This summer, I got a chance to go to Thailand with my closest friends. It's been a couple months since the trip, but I recently got reminded of everything that we did there.
I figured the first thing I'd talk about was the culture shock. I was expecting it to be so much worse than it actually was. The worst that happened was I reverted to not quite eating everything that was put in front of me. For me, the most overwhelming thing was being somewhere for an extended period of time where I didn't understand anything going on around me. I'm used to that in small amounts because I go to a Chinese church and my family tends to stop in at Asian stores every now and then. I know there will be things that I don't understand and that's all right -- that's just how it is. Also, the undulations of the Thai language is slightly different from Chinese and it threw me off for a bit as well.
Outdoor markets are so similar to some of our Chinese stores here -- the only difference is that the outdoor markets were outside, literally on the streets of Bangkok. It's also slightly less sanitary (again, they're literally on the streets of Bangkok) than in a store here, but I think I was expecting it to be worse than it was. Otherwise, the smells, the whole raw dead animal carcasses, and the flopping fish were all fairly normal. It might have helped that I can space out when I'm half asleep -- and I was definitely still half asleep.
We also visited shopping centers (malls) while there. Our group stayed in the cultural part of the center (it's like a boardwalk type place, like the Plaza in Santa Fe where you walk by vendors who are selling turquoise jewelry and the like -- things that are unique to New Mexico) when we weren't eating, but we did pass stores that made it seem like we were in a mall at home. We even went to a Starbucks while there! The shopping center seems to present a picture of Bangkok in miniature -- modernity walking alongside tradition. Even just the outdoor markets showed this, one of them sharing the same space as a 7-11 which was sitting across the street from Victorian style apartment buildings. It was intriguing to me just as a person (I mean, I spent most of the time in San Francisco looking up -- they have Gothic style buildings that house McDonalds, okay? The idea is just so captivating for me) and I spent a lot of our travel time (driving from place to place, or going down the river in a boat) watching the buildings go by and noting how so many different styles could all sit so close together.
It was almost nice not drowning in white people (no offense against any of you white people). I literally have no filter between my mouth and brain when I'm tired, so on the way back through customs in L.A. I probably offended somebody by commenting on the plethora of white people. It also helped that we didn't really do the normal touristy stuff, so we didn't come in contact with a lot of white people (we ran into couple crowds of white people when we visited general tourist sites, but since that wasn't our focus, we didn't spend a lot of time in those areas).
We stayed in Bangkok for the whole trip (if we ever left it, I wouldn't know) and I am grateful for that. Our first layover in the Narita airport in Tokyo, Japan left me a bit wiser on the use of squatty potties. If you don't know what that is, look it up. While Thailand has incorporated traditional Western toilets, most people there are actually still more comfortable with said squatty potties. In Narita, I ended up using the squatty potty stall. I wouldn't recommend it as it turned into a rather memorable experience. The rest of our trip was much less stressful as the places we visited all had standard upright toilets (even if they were questionably sanitary).
The humidity was very bearable. People had spent the two weeks leading up to the trip warning me about the humidity but I found it to be tolerable. It was not unlike being in Tallahassee, Florida (I was there two years ago, the first week of August for TeenPact Congress). Air conditioning is fantastic and I would hate living there without it, but we were able to balance our time outside with our time inside and I (obviously) survived the ordeal. Yes, I would avoid going outside if at all possible, but it isn't a terrible experience either (I thought I was going to melt into a puddle or something from all the dire predictions people were giving me).
The food is fantastic. We avoided all Thai spice (which is good because I can't handle any level of spiciness). Even without spice, Thai food has a different flavor to it. It was different from anything I'd had before (flavor wise, not so much food wise). Almost every day meant something different and an experience that we wouldn't forget. Oddly enough, the shared cooking adventure we all had was when our team decided to make tortillas so we could have soft taco/burrito type things for dinner. You would think that coming from New Mexico, we would be able to, but nope. We all learned how to make tortillas in Thailand. That was an adventure all on its own.
All in all, I'm not sure there was a lot of culture shock going on in my head. It was new, yes, but it was also an okay kind of new. Like going to the Grand Canyon. It's different, but it's not like it completely throws me off and rattles me to my core.
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