Thai has a different sentance structure than most languages. The subject comes first and pretty much everything afterwards. No need to conjugate verbs etc. This makes the language seem much easier at first glance...false. I am here to inform you that Thai is not easy. Five tones leads to what is a much more difficult learning experience than expected. I had a four hour Thai class today... You did not miss read that statment. Four hours. Yes we had a break one for tea and one for lung but at the end of the day I didn't want to learn any more vocab words or pronounce anything more. I guess I need to prepare for four more hours tomorrow.
We got an outfit for our kantook dinner tonight last night and so we just got back from the dinner. It was traditional northen Thai food of sticky rice and community bowls of sauces and meats to dip things in. It was so delicious. It mich have been the best meal yet except it was hard to sit on the ground with a long silk skirt on. During the dinner there was dancing with hands and swords. It was cool especially because we got on stage to dance with the women at one point.
We are getting to be better friends with the Thai buddies and that is so fun. I have a friend named boui who is really friendly and awesome and she said she would take us to some good hang out spots. Which will help me with my Thai hopefully. Maybe the ton of flashcards will help too.
Another thing we did today was visit our potential internship spots. I visited the Buddhist university today with ten other sst students. We talked to some professors and toured some classrooms. To top it off we visited the wat on campus which is temple in Thai. It was one of the most peaceful places I have ever been. This is definately the place I will choose. Mostly because I want to learn more about Buddhism. I hope that doesn't freak the über Christians out on this trip. There is a lot to learn.
I am looking forward to a more relaxed day tomorrow because I need to do laundry somewhere and I can't send underwear and socks to the laundromat because they are seen as the dirtiest things on the planet and not to be touched by others.
I miss you all at home! I wish you could see some of the things I was talking about..sometimes they are hard to explain.
Aubs
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Aubrey,
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of meat did you dip in the sauce? What other kinds of meat are eaten in Thailand? What kinds of vegetables are eaten?
Chris
Well we dipped balls of sticky rice in this red sauce with pork in it that was incredible. We also had pork curry, fried chicken, Oyster salad (which is vegetables fried in oyster sauce), candied fried rice noodles, fried bananas, pumpkin, etc. The vegetables are all really fresh. Examples include things like cabbage, pumpkin, cucumber, lettuce, basil, onions (lots of onions), and lots of other ones that you probably have never seen. The fruits are the most foreign to me. Apparently there is a fruit that is banned from trains and all public spaces because it smells so bad, but it tastes good. They also have Champu with a rising inflection which means rose pear apple which are amazing, not to be confused with Champu downward inflection which means pink. A lot of seafood is eaten mostly crab (paa) and some sort of gill fish that I don't know the name in English. Mostly pork is sold on the street by vendors and also tofu a lot but boiled in pork fat so it tastes like pork. Chicken in pretty rare but beef is even more rare. All the meat is very fresh and delicious!
ReplyDeleteAubs
That was an excellent description! The food sounds fabulous. I hope you will be able to prepare some authentic Thai food for us when you get home. Love, Chris
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