#43 What’s that burning smell? May 2010

We had only arrived back a few days and our first drama.  We used this extension cord for our washing machine.  I didn’t realise that you had to have an appropriately thick cable for something that draws a lot of power like a washing machine.  Fortunately, I was around when I smelled the burning wires and prevented our laundry from going up in smoke.  The things that you never think of when you live in Australia.  Most electrical sockets in Thailand are not “earthed” so I still get a shock whenever I touch my desktop computer.

Burning the Oven Top

 

We have an American couple of staying in our guest flat.  He had turned the gas burner, however, he had the glass top cover down (the photo has the glass cover raised).  Then he noticed a burning smell and couldn't work out what was happening.  He called me son who quickly pointed out the obvious problem, the glass cover was down!  The burning smell was the rubber stoppers on the glass that was being burnt.

It is funny how things that are obvious in one culture is not so obvious in another.  I do recognise that there are stove tops that have an electric element that heats on a glass top, so perhaps that was the confusion.  The things that you need to adjust to in a new culture.

Lessons from a elevator

Lift buttons in a Korean elevator

Do the notice what's strange about the buttons on this elevator in Korea?  I was told at the number 4 in Chinese sounds like the word for death.  So many Asian countries which use Chinese characters don't use the button for level 4.  I think the "F" they use instead stands for "floor"?  It is similar to the Western avoidance of the use of "13" in elevators.  You would think in a "advance" country like Korea that they would have gone past this belief in "lucky" or "unlucky" numbers.

For more information on lucky and unlucky numbers is Chinese click here.

How hard is it to get a rabies vaccination?

Our youngest needed a series of pre-exposure rabies vaccinations and our middle son a booster.  I first tried at a doctor's clinic two days ago but she didn't stock rabies vaccinations.  I had to go to the hospital.  So yesterday I went to the hospital.

I went to the pediatrics department where they normally do children's vaccinations. 

Nurse 1: 
Do you have your vaccination book? (No still waiting to clear customs at the airport with our other unaccompanied luggage)

Have your children been bitten by a dog? (No, they need pre-exposure vaccinations as recommended by our missions medical's director).  Fortunately I had the email from our medical adviser as well as the Rabies information sheet from the medical advisers in our mission.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.  The pediatrician finally comes.  The nurse speaks to her about us and then she directs us to the emergency department.

Nurse 2:
All the same questions as above again.

Emergency Doctor:
All the same questions again.
Also, "Why do you want them to be vaccinated?" 
(Well it's recommended by our medical adviser as well as the World Health Organization).
"Well normally in Thailand we don't give pre-exposure vaccination.  You don't really need it" 
(Our househelper was bitten by a dog in our street) 
"Ok if you really want it then we'll do it for you" (Yes, we really want it)

Nurse 3:
Fills out an appointment card.  She has made 4 further appointments, which is for a post-exposure vaccination schedule (5 shots) rather than a pre-exposure vaccination schedule (3 shots).  I toy with the idea of just leaving it and coming back at what I know are the right times but decide to try to sort things out now rather than having to go through the whole process again next week.

So, 1 and half hours later, with two tired and screaming kids I leave the hospital exhausted.

In Thailand, even thought it has a high rate of dog bites and rabies, they don't routinely give pre-exposure rabies injections probably because it is so expensive.  It costs us about 700 baht a shot (AU$23) but that is 2-3 days average wage here in Thailand.  3 shots and you are looking at a week's or more pay.  So it is not cheap for something which may or may not happen.  They are more likely to wait until they get bitten and then get 5 shots (normally paid for by the owner of the dog if there is one).

I could have got the shots done in Australia but it costs AU$100 a shot so I waited because it is much cheaper here.

Anyway, next time I'll get a letter from our mission's medical adviser requesting these vaccinations, which should avoid most of what I went through yesterday.

Stopped by Police

Two days ago as we were speeding along the highway (literally) towards Bangkok from Lampang, I was day dreaming a little bit when I saw a man waving his arms frantically ahead. It took me a moment to register this and then I realised that it was a policeman. There was a lump in my throat. I was driving on the right overtaking lane at the time and most likely speeding above the 120kph limit.

I stopped where the two police officers were waiting for me. The officer asked me in Thai for my driver’s licence. I looked at him blankly as if I couldn’t understand him. Then after a few seconds, he said in English “licence”. I looked in my wallet for the copy of my licence which I had prepared for just this kind of occasion (if you give your real licence then you are forced to go to the police station to get your licence back). However, I couldn’t find it and had to give him my real licence. He told me in Thai that I was in the right lane and that I was going too fast. I have him another blank look and raised my eye brow. He stopped for a moment and finally said in English “high speed”. I replied, “I thought the speed limit was 120” in English. He talked into his walky-talky and after hearing a reply said to me “126” in Thai. I looked confused. Then he wrote down the number 126 on his note paid. Then he said “200 baht”. If I gave him 200 baht I knew that it would most likely just go into his pocket. The normal process is to write a ticket and that I have to go to the police station to pay the fine. I didn’t want to go to the police station and add additional time to 9 hours journey. But I didn’t want to pay the quasi bribe either. He asked me “back in Lampang when?”. I replied “I’m going to Australia”. The officer looked back at the back of our car full to the brim with luggage and knew I wasn’t lying. He might have been thinking of writing me a real ticket but if I wasn’t going back to Lampang I couldn’t pay the fine at the police station. He thought for a moment and I kept on waiting. Finally, he gave up and waved me on telling me “slow, slow”. As we were driving off I couldn’t keep the smirk off my face. This about the third time I’ve been stopped police and pretended that I can’t speak Thai. I don’t like doing it and I feel a bit guilty about it but I don’t like paying bribes either. I’ve heard so many stories of missionaries being fined for speeding when they definitely weren’t (e.g. saying that they were going at 140 km when the car is physically incapably of going at that speed).

I know many other missionaries who try talking Thai with the police when they are stopped buvt in most cases it doesn’t work and they end up either with a ticket or paying the fine directly to policeman to avoid the hassle of going to the police station. I'd say in this rare case, having Thai is not an advantage.

Memories come flooding back

Did I really do this? Life before our car!

As noted previously I went down to the language school in Lopburi to sit my Level 2 exams. The time coincided with a new batch of missionaries arriving. After sitting my exams in the mornings I had to the opportunity to help out the new arrivals as I had lots of spare time and not much to do.

Seeing these new missionary in there first days at Lopburi brought back so many memories. It also reminded me how much I had forgotten about the huge adjustments process when we first arrived in Thailand.

What do I do with the hose?

I mainly helped one European family from one of the Nordic countries. They had three children under 5 (like us). Very, very blond haired. None of the children speak English. My heart went out to them at what lay ahead for them because we were in their shoes 2 and half years ago. They will probably have it a bit harder than us as their children don’t speak English (so won’t understand the childcare helpers) and they are so blond so they will receive lots of attention from Thais whenever they go out.

On their first night in Lopburi I took the family to Big C (a shopping centre). I showed them where to buy a food court card to be able to buy food. I suggested a Khaow Mun Khay (Chicken rice) as something suitable for the children. They didn’t really eat much of it though. Then they went through Big C trying their best to buy what they needed to start living in Thailand with the frustration of not knowing where things were and whether it is the same thing as back home. It was probably close to 9 pm when I got the the family back to their new home, and by that time it was well past the kids bedtimes and understandably they were tired and irritable.

The next day after my written exam in the morning, I helped the a bunch of the missionaries when they were opening their bank accounts. They had questions about when and where to use the debit cards which they received and it was a Visa Electron card which we don’t have in Australia - “Could they used it as a credit card or not”.

Then I took the husband of the family from the night before to find a suitable SIM card. His family stayed at the administration centre because they didn’t have many toys at their new home. Even with my 2 years of Thai it was hard understanding the details of the different prepaid SIM cards available with different amounts you had to top up with different credit expiry dates. Unfortunately the phone they brought from Europe wouldn’t accept the Thai SIM so we looked around for a new phone. Then 2 pairs of new trousers. A quick trip to the dressmaker to get the trousers put up. I was tired after all that and I’m sure he was more tired than me.

Late afternoon all the language students met for fellow group. I took this European family back home and said goodbye to them as I would be heading back to Lampang on the train that night and probably would not see them again. I prayed that God would look after this family and help them through what will probably be one of the hardest years of their lives with so many adjustments make especially with 3 young children to care for too. God did for us and only 2 years down the road that time is already a distance memory. As the orientation directors commented it showed how far we had come. It was great seeing my favorite sellers at the market, the fruit lady, fried bananas ladies, the dried meat and sticky rice couple, the eccentric
grilled chicken guy, the old lady across the street from where I lived; and to be able to converse them with Thai so much more than when I left over a year ago.

Perhaps the timing of my level 2 exam and this new batch of missionaries was coincidental, or perhaps God was encouraging us as we go home on home assignment in a couple of weeks that we have come a long way since we started 2 and half years ago.

Homesick

We have been in Thailand for over two years now. Our first term is meant to be 4 years but we plan to return to Australia in December 2010 (3 year and 9 months). I haven't really been too homesick in the last two years. Sure, I'd love to be closer to the beach, have a good affordable steak, good friends who I can have fun with without there being significant language barriers etc. etc. but none of that had me longing for home.

But today I read a prayerletter of a friend who is a missionary returning home after 3 years on the field and planning to remain in Australia for 3 years to do further study (and possibly to return to that country in the future) and felt a bit homesick. We get our fair share of prayerletters from friends who are missionaries. In fact about 10 people in my year at college became missionaries and went overseas. All but 1 or 2 of those missionaries have been back to Australia either for home assignment or some other reason (such as having a baby or attending a wedding). So that's been increasing our homesickness as we read of them being at home and enjoying life back home.

It is probably a good thing that our first term is almost 4 years. If we went back to Australia now, we might now come back. It hasn't been easy over the last 2 years, but they say that it gets easier from about this point on (the 2 year mark). I guess we are seeing hints of that recently. Still we do think about home. Don't know whether it is a case of "it's greener on the other side" though.

There’s something terribly wrong

This photo is very blurred. Probably a good thing.

I was invited by a Thai friend last week to go and see a play at a local university. He said it was put on by students about to enter Chiang Mai university. I wasn’t at all expecting what was to come. The play was full of sexual innuendo of a very degrading and debase kind. I couldn’t understand much of what was being said but the dances and the acting was hard to mistake. Guys with bras on (blurred photo above), transvestites, other things which were too gross to mention. There was a American woman who I’d met just before the play started who was invited also by my friend. At one stage she walked out because it was too much. Initially I though it was university students putting on the production. Then I was shocked to find out that they were highschool students performing from the major highschools in Lampang. More Specially those who had just finished highschool a couple of months before and had been accepted into Universities in Chiang Mai. It was beyond belief that 17 and 18 year old would be involved in such a play. Worse still there were many of their highschool friends in the audience, cheering and laughing at the sexually charged scenes. I couldn’t work out whether they were laughing out of embarrassment (which is what Thais do) or because it was funny.

If a play like this was put on in Australia, there would be an uproar. There is no doubt in my mind that the students would be expelled and the event banned. But this has been an annual event for the past 23 years.

There are real and serious problems with sex and sexuality in Thai society. I have no idea how it got this way but it is clear that it starts at a very early age and is rampant throughout the society. It seems very ironic in a “buddhist” nation, because a key tenet of Buddhism is to extinguish “desires”.

Horror before the movie (WARNING this entry decribes some elements of horror)

Yesterday I watched this movie "Best in time" at the local cinema (I didn't know the title of the movie until just now when I was searching for the photo on google). The local cinema only had two movies showing, both in Thai with no subtitles (major reason why in 7 months I've never been to the local cinema). It was this movie or what looked like a B grade ganster movie. This movie would have only been rated PG and there were lots of school children in the cinema. I was terribly shocked then when a trailer for an upcoming horror movie was shown with such violence that I had to turn away for most of the trailer. It was definately R rated. Limbs being chopped off and bodily parts ending up in noodle soup being served up by a pychotic woman running a noddle stand. I read on a forum of a woman taking her two young children to a Disney movie recently and having the same thing happen. So just a warning, if you go to see a movie in Thailand, make sure you arrive 10 minutes late and miss the trailers.

The movie was nothing to rave about. Only understanding about 30% of it might have been a factor.