Staples, Padlocks and Rubberbands

We have been living in Thailand for 4 months now and from what we’ve learned so far, we are of the strong belief that Thailand would cease to exist without three very important items: staples, padlocks and rubberbands. 

What are they used for you ask? The easier question would be “What are they NOT used for?”. Let’s begin with staples. At Ligeia’s work when, oh let’s say 30 copies are made for students, instead of using a paper clip, the bundle always arrives in Ligeia’s mailbox stapled together. Another example is at the immigration office in Chiang Mai when our change was stapled to the receipt, or when Ligeia received payment for proctoring an exam, she was handed a 100 baht bill stapled to a 20. It is illegal to step on money in Thailand because the King’s face is on it, but apparently no one seems to mind running a staple through his head. Thus, one of our first purchases here, was a staple-remover.

Moving on to padlocks…Padlocks are used to close everything from small vending shacks to high end restaurants, small offices to banks to businesses of all kinds. Promptly at 4:30pm each door to the English Division offices at CMU are padlocked shut. 

In fact, our neighbor from across the hall hasn’t even moved in yet, but was sure to already have installed a padlock, despite the fact there’s already a dead-bolt on the door.

And when we went to Pai, sure enough, we were to lock our bungalow with…wait for it…a padlock! 🙂

Rubberbands are used for all street food. Solid foods and liquids alike are placed in small clear plastic bags and then sealed at the top with a rubberband. We haven’t seen a twist tie since we’ve arrived. In fact, I’ll bet you can judge how long a vendor has been in business by how quickly and efficiently s/he ties a rubberband to the top of a plastic bag of food.

Any thoughts on this? Feel free to leave a comment.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for our next Thai adventure!

Mindy and Ligeia :):)