Sun Suk Wan Mae - Happy Mother's Day

Mother’s day in Thailand is Aug 12, which is The Queen’s Birthday. It is a national holiday! Each day in Thailand has a color, for instance Monday is yellow & The King was born on a Monday, so yellow is The King’s color. The Queen was born on a Friday which is blue (for all my southern friends – it’s a Carolina blue); thus, today most people were wearing blue shirts to honor The Queen. There are large photos of The Queen at various ages posted all over the city with blue ribbons surrounding them. Some of the main streets are lit up with white lights like we have a Christmas.

For lunch I met up with an Aussie friend of mine who works full-time, so only time we can meet is on holidays. She brought a friend with her that she’s just met (he’s staying in the same building & visiting Bangkok for 10 days). He’s an American, on vacation from Afghanistan, where he works in the police headquarters as a lawyer. He couldn’t share a lot about his work, but he was very glad to be away for a few weeks. We met at the ferry pier & took the ferry up the river to the last stop. This took almost an hour since it stops at all the stops along the way – 30 in all. I was surprised that we were still in an urban setting this far from the main city. Being a holiday, there were huge groups of blue shirted people on the ferry enjoying their day off. We enjoyed a simple lunch by the river & then headed back.

For dinner I was invited out with my Thai friend, Pam, who is also the Thai language teacher I’ve worked with before. She is the one who last spring invited me to her nephew’s 2nd birthday party at her brother’s home that was like a wedding. So the family sort of knows me. She was meeting her family for a Mother’s Day dinner in Chinatown. She had found out that John as out-of-town & didn’t want me to be alone. I told her I would go, but she had to let me pay for my meal & she agreed & said it would be about 1,000baht ($34).

Pam has 7 siblings & all but 1 was there. There were 2 sisters-in-law also, so 12 people at the “adult” table. At the other table were her nephews & nieces & their various spouses & the one grandkid (the one whose birthday party I went to), another 12 people. I felt right at home with this big noisy family.

Pam told me that Chinese restaurants like this serve a 10 course meal. They were very impressed that I could use chop sticks so well, because some of them asked for forks & spoons (that is what Thai’s use for eating). After some appetizers, we had shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy & had I known that is what it was I might not have eaten it (just feel sorry for those poor sharks). Next came fried soft shell crab, scallops, crab & egg & onion mixture. Then another delicacy called sea cucumber, that is not actually a plant, but also not a fish. It is very difficult to clean & cook, which makes it a delicacy – it was delicious. There was fried river prawns (shrimp) which are gigantic, almost like lobster. Some vegetables were brought out next, then a whole fish that was cooked & cold with gelatin surrounding it. Next they bought fried noodles. The last thing was Peking Duck – but there was no actual duck meat, just the skin, which you wrap in a small flour pancake, add some onion & cucumber slices & special sauce & eat with your hands. Peking Duck is another delicacy because it takes so long to get the skin brown & perfectly crispy.

Finally we were at dessert. They brought out some sweet dumplings with yellow bean curd in the middle. The dumplings are white & have red Chinese writing on the top of each one. They are for good luck. The mother went around the table & made a ceremony of giving each of her children & me one & saying “Good luck to you, may you be happy, healthy & wealthy in the coming year.” Then the other mother’s went to their children & did the same thing. It was really nice & the dumplings were delicious. The final thing was a thin sweet cold soup with tapioca & beans & coconut slivers.

There was certainly plenty of food, but I didn’t feel stuffed, just very satisfied. It was nice to be around a family having a fun meal. I did get to talk to one niece who graduated from Duke with her MBA. So we talked North Carolina a bit. Most of the young people spoke English well, but I only was at the table for a short time. The older folks had limited English, but they tried very hard to include me in the conversation & Pam was good about translating. They gave out buttons that said “I (heart) Mom” (in English) & flowers to each of the Moms. When we left the restaurant gave each Mom a traditional flower bracelet made from jasmine (the Mother’s day flower) tiny red roses & love flowers. I love these bracelets because the smell so wonderful. They are sold along the street for people to buy to take to the temple as an offering. Whenever I pass a vendor I always take a deep breath to get the full aroma of the jasmine!


So that was my Thai Mother’s Day!