Dreaming in Thailand

Travel Stories: Jim Benning assumed he had put his cultural travels on hold when he visited an American chain restaurant in Hat Yai. He was wrong.

06.17.03 | 9:52 PM ET

Photo by Jim Benning

It was hot and humid when I set out for dinner in the small southern Thailand city of Hat Yai, and I felt the world expanding and shrinking around me, depending on which road I walked down. On one rutted old street, two men led a wrinkled gray elephant down the sidewalk, pausing in front of a shark-fin soup restaurant to read the menu. Around the corner, as though in a parallel universe, a well-lit 7-Eleven convenience store illuminated the road, and a couple of young women in blue jeans chatted behind street stalls, their tables lined with the latest in knock-off Oakley sunglasses and World Wrestling Federation T-shirts.

I had just stepped off the train from Malaysia and was hungry. I had been dreaming of my arrival in Thailand, and of eating the fragrant coconut-seasoned dishes I had enjoyed at Thai restaurants back home in Los Angeles. But here in southern Thailand, I wasn’t finding much. I’d passed Chinese restaurants and a few kitchens serving the same Malaysian-style curry I’d been eating for weeks. Then I spotted the Sizzler, with its familiar red and green sign: “Steaks, Seafood, Salad.”

I couldn’t believe it. All sorts of Western chains had made inroads into Asian capitals like Bangkok and Katmandu, but I’d never seen a Sizzler abroad, and I certainly never expected to find one in a small city like Hat Yai. I wanted to head back toward the elephant.

When I began my five months of travel in Asia, I made an earnest pledge to try to avoid chain restaurants, which I saw as contributing to cultural homogenization. Instead, I told myself, I would dine only in local establishments, exasperating waiters as I butchered their native language, struggling valiantly to pronounce dishes like “moo goo gai pan.” As many travelers like to point out, the word “travel” is rooted in the French word “travail.” It’s work. You get out of it what you put into it, and it shouldn’t be too easy.

But after I walked several more blocks and still hadn’t found a restaurant serving anything new, the promise of crispy fresh vegetables from a salad bar, something I hadn’t come across in months on the road, sounded alluring. I headed for the Sizzler and put my cultural travels on hold. At least that’s what I assumed.

The Sizzler, it turned out, was packed with people. Well-dressed locals—men in slacks and button-down shirts, women in stylish skirts and blouses—sat on benches, waiting for tables. Soft-spoken Thai dinner conversations spilled out the front door, along with the buttery aroma of baked potatoes. I added my name to a waiting list. Those around me carefully studied menus on display, pointing to glossy photographs of chicken sandwiches and fries. They turned the menu pages slowly, as though leafing through an exotic wisdom text. Their eyes gleamed. I’d never seen such quiet anticipation at a Sizzler, a decidedly middle-of-the-road American chain. After a short wait, a slight young woman opened the front door and carefully enunciated my name: “Mr. Jim?”

Once inside, I was surprised to find myself surrounded by pastoral images of California, my home state. Colorful wall-sized murals depicted sight after familiar sight. In one, the Golden Gate Bridge spanned the blue waters of San Francisco Bay, giving way to Marin County’s rolling hills. In another, Santa Barbara’s whitewashed Spanish-style courthouse looked out over the city’s inviting red-tile roofs. Yet another wall featured the famous Hollywood sign beaming forth from the Santa Monica Mountains. The scenes brought back warm memories, but they also struck me in a way I wouldn’t have expected. How dry and desert-like California looked, how brown and dusty and sun-scorched, through the prism of the lush, green Southeast Asian countryside I’d been traveling in for weeks.

A visit to the Sizzler in Thailand was more complicated than I had imagined. I was seeing the familiar as deliciously exotic, and the exotic as oddly familiar. In a way, the Sizzler offered the perfect chance to see America, or at least one idealized version of America, through Thai eyes.

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