h.michelle's blog

Hello world!

hmichelle — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:55:36 +0000

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

loy kratong with minolta

hmichelle — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 08:59:00 +0000

november 21 marked thailand’s loy kratong, the holiday of asking forgiveness from the river for the past year’s pollution. it’s a beautiful aesthetic, banana trunk rafts floating, paper lanterns ascending into the atmosphere.

for us, we celebrated nim’s birthday, who made her own jesus raft, praying to thank god for the forgiveness he’s already given us.

i received a vintage minolta srt101 for my birthday and have been addicted to using it. i miss film. (that’s why it took me so long to get these pics up…remember having to wait for developing?)

the indomitable muy

hmichelle — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:29:00 +0000

one of my favorite people in thailand is grandma muy.

i like her mouth.

mouth red from chain betelnut chewing

mouth open to laugh

mouth drawn wide when she’s fixed in dance

mouth muttering mantras to her houseplants

go blue

hmichelle — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 11:20:00 +0000

67-65. triple overtime against illinois.

also, illinois, could you not come up with a better mascot than the “fighting illini?”

http://www.mgoblue.com/allaccess/?media=208089

they call her japanese ghost

hmichelle — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 02:56:00 +0000

meet dtan. another neighbor started calling her “japanese ghost.”

she looks like she walked out of a japanese horror movie. a horrific, adorable, japanese ghost.

she took one of our cameras and took 128 pictures of herself. 128!!! how do you think of this many poses? i like the one on the bottom left the most.

(can you tell many of them were taken in the bathroom? it’s her favorite studio.)

not safe for american children

hmichelle — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 08:54:00 +0000

we had our annual youth camp in chiang rai this past week, which means i felt old again this past week.

lots of fun had by all: 12-hour bus ride north, met up with other youth from chiang rai, swam in a waterfall, the youth tried their hand at sharing their faith, and we played one milllllion games.

and i have to say: i have a dream. i dream that we could play this game in america.

this traditional thai game has been played by generations. as soon as they started tying those eggplants around kids’ waists, i was like, “for real?” what does this look like to you?

i know you’re all thinking of how you can play this with your friends and so you’re probably wondering, “how do you play?”

easy! tie a long eggplant around your waist and with that eggplant dangling between your legs, whack a ping pong ball across a field.

the other thai adults didn’t think it looked gross. when i asked them if they thought this game was gross, they looked at me like i was the sick one. again: “for real?” i can’t see it ever catching on in america – except maybe in frat houses or in some weird, kinky way.

by the way, i sucked at this game. i think the eggplant got tied too high and i had to really squat to reach the ball. here’s staff playing. i’m the loser on the right in the gray shirt.

ps – i ate a dog. gamier than i expected.

getting over the hump.

hmichelle — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:40:00 +0000

when i leave the blog alone, it feels like a huge backlog builds up and stands as a menacing hill to get started again.

so, no filling you in. i’m ignoring that ugly hump. this is what’s on my mind today:

i pray and i expect that God is involved. he at least listens to whatever drivel i have to tell him whether or not he answers the way i wish.

but even when i expect that he hears and will respond in some way, why am i so astounded when God shows that he’s even more involved than I could even imagine?

waiting for the bf to get here…

hmichelle — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:45:00 +0000

it’s in the hands of the aircraft and personnel automated clearance system.

poo, bureaucracy.

a new and exciting career in…medical tourism blogging?

hmichelle — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:48:00 +0000

i was looking up some tourist information since the happy grunt (and family) are coming to bangkok in a couple weeks and i ran across this:

a blogging contest for medical tourism in thailand!

it’s a super long shot for me and my meager blog (it’s my even less-read blog “whatcha got, bangkok?”), but i figured, why not give it a shot. maybe i could get some plastic surgery for free out of this?

my way or the thai-way: ep.3.

hmichelle — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 01:45:00 +0000

i was googling a bakery a friend took me to called “pang wuy…huy!” on the way to the dmv. and look what i turned up.

inventor spot

bread shaped like dead bodies. dude, this is so thai.

two reasons:

1. food made into the shapes of other things.

2. gruesome, terrifying things are fun.

now to explain:

1. i’m just going to take a quick inventory of odd-shaped things i’ve eaten: shrimp formed into a donut, dragonfruit cut into hearts, sweet-cream buns shaped like rabbits, fish balls shaped like mickey mouses. i think the point is to…i’m not sure there is a point. i guess the thinking is: why would you want your food to look anything like what it actually is?

2. thai people LOVE to be scared and watch horror movies. i’ve been scared of horror movie ads ever since i can remember. i’d walk away from chucky posters. i’d bend to my sister’s every whim when she threatened to call freddy krueger. the mere mention of a ghost made me turn on every light in the house.

but thai people, the love horror anything. kids get FREAKED out by them, but they love the thrill. every place has a ghost story that gets told and re-told and re-re-told. one of the kid’s activities the teenagers planned was like that halloween game where you put your hand in a bowl of spaghetti or a bowl of peeled grapes and have to guess what it is while you’re blindfolded. ours had a bunch of funny-feeling stuff floating in water that was called “what’s in the jar?!?!” the teens made the buildup SO scary that only one kid (who was 14) was brave enough to actually put his hand in the jar. some kids were convinced that we put a ghost in the jar. yeah, that’s the kind of kids’ activities we put on. we keep ghosts in jars and make kids stick their hands in to feel them. hey, we’re just showing the love of jesus.

no, but really, i want to find this bakery. how cool would it be to bring a dismembered head to the next kids’ activity and start chomping on the skull?

muahahahahaha