best-laid plans of mice and men

Over break we had a Thai friend visiting us for several days. Overall this is a good thing, but preparing for her arrival reminded of when the wife and I were preparing for our move to Thailand by reading different books on Thai culture. I remember thinking back then, "holy cow, there are a lot of ways to screw up." No pointing your feet at others. No touching people on the head. No making kids look you in the eye if you're scolding them. Don't, don't, do.

By the time our friend arrived we had made several sweeps of the house to make sure that things were in culturally sensitive order. My old school picture of the Thai king was put above eye level. A mutual friend in Thailand was consulted as to whether our visitor, who is Thai but not Buddhist, would be offended by our buddha head and hands. We even prepared some Thai dishes for when she arrived, knowing she had been eating western food and isn't a huge fan.

So the evening after she arrived we asked if she wanted to watch a DVD. After looking through our collection, she decided on an Adam Sandler flick -- Anger Management. Sounds good. That is, until that scene I had forgotten about, where Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson spend about 10 minutes beating up on Buddhist monks. And using such choice phrases as "tell me how you can call a 400 pound man the model of restraint." The kicker was probably when Adam Sandler pulled one monk's robe up and starting swinging him around by his bright orange underwear.

It was like watching a sex scene with your parents, except a hundred times worse. My only consolation is that we actually got the movie in Thailand, and our friend was the one who chose it as our evening entertainment. Still, I don't think that quite makes up for it.