This morning I headed out to Khorat to visit Non, who was a
student in ZX Shen’s group, and is now a professor there at the Suranaree
University of Technology. Khorat, which is the nickname for Nakhon Ratchasima,
is the capital of the province of the same name, which is the largest (by area)
province in Thailand. It is about 3-4 hours (depending on traffic) northeast of
Bangkok, so it is in the Isaan region like Chaiyaphum (which is about 1-2 hours
away from Khorat). Since I was going to give a seminar, Non organized a van to
pick me up in Bangkok and take me to the University. The van looked like it
could hold about 10 people, but the driver and I were the only ones in it, so
it was a very spacious experience, the opposite of the trip to the floating
market. When we got to the university, I met Non and we went for coffee and
chatted for a bit. Then he showed me to the seminar room and I set up my
computer. I talked about my quantum Monte Carlo project on phase competition on
strongly correlated systems, this is also what I presented at my thesis defense
so I had lots of practice. I think the talk went well, and a few professors
asked quite a few questions, I couldn’t quite tell if the students there were
following or not.
After the talk, two of Non’s students took me to see a silk
weaving shop. We picked up one of the student’s four year old son on the way,
who is in a bilingual Thai/English kindergarten. I was impressed with his level
of English already, he was much more advanced than the students in Chaiyaphum! Both
of the students had studied through a master’s degree, worked as lecturers
teaching at a university for about five years, and then started their Ph.D. The
Thai silk was really beautiful; it is a handicraft that this region is famous
for.
After the silk, we drove to a restaurant for dinner and met
Non there, one of his sons, and Mike, who is also a professor at the
university. He is Canadian and married to a Thai woman, and interestingly, my
advisor Tom was on his thesis committee when he did his Ph.D in Toronto. It is
a small world!
At the restaurant, the waitress seemed quite concerned that
the food would be too spicy for me, although when I was in Chaiyaphum people
did not seem to be concerned about this. The Isaan region has the spiciest food
in Thailand, so Non, who is from Bangkok, says that he always has to request
that they make it less spicy for him. We got a variety of dishes, including pla
pao (the fish dish that I had in Chaiyaphum at my farewell party), sweet and
sour veggies, tom yam soup, and som tam (spicy unripe papaya salad, which is
one of the most famous Isaan dishes). I quite liked the less spicy version of
som tam at the restaurant, when I had it before it Chaiyaphum my mouth always
felt like it was catching on fire!
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| Dinner in Khorat |
After dinner, the students took me to see the
statue of Thao Suranaree (also known as Yamo), who is the local heroine of the
city and the university was named after her. We paid respects to the statue by
purchasing some flowers to hang near her, and some little gold squares which we
then stuck on the statue. This is also how you pay respect to a Buddha statue
at a temple. After this, we stopped by a stand on the street for a snack of
dried squid, and then they took me to the hotel.
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| With the statue of Yamo in the center of Khorat |
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