could well be added to the meal. Ruminate meat should be accompanied by sauce taken from the internal organs (nam pia). Raw fish should be either cooked into salad or meat-in-sauce, or simply salted or sauced. Cooked food processing ranges from roasting, steaming and drying to condensing frying, and boiling. The Thai enjoy food with more hot, salty, acrid and buttery tastes, in contrast to those that have sweet, rich and strong tastes. They smoke with bamboo pipes, lighted by dried bamboo pieces. Before smoking, the Thai maintain their custom of hospitality by inviting others to join in, much as they would do before a meal. Clothing Tai women wear short and colorful blouses, accented down the front with lines of silver buttons in the shapes of butterflies, spiders and cicadas. Their blouses fit beautifully with their tube-shaped black skirts. The belt is a green colored silk band. They wear a key chain round their waists. On festival occasions, Tai women can wear an extra black dress, with an underarm seam or like a pullover which has an open collar, thus revealing the silver buttons inside. The black dresses are nipped at the waist, include large shoulders and decorative pieces of cloth that are attached to the underarms or to the front of the shoulders in a manner similar to the White Thai. Black Tai women wear the famous pieu shawl with colorful embroidery. Tai men wear shorts with a belt; a shirt with an open collar and two pockets on either side. White Tai men have an additional upper pocket on the left and their collar is fastened with a cloth band. The popular color of all clothes is black, pale red, striped or white-colored. At festivals, people wear long black dresses, with split underarm seams and an internal white blouse. A head turban is worn as a headdress, and in ceremonies, the turban should be the length of an arm. Housing The Tai live in stilt houses with roofs of different designs: those houses with a round convex roof like a turtle shell with two ends called khau cut; those with a four paneled roof and a rectangle floor and corridors; those houses with a long and high roof and with rooms at either ends being used as halls; and those with a low roof and narrow interior, which is close to the Muong house style. Transportation Carrying