Dano Nissen, 134 TESS
We’re in a bull market for water buffaloes. It’s the hottest asset with the biggest ASSet. These big, lumbering animals swaying their gargantuan rear ends as they saunter along country roads store both lard and wealth.
In rural Thailand the stock market isn’t just buying vegetables at the local dtalaat. Families invest in these cash cows. The value appreciates. Then sell, sell, sell. Actually…they are sent to a nice rice farm up north where they live happily ever after, or so we tell the kids. And eventually they end up in a Thai person’s stomach, along with a parasite or two.
But before grazing on the heavenly plains of the afterlife, they live it up glamorously. In fact, they are glamor. A Lambo in the driveway? Nah, we got a chunky water buffalo with four leg drive. Sometimes, I’ll be getting driven by a house when I see a Rolls Royce of water buffaloes in the front yard. “Thirty thousand baht for that one,” the driver will say enviously. Thirty bands on a set of hooves – you know that’s a high roller.
Water buffaloes: an investment, a flex, and contradictorily – a grave insult. “Buffalo, buffalo,” kids will point at their friends. I can not condone the insult, but I applaud the practical use of English. In my mind, they cancel one another out.
The water buffalo insult comes from a long tradition of employing animal names as barbs. Word to the wise: Don’t be calling anyone a monitor lizard lest you get roundhouse muay Thai kicked in the kisser. Buffalo, though, seems to be the most common and is more or less akin to calling someone an idiot. I see the association. Looking into these creatures’ watery, black eyes is looking into the abyss. Absolutely nothing going on in between the horns.
I bike by them everyday and am still continuously surprised by their ineptitude as a species. The calves are especially skittish and often clunkily gallop away when I ride past. But their molasses reaction time leaves one wondering how natural selection hasn’t yet made these megafauna prehistoric.
I do find it all strange: water buffaloes function as a Rolex, Vanguard account and slur rolled into one. But then again, in the US we use jackass as an insult. And I have at least a month’s worth of Peace Corps salary in Dogecoin. And we could go on and on about conspicuous consumption back home. I mean, Nic Cage has a multimillion dollar pyramid headstone awaiting him.
Seeing what’s valued here versus the US has been interesting. I’ve learned that Thais tend to place a premium on certificates, lots and lots of photographs, sports competitions, souvenirs, family, holidays, dressing sharply at work, Buddhist tradition, eating together, beauty pageants, karaoke, designer brands of dubious authenticity and much more. Some I’ve bought into, like family style eating, and others, like spending longer on a photoshoot than the actual event, not so much. But most of all, those big guys with their big, dumb eyes that I see everyday will always have value to me. I’ll never be bearish on the water buffaloes.
Sticky Rice 