nung chaay's (younger brother in Thai) birthday celebration

Friday was my oldest host brother’s birthday. I am not exactly sure how to pronounce his name…Yaat…maybe. But his name and my youngest host brother’s name sound almost exactly the same to me. So I was not even totally sure whose birthday it was going to be. I decided it would probably be a nice idea to get a card for him. After searching several stores for a card and coming out empty handed I decided to make a card. I colored a Power Ranger (we were coloring Power Rangers in my English class at the Agape school that week, so I colored one with some of the kids)….and cut it out. And pasted it inside a folded piece of paper. I asked one of the Thai professors to write out Happy Birthday in Thai and I wrote it on the front of the card. The inside I wrote Happy Birthday in English. I even found some red paper and cut strips and pasted them on the outside to make it look cool. I must say it was one awesome card! I included some small Milky Way candies inside too. Hope he liked it!!So that was the card…but by far not the most exciting part of the day. The best part came after all the long art field trips. It was Field Trip Friday….we hit a few more temples, and saw a few private art collections. The real kicker is that in Art Lecture earlier that day we looked at slide after slide of pictures of lacquer ware…pots that are painted with this black or red lacquer…and then we went and saw the actual pieces….the same ones we looked at slides of. And they all look the same. No joke! So after our lovely art field trips, my host family picked me up at school and Khun Mee said we were going out to dinner. I knew it was birthday dinner and I was hoping that Yaat was going to pick a good place. He picked PIZZA HUT!! Yes, the American pizza chain! How amazing is that!?! Apparently they go there once a year….for his birthday. And I just happen to be here at that time! J

I must say I was one very very happy girl! And I expressed that joy to them a few times. Once we got to Pizza Hut the real hilarity began. We sat down and it looked almost exactly like an American Pizza Hut. I had a knife and fork in front of me, as opposed to a fork and spoon. I didn’t even notice it until half way through the meal when I saw my youngest brother using his knife as the spoon. In Thailand they use the fork to put food on the spoon and then eat off the spoon. I laughed to myself when I saw him trying to put food on the knife with his fork and then bending over real close to the table to eat it off the knife. Quite a funny sight.

We looked at the menu and my host mom asked me what I wanted to eat. And I thought, well, we’ll probably order a pizza pie or two and some bread sticks. I was pretty wrong. Because she pointed to some special on the menu and it was shrimp and crab and some octopus. She knew I wouldn’t eat it so she told me I could order whatever I wanted. I proceeded to get a personal cheese pizza. So amazing!! J

The first batch of food arrived. I was an appetizer…I think. Part of that combo deal my Khun Mee ordered. It was 3 mozzarella sticks…and they were tiny. And fried octopus and fried shrimp. Then the bread sticks arrived. They were good. Not served with marinara sauce though…they were served with slightly spicy thousand island dressing. It was good though. My pizza came and I was so happy. I loaded it up with the parmesan cheese too. It tasted very similar to Pizza Hut in America. I was surprised. It even had CHEESE on!! Amazing!! J

Another part of the combo deal arrived and it was crab salad on a piece of sourdough bread….with a black olive on top. I asked my Khun Mee what it was and she didn’t know. So she asked the waiter…he didn’t know. So he asked the cook. The know waiter returned and said something in Thai to my host mom and then I asked her what he said. He said it was called a black olive….haha. I wanted to know what the whole thing was….I knew what the black olive was. In fact, I could have informed the waiter and my host family that it was an olive. I just laughed.

Then after I though the food was done arriving a pizza came. And this was no ordinary pizza. It was a pizza that had 2 long things jutting off of each piece of it. Each long piece was like stuffed crust pizza…just going a strange direction. It was stuffed with shrimp and crab. Two foods that I just love….NOT! And the pizza had a mix of seafood too. But my Khun Mee said I should try. And I was just not going to give up an opportunity to eat pizza. So I scraped off all the seafood and ate the pizza. My youngest host brother ate the stuff I scraped off. I can always count on him to eat food off my plate. If I scrape fat off of something, he reaches his fork over and helps himself. It’s pretty funny.

The Pizza Hut experience was amazing! We went home and waited for my Khun Pa to get home from work and then had cake. The cake was pretty good, but not homemade and nothing like my Mom or Dad’s cakes! J

It was a really good day!!

Oh yeah…so in the morning, since it was his birthday, it is good kharma to give alms to monks. So we arrived at the boys school for breakfast and I was told to stay in the car with my host dad and youngest brother. We went to park the car and we just sat there for a little while. I had no idea what was going on. Then all the sudden my host mom and Yaat came walking over with bags full of food. It was for the monks. So got out of the car and then some monks came along. They gave some of the food to the monks and then they kneeled down to receive a blessing. About half way through the blessing the young monk (he was probably about 13 or 14) busted out laughing. And I think he was laughing at me. I was awkwardly standing behind the family. I had no idea what to do. So I just stood there. It was really funny because I’m pretty sure a monk should not laugh in the middle of his chanting a blessing. Then they repeated it all again with the next few monks that came over. This time, to avoid being laughed at, I kneeled down behind the family. Then the third time, the family gave me food to give to the monks. So the monks came over and I placed food in their alms bowl. The whole time leading up to this moment all I could think about was do not touch the monk…and then what if I fall into him or something. But I didn’t. And this time the family gave me instructions about what to do. So it worked out well. And it was quite a different cultural experience.