Tag Archives: thailand

THE CLOSET OF LOST THINGS by Peter Nolan Smith

The Nuns of Our Lady of the Foothills taught their students math, English, religion, history, geography, and a scattering of other basic subjects. Their educational technique depended heavily on harsh discipline. Left-handers were deemed possible satanists. The nun expected everyone to be right-handed. Any laggers were beaten into submission and laziness on small ts earned […]

INSECTS YUM YUM by Peter Nolan Smith

Most tourists to Thailand are fascinated by the food cart selling with fried insects i.e. crickets, grubs, cockroaches, scorpions, and several unidentified members of the insect species. Photos cost 10 baht. Thais revel in daring farangs to cross that culinary line in hopes of witnessing the European upchuck the crawly creature,s as if they were […]

LOVE YOU LONG TIME – CHAPTER 4 by Peter Nolan Smith

The staff of the front desk at the Malaysia remembered my room. 203 overlooked the pool. Overweight farangs basked in the torrid sun like walruses oiled for a boiling pot. The bar girls sheltered in the shade, eating sum-tam or spicy papaya salad like the world was ending tomorrow or beginning by waking up next […]

Pig Snout a la Thai

Several years ago my Thai cousin and I stopped by the Jomtien tha-lat. My sister-in-law ran a food stall inside the open-air market. On my last visit Yai had been selling chickens. Now it was pig and Khim said, “We eat from tail to nose. Everything, but the oink.” On display were heads, tails, feet, […]

Thai Hair-Cut No No

Several years ago I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge to a party in Nolita. The city skyline shimmered under a sky dotted by the few stars brilliant enough to pierce New York’s light umbrella. Tourists flashed photos in the dark and the bridge hummed with the passage of cars and trucks. The night was bitter […]