Category Archives: Traditions

Thai White Elephant

April 26, 2024 – 4:12 am

Many Asian cultures regarded fatness as a sign of wealth, however with the advent of 7/11 consumerism in the Orient obesity is fast becoming a health issue for the region. The Thais like to joke about fat people, whom they call ‘chang-nois’ or little elephants. “Why are farangs so fat?” An old rice farmer asked […]

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Songkran Sanuk – 2000

April 15, 2024 – 3:31 am

The Songkran celebration ushers in the Thai New Year as well as the coming of the rains to endy the hot season. The 2000 festival has been focused on Wan Parg-bpee April 14, when homage was to be paid to ancestors, elders and other persons deserving respect, because of age or position. Traditionally younger people […]

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April Foolishness

April 1, 2024 – 8:16 am

Back in the last decade a friend called to tell me that a business associate had been trampled by a herd of deer on his Easthampton property. I didn’t question the story and immediately phoned my associate. “Are you okay?” “Why wouldn’t I be okay.” Billy was a man of moderate wealth. He was in […]

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The Far West Of Ireland

March 16, 2024 – 3:16 am

My grandmother came from County Mayo. Her last name was Walsh. Nana sailed to Boston at the age of fourteen. That ocean voyage was so traumatic that she never returned to Ireland. My mother and her sisters often offered to fly Nana to Shannon. “I don’t want to travel on that sea again.” “Planes don’t […]

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Girls Will Be Boys – 2010

February 22, 2024 – 3:49 am

“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stone.” There are no glass houses in Afghanistan, but there are stonings for a wide variety of social offenses. Adultery is the most common, however woman are under constant threat for such trivial trespasses as leaving the house without a male family member or showing their face or attending […]

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