A Special Sunday

As I write this, it's Sunday in Thailand. A typical Sunday it'd be, most any other day, except today marks the beginning of the end of my teaching contract in Thailand, for I have one week left. Friends back at home have been asking me how I'm doing, and I'll answer honestly: I feel weird. I feel funky.

I haven't kept up with my blog as much as I'd have liked, mainly because I had, and still have, so many feelings, observations, and reflections to express. These emotions are so enormous that rather than tackle them head-on and journal about them, I've run away from them to avoid confronting my impending departure.

It sounds like I'm about to break up with someone.

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Now, in the early hours on this Sunday, I will write candidly.

On leaving the classrooms: I feel glad for not having to face the deafening, wildly uncontrollable classes in the future. Though the students were often rowdy because my class was an intermission from having to sit for long school hours under the reign of strict Thai teachers, that is no justification for pretending to enjoy it. In the beginning, I used to be hard on myself and attribute their unwillingness to learn on my boringness as a teacher, but after speaking to many teachers, that surely is not the case. Really, these students sit for hours and many Thai teachers are like dictators in the classroom. For me to waltz in with games to play, a sing-song voice, and a huge smile is like adding rays of sunshine and a bowl of sugar-coated Frosted Flakes to their day. Nonetheless, my ears and voice will be most grateful upon my exit. Last Friday, for example, I just stared in stumped silence at my 2nd grade class, as one boy sat in the corner by his lonesome, playing the harmonica; as three pugnacious boys and a girl were chasing and wrestling with each other in the back of the class with realistic toy guns; as two girls argued and consequently cried; as three (adorable) girls choreographed a dance near the whiteboard; as the "big girl" in the class gave piggy back rides to the boys; as the other students colored; and as students asked me if they could go to the toilet every other minute or so. Only a few, albeit an eager few, wanted to learn about animals with me. I actually ended up laughing about it...what a wild scene!

On leaving my students: But though I worked in a circus, I will miss my students so very much. So very much so that my heart aches right now just thinking about them. When I first started teaching, I was overwhelmed by the large classes: a sea of uniforms, black hair, tan skin, eager eyes, and smiles. I'm Asian myself and had major problems memorizing their faces. But personalities emerged, my favorites were picked, my attachment grew. I feel like a parent who has raised an adoptive child and has to give him/her up: I wonder what my students will look like when they're older, what they will do, if they will still be the good children they are, if they will remember me.

Many of my students have expressed that they don't want me to leave. It's pretty cute in their broken English:

"Teacher, no go."
"Teacher. America, no."
"Teacherrrrrrrrrrr! *Clinging hug, pleading eyes*"
"Teacher, you, Amnuayvidhya School, 2011. No 2010."
"Teacher, I sad. You go America, oh no!"

To which I respond: "I know. Teacher sad." Perhaps I will be a weeping mess on Friday, who knows.

On leaving my friends: It's impossible not to form a special bond with people you've relied on for support, friendship, advice, and comradeship in a foreign country. Linnea and I will forever have a very special relationship because of all the adventures we've been on together. We were just two strangers brought together by fate, but now we have Thailand (and all its mis/adventures), and soon-to-be Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam to share, between the memories, laughs, and shocks. She and I , along with my other Bangkok friends, Jenny and Jo, would always meet up in the city to catch up over a classy Sizzler salad bar dinner (go wild). We met tonight on Khao San, and it hit me how much I will miss the regularity of these outings. It will be surreal for me to settle back at home and see their pictures halfway across the world, knowing that I was there merely weeks, months ago. I sincerely will miss them, as well as my other CIEE friends. It's never been more clear to me than now that people are truly, strategically placed in our lives for a reason. With each path I've crossed, I take a little bit of that person with me and weave him/her into my own life. If meeting these people were all I got from CIEE, then paying that program fee would have been worth it.

On leaving this environment: Hallelujah. I can't stand this pollution anymore. I also think I will go through reverse culture shock when I go home to America and see clean streets devoid of stray dogs and their living/non-living counterparts & offsets (elaboration not needed). I can't wait!

On lessons learned: So many that I will devote a post to it. But an overarching lesson would be that many things in life do not go as planned, and yet you will seriously be okay. I knew this before Thailand but truly experienced it here in the littlest mishaps that can be applied to life in general. Buses will run late; taxi drivers will rip you off; you will wander and get lost; heck, you might not be able to communicate; but make a few U-turns, wait patiently, communicate with conviction and honesty, and keep your cool, for life is still good amidst the petty problems.

Because at the end of this, I know I am fortunate to be here and experience the ups and downs of this Thai life. As Jo reminded me the other day, when thinking about the downs of our lives in Thailand, think instead about this: Haiti. Enough said.

I am very, very blessed.

The Curious Case of the Never-Ending-Childhood

When Peter Pan flew off to Neverland so he could indefinitely avoid adulthood, he might as well have escaped to Thailand. I say this based on my observations of Thai adults, whose ratios of the westernized ideology of age-to-maturity are quite disproportional. And to be quite honest, I have pondered this “curious case of the never-ending-childhood” with the most earnest intentions because I find this quality of the Thai adults with whom I've interacted to be endearing – and, I'll admit it, often amusing.

Per this mock case study, I've recounted the the following evidential circumstance, a real-life experience that is one of many that I frequently meet with a bewilderment.

Teacher's Day, a few weekends ago. Linnea and I unknowingly forfeited our entire Saturday to (her) playing in a teacher volleyball tourney and (me) sitting in the shade, watching both the tourney and a troupe of Thai teachers pound on drums and dance around in cowboy costumes as “cheerleaders.”

We arrived at 10:30am after our school's van drove us, along with five other Thai teachers, to our destination. I'd like to note that though the drive was a mere 35 minutes, K-Pop karaoke was turned all the way up and the Thai teachers were bouncing around the van, singing and laughing like banshees, and inviting us to join in the fun that they apparently don't seem to get much of during the week. And I mean that – these teachers seem SO serious at school in their uniforms, with their rulers in their hands, and their deep, disciplinarian voices. And their hair in buns, obvi. Seeing them act like tweeny boppers at a Jonas Brothers concert was like watching some twisted rendition of “Girls Gone Wild – the PG/Thai Teacher Version.” I sat in the back but was unsure whether I should be more overwhelmed by the volume of the music or that of the high-pitched teachers' voices...

The day was how you'd imagine a volleyball tournament to be. It wrapped up at 5pm when our school lost to another team (second place, not too shabby!). Then, we were informed that the banquet (“What banquet?!”) would begin in an hour. From 6pm-10:30pm, we sat amidst a sea of linen-covered-tables in the courtyard of a Christian-Thai school, surrounded by Thai teachers who promptly whipped out their Spy wine coolers, beers, and, of course, Thai whisky – the effects of which were horrendously obvious a few hours later. For example, one Thai male teacher was so drunk that he stumbled over to Linnea and wouldn't stop staring at her/whiteness, or commenting on how she is farang, or asking her to dance, or continually and almost-violently offering her a lone peanut that he had been clutching in his sweaty palm. Gross. I was starting to get squeamish with his obnoxious behavior, but I couldn't really show it because all the other Thai teachers laughed at his childish antics with such genuine heart – not like the awkward chuckles that we were giving him.

Sigh. And then one of the teachers at our school, who is the mother of a 6^th grader, proceeded to dance atop her chair for a good half of the song that some other teacher was karaoke-ing (of course) on stage. I wish my internet was better so I could upload the video I took of her, but imagine, in a banquet arena consisting of probably 200 people, a single teacher teetering on top of her chair, wildly pumping her fists in the air, head banging and thrashing her black hair around, and drunkenly slurring a song quite loudly, all the while spitting on me (because I of course got to sit right next to her...er, under her). I was a little taken aback. Why? Well, NO AMERICAN TEACHER WOULD EVER DO THAT. Not in a million years. S/he would be the first on the PTSA Blacklist, or something like that. It was so bizarre.

Oh, there were some other moments of immaturity (by Western standards). Like when L and I ate three bowls of this noodle dish, which was one of ten courses that was actually not spicy and pretty tasty, and one of the teachers looked me very seriously in the eyes and told me to “Sah-top eating. Sah-top eating.” No smile. No hint of it being a joke. Just judgement, seething across the table. Stop eating. I was told to stop eating. Ummmmmm..no. I quite enjoyed my food, so with a seemingly oblivious smile and a hearty laugh, I indeed continued on with my culinary escapade.

We played some form of musical chairs at the front of the stage, and I was convinced that these Thai adults are really just Thai children trapped in older bodies. These are games I play in my classrooms! Meanwhile, I was also wondering how on earth all of these teachers had been celebrating themselves for 12 hours. 10:30am until 10:30pm. We were just perplexed as to whether they had such things as, oh, family, or commitments back at home. I can't imagine any American person I know giving up a full day (never mind that this day was on a weekend!) to celebrate his/her profession.

So the day was long but amusing. I plopped down on my bed with my ears still ringing – you guessed it, karaoke on full-blast on the van ride home.

Prior to this experience, I had noted this culture of cuteness that Thais of all ages seem to emit, like the group of Thai women (Always in groups, by the way. They don't like doing anything by themselves.) who sat on our boat to Koh Samet the other weekend with their cowboy hats on, sucking on lollipops. I believe they were Chuppa Chubs – they're sold everywhere. I haven't had a Chuppa Chub since 5^th grade (although admittedly I bought one at 7-11 the other day; perhaps I was trying to assimilate into the culture more haha)!

I suppose in Thailand, the aphorism “Youth is wasted on the young” doesn't hold true. The adults here, mainly the women whom I've observed, giggle and laugh as if they were teenagers, smile a lot, go shopping in groups, and, at the minimum, simply LOOK young. It's incredible how youthful these women look; on multiple occasions, I've mistaken mothers for teenagers (they are stick thin!)! Anyway, this perpetual state of juvenescence, I've determined, can be attributed to either their Buddhist beliefs of acceptance, which yield tolerance of such behavior, and/or the Thai attitude of “Mai Pen Rai,” which means “don't worry about it” or “hakuna matata.” Either way, being in this kind of environment has been a 180 shift from serious, career-driven Americans back at home. It's a whole new world. We could learn a thing or two...on second thought, maybe just a thing.

Stay tuned for Thai love stories. It's a hoot.