Glimpses

Shared a meal with a nice couple that has adopted me for lunches every Wednesday. They barely speak English and I barely speak Thai, so at best we laugh our way through conversations and at worst, we have some silly misunderstandings. Well this particular Wednesday they drove me outside of town to the outskirts, along the main highway towards Bangkok, and pulled into the parking lot for a nice surprise: the name of the coffee shop we would eat at was Uncle John! They had no idea of the relation (I have a very silly Uncle John!), and I don’t think they even know what “uncle” means. The most likely course of events is simply that they chose the destination because the shop’s name and menu was printed in English. Most of the other restaurants in town are only identifiable by Thai letters; I may have eaten at other restaurants with names I’d find significant, but I wouldn’t know it because I’m still learning the Thai alphabet (44 characters).

I tried my best to explain the significance to the couple but I don’t think it carried through. They smiled, but probably out of politeness, not understanding.

The restaurant is a chain from Malaysia, but has a few locations sprinkled throughout Thailand. If it had not been for this random lunch exploration, I would never have found it. Had I seen it before, I surely would have stopped in, drawn by that name! I had pad thai for lunch and, although I am not at all a coffee drinker, I ordered the Uncle John Iced Coffee in honor of the guy! I don’t think it was really the kind of coffee he drinks; my Uncle John probably likes something a little stronger.

In other news, today’s Thai word of the day is เหม็น, which means “smelly.” It’s pronounced “men” which lends itself to a nice mnemonic device: I just remember “men are smelly.”

Editor’s Note: These two short glimpses are in no way related, despite what some relatives would loudly echo about Uncle John and “smelly.”