To squat or to sit? This is the question.

Across Asia we often encounter these signs;

     Westerners think they are funny and don't understand why they are nessesary.  Well my friends, I have a story for you.

     When we were in Thailand we went on a day trip to some nearby islands.  It was beautiful, breathtaking and relaxing.  Then we went to lunch.  There were many tour groups stopped at this particular resort for lunch.  Because it was Chinese National Holiday there were many Chinese people visiting Thailand.   At this particular spot multiple tour groups were stopping for lunch so we encountered large herds of Chinese tourists.

     Now, living in China I realize that I have made a choice to live here and for the most part try to accept their culture and know that I am the outsider.  I get frustrated and realize that I am making generalizations when culture shock is at it worst but when I leave my apartment in China I expect to be smacked in the face with Chinese culture.  I wasn't expecting this in Thailand.  I mean, I left China for a break from China.

     So anyway, back to my story.  I went to wait in line for the bathroom and right outside of the bathroom, in the dining room, a woman had propped her 6-8 year old daughter over the trashcan to use as a toilet.  I am not sure if you know this but 6-8 year old girls don't have the best of aim in ideal situations so you can imagine the mess that was made IN THE DINING ROOM.

    Okay, okay, that is one Chinese person of Billions I get it....deep breathe...patience....count to ten....
So I continue waiting in line for the bathroom and it is taking a really long time.  All of the women before me are Chinese.  I can't figure out what they must be doing in the bathroom that is taking so long.  Some of the women are wearing one-piece swimming suits but still, that cannot explain why everyone is in there for 5+ minutes.     I am hungry and I have to pee, my patience is wearing thin.

     My turn finally comes I turn into the stall and there are two sand footprints on top of the toilet seat.  A perfectly good toilet seat has now been polluted by an unknown number of feet.  I feel rage enter my body and I say out loud "What?" Two things are going through my head at this point.

1.  If you find the need to crawl onto a toilet because you think it is just too dirty to sit on, then please for the love, clean the sand off for the next person.

2.  Realize that this toilet is not built into the ground for a reason. It has a seat, sit on it...or even squat over the seat, but don't stand on the seat!

     By the time I make it back to Sara, Kristina and Matt I am fully enraged.  At first I cannot explain my reaction but after talking it through with me impromptu counselors, I realized that I had left my patience for China in China and that I was not prepared to have to deal with some of the 'annoyances' in Thailand because I was in fact, IN THAILAND. 

This time culture shock took me by surprise. 

Adventures in a Bangkok ER

     Before we left for Thailand I took a trip to the Pearl Market where they sell jewelry of all sorts.  I bought a cheap ring to wear while on holiday so I could keep my real stuff safe at home.  The ring I bought was actually three rings interconnected. 

      On our second day in Bangkok we met up with Kristina and Sara and went to a couple temples.  Sara complemented me on my ring and I took it off to show her.  When I put it back on it felt tight but I thought that it was just the heat and I would work on getting it off later when I could cool my hand off. 

     Later we went back to our hotel and I tried several things to get the ring off and it wouldn’t budge.  My finger was slowly starting to swell.  We got ready for our evening and headed out.  While at a beautiful rooftop bar I started to feel more anxious about getting the ring off.  I was feeling trapped. 

Here is the ring at the rooftop hotel before we decided it needed to come off.

     The bar was in a nice hotel so I went to the lobby and asked the front desk ladies to ask a maintenance person to come with wire cutters.  A little man showed up a few minutes later and tried his best to get it off.  He was clearly scared to hurt me.  I decided to wait for Matt to come down and I knew that he would try harder. 

At this point we're still able to laugh at the situation.  Here is my loving husband about to try and cut the ring off with wire cutters.

     At this point my finger has swollen significantly, is red and throbbing.  Matt comes down and tries two separate tools but cannot cut it off.  The ladies at the front desk were very helpful and got me ice to try and make the swelling go down.  After working on getting it off for several minutes, they suggested what I didn’t want them to suggest; go to the ER and have them cut it off. 

     We show up at the hospital in a cab where things look nice and clean and there were no other patients.  Several people dressed as medical professionals were eager to help.  They put me into a small exam room while Sara and Kristina sat in the waiting room. 

It was soothing to see a little piece of home on the wall of the ER in Bangkok.

Oh yes, its going to have to come off, the ring that is will have to be removed, not your finger.

     A man walked in, took a look at my finger and said “I don’t think that we will have to cut it off but we are going to have to get the rings off.”  Hmm.  What’s that?  You don’t THINK you will have to cut WHAT off?  All I could do was laugh. Hysterically.  Manically. 

     They brought in a small round saw that seemed to have been left in the rain  a tad too long.  They tried and failed to cut through just a single ring.  “Not strong enough” they said. 

Things get a little more intense. 

     Every time someone tried to cut one ring it would tighten painfully on all of the rings. I asked for pain medication.  They said that they were coming.  Liars.

The next method was a highly skilled, advanced medical procedure called “tie floss around the finger to make the swelling go down and move the ring up a little at a time”  This my friends, hurt.  Matt held me as I squealed like a Howler Monkey with snot and tears covering my face.  A nurse tapped sympathetically on my back.  45* minutes later, the ring was off. Then they gave me a pain pill.  The doctor* walked back in held to the room, picked up my ring and said “this is too small for you fingers.” Lesson learned.

Bri

*Possible Exaggeration

Reclining Buddha

After the Grand Palace we grabbed a bite to eat and decided to check out one of the other temples that was nearby.  We negotiated a tuk-tuk ride to Wat Pho, the temple of the Reclining Buddha and crammed into the back of the little tuk tuk.

We're too tall to see out from under the roof.

Of course Bri got to ride shotgun.

Bri's creativity in action

This was a really cool Buddha in my opinion because of the sheer size of it.  The reclining Buddha is about 50 feet high and 140 m long.  The feet are about 9 feet tall and 13 feet long and are inlaid with mother-of-pearl. There are two other things I'll remember about this temple. The first were these signs that said, "Beware of non-Thai pick pocket gangs."  We just thought it was funny that we shouldn't be aware of the Thai pick pocketing, or their biased assumption that Thai pick pocketing didn't exist.  The other thing was Bri had to wear a robe that was neon green and said, "Wat Pho Please return the coat" on the back.  

Here are some pictures of the Reclining Buddha or what I think should be called, the Big Buddha watching football on the couch.

This is a small scale model.  The structure is quite small compared to the Buddha so its hard...maybe impossible...to get a good full length photo.

The feet are about 9 feet tall and 13 feet long and are inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

I'm pondering the meaning of life and trying to decide where to stop for more street food.

After a trip to the Grand Palace and the Reclining Buddha it was time for some down time so we headed back to the hotel.  Saturday isn't over yet though.  The next blog will cover Bri's trip to an unplanned place and then our street food dining that followed.

Matt

Grand Palace in Bangkok

Things here have been quite busy since returning from our October holiday.  We're going to blog the photos from our trip to Thailand the next couple weeks.

After meeting up with Sara and Kristina (two of Bri's high school classmate who travelled with us in Thailand) on Saturday morning we were off to the Grand Palace.  Only a portion of the palace is open to the public but it was quite interesting. Rather than a single structure, the Grand Palace is made up of numerous buildings, halls, gardens and courtyards. Its asymmetry and eclectic styles are due to its sporadic development with additions being made by successive reigning kings over 200 years of history.  The museum tour guide told us some interesting stories regarding the different buildings and shrines.  The palace isn't used for the royal family any longer but it is used for royal guests like U.S. Presidents when they visit.    

The king who build this pagoda to honor his father wanted it to be made of gold.  After deciding that the price of gold was too high he chose instead to cover the pagoda with fold covered tiles which were bought from Italy.  The tiles have gold leaf fixed to the outside and were put on by hand.

The golden tiles from Italy

I can't remember for sure but I think this building houses the Emerald Buddha.  

 Ironically the Emerald Buddha is made of jade.  The buddha is only 45 cm tall, which you'll find if you visit many temples is quite small for a Buddha.  This Buddha was taken from Cambodia during a war at sometime hundreds of years ago and for quite sometime remained hidden because the Thais were afraid someone would steel him back.  Another interesting fact is that the Emerald Buddha has clothing for each of the three seasons in Bangkok.  They're made of gold and rubies and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

More detail work.  It can be a bit numbing to see all of the detail work and then you stop and remember someone did all of this by hand and you can appreciate it.

This is the actual former residence where heads of state reside when they visit.  We were only allowed to see it through the gate.  Only a small portion of the palace is open to the public.

One of the kings wanted a banquet hall that looked like Buckingham Palace but the Thai people didn't want a western structure built on the Grand Palace grounds for symbolic reasons.  So the king built it anyways and then put a pagoda style roof on the top to give a little Thai flavor.  That is called compromise, maybe the US government should take a hint.

There are a few of these on the palace site.  They are meant to protect the Emerald Buddha. I guess once they installed these things it was safe to bring the Emerald Buddha out of hiding.

Bri and I are sporting our green and olive temple attire.  The Grand Palace has a dress code we weren't aware of so we had to cover our legs with rented garments.

 Well, that was the Grand Palace.  It was more grand than our pictures can capture.  Later we'll post the Reclining Buddha (my favorite Buddha so far), our trip to a Bangkok emergency room and of course street food in Bangkok!