Middle Class

Sorry, everyone.  See, I have totally misled you.  Maybe, perhaps, at least just temporarily.  But you clearly thought the blog from Thailand would be about this misplaced teacher, gingerly attempting to manage her life as a single mom in a third world country.  Perhaps you thought there would be stories of weird food, comic miscommunications due to strange customs and language barriers, and so forth.  You know, like the time I ate a duck's head, or had to spend the entire day (8 hours) in excruitiating boredom watching beauty pagents, without a book even, because I thought my Thai host was taking me some place entirely different.  But that was 13 years ago.  This is different.

See, tonight, I took the boys to a Cubs Scout recruitment meeting.  In our group were three working dads who were really excited about taking their boys fishing, me, and someone's maid.  Then afterwards, we went to get ourselves a smoothie down by the lake.

Now does that sound like I'm in Thailand???  Maybe if I told you I transported the boys there on a scooter, and that while we drank our smooties we counted geckos on the wall, you would believe again that I really did leave the country. 

But it turns out, my blogs are turning into life as a middle class Westerner.  Albeit, that is a totally different lifestyle than what I'm used to.  I'm used to working two jobs to make ends meet, and would never have had time to go to a Cubs scout meeting much less recruitment meeting, much less have been able to pay for the uniform fees and outtings.  I mean, how much would a weekend swimming with Dolphins cost in the US?  Here, it should put us back a whole $200.  For me and the three kids.  Maybe less.

So the only weird food that I'm encountering so far are the european cookies on the shelf next to the oreos, and the biggest comic miscommunication has been...well, I suppose there hasn't been one.  Everyone speaks English. 

But this adventure is not without its ways to scrape off the superficial level of things and get to what lies beneath.  I have a special relationship with the morning guard at the school, who quickly spread the word throughout the grapevine that I speak excellent Thai.  So custodians, library assistants, and office workers know me by face and name and are outgoing and friendly to me as I go from place to place in the building.  I benefit by finding out from there where the best fresh vegetable market is, where I can buy black beans for cheap instead of processed in the farang supermarket, and I can count on immediate help jacking up the motorscooter and jump starting it when I leave the keys in the ignition and drain the battery.  (Cut me some slack.  I've owned a motorscooter for 8 days. It totally throws me off that the engine quits when you put the kick stand down.)

But today I got a grandiose treat that only being in Thailand could afford.  The school hosted a special Khon Performance- the traditional Thai dance, in fabulously sparkly Thai silk costumes and masks.  They explained how each movement meant something, and then performed a scene from their major production.  The scene involved the Thai Monkey-God Hanuman talking with a very sassy monk.  It was elegant in nature, but crass and SO Thai in performance.  At one point in a mock argument the monk called Hanuman an asshole.  In Thai.  You could tell where the Thai middle school students were sitting in the audience from their screams.  Try that in America, I say.

So, I apologize that this isn't about getting lost on a river taxi, or eating fried insects, or whatever else blogs about living in developing countries involve.  I'm woefully and suddenly upper middle class.  But I'm trying to find out what advantages that affords me that will add color and vibrance to our lives, without numbing our senses and dulling our edges with luxury.  Because I ask all of you to promise me, if I end up like this parent I talked to at the smoothie restaurant, come and get me.  She's been here for 19 years, has a driver, a cook and a maid.  She said, "I can't go anywhere else.  What would I do without them?"  If I can't answer that question with substantive, meaningful answers, take me home.