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Overview
When Ira Sukrungruang was born to Thai parents newly arrived in the U.S., they picked his Jewish moniker out of a book of “American” names. In this lively, entertaining, and often hilarious memoir, he relates the early life of a first-generation Thai-American and his constant, often bumbling attempts to reconcile cultural and familial expectations with the trials of growing up in 1980s America.
Young Ira may have lived in Oak Lawn, Illinois, but inside the family’s bi-level home was “Thailand with American conveniences.” They ate Thai food, spoke the Thai language, and observed Thai customs. His bedtime stories were tales of Buddha and monkey-faced demons. On the first day of school his mother reminded him that he had a Siamese warrior’s eyes—despite his thick glasses—as Aunty Sue packed his Muppets lunch box with fried rice. But when his schoolmates played tag he was always It, and as he grew, he faced the constant challenge of reconciling American life with a cardinal family rule: “Remember, you are Thai.”
Inside the Thai Buddhist temple of Chicago, another “simulated Thailand,” are more rules, rules different from those of the Southside streets, and we see mainstream Western religion—“god people”—through the Sukrungruang family’s eyes. Within the family circle, we meet a mother who started packing for her return to Thailand the moment she arrived; her best friend, Aunty Sue, Ira’s second mother, who lives with and cooks for the family; and a wayward father whose dreams never quite pan out.
Talk Thai is a richly told account that takes us into an immigrant’s world. Here is a story imbued with Thai spices and the sensibilities of an American upbringing, a story in which Ira practices English by reciting lines from TV sitcoms and struggles with the feeling of not belonging in either of his two worlds. For readers who delight in the writings of Amy Tan, Gish Jen, and other Asian-Americans, Talk Thai provides generous portions of a still-mysterious culture while telling the story of an American boyhood with humor, playfulness, and uncompromising honesty.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780826272102 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Missouri Press |
| Publication date: | 01/25/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 184 |
| File size: | 202 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Talk Thai
The Adventures Of Buddhist BoyBy Ira Sukrungruang
University of Missouri Press
Copyright © 2010 The Curators of the University of MissouriAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8262-1932-9
Chapter One
The White Elephant
My mother pointed to my heart. In me pumped the blood of a Siamese warrior, one who strode off to battle in honor of our country, in honor of Buddha. That warrior was fearless, ready to confront any danger, even first graders at Harnew Elementary. My mother touched my cheek. I possessed the skin of the warrior, she told me, soft and yellow, like the petals of a dahlia. She said I had sharp and keen warrior eyes, despite my bulky square glasses that were so heavy they often gave me headaches. My mother stuck out her tongue; we spoke a language the great elephants understood.
From her pocket, she pulled out a small Buddha. It was attached to a black string because metal against my skin gave me hives. I bowed my head and received the pendant in cupped hands. It was the weight of a wild strawberry. "This is a warrior's Buddha," she said in Thai. "Your Buddha." She looped the string around my neck. This Buddha had been in the family for years, passed down from generation to generation. It would keep me safe. It would protect me. When I wore it, I must keep it under my shirt. Never let it out in the open; never let it dangle freely.
Incense smoke swirled around me. I fought the urge to sneeze. My mother instructed me to hold the small pendant with my hands pressed together and repeat after her: Phra Chao, please bless me on my first day of school. Please give me the power to excel beyond my abilities. I am forever indebted to you. Satute.
We bowed, touching our foreheads to the ground, three times, and then I watched my mother mouth a prayer. Her eyes were clamped so tightly the wrinkles around her temples deepened. When she opened them, she took a breath and leaned in to kiss the top of my forehead.
The Buddha lay cupped in my palm. I admired the gold around it. I couldn't make out his face, only the outline of his meditating body. I felt a strange surge of energy. My father wore six large pendants that clinked together when he walked. I had my first Buddha. I closed my fist around it.
This was how I understood the world: I am Thai. Thais are superior to any other race. Ask any Thai and he or she will politely admit to it. We will tell you that Thailand is the only country in Asia that has never been colonized. We will say there is no better cuisine on the planet, that no other country has a dish that can be salty, sour, sweet all at once; and our jasmine rice kicks the ass of all other races of rice. We will say our flag is red, white, and blue, too, but prettier. We will tell you that there are three things Thai people, universally, keep in our hearts: our country, Buddha, and the King. We will tell you that our King is the longest living head of state in the world and one of the greatest men to set foot on this earth. Disagree with us and risk execution.
I was born eleven days before the Bicentennial, in Chicago, during a time when the country was going ga-ga about being American. Among these proud people were scared Thai immigrants, living, at the time, in a small apartment in Irving Park, close enough to Lake Michigan to hear the waves. They were starting a Thai family eight thousand miles from their native home, and they were determined that this new baby, this Bicentennial baby, would be raised to be nothing else but Thai. "This is a Thai home," they said. "You are Thai."
My family—my mother, father, and Aunty Sue—moved into a bi-level in Oak Lawn, Illinois, a southwest suburb of Chicago, shortly after I was born. Here was Thailand with American conveniences. Here we were Thai. We spoke Thai, answered the phone with sawasdee. We ate Thai food, made with ingredients purchased at a Thai grocery store on the North Side. Bedtime stories were Thai—not "The Three Little Pigs," not "Little Red Riding Hood," but tales of Buddha defending us from monkey-faced demons.
So when Mrs. Savaggio—Mrs. S for short—called my name in the roll, hesitating before pronouncing it, bringing the attendance sheet close to the tip of her nose, a movement I would see many times in the years to come, my notion of the world changed. I rose from my chair, stood up straight, pressed my hands together, and bowed my head like a proper Thai student. In Sunday school, at temple, I greeted my ajahn in this manner. Why would this be any different?
I wanted to be the warrior my mother spoke of, wanted to stand the tallest and straightest, wanted to show my new teacher my abilities were far superior to everyone else's. But the silence in the classroom made my body crumple. I felt the cold of the Buddha my mother gave me against my chest, felt the way it pressed into me like a sharp pebble in a shoe. I sat back down. The class stared, white faces twisting in wonderment. Mrs. S smiled nervously. I looked down at my linked fingers.
When the school bell rang at three, my mother waited outside the gate with the other moms. She stood apart from them. She had come directly from work, wearing her nursing uniform. Aunty Sue waited in the Beetle down the block. When I came out, my mother waved. I ran to her crying because the day had been confusing and fast and she was not there—she, who up until then had always been there.
"Why are you crying?" she asked in Thai.
I grabbed onto my mother's waist.
"Big boys don't cry."
Mrs. S came from behind, and I sobbed harder because earlier in the day she had threatened the boy next to me with her "evil eye," saying she could see what he was doing even with her back turned. She looked like a witch, hair gray and frizzed, face gaunt as if she constantly sucked on a lemon. She patted my shoulder with a wrinkled hand and offered my mother the other one.
"Hello," my mother said too loudly. She shook the tip of Mrs. S's fingers.
"Ms. Suk," Mrs. S stuttered.
"Ah, call me Chin. Short for Chintana, hard name, I knowing that. You call me Chin." My mother rambled on without taking a breath. "We Thai. Yes, Thailand, not Taiwan, not Chinese. Ila, he good boy. I teach him math already. Knowing how to time. Ila, what eleven time two?"
I buried my face in my mother's hip.
"Awna," she whispered, "Ya kai keenah."
I didn't want to lose face in front of my first grade teacher like my mother had warned, but I could not make myself say yesibsong, twenty-two, even though it had been drummed over and over into my head, even though this was what my mother had been waiting for, an opportunity to show how brilliant her only son was.
Mrs. S tried to stop my mother. "I'm sure he knows—"
"Ila, twelve time twelve. We practicing every morning. Tell teacher."
I held on tighter.
"That's not necessary," Mrs. S said. "Please. Your son, he is a fine boy, I'm sure. It's just," she sucked in her top lip, trying to phrase what to say. "It's just he keeps folding his hands at me."
"Folding hand?" my mother asked.
Mrs. S put her hands together and bowed her head. "Like this," she said. "A Thai custom?"
My mother nodded. "We teaching him like this."
"He did this when I called his name in the roll," she said. "When I gave him his assignment, then too. When he returned after recess—"
"Ah, this Thai way," my mother said, understanding. "But this not Thai school."
"Right."
"I telling him no more. He will be good boy tomorrow. You see."
"He already is a good boy," said Mrs. S.
"Better boy." My mother smiled and pulled me away from her leg. "Say bye-bye to teacher."
I put my hands together and bowed my head.
"Bab farang," my mother said. White people style.
I waved. When we turned to walk away, Mrs. S said to our backs, "Does he speak any English?"
"Yes," my mother said without turning. "You teaching him more, OK?"
Number one question I get asked: How do you pronounce your last name?
Anglicized answer: SUKE-RUNG-RUNG. Repeat the rung.
Lazy answer: I don't. It hurts my tongue.
Smart-ass answer: Smith.
Number two question I get asked: What's with the name Ira?
My mother told me that she and my father waited till the last moment to give me a name. They did not plan beforehand, did not think what the sex of the baby might be. They had skipped ahead in time, worrying about how to afford a future home and move out of their small apartment, how to pay for the baby's college tuition, how to prevent America from stealing him straight from the crib. Thinking of a name was not on their list of priorities.
Often, in my twenties, I would have this conversation with my mother—the origins of Ira. Each time I asked, I expected to hear a different story, one with mystery and excitement. I want my mother to say she had an illicit affair with a rich Jewish doctor and I am their offspring. Or I was delivered in a cab during Chicago's rush hour, in the middle of a thunderstorm, and the driver was named Ira. The truth about my birth, however, my mother always reminds me: twenty-four hours of pain.
When I tell her the name is Hebrew, my mother says, "Is it?" When I tell her people assume I'm a Jewish lawyer, she says, "Lawyers make good money." When I ask her why not a Thai name, she says, "Too long." When I tell her she can't even pronounce my name correctly—Ira, not Ila—she laughs. When I ask her if she knows the meaning of my name, she says, "Means son."
In Hebrew, Ira means "The Watcher." I watched. I observed. I made mental notes of my differences. One: I didn't dress like other boys. My father decked me out in brown slacks and pink button-downs. My thick glasses made my eyes appear like those of a horse fly. I wore bulky square-toed gym shoes with striped laces while the other kids sported colorful Velcro sneakers.
Two: my hair was trimmed in the classic Thai schoolboy crew cut. Everyone else sported the shag.
Three: for lunch Aunty Sue packed my Muppets lunch box with fried rice, a hard-boiled egg, tiny packets of salt and pepper, plastic utensils, and coconut-flavored pop. As soon as I unwrapped the foil, the smell of garlic and soy sauce wafted into the room; some of the kids complained my lunch smelled like poo.
Four: the English I was used to was spoken by immigrants. Sentences without linking verbs: "We Thai." Unnecessary I-N-Gs: "I liking apple much." My family spoke with different stresses on words. Strawberry into stlaw-BER-ly. Casino into CA-sano. They confused similar sounding words, which often yielded great laughter, not at their mistake, but at the silliness of the English language. Atrophy and trophy. Or my favorite: civic and cervix.
Before school each morning, I chanted quietly: I am a warrior, I am a warrior. I put my Buddha in my mouth—an oral fixation that led to too much smoking in high school—and prayed to him, asking for a better day. I slipped into an alternate world. I am on top of an elephant—a warrior, a king—bursting through the wall of Mrs. S's classroom. With me are the animals of the world. I stand on my elephant, raise my arms up into the sky, and tell my classmates I am their new leader. Henceforth, I am not a crybaby. I do not talk funny; it is you who speak with an accent. At recess, I will not be pushed around. No more will I race Matt Menneghini, the fastest boy in class, and get slaughtered, because I can morph into a cheetah. Bob and Danny, Tanya and Tiffany will no longer stick rounded tongues at me. I will flash them mine, forked like a cobra's. Yes, this is how today will turn out. Much better than yesterday. Today I will be king.
As soon as I stepped out of the house, however, my built-up courage seeped out of me, and the strange invisible walls of this country closed in. I remembered watching a nature show about bees on PBS, remembered that if an alien bee mistakenly flew into a hive it was immediately terminated.
Most Thai immigrants viewed America only as a workplace. America provided jobs. America provided monetary success. America provided opportunities Thailand couldn't. Yet America wasn't home. Home was across the ocean, over eight thousand miles away. Home was a panhandle country smaller than Texas. Home was where mosquitoes hummed exotic songs. My parents dreamt of their return. They talked of Thailand with such longing. In Thailand, they would say, the fruit was so sweet it made your tongue dance in your mouth. In Thailand, temples dotted the countryside like jeweled cities. In Thailand, geckos clung on window screens and chirped you to sleep. My mother often joked that she started packing for home as soon as she arrived in Chicago in 1968.
America secretly began invading our bi-level, seeping through cracks underneath doors, climbing through open windows, like an invasive vine that devoured houses in the South. I consumed television. I practiced my English by reciting lines from sitcoms and TV shows: "Here's Johnny"; "What you talkin' 'bout, Willis?"; "To the moon, Alice." I sat a foot away from the screen and sang commercial jingles. Oh, I wish I were an Oscar-Mayer wiener. That is what I'd truly like to be. Cause if I were an Oscar-Mayer wiener, everyone would be in love with me. (Incidentally, one of my favorite meals then was nuked Oscar-Mayer hot dogs over rice with a dash of fish sauce.) On TV, everyone was white. I never saw Thais. Never saw any Asians, for that matter, except for news anchors, and the news was boring.
One evening, I decided I wanted to become something I could never be, not in a million and a half years. I pondered this predicament at the kitchen table, twirling a noodle around in my bowl with chopsticks. In our house, laundry was my mother's business, like cooking was my aunt's. Aunty Sue prepared a bowl of noodles for my mother, who was upstairs putting away clothes. She ladled some broth over the noodles and sprinkled scallions on top. She then placed the steaming bowl on the kitchen table and sat across from me, staring.
"What's the matter?" she said in Thai.
I twirled the noodle round and round.
My aunt told me there should be no secrets between us. I could trust her with anything. I did trust my aunt, my second mother, more than anyone in the world.
I told my aunt I wanted to be white. I wanted to be a farang.
The bowl had gotten cold. My mother's footsteps creaked upstairs. I didn't want her to know this secret desire.
"Like Larry Bird?" Aunty Sue smiled.
I shook my head. Even though the Boston Celtics star had the sweetest release when he shot the basketball, he wasn't the white I imagined. I was beginning to categorize the different divisions of white. Larry was Sweaty White. Tom Selleck, my mother's secret crush, was Hairy White. Ronald Reagan was Boring White. Boy George was Scary White. The boys in my class were Wild White or Meany White or Stupid Fart Head White.
"Like who then?"
I wanted to be Ricky from Silver Spoons, a sitcom about a boy who comes to live with his enormously wealthy father. Ricky was blond, had deep, deep dimples, and lived in a mansion. It wasn't just the look, I wanted to tell my aunt, but the life. Ricky didn't have to speak Thai, didn't have to sing the Thai National Anthem every morning or have to go to temple for Sunday school. He was a white kid who faced white problems, which were, to me, simple, which resolved themselves in half an hour. Ricky was Perfect White.
I tapped on my bowl with my chopsticks.
Aunty Sue raised her chin and straightened herself in the kitchen chair, a posture I had become accustomed to; she was about to tell me a story.
Once, Aunty Sue said, she wanted to be like a girl in school. This girl had long hair with tiny bows in it, a fair complexion, and thin little wrists, which she put colorful bracelets around. Aunty Sue was a bulky tomboy. She was often barefoot and found herself in fights, which she usually won. Despite this, she yearned for the life of that pretty girl. One day, my aunt decided to wear shoes with heels, put on her mother's longhaired wig, and applied her own makeup. I couldn't imagine my aunt in makeup or long hair, but then, Aunty Sue wanted to reinvent herself. The boys made fun of her new look, made kissy-kissy noises, kept pulling the wig off of her head. The old Sumon would have popped each of the boys in the nose. The new Sumon ignored them. After school, she gathered up her courage and went over to the girl and asked whether she could walk home with her. The girl laughed.
I never questioned the veracity of Aunty Sue's tale. I asked her what she did.
"Choke nah," she said. I punched her face.
I wasn't supposed to punch anyone, she told me. That was not the point. The point was this: to be someone else was to deny who you were and who you might become.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" my aunt asked.
I nodded, but I was too young to completely grasp the moral, too young to understand what it meant to be an individual. I was an immigrant's son. What lay in the far distance was uncertainty. What I was certain of was tomorrow I would wake and go to Harnew and eat my lunch that smelled like poo and try to blend as best I could, and throughout that day, I craved Ricky's life, even while part of me wanted to punch him square in the face.
Wat Dhammaram, the Thai Buddhist temple of Chicago, was located in West Town, a community area three miles north of the Loop. It had been a Christian Church before it was converted into a temple. Garbage littered the street around the wat, and the smell of rot polluted the air in the neighborhood. Even though territorial markings stained the east wall—gang symbols spray-painted in multi-colors—no one bothered the wat.
When we arrived, Aunty Sue opened the trunk of the Beetle for the kai yut sai, Thai stuffed omelets, she planned to serve the teachers during lunch. My mother recited the same lecture on respect: I must be a good boy. An obedient one. One who respects her, my father, and Aunty Sue at all times. I come from a good family. Do not forget that.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Talk Thai by Ira Sukrungruang Copyright © 2010 by The Curators of the University of Missouri. Excerpted by permission of University of Missouri Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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