The Thai people are very friendly and affable. After all, they like to refer to Thailand as the Land of Smiles. People did not smile as much as I expected. However, I did read that they avoid conflict and strive for a peaceful resolution to any disagreement. While the country is 99% Buddhist, they are proud of the fact that the king has decreed religious tolerance. There are Muslims in southern Thailand and there are a quite a few Christians. While the Thais are very tolerant, I did find a few areas where the Thais are very fixed and unyielding in some very subtle things. One good example is that sometimes a Thai food dish is served with a specific sauce. After you order, they come back with one or more small dishes of sauce. One of them is usually a dish of nam pla plik (fish sauce with sliced chilies) that is a staple with Thai food. The other sauces are intended for specific dishes and the Thais will go out of their way to make sure that you eat the dish with the correct sauce. Eating the dish with no sauce or with the wrong sauce is discouraged. I also experience this when we got back to the US. One of my favorite dishes in Thailand was fish balls in green curry sauce that we had at a restaurant along the river in Ayutthaya. It was blazing hot but wonderful. I really wanted to have some back here in the US. I consulted a couple of Thai cookbooks I had. Lucia was amazed that I had tried Thai cooking in a past life. I couldn’t find fish balls in green curry but I did find a recipe for fish balls in sour curry sauce. So I figured that if I substituted green curry for the sour curry, I would have my fish balls with green curry. The only problem was that the recipe called for tamarind water. When I mentioned that I was looking for tamarinds or tamarind paste and what it was for, she was adamant that you never use tamarind with green chili sauce. By this time, I had discovered that you can find tamarinds any grocery store that has a good Mexican food section. I even found them at Albertson’s where they had them next to the bulk chili peppers. I made my own tamarind water and wondered if I would even notice next to the heat of the green curry paste. In the end, I realized that the tamarind water was intended to be used with the sour curry and decided not to use it with the green curry. But I will never forget Lucia’s reaction to the idea of mixing tamarind with green curry. But I really shouldn’t be surprised by her reaction. She was appalled because the chef put some tomatoes (or at least something red) in the porridge she had for breakfast at the Asia Airport Hotel. The Thai porridge is basically rice soup so it has a white color. Apparently, the hotel had a new chef who had been working there for only a week but already he was getting tired of making the same porridge every morning. So he tried to do something different. Lucia was indignant and acted as if he had committed a mortal sin.
Before going to Thailand, I had read that the Thais revere the royal family. I read that the Thais are careful with their money so they don’t mar the face of the king on the Thai bills. I even read that post office employees would take off and reattach postage stamps if they were put on upside down or they felt that the way they were attached did not show proper respect for the king. But Americans (and more specifically me) probably don’t realize how deep this veneration of the royal family goes. In America, we respect and revere our heroes such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, our President, and even the Lone Ranger and Superman. But in Thailand, they don’t just revere their heroes, they deify them. I think you have to go to Thailand to realize how deep this goes and, even then, we probably wouldn’t fully appreciate it. I first started to realize this when we went to the???? National Park near Chiang Mai. There, the Thais built two monuments – one for the king and one for the queen and they are adjacent to each other. Just outside the park, they sell flowers that you are expected to buy and then place in front of the statues built to honor the king and queen. After driving to the monuments, we first went to the monument for the queen. After climbing a long set of stairs, we got to an area that provided a nice view of the hills surrounding the monuments. I wanted to take pictures of the trees from this vantage point and proceeded to set up my camera. Chai, our guide, wanted to go into the monument to pay our respects to the queen. He was rather insistent about it. Apparently, he told Lucia that he was afraid that flowers we got would wilt. I took my pictures but it did dawn on me that Chai was a little upset with me because I was supposed to show my respects to the queen first and then take my photographs. Once I realized this, I quickly took my pictures, hurried into the monument, and placed my flower on top the rest of the flowers that people had left. Later we went down the stairs and up the stairs to the king’s monument. Lucia had to go to the bathroom but said that she would catch up. So I went up the stairs with Chai. Having learned my lesson, I fully intended to first go up to the king’s statue to pay my respects before I even thought about taking any pictures. But to my amazement, Chai just started to walk around the promenade that surrounded the monument and made no attempt to go into the monument until Lucia re-joined us and even then he did not seem to be in a hurry. I am not sure if this was because the king is not as revered (deified) as the king or what. But if you are in Thailand, just remember to make sure you pay your respects to the royal family before doing anything else.
This deification does not just extend to the royal family. Several Buddhist priests are similarly deified. At several wats, there are statues of these priests gilded in gold. The Buddhists seem to hold these priests in the same regard as they do Buddha himself. Throughout Thailand, I saw that the Buddhists were either building new temples (or wats) or adding new structures to the old ones. The Buddhists build the temples to honor the image of Buddha. But sometimes I got the, perhaps mistaken, impression that over the centuries they have been on a never ending quest to keep building bigger and better temple to better honor Buddha. We went to the ancient palace in Ayutthaya that was built in the 14th century and destroyed by the Burmese in 1767. Stone statues lined the inner walls of the palace. The heads of all the statues had been knocked off. There are signs telling the visitors not to pose behind the statues so they can take pictures of their heads and the body of the statues. I loved it because I really did want to see the ancient wats and palaces. Beside, by this time I had tired of the endless wats that we had seen. When I went to Japan, I went to many shrines. After I had been there a while, remember someone asking me if I was "shrined-out". Well by this time I had seen so many wats my "Wow, what a wat" went to "Wat me worry?" So seeing some ancient structures was a welcome relief. However, at one point, Lucia seemed to want to leave and go to see other wats in Ayutthaya. She said that she felt that the palace did not show proper respect to Buddha. This was surprising because Lucia converted to Catholicism as a young adult. There were statues of Buddha at the corners of the palace. The Burmese apparently attempted to burn these statues, probably because the head on the Buddha’s were too large to knock off. Maybe they didn’t show proper respect to Buddha but that was understandable in light of the fact that the Burmese really trashed the place. Later she admitted that she felt the palace had too many ghosts. When we go back to Thailand, I want to spend more time in Ayutthaya. I would also like to go to Sukhothai, an ancient town midway between Bangkok and Chiang Mai.
When we were staying at Ao Nang beach near Krabi, we went to a bar along
the beach to have a few drinks. Lucia pointed out that they had a
picture of Rama V, who is revered by the people. She had already told me
that the Thais frequently hung a picture of Rama V in restaurants, bars,
and stores for good luck. I had a moment of inspiration and told Lucia
that I wanted to get a picture of Rama V and give it to the owners of
the 6740, a restaurant/bar that I frequent in uptown Whittier. I thought
they would appreciate having it, especially when I told them that the
Thais thought it would bring good luck. Lucia dumped big time on what I
thought was a friendly gesture and I was really taken back by her
response. I hadn’t expected it at all. She told me that it would not
bring good luck unless you believed that it would bring good luck. She
also told me that they would not pay the picture proper respect because
you are also supposed to offer flowers and food to the picture to show
proper respect. I had this thought that the 6740 owners could toast the
picture of Rama V with a beer every day but I decided it would be better
to keep my mouth shut. In the end, I decided to abandon my idea. So this
deification of kings runs deep in Thailand.