Mahk ruk Thai

A light rain falls steadily outside, and inside, Modest Mouse issues from my computer.  It's a lazy Sunday afternoon here.  I have a little work to do for school tomorrow, but that shouldn't take long.  It's more general organization than anything else.  This evening I will head south on the river to join some new friends in playing and watching Thai chess.
Last Sunday, after book shopping near Kao San, I wandered aimlessly in search of Indian food.  I found much to take pictures of, and stumbled upon a beautiful little park.  Seeing the entrance to a flower market, I decided to explore and came across a group of men in the midst of a warehouse shopping center playing a game.  I stopped to watch, and someone offered me a chair.  It seemed to be something like chess, and for the most part, I was able to pick up on the rules from watching.  When the game ended, I clarified the points I was unclear of, and they immediately threw me into the game.
At some point, they started opening big beers.  These they poured into a small plastic mug filled with ice.  It was passed around and topped up as necessary.  Alternating between playing and watching, I can say that I understand the game fairly well.  The difficulty comes in my affinity for the chess that I'm familiar with and the change in strategy required for this version.
In Thai chess, the Rooks and Knights move the same.  Pawns also move the same, but the entire line starts the game one row forward.  All other pieces move only space at a time.  There is one 'Bishop.'  In place of the Queen, there are two pieces that can move in any direction forward, but only on the diagonal backward.  They can never move sideways or straight back.  Once the Pawns cross the third row threshold on the opponents side, they are flipped over and become 'Bishops.'  Because everything only moves one space, the game is more plodding, and not as spread out.  The general strategy seems to be to create a general block protecting the King and rolling forward en mass across the board.
After many hours and several beers, I took my leave, promising to return.  I continued my search for delicious Indian food.  While Thai food is available and plentiful at any hour of the day, it seems that the Indian population closes shop much earlier.  It was just past eight o'clock and I had difficulty finding an open establishment.  Ultimately, it turned out to be overprice (relatively speaking) and not particularly impressive.
Wednesday evening was Loi Krathong, an annual river festival all across Thailand.  Variously reported to be a celebration for the river god, a sending off of bad omens and habits, and a joining of couples ceremony.  It involves setting adrift beautiful round rafts made of banana tree trunk cross sections (which float) and banana leaves adorned with flowers and candles.  These rafts, called Krathong (pronounced with the sound somewhere between k and g that is important to master if you wish to speak much Thai), range from the small and simple to very intricate affairs.
Along with the floating of the boats is a subdued carnival atmosphere.  There are ornate floats on the river, lit up to excess.  At certain points along the Chao Praya, there are great food malls, sculptures and pieces of art, traditional dance, and stages with music.  The influx of people to small areas that are not designed to handle those kinds of crowds was exciting for a short period, but we did not linger long.
The King's sister had passed away this past January.  Because of the importance of the Princess to Thailand, her funeral arrangements have been long in the making.  Friday marked the beginning of the official ceremony.  Everyone, and I do mean everyone, has been wearing black or white since Friday.  This has been accompanied by what one would expect of a national grieving period.  While the ceremony will continue until Wednesday, people may begin to dress in a less somber tone tomorrow.
Yesterday, I went to Chinatown.  With no specific agenda, I opted to walk through the alley markets.  These are cramped, and generally full of cheap, poorly made products.  They teem with people, and once you're in, forget a quick escape.  As the hand-trucks laden with goods and audacious people on motorbikes barrel through, it is best to pay attention, lest your foot end up under a wheel.  I did, however, manage to find some very cheap materials for school.  Red pens, organizing clips, whiteboard markers, and clear sleeves to organize papers at these prices mean that I'll probably be returning when I need a fresh supply.
Overall, I truly enjoy Chinatown.  While Bangkok in general has a no lack of energy, there it is slightly different.  The language, foodstuffs, and architecture change from the city at large.  From a western viewpoint, the change may not be as stark a contrast as say in New York or San Francisco.  That said, the brief time that I've been here has already started to make the differentiation clear.
At the vendors and restaurants, familiar equipment is modified, or merely serves a slightly different purpose.  The woks are at a much higher temperature, requiring faster agitation and in general more movement.  The omnipresent noodle cart, with its segmented heated compartment for quick blanching noodles and keeping broth warm, is still a mainstay.  Processed meat balls and sausages along with the various last minute seasonings that the cook requires are still there.  What changes are the available meats and noodles.  Duck, not a staple selection outside of Chinatown, shares center stage with pork.  The noodles also change.  Here the wheat/egg noodle is more prevalent.  Wide flat noodles, and thicker, extruded noodles can be found alongside the standard rice noodles.  At the table, soy sauce stands in for fish sauce.
While the Chinese here fry with the same gusto as the Thais, it is often with more starch involved.  Crunchy patties of taro, peanut, or corn replace the leavened doughnut like concoctions.  Fried tofu with its unique texture is more common than unbreaded fish mash with chili.  It is here that you see the fried spring rolls.  Outside of Chinatown, spring roll wrappers seldom appear.  Here, it seems that anyone with a wok full of oil would be blasphemous not to have some type of roll on offer.
The steam table that generally produces kaa-fae bulaat (long time coffee) is covered in a thin cloth atop which taro paste steams to form 'crepes.'  These are folded and rolled in coconut shavings or crushed peanuts.  Peanuts also make an appearance in the form of bars, bound with something akin to stiff marshmallow.  These are not quite as sweet as their western counterparts, and topped with cilantro leaves.
After meandering and eating to a near bursting point, I hopped a motorbike taxi to my school.  There, I dropped off my newly acquired goodies.  Returning to foot travel, I walked to settle my stomach.  As if by chance, I found myself once again by the flower market.
Though it took some searching, I did once again arrive at the spot from the previous Sunday.  And lo and behold, there was the same group of men, engaged in what appears to be their weekend activity.  They were happy to see me, and I again fell into watching and playing.
While I can't say that I've won a game yet, I have come close a few times.  It often comes down to a critical mistake that I don't see until it is too late and the tide changes quickly.  They play for hours on end, as I must imagine they've been doing for a while, so I don't feel too bad.  As beer tends to loosen tongues, we start joking and it has been great for me to practice my Thai with them.  That alone would make it tremendously worthwhile.
I still rely on my phrase book as my vocabulary is nowhere near large enough, but my sentence structure is coming along, as is my pronunciation.  Fortunately, while Thai has a very different structure, it's rather grammatically simple.  There are no tenses, and much is left to inference.  For example, the sentence "I played Thai chess yesterday," can, at it’s simplest, be "mahk ruk Thai len meu-a whan," or "Thai chess play yesterday."  The 'I' is inferred and there is no need to conjugate 'play.'
There are also no definers and the noun does not change to become plural.  'A,' 'an,' and 'the' simply don't exist.  There is also no word for 'be.'  'Ben' joins nouns and pronouns, but not nouns and adjectives.  'Pom ben ah-jahn.'  'I teacher.'
I am getting better at seeing the words in English and imagining how it will be pronounced in Thai.  The sooner I can let go of this crutch, though, the better.  As such, I am trying to teach myself to read and write in Thai.  Ultimately, it will make everything come together faster, but it's not easy.  Not surprisingly, the writing system is vastly different than anything I've ever come across.  The consonants are pronounced differently depending on their position in the word.  Additionally, the way that vowels are written depends on what they are paired with, and they may appear before, after, above, below, or actually be separated by the consonants.  Throw in the tonal markers, and it can be pretty overwhelming.  The light at the end of the tunnel is that it is a phonetic language.  So once I understand it, how it's written is how it's pronounced.  Oh sweet consolation!
Unfortunately, I’ve got other things to do, and I’ve been at this for while.  On that note, I take my leave.