Praying for Rain and Counting in Thai
Life in Thailand update ahead!
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I never thought I’d be praying for rain but that’s where I find myself in the middle of May in Bangkok, Thailand after the past few months have seen a consistent flow of hot days in vicinity of 100 degree (or 37.7 degree celsius range). Humidity is higher some days more than others and having been warned about the heat through these months, even being mentally prepared didn’t stop these days from getting old real quick. Tolerable, yes…but still!
We’re coming up on a year since we first moved here and it was the rainy season then so rain was a daily occurrence but so were cooler temperatures (80s now feels ‘cooler’ to me!) so, in short, I’m ready for the rain!
Weather aside, I have to say a nice routine has developed for my daily life here. My mornings still often start early to do zoom interviews or catch up with shows I’m writing about. Exercise, making sure Mango is getting occasional treats and love and, of course, watching BL (boys’ love) series with Boyd are all part of the daily routine. We’re currently watching Cherry Magic 30 which is comedic Thai series about a shy young man named Achi (Thitipoom “New” Techaapaikhun) who can read minds since he’s turned 30 and is still a virgin. Those powers end up helping and complicating a burgeoning romance that develops with dreamy co-worker Karan (Tawan “Tay” Vihokratana). We watch the show in thai with English subtitles and the good news is I’m picking out more words and phrases as I listen to the actors’ dialogue. Check out the trailer here:
On the work front, I’m so grateful that I continue to have various freelance assignments to work on including the recent TV Guide Magazine cover story for Justin Hartley’s Tracker on CBS and online coverage of the final episodes of Young Sheldon (also at the Eye network) for Variety. I’ve also been keeping up with Substack posts and am still hearing from people about my recent “Memories of Mom” post where, if you didn’t read it yet, talked about my mother’s passing 31 years ago as well as last week’s “Thank you, Kevin Kline” post where I wrote about how the beloved actor winning his first and only Oscar (so far) helped me get to Hollywood for the first time in 1989! Based on the response of posts like both of these, I definitely plan on keeping a string of posts coming that share life in Thailand as well as looking back on important moments in my personal and professional life.
The other big news - in case you missed my recent short video post on our Jim and Boyd Travel YouTube channel - is that I’ve started taking Thai language lessons here in Bangkok. Learning more about the language here in 2024 was a promise I made to myself and Boyd and when it came time for me to figure out my next visa since my tourist visa was ending, doing an education visa had a two-prong effect - it would keep me in the country and I’d be able to formally learn how to communicate much more than I have been able to.
So not only did I get my education visa approved today (Wednesday, May 15) but I’m in my second week of taking lessons at the ALA Language School. Here’s a video short I made while I was walking to my first day of class:
Funny what you can learn in a short amount of time when you give it your attention and carve out space in your day to do homework and study because, I can’t stress this enough, Thai is a tough language to learn. And the last time I tried to learn another language (Spanish) I was in high school and college so it’s been a minute.
Thankfully, the class is taught in English by a bi-lingual Thai teacher and this introductory class (called “Icebreaker” and focused on Speaking) is structured to ease you into the Thai language while also moving from basic sentence structures to key words and phrases. For example, this week we are focusing on numbers, counting as well as telling time.
As for numbers, there’s been a running joke since Boyd and I arrived here in Bangkok last June that I still could not count to ten. It may be a joke but it was also not wrong. I knew back when we lived in Los Angeles that ‘haa’ meant 5 since Thai people usually text the numbers 555 (to stand for a series of ‘haas’) when something is funny. But the rest of the numbers had not stuck in my head quite yet and I wasn’t making a big effort to learn them until I started classes.
Well, yesterday something pretty cool happened in terms of numbers and my own little breakthrough so I did a little video about it for our YouTube page. Check it out here…and know that if you LIKE the video and even SUBSCRIBE to our page, that’s a helpful thing in the YouTube world!
I’ll keep posting videos like this as I learn more of the Thai language. If you’re not familiar with it, one of the hardest things to master is tone — there are five different tones in the Thai language so besides learning words and their meanings in Thai, you then also need to learn how to say them correctly because if you say one word with the wrong tone, it can either drastically change what you’re trying to communicate and even be insulting to whomever you’re talking to. It’s not easy but two weeks in, so far, so good! Send prayers!
Until next time…