From Hangry to Happy Thanks to Thai Food

Photo by Bruna Branco on Unsplash

There’s a tiny Thai lunch place I go to, tucked between residential buildings and a gas station, the kind you’d miss if you weren’t looking. No flashy signs, no franchise slogans. Just a small buffet and one quietly efficient woman behind the counter and her helpers. 

The manager-slash-chef isn’t your stereotypical Thai person — no sing-song "khop khun khâ", no endless smiling or small talk. She’s all business: Let’s get with the program, you order, you leave. Which is perfectly fine by me. When I’m running errands, I often like to fly under the radar. Get there, get my stuff, get home. Chop chop. 

I just realized: we may have been kindred spirits all along. 😉

I’ve been going to that Thai place since just after the pandemic lockdowns, back when my eating habits were still tangled up with stress, sugar crashes, and a general sense of urgency. By the time I reached the counter, I was usually starving. Think: hangry. And I’m sure it showed in how I eyed the people ahead of me who lingered too long with the serving spoons, or how I may have tapped my foot a little too impatiently. I was polite, of course, but just barely holding it together.

Fast forward a couple of years. My lunch order hasn’t really changed. It’s still Thai chicken curry, lovingly homemade, fragrant with lemongrass and coconut, but how I eat it has. Somewhere along the way, I started skipping the rice. Not because I don’t like it (I love it), but because I decided to cut back on white carbs. That tiny change, among others, helped me balance my blood sugar, avoid afternoon crashes, and gently shed some weight. More importantly, I stopped arriving at lunch like a woman on the brink of collapse.

Today, the shop was quiet. The heatwave must have cleared the usual lunch crowd. And as I paid, something unexpected happened. The lady behind the counter, normally reserved and all-business, looked at me and said:

"You have lost weight, right? Can I ask… was it intentionally? How did you manage?"

I smirked. "Yeah… you should know. I always order without rice."

Her expectant smile faltered. "I can’t do that! That’s what we eat!"

We both laughed. But beneath it, there was something more.

It was a quiet cultural clash — one where rice isn’t just food but foundation, where skipping it feels as strange as skipping the plate. For her, it wasn’t just a nutritional choice — it was almost unimaginable.

Photo Credit: Faheem Ahamad on Pexels

She also doesn’t fit the typical image many people have of slender Asian women. She’s more solidly built, and maybe that’s what made my quiet changes visible to her. 

And here’s the thing: in many Asian cultures, especially in Thailand, people don’t usually ask personal questions — especially not about body changes, diet, or weight. There’s this unwritten golden rule of polite distance: 

Don’t intrude, don’t embarrass, don’t get too personal. And yet she did. For someone who doesn’t normally make small talk, her question carried real curiosity, and maybe even a bit of admiration.

Just like that, we were no longer only chef and customer, but two people briefly seeing into each other’s world.

That moment — quick, unpolished, entirely real — was the most human exchange we’ve ever had. I wasn’t just another lunch order anymore. I was someone she’d quietly watched change. And in a way, I had. Not just in weight, but in energy. If she told the story from her side, I imagine she might say: That woman used to look so tense. Now she seems more approachable.

It reminded me that small changes aren’t always visible right away. But over time, they shift something deeper — how you feel in your own skin, and how others feel around you. Even the Thai lady who doesn’t do small talk.

Either way, she made my day.

And it got me thinking: We often focus on the people who don’t show up the way we hoped — the flaky friend, the unanswered text. But what if we also noticed the quiet ones who do show up in small, unspectacular ways? The barista who remembers your order. The lunch lady who, just for a moment, breaks her cultural code and asks what's on her mind. The people who see you evolving — and let you know, in their own language.

Have you ever been surprised by a quiet connection?