Soi

(NOTE: I normally would not assemble 2 blogs within a day, but with language school starting next week, posts may become more infrequent.  It helped that but Ingrid wrote most of the last one.)

Soi is a term used in Thailand which is hard to define.  Our address is Rachaprarop Soi 14, which means it is a soi off of Rachaprarop Road.

But what is a soi?  Is it a street?  It could be.  But a soi is not always wide enough for a car.  It is usually wide enough for a motorcycle.  (In Thailand, everything is wide enough for a motorcycle—it’s pedestrians that don’t count.)

A soi is a narrow street or passageway.  If it is a street, it may be only wide enough for one car at a time.  Typically there are no sidewalks on a soi.  A soi may go through to another street or soi or it may be a dead end.

On the soi, pedestrians, motorcycles and cars vie for the right of passage.  The general rule is the bigger the object, the more right-of-way it possesses.  So the dog yields to the pedestrian, who yields to the motorcycle, who yields to the three-wheeled vehicle that yields to the car that yields to the truck.  (This is true on sidewalks as well as sois and streets, though in our western way of thinking, a person would have some right-of-way at least on a sidewalk.)

A soi is often full of life.  Vendors set up stands on the side or in store fronts.  There is constant movement.  People buying, people selling, people just passing through.

The soi is where we will meet people.  A soi near our apartment has a fairly sizeable market where vendors hawk fruits, vegetables, meat, cooked foods and dry goods.  We will continue to do a lot of our shopping there.  It will be on the soi that we will practice our Thai and hopefully begin to build some relationships.

A soi is a challenge for me (Edd).  Though I am generally laid back, when I get on a road or a trail I become very destination oriented and I don’t tend to spend a lot of time on the sides.  But a soi is not just a way to a destination, it is a destination.

In some ways, the soi is a picture of our life.  Our life has a destination (either the grave or the return of Jesus), and we will all get to our destination.  The important thing is what happens along the way—all those interactions with pedestrians, vendors, vehicles and other creatures and things we meet on the soi of life.  As we travel the soi, we are to bring life to it with God’s word:

 Impress (the commandments) on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:7 NIV)

Some soi scenes: