Feb 22, 2002: An ordinary day, which is to say sunny and hot, class in the morning, lunch with my Heifer colleague Aryuwath, and time in the office. It's quiet, K. Pornsak, K. Pramote (Managing Director) and one other were in the office (which can be cramped with just the regular staff, never mind visitors. They've gotten the go-ahead for two more staff, and they're looking for new digs).
It's quiet and a nice breeze is coming through the windows. The lunch was interesting; quite tasty but a little "foreign", even for an old Asia "hand". Aryuwath had requested (I didn't ask) that there be no tripe in my soup: I'll eat tripe, but it's not a favorite. But another key ingredient, steamed pork blood, was in abundance. Along with chicken's feet and ducks eggs and serpent fishes and cockles (and mussels, alive alive oh) and live fish in the supermarket, you can buy big chunks of coagulated blood. It's inexpensive, it's not bad tasting, and it's quite nutritious. It just looks like, well, coagulated blood - or dark red tofu. My local supermarket services up quite the range of body parts: in the Pork department there's blood, small and large intestine, spleen, and uterus for sale. I guess eating spleen is no stranger than say, liver — but it lacks sppeal.
Asians (well, Chinese anyway) feel there are special benefits to particular body parts: "Deer penis soup" (no I'm not making this up) is said to improve male virility, for example. Likewise powdered rhino horn brings thousands of dollars to poachers — but at the cost of the death of the rhino. But eating spleen — do you become vituperative? jai ron? (hot hearted). E tu, uterus?
Pramote has just proposed a trip up to Mae Hong Son (about 4 hours) for their New Year's celebration (not entirely sure which "their" it's for). Unfortunately it turns out there's a schedule conflict, we can't do it. I was looking forward to some kind of group activity (but I'm delighted we'll have a dinner together near my departure time). However, as I looked at my lesson schedule, were I to miss one Tuesday or Thursday (my 3 hour class days), I would have to "amortize" the missing three hours all during my last week. This'd mean 3 hours of class every day for the last week. That's a big brain drain with a private instructor.
So, the existing schedule won't have to be changed. Next Tuesday is a significant Buddhist holiday but Heifer is working, they've traded this holiday for an extra day at Songrkan, perhaps Chiang Mai's favorite party. I'll have the day off from class tho. The week after that will be split between Chiang Mai and Bangkok, as there's a technical convention where many of my old colleagues will be. One was kind enough to line up a session-chair position, so I won't have to pay to get in. I'm even chairing sessions that are interesting — this way I'm less likely to fall asleep.