Five Insect Stories

Story Number One

Once upon a time, an expat teacher lived in a condo on a swanky condo street. There weren’t many access points to public transport because everyone else drove in expensive cars. So the expat teacher had to climb 67 concrete stairs from the bus stop to reach the swanky condo street. The last of the 67 concrete stairs rose out of a fetid puddle of stagnant jungle water that never seemed to dry up.  Every day the expat teacher saw something interesting at the fetid puddle of stagnant jungle water at the base of the last of the 67 concrete steps leading to the swanky condo street. In the fetid puddle she had seen toads, mice, dragonflies, giant land snails, mosquito larvae of a frightening size, wriggling worms, tadpoles, and once, a baby snake.

One sunny weekend day, the expat teacher noticed an iridescent turquoise flash. It was a Common Bluebottle butterfly. She fumbled for her camera and knelt at the edge of the fetid puddle which had once again yielded up its bounty to the delight of the expat teacher.

THE END

Story Number Two

Once upon a time in a condo on a swanky condo street lived a distinctly unswanky expat teacher and her two expat teacher roommates. One night when all three were about to settle in for a short night’s rest before waking up in the godless hours before dawn, the expat teacher was roused by someone shouting her name.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaace?!?! There’s a huge moth in my room!”

The expat teacher was conveniently just passing by her roommate’s bedroom had narrowly missed being brained by the door as her roommate rocketed out of her room. Her roommate stood in a cold sweat, suddenly still and silent, and mutely pointed at her curtains. The expat teacher locked eyes with the giant brown moth sitting on the curtains. She strode into the room, emanating a mysterious magnetic power. The moth took flight; the roommate whimpered from the hallway as it flew straight at the expat teacher and landed like a brooch on her chest and trembled there.

The expat teacher walked with silent assurance out of her roommate’s bedroom, past the stunned roommate in the hall, and into her own bedroom … and then darted for her camera. The moth-spell broken, the winged monster flew wildly at the ceiling light, stunning itself and falling behind the door where the expat teacher immediately began a photoshoot. The roommate poked her head into the bedroom: “Should I … uh … leave you two alone?”

THE END

Story Number Three

Once upon a time, on a swanky condo street, an expat teacher was just returning to her bedroom from the front door where she had been releasing an enormous moth back into the balmy tropical night. Just as she was passing her roommate’s room, she was startled by a piercing shriek from within, “GRAAAAAAACE! There’s another bug in my room!”

The expat teacher burst into the room, brandishing her camera still warm from the moth’s photoshoot. The roommate was standing in a corner pointing at the curtain. A small praying mantis stood on the curtain with cocked head, trying to kill everything with its furious praying mantis gaze. The expat teacher sprang into action, trying to make her camera go into macro mode with sheer will alone (and failing.) She pursued the mantis from curtain to wall to window, never managing to take a decent picture.

The little praying mantis – as proud as any of its kind – flew into the ceiling light in one last defiant kamakazi gesture, killing itself just to spite the expat teacher. Its small green body joined its brethren in the domed white tomb. It had won.

THE END

Story Number Four

Once upon a time, in the campus of a girls’ primary school in Singapore was a blue railing. It divided the road from the sidewalk and was usually bereft of life. One morning though, the Wednesday sun rose to illuminate a terrible and wonderful sight: two piles of red Singapore ants, all spindly legs and antennaes and beady black ant eyes. They didn’t move. They weren’t feeding. They simply sat in a still pile about four ants deep.

An expat teacher stood at the blue railing, blowing hard at the ant pile. Some students stood a few metres behind her, horrified. Slowly the ants started moving but they didn’t go anywhere, the just started moving their limbs around. Three hours later, they were still there. Four hours later, they were gone. What were the ants doing? By what fell means will they achieve their sinister goals? Were they ants at all? We may never know.

THE END

Story Number Five

Once upon a time, a woman went for a hike and saw a one-legged cricket trying to sing. It was heart-breaking.

THE END

My December – White Temple Day

Where I went:

How it felt:

Mostly blindingly bright. Partially embarrassing. Also involved some delicious food (as usual.)

Welcome to the White Temple

On our first full day in Chiang Rai, Gianpiero and I decided to go find the glittering white building we’d seen on the bus on the way into Chiang Rai. We found out from the friendly staff at Akha River House that it was called the “White Temple”.  I suddenly heard the voice of my coworker, Sakinah: “Grace. If you go to Chiang Rai, you must must see the White Temple.”

In the morning we met at the big table by the river for breakfasts of our choice (yogurt and muesli for GP, rice porridge for me.) It was so! cold! I had trouble sleeping the night before because it must have been less than 10°C  and I was pitifully unprepared for anything lower than 18°C. In the wee hours I had to get up and  jump  around in my room to warm up, put on every single article of clothing I had packed (a pair of thin cotton pants, three t-shirts, a thin cardigan, a sarong, and a blessed, blessed thick pair of hiking socks,) and then cocoon myself tightly in the blankets which I had folded in half to double them.

When I left my room to brush my teeth I could see my breath! This is Thailand!

Our planned early departure was delayed because we started talking to Nika who was also staying at the River House. Nika is a New Yorker who’s been living in Thailand for a while now, although it seems she’s been living pretty much everywhere else too (lucky!) She had been up the mountain to stay with the Akha tribe and couldn’t say enough great things about the place. Also she’s just wildly interesting. Seriously, the stories this woman tells!

By 10:30 we were streaking south down the highway, sun already high in the clear winter sky, my sarong whipping and snapping behind us, feeling secure above our full tank of gas.  Not only was the weather warming up, but I got to play navigatrix.  (I had three different maps and consulted them frequently with great difficultly due to the wind. I love being navigatrix.) Really, there aren’t many feelings nicer than riding on the back of a motorbike on a sunny Southeast Asian day.

Thirty minutes outside of Chiang Rai Gianpiero started asking me if I was sure we were on the right track. Yes, of course we are. There’s no way we could have made a wrong turn because there were no turns. Forty minutes outside of Chiang Rai he insisted we pull over and find out where we were. There were no signs, no towns, just a few buildings on either side of the highway, so I had to approach a man near his truck.

“<Sorry! Hello!>” I brandished the wind-crumpled map with my shiniest hapless tourist smile. “Uh…Wat Rong Khun?”
“Aaaaah!” his face broke into a huge smile. He pointed west with the universal sound/gesture that means undoubtably “really really really far away.”

I returned to Gianpiero sitting all cool and collected on the motorbike with low-hanging head. I had failed.  I was so embarrassed. Gianpiero sportingly teased me for the rest of our time in Thailand but was kind enough not to look too smug.

We have arrived!

An hour later, we pulled into a gravel lot across from the glittering Wat Rong Khun. It was even whiter and sparklier up close, mainly because the temple was surrounded by a shallow pond which not only reflected the temple, but reflected the sun onto the temple’s mirrored tiles. And it wasn’t only punishingly bright to look at; the grounds were covered in momento mori and graphic depictions of Buddhist hell.

Your head will be used as a planter!

This guy will take you out.

I'm not sure what's happening here, but it looks uncomfortable.

Everything was ceramic-white and/or painted with a pearly, opalescent paint and/or inlayed with mirrored tiles. The architecture itself is very Thai — delicate swooping roofs and ornate curlicues attached to everything.

Ornate.

If cigarette smoke looked like this ...

Two different roof silhouettes.

Monks walking into the koi pond building. This building was the pearliest of all.

The temple itself was really interesting. The interior was almost bereft of the usual fancy accoutrements of a temple, but the entire back wall was painted with the strangest mural I could imagine in a holy place.  The mural depicted a few demons of in huge dimensions overlaid by a post-apocalyptic landscape and everywhere in this flaming hellhole were popculture icons. Seriously. You can spot everyone from Doraemon to Superman to Darth Vader to Keanu Reeves of as Neo in The Matrix (although I approve of Keanu being in a place of worship.) Photography is not allowed inside the temple, so you’ll have to use your imaginations.

The temple won’t be completed for a few decades, but there are lots of things to see in the meantime.  The designer of the temple even hangs around and autographs pamphlets. He seems to be some sort of Thai celebrity. Some of his other works are displayed in another building and visitors can buy prints. His paintings are mostly pretty trippy in a new-age Thai kind of way. I’m sure they’re very popular with tourists.

The temple from behind.

The side of the temple.

It was a strange place to visit. On one hand, it’s a major tourist attraction equipped with a few restaurants, a cafe, and a few gift shops; on the other hand, it was a peaceful place of worship. On one hand, Westerners jabbering with delighted surprise at Keanu Reeves; on the other hand, an immensely old monk sitting deathly still in the centre of the temple. On one hand, entire clans of be(sun)spectacled, camera-slinging tourists frantically trying to organize group photos; on the other hand, the tourist clans bowing to pray.

It kind of reminded me of the Philippines where the precious town cathedral’s altar revered by all  also doubles as a stray dog rendezvous point. It’s something Alice and I talked about a lot in Korea; maybe Asians aren’t as picky about separating realms of their lives as Westerners. We noticed that Korean teachers were interacted with their students in ways that we sometimes found shockingly intimate.  I think especially North Americans tend to compartmentalize our lives. Thoughts?

I'm posting this extremely unflattering picture to illustrate the dichotomy of "heavenly" and "dirty backpacker".

After a quick lunch at one of the restaurants, we went back to Chiang Rai (I navigated perfectly this time.) We had planned to go up to the Akha Mountain House but turned out we didn’t have enough time because we were both going to Bangkok in two days.

I spent the afternoon wandering the wats of the city (many.) I encountered lots of other interesting things: a high school marching band with gorgeous brand new silver-plated instruments, parks filled with exercise clothing-clad ladies doing energetic dance aerobics, local people lined up to buy coats and sweaters. Turns out it was a freak cold front and I wasn’t the only one caught unprepared.

At night, I rejoined GP and we went back to the foodcourt and ordered the clay hotpot. Gianpiero was really excited about it.

Et voila!

NOM NOM NOM

We ate this!

We ate two servings of beef, a serving of chicken, and I think we tried a serving of pork. The beef was best. Both being huge food nerds, we created competition of who could make the most delicious soup using the raw ingredients we were given. Competition was fierce especially because I had to prove myself a competent person after the navigating fiasco of the morning. We each won once.

People. Chilling.

After dinner we wandered lazily around the night market, idly eyeing goods. It was getting cold again, so I bought a hideous $3 sweatshirt that says hilarious things about fruit in amazing Engrish that deserves its own post. We wanted sticky rice with mango, but none was to be found. Instead we found a lady selling dango with different toppings and I had the pleasure of initiating another friend into the mysterious world of rice cakes. Yummmmmm!

We went back to the hotel and I asked for two extra blankets. I slept cozy and warm in my socks, sweatshirt, and smothered in blankets.