A Merry Christmas in Thailand!

Though most days I am very happy with the English level of my students, there are some days I walk out of the classroom (or away from Takraw practice) and wonder what in the world they have been learning all these years. Most of the boys I play Takraw with don’t say anything in English, except “good!!” every time I return the ball, and “bad!!!” every time someone else touches the ball. Except for one day, where the potentially creepy coach told me he is also a swimmer, in addition to being the Takraw coach and Thai kickboxing coach. He asked if I wanted to go swimming, and was trying to ask me what the word for “swimsuit” was in English. I think this is what was happening- it was all in Thai so I am never really sure. Then one of the students yelled from across the court, “do you have a one piece or two piece?” How can they not respond to me when I ask how many years they have been playing Takraw, but they know one piece or two piece swimsuits? Silly boys.

Even my 11th graders are sometimes questionable, even though they may be the smartest high schoolers in a three district radius. “Man” is one of the lady boys in my class that has never been able to answer a question in English, and when I have asked him to read his work aloud, he just comes to the front of class and holds my hand and says “I love teacher. My teacher, my friend”, then sits back down. So he has yet to hand in a homework assignment to me. He finally handed in a journal assignment last week, which was the replica of the student’s assignment on top of his, except he changed “Uttaradit” to “Chiang Mai”. I gave them both zero’s, and handed their journals back this week. Meen, one of the better students in class, completely broke down. She came to my office with the translator in the class, i.e., the only girl in the class that is courageous enough to carry a conversation in English with me, and told me she didn’t know he copied. The next class, Man handed me a not that said,

“I'm sorry teacher
Next, I will not do it
If teachers will deduct points
Let me break points alone.
She did not know”

First of all, this was the most English he has written all class. And secondly, I thought this was the cutest thing ever, and I felt so bad for him. I told him I would give him a zero for this one, but he can make up the rest for half credit. I’m pretty sure he didn’t understand, and probably won’t make up his late homework anyway, but he was so happy and just said “thank you teacher” three times before retreating.

There are several other students like Man in my other 11th grade class. I try to help them as much as I can, as the rest of the class sprints through every essay assignment I give them. One particularly bad student’s nickname is Bomb. He would be a student that could easily be overlooked in any class because he hangs out with the students that don’t do well, doesn’t participate in class, writes boring essays, and doesn’t have a funny haircut. The only reason he stands out to me is because of his nickname. I totally don’t mean to do it, but every time I take attendance, or force his participation, I always shout his name, and make an exploding motion with my hands. It just happens automatically. The funny thing is, I don’t think he notices, and the poor kid will always get so much more attention from me than his friends because he has a goofy nickname.

And then there are my genius 9th graders that can speak and write better than my smartest 11th graders. For two weeks leading up to Christmas, I have been working on a Christmas “show” with my best 9th grade class. I don’t really know how or why this started, but our department wanted to do something for Christmas. All my students wanted to do is sing, but I somehow convinced them that a dance and a play should accompany the song. So I took Oom’s class time with them and rehearsed “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, which they knew better than me anyway, and we had quite an act going. I really didn’t do anything. They came up with everything on their own, I just got their costumes together. So Friday finally came and we had a half hour to give our school Christmas. I didn’t realize that they idea originally was to have one of the Japanese, one of the Chinese and one of the English classes sing “Jingle Bells” in their respective language. This became evident after the Japanese and the Chinese class went and sang Jingle Bells, and then my class of 15 year old geniuses blew everyone out of the water with a full on Rudolph and Santa musical. We performed during the morning announcements (and of course into first period, during which I was supposed to give a midterm. Christmas is more important anyway), and Steven and I got to host the whole thing in English to the confused student body. We even had some Christmas trivia, and gave out folders as prizes, though all the students that answered were either mine or his students. Our show ended with a real, live Santa. Be and Tara dressed up like Mr. and Mrs. Claus and rode in on their scooter with bags of candy that they threw to the kids. It was kind of awesome. I never really get into the Christmas thing, but this was too much fun.



For Christmas this year, I kind of received a family. Over the past three weeks, Kaiau’s family has swiftly adopted me into their family. It started when I went to Kaiau’s grandfather’s house for the day a few weekends ago. I thought we were just going over for lunch, or to hang out, but apparently there was more planned than that. Kaiau can speak English fairly well, as well as her father and sister, but her mother doesn’t speak a word of English. So the whole day just ended up being a bunch of surprises, and I just followed whoever told me where to go next. Kaiau’s mother wanted to take me to the Sukhothai Historical Park, where I had gone for Loi Krathong. The park is huge, and will require several visits, so I was excited to see more of it. After some amazing Sukhothai noodles for lunch, we were on our way to the park when Kaiau’s mother remembered she had a funeral to go to that afternoon. I thought we were on our way back to her grandfather’s house, but we ended up going to the park anyway, with countless apologies from Kaiau’s mom that we didn’t have enough time to enjoy the park. We only drove through the park anyway, not because of lack of time, but because it was too hot to be out of air conditioning. Haha. So I had a lovely tour of the park from inside the car before we headed back towards her grandfather’s.

We hung out there for the afternoon, took a long nap, had some snacks, then ended up helping cook dinner. We made steamed fish stuffed with pork and vegetables, and it totally put my Gaeng Som from the night before to shame! We brought dinner up to the balcony, and ate under the stars. It was actually very cold out that night, but the freshly steamed fish kept us somewhat warm, though we quickly packed up everything after dinner and went back inside!

The next weekend, Kaiau’s mom wanted to take us to the Si Satchanalai Historical Park. This park is thirty minutes in the opposite direction from the Sukhothai Historical Park, and is another place I would like to visit a few times while I am here. It has many temples from the same time period, about 700 years ago, but has many less visitors. I love these temples because they have very much remained untouched. Though the grounds between the temples are well maintained, the temples themselves have had, I believe, no renovation work. We climbed up a set of scarily steep stairs to the top of one of the temples, where we were met by an old beggar that gave us very rare stones carved into a Buddha figure. Kaiau knew why the stones were rare, but could not describe it to me, even with her new Thai-English dictionary constantly open. She doesn’t even look up when she is walking anymore, she is constantly just looking in her dictionary, and trying out a new word…that usually doesn’t make sense.

Needless to say, Kaiau has become my best friend here, and if I am not at school, 80% of the time I am with her. On Wednesday, Kai-u texted me and said that she couldn’t meet me for aerobics because she was going to a dog and monkey show. I didn’t even ask. Well, I didn’t have to, because she later called me and asked if I could go with her because she didn’t want to go by herself. I thought it’d be worth the experience. So we showed up at the temple surrounded by, no joke, a ton of brathom kids in their pajamas. And we settled down next a family, and enjoyed the show. I really think they call it a dog and monkey show to attract people; it is really a dog a show, with some people magic. The monkey took up maybe two minutes of the two hour show, and his tricks were lame. The opening magic show was really cool, and then the dogs performed for over an hour, and were great! Mostly due to the narration, and one fat dog that was always falling behind the other dogs.

Then came Christmas weekend. Kaiau’s family wanted to a do a variety of things, like camping in Chiang Rai, shopping on the Burmese border, go to the Night Safari, and the flower show in Chiang Mai. The plan changed at least once a day for the two weeks leading up to the trip, but ended up being a much more abbreviated adventure than their original plans. I was just happy to be part of it. It was really exciting to have a family for Christmas, even though they kept forgetting it was Christmas, and really had no intention of taking me on this trip because it was Christmas, but just because it coincided with Kaiau’s brother coming home and they wanted a family vacation.

We left for Lampang early on Saturday morning, and visited a gorgeous 400 year old temple and took many many many family photos. Kaiau’s brother told me about the history of them temple, and the religious reasons for many of the rituals. This must have been the first time I have gone to a temple in Thailand with a Thai person that speaks English well, because I have never really gotten any explanation for anything. I think that includes P’Muak as well, he didn’t really tell me anything about what we were doing when he took me to a shrine in Sukhothai. It is nice to know what I should be praying for, why I am supposed to walk around the chedi three times, and why I light candles and incense.

After the temple and adjoining market, we continued our journey to Chiang Mai. I still wasn’t sure what the agenda was, but I think Kaiau didn’t know either. I don’t think anyone did. And I wonder if it took us so long to get to Chiang Mai because they were still deciding where to go. I love this family.

We had lunch (Lanna style Som tam and Gai yang, so delicious!!!) and made many stops to go shopping. Many many stops. I was never exactly sure where we were, and there were only certain parts of Chiang Mai that I recognized from previous visits, but we stopped at some of the most amazing stores that had beautiful antiques for incredibly cheap. Kaiau’s mother loves antiques. Loves, loves, loves them. It made me want to live in Thailand, so I can collect all these beautiful works and not have to pay a million dollars in shipping. Finally we ended up at the Royal Flora Festival; Chiang Mai’s annual flower exhibition that lasts three months. I wonder why they don't just make it a permanent exhibition, but I think its because it takes the remaining 9 months to put it together. It is nothing like Philly’s flower show, maybe because of its massive scale and being outdoors. It is about the size of an amusement park, and has an international section, a kid’s section, a greenhouse section, a royal something section, and many things in between that I am sure I missed. Trying to conquer it in a few hours was a mistake.

Kaiau was so disheartened because by the time we got there, it was going to be too dark soon. And as soon as we entered, we learned there was a famous person somewhere in the park. It was the crowned prince’s wife and son. Kaiau was so excited to hear this, and we had to stop and wait to see her pass. We sat for half an hour outside of an exhibit, with hundreds of other people, waiting for her to exit and drive past. After half an hour, Kaiau was getting worried that it would get too dark to take pictures, so we left just as the prince’s wife was exiting the exhibition. The rest of the flower exhibition was really interesting, though we literally sprinted through it, Kaiau continuously depressed that the pictures came out too blurry. At every exhibit, she let out a deep sigh and apologized that we couldn’t take better pictures. As we were trying to see the last of it before the park closed, we were met by a security guard that whispered that the prince’s wife will be passing. So we stopped in out tracks and waited as her trolley approached. We didn’t have to wait a half hour this time, and we weren’t surrounded with hundreds of people like last time, as there were only a few people around the area at this point. Her barrage of police passed first, then three trams full of ordinary looking people passed, followed by more police. I was all ready to curtsy as she passed, but I couldn’t even find her! She had passed without me even knowing! And I was busy scanning the passing vehicles that I didn’t even notice Kaiau curtsying as the first tram passed that had contained the prince’s wife.

We concluded our day at the Chiang Mai walking street, so Kaiau’s mom could do some more shopping, and I got to eat Okonomiyaki- one of my favorite Japanese street foods I haven’t really had since Japan. Yum yum! And I got to embarrass Kaiau by ordering ice cream that I didn’t really want because she thought the guy selling it was cute. Of course she was too shy to talk to him, but was delighted when their hands touched as she took the cup of ice cream from him. We finally went back to the hotel, completely exhausted! It was a very long day. Kaiau turned on the TV, and Center Stage was on! A movie about dancing my sister and I used to watch over and over when we were kids. I was so excited!! I hadn’t seen the movie in so many years, and it made me miss dancing and my sister so much! Kaiau thought it was really weird that I didn’t shower that night, but I couldn’t when Center Stage was on! That was better than watching A Christmas Story over and over on Christmas Eve.

We woke up on Christmas Day with about as much of a plan as we had the night before. I gave Kaiau’s family Christmas cards, then we embarked on our day of aimless driving and seeming confusion. We ended up going to the Queen Sirikit Botanical Gardens.

You would think we would be sick of flowers, but it was actually really cool to see the gardens after going to the flower show the day before. The botanical gardens were obviously a lot less crowded, and the exhibits were a lot more natural. There were beautiful displays occupying a series of greenhouses, including a lily pad greenhouse. We spent the afternoon downtown by the flower market, actually close to where Pong and Charin live. We got some of Chaing Mai’s famous sausage, and had a delicious lunch of sausage, sticky rice and fried pork.

Its kind of funny, for how many times I’ve been to Chiang Mai, I still haven’t had Kao Soy, a curry based noodle dish that originated in Chiang Mai. My students rave about it, but I have yet to try it in Chiang Mai, even though Kao Soy stole my heart away the day I stepped into Sawankhalok, and I have yet to recover from it. (Though unripe mango with chili peppers is slowly taking over Kao Soy’s place in my heart). Well, funny enough, when we got back into Sawankhalok that night, we went to the night market and sure enough, I had a bowl of Kao Soy. And I bet the day I finally have Kao Soy in Chiang Mai, it won’t be delicious as my Kao Soy in Sawankhalok.

Even just leaving for a couple days, it always feels to come back home to Sawankhalok. I had an amazing moment this week with my neighbors. I think Waen, the wife, originally wanted me to have dinner with them, but I got home too late to join them. So she saved a bowl especially for me, and I had a full conversation with them about going to play Takraw with them, and what I was doing this weekend. I was so excited at that moment, and I wanted to call Steven or email Dave or call my mom to tell someone how awesome my neighbors are, and how it was one of the most exciting accomplishments of my life. But instead I made some rice and had a super delicious curry with lots of chicken body parts. When I came back from Chiang Mai, I gave them some Christmas cards and some popular regional foods I brought back for them. I think they really liked that, and they came home a couple hours later with a Santa Claus to hang in my window. So cute. I love them.

I think that is as good as Christmas could possibly be while away from home. Merry Christmas to everyone at home!! Missing you all <3

The Gaeng Som Experiment

Last time I went to the organic market at the temple, the woman I bought vegetables from insisted I buy fish from her, even though I only wanted vegetables. Because of her, I asked Dad what I could do with an electric wok and a fish. The answer was Gaeng Som Bplaa. It's a southern style sour curry, also called Gaeng Luang, or yellow curry. So last Saturday morning, feeling a little homesick, I thought it would be a good day to try it, so I could report the results to my dad. With my partner in crime, Steven, I set out on my mission to get the ingredients together, which took us about half the day plus lunch. Between Sawankhalok’s two markets, I was able to start my Gaeng Som experiment. Essentially, this blog entry is for my dad.

Step One; buying the ingredients:
-Fish. Preferably from the lady at the local market at the temple, because she is the reason I originally wanted to make this.
-Gaeng Som powder. From the lady at the indoor market. She was very intrigued by what I was planning on doing with Gaeng Som powder, seeing that I was farang. Luckily Steven was there to tell her I was half Thai, to which she replied, oh that is why she can eat rice.
-Tamarind to make tamarind water (from the same lady)
-Vegetables from the lady that when you point to vegetables and ask what it is out of curiosity, the woman says pak something, says something really fast in thai, and then says Gaeng Som, Gaeng Luang. Bingo. Resembles microgreens
-Cilantro and scallions, because they go on everything.
-Snack to eat while you cook. Cause if you’re like me, it takes a little while to figure these things out.

Step Two: Make up the steps to making Gaeng Som
1. Make tamarind water using the crushed tamarind. Put maybe a tablespoon in a bowl of boiling water to make tamarind water. I really have no idea what is appropriate.
2. Maybe make some rice before hand. (which I now have down to a science in my electric wok)
3. Make the soup! Bring water to a boil (I think I used too much water), and add gaeng som curry powder. Add vegetables: don’t use pumpkin leaves- they suck! But pumpkin works, and then the vegetable that woman unintentionally sold me on was great too. I cut up the fish, keeping it on the bone (removing the bone would have maybe been a better idea), and added it to my soup. Once the fish was cooked, I went through the painstaking process of trying to figure out how to flavor my soup, having never had gaeng som. It’s supposed to be sour, so I think you’re supposed to use a good amount of tamarind water. I used too much. Too sour! Then a combo of sugar and fish sauce to your liking. Supposedly, it’s supposed to taste sour at first, then a blend of sweet, spicy and salty following. Mine were none of the above, but I was getting close. (I know, I know, I should be measuring these things so I do better next time, but this is hard when I don’t have any sort of measuring instruments.)
4. As per Dad’s recommendation, make an omelet on the side to have with the curry, with fish sauce and scallions.

End result: total failure. But a good experiment. I have enough ingredients to try it again before the vegetables wilt, so version two may be attempted again this week.

Biggest success/bummer: In the midst of my experiment, I took out the trash and said hello to my neighbor as she was cooking dinner. I asked her what she was making, but could only make out “tot”, or fried, and it looked delicious, whatever she was frying. Then I think she asked me to have dinner with them, but I told her I was already making dinner. My new goal then was to make a delicious soup and be able to bring it over to their house and share with them, but that would have been way too embarrassing with what my soup ended up being.

Lesson learned! Just get dinner from Soi bpet. It’s easier. OR try again =)

Happy 7th cycle Anniversary (aka Happy 84th birthday) to King Bhumibol Adulyadej

Reasons to love Thailand.
Reason One: The King

His Majesty The King’s birthday is celebrated as “Father’s Day”, and the Queen’s birthday as Mother’s Day. So Monday Dec 5th was Father’s Day across Thailand. The King is turning 84 this year, or reaching his 7th cycle (a cycle is every 12 years). If you don’t know much about the King of Thailand, they say this King has been the best in history. Thailand’s monarchy is really amazing, because it seems to work so well, and the current King is actually the longest reigning monarch in history. The Kings in the past have been wonderful leaders, and want to do everything they can for their people. This King has been a magnificent example, having visited so many of his subjects in person and caring deeply for them. He has even put forth some of his own money to help many projects in the countryside and in Bangkok.

I had a rough week preceding the King’s birthday. I have been missing classes left and right for things like Thanksgiving dinner in Bangkok, English tournaments and class trips. Sometimes my classes don’t show up, or lately the boys don’t come because it’s “soldier day” and they have to practice. Or, the morning announcements would take so long that first period class is ten minutes long. That happened last week too. I was getting very frustrated with my lack of teaching, and then went to my 11th grade geniuses, and they asked me if they could have the period free to work on a project for another class! I was so sad! It has actually been several weeks since I have taught that class because of Loy Krathong, Thanksgiving, soldier days, and now The King’s birthday. But mai bpen rai. This is Thailand.

On Friday I only teach one class, and I was able to reschedule my class and have the day free to join the 12th graders on their field trip to Dtak, the neighboring province. P’Sonya organized the trip, and I get bored on Fridays, so I thought it would be a fun adventure. I thought it was only going to be a visit to the government building in Dtak to meet with the governor, the mayor and the sheriff of Dtak who are all graduates of Sawananan, and of course used to be students of P’Sonya. Turns out that was only for half the day. After that, with plenty of snacks along the way, we went to the biggest dam in Thailand, and to see some petrified wood from a tree that grew 800,000 years ago.

We boarded nine double decker party buses (I kid you not, these party buses are legit) and had a two hour ride of very loud karaoke on the 2nd story of the bus, complete with strobe lights and lots of 12th graders dancing. The trip was fun; I got to bond with the 12th graders.

None of them are my students, but Tide, my spelling bee prodigy, is in the highest section of 12th grade. For some reason all of the students dressed in their gym uniforms, maybe to be more comfortable...except for Tide. The space cadet wore his normal school uniform. I couldn't help but laugh at him every time I saw him stand out from the rest of his class. The trip took the entire day, and involved so much food! After the buffet lunch, I didn’t want to eat for the rest of the day, but our next stop had free ice cream. And the stop after that, some juice and pastries. Good thing I was stuffed full on the trip, because after that I was meeting Muak to drive up to Chiang Mai, and I knew we wouldn’t be stopping for food.

Because of the King’s birthday, school on Monday is closed (more classes to miss…) so I decided to go up to Chiang Mai for the weekend. Luckily Muak was going too, and let me ride with him. We got there pretty late at night, but Pong and Charin are the best and were fine with me coming in late. The trip to Chiang Mai was exactly what I needed after having such an annoying week. Even though I woke up early every morning to help them around the house, and stayed out late, it was still a very relaxing weekend. We went fishing on the Ping in the morning, which really consisted of Charin chatting away and not catching any fish.

And Pong, the wonderful tour guide that he is, took me around to see some new things around Chiang Mai. My friend Sarah that has been teaching in Lampang came up to meet me on Saturday along with some of the other ETAs. We checked out the Chiang Mai nightlife on Saturday and Sunday night, including trying a fish foot spa!


and gossiped about Fulbright and how weird of a job this is compared to what we are all used to. Talking to them was great, because it made me realize how awesome of a school Sawanana Wittaya is, and I am really lucky to be there. Even though classes are cancelled all the time, my kids are much more studious than at many other Thai schools. A lot of my friends here would never assign homework, but I give my kids homework and classwork every day. I think it would also be nice to just play games all the time, but I like that my kids are beyond that and are capable of writing essays and reciting a speech. It comes with extra hours of grading, but I don’t mind it….so far.. =)

Reason 2: midnight snacking



(Rachel and Sarah, amidst the Sunday Walking Street in Chiang Mai)

After our nights out, Sarah and I walked home from the bar and stopped at the night market for Som tam and sour mango. They were the perfect midnight snack! I never thought I would like unripe mango, but it is my favorite thing now. And now there is a lady at my night market in Sawankhalok that sells unripe mango every night. Yay! On Sunday night, Sarah, our friend Rachel and myself wanted to meet at the Sunday Walking Street, Chaing Mai’s famous weekly night market that shuts down the city’s busiest streets. It is a huge event, and more crowded than the subways in Tokyo. Sarah and I spent two hours trying to find Rachel, but it really only took that long because we were buying many things along the way. Our second night, Sarah and I were looking for a tuk-tuk home, and were surprised by a tuk-tuk that stopped right in front of us as three ladyboy-turned-women were getting out. We told the tuk-tuk driver where we were going, and after some discussion with one of the “women”, “she” insisted “she” should come with us to make sure we got home safe. Writing this now, it sounds like somewhat of a threatening situation, but “she” was harmless, and really wanted to make sure we got back to Pong’s okay. The best part was this all happened in Thai…very slow Thai, but in sloppy Thai nonetheless, and I was proud of me and Sarah for actually ending up at Pong’s house.

Reason Three: the festivities

Muak brought me back to Sawankhalok early on Monday for a day of festivities. I got to Soi 8, our night market for the parade that was supposed to start at 4. Well, maybe it actually did start at 4, but at the pace it was going, by the time it got to us just a few blocks down it was almost 6. The parade was massive! I was really confused, because it was in my little town, not the city of Sukothai, and I don’t know where all these people came from, and how there were people left in the town to be walking around and watching the parade. I am actually fairly certain that there were more people walking in the parade than watching the parade, and I wonder where else in the world that happens. Most of the parade was made up of schools from our district or a neighboring district, with their marching band then a bunch of random people in pink polos following the band.
It went on like that for….maybe an hour. Then came our school, and we totally rocked it. The section for our school was huge, and each class basically had their own section. I saw so many of my students, it made me so happy! And the parade was moving so slowly, so I got a picture with every single one of them. And every single one of Steven’s students. (pictures are on Steven’s camera…coming soon) We were in the spot with the lull, and we often were where the students would put their instruments down, fix their makeup, or sit down and text message their friend, before resuming. And then entered a Chinese dancing dragon! Steven warned me that a few months ago they had the same dancing dragon at Soi8, and it was a disaster. Dancers tripped over each other, the dragon frequently got dropped, and then the dragon climbed a pole and they set off fireworks from its mouth. So I got a little nervous as the dragon approached Soi 8, and they brought out a pole.

The dance was terribly choreographed, and hilarious. There was a while where the dragon was eating or scratching his tail…I asked Oom why it was doing that, to which she replied that maybe his tail had an itch. After chewing his tail, the dragon proceeded towards the pole, already staffed with ten dancers. The pole was about the height of 5 people on top of each other. The dancers stationed on the pole passed the dragon up so that it slithered around to the top of the pole. And alas, they set off fireworks, basically right into the audience. I have never been so close to real fireworks (I don’t count the ones I set off with my neighbors), and I’m pretty sure the kid on his dad’s shoulders in front of me hadn’t either. And I’m pretty sure he didn’t like that. It was quite an exhilarating display, nothing like I’ve ever seen.

The parade was followed by a candle lighting for the King. Everyone from the parade, participants and observers, gathered in the public school’s (the other, less cool than Sawananan school in Sawankhalok) football field where there was a billboard size poster of the King. We lit our candles and they turned off all the lights as we (as in everyone but me) sang the King’s songs in Thai, then chanted what I think was Long Live the King. It was kind of epic. Another fun thing they’ve done for the King’s birthday is set up a temporary festival market outside of our night market. They sell everything, including tons of snacks, cheap clothes, kitchenware, and BUNNIES! (alive, not to eat). Oh, but they do sell insects to eat, which is not uncommon in Thailand. Our night market sells them too. I went to the festival market with Mint one night, and she insisted I try one. We had a selection of I think fried worms, maggots, cockroaches, and I’m not sure what else. So Mint got 20 bhat worth of maggots, and assured me it tasted like fried chicken. So I tried one, and it did not taste like chicken, nor was it delicious. There might be one food in Thailand I will never like.

The day after the King’s birthday, the festivities continued at school. The day started very serene and slow. The school sat by the Buddha statue in the middle of campus, and we sang songs for the King and prayed several times. This was followed by giving food to the monks. There are 50 or so students from our school that are being ordained as monks (explains some of the absences), and are about in the middle of their 2 week ordainment. I didn't get a clear explanation on the process, but I recognized some of the students (I can now say I am friends with a monk on Facebook), and saw them on campus this week. The director made them go to school after they had missed the first week, even though they can’t eat after noon, you can’t call them by their name, and you can’t point to them. I didn’t have to teach with any monks in my classroom, but Steven did and it was really confusing when they would raise their hand, because you can’t really call on them. I don't know how I would have handled that. It feels really strange just to “wai” my students and they think it’s hilarious. So after we gave the monks a variety of ramen noodles, uncooked rice and dried anchovies, the morning ceremonies were basically over (one thing I learned about monks that Steven told me is that they often receive too much food that they end up giving a lot of it to the poor. That made me happy, and feel less guilty about only giving them ten packs of tom yum koong flavored ramen noodles. I hope they get vegetables from someone too).

You would think we would resume classes after our morning ceremony, but no. We had “Sawananan Wittaya’s Got Talent”, which is a free for all talent show. And a Battle of the Bands in the cafeteria. This lasted well into the afternoon, and I lost hope on teaching for the day. There were classes, but nobody went to them except for some teachers that tried to get through a lesson with staggering attendance and compete with the loud music. The talent show was fantastic though. The best were the lady boys; there were at least two groups of lady boys that put on quite a show. They dressed in high heels, wigs, and provocative clothing and mimicked promiscuous American pop culture more convincingly than I thought possible for Thai boys. Steven and I watched in disbelief, doubting that this should be allowed at our conservative school, and displayed in celebration for Father’s Day of all days. We convinced ourselves that this was only allowed because they’re boys, and if girls tried to put on such an act, it would be stopped. Well we were proved wrong, as a group of 12th grade girls followed with a chair dance. Oh Thailand, you are full of surprises.

The rest of the week of course pails in comparison to the festivities for the King. We decorated a Christmas tree…I actually have never felt so American. Not because I was partaking in the decoration (they put on way too much tinsel!), but because there were three people working on the tree, and about ten of us standing there, watching. For like an hour! I got impatient and walked back upstairs, escaping to do something more productive. Haha.

Reason four: My students

I still haven’t seen my 11th graders in full, as we had another soldier day this week and I had no boys again. I am slightly concerned (well to be honest, more than slightly concerned) because they have midterms in a couple weeks, and I have nothing to test them on. I haven’t taught them anything! I haven’t even really seen them since before Loy Krathong! And we are approaching another 3 day weekend, which means I won’t see them again….But I can only be a little upset. I see Noom and Fifa, two of my 11th graders, after school almost every day, and they update me on when they will and won’t be in class. Every time they tell me they won’t be in class I get so sad, and they tell me not to worry. That it will be okay. On Wednesday, I went into my last period class totally deflated from the holidays, and discouraged about not teaching enough and missing my students. Then I remembered why this class is my favorite. This two hour class has me laughing almost the entire time. Even Boat, the trouble maker in the back of the class, is an English genius, and can speak English better than my smartest students, but usually isn’t awake for long enough to do so. The worst students in this class try the hardest, and finish class by following me into the office, quizzing me with my Thai, and pretending to give me their participation dollars when I get a word correct. Just when I was losing inspiration and feeling disheartened, and a little homesick, my amazing 10th graders reminded me why I love being here.

Thanksgiving in Bangkok

For Thanksgiving, Fulbright holds a turkey dinner in Bangkok that is supposed to serve as our first check in. After three weeks in our provinces, it seemed strange to be going back to Bangkok already, but I love the sentiment behind it. Since Bangkok is still experiencing some minor natural disaster and related political uncertainty issues, all of our sessions were again canceled, but our turkey dinner was not sacrificed. We were still planning to have our dinner, and replace the Fulbright sessions with volunteering with flood relief.

I was super bummed to be leaving Sawankhalok for Bangkok, because apparently I get really attached to places and hate the idea of leaving. I was devastated that I would have to leave my students for a few days, as well as my Badminton buddy, Mint, Steven, Kaiu, and my favorite family at the Kao Soi stand (I even got a text message from Mint on Friday when I hadn’t talked to her in a couple days, saying “EARTH TO KORIN! ARE YOU STILL ALIVE MISSY?!” Yup, all in caps, just like that).

To make me even more devastated, I had to miss all my classes on Tuesday because there was an English competition in Sukothai. My day started with P’Sonya calling me as I was eating breakfast saying the kids wanted to have another fundraiser and play at the competition. This was 30 minutes before we were supposed to be leaving for Sukothai, But they made it happen and we held a last minute fundraiser. We didn’t make more money than the cost to bring the three bands to Sukothai (all dressed in their uniforms even though they didn’t set foot in a classroom all day), but the kids were just so happy to play, and continued to play hours beyond what they anticipated. I was not much of a help, because I was busy helping Tide win his spelling bee. Well, he got second place, but he did so well! After two weeks of blowing me off for his spelling bee coaching sessions, he nonchalantly walked in and out of the test room round after round, giving me a thumbs up every time. I felt super cool as all the old Thai teachers watched this kid with a goofy smile keep winning, and giving a high-five to his American coach. What can I say, I was coaching a genius that can spell better than I can. I don’t know if Tide enjoys my company, or if he felt like he owed me, because he would not leave my side during the rest of the day. I told him he could go find his friends, but he just stayed with me, silent, with an occasional goofy smile. For someone that can spell imminent, interference, and assassin without blinking an eye, he really doesn't speak much English.

When I got back from the competition, I wanted to stop in and play some games with my 3/6 class, but they didn’t show up. None of them. Haha. Apparently everyone was skipping class that day. I walked up the empty staircase, and looked down the hall for signs of life. The only ones around were Be’s 3/8 students I had played games with one day. They screamed, “hello teacher! No class teacher! Teacher beautiful!” Typical. I asked them if I could play games with them, but they just looked at me confused, and yelled “no class teacher”, so I went home.

In the morning, I was off to Bangkok. P’Sonya took me to the airport three hours early, so I could sit and wait for the only flight that comes through the airport each day. Being back in Bangkok with the whole Fulbright crew was weird. It was nice to see how everyone managed their first few weeks, but I think we were all still just settling in, and three weeks wasn’t long enough for me to miss anyone. Well, except Sarah.

Since our entire program was canceled, Fulbright set up volunteer days for us, which I thought was the coolest thing we could ever do, and made missing my classes in Sawankhalok okay. We got up at 5:00 on Thanksgiving morning to head to Chula to package 40,000 bags of lunch. Forty thousand. Can you believe it?! There are over 40,000 people that don’t have lunch! And that’s just from one relief center. And it’s not like we were taking them ramen noodles and canned corn to eat. We were cooking rice, pork basil, pork and vegetables, and chicken curry. We made the food on site, and individually wrapped the rice, with a little plastic spoon, with a meat dish. When we got there at 6:00 AM, they had already been working for hours, preparing lunch. The first station I was stuck at was the rubber banding station, where I rubber banded the individual rice with the individual meat bag, and uncovered one of the great mysteries of Thailand: how they wrap rubber bands around food bags! It takes me so long to unwrap food from the market because of how cleverly the rubber band is wrapped, and now I know how it’s done! I still don’t know how to unwrap though.



I hopped around different stations the entire morning, moving rice from one container to another, putting spoons in rice, etc., and cheered with the hundred plus volunteers when we filled a truck with thousands of lunches. Then, the chicken delivery came in! 40 or so of the volunteers formed a line where we passed bags of raw, diced chicken down a line to the chefs. After the truck of chicken, in came the truck of vegetables, followed by another truck of more vegetables. Then they scooted us inside to move the thousands of care packages they had already put together into the army trucks to be delivered. We formed another assembly line, and hardly put a dent in their stock of care packages as we moved 5,000 bags into the trucks, each weighing at least 15 pounds. And no, that wasn’t it. Some of the Fulbrighters joined some friends that we made to move another 1,000 packages that were in another building across the street into army vehicles. This time, Rachel and I sat inside the truck and received the bags, counting as we went. I was counting out loud in Thai, but I got demoted from my position when I couldn’t count quickly enough after forty, so I had to jump down and help the marines lift bags to the truck. When I told one of the marines I was from America, he said “Oh, America! Lady Gaga!” And I said, “yes, yes I am Lady Gaga! Nice to meet you”, and he replied, “Oh! Lady Gaga, I am Justin Beiber!” And this became the ongoing joke of the afternoon. When I introduced myself to other marines, he would stop me, and say “This is Lady Gaga!” and refused to tell anyone his name other than Justin Beiber. Even as I was leaving, he said, “Lady Gaga, so nice to meet you. See you on stage”



As promised, for dinner that night we had turkey. But we didn’t just have turkey. That would be so boring. We had turkey on the 8th floor of a mansion in Bangkok, with a balcony overlooking a portion of the skyline. Only a portion, because Bangkok is ridiculous. Thanksgiving dinner was held at one of the Fulbright board’s house, and was complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, quiche, pizza (?), and wine, with pumpkin pie and apple pie for dessert. Sarah and I snatched one of the tables out on the balcony, and enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner in style. P’tip came over at one point and said, “I hope you are all enjoying your Thanksgiving dinner, and it makes you feel at home”, then looked directly at me and said, “I’m sorry it’s not Thai”. I thought that was so funny because I had sent mommy a letter that very morning saying I love that Fulbright is giving us turkey, but all I want is Pad Ka Prow…and then I checked my email to see that my mom had written to me asking if I was having pork basil instead of turkey. How funny! (I was so happy to get back to Sawankhalok on Sunday night and have Thai food again- I think all the Western food made me sick!)

The next morning we were volunteering again, but at a much smaller center. This time we went to a temple that was only packaging 14,000 lunches. This place was a lot less intense than Chula, with maybe only a few dozen volunteers, many sitting down taking their time wrapping sticky rice in paper with a bag of soy egg or pork and vegetables. Again, everything was cooked on site, with fresh ingredients and plenty of love. My favorite part was lunch! They fed us congee with fresh ginger, cilantro, soft boiled egg, and fish. Oh my goodness, so yummy. Apparently that is Thai style congee, and so delicious. My least favorite part was the overly friendly monk. He strolled in and out of the volunteers so nonchalantly, it made me so nervous, because women in Thailand can’t touch monks, and I was so scared of accidentally bumping into him while moving a package of lunches to the other side of the temple or something. Ever since I heard repeatedly how terrible it is for a woman to touch a monk, I just get nervous now when I see a monk and don’t know what to do.

After all that hard labor for two days, I decided it was time to indulge and get a massage. I went with the ETAs from Laos (there are only four of them and this is the first year the program exists in Laos, so we invited them to Thanksgiving with us, and I love them!), and we all got 2 hour heavenly massages. We had a private room, the four of us, and the masseuses were all from Issan, and spoke Lao! So they all spoke to each other while I had no idea what was going on, per usual, and just endured the most delightful massage. Afterwards I ran to meet Uncle Fung for dinner at the crab curry restaurant, accompanied by Uncle Jeet, Uncle Dtaw, and…drumroll please….Uncle Fung’s wife! I was so excited to meet her because Uncle Fung doesn’t talk about her much, but I was pretty sure she existed even though he has no pictures of her on his fancy I-phone (though I’ve seen plenty of his dog). She is so adorable, and speaks English so clearly, and just seems like such a perfect person, I adore her! Throughout dinner, they all spoke Thai to each other, which was really cool because they all speak fairly slowly and clearly (well, minus Uncle Dtaw. He talks too fast), and I could follow their conversation for the most part. I knew when they were talking about the flood, when they were talking about politics, and about languages. I just couldn’t ever contribute to the conversation, which is frustrating. But it’s nice to be able to follow along. We of course ate way too much food, but I was super happy to be with my closest family in Thailand, and eat too much amazing food. Now that is Thanksgiving, Bangkok style.

The rest of my weekend in Bangkok was a whirl (when is Bangkok ever not a whirl?). With sore calves from the heaven massage, I went to play rugby with my touch team on Saturday morning. There were so many people there that day, which was fantastic for me because that meant less play time and more rest from that crazy Thailand sun! I was secretly ecstatic when I said hi to the Frenchman that never passes to me, and he asked me how Sukothai was. I didn’t expect him to notice I was gone, much less know where I went! The players I recognized greeted me warmly, especially Patricio! My favorite! And there were a lot of new girls. Which made me happy, and put less pressure on me, being the new-ish girl.



That evening, my last evening in Bangkok, was a great one. Uncle Dtaw took me to a cousin’s house way down Sukhumvit, to greet a cousin visiting from England. I don’t know anyone’s name, whose house it is, and how many were actually my relatives, but I can tell you how I am related to someone in this house. My father’s mother was one of 12 (just learned that), and this was her brother’s wife’s house. The wife is still alive, but my dad’s uncle has passed away, and I think they are all close to my dad’s family because his grandma and their uncle are close in age. I think. Anyway, I met lots of people, and in contrast to the very easy-going dinner the night before, this house was mayhem of like 25 people all speaking/yelling Thai loudly, and I have no idea what they were saying all night long. I didn’t even try. I did get that more than one relative would look at me, and tell me I have my fathers face, sometimes in Thai, sometimes in English. Then I swear, these same relatives told Uncle Dtaw in Thai that they don’t remember what my father looks like. Funny.

After a yummy Vietnamese-style dinner, the card games commenced. They were playing a Thai game that has poker-like aspects, and a lot of Thai randomness. I watched the first several rounds, trying to figure it out, having 5 people trying to explain it to me in Thai and English, but I really wasn’t picking it up. They told me the only way I would learn is to play, but I didn’t have any baht on me to play. I didn’t want to admit that I had no cash, so I just kept saying I’d rather watch. My aunt visiting from England persisted that I should play, and when I told her I can’t because I have no baht to gamble, she handed me a 1,000 baht! So I guess I had to play. And I lost, round after round after round. My cousins thought I was playing with my own money, and they told me I should probably stop playing because I’m losing so much money, but I figured this money is going back into the family anyway, so I might as well play until I won. I was convinced that it was my chair, and frequently moved seats, but that didn’t seem to help either. I was finally dealt three of the same suit, which is not the best but better than anything I had gotten. I showed my helper at the time, and she got all excited, and asked one of my cousins on the couch if it was good enough to stay in. They discussed it for some time, and I was trying my hardest to figure out what they were saying. Finally, they decided I should bet 20 baht. I looked down at the table, and everyone had forfeit! They heard what my cousins were talking about, and all forfeit because they knew they couldn’t beat my hand! So I won…a mere 100 baht! Haha, but it was exciting anyway. From there on, I won a hand every now and then, but that was mostly because my cousin told me to bluff, not because I had a good hand. I can’t bluff, but I also can’t speak Thai, so he bluffed for me and it worked out well. I didn’t lose ALL my aunt’s money, only about half, so I handed her the remaining baht and thanked her for letting me recklessly gamble her money away!

As if that wasn’t an exciting enough night, I then hopped over to Karaoke with the other Fulbrighters (after buying a blouse at the night market, not because it was that cute, but because the vendor did not speak a word of English to me and told me that I speak Thai very well. That in itself was reason enough to buy the blouse), and then we went dancing! And not touristy club dancing, even worse, but cooler. We went to a super rich fancy hotel, overflowing with white people and a 400 baht cover. We took the elevator to the 39th floor, and stepped into a party scene so un-Thai, un-Bangkok even! I have never been to the Full Moon party on Ko Pha Ngan in the south, but I think this is what it would look like. Strobe and laser lights, bad dance music, and a lot of white people. Still, it was cool to dance of the roof of a hotel in Bangkok, I was with my favorite Fulbrighters, and surrounded by many young, made up, semi-attractive women, so was not approached once by any skuzzy foreigners. I call that a success.

Whew. After sprinting through that weekend, I came back to school on Monday totally drained, and my tummy hurting from too much cheese and bread. It is way harder than I thought taking a week off of teaching and trying to swing back into it, with every muscle in my body sore from volunteering, rugby and dancing. Catching up is hard to do, especially when I have badminton and jazz aerobics partners to meet. And I’ve found a new sport: takraw. It’s that sport that is like volleyball, but hackey sack style, with a ball woven out of bamboo. One of my students plays, and has gotten me to play with them after school. I love it. It’s so much more fun that badminton. And as soon as I catch up on things at school, you can say hello to the Sawananan Wittaya school touch rugby club!

Bags of Caring Hearts

Fulbright has asked all of the ETAs to participate in a fundraiser to fund a project for the soldiers in Bangkok that have been working so hard during the flood, but don’t get much attention for all the hard work they do. With so many resources and fundraisers going to the victims, the soldiers delivering the goods, and building sandbag walls, and carrying people through the flood waters, they hardly are at the receiving end of the aid. So Fulbright wanted to do something for them. So all of the ETAs are supposed to hold a fundraiser in their schools to help with the project. But I’m pretty sure I am the only ETA that actually went through with the fundraiser and raised any money at all. And I raised a ton of money.

P’Sonya did the whole thing for me. I really wish I could take credit for this brilliant fundraiser, but I just mentioned it to her, and asked if I could do a small project in the school. All I was going to do was make an announcement in school and have a donation box. She asked the director if we could fundraise at school, and he said no, but the school would donate some money to me. That would have been fine with me, and I think that is what the other ETAs did. But P’Sonya wanted a real fundraiser. So she decided we should have a benefit concert, and open it up to the community instead of having it at school. She called the band director, the mayor, the sheriff, and who knows who else. By the following week, I was following P’Sonya around as she met the band director, the mayor and the sheriff, telling them our (her) idea, and only bringing me along so they could see there was an American involved somewhere in the project. Within one week, we had three bands, a banner, donation boxes, and the entire foreign language department set up at the night market in Sawankhalok for two nights of a benefit concert. If I maintain that Loy Krathong last week was the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life, than this fundraiser was the second coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I arrived at our night market at 5:00, where the band was already set up, the banner that read “Bags of Caring Hearts” was already hung up, and P’Sonya was waiting for me to make the announcement of the fundraiser. She did all the talking, and would just have me say a sentence once in a while, so they could hear an American voice. The band, Magma, played mostly Thai songs, their lead singer being the only member dressed in something other than the school uniform, and wore his sunglasses the entire evening. He was too cool. Since it was Wednesday, the M1-3 students all wear their boy/girl scouts uniforms, and the M4-6 wear their regular school uniforms, unless they have gym that day, and then they wear their P.E. uniforms. So most of the band was outfitted in their respective school uniforms and it was so adorable. With every song, the size of the band increased, and eventually the band had fifteen kids behind the set, waiting for a chance to play. Meanwhile, me and the English department stood in front of the band and collected donations. A ton of donations. I couldn’t believe the amount of people that donated money. Even laborers and store owners dropped in 20 bhat when they passed by. Charities are an amazing thing in Thailand because people are so much more generous, even if they have very little to offer. I think it has a lot to do with karma, and it’s incredibly inspiring. Steven pointed out how when people who had little kids on their motorbikes come by to donate, they’d have the kid drop the money in to build up their kid’s good karma. Everyone got really into it, and it was well accepted by everyone in the community and at school. And out of everyone, I think the band had the most fun, and now they’re trying to get a gig together for the English competition next week in Sukothai.

On Thursday night after the second night of fundraising, we counted how much we had made. In two nights, we raised 24,000 bhat..or $775!! Can you believe that?! And our fundraiser alone will fund 10% of Fulbright’s project. That’s so cool! On Friday morning during the morning announcements at school, I gave a huge huge thanks to the school and P’Sonya for everything, and took my bag of cash to the bank to send to Fulbright.

The rest of my week has been occupied by becoming an old lady. My routine Badminton practice with Arjan Nonkran takes over my afterschool time, which is now followed by dance aerobics in front of the hospital. I meet my new friend Kai-u there after Badminton every day for an hour of jazzercise with a bunch of old women. Kai-u is younger than me, and is another university student whose campus has been flooded. I met her through Mint, and have dinner with her and her friends after dance aerobics every night. By the time I get home at night, I’m so tired from running, Badminton and dance aerobics that I just fall asleep, then wake up early to go to school in the morning! Funny. I was totally under the impression that I’d have all this free time to read, lesson plan, or be lonely in Sawankhalok. Totally not the case! But Kai-u goes back to Bangkok in a month, so we’ll see what happens when all my friends leave.

My students are always the highlight of every day. I’ve gotten close with one of my 9th grade boys, who was always a trouble maker in class, but was a huge helper of the band for the fundraiser. So now we’re buddies, and he just pokes me in the arm and says “bye teacher”. And now I have the liberty of picking on him in class, and making him volunteer when he doesn’t want to. I have fallen in love with my 10th grade girls. They burst into the office when I was late for class, and cried, “where is teacher? We miss teacher!” So I get to class and three quarters of the class haven’t shown up yet cause they’re still in meditation. So I sat with my girls and they taught me Thai as the rest of the class meandered in. They love to teach me Thai, and quiz me every time I see them. And my 11th grade girls are just as lovely. They had to go to meditation during my class, so they asked me to come with them. We walked to the shrine on campus, and prayed to the monk that was the founder of our school. The students loved that I was there with them, and it was really cool to meditate with my students. When we got back to the class, I had them give speeches about themselves. Most of them can speak English well enough to stand in front of the class without notes. But one student, Man, the one lady-boy in the class, is really terrible at English. So he just came to the front of the class, held my hand and said, “My name is Man. Teacher… I can’t speak English. I don’t understand. My teacher, my friend” and sat back down. He gets so nervous when I ask him to do anything. He is too adorable.

I finally hung out my neighbors! I think my obnoxiously enthusiastic “Sawasdee ka” every day worked. They invited me over to have beer one night when I was coming home from the market. So I sat with them on their empty living room floor and had the least successful language exchange I think I have ever been a part of. It was so much fun. I managed to find out that they are from Chiang Rai, and speak mostly Northern Thai…maybe Burmese…so they don’t even understand the Thai I try with them. But they also know Central Thai, and taught me some phrases and asked some questions I eventually could understand. They really are the sweetest people, and now every time I open my gate, one of them will peak outside and ask if I’m leaving, if I’ve eaten, if I want to drink beer with them, or some miscellaneous questions I can’t understand. I’ve only been over there that one time, but I anticipate going over more, because I think they had so much fun with it, and it’s probably as exciting for them as it is for me. It feels really nice to have neighbors that are interested in my life. They even took my mail from my gate and put it in my bike basket, so it wouldn’t blow away. Then when I came home, the one guy came outside to make sure I had gotten my mail. So cute! And since these are really the only people I’ve met that can’t speak any English, I hope this will help me improve my Thai…

Other home news: the collection of little friends in my house has been steadily increasing. Cassandra, my red spotted lizard, is back! And the froggy in my kitchen is still alive, thank goodness! I’ve been at war with a spider in my bathroom. She isn’t very smart. She hangs out by my drain, then gets all pissed off when I turn the shower on and runs up the wall. Our war began when she actually jumped (or crawled??) onto my waist mid shower!! I sprayed her with water to retaliate, and got her off me. But Steven informs me that spraying her with water won’t deter her (which is true…she is still there) and I should just kill her. I don’t want to kill her though, because she will eat cockroaches when she is bigger, and plus that's bad karma. I just back closer and closer to the toilet each shower.

I find it so funny how my Thai ancestry reveals itself in Sukothai. First, anyone here can look at my last name and tell me I’m from a large Chinese family. And I can’t tell you how many people recognize my last name. The best time was when I was with Kai-u and her two friends Don and Tdi. When I told them my last name, they looked at each other, had a quick conversation in Thai about it, and then Don looked at me cautiously and said, “you know you come from a very rich family in Thailand”. It’s funny, even in this small town in central Thailand, people know my last name! I met up with one of my cousins on Saturday, but this cousin isn’t a Tangtrakul. I actually don’t know how he’s my cousin…and neither does he, but it must be something distant. All we know it that we were both supposed to be going to our “cousin’s” wedding in Bangkok this weekend, but it was postponed because of the flood so we remained in Sukothai. So this cousin lives in Sukothai city, and has been obliged to take care of me, should I need help up here. So I met him for the first time on Saturday so he could show me around the city, and take me out to lunch. Well, it was an interesting experience to say the least.

His English is remarkably good, for having never spent time in an English speaking country. He took me to a resort for lunch, which would never have been my first choice, but his friends were having lunch there so we joined. They had already eaten, but we sat with them, and he ordered us soup and fish. He had maybe two bites of the fish, before putting down his fork and saying he couldn’t eat. I thought maybe it was because he was hung-over, but it was still very odd. His friends were..interesting. They were in their late 30’s, and had started drinking beer at 11 AM, and were quite drunk as the lunch hour progressed. After four hours of very awkward/drunk conversation, we finally left the fancy resort to go see Sukothai. So P’Muak drove me around downtown, and we stopped at a shrine and he showed me how to pray to Buddha, which was very exciting. He kept asking what I wanted to do, but not knowing anything about Sukothai besides the ancient city, I really struggled for ideas of what to do. I suggested going to the market, walking around the city, looking at pottery, but my suggestions ended with him showing me his fish tank at his house (which honestly was super cool), and then going to the only bar in Sukothai.

I heard about “Chopper Bar” from my tour book, and from it being the only bar in maybe the entire province. I didn’t realize though that chopper bar actually meant that it was a biker bar, and alas I found out my cousin is in a biker gang, and they all drink at Chopper Bar with the owner every night, who is also part of their biker gang. We got there and I think P’Muak was trying to be discrete, but as soon as we entered his friends beckoned for us to join their table. It started as maybe 5 guys and us, but within half an hour had grown to a table of about 20. The owner had a bunch of food made for everyone, and more and more motorcycles blocked the entrance of the bar as his friends poured in. I started talking to the guy across from me in Thai, and exchanged maybe three sentences with him until I had to ask him in Thai to please speak slowly, to which he switched to perfect English. Turns out he spent a few years in L.A. close to Hollywood, and that actually most of the bikers are rich and/or well educated and can all speak fairly good English. AND THEN I found out as they were leaving that the guy I had been talking to is the King’s cousin! Yep, I was talking to royalty, and could only muster three lousy Thai sentences. But they all stood up at the same time and started heading back to the bikes. P’Muak told me they were all heading to a party on the other side of Sukothai, but he didn’t want to take me because it’s boring and full of a bunch of drunks. So we were left with all the food they ordered and never ate. I started nibbling on some fish while I talked to P’Muak. I was perplexed that he was still not eating, considering I had been with him the entire day, and he had had maybe two bites of food. This is when things got weird(er). We sat for three or fours hours and talked and slowly drank whisky while he told me about his eating disorder and that he needs to see a doctor about it, how he’s been in a three year relationship with an English vegan girl and every sentence about his girlfriend started with, “I love Dee, but…”, and about all the hard drugs he did while he was in University in Chiang Mai. Oh and his girlfriend didn’t trust that I was his cousin, so she called him, and insisted that she talk to me to make sure he wasn’t lying. I thought the night was never going to end. He must be the strangest un-Thai Thai person I’ve ever met. Luckily we’re not blood related. He finally took me home close to midnight, having not seen any of the night market, no pottery, and not trying the famous Sukothai noodles. Oh well, at least I met the King’s cousin.

Loy Krathong in Sukothai is no joke!

Loi Krathong is a wonderful holiday in Thailand. It occurs on the 12 full moon of the lunar calendar year, which usually happens in November. It’s a blend of Hindu and Buddhist rituals that was actually started here in Sukothai. The purpose of the festival is to ask the water goddess, Phra Mae Kong Ka, for forgiveness for using and polluting her rivers and canals. We do this by presenting her “offerings” of Krathongs, which are lotus-shaped vessels made of banana leaves. Though made mostly of natural materials, nowadays many Krathongs have things like nails, plastic flowers and candles on them, and then are put into the water to float away with all your bad karma. So that your bad karma sits at the bottom of the even more polluted waterways in the form of plastic flowers. I still love the idea though.

In preparation for Loy Krathong, I have been hearing fireworks and seeing decorations up for the festival since the day I arrived in Sawankhalok, more than a week before the festival, and who knows how long ago they started celebrating. Being the birth province of the festival, we take this stuff seriously (we, because I consider myself a Sawankhalokian already)! This year, the full moon fell on Thursday the 12th, which will mark the peak of the festivities. On Wednesday night, Mint invited me over to teach me how to make my very own Krathong! We bought all the necessary materials: banana leaves, banana trunk, flowers (both plastic and real), incense, candles, etc. They are actually not so hard to make. It’s like easy origami with banana leaves. It took about an hour to make my Krathong (which I am totally proud of, despite seeing my colleagues’ the next day that were a million times better than mine), then I made one for her dad while she made one for her mom. (I’m glad I practiced on my own first! The one I made for her dad was even better!) I returned home from our Krathong making session around 10, to see my neighbors lighting fireworks! How cool! I sat outside and watched them for a while…sometimes attempting conversation, but giving up quite quickly. They speak less English than my Thai…which is hard to believe. The capacity of my Thai currently doesn’t span much further than meal time dialogue (are you hungry, have you eaten, I’m full…the necessities). But they let me light off some of their fireworks, and I managed to find out that their fireworks cost about 25 bhat each! That’s less than a dollar! I think we set off fireworks for an hour before they ran out, and went in to eat dinner (got that part of the conversation at least!).

Even though it was a big holiday, I was surprised to find out we still had school on Thursday, and even more surprised that my kids showed up! When I went to my third class (of my best students), they were surprised that I showed up too! They asked why I wasn’t going to Sukothai, and I told them I was, so we’re just playing games until I have to leave class to get the bus to Sukothai. Haha. I felt bad leaving them, they wanted to come so badly. But after three morning classes back to back, I hopped on the bus to Sukothai with all the younger teachers from the foreign language department, handmade Krathong in hand. We got to the city around 2, just in time for the parade! The parade was out of this world, with large processions from each district of Sukothai. It was cool to see Sawankhalok, and recognize some of my students dressed up in traditional Sawankhalok dress. My favorite part was when they had an international school dress up for different countries, and America was represented by a Pocahontas costume and cowboys. There were also elephants and buffalos, as well as fire throwers (but I think it got too hot for them, cause when they got to us, they threw the fire batons on the ground and kick gravel on them to try to put out the fire). We sat and watched the parade for maybe an hour and a half, and there was no sign of it finishing when we peaced out to go see some temples.

Sukothai, Thailand’s first kingdom and capital before it got taken over by Ayuthaya, is the home to many ruins. The ancient city, where the main Loy Krathong festival takes place, is like the Angkor Thom of Thailand. But way less visited, less preserved, and way cooler (not to mention cheaper). Between the parade and the nighttime festivities, we went to a couple of the ruins to just play around. One that we went to has the largest Buddha I have ever seen…I think…half hidden in a beautiful temple. This Buddha is called the “Talking Buddha” because the king used to bring his troops here before war. The king would hide in the wall, and speak words of inspiration to his troops, so that the soldiers and all his people thought that the Buddha himself was speaking. Then they’d go to war completely inspired, and win!

We retuned to the center of the ancient city, where all the activity was. One of the activities associated with Loy Krathong is releasing candle lanterns into the air…another non-biodegradable form of pollution that floats away the bad karma and is absolutely beautiful to watch. We stopped at a vendor that was selling lanterns so Steven could by a tee-shirt, and Apple (one of the Chinese language teachers) and I pretended to be selling lanterns while the saleslady was busy helping Steven. She was much more convincing than I was, maybe because she’s Thai, but I think my “nueng roy baht na ka, suay mak ka” got people’s attention. At least is got people to laugh (at me).

We managed to accomplish every aspect of the Loy Krathong festival, including trying every single snack for sale, and a foot massage to pass some time. We floated our Krathong in the river, making a wish that will join all the other candle-lit wishes downstream. My candle went out as soon as the Krathong left my hands, but I think my dream will still come true. Then Tara, Be and I went to the famous light show. I asked Steven if this show was really worth it, hearing only that it was a light show, and not knowing anything else about it. How great can a light show really be? Steven didn’t really talk it up at all, but I decided to get a ticket anyway. And I think it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!! It’s not just a light show- it’s a candle lantern, firework display, re-enactment of the history of Sukothai with a cast of 500, light show in Wat Mahathat! So much cooler than just a light show. The very dramatic narration was in Thai, but the cast of 500 did a great job reenacting the story while they climbed all around the illuminated temple. In the middle of the show, they released about 100 candle lanterns at once that floated through the cloudless full-moon sky. No joke, this all really happened. Then they finished the show by lighting up the massive sitting Buddha with candles, along with the rest of the temple, and the entire cast came out with their candle-lit Krathongs. They all sat in front of the lake at the front of the temple, where their reflections were perfectly captured with the Buddha in the background. And then they lit off a bunch of fireworks! What more could I ask for?

After the show, we had some time before the grand fireworks finale at midnight. This was when we took a much needed rest for high quality foot massages. We made it to the river just in time to see the fireworks that get set off from the East, North, then West, then East again. They had such great fireworks, including Sukothai’s signature fireworks that can’t be found anywhere else in the world, and my favorite ones that once it explodes, the lights scatter like bugs and make appropriate bug-like noises. After the enormous fireworks display, we lit our own candle lantern to release into the sky, which floated straight into a tree, but managed to stay in the air and eventually make it past the tree.

What a night. And the rest of my week in Sawankhalok really pales in comparison to that 14 hour excursion. I have fallen more in love with my students every class. I had my 11th graders write essays about themselves, so I can learn more about then. One guy wrote about how his dad is a superhero and wants to be just like him. A girl wrote that she isn’t very good at sports, but thinks I look great, so now she wants to play sports, like me. And one guy, who wrote a terribly generic essay about his birthday, his address, and his favorite food, wrote “I love you baby” at the end of his essay. Classy! Love my 11th graders. Not as much as my 10th graders, who need help every step of the way, and cheer like crazy when I write words in Thai on the board so they can understand it better. (I don’t think this actually helps them as I am sure my Thai isn’t correct and makes no sense, but they love it regardless)

I’ve started playing Badminton after school with one of the English teachers, Arjan Nonkarn. She found me one day before school and said, “I saw you running yesterday. So you play badminton with me”. It was a command. Not a question. This is how she converses: no smiles, no asking questions. Just commands. She’s great. We couldn’t manage to meet up until Friday, but we finally ran into each other as I was finishing a run conveniently at the badminton net in case she was waiting for me, and there she was! So we played for half an hour, where she pretended I was winning by mixing up the score, as if I didn’t understand Thai numbers. But this will be our routine every evening at 5:30, as she commanded.

After all the excitement with the Loy Krathong festival, I made my weekend a relaxing one. My friend Cina who teaches in the neighboring town, Si Satchanalai, biked down to Sawankhalok for a day visit. It’s about a 2 hour bike ride away, and I’m excited to bike to her town next and see all the farmland on the river in between our towns. We had a great lunch of som tam, kaow neow and gai yang (papaya salad, sticky rice, and chicken on a stick), then Mint took us to a swimming pool nearby. I never even considered my town having a pool, and was so embarrassed to be wearing a two piece for lack of having something more modest. Mint told me not to worry, that she was wearing a two piece also. But her version of a two piece is a tank that covers her entire stomach, and a skirt. Needless to say, mine didn’t cover quite as much as my body. But there weren’t too many people there, and I snuck into the pool quickly before they all noticed the inappropriately dressed farang. Being a teacher here, I have to be super cautious about what I wear, because teachers are very highly respected here, and I don’t want anyone to judge me. I hardly ever leave the house in something other than a skirt, unless I’m going for a run, and I always cover my shoulders and chest. I see my students all over town every day, but luckily none of my students were at the pool.

I’ve enjoyed living on my own more than I thought I would. I like to keep the house a little messy all the time; it makes the house seem more occupied. The spiders have stopped hanging out in my kitchen, and I’ve managed to open the windows that had been covered with cobwebs from a year of not ever being opened by Steven. Downside: the awesome spotted lizard in my kitchen hardly makes an appearance anymore, even though I had already named her Cassandra, but I did find a frog on my floor the other day. I tried to catch him, but he was too fast. I’ve made my empty guest room into a meditation room…even though I don’t meditate, but I don’t have anything to put in there. I tried to give it a theme, and put up pictures from different places I’ve traveled to, and put them up to resemble the shape of their respective continents…but I don’t really have enough pictures for it to make sense, so it really looks like a child slapped pictures up randomly with absolutely no direction. I like it. It’s “abstract”.

Oh and I just want to mention what I’ve been doing for dinner the past couple nights, because I’m proud of myself and I think my Dad would be too. And as soon as I master the dying art of steaming rice in my electric wok, then he’ll really be proud. So when I don’t meet up with Mint, Steven or Tara for dinner, and I don’t really want to sit at the night market and eat by myself (though I have before and it is fun sometimes, hold the mosquitoes), I sometimes get a small little meal from the market to bring home. And I have more and more fun with is every time. So yesterday I spent the majority of my morning at the Saturday market, getting fruit, spices, sauce, and vegetables..basically bulking up my kitchen. Then at the night market (I swear, I did do things on my Saturday that weren’t just going to the markets. I watched Fast and the Furious with Mint and played badminton with Arjan Nonkran) I went to one of the tables that has packages of freshly prepared foods: soups, curry, sticky rice, fish, everything. So I got pork with cilantro and a green chili sauce, and tom yum with fish balls to take home with me. Then I made some rice (somewhat less successfully than last time, but I’m learning), an omelet with scallions, and topped my meal with fresh cilantro and scallions that I bought from the market that morning, and had a one person feast!! It was so much fun, and so delicious. And maybe pathetic because I did this all on my own and had no one to share it with. But I’m still going to repeat this because I loved it and want to take a picture when I get my camera back. Best part! There is enough pork and tom yum to last a few days, so I can have multiple one-person feasts. Daddy, you taught me well!

Helloooo Sawankhalok

I was greeted at Sukothai’s organic farm airport by the director of my school to be, and my host teach, Pi Sonya. They both spoke perfect English, and Pi Sonya took me around Sawankhalok after dropping off the director at Sawananan Wittaya school. She drives a 22 year old manual Honda, and is the slowest driver I think I have ever seen. I don’t know how old she is (somewhere in her late 60’s), but I do know she has been teaching English at Sawanan Wittaya school for 38 years. So anyone that was born in Sawankhalok literally has had Pi Sonya as a teacher. Going around the town with her, she points to everyone and says, “he was my student”, “there goes one of my students”, “she’s now in my class, and I also taught her parents”. No joke. Pi Sonya took me to have a new type of noodles that are only found in Sukothai: Sawankhalok goi teaw sai muu daang. So good! There is a red sauce on top that is made from pork something, and then they throw on some palm sugar to make it extra sweet and delicious. A new favorite for sure. At the noodle shop, I met a girl named Mint, who was, no surprise, Pi Sonya’s student a few years ago. She’s in college now, but her school in Rangsit is flooded and so she’s stuck here with her parents, and wants to be my best friend.

Pi Sonya made my first day so easy for me, running all the errands I needed and then giving me time to get settled at my new home. Then she picked me up for dinner and took me to Sawankhalok’s night market, where we got Kao Soy (noodle soup with wheat noodles, crunchy noodles on top with chili broth and tons of cilantro, garlic, onion), where we more of her students, and then took me home. When I asked Pi Sonya if I was going to be teaching tomorrow, she said, “if you want to, or you can start Wednesday, you can start whenever you’re ready. You can come tomorrow to observe if you like. But there would be no one to observe, because it’s your class, and they’re waiting for you.” So I decided I would teach tomorrow.

My house is way too big for one person, and kind of daunting! I don’t know what to do with all this space, and I’ve never lived in a house by myself. What am I going to do?! I have a huge living room, complete with a squatter toilet, and a kitchen that is separated from the living by a screen door to keep the plethora of spiders contained. The spiders are so big. Oh, but there is also a red spotted lizard! I love those things. Upstairs, there is my bedroom (with my mosquito net! I love mosquito nets. They make me feel so regal), a bathroom with a western toilet but no tank/flusher (you just pour water on top to flush), and an empty guest room.

Pi Sonya picked me up in the morning for school, where I learned that I only have 12 classes, and my first class wasn’t until 2 that afternoon. I started the day by going to the morning assembly that is held outside with all the students. The director introduced me, and let me say in English a couple things about myself. When I gave him the microphone back, Pi Sonya said, “what about rugby? Tell them about rugby” (She had seen my rugby ball when she picked me up that morning), and the director told the school in Thai that I played rugby. To which the whole school said “ooooooh” in unison. After morning announcements, all the students have 5 minutes of meditation, before the marching band plays the national anthem, and they do their pledge of alliegance. I hung around the foreign language office all morning, got used to my desk, and ate tons of kanom (snacks) with the teachers. There are a few older English teachers, then 2 Chinese language teachers, 3 Japanese language teachers (they're all Thai though), one young English teacher. Then there are four foreign teachers: myself, Steven who was actually a Fulbright last year and is staying on an extra semester (but I get his house and his bike! Hehe, but he gets a real paycheck), Tara from Hawaii, and her boyfriend, Be, who will be coming next week to start to teach. Be is actually Thai but was raised in the states, making us the least farang set of farang teachers ever. Steven is Chinese, and Tara looks Asian, so I am as white as our department gets. But I eat like a Thai, so I’ve been able to fit in quite well. And without even knowing that my dad is Thai, they all speak to me in Thai as if I can understand, to which I usually reply that I don’t understand, and they just say, “I think you understand”. So I don’t think I have to worry about being different, and I think I will fit in quite well in Sawankhalok.

My first classes were great. Though I really started with the best class ever. When I walked in, they had wrapped with a bow a stack of “Welcome Teacher Korin” cards that they had all handmade. I could not believe the quality of their artwork. They had drawn cartoons, themselves, me, all with scenery in the background. I think Fuji mountain even made it onto one of my cards. (They’re all hanging on my wall in my living room now!!) I proceeded to play a game with them, which they got so into and were cheering and yelling for each other. It was great, and made my heart melt. When I was leaving class, I could hear a chorus of students saying “bye teacher”, I love you teacher”, “teacher so beautiful” from all the girls. And now whenever I bump into some of my students at school, at least one of them will blurt out, “I love you”, or “you so beautiful”. To which I have to reply “I love you too”. And I really do!

The Thai school system is so interesting. I teach Mattyam 3-5, which is roughly 9th through 11th grade. It's a lot older than I was anticipating, and their English is way better than I was preparing for. Most Thai schools divide their classes according to the students’ performance. It’s designed on a track system, where students pick between something like science, art, or technical, and the classes are formed from those tracks. It turns out then that the most diligent students end up in the higher classes, and the slackers are in the lowest. Each grade is in sections, which I think are ranked on best performance to worst performance, so M1 section 1 is the best of M1, and M1 section 10 is the worst…I think. I’m still trying to figure it out. But either way M3 section 6 is a handful, and the lowest class I have to teach. To make things even more complicated, my school is super smart and we have extra sections that the best students can test into, and have to pay extra for. This is section 01 and 02 for each grade. So my M5 students are from sections 01 and 02 (I haven’t met them yet), for M4 I have sections 4 through 7, and my lovely M3 students are sections 1 through 6. All in all, I have a pretty large group of fairly smart students. The thing is I only see them once a week (with the exception of my M5 smarty pants, who I will see twice a week), and most of the classes are 45-50 students big. So I will have over 500 students this semester.

Since I am not teaching that many classes, I’ve been going to a lot of Tara and Steven’s classes to get a feel for how they teach, and to meet other students. Pretty much any free period I have, I spend in their classes. They love it because their students get nervous in front a new teacher, so they don’t act up as much, and the students can practice asking questions in English. By Friday, I only had one class to teach, and that was during first period. So basically I was done with my day at 9:25 AM. Instead of sitting in the office for 7 hours, I ended up guest teaching Be’s class (and got them so riled up, it was so much fun. They were section 8 and a bunch of trouble makers), was a guest in Steven’s best class where we taught how to do a proper handshake, then went to Tara’s class where she ended up being late, so Steven and I told the class I was the new teacher, and I pretended to teach the horrified students until Tara showed up. In between all of these activities, I was in the office eating snacks with the other foreign language teachers. I don’t understand how these teachers conduct class. I feel like Steven, Tara and I are at our desks at least half of the time working on lesson plans, but all of the other teachers are constantly going out to get snacks, eating the snacks, or passing around the snacks and talking about them. I’ve never heard such long conversations over three bags of fruit. And conversation must accompany snack time. And lunch time. I am making my school sound like a circus, but after hearing about other ETA’s schools, Sawananan Wittaya school is actually a really great school. We’re supposedly the best is northern Sukothai, so many other districts send their kids here, according to Steven. And I believe it too. Even though I just played games with Be’s section 8 class, their English was better than I was expecting of any of my students. I’ve heard of some ETAs having to teach their kids the alphabet. I’m going to be teaching my kids present perfect participle. I don’t even know what that is, but that’s what my M3s are learning.

On Friday afternoon, Oom, the young Thai teacher took us to Pitsanalok, the closest big city, to go shopping! It took about an hour and a half to get there, but we made this trip to Pit Lo worth it by going to their brand new mall, Central (has the first McDonalds in Sukothai and Pitsanalok provinces!), as well as a huge department store, Big C. After a Korean BBQ dinner at the mall, we went crazy shopping (actually, the last three stores we went to closed while we were in them, because we spent so long in each store!), buying all sorts of things for school or home. I was super successful, getting a blender, electric wok and French press all for under 30$. My house is now (almost) complete! We ended up being in Pit Lo until 11, not getting back to Sawankhalok until after midnight. What a shopping trip!

My first weekend in Sawankhalok, I spent mostly cleaning up my house and exploring the outskirts of the city. On Saturday, I went with Tara to pick up Be from the airport, and we went to the Saturday market and had lunch on the river at a great noodle shop Mint had taken me to earlier in the week. It’s an open air restaurant that has a balcony over our little river, and a bowl of noodle soup with a chicken leg and pig blood (I think?) costs 25 bhat…less than a dollar. So so yummy. I had dinner with Mint that evening, and she invited me to Pitsanalok with her parents the next day to celebrate her birthday. Even though I had a ton of work I should be doing, I love hanging out with Mint, so I said I would go. Well, she called me at 8:30 on Sunday morning, because her parents were actually going to Pit Lo to go to the chicken farm to get eggs (her parents own an egg distribution company in our town), so we weren’t going shopping or getting Japanese lunch for her birthday like she thought. So I suddenly had a whole day in front of me to occupy….so I went for a bike ride! I biked for maybe 45 minutes up the river, got chased by a dog, and found a little spot along the river to sit and watch the fisherman along the bank. This was pretty far off the main road, and so all I could hear were the fish diving deep under the surface when the shadow of a bird would swoop by, and occasionally a motorbike drive by on the dirt road along the river. I’m not sure how long I hung out on the bank of the river, but eventually I made it back to Sawankhalok for lunch and to maybe get work done. I spent a majority of the afternoon cleaning and decorating my house, and experimenting with my blender and electric wok. I bought enough fruit at the Saturday market to keep me occupied all week with smoothie flavors. I’m going to try some combinations of papaya, coconut, banana and orange. Maybe this week I’ll teach some kids English too. Wait, why am I in Thailand again?