Filed under: being foreign, food, idiocy (my own), idiocy (other people's), moral outrage
I just spent the weekend in the hospital. WELCOME TO THAILAND!
As part of the process to get a work permit and extension of stay for my visa, I need to take a course in Thai Culture. A two day course. The module on culture takes an hour and a half. I don’t know if that’s more insulting to me or to the Thais. I was signed up for this course, which was to take place in Bangkok very early in the morning – requiring a 4:30am wake up call and a 5:30 meet up. The gentlemen who were accompanying me and I had decided to travel together to split costs and to help each other find the way – one of them has a Thai wife that was coming along for the ride.
Both were shocked that I managed to make it to the meeting point without getting lost and, I imagine, simply giving up. The people I work with think I`m a helpless idiot, but that`s a story for another time.
At 2am, shortly before my alarm went off, I was curled in the fetal position in the bathroom, sure I was going to die. My stomach was killing me. However, this has happened before, where my grogginess in the middle of the night has led me to paranoia, and I went back to bed. In the morning I was rather sick, but I chalked that up to getting up at 4:30 in the damn morning and sucked it up.
By 7, I`ve taken a cab, a van, and another cab into central Bangkok where the kindergarten that was hosting the course was. The others went off to find some coffee; I wilted. And got dizzy. And couldn`t keep my head up.
Shit, I thought.
Finally, weighing my options, I went to the course instructor to ask him when the next time one of these courses would be offered: would it be worth waiting for the next one, or should I suck it up? He did me the enormous favour of having me sign in for the day and sent me home to bed.
However, not long after reaching home and getting to bed I realized that I was, in fact, dying. I won’t go into the gory details, but it turns out that I did in fact get food poisoning, and the stay in the hospital was not one of my high points. I needed help to shower, and that wasn’t the worst it got.
Now I’m at home, hoping I can go to work tomorrow, with a plethora of medications, each on a different schedule. The nurses were kind enough to get instructions printed for me in English, so I know when to take the pills, but I have no idea what they are. I have gotten used to taking mystery medicine from doctors who don’t have enough English to explain.
I wish that I was writing about some exciting Thai adventures or mishaps, crazy food or tourist attractions or trips but! alas – a hospital visit will have to do.
Gross.
I have incredibly unreliable internet at the moment. Why oh why do people insist on putting passwords on their wireless connections? It just makes it harder for me to steal.
(For the record, I do pay for internet. However, foreigners cannot legally sign up for internet and things in Thailand until they have a legit work permit. It could take me a few months to get all the paperwork through. )
In Thailand, you can buy pig uterus at the grocery store; it’s packaged up nicely next to the steaks. Fallopian tubes and everything. You can replace pieces of human heart with pig heart: could you do the same, I wonder, with pig uterus? If so, would a shiny new pig uterus stop me from Puking My Guts Up and Passing Out In Public every month?
If anybody has any ideas as to what you can cook with pig uterus, please – send them, and any recipes, along.
Today I went shoe shopping. I detest shoe shopping. I only own three pairs of shoes – I cut down from four when I left winter behind. I hate only one thing more than shoe shopping, and that is jeans shopping. I steadfastly refuse to go jeans shopping, and instead have my father periodically mail me new batches of the exact same pair. That doesn’t work as well with shoes, however, and I think I went into every shoe store in the gigantic four storey mall I found myself in today. Apparently, plain black flat mary jane shoes are not in fashion. Apparently, flimsy ballet flats in an array of ridiculous colours and with no arch support to speak of are in fashion. Apparently, everybody and their mother wears stilettos all. the bloody. time.
Listen: polka-dotted ballet flats are amusing, and I am sure look simply charming when one is prancing about with one’s friends. But I need Clothes I Can Wear To Work, and pink and yellow polka dots don’t cut it. Not to mention, I am on my feet all day, and I teach 5 and 6 year olds. 120 5 and 6 year olds. Who think, at times, that I am a tree, and try to climb me, or fell me. I would not last five minutes in stilletos or satin ballet flats, even if I managed to get them safely through the rain on the way to work.
A flat pair of mary janes in black leather, however, seems like it is Too Much To Ask.
I came home tonight to make dinner, only to find that I actually have no food in my house. I was going to make salad, but the lettuce was bad. I forgot I finished the spinach, I’m out of spaghetti, I forgot to thaw meat, the leftovers are mouldy, as is the cheese (which I will probably eat anyway), I’m out of bread and I don’t have snack food.
‘Aha!’ I thought, reaching into the very back of the fridge, past the half-jars of jam and the gigantor tub of sour cream. ‘Eggs! I’ll scramble them up and throw them in with a bowl of rice! I rock.’
So I boiled the water. I got the rice in. I stirred. I heated up a pan, put oil in it. I cracked the first egg. I cracked the second egg. The second egg was the approximate colour of a yellow hi-liter. ‘Hmmmm,’ I thought. Curious, I grabbed the third and last egg. I cracked it. I jumped back, ejaculated some strange sound, dropped the shells into the pan.
The yolk was dark green.
And of course, cooking, because I still had the pan on. So now my apartment smells like fried rotten egg and I have a nasty pan to wash and some nasty compost to take out.
What have we learned from all of this? Well, I’m a university graduate living successfully in a foreign country, and I haven’t quite managed to figure out how to keep a fridge stocked with edible food.
Win!
Filed under: food
I’ve eaten a lot of stuff I don’t recognize, and I’ve gotten to the point where if something isn’t alive, I’ll put it in my mouth. That won’t go well in Canada! Street food is a way of life here, and I got over wondering about health and safety laws my first month. I figure there’s 65 million of them and they’ve been around for 4000 years, the mortality rate would be a lot higher if they were getting salmonella from the FRIED CHICKEN THEY BUY FROM THE BACK OF A TRUCK.
I won’t eat, however, san nakchi.. That’s octopus that’s still alive. They chop of the tentacles and force them, still wriggling, into their mouths. The suckers are still working, so people have been known to choke to death. I’m sure it tastes good, but I don’t like to fight with my food. I should have already won that battle.
I also haven’t had dog soup yet, but I am planning on having it at least once before I leave, if only so that I can say that I’ve done it. It can’t be that different from pig, or cow, really.
My parents were here to visit me from Canada last week. Everything weird that had become normal for me – toilet paper rolls on the tables, red-hot coals being carried in close proximity to my head, communal soup bowls, tiny hole-in-the-wall kimbap shops covered in graffitti and dirt – was brought sharply back into focus and my parents wondered why and how I could possibly dig comfortably into a bowl of food without first finding out what was in it. They looked for bowls to pour the soup into. They ordered from the menus using pictures and were shocked when the food they got was not, in fact, a salad, but frozen chunks of raw fish. They were a little grossed out by the plate of raw beef sitting on the table while we were eating dinner. They felt rude pushing a button to summon a waiter.
I acclimatized to these things gradually. I didn’t notice when I suddenly became comfortable with them, the same way that I don’t know which day I was finally able to use flat metal chopsticks with any degree of competency. But with my parents here, commenting on everything that is now normal and everyday for me, I suddenly realized how accustomed I am to the food here, and also to how central food is to being comfortable in a new culture, or a new country. Everything else can be laughed off, or be interesting, or not important, but if you can’t handle or are uncomfortable with the food you’re in trouble. I can now find my way around a Korean grocery store and get everything I need, and I can order whole meals in Korean, and I know what to take a chance on trying and what to avoid.
This is not to say that I am native, or that I never get a food surprise (like the time I nonchalantly popped <i>Korea’s hottest chilli pepper</i> into my mouth), but having my parents here showed, in sharp relief, just how much I’ve changed in the last six months.
guess i’m not going swimming tomorrow morning. maybe i should see if the pool is open AFTER work – then it won’t matter what time i get to bed.
icanhascheezburger.com is wayyy funnier now than it was six hours ago. i will forever blame my mother for the fact that i am a person who reads icanhascheezburger.com. she told me about it. i started to read it to MOCK it, but, alas, as with so many things i do only to mock, it became a habit. like finger quotes, and letterman.
and john hughes movies, which i have an unnatural love for.
food cravings are stronger this time of night. despite the fact that i have a fridge full of food, including some easy-to-heat leftovers, i wanted apples and cheddar cheese. and so cut off a rather large chunk of mould from more than one side of the cheese in order to fulfill this desire.
i definitely started to think about going to sleep six hours ago. was absolutely going to be in bed at 12, after i got off the phone. got into bed. read 30 pages of Mao (i average 5-10, usually). turned out the lights. got up. checked e-mail, then picked up a play. which i started, and finished. am a geek. a GEEK.
just realized i’ve been leaving prepositions and articles out of all my sentences. my students are rubbing off on me, and my grammar is getting worse and worse. also capitals, but that’s because i’m being efficient with my typing (ha!).
went for a walk. why, when i need a cab at 3am, i can NEVER GET ONE, but tonight, they all slowed down just in case i needed a ride? WHY?
i watched 20/20’s medical mysteries tonight. there’s actually a disease called “FFI” – familial something insomnia – a disease in which something triggers in your brain and you end up with permanent insomnia and after 8 or 9 months with 0 sleep you DIE. i should stop watching medical shows. it brings out the hypochondriac in me.
will be setting my alarm several hours ahead. again. i keep starting out the night with such great intentions but then as the night wears on and i don’t sleep the alarm keeps getting set another hour forward, and then i hit the snooze alarm until 12:30, when i get up to watch judge judy and eat honey nut cheerios from the box before jumping in the shower and walking to work with wet hair. i KNOW. how exciting is my life?!
sleep now.
as i’ve mentioned before, i am having difficulty learning how to use chopsticks.
i know, i know. “how did you live in Canada and not learn how to use chopsticks?” i KNOW. but listen. we all know how co-ordinated i am. i walk into open doors. i once laughed until i snorted so hard it hurt. when i was in ballet, the teacher wouldn’t let me near the wall with the stereo on it. when i work in the shop, i come home covered in cuts and bruises, and once i cut my eyelid walking into a piece of wood. is it any suprise that i can’t manage the fine manipulation of slippery metal chopsticks?
one night i actually sent one flying over my head and onto the floor behind me. recognizing the serious potential for injury this presented, a lesson in chopsticks around the barbecue commenced. it went so well that today, one of the teachers brought me a present: a pair of plastic chopsticks designed to teach children how to use chopsticks. they’re attached at the top and spring-loaded. “here,” she said. “this should give you the practice you need.” it was incredibly kind and thoughtful of her, to remember that i was having trouble and to go looking for them, and i gratefully began using them to eat my salad.
and promptly dropped a red pepper onto my lap. “she can’t manage even with the spring-loaded ones!” yelled someone, and much hilarity ensued. still though, progress was made, and maybe by the time i leave i’ll manage to feed myself!
i’ve had an exciting day, full of such domestic adventures as grocery shopping, and cleaning my bathroom.
i know. i KNOW. i should be out, exploring! seeing korea! learning things! EXPANDING MY HORIZONS.
but that takes so much energy, and i’ve only just started sleeping through the night.
and listen! at the grocery store, i bought apple yogourt. you can’t get apple yogourt in canada. and i encountered a lot of vegetables i’ve never seen before, and have no idea how to cook. and they sell this awesome thing – pre-chopped garlic! not garlic powder, like the crap we get in canada that’s not actually garlic at all. this is fresh garlic, just…already chopped. very finely, into a pulp. ready to cook with! will the genius never end?!
shut up.
i’m going to seoul tonight to go drinking with people i don’t know. one of the teachers is taking me with her to meet her friends. the subway stops at midnight and we won’t be able to get back until 5 or 6 this morning.
still have barely the energy to drag myself into the shower, and the thing about socializing with strangers is that it’s a lot of fun, sometimes, but it’s way harder than with people you know. it takes a lot more energy. and usually, it’s ok, because if it sucks i can just make my excuses and beg off. but not tonight, because the subway stops. so if it sucks i’m trapped with drunk strangers ALL NIGHT.
it will rock.
Filed under: food
“do you eat a lot of fiber?”
suddenly there were three pairs of eyes staring at me, waiting for my answer. the state of the bathrooms at work were at stake.
‘this is a round table,’ i thought. ‘how are they all sitting opposite me?’
people who know me know that i’m pretty open in my conversation topics, sometimes to a fault. however, even i have never discussed the nature of my bowel movements over dinner with people i’ve just met.
so, i’m here. i made it to south korea. the plane trip was bloody awful: the only reason i can even call the food edible is because i ate it. we chased the sun all the way to korea, flying into yesterday and then straight into tomorrow without ever hitting today.
i’m not really sure what to start with….or what to say.
i’m set up in my apartment, i’m also almost entirely unpacked, but i’m at loose ends for a while – i’ve arrived just as all of my co-workers are on their break, and so even though we all live in the same building, i’m isolated for a week as they go off travelling. i’m struggling enough with groceries, i’m going to stay put until work starts.
i did go out for dinner twice – once with my boss, and once with a teacher who was kind enough to come in on his day off to show me around. we had barbecue – we were served a plate of raw meat, which we cooked on coals at our table. with the ribs, we were given gloves to wear, rather than utensils. the other teacher thought this was hilarious – i just think it’s intensely practical. we were also given dozens of side dishes to eat with our meat – which we shared, both of us eating from the same bowl. this is a rather intimate way of eating, i think, something i’ve always reserved for very close friends. we ate on “meat street” – nicknamed thus by a., the co-worker. it’s a street simply filled with bars and restaurants, stacked 7 or 8 stories high, one on top of the other, with the street level filled with these barbecues, the tables coming right out onto the street. i’ve never seen, or heard, or smelled, so much going on at once.
