Tweet
God goes AAH!!
I make no secret of the fact that I'm addicted to Thai food, and my favorite place to stop in to get some before work is a rundown little hole in the wall about five miles from my apartment. I've seen a few things there in my time, such as a snotty tourist who asked the waiter what it was like being the only Asian restaurant in a little town like this -- only to be informed that this is a city of almost 90,000 residents, which boasts upwards of thirty Asian restaurants that run the gamut from Vietnamese to Nepalese. That was fun to watch.
Anyway, when you go into this restaurant, you immediately notice that behind the cash register is a shelf packed tight with statuettes of Buddha and various deities who I can't even pretend to recognize. Several of these statues will have little crystal cups filled with Kool-Aid, flowers, or coins sitting before them because, as the cute little Laotian waitress explained to me, this keeps the gods happy.
And therein lies the problem. This restaurant is rarely crowded at suppertime, and I've often dined there alone. When they don't have many customers, they don't turn on the sound system which plays a bizarre montage of Thai songs and chants and -- just for fun -- horrible, sappy ballads from the 1970's.
So, the other night I was enjoying my dinner when a group of three people came in. To judge from their conversation with the waitress, they'd never had Thai food before and had no idea what it involved or what it might taste like. They'd stopped on a whim. They didn't want anything spicy.
Meanwhile, four people was enough to warrant the sound system, so the owner switched it on. One of those awful songs from the 70's played -- Honey by Bobby Goldsboro. This song is so bad that to hear it sears the occasion into your memory, but the newcomers had no comment about this. But then, a lyrical Thai chant came on.
This was too much. They looked at each other aghast and then summoned the waitress, who had gone to fetch the illustrated menu, as the newcomers had no idea what any of the menu items were and needed pictures to help them decide.
I'll give them credit -- they asked her politely to turn off the music. They wanted it turned off, though, because they knew that "the Thais" worship other gods, and they knew the chants "are prayers to other gods, and we're Christian, and it just makes the God in our hearts go 'AAH!!'"
The waitress looked at them the way I was looking at them -- as if they had just asked permission to put their fingers in her nose. She blinked a few times, puzzled, and then went to go ask the owner to turn off the music.
Maybe it's more odd than precisely sucky, but they seemed a bit... sheltered.
Bonus sightings!
Totally unrelated to the incident described above come these gems, one of which has fratching potential, so let's not go there.
Today, my city's annual summer blowout festival began. A cool time-lapse video of festival preparations can be viewed here. I haven't gotten the chance to go to this festival in almost a decade, and having managed to finagle this weekend off, I wasn't going to miss it. I went with my boyfriend and a large contingent of friends.
Here's the sighting with fratching potential. Every year at this festival, a small, but loud, group of street preachers takes to the downtown streets to tell all the festival-goers that they're all doomed and going to hell. Meanwhile, every Friday night in my city, an impromptu drum circle takes over one of the downtown parks and can draw a crowd, on a good night, of upwards of two thousand people.
Not this year. The preachers got a permit and took over the park first, booting the drum circle out so they could have room to stretch out and tell people they're going to hell.
This leads to the second sighting. The drum circle, though evicted this week, was not deterred... and the city set up a special place for them to rock out a couple of blocks away. And this time, they were going to have very special guest drummers -- a group of drummers and dancers from Burundi, East Africa in town for the international dance festival we have here every summer.
This gave me occasion to use a phrase you just don't hear enough of nowadays: "Look! The African drummers have arrived on a school bus from Haywood County!"
Anyway, the drummers were amazing (go here and scroll down to see them balancing their drums on their heads) and consummate professionals. They were unfazed and never lost their rhythm when some moron with a tom-tom kept darting out of the crowd beating his drum as he ran by.
They were also unfazed when a fat lady in a purple dress kept edging her way past the security guards to try to dance with the drummers. In time, the dancers invited her in to dance with them, and then brought in other members from the crowd -- including, I'm proud to report, my boyfriend. It will only be a matter of time before there's video of it on youtube.
And I will be heading back to the festival later today. Can't wait to see what sort of SC's there will be today!
I make no secret of the fact that I'm addicted to Thai food, and my favorite place to stop in to get some before work is a rundown little hole in the wall about five miles from my apartment. I've seen a few things there in my time, such as a snotty tourist who asked the waiter what it was like being the only Asian restaurant in a little town like this -- only to be informed that this is a city of almost 90,000 residents, which boasts upwards of thirty Asian restaurants that run the gamut from Vietnamese to Nepalese. That was fun to watch.
Anyway, when you go into this restaurant, you immediately notice that behind the cash register is a shelf packed tight with statuettes of Buddha and various deities who I can't even pretend to recognize. Several of these statues will have little crystal cups filled with Kool-Aid, flowers, or coins sitting before them because, as the cute little Laotian waitress explained to me, this keeps the gods happy.
And therein lies the problem. This restaurant is rarely crowded at suppertime, and I've often dined there alone. When they don't have many customers, they don't turn on the sound system which plays a bizarre montage of Thai songs and chants and -- just for fun -- horrible, sappy ballads from the 1970's.
So, the other night I was enjoying my dinner when a group of three people came in. To judge from their conversation with the waitress, they'd never had Thai food before and had no idea what it involved or what it might taste like. They'd stopped on a whim. They didn't want anything spicy.
Meanwhile, four people was enough to warrant the sound system, so the owner switched it on. One of those awful songs from the 70's played -- Honey by Bobby Goldsboro. This song is so bad that to hear it sears the occasion into your memory, but the newcomers had no comment about this. But then, a lyrical Thai chant came on.
This was too much. They looked at each other aghast and then summoned the waitress, who had gone to fetch the illustrated menu, as the newcomers had no idea what any of the menu items were and needed pictures to help them decide.
I'll give them credit -- they asked her politely to turn off the music. They wanted it turned off, though, because they knew that "the Thais" worship other gods, and they knew the chants "are prayers to other gods, and we're Christian, and it just makes the God in our hearts go 'AAH!!'"
The waitress looked at them the way I was looking at them -- as if they had just asked permission to put their fingers in her nose. She blinked a few times, puzzled, and then went to go ask the owner to turn off the music.
Maybe it's more odd than precisely sucky, but they seemed a bit... sheltered.
Bonus sightings!
Totally unrelated to the incident described above come these gems, one of which has fratching potential, so let's not go there.
Today, my city's annual summer blowout festival began. A cool time-lapse video of festival preparations can be viewed here. I haven't gotten the chance to go to this festival in almost a decade, and having managed to finagle this weekend off, I wasn't going to miss it. I went with my boyfriend and a large contingent of friends.
Here's the sighting with fratching potential. Every year at this festival, a small, but loud, group of street preachers takes to the downtown streets to tell all the festival-goers that they're all doomed and going to hell. Meanwhile, every Friday night in my city, an impromptu drum circle takes over one of the downtown parks and can draw a crowd, on a good night, of upwards of two thousand people.
Not this year. The preachers got a permit and took over the park first, booting the drum circle out so they could have room to stretch out and tell people they're going to hell.
This leads to the second sighting. The drum circle, though evicted this week, was not deterred... and the city set up a special place for them to rock out a couple of blocks away. And this time, they were going to have very special guest drummers -- a group of drummers and dancers from Burundi, East Africa in town for the international dance festival we have here every summer.
This gave me occasion to use a phrase you just don't hear enough of nowadays: "Look! The African drummers have arrived on a school bus from Haywood County!"
Anyway, the drummers were amazing (go here and scroll down to see them balancing their drums on their heads) and consummate professionals. They were unfazed and never lost their rhythm when some moron with a tom-tom kept darting out of the crowd beating his drum as he ran by.
They were also unfazed when a fat lady in a purple dress kept edging her way past the security guards to try to dance with the drummers. In time, the dancers invited her in to dance with them, and then brought in other members from the crowd -- including, I'm proud to report, my boyfriend. It will only be a matter of time before there's video of it on youtube.
And I will be heading back to the festival later today. Can't wait to see what sort of SC's there will be today!
o-o
Comment