Shrimp Named Tom Yum

Yesterday i asked Khun Paw if we could "go somewhere", which confused him a bit because i didnt knwo the word for somewhere. He asked if i wantted to go to a Wat and i said "yes!" s we went to visit a wat. (Wats = Temples) It was beautiful, cultural, and spiritual. There were Monks chanting, and at one point my host dad got a wistful smile, and started chanting along with them I kenw the, in the abstract that all boys become monks for a certain time in thier life (to earn religious merit for thier parents) but i had never extended that abstract knowlegde to thinking about my father’s time as a monk. I asked him about it, in the car back, he said he was a monk for four years! Boys are monks, often for just three weeks, or a few months, while girls are have a much more long term expectations, such as taking care of their parents in their age. While all men are required to be monks for a period of time, some get more into it, are more interested in englightenment, self editing, the teachings, ext, while for others it is a right of passage. I’m sure the experience varies quite a bit. Some are monks for their whole lives. I was surprised and excited to hear my father had been a monk for so long, it gave me a small glinmps into his person, besides the patient, helpful, care-taker, father figure.

The Wat was beautiful, the part that surprised me were a small system of tunnels, underneath a golden topped pyramid that reminded me of the structures of the people of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. The tunnels were full of nooks with statues, shrines, and incense offerings. We fed fish in, cat fish with stiff bristling wiskers, bottom suckers with patterning like brain coral, turtles, ext. We got ice cream, which came in sandwitches of white bread instead of cones. I saw another Farang there, and felt… he reflected my out of placeness, and gave me a glimps at myself in all the complicated systems that my understanding was just beginning to brush the surface of. At the same time I felt very protected by my place within a Thai family, and was once again very greatful for the homestay, and happy and proud to be learning the Thai language and culture.

At other points this weekend, particularly during the long car ride with my family, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of sameness. Study abroad! I thought. What did I think would be different? I’ve come half way across the world and I’m with a family just like mine at home. If I had a little brother at home, this is how we would be. We are all so exactly the same… so we eat food with a different spice in it, so what! Before I left, I put all of this emphesis on how Thailand was so abroad, so different, so foreign, and really its just the same. People, families, a few things on top that look different, different words, the same ideas and people underneath. I had a huge feeling, not of being underwhelmed, but a moment of truly understanding “space ship earth” in a cultural sense.

So. Sunday, after the Wat we went to “sur blah” Buy Fish! I had though, oh I’ll just get a little gold fish and add him to the family tank, but I started an aalance on that plan by picking up a small tank in sight of A) a sales woman and B) my brothers. One goldfish quickly grew to three goldfish, and when I found out the tank was too small for gold fish, and I didn’t really like any of the tiny tiny fish, tiny fish turned into a 2.5 inch pet shrimp!
Shrimp, tank, rocks, bubbler, tube, and food cost me about 10$.

My host brothers are son jai (crazy about) fish, and I am starting to get the feavor. We took our new pets home and set up tanks, (tree little ones, one for each of us) on my desk in my room. We watched them, fed them, played with them, scooped them up, got pinced by the shrimp, wrestled for a bit, had a pillow fight, and watched them more. The shrimp fought with his bubbler. (I pinched the hose for the bubbler mostly shut with those close pins you gave me mom! Otherwise it rushes air like crazy)

The shrimp is adorable, he eats food by scooping it up with the many many tiny fingerlike legs on his stomach and spins it around and around while pinching his tiny pincers and glancing about with his beedy black eyes. He is bright orange-red. I wrote his name in Thai and engliish on a piece of althletic tape and stuck in to the tank. His name is Tom Yum. In honor of Tom Yum Gung, my favorite food here, Maes specialty dish, (what we had for dinner that night actually) and the joke we all made a hundred times to eachother about making him into soup for dinner.

I now feel, truly, a part of the family, and settled in Thailand.