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##Birthdays – Conversation Lesson

Joe: Hey, Kristin, I don’t know if I told you but Wat called yesterday and he said he’s going to come to San Francisco next weekend to celebrate his birthday with us all because he knows that AJ’s here and obviously we’re here. So, yeah, he’s excited to celebrate his birthday with us.

Kristin: That’s kind of surprising actually. He usually does come here but he actually told me the last time he visited a few weeks ago that he was probably going to be staying up there and just going to a Thai temple and just kind of spending it alone. Actually what he likes to do, too, is to think about his mother and just, y’know, what she went through giving birth to him. So, yeah, I’m actually surprised he’s going to come here and have more of a party birthday.

AJ: Which is kind of interesting. It’s so different than Americans, I think it’s quite nice and sweet the idea of, y’know, thinking of your mom on your birthday and the sacrifices your mom made. That’s kind of Wat’s approach. Maybe it’s a general Thai attitude whereas here I think it’s…we’re a lot more selfish and it’s more like thinking, especially as kids, y’know, “Give me presents. What gifts am I going to get? I want a party. Everybody come and give me stuff.” And I don’t remember anyone talking about how grateful they were or are for their mother on their own birthday in America.

Kristin: I remember the first time actually that Wat said he wanted to just have kind of a quiet birthday, go into a temple, meditating and thinking of his mother. We actually went up, AJ and I went with Wat up to Chiang Mai and AJ and I were trying to plan out the day for his birthday, like, “Oh, well maybe we can go see this band play tonight and what do you think about that? And we can go to dinner beforehand.” And he started getting really upset and agitated. “No, I’m going to a temple.” And I was like, “What do you mean?” “I’m going to a temple and I’m going to be thinking about my mom all day.” And I just…yeah, like AJ said, I just thought it was really, really nice. I had…it just gave me a different perspective on how you celebrate your birthday actually.

Joe: He was going to go to the temple the entire day or was he just going to go there for an hour or two?

Kristin: No, no, that was a part of it but in other words, he did not want to be out celebrating his birthday in that way of being kind of, what’s the word I’m looking for?

Joe: Indulgent?

Kristin: Yes, that’s exactly what I…yeah, he didn’t want to be indulging himself. He wanted to be more introspective. But so, y’know, another custom that AJ and I discovered in Thailand is a lot of times, and this might be a Bangkok thing and maybe with the younger generation, I’m not quite sure, but a lot of times when someone invites you to go to dinner or help them celebrate their birthday, they’ll pay for it.

They’ll pay for everybody who comes. Whereas here, it’s the opposite. If we have a party, many times, and we invite people to come, y’know, it’s on us to pay for the party, oh, sorry. I don’t mean it’s on us…it’s on us to take care of that but people usually end up…

Joe: I don’t think that’s actually true. I think that what happens is if you say, “I’m having a party,” well, you pay for that party in the United States.

Kristin: That’s what I meant.

Joe: But if everyone says, “Why don’t we all go out for, y’know, a birthday dinner,” or something like that.

Like let’s say we were to say, “It’s Kristin’s birthday, let’s all go out for dinner.” Then usually everyone pitches in money to pay for it.

Kristin: Right, my friends would pay for me. I got confused.

AJ: Right, and I think in general in the United States, the idea is that the birthday person, they’re the special person. It’s their special day and they’re going to receive things, whether it’s gifts or other people paying for their dinner, or that kind of thing. Whereas, at least with Wat, it seems like a general Thai thing, that it’s more that the birthday person is…is giving rather than receiving, right? Which is interesting. It’s just so different. Here, it’s like a celebration. It’s your special day and like you’re number one for the day. So it’s a very different perspective.

Joe: So when you guys were growing up, what were your birthday’s like? I mean what was a normal birthday like when you were younger?

Kristin: I always loved my birthdays because with my birthday being in August, I used to have pool parties. Because we lived in a subdivision where there was a pool and so I’d have my friends come over and, y’know, we’d be in the pool all day. I remember sometime, I’d usually have them spend the night and I remember one year we slept in tents out in my parents’ yard. It was a lot of fun. So I loved having a Summer birthday. I can also remember, this is probably one of my fondest birthday party memories, I was turning, I don’t know, maybe 6 or 7. We were still living in Michigan and my dad had an import store.

So he sold things that he would go down to Mexico and bring back, he would sell those things then. So he sold piñatas. So we actually filled up the piñata with candy and then, y’know, did the traditional piñata, hit the piñata, had all my friends come and we had a big picnic and played the piñata game, which is a lot of fun.

AJ: Let’s see, when I was a kid we, yeah, we would have parties, sometimes maybe at my house. I remember one time we went to a roller skating rink, so all my friends and I and I guess my parents must have paid for the other kids. Maybe, I don’t remember, or they paid. Who knows. I was too little to know about who paid. But anyway, we all went to the roller skating rink and then we had ice cream and pizza or something. And of course, now as an adult, it’s usually just go to dinner with friends.

Joe: Yeah, when I was younger, we usually had two parties. We had a party that was like for friends, y’know, our school friends and I think almost always that was at our house. Actually, I don’t think it was ever not at our house. I think every single time it was at our house. And also sometimes that wouldn’t be on my actual birthday because you’d have to do it during the weekend so, y’know, everyone could come to the party and not be at school or anything like that. And on my actual birthday, my mom always let me select whatever meal I wanted for my birthday and she would make it. And that was always like lasagna or pizza or something like that. But then we also had a second party that was the family only party. And there’d usually be, I don’t know, maybe 20 or 30 people who would come and it would be all aunts and uncles and cousins and the grandparents. And that was also a lot of fun actually. As an adult though, usually I just get together with friends also, just like what AJ said, y’know? You guys know. We’ll go out for dinner.

Kristin: Well, yeah, it was just my birthday recently. We went to dinner. We went to the Millennium, like we’ve done many years now.

Joe: Yeah, my 40th birthday was one of my favorite birthdays because that’s when you, Kristin, planned that party at the Millennium, which is like my favorite restaurant and we had, whatever, 35 friends come and…

Kristin: Yeah, that was a lot of fun. That was great.

Joe: Yeah, so, yeah, it’ll be interesting to see what happens this year because it seems like a lot of birthdays recently, we’ve been in Asia and I don’t even get to celebrate with a large group of friends. It just, y’know, I celebrate with just one or, y’know, maybe three or four friends and that’s about it.

AJ: Yeah, I think that they’re becoming less dramatic and big as we get older. The more you have they become a little smaller and simpler.

Kristin: Yeah, actually sometimes I even forget what age I’m turning.