Pretty Pretty Thai Princess

The Loi Krathong festival was this week and it was one of the most fun days I’ve experienced here yet!  The (extremely) short explanation of Loi Krathong is that it is a day to pay respects to the water gods through the making of krathongs (miniature floats that you put onto the water) which always falls on a full moon night.  The impression I’ve gotten so far is that Thai festivals are kind of like American holidays on steroids.  Everyone really gets into it by dressing up in Thai traditional dress, showing a significant amount of patriotism and enthusiasm and setting off enough fireworks to make the average Fourth of July celebration look quite boring to be frank.  Somehow I was volunteered to dress up as what my co-workers kept calling a “Thai princess.” I’m not really sure why or how the name “princess” came into play as it was actually just traditional Thai women’s clothing (without a crown unfortunately!)  But when asked to dress up in beautiful clothing and avoid all morning classes, I didn’t hesitate for a second.  For years I’ve been dying to wear an Indian sari and although it was Thai instead of Indian, it was a very similar look.  I just so happen to be the height and size of the average Thai woman which is one of the many reasons that my coworker and I joke that I may have some Thai genes in me (doubtful…actually very doubtful in reality but fun to joke about!)

There are a few other reasons why we joke about this.  First off, I have very fair skin.  I love the girly, cutesy style that girls and women here wear (basically a lot of frilly, lacey, floral prints, bows and the color pink) which other Westerners often don’t.  I get cold easily and Thais always seem to be cold.  They wear long sleeves when it’s 90 degrees outside.  Kids actually wear puffy snow jackets to school when it’s below 80 degrees and I have students telling me they’re cold in class while I’m sweating all over!  My favorite color is pink which happens to be the “King’s color” so people wear it all the time to honor him.  I love spicy food and constantly have Thai people asking me “you can eat that??” in shock because they think most farangs can’t handle spice.  And the biggest indication that I might be a little Thai is that I eat ALL the time and I’m hungry every few hours which as I’ve observed is a very Thai thing.  Many of them eat for days and yet they’re still tiny and petite.  Oh genetics!  But I digress…

So I came to school with no makeup on and my hair wet; ready for my make over. Before I knew it, I was undressing in front of the Thai teachers in the corner of the television station room and being pinned and wrapped like a Christmas present (while trying to avoid being naked on the cameras which broadcast to all the televisions in the school!)  I didn’t feel quite like a princess, especially because due to scheduling conflicts, I ended up having to rush to do my own makeup and hair.  However, I did enjoy the whole event and I was told “teacha so beautifur” many many times from the teachers, students and parents.  I must have said “thank you” or “kop khun kha” a hundred times or more!  They were all delighted that I dressed up and I had many of them asking to take pictures with me which was definitely fun.  We then walked in a parade down to Kwan Phayao (the lake) so the students could do the Loi Krathong ceremony. 
One thing I realized that day is that I’m slightly glad I was never the supermodel type.  I know many young girls, including me, spent years fantasizing about being a princess, model or celebrity.  While I don’t know any women who don’t like to be told that they’re beautiful, it is somewhat exhausting being stared at and complimented so many times in one day!  Oh, I know what you’re thinking “Boo hoo! What horrible problems!”  But on a serious note, I’m not the type who likes that much attention on me and it did make me appreciative of the days when I have more privacy and notoriety.  

I ended up teaching the rest of the day in my outfit which so happened to tickle my students pink!  At the end of the day, I set down my imaginary crown and returned to the realization that I am not a princess (I’ll leave that to the Kate Middleton’s of the world!).  I am simply an English teacher in Thailand and for now, I am content with that.  Overall, it was a great experience and it was one that I definitely won’t forget.

       

Some of my students during the Loi Krathong ceremony. 

The real "Thai princesses" getting ready for the annual beauty contest.

All dressed up!

Women who grew up in the '90s in America will remember this!

"Wherever you go, there you..." Well, you know the rest!

People always glamorize traveling.  I know this because I do it, all the time for that matter.  When I hear about people’s traveling adventures or see their pictures, I have to admit that I get jealous and think “Wow, I wish I had their life!”  I’m one who always seems to believe the delusion that traveling is going to dramatically change me, as if I’ll be a completely different person when I travel.  Problems will melt away and excitement and happiness will take over every minute of my new amazing life!  I know from experience that this is not really true and yet I know I still convince myself that this is the case every time I travel.   

There is a dark side to travel.  There are moments when the cultural differences are so vast that you wonder if you’re on another planet instead of another country.  There are times when lugging your heavy luggage around to another destination makes you want to throw it all in the trash can and adopt a minimalist lifestyle.  There are times that food sickness is so bad that you want to curl up in a ball and forget this whole “seizing the world” thing.  And there are definitely moments of deep loneliness that make the comforts of home sound like nothing short of heaven.  

That being said, I think traveling is one of the most amazing things you can do with your money and free time.  I highly recommend it to everyone and anyone who is at all curious how others live and anyone who desires to see the beauty that is all over this amazing world we live in.  Traveling teaches you things that you cannot learn in a classroom.  You learn many life lessons while getting to know yourself more because you’re often put in new and sometimes stressful and uncomfortable situations.  Observing and experiencing other cultures helps you to have more of an open mind, it allows you new perspectives, a new way of looking at everything from the toilet to food to spirituality.  

The reality though, for me at least, is that the famous saying rings true “wherever you go, there you are.”  Does traveling expand you and help you grow?  Absolutely.  Does traveling open your mind and give you new perspectives about this crazy beautiful life?  Without a doubt.  However, I think many people lie to themselves and play the “I’ll be happy when…” game.  I’ll be happy when I travel or move away, I’ll be happy when I finally get my dream job, all my problems will be solved if I can just lose those ten pounds, get plastic surgery, fall in love, blah blah blah.  Just fill in the blank. 

The truth is that we can choose to be in a state of joy and grateful no matter what the circumstances are in our lives.  I am of the belief that life is like a blank canvas and we can choose to paint it (or not) any way we like.  Traveling is simply another canvas.  What I’m trying to say is that you bring to traveling, as well as anything else in life, one very important ingredient: YOU!  That means you bring your wonderful and your not so wonderful sides.  When you board that plane, you pack not only your socks and undies, but also your personality, preferences, pet peeves, beliefs, your “story”, fears, dreams and love –they all go with you.  The idea that you will finally be happy or have a new life when _____________ is basically a load of crap.    

I will leave it to the amazing travel writer Anthony Bourdain to sum it up: “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you- it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you… Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”

  

Newsflash: Teaching is HARD!

 

Before coming to Thailand, I worked for the last year as a residential counselor working with teenage girls in the foster care system.  Needless to say it was an insane job and by the time a year rolled around, I knew I was ready to leave that field for good.  Being a little naive, I signed up to teach English in Thailand thinking it would be a cakewalk compared to my last job.  In some ways it is as I’m not being verbally assaulted or physically threatened but it is SO much more difficult and stressful than I expected.  I teach 22 classes weekly which are made up of all the 8 classes for Prathom 1 and then 7 each for Prathom 2 and 3 (aka 1^st,2^nd and 3^rd grade.  I have each class for one hour each and usually back to back.

What I’ve learned so far about teaching is that it is EXHAUSTING!  It takes a ridiculous amount of energy (or coffee in my case) to get through a single day of it.  Teaching is hard work and to be good at it, it takes dedication, enthusiasm and preparation.  It’s similar to being an actor having to do the same live show over and over, giving your all as if every audience is the first.  Most of the time, I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle.  I think especially with my Prathom 1 classes, I’m going in with a defeated mentality because it’s just tough to keep them engaged for that long.  I try to make the lessons fun by including a song (imagine me belting out “I like to eat eat eat apples and bananas” acapella while they all stare at me or worse- ignore me!), some funny pictures for the vocab words and games.  But it still gets crazy and I have very little control in my 1^st grade classes, to the point where I now have Thai teachers and interns helping me in all of my Prathom 1 classes…needless to say it’s going a lot smoother now. 

I’ve had a teaching epiphany.  I realized that I have such trouble with my Prathom 1 classes because they’re too damn cute!  I can walk into Prathom 2 and 3 and be the scary teacher when I need to be.  I yell, I tear up papers, I move kids and make them sit next to me, I take toys and rulers away, I give them the glaring “teacher look” and I scold them which is frankly why those classes go smoother.  For some reason, Prathom 1 is my teaching kryptonite.  I walk in there and they look at me with those big brown eyes and smile with their toothless grins and I just melt.  I’m a complete sucker for them and they know it!  The ironic thing is you need to be more firm and strict with the young ones to keep them on track and to keep any sense of control in those classrooms.  I’ve learned already the hard way, once you lose the control it is very hard to get it back.      

I was one of those that believed the stereotype that Asian students treat school with the utmost seriousness particularly compared to their Western counterparts.  I pictured little angels sitting upright in their chairs with their hands folded neatly on their desks, sitting quietly and ready to learn.  It has pretty much been anything but that!  I also think I was disillusioned just as many of the expat teachers are, to think that teaching was a side note to traveling around.  That’s really not the case...at all.    

Despite the difficulties, there have been awesome teaching moments where I feel that the majority of the class was engaged and learned something new and that is one of the best feelings in the world!  I can see why teachers who are good with classroom management freaking love their jobs. 

There have also already been so many comical experiences with my students inside and outside the classroom.  Most of the hilarious moments are because THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND ME!  I try to make it very simple and speak slowly but at times it goes right over their heads.  For example, the other day I went over the body parts with my first graders.  I had slides and then they all had to takes notes as I talked and pointed to different things like “eye” and “nose” and so forth.  After almost an hour of this, I get back kid’s papers with noses labeled as necks and fingers as mouths!  You just have to laugh.

If you don’t have a good sense of humor, don’t move to another country and especially don’t teach in one.  There are so many moments where I just crack up because there’s literally nothing else to do.  After weeks of classes, one of the only names I remember is one of my 6 year old’s whose nickname is Beer.  I mean, how could you forget Beer?  Especially because he’s a first grader.  I’m pretty curious how he got that nickname to begin with as the parents traditionally give out the nicknames.   

I’m fortunate enough to have amazing and welcoming Thai teachers throughout the school and specifically in my English department which make the hard days easier to handle.  They are amazing and wonderful women and I’m excited to spend time with them and get to know them better.  Oh and did I mention that I get free delicious Thai lunches at school everyday?  That helps too.    

Favorite moments with my students thus far:

1)      Having my kids touch my belly and ask if I’m pregnant…the answer is an absolute no!

2)      Every class standing to say “good morning teacha” and sounding like 40+ synchronized robots.

3)      Asking a question and getting 40 blank stares back (this happens every single day).

4)      Attempting to draw on the board and the hysterical laughs that come as a result…including from me (see below).  I didn’t know that to be a foreign language teacher you should be a decent artist which as you can see, I’m definitely not.

5)      Singing “head, shoulders, knees and toes” with Prathom 1.  They’re so cute and they were giggling like crazy!

6)      Having a 6 year old tell me in Thai that she got poop on the floor while I was in the bathroom.  EWW!

7)      Explaining and demonstrating Pictionary multiple times and kids still blurting out what they were drawing.  They definitely didn’t understand my directions…despite the repeated explanations and demos.

8)      Being so mad at a 3^rd grade class that I took a girl’s plastic ruler (who was actually being quiet OOPS!) and smashed it on the desk of a loud obnoxious kid.  Needless to say, I got their attention.

9)      Being on the phone outside and being encircled by a group of third graders who were just staring at me and touching me.  So funny!

10)   A kid yelling “Toilet! Toilet! Toilet!” as I walked into the restroom, just to show he knew an English word I think. 

11)   The naughtiest kids raising hell all through class and then coming to me with their timid voices and hands in prayer pose saying “may I go out please?”  That’s how they ask to go to the restroom.  It always annoys me…and makes me laugh at the same time.

Yeah, I wasn't kidding.  This was my attempt to draw the body!!! I had to take a picture!  It looks like an alien or just like a 2 year old drew it :)

Some of my Prathom 1 Kids.  They're a crazy bunch.  Did you notice my one foreign student?

Welcome to your new life.

I’ve been reflecting a lot this week and I realized that being here feels like I’m assuming a completely different identity.  I mean, yes of course I am the same person with a lot of the same beliefs, thoughts, feelings, etc. but in many other ways I feel brand new.  It’s almost like I’m an actor in a movie.  It honestly doesn’t feel real.  I now live in northern Thailand and I’m a teacher for a living.  Me?  Someone with no teaching experience and not that much traveling experience for that matter is now a teacher…in Thailand!  You may think “well duh” but honestly at times it still shocks me that I’m actually living and working in a foreign country.  I think and pay in Baht and I eat food spicy enough to melt glaciers.  I shop at the Thai versions of Walmart, aka Big C and Tesco Lotus.  I stop in my tracks to observe the King’s song at school twice a day (and before movies at the theater) and I hear Thai spoken around me more than English.  I see beautiful lanterns in the sky all night every night that people light for I assume although not sure: good luck, pay their respects to Buddha, as a wish or prayer.  I wai (the Thai bow and greeting) teachers and people in town probably hundreds of times a week while using one of the only phrases I know “sawadee ka”.  Daily stops to 7-11 and eating soup every single day when it’s 80 degrees outside are my new normal. 

I haven’t been homesick much at all and I think the reason for that is that I’m just using my energy to adjust to my new life.  I’m trying to find my new normal and my new routine.  I’m trying to make sense of how I fit in here when in reality I just don’t and probably won’t.  That doesn’t mean that I’m not greeted with a warm welcome virtually everywhere I go, it’s just more of a realization that I truly am an outsider here.

I do already feel changed by this experience in ways I can’t even really put into words.  I’m being challenged and pushed, somewhat violently on certain days, out of my comfort zone.  And the funny thing is I LOVE IT!  I think humans can be such creatures of habit, myself included, as it’s so easy to go for what is easy and predictable.  Some days after a particularly exhausting teaching day, I want to retreat in my apartment all night with my computer and avoid all stares and any effort in ordering food.  But I usually am able to make myself go out to eat in town with the hope of making new friends or seeing something exciting or strange. 

One thing that I love about Thailand is there is somewhat of an “anything goes” mentality in certain contexts.  Of course there are many social and cultural rules but you can also haggle almost anywhere you shop- even the malls, driving motorbikes while holding a newborn baby sans helmets is perfectly acceptable, lady boy waiters serve you dinner at your local restaurant without being gawked at and people set off fireworks left and right in public areas with not so much as a second thought from public authorities.  This is my new life. 

                                                            Ronald McDonald wai-ing. 

Culture shock OR where are the napkins?

After multiple mass emails were sent out and long winded Facebook posts filled my timeline, I came to the conclusion that a blog would be the easiest and most organized way to chronicle my time in Thailand.  I’ve been traveling and now living in Thailand for a little over a month.  So far this experience has surpassed my expectations in ways big and small and it’s still just the beginning as I have a four month English teaching contract to complete.  The first three weeks were spent attached at the hip to the other twenty something teachers in training throughout Phuket and Bangkok in a blur of class, beach, partying and waking up to do it again the next day- like a lather, rinse, repeat cycle.  As to be expected, we formed pretty solid connections only to then be separated into various provinces that none of us had ever heard of or could much less pronounce.

I’ve now been living in my town Phayao (sounds like pie-ow) for two full weeks and let me just say, it’s a VERY different world than the rest of my Thailand experience has been.  For weeks I was staying in tourist friendly areas where your average tuk-tuk driver speaks enough English to understand where you need to go and many restaurant menus are in English.  Now this is Thailand for real and it’s a whole new ballgame.  For starters, I’ve never been stared and gawked at so much in my entire life.  I feel like a celebrity wherever I go and am honestly overwhelmed from all the attention.  Phayao is a province of 400,000 but I’m one of the few “farang” (pronounced fuh-rang) meaning foreigners in town.  To add to that, unlike Los Angeles where your average girl is frying herself in a tanning salon, in Thailand and most of Asia for that matter, having fair skin is quite fashionable and “whitening” cream is in pretty much everything you put on your skin.  Therefore, with my snow white complexion, I’m considered quite a dish here.  No complaints on that front, it’s pretty nice to be told “so beautiful” wherever I go.  Literally, I get told on the daily from my students, other teachers and random men, women and children in town “soo-ay mahk mahk” (very beautiful).  That my friends will definitely never get old!  I could definitely get used to that.

It’s amazing to me that when you live in a new country, every single little thing is an exciting adventure or a daunting task.  Any sense of “normal” is utterly turned upside down.  From navigating the menus solely written in Thai, using the wonderful “squat pots” or the “bum gun” as my Canadian colleague so appropriately calls the spray hose attached to nearly every toilet here, or simply trying to find tampons which for some reason are impossible to come by in Thailand.  Every day is full of new challenges and exciting small achievements.  I have been learning the basic numbers “neung, song, sam, see….” and was ridiculously proud of myself when I asked a street vendor how much the noodles cost and actually understood her without my typical reliance on a calculator or charades.  Mind you this only happened once but it was still SO exciting for me. 

They say it’s the small things in life that bring happiness and I think that that is doubled when traveling.  It’s the seemingly insignificant moments like the smile exchange which crosses all language and cultural barriers, seeing monks bless people on the street while walking to school or popping some new unidentified concoction in your mouth and praying that it’s delicious (most of the time it is) or even that it’s just not revolting like the dried fish snack I had today that I thought was candy.  UGH, FAIL! 

Although there are many things that frustrate your average expat in Thailand, I’ve been shocked to find out that I can be surprisingly easy going and open minded when out of my comfort zone.  I think I’m adjusting quite well considering I don’t speak the language of 98% of those around me, I can’t wear tank tops because it’s scandalous to show your shoulders here, there are oodles of pork in everything which I never eat back home, I sweat profusely all the time, my peculiar “wet” bathroom which requires leaving toilet paper just outside the door, living up four flights of stairs, spending more time alone than I ever have in my life, the lack of Hot Cheetos (my guilty pleasure back home)-the list goes on and on. 

Despite all the change and adjustments needed, the ONE thing that has been my pet peeve so far is the napkin situation.  Imagine a mix between a tiny piece of scrap paper and one small thin sheet of toilet paper and you have what Thais believe to be appropriate restaurant napkins!  They do not do their assigned job well and especially because half the things I eat are crazy spicy, creating a leaky faucet situation, it is very annoying not having napkins handy!  It may seem like a silly stupid non-environment friendly thing, but I miss puffy American sized napkins.  I guess if that’s my only real complaint after being here over a month, I’m probably going to survive the next few months…maybe even thrive.