling. It’s surprising how much you can talk about with a language barrier. These topics were discussed with some confusion but we learned about each other.

Dinner w/ new friends!

On our way home we dropped Koy off first. She showed us her house to see if we want to live in her complex. But again it was a one-room place. She also invited us in to sit and showed us pictures of her wedding. Her wedding pictures were very beautiful. They are Muslim so her dress covered everything but her face. Although everyday she doesn’t wear the thing to cover her head because it’s hot she said. Her husband was wearing a Lamba Chi Alpha fraternity rush shirt. Not sure where he got it. I don’t think he understood my explanation of what it was. I don’t think he understood me at all actually.  I really need to learn Thai.

In one of Koy’s pictures she had a picture of a farang (foreigner) in a bathing suit. She made a comment about the bathing suit not covering the girl’s body at all. I said I had one and tried to explain that it’s a cultural norm to wear that kind of bathing suit. On the ride to our house I tried to ask Ma what she wore swimming. I think she said a one piece and shorts. I’ve always thought about how it’s odd that we don’t want people to see us in our underwear but we will walk around in the same coverage in a bathing suit. It really is kind of weird and not a cultural norm in Thailand like in America and other western-type countries. I need to buy a one piece and shorts so I can swim laps at the local pool!  Which reminds me to tell you I found an aerobics class! I’m so excited to go! It’s only 5 baht that’s like 18 cents!  

I hope to spend more time with these girls. It’s interesting to learn about their culture from them. Tonight they asked us why we live in Thailand. Our answer was to learn about Thailand, rien. It’s cute some of the things they say in English. I giggle at sentences like I giggle at children’s sentences. You know they make sense but they aren’t quite right. Ma kept asking if we were boring. We had the hardest time trying to explain that she should use the word bored. And that we weren’t bored, we were contently listening to them speak quickly in Thai.