Postcards from Thailand

I’m pretty sure that Billie Holiday had other things on her mind when she sang Strange Fruit. But then I guess she never encountered sapodilla (in Thai, ละมุด [pronounced “la-mut”] – and for my Latin readers, it’s Manilkara zapota).

The fruit, it is believed, originated in central America and was brought to SE Asia by the Portuguese.

It contains four or so inedible seeds, and the flesh is a strange brown colour. The texture is slightly sandy – rather like an over-ripe pear – and the taste is sweet with a slight hint of acid. It also has a distinctive smell, rather fermented. Some say it smells like malt, but I think it smells like liquor.

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And lest anyone suspect that I have shown any disrespect to Billie Holiday, here are a few interesting (to me at least) facts about her song:

• The original poem was written by an American Jew who subsequently adopted two sons of the Rosenbergs, murdered (the Rosenbergs, that is) by the American establishment for disagreeing with its fascistical politics.
• Holiday had great trouble getting the song recorded, and eventually (in seach of a record company) performed an a cappella version to Billy Crystal’s uncle. He (the uncle, that is) was brought to tears by the performance. (And who wouldn’t be?) He was eventually able to arrange for a special release of the song.
• In 1999 Time magazine declared it the “song of the century”.

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I doubt you’ll find sapodilla in a supermarket near you any time soon, but if you do, give it a try.

Durian is not the only fruit.

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Once a year I wear a long-sleeved shirt. It’s the day that I have to renew my visa. The renewal is always at the whim of the immigration officials, so it’s best to look smart and act humble/polite. Of course, I also dress up because I won’t want to be confused with the flotsam and jetsam of Western society (society?) that wash up on Thailand’s shore.

The day started with a visit to the government bank where I’ve deposited a substantial sum of money to secure my visa. I simply needed two letters from them, one to show that I’d transferred money from abroad, and the other that I’d invested said substantial sum in a fixed term account. To make things easier I brought copies of last year’s letters. But nothing here is easy…

To start with, there were about 20 university students in the queue ahead of me who were opening accounts. Their tight shirts, stretched across their breasts and gaping at the gaps, were quite a distraction, as were their tight, short skirts. Heaven forfend that any one of them should ever have to bend over.

After waiting about 20 minutes one of the staff approached me to determine my business. She took my documents and spend ten minutes in a discussion with three colleagues about what needed to be done, to no avail.

Then my turn in the queue arrived, so I had to explain everything again to someone else.

To cut a long (and tedious) story short, I eventually got my letters having spend an hour on business that should have taken but a few minutes.

In the afternoon I went to the Immigration office. Hurrah! There was no queue. Less Hurrah! The official had never encountered my type of visa before and didn’t have a clue what to do. She made numerous ‘phone calls and eventually gave me the necessary stamps.

So, here I am, legal for another year.

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Andrew Zimmern is a minor American TV personality who’s primarily known for travelling around the world and eating strange food for the camera. (He’s also a chef, author and teacher.) Admittedly, when he visited Swansea market in Wales he didn’t exactly impress me with his boldness. To quote from a supposedly authoritative TV guide (the atrocious punctuation and misspellings are all from the original):

“In Swansea, Wales, the hometown of the poet Dillon Thomas, Andrew visits the Swansea Market and reveals bones, heart, kidneys and pluck used in recipes. The market also has wild game such as partridge, wild pheasant and pigeon. Joined by Carol Watts, Andrew tries a dish called faggo consisting of pig heart, liver and fatty meat as well as cockles, a type of mollusk, laverbread, toast with seaweed paste, and whelks, a sea snail served with pepper, vinegar and sea salt.”

Anyway, he was a bit more adventurous recently and visited Isaan in the north east of Thailand. Unfortunately, he belied his reputation as a man who will eat anything. Whilst he was happy to chow down on roasted rat, dung beetles, grasshoppers, raw (still warm) calf liver and silk worm grubs, he baulked at raw cow placenta and the partially digested contents of a cow’s stomach.

However, the food that produced in him the greatest revulsion was pizza, with fake cheese, fake seafood and fake hot dog. Earlier in the week I had a pizza from Pizza Hut with a similar fake cheese (possibly the same recipe as was used in the USA by Domino’s [Polydimethylsiloxane – yummmy!]) The base was impossibly sweet, and the imitation crab sticks impossibly vile. However, I managed to force down a few slices. Perhaps Travel Channel should ditch the overweight balding guy and employ another overweight balding guy (i.e. me).

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In Tesco-Lotus (as in most supermarkets) there’s a quick checkout – no more than 10 items, and baskets only – not that the rules are enforced. It’s most convenient to take through a basket of 15 or 20 items, as I have done many times. And unlike the UK, there won’t be anyone behind me in the queue quietly tutting disapproval. The checkout staff certainly won’t comment or refuse service. Admittedly, I’ve never had the cojones to take a trolley through the confined spaces of the quick checkout, but I’ve seen in done on many an occasion.

Thailand is not a free market economy, with many items subject to retail price controls – items such as oil, fish sauce, sugar, rice, condensed milk, flour (and non-food items such as fuel, school uniforms, medicines and music CDs). Whenever there is in impending price rise the shelves of Tesco-Lotus are stripped bare. Today it was oil that was in demand. People with baskets piled high with the stuff were queuing at the quick checkout. Now, Tesco-Lotus imposes a limit of three bottles of oil per customer under these circumstances. So, what do the checkout staff do? They ring up three bottles of oil, then accept payment before ringing up the next three bottles. And so on. Thus a single customer can (as happened with a customer in front of me in the queue) equate to 8 transactions.

Thailand: a country of non-confrontational scofflaws.

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There is a story, apocryphal, that the French at Agincourt had a propensity for cutting off the index and middle fingers of English and Welsh archers so they could never again draw a bow. In defiance the plucky Brits raised a V-sign to their opponents.

Warmonger Churchill subverted and inverted this sign to symbolise “Victory”, rather than the obscene meaning it had acquired in the UK, though in much of the world there’s no distinction drawn between the two forms. Both are victory.

The Japanese (and other Asian groups) like to hold up a pair of fingers whilst being photographed. Sometimes they’ll hold them up behind the head of a companion as “rabbit ears”.

The index finger is, of course, a miracle of evolution. It’s perfectly sized for the excavation of nasal orifices. To sit there, finger up nostril, whilst taboo in the West, is an every day feature of life here in Thailand; there’s no stigma here.

The Americans, not overly keen on raising two fingers to the world, have reduced the gesture to a single raised middle finger.

Curiously enough, the middle finger in Thailand has a similarly taboo value. To me, if I want to point to an item on, say, a menu, it makes sense to use the longest finger. It’s the pointiest, and requires least effort to deploy. However, its use will also cause offence. More than once have I been chastised for my deployment of my middle digit.

Whilst I may, from time to time, want to stick two fingers up to the world, for as long as I’m in Thailand, I’ll have to settle for the index finger alone.

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