Why I might have trouble living any place else but Thailand

As I begin to ponder LAT (Life After Thailand), I'm beginning to realize that there is little to no possibility that I'll not undergo severe culture shock upon returning back to the United States or, really, any place besides Southeast Asia. Here are the reasons:

• My addiction to iced coffee/tea - so that caffeine addiction I talked about... yeah, never really went away. While I'm not yet a coffee a day person, I'm pretty darn close. And I like my coffee Thai-style, i.e., not tasting a bit like coffee. I typically get a Thai iced tea (described here) or mo-kaa yen/iced mocha, a delicious chocolaty concoction of chocolate syrup, sugar, sweetened condensed milk, and, oh yes, a bit of coffee.
• My lack of bodily temperature control, or as I like to call it, my adaptation to living in warm climates. No, I don't need to drink quite as much water as tourists, nor do I get overheated and sweaty quite as easily or quickly. But put me in an air-conditioned room and I'll start shivering. Worse yet, put me in a climate that gets below 75 Fahrenheit and watch me slowly assume the fetal position in hopes of creating a small bubble of body-heat warmed air. 



This is what I feel like (from the website "ilovetheburg")

• Removal from US political and social debates - I didn't realize how much of a plus this was until I saw on a Facebook post that an actor/drug addict/wife abuser who shall remain unnamed actually displaced news coverage of Libya on many US media platforms. I'm also pretty happy to be removed from the Planned Parenthood debacle (really? withdraw federal funding from an organization that provides basic health and reproductive public health services for underserved women because they also provide a LEGAL service to women, without federal money, that you think is immoral?), the federal budget debate (again, what other organization or individual could get away with missing a deadline for over 5 months?), and the Arizona legislature (no, the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to ALL people born in the U.S., just those who we happen to like).*
• My inability to cook - When you can get delicious Thai food, hot and steaming, from 4 to 10 different vendors, at all times of the day, for less than 2 US dollars, why would you ever cook? Plus, I don't own an oven or most of the necessary cooking tools. (I have a microwave that looks like it can become a convection oven from the picture on the front but the user manual is in Thai and I have two hot plates, a pot, two frying pans, one large chopping knife, and a spatula.) And, quite frankly, I don't really enjoy cooking, despite my love of chemistry.
• My love of non-confrontation - as anyone who's ever lived/worked/befriended me knows, I don't like confrontation. I tend to avoid it, instead using the ever helpful passive-aggressive approach to deal with issues (also not healthy, but...). I also find the deliberately-avoiding-the-bush/pretending-there-is-no-bush approach quite useful. And, so do Thai people. It's a great combo!
• My inability to read words in English - I used to have this skill. I could sound out words appropriately and effectively, even if I had never seen them before (except for "subtle," which for years I thought was pronounced "sub-til" and was a distinctly different word from the one meaning "delicate or elusive"). Now, I am very good at sounding out Thai-phonetic words, like "Phloen Chit" (plurn jid), and am horrible at sounding out English words ("Phillip" would come out "peereeb"). I'm also probably going to develop "upspeak" from trying determinedly to learn how to use tones.

So, in case you're wondering, I'm still debating my next move - which will happen sometime after Sept. 15. Next post might be reasons why I will not have trouble moving back to the U.S.

* Just in case you can't tell, I'm pretty liberal. But, I am using hyperbole. And, I believe that informative, helpful debates can actually create sustainable solutions. But, the current political situation in the US does not seem to be informative or helpful. And, I don't think it will create sustainable change. But, I'm open to you trying to convince me otherwise.