Mai Pen Lai: Life in Thailand

After talking with my mom on the phone last night, I realized that even hundreds of pictures on Facebook can’t really capture Thailand and all we’ve been up to here so far. So, I’d like to attempt a description based on my first ten days in Thailand. Warning: this will be a long post.

I’ve mentioned already that I understand essentially no Thai. One phrase I do understand, though, is “mai pen lai,” and I would say it describes most of Thailand well. Translated, it can mean “you’re welcome,” “no worries,” “never mind,” or “take it easy.” People here must take that to heart because they’re easy-going, carefree, and entirely unhurried. They’re also friendly, polite, and seem to smile about everything. One woman who comes to our church is shy and speaks little English, but instead of just keeping quiet when people try to talk to her, she breaks out giggling. It works out well for her--everyone, American of Thai, starts laughing along with her. Another woman who runs a small fruit stand near the Zone (Payap Christian Zone, where we live and work) speaks as much English as I speak Thai, but she greets me every afternoon with a big smile and fresh saparoht (pineapple) already cut for me. I return the smile and give her 10 baht. I’d say we have a very good relationship.

Friendly though they may be, Thais are also crazy drivers. There are essentially no street laws beyond stopping at traffic lights, and I’m surprised more motorcyclists don’t die each day. But mai pen lai: most people ride these tiny motorbikes and don’t seem at all concerned with the size of the cars they consistently cut off and weave in and out between. This free-for-all mentality is kind of how most things seem to work in Thailand. You want plastic surgery, stop in a clinic at the spanking new mall, assuming whatever risk there might be. I haven’t seen anyone yet with a disfigured face, so apparently this approach is working well enough.

So we’re all learning to chill out, having found there isn’t much you can do about finding a giant insect cooked into your pad thai, driving through four feet of flood water to get home, or sleeping with no sheets and minimal clothing with the AC cranked way up and still waking up sweaty before you've even started another sticky day. Mai pen lai.

Tuesday through Friday, those sticky days generally consist of:

7:30 — Roll out of bed at 7:30, dress in the coolest clothes I can find, and patter barefoot downstairs to put on my shoes (always left outside, so our floors are spotlessly clean) and walk down the street to buy breakfast either at our corner 7-11 or one of the street vendors.

8:30 — Begin nearly four hours of “spiritual equipping time,” where we read through a book about spiritual disciplines, spend 45 minutes in quiet time, then come back together a read a chapter of John. For me, these four hours generally consist of pondering what new Thai dish to try for lunch and injecting myself with coffee to stay awake. Don’t tell anyone, but “quiet time” often is very quiet—dreamily so, if you know what I mean.

12:30 — Eat lunch somewhere, then enjoy a couple hours of free time where I generally sit outside on our patio drinking Thai iced tea, reading or writing, listening to the birds and the trickle of water in the gutter running behind the Zone, and watching the trees rustle like the clothes we've hung outside to dry while the afternoon clouds roll in. Or I might walk over to one of the coffee shops near us or explore the winding market streets in the neighborhood.

3:00 — Return to the Zone and hang out with anyone who might happen to stop in and want to hang out. Most of these people are regulars who either go to church here or have been hanging around for months, although we’ve had several new people drop in this last week since the school semester has started up again. There’s a group of Chinese girls and several Thais who come in and out, and we hang out and play games and enjoy the AC and talk, helping them practice English while they teach us a little Thai.

6:00 — Eat dinner somewhere (we eat a lot) and start finding things to do all evening . This might mean grabbing pizza at the mall and going to see a movie at the big theater (before every movie they play a song written by the king, Bhumibol, during which everyone stands), cooking with everyone and having our Cell Group meeting if it’s Thursday, or grabbing dinner at a nearby hole-in-the-wall restaurant and coming back to play volleyball or cheer our Thai friends on at a soccer game or put in a movie, etc.

Mondays are our days off, so some of our new Thai friends have shown us around the city, taken us shopping at local markets, or gone hiking with us up in the nearby mountains. By the way, the mountains here are wonderful; it’s like being in the jungle.

Sundays we have church in the morning, a big lunch in the afternoon (sounds like Sundays at home, no?), and then walk around the night market in the evening or gather at a local coffee shop.

Of course there’s quite a bit more going on besides this, but hopefully that gives you somewhat of an idea what we’re up to here. If you’re asking how this is “mission” work, we’re building relationships where we can learn from the Thais and they can learn from us—all very casual, mutual, and friendly. Mai pen lai. I think we’ve all learned quite a bit already.