Thailand 5: August 12, 2001

This week's inappropriate outdoor aerobics music: "Pretty fly for a white boy" by Offspring.

Two weeks ago, Liz and I went to the innauguration for the Thai language version of National Geographic. Our friend Declan worked on the licensing and got us tickets. We were one of 4 or 5 non-Thai couples at the event, which led to a little confusion. When I signed us in, I listed my place of employment as "US Embassy." That caused quite a stir among the attendants and they started calling out "VIP, VIP!". I quickly assured them I was not a VIP and convinced them not to sit us in the front row. However, they felt that I had to be some sort of high-ranking personage and rushed to find Terry Adamson, the National Geographic Executive VP who had come to represent the magazine at the opening. They escorted me over and Mr. Adamson got up, preparing himself to greet what he thought would be the US Ambassador. Instead, he got me, one of 8 Third Secretaries. He gave a pretty good impression of actually being glad to see me and we parted ways. On reaching our seats, I was again confused with the Ambassador, which when you think about is hardly surprising. I do have the gravitas and weighty bearing one would expect to find in the President's personal representative to the Kingdom of Thailand. Either that or its because we're both bald. I prefer the first explanation.

Princess Sirindhorn, the King's oldest daughter presided over the ceremony. I wrote last time about seeing the Prime Minister at Starbucks without any security. Not so with the Royal Family. The Princess, who is the second most beloved national figure beside her father, is pictured on posters hung on walls in businesses, schools and hotels throughout the country. She is widely traveled and recently visited New York to receive the Elanor Franklin award from the UN. Her appearance at the opening was preceded by a stream of military officials and attendants. A special chair, with royal pillows was brought to center stage for her use. As she entered, the crowd rose and bowed (as they would do whenever she passed near). Liz and I went outside as she left in time to see her motorcade, made up of over a dozen Mercedes Benzes and surrounded by police cars and motorcycles would make any US President envious.

Liz and I went to a lunch at the Ambassador's residence for the remaining members of the Free Thai movement. During World War II, the Thai government backed the Japanese, thinking that this might ease colonial pressures from Britain and France. However, the Thai Ambassador in Washington refused to deliver the declaration of war. Instead, a group of young Thai college students in the US formed the Free Thai movement in opposition to the government's policies. They trained with the OSS (the forerunner of the CIA) and eventually parachuted into Thailand to help the Allied War effort. The group at the lunch included man of the last of the survivors, most in their late 70s or early 80s, many now retired after long and successful government or business careers. After the war, the British were furious with the Thai Government for collaborating with the Japanese (this had allowed the Japanese to invade British territories in Singapore and Malaysia and stage attacks on British India) and wanted to chop the country up. The US refused to back the British plans (why couldn't we have done the same with the French in Vietnam?) and this is one of the reasons for the continuing strong friendship between the two nations. In one of the somewhat limited number of countries where the population openly likes Americans, this group was particularly friendly as the group reminisced about their wartime experiences with the US military.

Last weekend, we went to the prison furniture sale. Twice a year, jails in each province send furniture carved by prisoners to a central location in Bangkok for a huge sale. Much of the furniture is made from tropical woods smuggled from Burma or Cambodia and confiscated by the police, so you can find teak tables, chairs, bedstands etc. The prisons from each province have their own areas at the site where their goods are sold. Some prisons specialize in outdoor furniture, while others create spirit houses and others make dining room furniture. Some furniture is very plain, other pieces ornate. Some are carved in Western style, others Thai or Chinese. The money goes back to the prisoners so you can buy in good conscience. Furniture making also provides them with a useful skill they can use after they're released. We bought a set of outdoor furniture.

I've continued my adventures with Thai cuisine. A few Fridays ago, Liz went out with some friends so I decided I would try some truly authentic Thai cuisine and stopped into a hole in the wall in a small soi around the corner from our apartment. The clientele were Thai, the menu was in Thai and the waitresses could not speak English, which in itself is interesting as the restaurant was in the middle of the highest concentration of Westerners in the country. However, it shows how truly Thai institutions can remain in the midst of a sea of American, European or Japanese visitors. Anyway, as I looked through the menu, I noted that it was a little heavy on the innards for my taste and so ordered what I thought would be safe dishes, "shrimp soaked in chili-fish sauce" and "papaya salad with crab." Well, I learned you can read Thai without truly understanding Thai. The shrimp dish came out first, a plate of 7 raw shrimp, each stuffed with a garlic clove and covered by mint leaves. The papaya salad came next and included a heaping platter of shredded unripened papaya (so far, so good) mixed in with fermented fish (edible) and chopped black crab. Now, when I say chopped black crab, I don't mean crab meat or soft shell crabs, I mean small, hard crabs (like the ones you see scurrying along on the beach), salted, chopped in half (minimally gutted) with the legs pulled off and mixed in with the salad. The waitress looked at me expectantly and waited for me to dig in. Fortunately, I'd had the foresight to order a large beer and I proceeded to gulp down some liquid courage. I started with the crab first, salty, smelly and hard. I tried to chop it up, but the shells were hard and I had to try to crunch them between the teeth. The leg joints pinched my tongue and scratched my throat as I swallowed. The shrimp came next. I tried to get creative. The papaya salad was very acidic, as it was laced with vinegar and lime. I made a little rice dam on my plate, put the raw shrimp inside and tried to "cook" them ceviche style with the vinegar and lime juice. I waited about 10 minutes, slowly drinking my beer, but no real luck. I managed to get 4 or 5 down and buried the rest in the rice. I paid my bill and went home making sure not to tell Liz (who is finding out about the raw shrimp for the first time as she reads this e-mail -- I didn't want to tell her until I could guarantee my survival).

This week, I went out on a business dinner to one of the nicer Chinese restaurants in Bangkok. We ordered a lobster salad, which was presented as a plate of lobster meat graced by the front half of a large lobster. However, the kitchen had removed the lobster's eyes and installed blinking red lights in their place. As the dish was rotated around the lazy susan to face me, the lights blinked on and off as if to say, "eat my flesh now, my spirit will haunt you always." Disconcerting, but to a man who has eaten raw shrimp and salted black crab not much of a threat.

We had a meeting with some Thai Senators this week and so went up to the Government House to see them. The Queen's birthday is coming up and in honor of that, the government policy is to encourage government workers to wear Thai silk. Many of the women and some of the men were wearing beautiful, brightly colored silk outfits. Outside of national ceremonies and a few celebrations, you normally only see Thai silk on luxury hotel clerks and waitresses in fancy restaurants, so it was nice to see it at business meetings or in the halls. Speaking of the Senate, each Senator has to share a small (6 by 15) office with another Senator. No palatial quarters with tons of staff scurrying around (each Senator has 5 staff for use in the capital and in their districts). I can't picture Senators Kennedy and Lott wedged into a smoky, dark office with furniture from the 70s, greeting guests as they walked in, but perhaps this is one of the areas in which the Thai have outpaced us.