English Study Tour 2012- “F Team” Edition

Every year, the foreign language department hosts an expensive trip and calls it the “English Study Tour” (by expensive, I mean 60$ per student- and incredibly pricey three day excursion by Sawankhalok standards). Though it sounds like the trip is about English, don’t be deceived. The only English thing about it is that all the farang teachers are on the trip. It’s a genius idea.

They picked the four day “candle festival” weekend to hold the trip. We spent over a month putting together this trip, and the office was a hectic mess the few weeks leading up to it. On Wednesday evening, we met at the poorly lit, heavily trafficked four way intersection by the night market, where we had to run back and forth across the street to transport the loads of snacks. I asked if it would make more sense to have the bus come to this side of the street to pick up all the snacks, but the response was no, we’ll just have the students do it. So our troop of students had to sprint across the intersection with the traffic light that stops working as soon as it gets dark out to stock our buses with more than enough snacks. But no one died, so we were off to a good start. We also didn’t leave anyone behind, except Tara and Be when we stopped 50 meters later for water, but we didn’t get too far when we noticed they hadn't gotten back on the bus.

There were three tour buses with 50 kids each. The F Team was in charge of one bus (those poor students), the young Thai teachers on another, and the old Thai teachers on their own bus. Let me tell you a little about tour buses in Thailand. First of all, no tour bus is complete without a colorful painting covering the outside of the bus. It often looks like the painter was on acid, with neon paintings of fantasy images like fairies or super heros. Or Finding Nemo. That was on our bus. The double decker bus features seats upstairs with a TV, karaoke machine, and disco lights, and anything else you might need for an all night party, and the downstairs is equipped with a lounge and a toilet. By the way, music on tour buses is louder than at a concert.

We had an incredibly humble group of students on our bus (all the studious 8^th graders wound up on our bus together), so thankfully our overnight ride to the beach had only some karaoke, then fun Thai movies for the rest of the night. We arrived at Cha-Am around 7 in the morning, got our rooms sorted and started the day. We had our few hours of English activities (mostly dancing and singing Thai songs, and the only English activity we had was like pulling teeth, so we quickly forfeit the battle) before letting them go to the beach. Unfortunately there were a bunch of jellyfish (which is apparently really hard to explain if you don’t know the word for jellyfish in Thai), so I went for a second serving of coconut ice cream instead of continuing to swim.

And that was the only down time we had for the next three days. From then on, we were on the road, stopping at every market between Cha-Am and Sawankhalok. We went to an antique market that night in Hua Hin, the neighboring beach town, after having dinner at the night market down the road. Between each stop, we had to load the kids back onto the bus, and drive what would have been a 20 minute walk, but take an hour to get to because it took so long to get on the bus, then sit in the beach side traffic. But we filled our bus time with dancing in the aisles of the upstairs of the bus, and really the bus rides were more fun than sprinting through each market in our allotted 60-minute time slot.

In the morning, we made a 40 minute trip to the exciting part of Cha-Am beach, where I had gone with Tara and Be last summer. With forty minutes, we couldn’t really do much…so we rented two three-person tandem bikes, and biked for 20 minutes then biked back. Certainly 40 minutes well spent. Tandem bikes are hilarious. And then we kind of held the bus up by an extra 15 minutes because we had to have a photo shoot with the bikes. What kind of F-Team would we be if we didn’t do farangy things like rent a three person bike and spend 15 minutes taking pictures with it in front of the beach?
 

Our next stop was the highlight of our trip, and everyone’s favorite (but most expensive) stop. We went to Santorini Park, a new amusement park in Hua Hin. Though you have to pay the equivalent of 15 dollars per ride, an outrageous price for anything in Thailand, it was just as exciting to see how much fun you could have had if the rides weren’t so expensive.  I did go on one ride with one of my M4 students that was attached to my hip the whole trip, and my new best friend, an M1 boy who I have named Tiki Tiki Tembo because I can’t remember his nickname that is probably something easier like Game or Jap. I gave him this name because he was going to be in our play of Tiki Tiki Tembo, but we didn’t have time to perform it, so he didn’t get his chance to shine. They had their money in hand and were ready to do this 20 dollar ride with me, so I invested in the cause to please my students. I didn’t really take a good look at the ride until after we got our tickets, and I watched the people in front of us go on the ride. It’s kind of like a sling shot into the air, with elastic bands holding the passengers from flying into the neighboring mountains. Wonderful. So my two students sat on either side of me in the three-person ride, and I held their hands tight. The guys strapping us in gave the instructions in Thai, which I opted to not listen to, until Faii translated the last part for me… “he says, don’t close your eyes”. And we were ready to go. We were slowly elevated from the ground as the elastic tightened, the tension growing and growing. Tiki Tiki Tembo grabbed my hand hard, anticipating the shock. With absolutely no indiciation of when the elastic would snap us into the air, we impatiently waited, eyes squeezed shut, hands squeezed tight. A minute or two of over anticipation....and we were SHOT what seemed like miles into the air, and in less than a second snapped back towards the ground, spinning around and upside down, until we faced the ground as we fell straight down. That was the worst part, falling face first to the ground at an uncontrollable speed. Just as we were about to crash, we were pulled back into the air by those unforgiving elastic ropes. The ride slowed as we coasted to a suspended stop. And it was over faster than it had started. Faii had a huge smile on her face, saying she has never been so scared for her life. I looked over at Tiki Tiki Tembo, and asked how it was. He said, he was not okay. And he begged me to get off the ride. He started crying and begged me over and over to get off the ride. The descent back to earth took a painfully long time, and I squeezed Tiki Tiki Tembo’s hand and urged him to breathe with me until we could get off. Stepping back onto the platform, I felt really dizzy myself and thought I was going to throw up. That nauseating feeling stuck with me (and Tiki Tiki Tembo) for a long time, but it was somewhat relieved when we watched Bryan go on a similar ride. It was a swingy version of what we went on, and way less scary, but we forgot our nauseousness by laughing at Bryan screaming “Call my mother, call my mother!” “Not fun, not fun. I don’t like this” throughout the entire ride. We probably shouldn’t have laughed at him, but it was too funny.

 

After all the nauseous fun at Santorini, and an unappetizing meal on the bus, we were dancing our way to the floating market. Thailand used to have a bunch of these floating markets, particularly around Bangkok, when the canals through the city were a common mode of transportation, much like Venice. Now that many of the canals have been paved over to make room for over-congested over-crowded Bangkok, the remaining floating markets are rare…and touristy. Some are cooler than others. This was not one of them. The deceiving name “floating market” leads one to believe that most of the commerce happens via long-tailed boats that come up to your boat to make you delicious hoi tort. Instead there are hundreds of street vendors obstructing the path to the canal that sell tee-shirts, over-priced coconut juice, and cheesy souvenirs like matchboxes that have “Amphawa” printed on them. Yes, I bought all of those things, and ice cream. The canal itself is fairly narrow, and had more empty boats looking for passengers than vendor boats. We decided to take a break from more and more shopping, and hailed a long-tailed boat cab. Some of our students were passing by as we were getting on the boat, so we kidnapped them to come tour with us. For 50 bhat, we had 2 hours to go wherever we wanted.
So the boat driver took us out of the market, out into the open river, and to a nearby temple on the opposite bank. All of students agreed: this temple was the most beautiful temple we had ever seen and it was completely empty except for the monks conducting a meditation session. The inside of the temple was covered in intricately carved wood, except for the golden Buddha in the middle. We sat inside the cool temple for probably half an hour, and examined the carvings, trying to put together the story it was depicting on all the walls. It was a very calming and humbling moment, in the midst of a crazy weekend.
  

And back on the bus! More dancing and singing on the way to the hotel. The second night we stayed in a resort with cabins built over a lake, connected by their front porches. Can you imagine, being in 7^th grade, and spending the night in a cabin with 7 of your best friends, with essentially no supervision? (the boys had to stay in a separate, but similar resort down the road). And what did the students want to do? Hang out with their farang teachers! Tara and I took a walk around the resort around 9PM, and were pulled into almost all of the cabins in the resort to hang out with the students. We hung out in a group of 7^th graders' cabin for about an hour, before one of the Thai teachers had to come in and yell at the kids (and farang teachers) for being too loud! She laughed when she saw me, and asked why they were bothering me in my room. I felt bad correcting her, and told her no, we are bothering them in their room! The girls escorted us back to our cabin, so that no ghosts came to scare us on the walk back. So who are the chaperones on this trip?

In the morning, we started our long journey back home. I don’t know who’s idea this was, but we deviated from our painstakingly thorough itinerary to stop at a teddy bear factory?? And this was where we decided to take our group photo…though it was a ridiculous stop, the giant teddy bears totally made the picture better. I’m not gonna talk any more about this stop, because I want to erase it from my memory- it was that lame. Except for the part where we all got to make little baby teddy bears, and decorate their faces ourselves.
 

Our last stop before returning safe and sound in Sawankhalok was where else but... at a market! We went to Talaad Roi Et, or Samchuk market in Saphanburi. They had the same variety of key chains, tee shirts, and bags as Amphawa, but with “Samchuck” smeared on the front. As much as I love open air markets, once you’ve seen one…you’ve really seen them all. But as I accidentally made into a habit at every stop on this trip, I got my ice cream. Coconut ice cream in a coconut shell with peanuts on top. For 50 cents. Unbeatable.

Though exhausted and starting to feel sick, none of us were really ready to go home. The last hour of the ride home, all the kids were groaning “mai yak glapbhan…” I don’t want to go home. But I don’t think any of us would have survived another day. I slept the entire next day, only getting out of bed to get dinner, and going right back to sleep. I don’t think I’ve ever done that in my life.

To top the weekend of crazy student love, the following weekend was a complete 360. My cousin’s friend, P’Krit, was getting married to a Dutch man she met from the motorcycle gang. If there is anything stranger than the chopper gang in Thailand, it’s all of them being in Sawankhalok at once for a wedding.

BaNee picked me up early in the morning for the traditional Thai ceremony. They had a session with the monks, preceding the march from house to house, a drunk guy leading the calls, and the rest of the procession shouting in response. We approached P’Krit’s house where the morning ceremony had been held, and BaNee and I ran up to the balcony to watch. I don’t know if this is how all weddings go, but this was hilarious. I guess the groom is supposed to go through a series of barriers to get to the bride, who is waiting upstairs. But all the barriers were old Thai women, probably P’Krit’s aunts or grandmother or something. But since he can’t speak Thai, he was accompanied by boisterous Thai women. The old women and the groom's body guards would shout at each other and argue, meanwhile someone is going crazy on the bongos, and they would only let the groom and entourage through once he’s paid the agreed upon price, none of which he would have a say in because he can’t speak Thai. He had to go past several old women, until he was finally granted access to find his bride who was hiding upstairs, and then they made a huge offering to the Buddha and did some more ritual things I didn’t understand and can’t begin to describe. But BaNee got bored at this point, so we peaced out and got lunch.

Every offering needs a bottle or two of Blend Whisky

    

That evening, I went back to P’Krit’s for the party. I was supposed to go with the German guy that lives in Sawankhalok, and his wife (if I’ve never mentioned the German guy before, he and his friend live in Sawankhalok but can’t speak English. So whenever I see him, we speak Thai with each other….really weird to speak Thai with a German guy), but I thought my cousin was coming to the wedding, so I was waiting for him. Turns out he couldn’t make it, so I ventured there on my own, and ran into the German guy’s wife later in the evening, and she was beyond wasted. Hilarious.

When I first arrived, I luckily found P’Krit as soon as I walked up to her brother’s mukata restaurant. Knowing P’Krit has been really cool- though many people don’t think very highly of her because she’s not your typical modest Thai girl (wearing whatever she wants, showing off her tattoos and peircings), everyone knows her brother because of his restaurant, and apparently he’s rich from it. Now, her brother, P’Meng, knows me too. And always greets me when I come to his restaurant. I don't know why knowing P'Meng feels like knowing a famous person..he's just a casual, every-day guy that just so happens to own an incredibly successful hot pot/do-it-yourself BBQ restaurant. So I got to the party, and P’Krit tried to find a suitable crowd for me to sit with. The Sukhothai bike gang was there, and I recognized some of them, but none of them were people I have ever had a conversation with. So I sat with P’Dew, a very pregnant woman that works in the office at Sawananan, and Eugene, a dentist that was born in India, studied in the Philippines, and landed himself in Sawankhalok where he’s been working at a clinic for the past 10 years. I think he was the first English speaker to move to Sawankhalok, and knows its secrets very well. So dinner was much more interesting than I anticipated, as he translated all the conversations around me, and told me the background of almost everyone in sight. Meanwhile, P’Dew basically ate mukata for three hours straight, not really talking to anyone, and not really listening to anything either. Just grilling and eating the whole time.

Later in the night, after NOT catching P’Krit’s bouquet (my chances of staying in Thailand growing slimmer and slimmer…), I was inevitably approached by some of the farang at the party. There were people from all nine chapters of biker clubs in Thailand, and about half of them are old farang men. So I had some really boring conversations with an Australian guy, a few Dutch men, and I think an Irish guy. (But I was the only American! And also, the only white girl). I also met the founder of the first biker club from Chiang Mai, P’Moo. He was my favorite- his English was flawless, yet he kept talking to me in Thai and insisting he couldn’t speak English well enough to talk to an English teacher. And of course, as soon as they found I was an English teacher, my name was forgotten and I was called "kon Kru", or teacher, for the rest of the night. As I was heading home, I told  P’Moo I was planning on heading to Chiang Mai the next day to meet my friends (the F-team) who were already there. He told me he and the rest of the Chiang Mai gang was heading up to Chiang Mai too, and I was welcome to join them on their ride up.

It seemed like a really good idea at the time. And when I woke up at 7 the next morning to catch the 8 o’clock bus, it seemed like a super-good idea. So I went back to sleep and waited for P’Moo to call. When 10 o'clock rolled around, and I hadn’t heard from anyone, I decided to call and wake up P’Moo. I finally met them for noon for breakfast at my favorite riverside restaurant. The normally quiet, empty restaurant was stampeded with farang and Thai bikers. I felt like I was in another Sawankhalok, seeing all these white people in my restaurant. Apparently, every time they meet up in Sawankhalok, they come here for their hangover breakfast, and they're known quite well by the staff. By the time we got on the road, it was nearing 1:30, the time I would have arrived in Chiang Mai if I had caught the morning bus. No worries, I was having fun with these guys. And the drunk woman I sat next to in the car affectionately called me her daughter, (it was Mother’s Day in Thailand, and when I told her Happy Mother’s Day, she gave me a big kiss on the cheek and told me her own daughters forgot it was mother’s day) and let me sleep on her lap for most of the ride up, so I felt loved and happy. Until we stopped for a snack not even an hour into the trip. We were still in Sukhothai province, and had to stop so "Mer" (mother) could get another beer. After our hour long stop, we drove straight through Lampang, and made one more stop just before entering Chiang Mai province (so close…). By this time it was about 5:00, and the F-team was waiting up for me. The whole biker crew- 9 choppers and the four people in our car- met at a restaurant. They were half way through their first bottle of whisky when our car got there, and when they opened a second, I figured there was no chance I was going to get to Chiang Mai in time to do anything, so I might as well join in on the second bottle. So we hung out for two hours with my new friends, pretty much officially welcoming me to their club.

 I eventually did make it to meet up with the F-team in the city. Tara, Be and Bryan were in an empty mall (all the shops were closed because of Mother’s Day) at the only open shop- a tattoo stall. The three of them were getting their first tattoos. Be’s tattoo took about 6 hours- and while waiting, Brian and I filmed a music video and a movie trailer for a movie we will never make. But an empty mall was a great setting.

 

 After the three of them cried through their first tattoos (not really, they all handled them like champs), it was after midnight. So we went to the 24 hour Burger King, which is quite possibly the only Burger King in Thailand, paid more for crappy burgers and fries than the most expensive and delicious meal in Sawankhalok, and went to the hotel. Then we left early in the morning, less than 12 hours after I had gotten there. Haha. But I made some incredibly unique friends on the way, so it was well worth it =)

A week for games and dancing

(July 2012)

It is an honest wonder how students in Thailand manage to learn anything ever. Between the teachers seminars, the holidays, the preparation for the holidays, competitions, and anything else that seems like a good idea to interrupt education, I feel like I hardly teach. And this is the serious semester! Two months into the semester, and I think I have not taught a full week of classes. But I’ve had a ton of fun in the meantime, of course.

As well as a lot of unnecessary work. The wonderful Ministry of Education selected this semester to be hell, and has required multiple teachers seminars. After teaching my third teachers’ seminar last week, I really think the teachers of Sukhothai must be sick of this farang pretending to know what she’s talking about. But I have met every single English teacher in all of Sukhothai (and told them how to teach English, from my loads of experience…), so that must count for something. The last seminar I taught was in Thung Salium, the neighboring district, and was done barefoot. That was definitely the highlight of that seminar; not the lunch time karaoke, nor the head of the Northern Sukhothai educational office interrupting me mid-session to take 15 minutes to remind everyone of his importance, nor the 43 page manual I had to create from scratch to give the teachers. And believe it or not, the director of the school changing his mind about what he wanted me to teach the morning of the seminar after I gave him the 43 page manual on my sessions, asking me to instead teach “daily conversation skills” for two days, no that was not the highlight either. The highlight was definitely taking off my shoes and teaching 50 teachers in my bare feet. Yes, still love Thailand <3

And this was all following the best week I’ve had at SawanAnan, because it was our sports week. Remember Field Day from middle school? It’s like that..but Thai style. That means, it’s not just a one day thing. It’s a week long, and includes an opening parade through town and a day of closing ceremonies with dancing and cheerleading. The sports were definitely not the focus of sports week. Sports week is actually just a misnomer for lots of fun and craziness.

So Monday morning we headed to the middle of Sawankahlok to observe the parade. The students chose the color they wanted their class to be, out of red, blue, green, violet, and “zad”, which translates as bright. Or orange. Each color had a magnificent display during the parade, which, I know I’ve said this before, but I don’t know how they had the time to prepare for. I guess it was during all those classes my students cancelled the preceding weeks. As I was watching this massive parade, there were definitely students in the marching bands that I didn’t recognize, plus our marching isn’t THAT good. And the kids playing were really small! I asked P’Oom where these kids were from. She told me they were from SawanAnan 2. (Have I mentioned Sawan Anan 2? It’s another school in Sawankhalok- they took our name because they want people to think they are as good as us. You have to test to get into Sawananan, and pay extra, but SawanAnan 2 is just a normal school. It’s a really funny thing, which probably isn’t funny for them, but we joke about it all the time. Ahjan Anick likes to punish bad students that come late for the morning announcements by making them stand in the back, and yelling “stay away from these guys! They’re from Sawananan 2!) But apparently Sawananan 2 has better marching bands than us, because we stole them for our sports week. I’m starting to think the reason Sawankhalok exists is because of Sawananan. The whole town has to come to a halt for the opening of our sports week.

The parade marched from the center of town all the way to Sawananan, about a mile long distance, the girls in their high heels and massive wigs, the boys in their heavy suits. (And these students come to my class whining about being hungry or being hot? Look at what they put themselves through to put on a good parade. Nobody told them they had to wear high heels, that was all voluntary) We assembled on the front lawn at school, where two of my 10^th graders ran laps around the field wearing full sweat suits and carrying a torch (again, all voluntary). Once they had assembled, one of the teachers told me that the teachers are going to play a soccer game for the opening ceremony. I’m glad he decided to tell me then, 5 minutes before the game was going to start, to give me barely enough time to run home and grab my cleats. He gave me a teachers’ jersey (FINALLY! I’ve been playing with them after school since last semester, but they never let me play in their games because I’m a girl) and I realized why they were letting me play this time. The opening match was against the lady boys: Teachers vs. the Gatoeys. I don’t know whose idea it was, the teachers’ or the gatoeys’, but it was absolutely genius. We were all decked out in our fancy jerseys, as the gatoeys took the field, decked out in their dresses and wigs, some even still wearing high heels.

Though it’s a  bit embarrassing to admit, given that they were playing against a team of fairly well-practiced teachers, for a team of gay men wanting to be women, the lady boys did okay. The teachers still won, 4-1, but the lady boys had a good tactic: as a heard run after anyone with the ball and tackle (hug) him until he falls to the ground and steal the ball. What a fantastic way to open a week long sports competition.

And the gatoeys ran the show all week. This must be the week they look forward to their entire high school career. The students don’t have to wear their uniforms (though they’re supposed to wear their gym uniforms, they can get away with street clothes) so the gatoeys have been running around all week in skirts, belly shirts and wigs. “Rocky”, the leaders of the gatoeys, probably danced straight from Monday morning until Friday afternoon in his belly shirt and short skirt. And the funny thing is, no girl would be allowed to wear that at school EVER, even on sports week. But if you’re a ladyboy, it’s okay.

The rest of the week was a continual blast. We spent the days watching the Thai variety of sports: chak-rai-ya (tug-o-war), sepak takraw, football, footsaul, volleyball, table tennis, badminton, basketball and wing priao (which is a relay race but translates to sour run), all played with a level of competitiveness I didn’t think possible for a school wide sports competition. By the way- lady boys are killer at volleyball. All sports were separated by boys and girls, then by age group, and any boys’ team that had a ladyboy on it always won volleyball. Though the real reason to enjoy sports week is not to watch any sports, but to watch the dancing and cheers. Most students don’t like to play sports (because it makes their skin “black”), so they stand on the sidelines with their winter coats covering their arms from the blackening sun, and dance. All day. Every team had a set of bongos and megaphone, and there was nonstop dancing, cheering, and partying on the sideline of every game. Didn’t matter who was winning, didn’t matter when someone scored a goal, there were flags being waved and drums being drummed at every moment. Then when the game was over (doesn’t matter who won), the field or court got flooded with the cheerleaders from both sides, making a dance circle and yelling the appropriate cheers. Every game.

 

Halfway through the week, some tension started growing between the teams. The two smartest 12^th grade classes (that basically were the bosses of sports week) were on different teams, and picked their allies and started a school wide battle. Team “zad” took team violet under its wing, and team red took team blue. Then team green was just uninterested enough to not really be pulled into battle, but eventually sided with red. This all escalated in a basketball match between red and purple, where the whole orange team was cheering at their full capacity for purple. Red got disqualified for poor sportsmanship and there was a huge roar of cheers from orange as they filled the court with their cheerleading, drums and dancing. This whole debacle was the entire content of the F-team’s 4^th of July dinner conversation, which was a holiday that passed completely unnoticed in the wake of sports week, except for an excessive amount of food from the night market: fried chicken (the most American part!), steamed vegetables with nahm prick, an omelet stuffed with cha-om veggies, scallion dumpling things, aaaand Chang beer. Not quite the same as an American celebration, but it was as close as we could get for the amount of energy we had that week.

The last day of sports day ended in a 3 hour performance put on by the students. This was what they had been practicing for about a month. Every day after school, every free period, during classes they should have been going to, and every weekend, all the teams were practicing their performances with their hired gatoeys. So finally the performance day arrived where each time had 25 minutes to put on their show. Each show had their own variety of cheers, some form of ballet, and excessive hip thrusting that made everyone burst out laughing but also feel a little awkward. The blue team was by far the best, with fireworks, releasing balloons into the sky (which I don’t approve of but looks really cool), some moments for the King, all followed by a lot of overly energetic dancing and ended with buckets of water to pour on the dancing gatoey boys.

One of the gatoeys on Green lost his wig in the middle of their dance

Among this week of craziness, the Chinese opera also came to town. Yep, that’s right. The Chinese opera. What is the Chinese opera? I have no freakin clue, but it brought an 11 day festival market to Sawankhalok, which of course I love, and involved a Chinese dragon dance through town randomly on the Monday after the market had started (why not the opening night of the market, the opening night of the opera, or Saturday….why Monday? Who knows). Though I never made it to watch the Chinese opera, I got to see my second dragon dance (the first was on the King’s birthday last December), which involves crazy 10 year old gymnasts run around holding the dragon, making the dragon do flips and chase its tail. And like any good dragon show, it ends with them placing a precarious pole in the middle of the street for the dancers to climb, then pass the dragon up the pole so they can shoot fireworks from his mouth to shower onto the innocent observers. SO exciting.

In other news in Sawankhalok, BaNee opened up a new rice porridge shop in front of her house. She closed the one at Soi8, the night market, which is now very lonely without her presence. The night before her opening night, I went to her house to help her get things ready. I sat with her staff for hours and stuck “BaNee Jok” stickers on amulets to give out to every customer on the first day, and made little packages of snacks to give to kids. We had a big feast of fresh shrimp yum, soup, omelet, and a Thai salad with lots of liver.
After finishing up, I was instructed by BaNee to come straight to her house after school the next day, wear the “BaNee Jok” tee-shirt she gave me, and help her sell jok. So I biked over as soon as I had finished up at school, around 5, and there was already a line waiting for their jok to take home, and the tables almost filled. I arrived ready to work, but didn’t really have anything to do…if roles had been discussed prior, I definitely missed them. So I sat with BaNee’s sister who came up from Bangkok for the big opening night, and pretended to do things that looked important. This included: giving out the amulets to every customer (a very important job), refilling eggs and cilantro, and most importantly, opening the plastic bags for P’Kwan to pour the jok into. BaNee definitely would not have been able to function without me. She sold out at 8PM, with a line still waiting, and never a moment for any of the staff to sit down. Except me, who was sitting the whole time.
 

Though I’m essentially useless, I go to BaNee’s any night that I am free to “help”. I think eventually I will become an integral part of her staff. Maybe not. But it is a great way to check up on my students. Every night I am there, I see at least one of my students. On opening night, one of my M3 students showed up in her pajamas, my homework assignment in hand, and said “teacher. Too hard”. The second night, my bad boys from M4 came with their older girlfriends. My boys were too shy to speak to me, but the girls were excited to talk to me. Well, at least they’re dating good girls. After selling out at 8:30 on the second night, I sat down to have dinner with BaNee. I had already eaten earlier in the evening, so I just picked on some fish and had a bit of tom yum soup. After BaNee had finished her dinner, she decided she wanted to go to a restaurant to “gin len len”, which translates to “play eat” and means to eat like a snack, or pick on food, whereas “gin jing jing” is “real eat” and means to eat a meal. So after BaNee, her sister, her sister’s boyfriend and I finished “gin jing jing”, we went to one of Sawankhalok’s only air-conditioned restaurants to “gin len len”, where BaNee ordered five plates for us of fried fish, soup, noodles and crab cakes. Way too much food for a meal, let alone a “len len” meal. I was so full I could barely bike home. I thought I would never eat again. But then I made the mistake of calling BaNee to get lunch together the next day. We drove to Sri Samrong to get som tam, but the shop wasn’t open yet. So she decided we should “gin len len” until it opens, so we went a little outside of the town to have noodles on the river. Then, we went back to the shop to get our som tam, our “jing jing” meal. But the shop still wasn’t open. So we drove all around Sri Samrong, along the river, BaNee racking her brain of where we can get som tam, declaring to her passengers, “Som tan len dtua”- som tam is playing hard to get, and giggling to herself. We found a gaiyang stand on the side of the road, so we settled with large portions of  grilled chicken and sticky rice, the accompaniments to som tam, without the actual som tam. That was fine with me because I was already stuffed. I only picked at the gaiyang when we got back to BaNee’s house, and I told BaNee, next time she wants to “gin len len”, count me out! She’s already teasing me that if I keep eating with her, my mother won’t recognize me when I come home because I’ll be fat. So I’ve had to scale down on my lunches with BaNee.

After all these exciting things happening in a few weeks: sports week, teaching more seminars, the Chinese opera, and BaNee’s opening night, the whirlwind collapsed into midterms. How did that happen!? I feel like I haven’t taught my kids anything yet, how can they possibly be tested on anything? For a slightly more serious semester than last semester, it is still a wonder to me how these students, even at a good school like SawanAnan have managed to learn anything. Part of the craziness that makes Thailand.

555+

I realized this morning that this past year, I have cried more from laughing than from being sad. It definitely seems that way at least. So I put together a small collection of reasons why students in Thailand are the best (from a mix of experiences from the F team, the other Fulbrights, and myself =D ) and continue to make me laugh every day.

Oil, me and Grace, eating at Meng Mukata on Oil's birthday

I went to Sukhothai one weekend to judge students that were interviewing to study abroad in America. Most of the students were very polite, smart, and also scared shitless. Then I interviewed "Function" (yes his nickname is really Function), an M4 student from the best school in Sukhothai. I kind of loved him because he was always smiling really big, even though he was obviously nervous because he was shaking. This is how it went:

Me: Function, tell me some good things about yourself.
Function: Oh no. Don't have.
(His farang teachers in the room giggle and nod in agreement)
Me: Really, nothing?
Function: yes, don't have
Me: Okay, so what are some bad things about yourself?
Function: Oh many many things. I am lazy, I can't play sport, I can't sing, I can't Thai dance...(and he goes on)

..several questions later

Me: So Function, what are you going to do to make friends in your new school?
Function: I will find a diligent people. And I will be friend with he.
Me: Really?! Why is that?
Function: So I can copy of him.



Maya, a Fulbright that teaches in Chiang Mai sent me this story:


So I had my students write a dialogue for homework. One of my favorite students (the student body president) gave me this:


Jood: Hello Jack, what did you do yesterday?
Jack: I went to the moon to draw a picture of our world.
Jood: Realy? How did you go to the moon?
Jack: I went to the moon with a bamboo helicopter.
Jood: Wow! Why did you not invite me too?
Jack: Oh! I forgot! So, I went to the moon alone. It was very quiet. What did you do yesterday?
Jood: I went to the sun with my girlfriend because I wanted to make her so hot!
Jack: Wow, that's a good idea, and is she so hot yet?
Jood: Yes, she is so hot. I think you should go to the sun with your girlfriend too.
Jack: Umm, I'm so sorry. My girlfriend, she is polite.
Jood: Ummmm my father is calling me back home, see you later, bye!
Jack: Bye




This story was from another Fulbright in Isaan, Gracie, who went to interview new Thai English teachers at her school:


Here are some of my favorite moments aka instances where I almost died laughing but was a good ETA and held it in.


Q: I see you play ukulele in your free time.  Show me.
Then the woman was made to "play" air ukulele and sing.  The same thing happened in another interview with lam thai.  Just making sure the candidates aren't lying about their interests, I guess?


Q: As we are moving towards ASEAN, how will you prepare the students?
A: Superman...?


Q:  How about Thai culture?  Is it beautiful or should we destroy it with Europe and maybe learning English?


(That's actually a pretty interesting question it was just worded so funny)


Q:  Actually, No more questions, because I am hungry.

From the first essay assignment I gave my M4 students, talking about their weekend:
-My student wrote a great journal entry about his weekend in Chaing Mai, then at the end he writes: "I think that in the next week I will be going to outer space. Or abroad"
-After my student wrote about having an omelet for breakfast, then doing homework, she writes..."When I finish I went to the kitchen cause I wanted food, but it was not in the cupboard. Um egg. Yes, I made another omelet again. I ate the omelet until my face is as round as an omelet"



-From my M4/3 student....one of my worst. All semester, Pel had turned in one homework assignment, about how the kid that sits next to him is a bad boy because he has sex. I asked him who wrote it, and the four boys pointed at each other, and Pel said it wasn't him. So I gave him a zero, and he didn't turn anything in since. He finally handed me his notebook on Wednesday with all four journal assignments, including this masterpiece. I'm hesitant to believe he wrote it himself, but I love it anyway.

...and infinitely more

The four dollar experiment

I know I fall in love with Thailand quite often, but this next entry might be the highest contributing factor to me never wanting to leave.

It all started when I had an afternoon off and went for a long bike ride to clear my mind, and ponder how to hold myself hostage in this country until my parents and sister come to visit. A friend of mine suggested I should bike to the airport sometime, because its beautiful and not far from ‘khalok. So on Saturday my students didn’t want to study, so I randomly had the afternoon off to explore the airport. The ride was awesome- only 14 or so km, on a quiet but well paved road that peaked out at the Yom River every once in a while. I guess it sounds kind of weird to go on a trip to the airport, but really the airport is like Sawankhalok’s biggest nature park. There is a zoo (of buffalo), a resort with a swimming pool, and orchid garden, Sawankhalok’s most expensive restaurant, and an organic agricultural project! So I went to check out the scared kids whose parents insisted they ride the fat buffalo so they (and I) could take pictures, and the restaurant overlooking their organic garden project….when I found bags of the most delicious fresh looking lettuce I have ever seen (in Thailand)! I was so excited to see mixed greens like that, so I bought two bags and quickly biked back to Sawankhalok. ITS SALAD TIME!! (I am definitely my mother’s daughter in my father’s country)

I headed straight to my favorite market at the temple on the outskirts of Sawankhalok to gather some ingredients to make this salad possible. The grocery store in town sells the worst tasting salad dressing (as in sugar water), so if I wanted a satisfying salad, I would have to make it from scratch. A full basket of ingredients later, I headed home while the sun set over the Yom River <3

The recipe to happiness:

• Organic lettuce from Sukhothai airport’s organic garden
• Onion, lime, garlic, cucumber and mint from Sawankhalok’s local market, grown harvested and sold by local people (chili peppers optional. Apparently I’m not that Thai yet, because I bought the chili peppers but didn’t include them in my salad)
• Mangoes from Kirk and Bryan’s front yard
• Sawankhalok-made honey, sold at the Saturday day market.

And the rest is simple really…because it’s a salad. I minced the garlic, onion and ginger (by hand, because my crappy food processor/blender doesn’t actually food process), cut up the cucumbers, and the mango into little cubes, put the cucumbers and mango over the bed of lettuce, sprinkled the garlic onion and ginger over that, followed by bits of mint, squeezed a little lime, then poured a teaspoon of honey over it and BAM! Tropical Salad Heaven.

The coolest thing about this maybe-not-so-exciting adventure is that it all cost me about 110 bhat, less than four dollars, including the two bags of organic lettuce. And it’s enough for at least three days of salad.

….Now, if only I had a quality glass of red wine, I could stay in Thailand forever.

And the craziness ensues

(June 2012)

It’s amazing the difference having one semester under your belt makes. I almost feel like a legitimate teacher! I felt it as soon as I walked into these classes this semester. Even though I am teaching my M3 goofballs that couldn’t sit still in my one hour a week class, for some reason the transition into M4 turned them into adults (how, I have no idea) and my two classes with them a week is a dream. An absolute dream. They do EVERYTHING I ask them to, and do it beautifully. Who knew Thai kids knew how to follow my instructions? This was news to me. And it is so awesome to walk into a class and know all their faces. I love love love M4.

Made by Bent, an M4 student. Kru Korin= teacher Korin
 and "mali" is my nickname, means jasmine

Now I’m also teaching the new batch of M3’s, Steven’s old M2 students. A lot of them failed his class, so I have painstakingly been retesting them for the past month so they can study in M3 (Thailand’s stupid rule that if you get a zero, you can retest and retest and retest until you pass, even if you don’t deserve to. Even if the teacher says you can’t pass, they can go to the office and they’ll pass you just for showing up for the retest). Though this terrible process of retesting 72 of Steven’s failed students made the first few weeks of the semester hell and I made two students cry, it has had its perks. First, I have a heads up for the students that can’t speak English. But also, they were terrified of Steven, and not scared of me, so they automatically love me. BAM! All the bad kids are on my side already. Thank you Steven! Som and Too, two of Steven’s worst kids, are my best friends now. And the ones that I made cry, are now taking special classes with me on the weekends.

TOO <3

SOM <3

This semester is incredibly different from the rest. The students are serious this semester (so far…) because it is the start of the new year. There are also way less holidays now. Only two so far. The first holiday was a Buddhist holiday to celebrate the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha 2500 years ago. The Friday before the holiday, the monks from my favorite temple came and we spent the morning giving them non-perishable food (rice, milk that magically doesn't go bad because its in a juice box, and ramen noodles)

and meditating. This was only supposed to take up the first period, but of course Sawananan has so many freakin students that this took ALL morning.

Just giving them food took two hours, then meditation for a half hour or so, then walking around the Buddha statue three times. By then, I only had one class left to teach that day, but they didn’t come because they were planting trees in front of school. I don’t know if that was legitimate or not. Knowing these students (my only M5 class, and the most difficult class to teach- these kids stopped caring about English a long time ago), they were watching their friends plant trees so they wouldn’t have to learn English =P

The actual holiday, Visaka Bucha Day, was on a Monday. On Sunday, I went with BaNee (the woman who sells rice porridge) and her friends to a temple in Thung Salium, the neighboring district, to pray and do Buddhist things. This was actually the strangest non-Thai gathering I’ve ever seen. First, everyone was dressed in white. That never happens! Thai’s love their colors. And it was also very organized. Also not Thai. Everyone seemed to know what to do…I suppose if I understood Thai, the unanimous actions would make more sense. Instead I just followed BaNee around to receive holy water from the monks, follow the crowd to the table of holy food that had been given as an offering to Buddha, and picked up the hot silver and gold that hardened into cool droopy shapes in the grass.

Very very strange succession of events. But it was followed by a delicious feast of kanom jin, masaman curry, pad Thai and coconut ice cream. Sooo much food. After the feast, we paid a visit to Ahjan Lampun, a very famous monk in the region. He was so adorable and so old. He wanted me to sit close to him so I could tell him where I was from, which made me so nervous because women can’t touch monks ever and it gives me constant anxiety whenever I’m near a monk that he might accidentally bump into me or something.
Don’t worry- no accidents yet, and I successfully told Ahjan Lampun what he wanted to know. After our fortunate visit with Ahjan Lampun, we were minding our own business, collecting little rocks that are unique to the region that make beautiful jewelry and are, I’m sure, holy, when Ahjan Lampun came outside to have the monks cut his hair. This apparently was very exciting, so we stopped collecting little stones to ask to receive some of his hair. We sat cross legged in a wai for a half hour while they cut his hair, so we could receive his cut hair. I don’t know what will happen with that hair, but BaNee said she is making something for me with it. Very exciting. Haha

My favorite monk from Wat Sawankaram
came to bless the students on Wai Kru

So that was Visaka Bucha day…like many Thai holidays, a blur of confusion and excitement with very little certainty about the meaning. The other holiday this month has been a lot more clear- “Wai Kru” day- is another teacher holiday. I got the meaning of this holiday- respect your teachers, darn it! America- and maybe every country in the world, you guys should probably get in on this. Wai Kru is the coolest, most joyous holiday I’ve ever heard of. On Wai Kru, every student brings a bouquet of flowers to give to the teachers. They hold an assembly in the morning, with prolonged prayers, a visit from the monks, and some words of thanks from the students to the teachers. Then, awesomeness ensues. All of the students are in rows in the entire gymnasium, separated with the boys on the left and girls on the right. Line by line, they scooch forward to sit in front of the line of teachers that are sitting in chairs, they bow their heads to the floor while the teachers pat their backs or heads and give them blessings, then they hand the teacher their bouquet of flowers, bow down again, and exit, allowing the next line of students forward. And again, since Sawananan has so many freaking students, this took hooourrssss. For the girls I knew (I was sitting on the girls' side), I smiled wide and told them I love them, or work hard, or good luck in English. For the ones I didn’t know, I didn’t really know what I was supposed to say, so I took pictures of them bowing down instead, haha.


And like any good holiday, no class for the rest of the day, as well as the day before: The day before because they had to prepare for Wai Kru day, and the rest of Wai Kru day because the students had meetings to prepare for the next holiday…sports week. That will be next blog post ;)

In between the holidays, I have been doing a lot of exploring of Sukhothai with the newly formed “F Team”. F Team totally rocks. The first weekend of school, we headed to Sri Satchanalai National Park. Kirk bought a motorbike, so now I can be accommodated on all the adventures since I can ride on the back of his motorbike. Tara also came back to visit cause she missed Thailand so much, so the four of us: Tara, Be, Kirk and I, went to the nearby rainforest. Yep. I live 30 km away from a rainforest. Did you know that? I didn’t until we went to the National Park. We rented a cute little cabin for two nights and had a hell of an adventure. The park isn’t very big, but has several trails to different waterfalls. We got there on Friday night and rented an adorable little cabin, which only had two twin beds, but has enough floor space for a full party. We had packed our dinner for the night: pork and sticky rice, dried fruit, and peanuts. On Saturday morning we woke up early, had a feast of a breakfast at the only restaurant for miles, and went on our day long adventure. The area around the cabin is very sculpted, with cut grass and a babbling brook. As soon as you cross the bridge, you enter the rainforest. The trail to the best waterfall was only 6 kilometers, but mostly uphill. And we hiked it in flip flops! Kirk loves insects and animals more than I do, which made the hike a lot longer because he kept stopping, but was awesome because he knows a lot about them (he used to work in a pet shop). So when he pointed out this really cool worm, I of course got really excited. It moved like an incredibly fast and efficient inch worm. It inched so fast! I was totally impressed. Well, only a few minutes later we realized why it was so fast and efficient. It wasn’t a worm…it was a leech. And they were all over the place!!! Those little suckers were really good at being leeches too, there were leeches on our feet for the rest of the hike.

But it was totally worth it!!! Killer centipede, river wading, constant leech attacks and three hours later, we FINALLY reached the top of the trail!!

The trail led us to a beautiful view of the cascading waterfall, but we didn’t want the view. We wanted to SWIM! So we climbed down to the bottom of the waterfall and tiptoed into the freezing water. We had to move through the water at a snail’s pace because the bottom of the pool was rocky and hazardous, but wonderfully refreshing.

After our swim, we laid out a mat and ate our lunch: fried rice and rambutan. As we were sunbathing before our hike back, we saw a huge family, 10-15 people, come running down the path to the pool. They flooded the waterfall, jumping all over the rocks, climbing to stand underneath the waterfall, then climbing higher to jump into the shallow water. I held my breath the whole time, expecting one of them to get seriously hurt. Here we were in our bathing suits, walking cautiously into the water, then this Thai family comes in their jeans and t-shirts, and dive right in, completely unphased by the sharp rocks. Silly farang. At least we hiked in flip flops.

Rain drops started to fall, so we quickly packed up and started to head back. And I’ll tell you, there is absolutely nothing cooler than hiking through a rainforest in the rain. It started to pour at one point, as we were wading through a river underneath the tree canopies. It made our trek back very quick! Though the Thai family quickly outpaced us, running past us, some ditching the hassle of wearing shoes, and leaving their flip flops behind. As we were reaching the end of the trail, the rain started to let up…and then I saw a sign for a cave!! Since we made it back in record timing, I begged to hike to the cave. The sign said only 2km, and we had enough time before it would get to dark. The hike was a lot easier that the hike up the mountain..because it was totally flat. Which was weird- we were walking through completely flat land- how was there going to be a cave if there were no mountains? We reached a sign that said 500 m to the cave, and then the path went straight up. Out of nowhere, there was a mountain to climb (I had to give up on the flip flops and change to sneakers because it was so muddy that my flip flops were just sliding right off). We climbed that thing for a long time. There was no way it was 500 m, and I thought we must have passed it except for the signs pointing to go straight for the cave.  After mud climbing at an almost vertical angle, we could finally see the cave. Ive been to a bunch of caves in Thailand, and the one in Malaysia before, so I was expecting a cave you could walk into. This cave was nothing like that. When you get up to the entrance of the cave, it is a sheer drop down into a cavern. It was HUGE! I think you potentially could climb down into the cave, but I was way too scared to. Who knows what lives in there?! Not to say that the past caves I’ve been to have not been real, but that was the realist cave I’ve ever seen.

We climbed back down the mud mountain and headed back to our cute little cabin as it was getting dark, taking a pit stop in the river to get just clean enough to get dinner. We headed to the only restaurant... our only hope for dinner that night. She had already closed her noodle stand, and hated us for inquiring, but eventually hooked us up with the most delicious bowl of pork noodle soup. Though she pretended to hate us, I think she secretly must have loved us because we gave her so much business. You would think being the only shop in town, she would have good business- but everything on her shelf was dusty. Even the whisky! That doesn’t happen in Thailand- everyone drinks whisky. Every night.

I can’t believe that it had taken me this long to get to the Sri Satchanalai National Park, but even more crazy that I hadn’t been to the Sri Satchanalai Historial Park, Sukthothia National Park’s little sister. So the next weekend, I was glad to make Kirk go on an advenyrue to the Historical Park, so I could accompany him there. I had been there once with Kaiau and her mother, but I hardly count that as a trip to the historical park, because it was “too hot” that day to go out and explore the park, so we did sightseeing from the car. Love Kaiau, and miss her terribly. But it was nice to go to the park with a farang. So the two of us packed a picnic, and headed to the park, a mere 13 km away from our home in Sawnakhalok. Totally pathetic that I hadn't been there on my own before. We rode around the outskirts of the park, in pure disbelief that this magical park was so close to our home. We went to the entrance of the park, ready to pay the 100 bhat entrance fee. The thing about tourist atttactions in Thailand is that farang always have to pay more than Thai people. It has never bothered me- I think farang should have to pay more. Thai people should totally get a discount for seeing things in their own country, but a lot of farang complain about this. Sometimes I try to tell the security guards that I’m half Thai, so I should only pay half price, but it never works, and in the end I will never really notice when I’ve paid 20 bhat or 100 bhat to see something so much more amazing than what 100 bhat it worth. So I’ve given up on the argument. So I hopped off Kirk’s mororbike to pay the entrance fee for us, and literally said nothing to the woman expect for “khop kun ka” (thank you) when she exaclaimed, oh your Thai is so good! Why can you speak Thai?!” So I told her I'm an English teacher at Sawananan, yada yada yada and as she is telling me her niece is a student in M3 (meaning that she is actually one of my students because I teach all of M3) she opens her drawer and starts handing me 80 bhat for me and 80 bhat for Kirk, saying that we are teachers and live in Thailand, so we pay Thai price. Wow! Being half Thai doesn't ever get me a discount, but being a teacher at Sawananan, sure does do the trick! Just call me P’Sonya. So we got in for the Thai price- 20 bhat, less than a dollar, to see the coolest park in all of Thailand.

The park is smaller than Sukhothai’s historical park, which makes it even more chill. With hardly another person in sight all day, it felt like we virtually had the park all to ourselves…well we had to share it with the millions of birds that have made the ruins their home. We started with the tallest hill to play on the tallest chedi that used to over look the old city of Sri Satchanalai. As we were climbing up the hill, it sounded like we had entered an aviary. We could barely hear each other because all we could hear were birds. I guess we entered their nesting grounds because there was nests in every tree we could hear, and bird poop galore! As we entered the clearing where the ruins of the chedi is, the sounds from the birds fell into the background. Except for one little bird. This little guy must have lost his mother- he was the most awkward looking bird- standing straight up like a penguin but had a bit of an ostrich roundish shape, and sounded like a duck gurgling water. He was so freakin cute. I named him Edmund. He wasn’t scared of us, or scared of being on his own, so he kind of just hung out by the chedi on his own, making awkward squawking noises, and keeping us company while we explored the temple.

EDMUND! 

After climbing halfway up the chedi, and seeing the park from the birds-eye-view, we searched for a place to eat lunch. We had packed some sticky rice for an easy meal, and scoped out a good picnic spot. We wandered through the park until we found a chedi hidden behind some trees in a hill. We plopped down in the knee-high grass and enjoyed our pork and sticky rice, while listening to the most awkward Donald Duck sounding birds. So pleasant. I think I want to rename this park- it’s not Sri Satchanalai Historical Park, it’s Sri Satchanalai Bird Zoo. As we were heading back to the other side of the park, we had to come to a hault at the top of the hill, because Edmund was hanging out in the middle of the road. There was a van coming from the other direction that had stopped, waiting for Edmund to get out of the way. Kirk and I screamed “Edmund” and burst out laughing when his goofy little headed popped up in our direction. I got off Kirk’s bike and moved him out of the way so the van could pass. It took all of my self control not to take Edmund back to Sawankhalok with us. He would have been the coolest pet!

We didn't explore the rest of the temples, telling ourselves that we will just have to come back to the park multiple times throughout the rest of the semester. So we spent the rest of the afternoon in Sri Satchanalai, checking out the coffee shops and markets in our neighboring town, and purchased the most stand-out farang hats that I love but will probably never wear. 

I like Sri Satchanali. It's a cute little town, but there are no restaurants! We biked around for I think an hour, looking for somewhere to eat dinner. There were some really scary looking clouds moving quickly in our direction, so we quickened our pace of finding a spot for dinner so we could find some cover from the rain. In our third loop around the town, we finally stopped at a noodle stand on the sidewalk as the rain started to fall. We took cover as we watched the massive storm roll through, and slurped our pork noodle soup. It was a very delicious bowl of soup, but I like the food scene in Sawankhalok better. As cool as Sri Satch is, I am definitely happy that I live in Sawankhalok and not Sri Satchanalai.