Chiang Mai travel and living report, echoes of some ordinary trivial matters

I met several friends in the month since I returned to Chiang Mai. The amazing thing is that everyone has some connection with Dali. My former colleague from the National Society came to the Chiang Mai 706 branch from the Dali 706 community. He was based in the Chiang Mai Inn outside the ancient city and recreated the summer of the cat here with his friends.

My senior sister who studied the same major in college is now a freelance writer who Travels around the world. She wrote a book about Dali and stayed in Thailand for two months at the end of the year. We exchanged various new understandings about Chiang Mai and agreed that it is a very good topic pool, even if many things cannot be written. There is also Lao Tang, a backpacker I have known for a long time. After meeting him by chance in Fengyangyi, Dali two years ago, I added WeChat and followed his account for writing travel articles. We chatted about topics that are easy to get blocked.




Wumeng Temple

Everyone is gathered in Chiang Mai again. Dali and Chiang Mai are also gathering places for digital nomads, with square ancient cities, many handicraft markets and artists showing off their talents, and the straight-line distance between the two places is only 800 kilometers. Due to historical reasons, there are many Chinese who migrated from Yunnan to northern Thailand. Every Friday morning, I often go to the Yunnan market. Most of the stall owners can speak Chinese, and the folk customs are very similar to those of Yunnan.


Yunnan Market on Friday morning

Even though I now enjoy a certain degree of freedom, when I go out with friends and see them meditate at Wat Umong, go to the coffee plantation in the Golden Triangle, go to the Chinese village in Mae Salong, and go to Sukhothai to see the ruins of the old Buddhist temple, I am still entangled by the "four o'clock in the afternoon" spell.

One second, I was still talking about the mountains, rivers, lakes and seas in the vast world, and the next second, I was taking a scooter to accompany Curry who was coming back from school. The tenants in the apartment complex are changing very quickly. After a vacation, most of Curry's previous playmates have left. Some went to Spain, some went to Ecuador, some were not used to returning to China after all, and some are about to leave.

After school, the children play in the community. The older children no longer need adults to accompany them. Curry is in the upgraded stage of trying to play independently. I can occasionally sit down and just watch from a distance, like flying a kite without silk strings, watching the kite get farther and farther away.


Works of Cube teachers in schools

The mommy forum at the poolside was launched. When chatting with two Korean moms in the community, it is easy to fall into the whirlpool of language. They speak Korean to each other. One of the moms has lived in Hong Kong for a long time and can speak Chinese. The other's husband is Japanese and she can speak Japanese to me. They can close the loop between them, but if they switch to English, they will fall into an awkward state of calm and always suddenly can't switch.

If you just go out to travel, language barriers are not a problem, but can increase the fun. But for long-term residence and building a stable social circle, language is still very important. For example, the Korean mom who speaks Japanese, our children are in the same school, waiting for the school bus together every morning, and often meet, but after a few months, we just say good morning politely. As a result, one day, I asked her in stumbling Korean if her husband was sent to work abroad, and suddenly learned that they were a Japanese-Korean combined family, and then we started chatting in Japanese, instantly breaking the polite barrier. It turns out that the sense of distance between each other is only blocked by language.

The mothers who met because of their children are more like colleagues than friends. The difference is that everyone runs their own studio instead of working in the same company, but their business goals are similar. The newly moved Brazilian mother came to Chiang Mai with her children because her husband works for a Thai company in football-related business. She changed planes twice and flew for 21 hours before finally arriving. She only knows a little English, so we can only use translation software to communicate between Portuguese and Chinese. She said that Brazil is very expensive, and she feels that her happiness index is so high when she comes to Chiang Mai, everything is very cheap, and the children like it here. The foreigners in the community are divided into three camps: Russian, Korean, and Chinese, but it is difficult to find someone to talk to in Portuguese.


The backyard of the B&B cafe

Although translation software can facilitate daily communication, this social atmosphere of a language wok makes me understand one thing more clearly - there are always things that artificial intelligence cannot do. The communication between you is completely dependent on a certain intermediary product based on data and code, and you must trust that product 100%, or more accurately, you have no ability to question it. This is fundamentally different from expressing directly based on your own brain thinking. Because for us humans, most intimate relationships are based on communication.

However, compared with having strong language skills, it is more important to have the courage to open your heart to communicate. I often go to a coffee shop. Because I always try to order in Thai, the clerk will answer me in English when he hears my non-standard Thai. But recently I found that the familiar clerk probably knew that I wanted to practice Thai, and he didn't speak a word of English to me throughout the whole process, and helped me repeat the pronunciation of "dine-in, take-away". No matter how slow or bad I speak, I am not in a hurry, and I will smile and encourage me. This is also a point that I feel very comfortable living in Thailand every day. There is no psychological burden to go to most places. Don't mind your clothes or your performance. You can just slowly and clumsily complete something without anyone staring at you and urging you to do it, or looking at you with malicious intent.


Waloro Market on New Year’s Eve

The pace of life in Thailand is slow, and everyone is also keen on celebrating festivals. There are festivals every month on average, and there are endless activities in schools. Thai festivals, Western festivals and Chinese festivals are always busy with dressing up.
  
Although it is not the first time to celebrate the Spring Festival overseas, it is the first time to celebrate the Spring Festival in the tropics.
  
I spent the two Spring Festivals in Japan casually because I was too busy working and studying, and I was single. Except for Chinatown and tourist hotspots, there is basically no obvious Spring Festival atmosphere in Japan, but fortunately the body temperature is about the same.
  

Temple in china town, Chiang Mai

What surprised me in Chiang Mai is that Thai people are actually more enthusiastic about celebrating the Spring Festival than the Chinese. On New Year's Eve and the first and second days of the Lunar New Year, various dragon and lion dance floats are paraded in front of shopping malls, Waroro Market, and Tha Pae Gate, and a wave of Thai people's favorite beauty contests are held. .
  

A dragon dance team encountered by the roadside

Everywhere you look on the street are women wearing red cheongsam with gold dragons (probably all produced in Yiwu). The little girls have hair tied in their hair. With two little tweeters, the vendors in the vegetable market also changed into short-sleeved Tang suits, and more families wore red clothes and went shopping. More than 90% of them were Thais.
  

But I don’t feel like celebrating the Spring Festival at all, which has a lot to do with the hot weather.

But I didn't feel like celebrating the Spring Festival at all, which had a lot to do with the hot weather. From childhood to adulthood, the Spring Festival in my muscle memory is cold, curled up in the room and shivering, even when visiting the countryside, it is cold and empty.

Because the temperature is low, the family will prepare a lot of meat dishes, make meat balls, fish balls, pickled pork heads, and boiled mutton in advance, buy a few pounds of braised beef that is not often eaten on weekdays as a cold dish, and cook a hot soup pot every time you have a meal. But in Chiang Mai, even if it is the cool season now, you can't stand a few glasses of iced drinks a day, and it is impossible to stock up on vegetables. You can even go swimming, and the whole person stretches under the tropical sun, which is completely opposite to my muscle memory.
  


Another point is the mandatory holiday arrangement. If you are in China, the Spring Festival must be a holiday for schools and companies. Except for large hotels and supermarkets, most private small restaurants are closed. There are few people on the streets on New Year's Eve.

This social shutdown forces everyone to stay at home to eat and drink, even if there is a party as background music. Curry's school in Chiang Mai is still in class, and his work and rest schedule is the same as usual. Shopping malls, restaurants, coffee shops, yoga studios, and massage parlors are all open as usual.
  

I made a "dragon" with carrots on New Year's Eve

For the New Year's Eve dinner, the three of us ate the leftover chicken from the takeaway the day before, fried some vegetables, and spent an ordinary day simply and without waste. Then we went to the mall near our home to watch the Thai version of the dragon dance and the beauty pageant cheongsam show.

Everyone in my circle of friends has basically started a photography competition around the world. This year seems to be the year with the weakest Spring Festival atmosphere. It's like a watershed, from a tradition to an ordinary holiday, that is, the weight of the holiday is greater than the New Year. In the final analysis, our holidays are too few and precious.


On the songthaew returning from Sam Kamphaeng Hot Spring