Thai names are long. Try saying Kanittha Pinichwicha, for example. It doesn't roll off your tongue, does it? A simple tip for starters: the h in Kanittha is silent.
Kanittha Pinichwicha moved to America for love. "It's a cute story," she prefaces.
In August 1998, she vacationed in Sacramento, Calif. She needed a break from her time-consuming sales job at an office furniture outlet in Bangkok. In Sacramento she stayed with a friend's brother who is married to an American woman. During her visit she attended a wedding. There she met a Thai man who had flown down from Seattle, where he lived. It was love at first sight.
After several weeks in Sacramento, Pinichwicha returned to her life in Thailand. She and her new love, who has lived in America for 40 years, corresponded while they were apart. Finally, in May 1999, he went to Thailand and proposed to her. She moved to Seattle in July of that year, and they wed in October. They were married by a justice of the peace downtown. She wore trousers for the occasion.
When Kanittha married, she took her husband's surname, as was then legally required in Thailand. Just a few months ago, after a long battle, married women won the legal right to use their maiden names as surnames
In 1979 Pinichwicha earned a B.A. in political science from Thammasart University in Bangkok. But she feels her English isn't good enough to pursue a career in that field in America.
When she moved here, Pinich-wicha believed that, with her broken English, working in a Thai restaurant was her only option. She has worked in three in this area - one in Kirkland, one in Bellevue and now one on Queen Anne, Orrapin Noodle Experience. Many of her new Thai friends in the States work in Thai restaurants and let one another know when a job becomes available.
She likes her job, her boss in particular. (Permit an author's - and a customer's - note: The food is delicious, although, Pinichwicha notes, it's cooked a bit sweeter than food served in Thailand, to adapt to the American palate.) One thing she doesn't like about her job, however, is when some customers make fun of her pronunciation. "They look down smiling," she says. "Make me feel so bad."
She doesn't want to remain a waitress indefinitely; her dream is to "make another movement of job." She would like to go back to a sales position in a mall or, better yet, be a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. That's an incentive for her to become a U.S. citizen, since citizenship is a prerequisite for employment in that branch of the U.S. government.
Out of the sinking city
As for Pinichwicha's native land, a unified Thai kingdom was established in 1238. Known as Siam until 1939, Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country never to have been colonized or taken over by a European power. A bloodless revolution in 1932 led to a constitutional monarchy. The chief of state since 1946 has been King Phumiphon Adunyadet.
About 75 percent of Thais are at least part Chinese. Both of Kanittha Pinichwicha's parents were Chinese. (Besides Thai and English, Pinich-wicha speaks the Chinese dialect Tae-Chew.) They moved from China to Thailand before she was born and changed their surname to a Thai surname. Kanittha was the eldest of six offspring - in consideration of which, Kanittha," meaning "little sister," seems a peculiar name to given her.
She was born in a sinking city. Bangkok is a sprawling, seething metropolis of 9 million built on the eastern banks of the Chao Phraya River, on swampland, or "new land," as Pinich-wicha puts it, "not old, hard land." The result is that the place is sinking two inches a year - and the river is rising due to global warming and the periodic deluge of monsoon rains. Consequently, roads must be built elevated on stilts above the land - only one among many problems resulting from these rearrangements by nature.
Pinichwicha's father, a merchant, sold home-improvement supplies, "like Home Depot, only smaller," says Pinichwicha. He is no longer living, but her mother and all five of Ka-nittha's younger siblings still reside in Thailand. She has returned to visit twice since her marriage, most recently for three months in winter 2001. Having been accustomed to 70-degree winter weather back home, Pinichwicha has a hard time adjusting to the chill and drear of Seattle's gray months. For her, it's a good season to get away.
There are only three seasons in Thailand: summer, rainy and winter. Most of the time it is so hot and humid that "you can stand alone and sweat." Monsoons are not a severe problem in Bangkok, Pinichwicha says, in terms of short-term survival. "Everybody see the rain," she says blithely - "that's it."
Some aspects of American society still feel foreign to her: the holidays we celebrate, the rampant availability of "fast," unhealthy food and "the way we live." Pressed for specifics, she says that in America most people live in single families, even alone, but in Thailand large, extended families live together. For newlyweds it is not predetermined whose side of the family will take them in - it depends on the financial situations of everyone involved.
Pinichwicha has embraced other aspects of American life, though. Her favorite pastime is playing golf, and she has loved jazz, an originally American art, since long before she moved here. She especially likes female vocalists such as Astrid Gilberto, Etta James and Dinah Washington - a varied bunch.
Like 95 percent of Thais, Pinich-wicha is Buddhist. And she is devout. At the Buddhist worship center she attends in Seattle, "I find peace in my heart and mind," she says.
She misses her temple back in Thailand, the Wat Pra Kaew, or Temple of the Emerald Buddha. This dazzling shrine is housed inside the Grand Palace compound right in downtown Bangkok. The sculpture of Buddha, actually made of green jade, is the world's most precious.
Conjuring the temple's ornate historical architecture in her mind, Pinichwicha says, "The atmosphere remind me that the Thai people have a root."
Interestingly, her husband is Catholic. Catholicism is practiced by only a tiny fraction of Thais, but she experiences the same peace when she accompanies him to Mass, even though she doesn't understand much of what is said.
When you enter Orrapin, Kanittha welcomes you with the traditional Buddhist greeting, "Sawaddee": palms together, placed on her heart, a quick and subtle bow of her head. A genuine smile. To see that is worth at least a bowl of noodles.
Teru Lundsten is a freelance writer living in Queen Anne. This is the latest in an ongoing series of profiles focusing on immigrants who have become part of life in the neighborhood.
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