Silly Tax System
January 21, 2011 § 6 Comments
“You have to buy a computer program, or pay someone to help you, or hire a lawyer to pay your taxes?? That is so ridiculous!!” Dom said today as we were trying to figure out the best way to get our taxes filed.
Last year we did it through the Turbo Tax computer program, but ended up paying instead of getting any back (which Dom thought was even more ridiculous), so this year we are thinking of going to H &R Block or something—in hopes of getting a nice check in the mail.
Dom asks me all these questions about taxes, and I look at him with just as much bewilderment in my eyes as he has in his.
In Thailand, Dom said once a year he just fills out a tax form on the government website, presses submit, and that’s it. They send the tax return straight to his bank account.
He feels like America’s way of doing taxes is low-tech—the filling out of forms, sending it in the mail, waiting for a check to come in the mail. He’s thinking the IRS should do the same as in Thailand.
Oh well, but we don’t live in Thailand and the stress-inducing tax season is upon us. Anyone know of a cheap way for us to do taxes where someone can explain to Dom the ins and outs of American Taxes?
Sports Day
January 19, 2011 § 10 Comments
I had just come in from running into our room. I was breathing heavy, cold from the outdoors, but sort of sweaty at the same time. Dom smiled at me as I gasped for air and started to sing a little cute song in Thai to me.
“What was that?” I asked.
“It’s a song they sing at Sports Day to cheer people on!”
“What’s Sports Day?”
In Thailand, the kids at school would be put into different teams, each with a different color. Then for two weeks they would practice a sport, then have a day where they compete.
He said Sports Day was boring because he never competed. He sat in the background and clapped in rhythm during the cheers with the other kids who weren’t good at sports.
It was strange to him that Americans don’t have a sports day, but then I explained to him how every day is sports day to American kids who are always involved in one sport or the other depending on the season.
Dom showed me a video with Thai cheerleaders singing the song he had sung to me. It’s nothing like American cheerleaders screaming at the top of their lungs and powerfully pumping their arms, breaking it down while shaking their bums. Instead, the Thai cheer leaders are dainty and sweet, swaying their arms like they are ribbons floating in the air.
The song even talks about how cute players are when playing sports. I don’t think you would ever hear that combo at a high school foot ball game. Here are some (notice the kids behind the cheerleaders that would have been Dom’s spot)
Duh
January 13, 2011 § 4 Comments
We were getting ready to make massaman curry, a delectable Thai dish with chicken, potatoes, red onion, and peanuts in a thick coconut milk sauce. Dom, my Thai chef, was instructing me what to do.
“Make sure you drain the water out of the bag the chicken is in before you put it on the counter,” he said, as I started to open up the bag sitting in the sink.
“Duh!” I said playfully.
He smiled inquisitively. “What does that mean??”
I told him it was slang for, “Of course! You didn’t even have to say that!!”
I know people don’t use “duh” these days, but we had just been watching reruns of Full House from the good ol’ early 90s—when “duh” arose. Stephanie just kept saying it, so it was in my head.
Note, next time don’t speak Full House lingo after the show ends.
The rest of the day Dom kept saying, “Duhhhhhh!” to every question I asked. My mom and I were trying to think of other old slangs to get in his head instead, like “Groovy” or “Whatever!”, but the others just didn’t roll of his tongue like “duh”.
“Why do you keep saying duh Dom?”
“Duh!! Because it sounds fun!!”
No Thai Food Network
January 12, 2011 § 2 Comments
It was cherries. The chefs on Iron Chef had a certain amount of time to create unique dishes using cherries. Some were furiously pitting them, one was mixing up cherry ice cream, another wrapping bacon around them and preheating the oven to bake them.
We had just finished watching Good Eats, which Alton Brown hosts, the Bill Nye the Science Guy of cooking and baking. He discusses the science of making things like meringues and spaghetti as well as where it all came from.
“They would never have shows like this in Thailand,” Dom said as we were watching the judges scowl at one of the cherry creations.
“Why not?”
“Because in Thailand they don’t create new food all the time or care about the science of it. They make the same traditional food all the time,” Dom said.
That was something he said his mom thought was cool about America, how we are always finding new recipes and fusing different styles of food together.
Before Dom moved here he thought he would get tired of American food right away. Americans only eat pizza and burgers right? But instead he has been delighted with how Americans can eat Mexican one night, Italian the next, and Japanese on the other.
Even though I’ve enjoyed having my food variety back, whenever we make Thai food I know my taste-buds shiver with delight and feel like they have come home again. I think Dom’s feel the same way too.
Shiver, Bake, Play
January 3, 2011 § 2 Comments
The moment she stepped out of the airport’s doors to the Charlotte cold until the moment she stepped on the plane to leave for Bangkok I don’t think she stopped shivering.
“You lied to me! You lied to me! You said it wasn’t going to be cold!” Patty exclaimed to Dom the first few days every time we were outside. Dom is a polar bear, and never thinks it’s cold. I am always cold. Patty said next time she is asking me what the weather feels like before she comes–definitely not Dom.
But I taught her how to layer, let her borrow my scarves, hats, gloves, cozy jackets and sweaters. Dom thought she was a mini-Thai me after seeing all my clothes on her. Good thing we have the same size and style.
On her third day of being in America, while we were eating at Souper Salad, Patty informed us she was tired of American food: salads, sandwiches, and soups. She loved the home-cooked lasagna my mom and I made, my creme de menthe brownies, Christmas ham, green beans, baked potatoes, and especially her latte I made her every morning. So I guess she just didn’t like American restaurant food, but loved Engel-Phengchard Kitchen the best.
She also loved Krispy Kreme, which we drove-thru twice when she was here–getting a dozen of the original glazed right when the fresh, hot red light popped on. In Thailand they recently got a Krispy Kreme shop at the fanciest mall in Bangkok, but in order to get a donut, Patty would have to wait in line for at least 2 hours. She had never eaten one warm, and especially after days of American restaurants, it tasted even more like sugar sent from heaven to her.
When she isn’t waiting in line at Krispy Kreme in Bangkok, Patty works at a bank in Thailand, has a side-job as a financial adviser, and owns apartments. She definitely doesn’t have time to cook and never baked in her life until she rolled out sugar cookies beside me at our kitchen counter, mixed flour and pecans to make Russian tea cakes, and stirred green corn flakes and marshmallows on the stove to make Christmas red hot wreaths.
She said she would have rather been working in the bank.
But she did enjoy learning something new, and was in awe of how exact baking is as she stared at my mom and I making bread: yeast, warm water, not too warm milk, mixing flour, kneading, letting it rise, punching it down, rising, baking…She couldn’t believe we spent so much time baking something we could just buy at the store. Too much work!
Speaking of hard work, if there was an Award for Most Patient Son in the World, I think it should go to Dom for this year. I worked many of the days that Patty was here, so that left Dom to entertain his mom by accompanying her on one of her favorite things and one of his not favorite things—shopping. I guesstimate that he spent at least 100 hours shopping with her over the 14 days. They went to Southpark Mall, Concord Mills Mall, Carolina Place Mall, Target, Borders, and Plato’s Closet, each visited at least twice, some three. Of course he did get some cool clothes out of it, and one day Patty took just me on a shopping venture so I wouldn’t be jealous of Dom, so it worked out well for us all.
After the shopping ended, Christmas arrived. Patty delighted at hearing the Christmas story in English, then Thai, the way we took turns opening gifts youngest to oldest, hanging out as a family, and of course eating Christmas dinner. What she enjoyed most though was playing games, something that Thais don’t do much, but my family always did growing up. We introduced her to Clue, Mexican Train, and Rummikub. She caught on quick to each one, and especially loved how we played in Thai, “Miss Scarlet ti hang krua kap bun!” (Miss Scarlet in the kitchen with the gun!).
The next day, as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes at 5:30 a.m., Patty saw snow for the first time before we drove her to the airport. She was surprised as we threw snowballs at her, and then caught on and threw them back. Her face was sparkling with delight as much as the sun lit up the snow. A perfect ending to a magical journey.
America: Through an Immigrant's Eyes 