We are in #Bangkok for an interview for a tourist visa to the USA for Sai (she was accepted 👍) and it just happens to be Chinese New Year as well. Our former neighborhood where we've been staying is right next to Chinatown and things are really lively with huge numbers of people from all over the world.
#Thailand #ประเทศไทย
#ChineseNewYear #ตรุษจีน
#YearOfTheDragon #ปีมังกร
#YaowaratRoad #เยาวราช is the main road of Chinatown and name of the area in general
ALERT! 📢 #Wokeism is fully entrenched here in #Thailand. Get this, the single most popular historical figure is called by a name that loosely translated might be "wokest dude ever". Around ninety percent of the population are not only okay with this, but actively try to structure parts of their lives according to the ideas of this #woke guy. And it's been going on for centuries!
screenshot from https://www.etymonline.com/word/Buddha
My wife's family village and rice land is about 6 kilometers from our place. Here is one recent picture of Sai's father out working in the rice field and a second less recent picture of him picking long beans. The beans are not on our land but from a relative of his in the village. We are into the rainy season here and everything is growing fast.
I have to leave the country for visa reasons. On Monday, Sai and I are traveling by land to Pakse, Laos where we will be staying for two nights.
We will take the motorbike into Sisaket, park it by the train station, and board the earliest train to the end of the line at Ubon Ratchathani. From there hop on a tuk-tuk or songthiew to the bus station for the international bus to Pakse.
I took that bus on my first solo trip to #Laos from #Thailand in 2015.
Fluffy cats working security for a gold shop in Uthumphon Phisai look like they mean business and do not take their eyes off our dog.
Finished the book! It took 3.5 months or an average of 2.5 pages a day. I could have been quicker but was keeping a list of unfamiliar or interesting vocabulary in #ThaiLanguage plus I went off on many tangents to look up information.
The book discusses recent events in #Myanmar (though was written before the coup in 2021). The English language title is The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century.
Now time for something less heavy...
In #Thailand there are no Target stores. Nor is there a manufactured crisis or moral panic about #PrideMonth.
In Savannakhet #Laos, there is a chain of convenience stores which are not affiliated with #Target in the USA but have copied the name and logo.
From the #ThaiLanguage press (Matichon Online) who in turn picked up the story from someone's social media post.
This 8.5 kilogram cat supposedly fell from the sixth floor of a condominium and through the rear window of a parked car below.
The cat emerged completely unscathed. Netizens have named it "Meteor Cat".
อุกกาบาต meteor
แมว cat
We've moved out of town! Still in Uthumphon Phisai District of Sisaket Province but now renting a place across the highway from Sai's original food stall where she's back running it full time.
We hired a couple locals with a pickup truck for the larger stuff but I also made four trips myself pulling a trailer behind our motorbike.
#UthumphonPhisai #อุทุมพรพิสัย
#Sisaket #ศรีสะเกษ
#Thailand #ประเทศไทย #เมืองไทย
Fresh market in Uthumphon Phisai, Sisaket Province, Northeastern Thailand, 7:30 AM.
Busker dressed in some sort of traditional garb pushing a cart with a speaker and battery, singing and dancing.
Three minute video of the market scene: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZP8X2tAzBYzmDbME8
- #Isaan #อีสาน
- #market #ตลาด
- #Sisaket #ศรีสะเกษ
- #Thailand #ประเทศไทย or #เมืองไทย
- push cart, cart with wheels รถเข็น
- busker, minstrel, traveling musician วณิพก or วนิพก
