The Week in Review: Round Sorng

Sorng means two; I finally learned how to count and I’m gonna show it off every chance I get. I need to update now, because if I don’t then I’ll forget and all the excitingness that was this week will be lost forever in the bowels of my memory. Speaking of bowels, I realized I left some critical information off of the last post. Let’s backtrack to last weekend, when we stopped briefly at an exhibition of photos taken by the king (His Majesty has a lot of interesting hobbies, including photography and jazz composition, leading my roommate to declare, “The King seems like a cool dude”). As I wandered through the show, a series of picturesque landscapes struck me. The composition and the artistry wasn’t what I was interested in so much as the context in which the shots were taken: at the royal winter palace in Phu Ping province. Let us also take a moment to recall that in the Thai language, the letter “H” is silent. Utter hilarity.

Anyway, back to this week, in which I have three interesting stories to relay. First, I finished building my device. I have yet to hook it up to anything, so right now it looks like an overbuilt paperweight, but I’m hoping to see some signs of life sometime next week. Further bulletins as events warrant.

To complete this machine, I needed to obtain some parts, which leads me to my second story: visiting the shady Thai electronics market. My grad student (and immediate source of advice/Thai profanity) Nai volunteered to take me on Tuesday morning. I asked how we would get there and about how long it would take. He replied, “We take bus, about 20 minutes”. Turns out the term “bus” can be interpreted rather loosely around here, as we climbed into the back of a pickup truck with some benches welded to the sides. I think this would’ve been more frightening had the powerful dose of automotive fumes not kept my senses in check. After a short ride, we disembarked at a random street corner, only to board another bus soon after. This vehicle looked much more like what I picture as a bus, though it didn’t have any doors and the driver seemed to be using a large piece of pipe instead of a gear shift handle. Either way, we were back on the road. Turns out though, that the 20 minute estimate seems a little inaccurate, as we rolled into downtown Bangkok about an hour later.

If they’d had these markets in the US when I was in high school, I’d be a lot poorer now. This place was really cool, if your definition of cool involves boxes upon boxes of random mechanical parts (which mine does). Another salient feature of Ban Mo (the official Thai name) is the prevalence of sidewalk TV and appliance repair pushcarts. Instead of walking down the street to the aroma of grilled meat, we get the complex musk that is lead-core solder. I love the smell of engineering in the morning. We found the gears I needed (sort of, I spent a few hours modifying them once we got back), and boarded another doorless wonder bus for the trip home.

Lastly, this week was also notable in that I, for the first time in my life, was presented with the honor of participating in a venerable ancient Asian tradition: Karaoke! This experience completely contradicted my existing concept of Japanese businessmen cheering each other on in a crowded bar. Instead, we (the six of us plus a cadre of grad students) were led to a small dark private room with a TV/Microphone setup. It took a little while for the rocking to commence, but rock we did. My personal favorite song of the night? “Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy” (Actual lyrics: “Sexy sexy sexy, naughty naughty naughty, bitchy bitchy bitchy, yeah!”) Compared to these profound words, Britney Spears sounds like Lord Byron.

As for this weekend, I’m off to Ko Samet, an island hotspot about 3 hours south of the city, followed by another hour on a ferry. Farang pay about 10 times as much as native Thais, but I think Aeng, our guide, is going to try to sneak us in. Should be an interesting trip, to be documented in full upon my return, assuming we don’t all get busted and wind up in Thai prison. Not that we will, but I have to say things like that to keep Mom on her toes.