The Difference

This morning there was poop on my flip flop.  Ginko poop would be my best guess.  Washed it off and headed over to Hot Springs, forming a list of 'not in Canada' in my brain.

You know you're not in Canada when....

• There's ginko poop on your flip flop.
• Wild boars cross the road in front of your car.
• Cow heart, complete with pieces of coronary artery, is served for breakfast.
• A haircut takes all day for reasons completely unexplainable unless you were there.
• You get to eat mangoes, bananas, papaya and dragon fruit picked fresh right in front of you, and you're ruined for life now.
• The shrimp also ruins you.
• The lines on the roads are treated merely as a 'suggestion' as to where you might drive.
• A morning that breaks fresh and cool is 23C and climbing fast.
• Most of the day you would like to just go wash your face.
• You measure the temperature more in terms of 'showers per day' than in actual degrees.
• You start to believe that 80 baht ($1.20 CD) is way too much to pay for a smoothie.
• There are baskets of bugs for sale at the market intended for consumption.
• The wiring looks like large groups of people could get electrocuted simultaneously with the next lightening storm.
• Everybody smiles and acknowledges your presence no matter how many times you've just walked by.
• No one is in much of a rush, which is sometimes wonderful and sometimes crazy-making.
• There's a jellyfish or a poisonous centipede floating leisurely right where you want to swim, which is both really frightening and totally fascinating all at the same time.
• You get THE most authentic Thai food served to you for every meal!  (Yupa's kitchen rocks!)
• The signs in the bathrooms are hilarious, but only to you.
• The morning mountain mist takes your breath away.
• You're taking pictures of much of the above even though everyone else thinks is perfectly normal, providing them with no end of amusement while you explain "Canada mai mee."  (Literally, Canada no have.)

And while some of these experiences feel less novel to me on this, my 15th visit to this incredible country, it seems every day there's something new, something unusual, something fascinating that, in the midst of my growing sense of comfort and orientation here, reminds me, "Oh yeah.  I'm somewhere 'different'." 

But the biggest 'difference' for me isn't so much about the strange experiences.  It's more about how very 'different', so very 'other' I am in this environment.   And this in spite of my valiant attempts otherwise.

One of the goals I set for myself in these three months was to insert myself as much as possible into Thai life and culture.  I wanted to 'become Thai' in manners, speech, attitude; to adopt the customs and demeanor of my host family and culture, and to function in this environment as if I were Thai.

Anthropologically speaking, and with sound missilogy in place, I of course know that my identity as a Western person is good gift, part of who I am, and actually part of what I bring to the table in this partnership with Suradet and Yupa and the children.

Even so, I had hopes.


I am working hard on the language.  I have slowed my walking pace and lowered my productivity expectations.  I have learned how to express respect in the wai and lowering of the eyes, and how to duck my head when walking past someone.  I speak gently and wait patiently and hold back from expressing my opinion until asked.  I hold hands with Yupa in public, but refrain from offering Suradet a hug, except on hellos and goodbyes when my Western self just has to say something I haven't yet learned the Thai words for.   I eat everything put in front of me, even when I'm not sure what it is and might not want to know, actually.  (Well, I draw the line at food that's moving.)

But I am finding that to think I could actually be Thai, at least for a three month experiment, has been a rather lofty and naive idea.  The reason?  I am farang. 

Farang.  Foreigner, specifically Western or European foreigner.   Someone, in other words, very different.  And I can't escape it.

At the small village market, heads turn and comments (that I understand) are made at the surprise of the presence of a farang in their midst.  At the large mall, when shopping for shoes for Pi Dao, we get a discount because a farang is 'paying', even though I specifically handed the money to Yupa before we got out of the car.  Note: This was a tourist-incentive discount initiated after the bombing in Bangkok last July to encourage more foreign spending in Chiang Mai.  Usually, farangs get a higher price, which only reinforces my point.

At the wedding reception held on the guest house property, I am the only farang and everybody knows it.  The woman who cuts my hair is nervous because she's never cut the hair of a farang before and she doesn't want to make a mistake. 

Even here at Hot Springs, Suradet explains to me just the other night that some of the children I have found to be so very shy at the beginning were actually afraid of me the first time we met, because I was the first farang they had ever laid eyes on.  He lists Cheunlung, Da, Nok Gaew and May.  

I'm only here for three months, so clearly that's not long enough to have a fully informed opinion.  But it strikes me that even if I lived here for 10 years, my face would forever give me away.

And sometimes that would work toward my advantage, like getting a farang discount or a more precise haircut.  And sometimes that would work against my advantage, like whatever impression I inadvertently gave being the 'white woman buying the Thai woman new shoes', and however that felt to Yupa and/or Pi Dao. 

So, my experience of 'different' bothers me.  Out in public, I mean.  Out in public Thais who only see my face would likely lay on me a whole set of ideas and attitudes that may or may not be correct about me, simply because of the way I look.

And in that way, things are just like at home.  Except at home my face isn't very often in the minority.