January 2009 Archives

But since moving here, I've stopped noticing or liking the accents (except when they say literally, that's still hilarious) and tend to focus on the more irritating aspects of the culture. Case in point, the daily free papers that are strewn all over the train and the drivel found within.

Britons on the Titanic had less chance of surviving than their brasher American counterparts because of their good manners, according to research. While most of the British followed queuing etiquette, allowing women and children to get to the lifeboats first, American passengers pushed their way to the front. (Article, Article)

Luckily for the British, they've learned a thing or two since 1912. I've often found that a refreshing way to start the day is to be elbowed in the stomach by a banker in a bowler attempting to get a seat on the Tube. I try and pretend that this is indicative of a truly equal society--there's no evidence of the British "stiff upper lip" in play when they're pushing aside old ladies and pregnant girls in hopes of finding a place to sit. So go on, United Kingdom! You've nearly caught up with us--maybe the next time an ocean liner sinks you'll fare a little better.

I know I’ve written about Bangkok street food before. But like all obsessive, boring people, I like to come back to my favorite topics time and time again, worried that if I don’t mention it, it might just disappear.

The street food in Thailand was phenomenal. There were the dumplings, delicately balanced on a Styrofoam tray, doused in soy sauce and with nary a utensil save for a toothpick. They weren’t dumplings so much as thick rice noodles wrapped around a variety of vegetable fillings, and they weren’t delicious so much as they were mysterious. How is it that in a country where a vegetarian could starve to death (at a minimum, there’s fish sauce on everything) I managed to get dumplings filled with greens?

My first night in Bangkok I was alone and terrified. And by terrified I mean hungry and by hungry I mean ravenous. I was too timid, of course, to try and get food at any reasonable time, and my traveling companion wasn’t due to arrive until nearly midnight. So sometime after ten at night I ventured out of my hotel and wandered onto the streets of Bangkok. I needed to be at the hotel when my friend arrived and didn’t want to stray too far from there. I didn’t have a map, and between the jetlag and having no sense of direction to speak of anyway, making more than one or two turns could be disastrous. So I walked up and down the same street a few times, checking out all of the street food vendors and wondering how I was possibly going to order anything. These are the sort of things that paralyze me—not knowing how to communicate and being nervous about acting like an American dickhead, saying the same things over and over in English more and more loudly in the hopes that someone will finally understand me. So instead I just walked around until finally starvation drove me to stop at one of the cart vendors and attempt an order. This is probably a good thing because if I had walked up that street one more time, they would have taken me for a farang prostitute.

I pointed at a ground pork dish with chilis and holy basil, pad kaprao moo, which was served with a pile of rice for less than a dollar. It was so spicy that my nose was running and tears streamed down my face, but I was nonetheless grateful for the fact that I was gorging myself alone on a plastic deck chair perched on the curb of a nearly empty street, save for the woman cooking over a sterno flame under a tattered yellow and white umbrella.

At the Khao San Road (which we went to just to see what all the fuss was about, and hated) there were woman standing every ten feed or so holding giant woks and expertly frying eggs into steaming piles of pad thai. After watching a few of them, I finally realized why the pad thai I made never tastes quite right—apparently a least a cup of oil is required for each portion. I thought it was delicious and disgusting, but I’m known for having a stomach of steel. My traveling partner was less resilient, unfortunately.

There were little sweets that looked like miniature tacos, ready-made curries on carts parked on roads teeming with cars and minicabs. Sticky rice with all types of fillings and toppings, savory and sweet. There were the grilled bullfrogs on skewers that we avoided and the grilled everything else that we couldn’t stop ourselves from stopping for every ten paces or so. There was mangosteen and unripe mango and green papaya salad and bags of cucumbers with nam prik sauce. There were plastic bags filled with ice and condensed milk and flavors ranging from tea to blue raspberry, hollowed out coconuts with straws sticking out of them and plastic cups filled with all kinds of fruits, from limes to pineapple to watermelon and others that I didn’t recognize.

But more than the food, it was the whole street food scene that I was impressed by. A vendor would have a cart, some source of heat and possibly a few chairs. Sometimes they would have their husband or wife as their sous chef, some of them would have a friend standing their chatting their way through the curries or sometimes they would be alone. Some of them had terrible food and some of them had dishes to rival anything I've ever tasted. My favorites were the women with the blank faces wearing shirts with nonsensical phrases on them sitting on stools, gripping giant cookers with their florescent shorts-clad thighs and frying skewers of just about anything. I think about my current job, which involves skewering nothing but my soul and I pine for my own food cart.

Lina, do you ever read a piece of writing and feel that your soul has become just a little bit emptier? It's exactly that feeling that makes your writing so unique.

For this, she is the shutitdown commenter of note. Thanks, Brandy, you always brighten up my day.

"Why is this happening to me?" I asked my mother in tears the other day. My housing situation had taken a turn for the (even) worse and I was about to move to a hotel rather than sleep in the gutter. I suppose it bears pointing out that I have no friends to speak of, and my letting agent had ripped up my lease in a fit of letting agent-ness.

My mother then made loud, angry regurgitation noises over the phone and said sagely, "that's what London's doing to you." I'm not sure if she meant that London was just trying to evacuate me, or if it was actually chewing me up and spitting me out, but either way she's not far off.

Since then, I blackmailed my new landlord and moved into a flat that is an active construction site. On Sunday morning I woke up to three builders staring into my bedroom. Right now I'm sitting here, under the covers typing and I have goosebumps. Tomorrow, I've been told, they are planning on putting a hole in my wall to the outside. It snowed today. I asked if they could maybe finish it the same day as I wasn't particularly fond of camping. "Don't worry, love. The 'ole will only be about as big as this 'ere," the 'ead builder said, pointing to a packing box that was two feet tall.

But all that said, I get a kick out of the East End. I went to the Brick Lane market on Sunday and was pleased as punch to find a Japanese deep fried street food stand set up. Last night I had a curry with my new flatmate who seems remarkably sane and visited my new local (that means: the closest pub to my home) and found that they have a pretty decent jukebox. My flat is just above a Thai restaurant so no one is going to blame me for the stink this time, and I'm just a few minutes away from about fifteen Vietnamese restaurants. 'appy days.

My latest piece is up on Splice Today: Searching for Jesse Camp. The true story of my first forays into stalking.