Number 39

In a shocking development today it rained in Chiang Mai. Pretty much all day. The Thai's were surprised as it's the cool season and it doesn't rain. Everyone was dragging and at some point today, each of the Thai's fell asleep for awhile. I'd never seen them do that before.

I needed to go to mail a few packages and letters to Vietnam. Since it was raining I drove. Moon came with to translate for me as the people at the place you send packages from don't speak English. You'll notice I didn't say Post Office or UPS or FEDEX or even DHL. I'm not sure what this place was. It's a little hole in the wall in the basement at the Central market and I didn't see any stamps or Commercial name on anything. Oh well, Moon assured me that they mail packages to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from there all the time and they always get delivered. My favorite part was when I had Moon ask if there was a way I could know that the package had been received. The woman smiled knowingly and told Moon yes there was. She said I should call the people I sent them to and ask them, and they would know.

I worked on a report Bruce wants to submit to some Foundation to get more money for the University in Hanoi and dealt with a problem that Aom was having with some volunteers who are coming in January. Ei Ei had never had American food and I had some pasta I wanted to use up so I made dinner. She had never seen anyone cook American food so she asked if she could watch. I told her of course she could and headed into the kitchen. The kettle I needed to boil the pasta in was soaking in the sink having been used for some rice dish at lunch. I picked it up and started to wash it. She came in and got this strange look of horror on her face and insisted that she wash it. So, for the 9th or 10th time, since I've been in Southeast Asia, I had to have the discussion about how men also can cook and clean and that women shouldn't have to do everything in the kitchen regardless of cultural norms. The irony of my being the spokesman for the Women's Movement is not lost on me. She was really uncomfortable watching me finish washing and then almost horrified to see me cutting onions and chopping garlic. I asked her what she thought I meant when I said I was going to cook dinner and she said she had no idea but it never occurred to her that I would actually be cutting and slicing and dicing. I've seen this a lot in my travels and I still can't get used to it. The men sit and the women wait on them. Oh, wait a minute, maybe I could learn to get used to it....

So Moon and Gary broke up a few weeks ago. She came in this morning and took me aside and told me she had to talk about something. It seems her friend Ronnie, confessed his love for her last night and told her he would wait patiently while she got to know him. He said a bunch more but it all sounded pretty genuine and not tailored to get in her pants. Anyway, I suggested she invite him to come "clubbing" with us tonight and she did. They were to meet at the BABSEA house and we'd all go in the car. He showed up first and he's black. I've only seen a few black people in Chiang Mai, or for that matter in any of my travels on this trip, outside of African people in the Bangkok airport. It never occurred to her to mention that he was black when she was describing him. And we Americans are supposed to be the enlightened society.

He turns out to be a pretty nice guy who was raised by a Jewish woman around the corner from Kanter's Deli in LA. I told him "what a small world, I also was raised by a Jewish woman". After that we got along great. We started at the Blues Club but Chai decided the band wasn't going to play unless enough people showed up. It was 9:15 and the place was empty. So we drove to the Reggae Club which had one of the bands I like but was only about 1/2 full. It seems that these clubs, which are almost exclusively patronized by farang, were having a bad weekend because many of the local farang had gone back to their home countries for Xmas. So we went to the Jazz Club, near the North Gate of the Old City, that I had been to with Don and Bruce. They get a fair amount of Thai's so the place was pretty full and the band was really good. We stayed until the last song and headed back to the house.

A quiet, rainy day in Chiang Mai. Still all and all a pretty decent one.