Life in Phana

Don't tell them it's nearly Christmas in Phana

Once again several strands of my life have coincided seemingly with the promise of good things to come. The last few years Pensri and I have hosted a Christmas lunch for the two young volunteers in Phana. Add and his wife Nit come along too (and sometimes bring along some wine and sticky rice!) and last year their elder daughter and a friend came too. I had recently read this post on Raising Turkeys in Thailand which I found on Women Learning Thai ... so my mind was definitely on turkey.

We have tried the frozen turkey you can get at Big C in Ubon, but we only have a tiny electric oven and anyway frozen turkey is not ideal. Last year we had roast pork and I think that was pretty succesful. We had more or less decided against the turkey and in favour of pork when I started a diet (you can see that HERE) and pork is on the forbidden list.

Then on an early-morning bike ride along a road I often cycle or drive along, I came across these on the other side of a fence:

 

They are strange creatures, but magnificent in a very distinctive sort of way. This fella was very proud of himself and srtutted his stuff all around the enclosure:

 

 

We spent some time chatting to the turkey-farmer and his wife and they were happy for me to take lots of photos. I particularly liked poking my camera inside this little maternity unit, although mum was not convinced that my intentions towards her brood were entirely innocent:

 

 

The farmer also showed me a broody turkey hen which had gone off into the vacant lot next door to "free-range" as he put it. However, she had gone to great pains to make herself as invisible as possible and this next photo is the best I could do without disturbing her:

 

 

 

And finally I was encouraged to take this picture of my own hand, which explains why the focus or the shake impairs the quality of the picture:

 

And so, thanks to reading a post on Women Leaning Thai, my diet, and my daily bicycle ride, Christmas lunch is looking good. Except for the gallant turkey we have arranged to collect on Christmas Eve, of course.

 

 

One of the Invisible Men of Thailand

The invisible man of Phana has two daughters, both grown up now, and I met the older one some time before I met him. One year she suddenly appeared each evening at the old market place, selling roti from a small stall. I can't resist the small, thin, plain roti pancakes served with condensed milk and rolled up in stiff white paper. Roti are always made fresh to order so if a few people have ordered before you, you have to wait some time, though you place your order on arrival. So most evenings I would stand by her stall watching her prepare and serve the roti and chatting with her. Her English and my Thai were pretty much at the same level and we got along fine in a mixture of the two languages. I learned that she had completed her secondary schooling in Phana and had gone to study at a college in Bangkok, but she had come back to spend some vacation time with her parents who lived on a farm on the outskirts of Phana. I couldn't understand why I had never seen her before. Once seen she was hard to miss. No other woman in Phana, I thought, wore a hijab, the muslim headscarf.

Our meetings at the old market place continued on a more or less daily basis for a week or so. Then one day she suddenly announced that her father wanted to meet me. That sounded pretty alarming to me: our meetings were pleasant but strictly based on my craving for roti. To be fair, though, I had noticed that at 19 years old she was very attractive and rather sweet. Anyway, it was agreed that we would meet at the local celebration of Loy Kratong because, as she said, her father was "coming out" for that. I only learned later exactly what this "coming out" entailed and what it told me about her father's life in Thailand.

And so we met at the Loy Kratong celebration where he was doing a roaring trade in roti with the help of his wife and their two daughters. In the years since then we have become good friends. We have much in common: outsiders in Phana, and a few English words, many of them, he insists, are in fact Urdu, and sometimes he is right. I go to visit him on his farm and he drops by our house on his way to market. I will call him Al, because that is not his name but I am reminded of a rather meaningless song by Paul Simon on the Graceland album he made back in the last century sometime. I learned the story of his life, some of it illustrated by photos of him as a young man in Bangkok wearing flared trousers, platform shoes, long hair and sideburns.

 

 

Al's family came originally from what is now Pakistan, but he was born in what was then known as East Pakistan. During the civil war which resulted in the creation of the state of Bangladesh, Al, aged about 12, left home together with an uncle and a cousin, leaving behind his parents and sisters. The three of them spent some time in Myanmar before arriving in Bangkok about 5 years later. In Bangkok, Al worked mostly on building sites and got married to a young woman from Phana. His uncle and his cousin both died soon after they got to Bangkok. Al never heard from his family but assumed the worst; it was a very bloody civil war.

I have always been very impressed by the way Al was able to make his way in a strange country, how he became a married man, a father and a farmer, without having any family role models other than his distant childhood memories. (Now, to bring you up to date, he is a father-in-law and a grandfather, too.) I am sure that his religion and the 'family' that it provided, was a major influence in his growing into a mature, law-abiding and well-adjusted adult.

At first, too, I was impressed that Thailand had given a home to this "illegal immigrant". I was much less impressed when I dscovered what he meant by "coming out". He lived in a tiny community of about half a dozen houses on the outskirts of Phana. The farm he worked was owned by his wife who had inherited it from her mother. The local police knew he was there and they knew he was an 'illegal'. They left him alone but if he "came out" they fined him. So of course he rarely did leave the farm, Loy Kratong being a worthwhile exception because the roti trade was so profitable that the fine was worth paying.

I am happy to say that Al is quite legal now and has been for several years. The Thai government (under PM Thaksin) gave work permits to people from the neighbouring ASEAN countries if they were already employed. Al is employed by his wife to manage her farm and of course he came from Myanmar.

So Al is no longer one of Thailand's invisible men. He is able to go to and from the market freely, to drop by my house, to visit his daughter and her family in Buri Ram, and ride his motor-bike to Ubon on Friday to go to the mosque there.

 

 

Thai Festivals in England

Since I was last here in England, a new oriental food store has opened in Exeter. It is run by a friendly and delightful Malaysian-Chinese woman. Exeter University (like every other UK university, I guess) has a high number of Chinese students and they seem to provide most of her customers. But Thais and English people also patronise the shop, and Thai foodstuff is well represented on the shelves and in the refrigerators. Some of the part-time shop assistants are Thai, too.

One of the things I picked up last time I was in there was a free newspaper called Amthaipaper which claims to be the first Thai newspaper in the UK. It comes out monthly and July's issue was the 31st. so it has been around for quite a time without me coming across it. A full-page ad for Chang beer included this:

The distinguished tasting panel of "The Beverage Tasting Institute" described Chang as ...

"Bright golden colour. Honeyed raisin toast aromas with a hint of lychee follow through on a crisp, smooth entry to a dryish medium body with a hint of apple, nut, and a solid roasted grain character. Finishes with a crisp, balanced earthy hop and pizza dough fade. A very nice food beer."

Nice to see that pretentiousness is alive and well. Even nicer to know that if you are accused of drinking too much Chang Beer you can point out that it is mostly a food, with lots of good stuff like honey, fruit, nuts and just a bit of carbohydrate in the pizza dough.

Possibly more useful are two ads that claim to save you money. Flightzone.UKclaims to have the "CHEAPEST AIRFARES GUARANTEED", quoting a special offer of Bangkok for £335.

Calls to Thailand can be made for 1p per minute after you buy £5 credit from auracall. Other countries costing 1p a minute include China, Singapore, USA and Canada.  

A Thai Summer Fair in Bournemouth was advertised but it took place on 1st August so I missed that but Amthai itself is running a 'THAI FAMILY FUN DAY' at Wimbledon Park (near the Thai Temple) on Sunday 29th August from 11 am to 7pm. Amongst the attractions are

• Thai Blue Music (sic)
• Thai Massage
• Thai Boxing
• Thai Cultural Performances
• Thai Products
• And of course ... Thai Food

Oh, and one more thing. There is "Free Tasting" of Chang Beer and Mekhong, too.

See you there?

A spooky story about Thai people abroad

Westerners in Thailand seem to be divided into three kinds when it comes to social interaction with other westerners who are strangers to them. And these differences are most commonly exhibited in Tesco Lotus and Big C stores up-country. There are some who will go out of their way to make contact, by eye, a smile, or a greeting. There is another group (larger?) that will avoid any contact at all costs. A third group doesn't quite know what to do but usually adopts the avoiding practice while feeling a little guilty about doing so. A blog I read recently deals with this whole matter in an interesting and amusing way and you can read it HERE .

This never seems to be a problem for Thais living abroad, at least not when there are very few other Thais in the area. They always seem to seek out others and are completely un-selfconscious about doing so. And they don't get snubbed, except when the 'Thai' turns out to be a Filipino/Filipina.

Here are two people Pensri and I have got to know here in England. Perhaps you can distinguish certain facial characteristics which might suggest why we get on so well together.

Yes, that's right. They are from Isan. (And they only dress like this at Christmas.)

But that is only part of the story. How we came to meet is an example of the kind of spooky occurrence (coincidence seems much too light-weight a word for it) that Thais are prone to.

Pensri woke up one morning and told me that she had been dreaming about her parents' house in Phana.  Nothing unusual in that, almost all her frequent dreams in England are located in Phana and involve her parents.  This dream was about the steep stairs which had been re-located when the house had been extended some forty or more years ago. She went on to say that she had probably dreamed about this because the man who had put in the stairs was the father of Khun Ta Kongrit and she had been thinking about this man a lot in the days before the dream. Why have you been thinking about Khun Ta Kongrit,  I asked. He taught me to write Thai when I was a student at Matayom Phana School, she said. He used to say I was the best writer he had taught. At the time, Pensri was writing a history of Phana, so I could see why she should be thinking along these lines.

Probably because we were thinking about Phana and talking about it, we decided to go to a small town about 20 miles away to have lunch at a Thai restaurant which we had seen but never been to. The owner greeted us and was delighted to hear Pensri say she came from Amnat Charoen Province because his wife did, too. In fact she came from Amphur Muang Amnat Charoen. I'm from Phana, said Pensri. That's amazing, he said, because my wife's brother is married to a woman from Phana and she is our head chef here. Naturally, she was brought out to meet us. And that is how we have become friends.

She is the youngest daughter of Khun Ta Kongrit!

The restaurant is at Pershore, and is called Thai Legend. It is one of the best (most authentic) Thai restaurants I have come across in England, and the head chef is great.

Nam Prik Thai Relish

Nam Prik is a very important side-dish in Thailand but there are almost as many different nam prik as there are cooks preparing it. In Phana it is very important, too. In Phana it is known as JAEOW and I love it because of all the chillies and vowels it contains. The Thai version has too many consonants for my taste. Pensri learned to prepare a jaeow when we lived in Vientiane, though the friend who taught her came originally from Xiang Khuang, so the recipe probably came from there as well. The main difference between this jaeow and others I have had is that it uses tomatoes. So the finished dish is reddish in colour whereas most of the Phana ones are greenish. Luckily for me, we are able to get all the ingredients for jaeow in the UK. 

Here is how Pensri made some recently.

The ingredients are few and very simple: lots of chillies, plenty of garlic, an onion, a tomato, half a lemon, some thin soy sauce, salt and sugar.

Roast the chillies and garlic in a pan:

 

At the same time, grill the onion and the tomato:

 

Grind the roasted chillies, garlic and the chopped onion:
 

 

Add the tomatoes and the juice of half a lemon. Then add a pinch of salt, a smidgeon of sugar and about 4 dessert spoons of the soy sauce, all to taste.
  Grind all these ingredients together.

 

Garnish with a sprig of mint:

Eat with steamed and fresh vegetables and white fish (steamed, grilled or fried) and serve with sticky rice (in Phana) or your choice of sticky rice or steamed jasmine rice in UK:

 

While eating, you should murmur, or, better still, exclaim "Aroi Mahk" (in Thailand) or "Saeb saeb" or "Saeb lai" (in Phana or UK).

 

 

 

 

Community Fishing Day

In my last post, I mentioned that from the top of Phu Lon mountain in Si Muang Mai District of Ubon Ratchathani Province, I could see some large lakes. I did not mention that I could just about make out lots of people in and around the lakes and I could hear music interspersed with loudspeaker announcements. Lots of people, loud music (it must have been loud because I was a long way away) and announcemnts ... it sounds like a Thai fesival of some sorts, doesn't it. So when we had finished looking around Phu Lon, we went off to find out what was going on.

 

 

 

 

We didn't really find out what was going on, but in addition to what you can see in these pictures there were a few food stalls and lots of families getting ready to barbecue any fish their menfolk caught.

In Phana there are a few small communities which once a year throw their fish ponds open to the public. Anyone can come along and for a fee (usually 100 Baht) they can catch as many fish as they want or are able to. And as here in Si Muang Mai, it becomes a fun day out for families. Usually they catch more fish than they need so they are able to offer some to neighbours and relatives. The fees which are collected are shared amongst the community owning the fish pond.

Picnic in Phana turns political

Just before we left Phana for our summer sojourn in England, Khun Prachoenlab, the mayor of Phana Municipality, invited us to a picnic on his farm. The mayor is no farmer, he is a lawyer and, I suspect, an aspiring politician on a bigger stage. But many people in Phana have farms but are not, themselves, farmers. It is not difficult to find someone who will farm your land for you. Many people who really are farmers are able to farm more land than they own, especially if they have several family members who can help them, and if they have no other full-time occupation. More often than not it is relatives who do the farming, partly because their own fields are likely to be nearby; and also because in some sense it continues the custom of helping each other with the labour required in the fields. When someone farms your fields for you, it is customary that they keep two-thirds of the crop and you get the remainder. The rice they harvest on your land is usually surplus to their own needs so it can be sold, and this is how they can generate extra cash.

In the past, people in Phana would spend several nights sleeping in a hut in their fields during the harvest. They rarely do that nowadays because they can get to their fields quite easily by motorbike and often even by pick-up truck. I'm told that it was considered really sanuk to sleep like that out in the fields, and to have your meals there. So nowadays it is quite common for people to invite others to share a picnic with them out in their fields in the dry season after the harvest. And so it was that the mayor came to have a picnic in a new sala he had had built next to his fields, and most importantly, next to his fish pond.

It was a small group at the picnic. We had one of Pensri's sisters from Bangkok with us as well as a younger sister and her husband from Ubon. Our friends Add and Nid were there and so was a  mayor  from a nearby tetsaban. Our mayor seems to be confusing his role with that of sheriff. I don't know what the germanic-looking shirt is all about but the ceremonial pakamaa asserts his farming credentials.

 

 

 

These picnics in the field invariably rely heavily on fish. And on men to catch and grill them.

The fish was served in a variety of ways and we all tucked in.

But my favourite on the day was this laab made of red ants, red ant eggs, a little minced fish and the usual herb ingredients. Delicious. Saeb saeb, as we say in these parts.

We had finished our meal when news came through that our two MPs were in Phana opening a small road project in one of the villages, sponsored by the National Housing Authority. The senior of the two MPs (they are father and son), Suthat Ngeunmuen, is a former Minister of Justice and what Americans would call Phana's favourite son. He lives in Amnat Chaoen now, and is returned to parliament on the party list. The news came through  the tetsaban radio and by means of the radio he was invited to join our picnic. The tables were hastily cleared and then set up again with just the one place laid. As always enough food was found somehow. Our mayor took off his hat and put on a jacket, as did the other mayor. Pensri rushed home to get some copies of her History of Phana to give him.There was a sudden injection of excitement into the occasion as you can perhaps detect.

 When Pensri gave them to him he asked for them  be dedicated (in English,he insisted) and signed by Pensri. The first he wanted dedicated to Khun Abhisit (Prime Minister), the second to Khun Chuan (former Prime Minister) the third to a former Deputy PM, and then Pensri signed one for him and one for his son. It seems unlikely that Khun Abhisit has found time to read it yet.

And then before leaving Khun Suthat sat down for a photo op with us all:

 

We sat around for a little while afterwards, picking over some of the things he had said. There was nothing very revealing, of course, although he did say that after thirty-whatever years in politics this was the first time he had no idea at all how things were going to turn out.  

 

Hunting down dinner in Isan

As the weather gets hotter, young men in Isan turn to violence, probably in order to prove themselves, I suppose. They roam the countryside looking for likely victims. Some of the young men arm themselves with long, thin, sharply-pointed sticks. Others prefer to use a catapault and small stone. I believe that whichever their choice of weapon, they are after the same prey.

Just recently this young man was in the overgrown vacant lot next to our house. He and a friend were on a hunting expedition. The friend seemed to be there in the capacity of scout and lookout. He was quite modest about his contribution and turned down my offer to take his photograph. The young man's skill with the catapault can be in no doubt. He was carrying his 'catch' in the small basket he is holding in his right hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The chameleons may look quite large in closeup, but then if you refer back to the basket you will get some idea of how accurate he needs to be, something which is belied by the seemingly casual way that he takes aim and fires.

He will be making a useful contribution to the family's diet when he takes these home. Hunting and gathering is still part of the way of life in rural Isan.

Little-known Thai Tourist Destination

 

My Pics of the Day this week were all taken at stalls at Kaeng Sapheu, a popular riverside venue at the town of Phibun Mangsahan, in Ubon Ratchathani Province.

Check them out by using the tab at the top of the page.

 

 

 

People come here especially in the dry season when the River Mun is low and the rocks exposed.

 

 

 

 

There are several different facilities for visitors, including toilets at 3 Baht a time (Thai and foreigner, you will be pleased to know) and these rubber rings and bathing clothes. Most people bathe in the clothes they came in, though.

 

 

In the park overlooking the river you can have fabulous lunch-time food (and drink), the specialities being laab (of course, this is Isan) and prawns of various sizes and cooked (or not) in several different ways.

One of the most colourful sights here is the Chinese temple which overlooks the river.

 

 

The town of Phibun Mangsahan is renowned for the salabow made here. You can find them all over town. Some of the best are close to the bridge and the old bus station, both close to Kaeng Sapheu. The road to Ubon (via Warin Chamrap) has loads of little outlets at the roadside stretching up the hill out of town for about one kilometer. In both cases the passing tourist trade is being targeted.

 

 

 

 

 

These steamers in one small outlet give you some idea of the scale of production.

Something else that the town of Phibun is famous for is foreigners. Across the river from the park is the Kaeng Sapheu Hotel which has a mini-village in its grounds specially built a few years back to provide homes for Japanese retirees. And I have heard rumours of a nearby village where almost a hundred Scandanavians (Norwegians, mostly, I believe) spend much or all of their time. I suppose that one of the attractions is that Phibun is the lower eastern Isan home to the Thai Immigration Department, the place to go to renew or extend your visa. And just a few kms down the road is the Chong Mek border crossing to southern Laos.
 

Pic of the Day 1-7 March 2010

These are the first week's Pic of the Day for this month. I plan to post at the end of each week in case you have missed them. Click on a thumbnail to see an enlarged image.

All this week's pics were taken in Phana with the exception of the 'welcome to this house' sign which was on a beautiful new house in a village on the way to Ubon Ratchathani.

You can see them as well as the new Pic of the Day by using the tab at the top of this page.