Monthly Archive for March, 2010

A Thai Seder

Last night Lauren, Daniel, and I had a small seder for the second night of Passover. We had to improvise most of the logistics, from a downloaded Haggadah to various ingredient substitutions. We used bitter gourd as our maror, and a fried chicken leg from the night market as our pesach.  I made a charoset of green mangoes, chilies, sugar, and peanuts, continuing my recent tradition of holiday cooking prep at P Nik’s.

Hard-boiled eggs, salt water, and leafy greens were easy enough to come by, and Daniel completed our menu with some supplies he picked up from the Chiang Mai Chabad:

  • 3 bottles of kosher wine
  • A monster box of matzot, imported from Russia

After finishing the pre-dinner ceremonies with a spiced up Hillel sandwich (awesome with the mango charoset), we had our main course: a big salad using our bounty from the Sunday market. As the youngest seder attendee, Daniel not only had to read the four questions, but he also had to hunt for the afikoman in our 100 square foot apartment!

For dessert we prepared a tropical fruit salad of yellow and green mangoes, oranges, and bananas. We also had some of Nik’s strawberry jam on top of the afikoman matzah. While not your typical Maxwell House seder, we covered all the Passover classics, and swapped family traditions and songs. It was a very enjoyable second night of our rice-free week.

Seder plate
Seder plate with chicken leg Pesach, bitter gourd Maror, Thai charoset, local spring onion karpas, and hard boiled egg

Daniel with matzah
Daniel showing off the huge box of Russian matzah he acquired in Chiang Mai

Lauren, Kenny, and Little Vid
Little Vid helped us prepare the seder plate

Passover party
Our seder – Haggadah on the Kindle, food, wine, and reclining on the floor

Burma News Rollup: 3/30

The big Burma news today centers around the National League for Democracy’s decision not to contest the 2010 election. This comes in response to a number of election laws that have been released over the past few weeks which clearly target (and in many cases, seem designed to cause rifts in) the NLD.

  • The decision to abstain from the election was unanimous.
  • NLD spokesman Nyan Win describes the future role of the NLD by saying, “We will continue to exist politically by not registering. If we register, we will only have a name void of all political essence.”
  • The US State Department has denounced the junta and blamed them for the NLD’s decision.
  • A well-written editorial from the director of Amnesty International UK expresses disappointment but no surprise at the NLD’s decision. Of course, Amnesty has already denounced the junta’s election law and agrees with the NLD that they would be legitimizing the election by taking part.

Meanwhile, more and more people are calling for the UN to step in and do something already. Will they, or will China keep blocking progress? One writer for the Irrawaddy takes the optimistic view.

Cats on a Hot Tin Roof

On our way out the door this morning, we witnessed this sight from our third floor vantage point:

Cats on a hot tin roof
Hot kitteh onna tin roof

Quote of the Week

From the Guardian, via Burmanet, a UK government source commenting on Burma’s election rules:

A government source said the election rules were “clearly taking the piss” and were not a serious effort to democratise the country, a view that was increasingly shared by Burma’s neighbours in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Passover in Thailand

Tonight marks the first night of Passover, and the first time I’ve ever spent Passover outside of the States. In a town where Lauren and I probably comprise 100% of the Jewish population, we’ll have to be creative this week. There is certainly no matzah to be found, and rice is the staple ingredient of just about every dish in town. That said, there are tons of fresh fruits and vegetables here, we can order a lot of stir fries sans rice, and P Nik makes a mean yogurt, so I think we’ll do ok. :)

Happy Passover everyone!

Sunday Market Signspotting

On Sundays there is a big market event south of town. We went by this morning to get some fresh produce and a few more household items for our new apartment. One of the other things the Sunday market is famous for is cheap clothing. We didn’t buy any, but we did capture a few entertaining photos.

Denies jeans
The logo denies any alleged similarity to Dickies pants

Levev club jeans
These will get you into an exclusive Israeli dance club

Read emeil
Today’s To Do List – 10. Run spell check

Poi Sang Long

Today, a few people from my office took us to a local village to celebrate Poi Sang Long, a festival in which Shan boys are initiated into the monkhood at the local monastery. The holiday is celebrated in many villages in Burma and in a few Shan communities here in Thailand. Young Buddhist boys are all required to become monks at some point, but only for 9 days; many will remain monks for about a month, and then they will go back to their homes in time for the new school year.

We showed up around 8am, and the parade was in full swing. Women and men were both dressed in colorful Shan clothes, and everyone carried gifts for the monks. The novice monks were being carried on people’s shoulders, owing to a dearth of horses here in Thailand. By 9am or so, the procession ended at the monastery, where we were assailed with free snacks, juices, and coins wrapped in gold and silver foil for good luck.

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This parade marcher’s clothing and makeup reminded me of Mardi Gras in New Orleans

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Playing cymbals in the parade

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A pensive soon-to-be novice monk

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Kenny made a new friend who offered him this placard to carry and deliver to the Buddha at the wat

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Dancing ladies entering the wat

Global Hunger Shabbat

Last night, we had a special Friday meal at my NGO office to participate in Global Hunger Shabbat, an AJWS initiative to raise awareness about hunger around the world. Back when we were at orientation in Chiang Mai we received a booklet with articles and pictures for discussion, and they asked us to organize a local observance for our friends or co-workers once we arrived on site.

We decided that the event would be a fun opportunity to introduce my co-workers to challah, and to the classic Shabbat rituals of wine, candles, and family. Kenny and Daniel spent much of the day baking challahs in P Nik’s kitchen. P Nik has a big propane-powered oven, so to maximize their propane utilization they made triple the normal recipe – 11 in all! They left three loaves for P Nik to sell, and brought the remaining eight over to my office. They also picked up a huge bottle of white Italian table wine and a bottle of red Chilean wine (the best we could do in these parts), a whiskey bottle full of local honey for challah-dipping, a couple of candles, and a few Asian desserts that offered pretty good approximations of hamentaschen and rugelach!

It didn’t surprise me that the challahs were a big hit – we were a group of almost 15 people, and had no problem finishing all of them. We also polished off all of the wine, which was a bit more treacherous than we had anticipated, as a few of my NGO’s members are a hair under 18 and are still learning how to moderate their alcohol consumption. ;) The best discovery we made was how well the challah paired with the spicy mango salad that a few staff members had taught me how to make earlier in the day – yum! We made our way through some of the Hunger Shabbat content as we ate, although much of it was quite difficult for non-native English speakers to read. The photos at the back of the booklet were the most accessible tidbits for this audience, and made for some good discussion.

After we ate, one of our joint secretaries and her friend pulled out their guitars, and they started a group sing-along session featuring many of the Burmese pop songs I’ve been hearing around the office for the past few weeks. It actually reminded me of many guitar-led song sessions from Jewish camp back in the day. It was a fun celebration and the food and music were fabulous!

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Daw Aung San Suu Kyi overseeing our Shabbat spread

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Kenny and me enjoying challah with spicy mango salad

The Burma Diet

Quote of the week, from one of my NGO co-workers: “We all love spicy food so much, when someone in the office wants to lose weight we just make food without chilies.”

Mango and Sticky Rice

When it comes to southeast Asian desserts, I usually take a pass. Occasionally though, they steal my sweet tooth, usually with a dish involving fresh fruit. At the top of my list is mango and sticky rice. In our quiet mountain town, we have a single mango and sticky rice stand that is run by a lady who offers a quality product. For 35B you get a freshly sliced, fully ripe mango and some sticky rice, with coconut milk sprinkled on top. Usually we take the mangoes on the road, but last night we relaxed at one of the small tables inside to linger over the sweet conclusion to our day. Yum!

Mango and sticky rice
Mango and sticky rice

Making mango and sticky rice
The expert mango slicer at work

Mango and sticky rice stand
The only mango and sticky rice shop in town