Lisa and Tim in China: Sanook

“Sanook,” means fun in Thai and it is an integral part of the culture here. People love to have fun which makes life, well...more fun.

Fire extinguishing training.

Here are Thai teachers having fun with fire. As we were leaving school one afternoon we were taken aback as we watched a teacher pour gasoline on the ground while another lit it with a flame ball on a stick. The teachers were hamming it up as they took turns extinguishing the fire.

Fun in class

We taught a lesson on how to ask for things politely. Here a student had asked to borrow Tim's camera and took a picture of his friend.

Students after the “polite request” lesson. You can see one of the students had asked to borrow Tim's sunglasses.
I was impressed that after a week of students asking to borrow my money that in the end I got it all back. Thai students are the coolest.

Fun at the food table. Everyday the teachers gather around the food table to eat, joke and gossip. Tim likes to put himself right in the middle and make the ladies laugh at his pigeon Thai.

When Mike found out that we washed our laundry in tubs on our front porch, he insisted that we use his machine. Mike is an older man from England (who married a Thai woman) that lives near us and volunteers at Srithani. That offer has evolved into someone in their household washing our laundry for us once a week. So, one afternoon we were driving by to pick up our laundry and Yai Wong, (the grandma of the house) who doesn't speak any English, let us in the gate and gestured us to our bag of clean laundry. She then disappeared into the house, and returned with a giant vegetable and asked “Ow mai? Alloy” Translation: “Do you want it? It's delicious.”
We had no idea what is was or how we would cook it but couldn't refuse the kind offer. We laughed as we rode home on our motorcycle with a big bag of clean laundry that she wouldn't allow us to pay for and a giant mystery gourd. The kindness and generosity of the people here amazes us daily.
We decided to give it to our neighbor Pei Oh, she'll know what to do with this thing.

Me and the mystery gourd or is it the mystery gourd and I?

Turns out that the “vegetable” was really fruit, a ripe papaya. Pei Po had us over for dinner and shared it with us and it was indeed delicious.

I came down with the flu over Christmas. So it turned out I had Christmas day off after all, home sick, while Tim went to work. We went on a tea hunting mission one afternoon to help sooth my sore throat. After sometime in the corner shop we decided on Chrysanthemum tea. When we got home I decided I felt more like a cup of coffee but Tim wanted to try the new tea. After he had poured the hot water over his tea bag my eyes caught something funny in small print on the packaging. “Indication: Laxative”

We had unknowingly bought an herbal laxative. We of course had a good laugh and got out the camera to document the moment and then Tim proceeded to drink the tea! I laughed at him and told him he would be sorry. But he approached this as he does many things, that is, he likes to find things out for himself.

And at 4:30 the following morning he did indeed discover first hand that the indication was accurate.

Simple pleasures...as promised earlier, a picture of the best ice try ever. I think this fits into the sanook category. All you do is turn the two handles and the ice falls into the tray perfectly every time, no twisting, no banging, no stress. Maybe it's just me but all the ice trays in my life have been noticeably sub-par, they're reluctant to let go of the ice cubes and ultimately they end up cracking so that water leaks all over the place as one foolishly continues it's use. Do you think customs would stop me if I tried to bring it back home? Hmm. And yes, that is ice cream, which it's not as good as ice cream back home but that never dissuades us.

Tim helping to install the neighbor's new instant hot water heater for the shower. He considers this "fun."

For New Years we had school celebrations the Friday before. We taught the first three classes of the day and after that we had a lunch with the entire school, staff and students, followed by games, relays, and dance performances. For several days leading up to this day Tim was being prepped for the eating contest that he and Ajarn Jit would be in. “Tim, Tim, do not eat too much in the morning. We will have a contest. You and Jit, eating.”
The eating contest turned out to be a three legged race where Tim and Jit were tied together and had to complete a series of tasks in attempts to beat the other contestants.