Who needs a title for this gem?

"Ya know.... sometimes I just like the warm wetness on my chest...." - Bear on not having tissues handy.

Being (really) white in the golden Land of Smiles

Looking back over the nearly seven months living in Bangkok one thing that stands out is, well, me. Just hear me out; being a young (most westerners here are older), white (really, really white these days), tall guy with light brown hair and blue eyes - let's just say people notice. Those aren't exactly common features among the Thais. Ok, enough about me - let me generalize to being white here in Thailand and what it means in the day-to-day life.

I suppose I should first start out by stating something else I've learned while being here. I now believe there is nowhere in the world where racism isn't prevelent. It's all a matter of how people deal with it. For example, Thai people joke about how "black" their friends are, as if it means they are also inherantly stuped because their skin is darker. They even give each other nicknames and the darkest one from a group of friends will be called "Dam" or "Dam-Dam" meaning black. Imagine if we referred to our friends as Darky or something back in the States - I don't think that would fly. The Thai people also go to extreme lengths to lighten their skin. At super markets and high end department stores, there are entire walls dedicated to skin whitenning creams and bleaches. There are even dermatology centers that offer laser whitenning processes that are openned 24 hours a day - and the waiting room is always packed.
Anytime someone steps out of their office, they hold a clip board or jacket up to shield the sun from hitting their faces... heaven forbid the rays of the sun touch their golden skin and turn it a bit more copper! I also overhear conversations about people of other Asian countries are so beautiful because their skin is lighter or so ugly because they are darker... it would seem that everyone in the world would like to be white - unless, of course, you are white and then you go to great lengths to darken that pastiness to look a bit more "ethnic."

Back to the original point: my experiences being white in Thailand. As it turns out, there are some fairly valid reasons for the Thais to want to be more fair-toned. Anytime I go to a club that requires ID (and I always forget to bring mine - passports are a pain to carry), I'm immediately let in without a question. 90% of the time, they don't even ask me if I have my ID. Also, at these same clubs they often pat-down the customers for weapons, and I'm yet to be touched at one of them. I guess because I'm white, I'm no threat. Hell, we get treated a bit like celebrities and even are escorted past lines of people waiting to get in - without ourselves waiting a moment. You can't help but feel a little bad, but I guess it helps explain the obsession over the skin whitenning products...

There are other benefits to being white here too. Just the other day, our money was rejected at a favorite street-side noodle stand. The owner said it was a gift, and we soon figured out that having two white guys dressed in nice business attire eating there was in turn good for his business. Another example of our whiteness affecting our dining experiences; at any number of restaurants that J.W. and I frequent for lunch or dinner, this funny thing often happens within minutes of us sitting down. The music will suddenly shift from whatever Thai rock or Thai sappy music was playing to English music. It doesn't matter if there are forty Thai people there and we are the only two people in the place that speak English - we are getting English music. The only problem with that is that the music is most likely some mid 90's Whitney Huston or similar soft rock that just isn't worth listening to for anyone, white or Thai. I take that back - Thais love sappy English songs about love-lost and longing.

Taxis. Undoubtably, a taxi driver 8 out of 10 times will pull up to the white person before they will pull up to the Thai person if they are standing on the same side of the street waiting. Now the reasons for this is plain enough - white people tip more and prestige. Just like it is fashionable among younger Thais (particularly women) to date a white person (usually man), it is seen as a bit of a social booster for the taxi to be seen around his area of town with a couple of pale people in the back seats.

The truth is I could go on and on (many of you are thinking I already have), but I'll skip ahead to the other side of things. There are the drawbacks, few that they may be, to being white here in Thailand - and they all center on one thing. Money. Living here, you quickly either get used to or get fed up with the fact that when given the option, you will be charged more for the same item/service as a Thai person. It is not so much that you are being ripped off all the time (though it can happen), but that it goes along with the Thai culture. Those who can give, should give. They just don't really present the option. In fact, just tonight a friend of mine asked how much we paid for our office sofa and coffee table. When I told her she said, "next time you want to buy anything, call me. Because you are foreigner, the price will always be too high." Simple as that - we are white so we get the benefits but there is, quite literally, a price to pay.

Post a comment or two!
~Bear

Yellow Skin Cream

Last night at the Journeys Within B & B in Camboida, I'm lying in my bed reading when my cousin Brandon comes and knocks on my door. He says you have to come down to the kitchen and see Mon. Now at this point I already know that Mon is probably close to the dumbest girl I've ever met. Like little yellow school bus dumb. But she always has a smile and she is a damn good worker. So when I get downstairs, the whole kitchen wreaks of mustard.

"Why does it smell like mustard?" I ask to Brandon. He just laughs and then appears Mon.

She's in the bathroom washing off a shitload mustard off her arms and face.

"What the hell?" I say, as the whole Cambodian staff is in stiches.

Then she runs out and hits Pwon, who is laughing on the floor.

Brandon finally explains what's going on. When Mon was cleaning the food from the guest's room, there was a small jar of mustard near the finished food, so she picked it up and brought it back to the kitchen. When she asked Pwon what it was, he told her it was skin cream. And since the guests had left, she absconded the strange new, funky smelling substance. She then appartently showered and being freshly cleaned, continued to smear the whole jar of yellow dijon onto her arms, hands, and face.

Talk about a beautiful practical joke. Perfect candidate for the victim. Perfect execution. She smelled worse than a dirty German after a day's housing at Oktoberfest.

J-Dub learns about teachers in Cambodia and is saddened

So I'm in Cambodia right now, finding the best and brightest of the youth in Cambodia. We are expanding our scholarship porgram. It is a wonderful project. Donors from all over the world sponsor over-achieving Cambodian students to go university. The idea is to give the students of today the opportunities to be the future leaders in a country fraught with corruption, ignorance, and poverty.

In the Cambodia of today, the government continually proves untrustworthy in its investment in the education system. Take for instance how the government teachers conduct classes (K-12). Let's start with pay. Each teacher is paid $30 a month for their services, if they are the lucky. The luck factor comes into play depending on the location of the school. If they live close to Phnom Penh then there is a good chance that they will be paid on time, in full. If they live further from the capitol, then there is a good chance that the money will be delayed (the rainy season especially contributes to the lack of accessible transportation) or the money will be short (there is no governmental post office) so there may be 'shipping' charges. Roughly $30 a month isn't much money, even in a developing country.

To compensate for the nominal pay, teachers are forced to charge students for private lessons. This means that during class, the teacher will explain the name of the lesson and state the principle without without giving examples or giving proper explaination. So the students who want to learn more must pay the teachers for private sessions. This is how the teachers supplement their income. However, the problem is that the students who have the money for private lessons pay the teachers directly for high marks and skip the lessons entirely. This means the families with more money pay the teachers for good grades, but the students don't even bother going to the private lessons and fail to grasp the concepts. This goes on, but there is little that anyone can do to surmount the problem because the government would rather the NGOs come in and build schools to save money. And even more dipressing part is that everyone knows that this happens and assums it is like this everywhere.

If that doesn't shock you, listen to this: two years ago the government had a census and found that the 1 million students that entered Secondary School, only 50,000 graduated High School. How about those stellar stats? Yeah, that's a 95% attition rate. . .

So as you begin to understand, the education system needs improvement. I've audited a few of the university classes and they are encouraging. The students are there to learn and in general very committed to improving thier economic and social situation. The quality of education is much better and lessons are explained with pretty well and there is a good amount of discussion. It is with these students that my hope remains.

~ J-dub

Where did Bear go?

Perhaps the fact that Bear hasn't posted in the last, uh..., like 4 months is due to the fact that he's been too busy posing for Abercrombie.

"It was during my first time in the 2nd grade, I caught my reflection in a spoon while eating my cereal, and I remember thinking, 'Wow, you are ridiculously good-looking. Maybe you can do that for a career.'" - Zoolander

J-Dub's B-Day

The big 25!

Waiting... a long time for a poignant movie about the restaurant industry that is all laughs

Bear and I just got back from a hilarious movie called, "Waiting". Rotten Tomatoes gave it terrible reviews (one even thought it was worse than Deuce Bigalow II to give you an idea), so we didn't have our hopes up too high. The movie follows the lives and social scene from an employee's perspective of your average corporate restaurant. If you have ever worked in a restaurant before, you will laugh your ass off seeing this film.

While the jokes tend to play out one ball joke followed by another, the movie did succeed at nailing down the archetype characters you would find any restaurant. The lame, "I don't know what I'm going to do with my life so I'm stuck here" server. The smoking hot hostess who everyone wants to touch, but is underage. The alcoholic, angry server who yells at everyone and everything until she reaches her table to put on her fake smile and personality. The "God... I'm too cool for school" server who is loved by everyone and makes his own rules. The hot server who tempts dudes with touch for tips. The nice, cute, down to earth server who gets the shittiest tables again and again. The manager who hides his sad little self behind the his perogatives of draconian power based on schedule changes and write-ups ("I bet he's crying himself to sleep on his cock-shaped pillow" ). The new trainee whom everyone ignores. The kitchen staff who are completely mentally unstable. And the bus-boys who are as high as kites.

Now having worked in a restaurant for some time (2 years at Applebees, a summer in Scotland, and 1 year at the Rainforest Cafe), let me tell you the life as a server is a lifestyle that is trapping. It's one where you find yourself in a routine with no end in sight, trapped by the comforts of a fat wad of cash in your pocket at the end of every night. Hidden beneath the fog of male anatomy jokes, I think this tends to be the underlying point of the film. Each night at the end of the shift, a different bar awaits you with different drink specials and bartenders who know your name. If it was a good night, you buy your friends drinks. If by chance you had a few bad tables, Jack Daniels is always there to comfort you. The commrodery and the drama always makes things exciting. If you work in a big restaurant, there are always new people coming and going, so you are never bored by the same old faces. There's no lull in the conversations after work because you can always bitch about the managers or the scapegoat who everyone picks on.

In essese, the actual work of serving tables is the bastard part, and is almost never a labor of love. The love comes after work, where all the laughs extrude among the pint glasses and the worry levels drop from 9 to 1. There is but not a care in the world until the next shift starts. And the best part is you don't have to wake up until noon.

That is about the only thing I miss about working nights in a restaurant- waking up late, making a big pot of coffee in the morning, reading the paper, and having a cigarette on the stoop. And to be honest, I enjoyed the lifestyle as a thing of the past- the laughs, all the different personalities of friends, the post-bar-closing tea-time with the Cowell brothers, the cash, the lifestyle.

But those days are done, and I'm glad I don't work in a restaurant anymore.

~ J-dub

Do they make a Hot Pocket this flavor?

Ok, so this posting is long overdue seeing as how I
was in Thailand a month ago and my memory gets weaker
every Friday/Saturday (why is that?).  I have been
invited to do a guest blog about an experience I had
during my visit that will be hard to forget: Thai
Drunk Food.

Now if you have ever decided to drink more alcohol
than your mother would like you to (which 99.99%
percent of the 5 people reading this have), you should
have a pretty good idea about Drunk Food.  It’s that
last-ditch effort to compensate for all the alcohol in
your stomach by filling it up with the most unhealthy
yet delicious meal you can find at 2:30 A.M. (like
greasy pizza or Del Taco).  When I lived and schooled
in Davis, a popular spot was the 24-hour convenience
store a few blocks from the bars that offered expired
food at twice the price.  Of course, after a long
night of drinking, it was like Thanksgiving dinner in
there.  My point is, at that time of night and in that
condition, we all know we are willing to eat our own
fists if they were dipped in ranch dressing.

Now that we have been reminded of that state we often
find ourselves in, I will take you back to a few weeks
ago in the Ratchada district of Bangkok, where John
and I spent a lovely night out with two wacky Thai
girls.  We had just blown an ass load of baht drinking
at the popular 400 Club and had decided we were at our
limit.  The four of us worked our way down the stairs
and into the busy streets of Bangkok.  While we
scanned the area for available taxis, my eyes stopped
on a man riding a red motorcycle with a glass covered
side car.  A small light in the glass case allowed me
to check out who was riding shotgun with our late
night entrepreneur: large tins of various fried bugs.
Ew.  So I bump John on the shoulder and point the
sidecar and go “Look man!  Thai drunk food!”  John
pretends to think I am funny and laughs but then the
girls notice my actions and run over to the cart in
excitement.  They start pointing to different trays
and the man fills a little French fry tray with each
bug they desire.  Then he pours some sort of powdered
seasoning over them and suddenly our lady-friends are
proud owners of an insect massacre.

We hop in a taxi and the girls start going at them.
John and I look at each other like they had just
pulled knives on us and wonder where this is going to
head.  Then, before I knew it, the girl next to me is
popping Jiminy Cricket into my mouth.  I have no
choice but to chomp down on it and bust him apart into
a mess of wings, legs and shell (thankfully no top hat
and cane).  Hmmm, not bad.  A little grainy, but the
seasoning kinda makes it taste like popcorn.  She pops
another one in.  This one is a grub of some sort.  It
explodes in my mouth like a flavor bomb, releasing his
gooey content all over my tongue.  Ok, that wasn’t
cool.  I’m out.  She pops one more in.  By now I am
just trying to be nice and pretend I am enjoying them
while I gulp them down before I realize what I am
chewing.

Eventually I draw the line and decide I’m full and the
girls polish off the rest.  I wonder to myself, if
they came to the US, how would they survive at 2:00
A.M.?  While we are all heading to Jack in the Box,
would they be running into the back alleys and fields
searching out the perfect meal?  Ok, probably not.
But that is just a glimpse of what’s happening on the
other side of the world.  And I am happy I tried it.
Hell, I’ll do it again… so long as I have had my
bottle of Johnny Black and a few tall Singhas.

~ Frenchy

[Note: Pictures are from a different day, but exactly
the same concept]

Johnny D's Been Working Out

In a surprising transformation, Johnny D is HUGE!!!

~ J-Dub

Best Christmas Present

My sweet lady-friend gave me a christmas present before I left home for the States. She wrapped the gift in really nice wrapping paper along with a bow on top, and I was completely surprised that she would get me anything considering there are more Mormons than Christians in Thailand.

To my utter gut-wrenching laughter, I opened the present to find.... a pink tricycle with a schoolgirl clock on the front wheel and a styro-foam light attached to the back wheels. See above pic. I cannot over-emphasize how hard I laughed when I took it out of the box and how long I continued to laugh while trying to find a plug to turn it on. I think she didn't quite know how to react to my reaction, but when she asked if I liked it, I just laughed harder.

Wow, got to give it to the Thai's for their style. How can you top a present like this?

~ J-Dub

Christmas Photos

Check out the new Christmas Photos at my Flickr site.

Christmas Report

J-Dub is having a fantastic time while back in the States. He was able to see almost everyone he could and spent some qt with the fam. But the trip was not without mishaps. He and his fam escaped the rains and floods after narrowly fleeing the Russian River and heading up to Sacramento. The trip (which usually takes 2 hours) totaled 6 hours. There was stop and go traffic along Highway 80 up til the point where the whole West bound lanes were submersed in water and spilling over into the East bound lanes. I've never seen anything like that before on Highway 80.

But we are alright now, and I just got a new 30 gig iPod with the Video capabilities. Yes, I hate Apple, but I capitulated. I must admit it's pretty sweet.

Pictures of the trip are on the way...

~ J-Dub