THE BAD COOK
Phuy Doi Homestay - Mon Cham
June 11, 2022
The roadside stand where we stopped for lunch was popular with locals. Their speciality was grilled fish, head on, with sticky rice but Mister A’d pre-ordered the pail lunches instead. Our touristy food was packaged in stacked tins: five egg rolls in the top tin, pad Thai wrapped in a banana leaf in tin two, four fried chicken wings in tin three and watermelon for dessert in tin four. Multiplied by two. One for me. One for Ceci.
It was too much food.
I made the mistake of saying that out loud.
Mister A stared at me as if I was crazy. How could there ever be too much food?
I envied the simplicity of Mister A’s lunch - eating grilled fish with his fingers, pulling bones from between his lips - but quickly realized not eating every bit of our lunch would be viewed not just as wasteful but almost…elitist. A “let them eat cake” moment. The rich tourists can afford to throw food away.
It’s just…Ceci and I rarely eat big meals. We hunt and peck all day. I’ve seen Cecilia turn down cupcakes at a birthday party. If she ain’t hungry, she don’t eat. She’d already devoured all her watermelon, an egg roll, two wings plus a whole bottle of water. I knew she was done.
As for me, I’d polished off my Pad Thai but hadn’t made a dent in the other tins. It was a culture clash moment with me sitting there, full and hesitant, unsure what to do. Would offering to share food be seen as a gesture of friendship or would it, instead, be an insult? I decided to risk it.
I shuffled my tins to create a family-style spread. “Ceci, I’ll swap you watermelon for those noodles.” Ceci stabbed the juicy fruit with her chopsticks as I slid her tin of noodles closer. I nudged my tin of rolls in front of Mister A. “Share?” and was relieved that, after a minor volley of protests and assurances, he eventually dug in.
Then we were back on the road, where Mister A surprised us with a visit to the Kayan Long Neck Tribe. He knew they’d just reopened their market and taken a hard financial hit from the Covid travel bans. He wanted to help them out, bringing my American dollars to their village. But I was caught off-guard.
I had no idea there were tribal women outside Africa wearing neck rings.
I immediately sensed we’d been dropped into a “stop and stare” situation: a place where tourists with their cameras gawk at natives, reminiscent of those National Geographic magazines every white family had stacked on their coffee tables in the early 80’s. The world as seen through the lens of the privileged foreigner. I felt we’d accidentally waded into ethically-ambiguous territory. Actually, maybe we were already neck deep. No pun intended.
Later, that hunch was confirmed when I learned the United Nations refugee agency has called for a tourism boycott of the Kayan markets, amid allegations the women are trapped in a "human zoo" managed by shady Thai officials who collect entry fees and force girls as young as five to wear the brass rings to attract more tourists. That the tribes don’t actually benefit financially from tourism at all.
Meanwhile, on-the-ground locals say that’s bullshit. They speak about how, in the late 80’s, The Kayan fled political persecution in Myanmar crossing the border into Thailand’s Mae Hong Son province. Refugee camps were formed and those evolved into villages which evolved into tourist attractions - out of necessity. Given the tribe’s essentially permanent status as refugees, unable to own land or work, the very survival of the tribe and the Kayan culture, their history, their religion, their traditions, depends on vital tourist dollars. As to the brass rings? The younger women (and their daughters) no longer coil them around their neck or if they do, it’s by choice, a reclaiming of identity and heritage.
I was so woefully ill-prepared for this excursion, and am still so shamefully ignorant of the full history of The Kayan people, I’ll have to assume the truth lies somewhere between those extremes. All I know is this. We got in a van. We ended up in a village. Nobody charged us a fee to be there - though it’s possible Mister A. paid that in advance - and out of all the young girls, moms, middle-aged ladies and older women I saw working in the village, only one wore neck rings.
But we’ll get to that in a moment.
The first thing that happened was this…
There was a little girl, Ceci’s age, standing in a market stall. She was wearing traditional clothing but no neck rings. On the table in front of her were hand-carved wooden toys, statues, dolls and small silk stuffed elephants. She and Ceci seemed magnetically drawn to each other, but struggled to communicate. Ceci pointed and asked about each carving, “Wow! Did you make this?” and the girl misunderstanding, offered only prices.
I could see in the little girl’s bright eyes, she hoped Ceci was buying everything on her table while Cecilia, oblivious, just wanted to complement her new artistic friend. I stepped in and gestured with my pointer finger, “Only one toy.” I’d be the bad guy so the girls could remain besties. Ceci picked a wooden snake and I didn’t haggle, I just handed over the baht with the intention to get right back in Mister A’s van and go.
But Mister A had walked deeper into the market and gestured for us to follow. Ceci ran ahead to join him while I took a very uncomfortable walk past each stall, shaking my head “no, thank you” to the rows of women holding up jewelry and beautiful silk scarves. We were the only people in the market, there was no hiding in a crowd - I was painfully visible. And much like my experience in the post-Covid shops of Peru, everyone was desperate for a sale. No matter how small.
Mister A. wanted me to meet an old woman, her neck stretched long in coils. Since we could not understand each other, we mostly nodded and smiled as she showed me the intricate shawls she’d woven. I chose a soft, blue one and again, did not haggle, just handed over the baht with more nodding and smiling. This is when things got weird and since I did not understand what was said or what actually happened, I can only share my impressions and what is certain to be a flawed interpretation of them.
After putting my shawl in a plastic bag, the old woman handed me a tall band of brass coils that had been split up the back and pried open. It was incredibly heavy and later I learned it’s actually the weight of the brass coils that pushes the collar bone down, compressing the rib cage that creates the appearance of a stretched neck. The neck itself does not lengthen, instead, the clavicle is deformed.
The old woman gestured for me to put it around my neck, to try it on like a piece of jewelry - and instantly, my heart began to pound as my brain frantically processed a thousand simultaneous thoughts, the loudest of them yelling, “It is entirely disrespectful to wear these brass coils. You haven’t earned them.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mister A grab his phone, prepping to take a picture - which only amplified the voice in my head, screaming, “You are absolutely NOT gonna be THAT woman!” I could already see the Instagram post of me, a white woman wearing a brass collar, going viral with justifiably hateful comments labeling me a racist colonizer. I had to stop this immediately.
I tried to hand the coil neckpiece back to the old woman but she pushed it towards my neck as I shook my head vigorously “no” and repeated over and over again, “It’s too heavy. So heavy. Too heavy.” (Metaphorically speaking, that neckpiece weighed a metric ton.) But the old woman was, as they say, insistent and persistent.
It became this incredibly awkward dance of jostling and ducking and strained smiles and confusion that finally culminated in me placing the brass coils firmly down on a table, punctuating the dance was over. No. I was not going to pose for a picture wearing that neckpiece. Mister A and the old woman were utterly confounded by my behavior - I could live with that - I’m pretty used to confounding people -I just hoped I hadn’t offended anyone. But maybe I had. I didn’t know.
All I had was my experience and flawed interpretation of the interaction.
It felt like the old woman and Mister A had become so accustomed to tourists wanting a picture with the neckpiece, they’d just played their assumed roles, offering the brass coils as an oddity to entertain the folks back home. It felt like part of a package: visit the village, buy a scarf, wear the neckpiece and smile.
But to me, that neckpiece was so clearly not mine. Not because it was heavy - that was the only excuse I could convey in two fast words - but because I was not worthy of it. It felt like each of those coils held the wisdom and history of a specific woman, as unique to her body as skin, revealing the story of her life much like the rings of a tree. Year by year, growth and hardship, the circles of her existence. To treat her legacy - whoever she was - like costume jewelry, to play dress up in her memories…that felt beyond disrespectful. It felt blasphemous. So I couldn’t do it. I didn’t do it. I did, however, acquiesce to a photo of me and Ceci standing and smiling with the old woman then, thankfully, we were done and back in Mister A’s van, heading north towards Mon Cham.
It’d been my idea to go “glamping” in Mon Cham, a mountain ridge near the Mong Nong Hoi village in Mae Rim. I’d seen breathtaking photos of the Phu Doi Homestay and felt pulled to those mountains - a soul calling - a heart yearning to be there - I was curious why. Ceci wasn’t thrilled to hear we’d be camping. Being a master negotiator descended from a paternal line of lawyers, she presented her case for returning to our immaculately clean villa in Chiang Mai, where she could blast the AC and stare at her phone. Much to her dismay, Mom was judge and jury on this one - so off we went.
Let’s just say this: Mister A has never seen a road that’s too twisty, rocky, narrow or harrowing for his white van. Ceci and I bounced like pinballs off the bumpers of our seats as Mister A navigated a series of hairpin turns and steep climbs up dirt roads before pulling into the rocky parking lot of Phu Doi. We only had our stuffed backpacks so Mister A waved goodbye and left us to check in on our own.
What I didn’t realize is the glamping culture of Mon Cham is one-hundred percent a local thing, a way for Thai millennials to pull an overnighter with their friends, drinking, smoking, grilling, just hanging out. There were no tourists at Phu Doi, none, and no one spoke English. The lovely young women behind the check-in desk seemed utterly astounded by our arrival. It took lots of mutual typing into Google translate before everyone was clear about our dinner and breakfast orders and what time they should be delivered to our cabin. (Like I said, this was glamping not camping, so yes, they delivered meals right to your door.)
Ceci was semi-distraught to learn there was no WiFi but soon settled into a night of puzzle making, Mad Libs and cheering on Mama as I attempted to grill dinner. Thai grilling isn’t Korean grilling and this I learned the hard way despite peering over our balcony to watch the other campers cooking.
SJ Hodges grilling at the Phu Doi Homestay
I’ve always been a bad cook, a point of mockery in the family that raised me, that I was the only Johnston woman who could burn water. My grandmother was famous for her fried chicken, my mom made a mean chipped beef & gravy while my younger sister baked lemon glazed cakes that brought all the boys to the yard. (Damn right, it’s better than yours.)
Me, I set the table and called it a day, joining the men in the living room, doing a whole heap of nothing, while the women whirled around the kitchen like dervishes. I learned real quick, it was better NOT to know how to cook or make coffee, unless you wanted to be cooking and serving coffee the rest of your life.
The only time I saw men feeding and serving their wives was at Parson’s Chapel Church on Mother’s Day. The women were given pink carnations and “a Sunday off” from hosting their usual massive post-church family reunions. The men donned aprons and made a fuss, plating and serving and cleaning, while the women laughed to see their husbands bumbling around, pure foolishness.
Even as a little kid, that seemed like bullshit to me.
I absolutely adore my Papaw Cecil but that man was in his 80’s before he learned to cook an egg. He quite literally fell out of a tree, broke his neck AND back then taught himself to walk again before he could fry an egg. And only because Mamaw was completely debilitated by her dementia. He had to learn, lest they both starve to death before Mom brought dinner over every night.
My father’s go to meals were Hudson’s pizza and this concoction of hot milk, macaroni noodles and pepper that he’d slurp right out of the saucepan. There was the occasional night of badminton and grilling hamburgers, but I don’t remember him ever cooking a sit-down dinner for us, even when Mom was swamped, finishing her master’s and working full-time. At best, he’d warm up some leftovers or prepared plates but usually I’d fill up on whole milk and King Dons watching Santa Barbara then skip dinner altogether.
So it’s no mystery why I married a man who could cook, clean and do his own laundry. Clayton was a father who changed diapers and a foodie who fed his baby daughter kimchi before she ever saw a chicken nugget. He was the most-of-a-host, basting hams and roasting turkeys for holidays with our friends. I remember my mother’s widening eyes as she watched him mash potatoes, set the table and arrange the centerpiece for Cecilia’s first-ever Thanksgiving dinner. He wanted everything just so. Mom turned to me and said, “Can you imagine your father ever doing this?” I said, “No. And that’s why I married Clayton.”
Clayton was not just Cecilia’s primary caregiver.
He was mine.
For one brief moment, after his death, I entertained learning to cook. He wanted Cecilia to inherit his adventurous love of strong flavors, (which she has, because he trained her taste-buds from an early age) but he also wanted to share a kitchen with her. There are pictures of a tiny Cecilia standing on chairs beside him, stirring steamy pots. I didn’t want her to lose that gift. The gift of being able to nurture herself. But becoming a chef in the midst of our debilitating grief was not realistic. My contribution to Cecilia’s palette would have to be traveling overseas and ordering well for delivery.
So, this is why Cecilia began filming me grilling thin slices of meat over hot coals. It was a rare occurrence. It had to be memorialized. Trust me, I had no idea what I was doing. I did everything wrong but somehow I managed to get a hot meal into both of us before the sun set and bats took to the skies scaring Ceci and sending her back into the cabin, to hide in our bed and…wait for it, read an actual book. Thank you, no WiFi.
For a few minutes, I sat alone on the balcony listening to the chirping of the bats, watching them dive and hunt as the sky purpled and the hillside began to sparkle, dotted with lit tents. A miraculous end to a miraculous day, I joined Ceci in bed, lights out, the cool mountain air lulling us to sleep.
That night, I dreamt I was a Buddhist monk, a young, rail-thin man who’d lived on that very land. His family were farmers but he left home to be educated, which was a great honor but marked him as “different” and left him feeling lonely. Whenever he’d return to visit his parents, he’d sit on this hill, smoke and watch the sunset. It was his peaceful place. Home. It brought him great joy to see it again through my eyes.
Until Clayton’s death, I never fully bought into the “past lives” thing. Ghosts, yes. Ancestors and guides, yes. Reincarnation, okay, maybe, probably…but being able to remember our past incarnations, see things, smell things, feel things from those lives? That was next level.
Even typing it now makes me feel uncomfortable. I judge myself. Diminish my experiences as “craziness” or “just dreams” when there’s been more than ample proof, since even my father’s death when I was barely twenty years old, that anything is possible. Cold spots in our house. Friends calling me with dreams. My own dreams. Hearing words transmitted through static in my DIGITAL music. Visions during meditation. Prophetic conversations. Visceral, somatic energy being downloaded. Shared, quantifiable experiences with skeptics at my side. Animal visitations: owls, cardinals, manta rays, monk seals and dolphins. Truly, anything seemed possible.
So why not past lives?
I decided to buy in and believe I’d been a Buddhist monk living on that hill. That that was the reason I felt called to Mon Cham, specifically that homestay and that my return closed an open spiritual electrical circuit allowing for the free flow and passage of previously blocked energy.
Essentially, I decided I was a light switch and I’d been flipped back on after a long, long period of darkness. It was the first step in remembering who I really was - and what I was sent here to do, my purpose as a spiritualist, a teacher, a healer, a guide. Roles I’d rejected out of feelings of unworthiness. Who was I to act as a healer or a spiritual leader? It seemed the ultimate act of hubris. Waxy wings flying towards a fiery sun. Icarus.
To rise and shine like the morning sun, to allow my daughter to shine, to believe our shining might light a path for others through the dark, dark nights.
That would require me to believe in my own miraculousness.
That would require me to then ACT on that belief.
A miracle is only a miracle if it is shared.
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