This afternoon I was foraging for food on my second attempt to step into a straight up Thai restaurant. One with no visible sign of English translations, in other words, one other than a handful of the western restaurants that screamed “Thailand: I am hungry, I am western, AND I am not even gonna try…”
I had edged close to one, dipping my toe in to test the waters but jerked back in response to the blank stares that shot my way. As my stomach grumbled, I punked myself into going into one and not backing down (again). So I wandered down an alley and settled on one with a few women at the front. To my surprise a simple menu with English translations (or perhaps I saw this from far away in a state of disillusion) was propped up on the table. I sat feeling simultaneously triumphant and a failure. My hunger would be satiated, and yet, I was still a wimp!
I perused the menu wanting to flip it over and ask for the full menu. I see two things I want: fried noodles and vegetables. Except they are two separate items with the word “meat” tacked on to the end of the fist and some other words on the second to long for my hungry eyes to deal with. I am swept by a moment of hungry ingenious and think of the solution—I will first point to the noodles covering the word “meat”, then point to the word “vegetable” covering the rest and ah ha! the perfect meal for an indulgent vegetarian. My server takes note or more accurately, the order, failing to acknowledge my cleverness. When she sticks out two fingers, I automatically nod away, although in hindsight a fully-fed-me would have caught this red flag. So I sit anxious about what is going to come out of that kitchen. I sniff the air to try to determine the ingredients. Finally, after a long wait, the young girl who has been watching tv in the front with me, fetches a large serving plate and takes it to the back. The moment of truth. The woman approaches my table and I hold my breath. There are indeed two dishes. The first is the noodles with chicken. The second is vegetables with shrimp plopped all around the top. Thai, you have kicked my ass!
I couldn’t even enjoy my meal after that. I sent one of the two dishes back and sat feeling a deep sense of guilt. It’s like how they say it is an insult to the chef in some places if you as much as add salt to your meal. I had only once—against my will—partaken in food being sent back. I had always assumed the food that "correct" food that returned was inedible, being tainted with the cook’s wrath or converted to something more tangible like spit buried somewhere in the food. I felt like such an idiot. So I ate my food and scurried away with my tail between my legs. The self-loathing led to one conclusion: I MUST LEARN THAI.
Early that day, I had made a nearly, crack-of-dawn escape from a guest house where I was being overcharged, in favor of one at half the price at a better location. I sort of fibbed to get out of there and was not planning to return…except that the Thai woman who owned the place had decent English and had offered to teach me Thai, or so I remember-- post-Thai restaurant debacle. So one guilt led me to face another and I returned to the house. I grabbed that little, good-looking woman’s hand and asked almost pleadingly, "WHEN will our first lesson be?"
I point out that she is good looking for a reason. The day before, when we spoke I looked at her with a suspicious eye. I had been reading Bangkok 8 and the part about Thai women of the night being swept off to large cities like London and Paris by their johns-- was fresh on my mind. She had mentioned living in Germany for a few years, and I had to stuff back in the urge to say…”ahhh, yes….” as I looked at her great big guest house, truck, motorcycle and all the rest. But how dare I entertain such an insulting thought with such a sweet woman hugging me with her kind smile?!
So as we were pulling out of her drive way in her pick up, I unwittingly asked—“are you married?” She responded, “I marry rich man…he in Germany…he have other woman.” And I felt a weird and inappropriate urge to scream out—I KNEW IT! Finger stabbing the air, an expression filled with glorious victory, all mine to be rejoiced. This is a purely silly side of me that is completely separate from the empathetic me that I hope to be (...I hope you know this). Instead I replied a bland, “oh,” through a half nervous, repressed smile. I had wondered how much of the fiction book was real and now I was curious to dig more into this woman’s life. The other part of me was making all kinds of snap judgments on that man and wondering how I should feel about the whole thing. Assuming of course, this is what I think it is. Hey, I'm a romantic. It’s possible. Otherwise, how should I feel? Who used who? It was way too complicated to get deeper into it. Better to keep the eye on the prize: mission: learn Thai now. After all, the truth is, I don’t know the truth. It is easy to be on the outside and call something black when it is actually gray.
This is my first week in Mae Sot. The adventure begins.
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