Long Necks and 555

So I wrote this blog entry last week, but never had the chance to put it up.

On Thursday, I had the amazing opportunity to go to a long neck village that is only about 30 minutes away from our house. Yes, as in a village where women put heavy, brass necklaces around their neck to push their shoulders down and elongate their neck. It was absolutely amazing to see the vast cultural difference between us and this tribe and I (of course) had to buy a few things. I can’t wait to tell people something like, “Oh yeah. I got that elephant bracelet when I was passing through a long neck village in northern Thailand. No big deal.” I would definitely earn some cool points for that.

Speaking of points, Shawney and I made up this game that we like to play with the Thai (whether they know it or not!). Nat, one of our country directors, was born and raised in Bangkok and he is the definition of awesome. He is extremely cool-headed, matter of fact, and to the point. He has this talent of not showing any facial expression when both speaking and listening, so when he says something funny, it makes me laugh ten times harder than normal. When I say something funny, I’m lucky if he even cracks a smile.

One night, I was laughing really hard at something (and Lord knows that my laugh can be obnoxious!) when Nat made the matter-of-fact-yet-unintentionally-hilarious-statement of, “Thai people think laughing loudly is unattractive.” Of course, this made me laugh even harder which probably deemed me unattractive to anybody in a ten mile radius. And that’s when I realized that Nat’s mannerisms aren’t just true of Nat… Thai people don’t laugh! Okay, maybe I’m not being completely fair. They laugh, but it’s more of a quiet chuckle. Now, it’s become a goal of ours to make the Thai laugh. Each time it happens (which is pretty rare!), we “earn a point”. Not for anything, but I think I’m beating everybody in the house at the moment. I’m just saying!

So why is the title of this post “555”? In Thai, the number 5 is pronounced “ha” so they literally type “555” to show laughter in any text form. I’m bringing this fad back to the U.S. for sure.

On Friday morning, we helped some local scouts clean up trash in the town and at the temple after the monk graduation. It was a wonderful experience and fun to interact with the community! When we finished, we decided to play games with the kids. We successfully created a giant circle and did the Hokey Pokey with 100 kids at the base of the temple. We definitely looked ridiculous and got some 555s from anybody in the general vicinity. You’re welcome, Thaton!

(My weekend in Chiang Mai is coming soon!)