July 27 2004

Noo nah hoo-hah

My favourite breakfast restaurant has another equally regular customer - but he always runs away without paying. He is, in fact, a rat - known in Thailand as a noo - and a very resourceful one too.

Blocking his hole is pointless because he just pops up somewhere else. Poisons and traps have also proved ineffective. Over the last six months, the crafty beast has survived more assassination attempts than Pakistan's General Musharraf - and the perplexed farang owner has run out of ideas.

Today's hoo-hah kicked-off when the emboldened rodent set to work tickling the ankles of a large table of office girls. Alerted by the commotion, the owner's Thai wife gave chase and the startled noo dived for cover under the welcome mat. Sensing that victory was at hand, she mercilessly pounded the lump with both feet.

As she cautiously lifted-up a corner of the mat, we all leaned forward to examine the hairy drinks coaster that must surely have lain underneath - but there was nothing. The wily noo had escaped again.

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Later, my girlfriend explained that many ordinary Thai people enjoy eating rat - not the sewer variety, of course, but the vegetarian type that inhabit the rice fields. I didn't quite catch their Thai name so I asked her to tell me again. "Noo nah, noo nah, nooo naaah" she repeated - nah being the Thai word for a rice field.

If my life was a movie, Joe Pesci would now walk on to say "Noo nah, noo nah, noo nah - dis broad thinks she's a fuckin' ambulance" but, today, he had a more pressing engagement elsewhere (Incidentally, when Thai people listen to the two-tone siren of an ambulance, they hear the words "dtai nair, dtai nair, dtai nair" - which means "dead for sure").

In case you were wondering, barbequed rat is said to taste like chicken.

[Posted to Diary by David]

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Readers' comments

David says:

Here's another Bangkok-based blogging Brit:

www.joncombe.net

His writing appeals to my sense of "huror"

July 27, 2004 4:40 PM

jdman says:

Too funny David. I've seen these city rats in the alley that runs parrallel to Patpong on the right. Huge, fast mother-fuckers running in packs. They encouraged me to keep to the well-lite streets and out of their Soi or 'dtai nair.'

July 27, 2004 5:33 PM

Valentino Rossi says:

We had freshly shot free range rat from the rice fields for breakfast on Christmas Day in my girlfriend's village. It was an improvement on the sugar mice I used to find in my Christmas stocking when I was a child. It's a firmer, drier texture than chicken, and has a different flavour, but about the same strength. Not really like anything else I've ever eaten. Very good. But it is important to only eat it in the countryside and only in the dry season.

The guy who shot it was fairly impressive, too. As the government has made everyone hand in their ancient, muzzle-loading, black powder guns (which is probably a good idea as they never looked very safe and the variable power of gunpowder home-made from buffalo urine didn't help), they now use home-made crossbows powered by old inner tubes and firing home-made wooden bolts. The Thai version of Blue Peter must be so much more interesting. Anyway, with a torch strapped to his head, he would go out at night and shoot rats with this crossbow that didn't look accurate enough to hit a barn door at ten paces let alone a small rat. Not bad considering most people at home would want night sights, telescopic sights, even laser sights and precision made rifles. And probably still think they were doing pretty well.

July 27, 2004 5:46 PM

Cum Stain says:

Further proof that Thais will eat anything and everything in their backyard.

July 27, 2004 9:20 PM

Macgyver says:

You should visit China for a real 'eat anything' experience.

July 28, 2004 1:02 AM

mossman says:

Don't even need to go as far as China. My trip to Vietnam, starting in Hanoi and ending in the Melkong River Delta, was full of endless culinary surprises.
I anticipated the "want to try some good dog?" questions, (but not the "you wan try this? [not stolen!]"). You see almost every part of protein being utilized in various markets or as a guest at somebodys house. What I really didn't expect was seeing some of those furry critters locked up in little cages, just like a pet shop, groomed, pacified and ready to go at several busy restaurants. It did not exactly stoke the appetite; but that's just my cultural conditioning. It's amazing what the mind can overcome if you're hungry. (Read "In The Heart Of The Sea," by Nathanial Philbrick.)

The saddest part was hearing that my favorite G-H's bouncing furball 6 m/o pup had dissapeared, surely picked at by a table of four, or so they suspected.

July 28, 2004 6:11 AM

Quentin Quaalude says:

The picture accompanying this article is truly magical. Although it is plainly an oppossum, and in fact circulated the web about two years ago acccompanying an article decrying the carelessness of certain American state governmemt workers, we could scarecely have wished that David had picked a better snap. A proper vibe-surf from idea to visualisation; 10 out of 10!

This calls to mind the dichotomy of the earthly experience of death. Even as it is the cessation of earthly activity and participation, the dead body still aggressively participates in the earthly existance of other souls. Source of smell, host for writhing maggots, repository for forensic evidence large and small, it is a self-contained chapter, the corporeal epilog of a life already over.

If Kant was right then, does the continued participation of the earth-bound but deceased body in the the human mind as an active originator of its perceptions mean that the body lives beyond its mind? Or does it simply mean that the "noo nah nooh nah" of the siren presupposes the ambulance? And if so, does the rabbit presuppose the moon?

In Buriram, there are Khmer temples from the 16th century. Small in scale, nowhere near Ankor, they stand in mute anticipation of the visitors who would unlock the mystery of their vigil. Moats and trees protect them from the wraiths who would defile their holiness. Does the beauty await the visitors, or do the visitors await the beauty?

Upon visiting a friend's house in Isaan, I was ceremoniously seated at a table that looked like a cut-off tree, but was rather painted concrete. Night fell, and I was engaged in amicable conversation with several Thai acquaintances. One acquaintance made to shuffle a foot into the ubiquitous "flip-flops" outside the doorway of the partially-completed house, and out scuttled a scorpion, drawing the attention (and unfortunately the rath) of all and sundry. I suppose its misfortune persists to this day on some metaphysical ledger board, but in a decidedly more two-dimensional fashion!

I hope to some day visit Salt Lake City. The idea that a body should float more agressively in the hypersalinated bosom of its aquatic namesake than in other waters is intriguing, suggesting an altered state of existance. And, you can have more than one wife.

Pickle jars smell like pickes long after the last gherkin has gone a-jerkin'. The smell of the coffee is often better than the taste, especially at McDonalds! LOL! Pussy smell stays on the fingers after the bill has been paid; snapshots remain after the vacation is over. After the second hand moves even once, the shadow casts the tree, to be sure.

If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!

July 28, 2004 1:27 PM

Quentin Quaalude says:

Mold grows on cheese. Mold is growing on my toilet. Maybe I should taste my toilet (although it won't be as easy to cut).

Robertson's Practical English-Thai Dictionary lists the translation of "owing to" as "(f)neu-ung (l)jahk". Ironic if only in my little quadrant of the cosmos, I am "owing to" "Jack" a "new" computer or "ung", the tones be damned!

I love baseball because something can simultaneously be a "strike", and a "ball" and an "out" and an "inning". People who understand cricket must be smarter than people who understand baseball, because in cricket you have "overs". And besides, baseball is nothing but "rounders", anyway, and I've misplaced my skirt.

Light is cool because you can't see it until it hits something. Then, it isn't light anymore, is it?

Thank heavens no culture ever considered eating toe cheese. They would breed entire populations of people for no other reason. Maybe we should cut Ron Reagan apart to see if we can find any stem cells.

Bells are beautiful only when they are hit. Women are beautiful only UNTIL they are hit. Where then does this leave "southern Belles"?

I once locked my bicycle pedal into Dave's spokes. It was amazing how both bicycles stopped, like somebody had hit a "pause" button, but I continued forward in a cartoon-like arc, hitting the ground in a hideous explosion of blood and profanities. Never figured out if the blood or the profanities made any difference in my eventual recovery. But the profanities left thinner scabs.

I guess a fertility clinic resembles a massage parlor in that its worth can be inferred from the hormones.

July 28, 2004 2:03 PM

Quentin Quaalude says:

'Patlom', fan. 'Faan', girlfriend. Pat my 'faan', and I'm all over you like a fucking rash! LOL!

I like computers because they do nothing but what I tell them to do. I hate them because they do nothing but what I tell them to do. All this "telling" is very telling.

I have prenatal memories. I have never revealed that to anybody before. Maybe I still haven't. I just can't tell what language they're in.

I remember being alone in a dark place. Spinning, tumbling, unencumbered. Suddenly, in a later memory, I am suddenly in a tight place. Musta forgot to pay them pre-natal taxes! Ha ha ha.

I read someplace that a bounce messageis a notification message returned to a sender by a site unable to relay email to the intended Internet address recipient or the next link in a bang path. I thought that Soi Cowboy was the only bang path I would need...

Mango Sauce is "powered by moveable Type". What if I'm the "immoveable type"? Does this mean I can't post? Or, just that I have to let go of my pee-pee first?

July 28, 2004 2:13 PM

Quentin Quaalude says:

I ordered a new computer today. Tonight I got this message in my e-mail: "The attached file contains your contract documents. Opening the file will automatically install the viewer on your system and display your documents. Any attempt to alter your documents may void your contract. You have 1 business day after receipt of this agreement to review and reject it if you do not agree to its terms. If you determine that you do not wish to continue with financing after reviewing this document, please contact your Hardware Sales Representative." I feel like if I read my e-mail now, I will have to get married to the daughter of Satan.

Once I was on Koh Samui with a Thai girl. Not the daughter of Satan. We were seated in a restaurant immediately next to the beach. I was seated facing away from the bar/service area. Suddenly, I heard a peciliar "popping" sound behind me, such as I had heard before. Upon turning around, I saw that there were two Thai employees of the restaurant fighting, a man and a woman, and the woman was throwing full bottles of beer at the man. Through a quirk of statistical probability I would characterize as "gravity", all the bottles missed the man, but they did hit the floor.

When I watch TV, I almost always either watch either the news, sports or the History Channel. I'm not sure why. I suppose if it ain't happening right now, and it didn't happen 100 years ago, it ain't that important.

CDs are cool. Take a shiny bit of plastic, shine a laser on it, and it suddenly has a song or a picture of a flower or important data on it. I wish people were like that, you just needed to shine a light on them to make them interesting or important. Tattoos are no substitute.

July 28, 2004 2:23 PM