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What fascinates you when you travel somewhere new? For us, it’s experiencing stuff like a local. So if you’re new to Bangkok, or if your time here zipping around on the back of a motorcy and drinking iced beer is limited, then it’s time for a mini crash course on Thai culture.
We know you’re busy so lets focus on the super important bits. You know, like fried food and nicknames. Warning: these modern cultural quirks might results in a big ol’ question mark on your face. Proceed with an open mind.
American Fried Rice
This yummy looking red fried rice is affectionately called American fried rice, even though not a single American restaurant has it on the menu. Actually, it’s one of the most ordered plates at the local Thai restaurants. The dish is the combination of rice fried with ketchup and accompanied by sausages, a fried chicken drumstick, fried egg and sometimes even shrimp. The legend has it that one restaurant in Don Muang airport prepared the ingredients for an American breakfast, but then the flight was canceled. So the restaurant manager (innovative thinker that she was) used all the ingredients to create this new dish. One American soldier saw it and asked, “What’s that?” “American Fried Rice” the restaurant manager replied. And that’s how this tasty dish was created. If you’ve never tried it, maybe you should. And let us know if it reminds you of the US of A!
Drinks in plastic bags
Besides the fact that most of the street food here in Thailand is amazingly cheap and delish, it’s sometimes served in a container that’s uncommon for some. Take a walk around Bangkok streets and you’ll see colourful sodas, Thai milk tea or even coffee sold in a plastic bag! Yes, you heard it right, a plastic bag. Here in Thailand it’s pretty common seeing people drink their favourite drinks from what others would use to hold their groceries. So don’t be surprised. And yes, it tastes exactly the same.
Next level fruit dips
If you’ve ever been to Thailand then you must have seen the ubiquitous fruit cart. The real question here though, is have you ever tried it? The fruits are basically ordinary, but did you have a look at the choice of dips? There are varied choices for you to try like chili and salt, plum powder or a sweet and spicy dip called Nam Pla Wan and even shrimp paste! Amazing as it sounds, the taste of the dip combined with the fruit somehow really works well together. Salty, savory and sweet. Maybe next time you walk past by these fruit carts, you’ll get more adventurous than a simple bag of pineapple. (And yes, these come in plastic bags too.)
21st century Thai nicknames
What’s so weird about this, we often wonder to ourselves? So many people in other countries have nicknames. Yes, Aussies love to shorten names or add unnecessary Z’s (G’day, Jazza!) and some (but not all) Chinese people acquire nicknames in childhood, but for us Thai people, nicknames are given at birth. And they could be from literally anything; colors, animals, objects, brandnames, and even words with no meaning. For example, Ploy (it means jewelry) is one of the most used nickname for women here in Thailand and Bank is for men. And we continue to be creative with giving names to our babies. Lately, the trend is heading towards two syllable nickname like Pon-kao (feeding rice to someone) or Poo-pa (rocky mountain).
There are so many more cultural quirks to discover here in Thailand. Watch some more from this video by Singha and continue to be amazed! Stay tuned for more fun facts about Thailand from their Try Thai series on their Facebook page www.facebook.com/SinghaBeer.
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