Moving to a Modest Thai Home

OK, I know I just posted about moving, and I am the first person to admit that the house I moved into was almost the definition of Posh Corps. If it had air conditioning and hot water, it would have been text book Posh Corps. However, as the title of the post suggests, I have since moved. Not because the house was too nice and Peace Corps told me I needed to rough it more. No. This harkens back to my most recent observation of living in a collectivist culture: the concept of greng jai.

The woman who owns the house has two daughters, one who lived next door and the other is married to a Norwegian man and is living in Norway. The house I was renting was the second daughter’s house. The woman who owned the house agreed to include utilities in the rent when we signed the agreement that went to Peace Corps.

However, two weeks later, she had changed her mind and tried to raise the rent on me. When I tried to say that just wasn’t possible for me to agree to, she said that her daughter would be moving back from Norway. She also thought I had said I was only going to stay there for three months anyway. Her daughter may or may not actually be coming back. However, it became pretty clear that the subtext of this conversation is that the woman did not want me living there.

Luckily, I had several housing options available to me in my village. My co-teacher and I went to talk to the woman who owns the place that was my second choice. The landlady owns a restaurant that we often frequent and is a wonderful lady all around. She let us know that she still had two units available. I moved in three days later, Thursday last week. Already things seem a lot more sa-bai sa-bai (relaxed) here and my neighbor works at the local government office so that might help with making some community connections.

Anyway, check out my new digs! While it is easily compared to a garage in the United States, it’s not unusual in Thailand.