Thai
bathrooms are different. You don’t sit on a seat like in the states. You squat.
Over a hole. I’d been exposed to these sorts of toilets before when I took a SE
Asia class in high school, but I’d never been taught how to use them. Naturally
I did it completely wrong the first few times. For one thing, you are supposed
to stand ON the toilet, not straddle your legs over it like you’re riding a
horse. I figured this out when I realized that my pants would never get down
far enough to miss my business getting all over them. Secondly, Thai toilets do
not have a mechanical flushing mechanism. As in, there is no handle to push.
Instead, Thai bathrooms typically contain a small bath of water that you scoop
water out of and pour into the toilet. This sends what was already in the
toilet down the pipes. I did not know this. Not at first. I just assumed
everyone piddled in the toilet and walked out, feeling no shame for peeing in a
communal bowl. Oops. I can only imagine what the people who came after me were
thinking, “Stupid American.” Lastly, Thai’s don’t typically use toilet paper.
Again, I assumed incorrectly that they just drip and dry and go about their day
like its no big thing. Nope. Those baths I mentioned earlier – they are also
used to rinse yourself off. At least I know now.
Of
course, being a farang (white person), I’ve learned other cultural differences.
For instance, body position is very important here. The feet are considered the
dirtiest part of the body and it is considered extremely disrespectful to even
point your feet at another person. In fact, before entering a Thai household,
you typically take off your shoes as a sign of respect. The head, on the other
hand, is the highest part of the body, so it is also considered rude to touch another
person’s head (unless they are much younger than you). Similarly, the “wai” or
Thai greeting is done at higher levels of the body for elders and members of
the upper class. The wai itself consists of a small bow that you give with your
hands pressed together in a pray-like gesture.
Cooking
here is fairly different. Most Thai cooking is done with a Wok, a bowl-shaped
frying pan that heats up very very quickly. I had the pleasure of using one of
these bad boys the other day as I was helping one of our “master chefs,” Alex,
prepare lunch for everyone on the farm. I was assigned croutons. Easy right?
Ehh, not so much. I cut up the bread fine and oiled the pan, but I never
expected the pan to get so hot so quickly. Needless to say, I ended up with
quite a few burnt croutons. People were nice though; they at least pretended to
eat them.
Traditional
Thai showers are non-existent. Instead, they use larger baths to clean
themselves. These baths are typically always filled with water and the process
goes as follows: scoop water out of the bath tub with a small bowl, wet
yourself, soap up, rinse off. A much more sustainable, albeit colder, way to
clean yourself.
The
only other adjustment I’ve had to make, which is not necessarily Thai, is
hand-washing laundry and dishes. As a group, we do this after every meal. We
compost leftover food in a bucket that eventually goes to the pigs, wipe our
plates off with a soap-infused sponge, and then rinse them 3 different times in
separate buckets (the buckets contain progressively cleaner and clearer water).
As for my laundry, I finally decided to wash a few worn items when I realized
that my pants were not formally a light tinge of brown. Again, I used the
three-bucket method. I initially soaked and squished around my clothes in bucket
number one, which was filled with soapy water. Then I transferred clothing
items one by one into buckets 2 and 3, which, again, were progressively
cleaner, to rinse off all the soap. My clothes are still hang drying (including
my cheetah print undies) on the line outside on the second floor of our
building. It’s quite humid here, so I suspect they won’t be dry for at least
another day. But you know what, I have all the time in the world here. And I am
just loving it.
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