We don’t even realize how lucky we are.

Okay, I have a confession to make. I am no longer in Thailand. In fact, as of tonight, I will no longer be in Southeast Asia. Last Thursday was the final day of my study abroad program, and the following day four fellow St. Mary’s students and I accompanied our professor Ho Nguyen to Vietnam. And it has been amazing! But I can’t tell you about it yet. I just want to get you through Thailand. But good news! I am required to write a journal for Vietnam, so our time together is not nearly over. Sigh your sigh of relief, pretend I never told you this, and allow me to take us back to Halloween weekend where I had an eye-opening visit to the Thai-Burma border.

Before coming to Thailand, I had no idea what was happening on this side of the world. It horrifies me as I realize how oblivious I was while living in my bubble of modernity at home. The country of Burma, now officially known as Myanmar, has an unbelievable, tumultuous history, filled with imperialism, military coups, the imprisonment of heroes, and the genocide of ethnic minorities. I will allow you to research this on your own, or at your request I’d be happy to send you some of my reflections from my Burma class, in which I discuss the history more in depth. But no amount of reading will ever get you to truly understand the severity of the situation, and that is why our professor Win Min arranged for us to go to Mae Sot, a town full of Burmese political activists, many of whom were imprisoned and tortured before leaving Burma, and volunteers from a plethora of NGOs committed to helping Burmese refugees and alleviate the plight of the ethnic minorities within Burma’s borders. While there we visited several NGOs and learned what they were doing to help, talked with former political prisoners who have established a torture museum, and visited a clinic and a refugee camp.

I feel we should have visited the NGOs after visiting the other places, because it was hard to wrap our heads around what exactly these organizations were doing without seeing what was needed to be done. The museum of the imprisonment and torture of political activists (that is anyone who says anything remotely anti-regime) was a room of pictures – everything from positions of torture to the faces of those imprisoned, lost, and missing – set up by former prisoners and friends of Win Min. We were given books describing the physical and psychological terror these innocent people underwent, and I read them all cover to cover that day. Its absolutely unimaginable. As the woman and two men described their time in prison and feelings of isolation afterward, I struggled to see any lasting effects. These men and women are so full of hope and courage; they have done everything in their power to move on and continue working for peace in their country – even while they are not allowed to return.

A waiting area at the clinic

The clinic we visited made me realize how much we take our rights for granted at home. We expect hospitals to be sanitary, well-equipped, private places of safety and security. What we demand out of our health care can only be described as luxuries here. The clinic is in a secret location, on land that had been rented from year to year for the past twenty years, through endless negotiation and struggle between the facility and their Thai landlords. Why would this family continue to milk money out of an institution struggling to help everyone it can? The dirty, dusty hospital grounds were scattered with men and women wearing sunglasses, some who had walked for days through the jungle and across the border to be treated by the European ophthalmologist who came for two days of service. The surgeon operated all through the night, trying to treat the overwhelming number of people who showed up, all who heard of his arrival through word of mouth. He was still working when we arrived – there was a crowd of people standing by a window watching a surgery as we walked by. I watched for a little while, trying to imagine having strangers standing around watching your surgeries at home. As we toured the hospital grounds we came across a children’s ward, mostly treating malnutrition and dehydration, and a prosthetics workshop, filled with limbs waiting to be fitted to landmine victims. After raiding villages and forcing people out of their homes, the military often places landmines throughout the village to make sure it can not be re-inhabited and punish those who try to return. Some landmines are placed in front of signs warning of landmines – those who come close to read the sign become the victim of a

Getting to watch an eye surgery sure beats the TVs we get in our patient and waiting rooms!

cruel trick.

The refugee camp was in another hidden location, but the atmosphere was not as grim there. We were greeted by students who sang us two incredibly beautiful songs, “Kaw Thoo is my beautiful land” and “God will be your protection in your life.” These songs reflect the main feelings of those in the camp. The first song is a Karen song (the ethnic group that makes up the majority of the camp) which spoke about their land, the love of the land, and how they were taken from their land but hope to return one day and live peacefully among many ethnicities. The second represents the strong Christian faith of the Karen refugees. I have pretty strong feelings about this as well and wrote my final paper on the topic – if anyone would like to read more about it let me know! As we walked around the camp, our guide motioned to the houses and said “these are supposed to be temporary houses – but we have been here for twenty years.” We came to the town center where there was a bulletin board depicting life after relocation to the States, including pictures of a living room (sofas are nonexistent in even wealthier Thai homes), a shower (versus the bucket bathing used here) and a diagram showing the correct way to use a Western toilet (do not climb on top of it and squat!). While this was somewhat amusing, it made me realize how difficult it must be for these refugees to assimilate into American life. While some would like to move to America, most are just waiting to return home. The camp felt so much more like a community and a real village than I would have ever expected, and this was the only comfort I had when leaving.

The strong presence felt at the refugee camp.

The city of Mae Sot itself was pretty incredible. Win Min lived here for a period of time and you could see his excitement over being back and reuniting with old friends. He would modestly point out a restaurant owner, cook, musician or waiter who was so-and-so’s bodyguard or once held a prestigious position or, most likely, was a fellow student in the 8888 demonstration. Pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi hung on the walls. We had dinner with the vice president of the Karen National Union. He joined the KNU the year after Burma’s independence in 1949; he was only fourteen but lied and said he was seventeen, and has been serving ever since. This group, which has been working toward democracy and peace between the military and ethnic groups, has been listed as a terrorist organization and has been refused aid or cooperation from other countries. Also at the dinner was the son of a Karen leader who was assassinated in Mae Sot in February. It was surreal talking to people who have such an important role in their country’s destiny.

Burma is a country as thick with culture and tradition as it is with conflict and turmoil. I find it devastating that a country with such a vibrant culture must be trapped within a corrupt military regime and global isolation. Fortunately, at least, it seems that this isolation has effectively preserved the traditional practices of the different tribes, unlike in other cultures where tradition is steadfastly waning to the ways of globalization. Those who could change things have no incentive to do so and those who need it changed the most cannot do anything at all. I cannot imagine how this problem is going to be solved, but hopefully we as a global community will strive to do anything we can.

Making New Friends and Keeping the Old, the Good-Ole-Traditional-Girl-Scout-Way…in Sukhothai

I have found it much harder than I thought it would be to make Thai friends at Payap.  Sure everyone is extremely nice, but the kindness stops at politeness. Few of us are ever invited out with our roommates – or even invited to hang out with them at the dorm.  We have been told by other Thais and fahrang that this is most likely because they are private students.  As cliché as the stereotype is, the more privileged kids tend to be more self-involved and less concerned with making others feel accepted.  This especially extends itself to dealing with foreigners.  Now, everyone is different, and several lucky students have gotten the opportunity to really bond with their roommates and become friends, over which I am extremely jealous.  Both Thuy and Ammy are such amazingly sweet girls, were happy to chat while they were in the room, and would do anything to help me out, but I don’t think it ever crossed their minds to invite me to do things with them.  That’s okay, I survived, but during one of our group trips we were cruelly given the taste of what it would have been like to go to a public university.

Ancient Ruins of Sukhothai

At the end of October (I know, I am horribly behind) we went to Thailand’s ancient capital of Sukhothai, the heyday of which lasted from 1238 to 1438.   The city’s ruins were breathtaking, unlike any Thai temples I had seen before.   The style of these was much closer to Cambodian temples, all brick and stone instead of wood and gold.  Sukhothai is home to some of the largest and most exquisite Buddha statues I have seen.  And the guesthouse in which we stayed was absolutely amazing – four people each to a little wooden, two-story cottage, with hammocks and beautiful gardens and a pool (!!!).  The best part was the most amazing breakfasts I had while in Thailand – in addition to the staple toast and eggs of Western-style Thai breakfasts,

Don't you just want to eat it like cotton candy?

we were given little coconut custards that were bought fresh from the market that morning and each table was given a stick of honeycomb to spoon and slice off to add to the toast, tea or drizzle on top of bananas (or make a delicious banana, honey and egg sandwich!).  We had one lecture while we were there, by Ajan Ram, a professor from Naresuan University. After two days in Sukhothai we traveled to Phitsanulok to visit his university and have dinner with some of his students.

We did not realize that this visit included a party in our honor.  Not just a dinner – a fancy banquet with several important faculty and staff members from Naresuan University, all of the professor’s students (around fifty), and ribbons tied into big bows around the chairs (I don’t know about you but that’s how I measure extravagance).  We were told at the last minute to bring gifts (which, by the way, really should be included in the pre-departure information when we are told to bring TWO home-stay gifts – silly us for actually only bringing two when three were needed!), which were used during an elaborate gift exchange between universities where names were called and we had to introduce ourselves and mortifyingly hand over our paltry presents while we were given thoughtful, beautifully wrapped gifts.  That wasn’t even the most embarrassing part.   The night before the party, we were informed that “it would be nice” if we could arrange a little song and dance number or a few skits to perform in front of these unfamiliar university students.  Oh, and that, by the way, last year each university did this as well and the other university put on a pretty amazing show.  No pressure.

Our Best Chang Impression

After some teeth-pulling meetings we decided to put on a show with three acts.  First, we sang the Chang song, a Thai children’s song about elephants. Only a handful of us actually knew this song, so after teaching it to the entirety of our group we were told that “choreography would be appreciated.”   I will not go into details because, honestly, I’d rather not relive it and you were lucky you didn’t have to witness it in the first place.  Next up, talent show – only our group of intelligent, interesting, capable students turned out to be incredibly modest and could not think of a SINGLE talent they had.  So Kelsey and Rooney juggled and I decided to do my favorite party tricks, singing the alphabet with my mouth closed and sticking my foot in my ribcage (please, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, ask, for I am not modest at all and consider these abilities to be my two best qualities).  I was going to also take my glasses off with my feet – and even went so far as to bring my glasses on stage – when at the last second I thankfully realized that perhaps going in front of an audience of Thais and putting my lowly feet all over my sacred head was probably not the best way to make friends.  Last but not least, we decided to sing an American song and teach it to the students so we could all sing it together.  After much discussion we found it most appropriate to sing

Just before I tucked my toes into my ribcage and let go

that old girl scout ditty, “Make New Friends.”  I even encouraged the group that we could pull off a round AND some fancy footwork, splitting the group into three and, while holding hands, walking around one another in concentric circles, the middle one turning the opposite way of the inner and outer circles.  It was all very impressive I promise.

Well, whether you believe me or not, it at least impressed the Naresuan students.  After dancing in the banquet hall until eleven or so in the evening, our new friends told us that we couldn’t possibly end the night there and insisted on taking us out for the night.   First we went to a bar where I had the most amazing cocktail in the world – lychee or pear flavored slushie that barely had any alcohol in it, which we drank in shot form.   Pitcher upon pitcher, in shot form.  Then, we celebrated Emily’s birthday at a dance club, at which we were the only fahrang and our hosts insisted we should dance on the stage next to the deejay.  At the end of the night we exchanged e-mails and numbers and tearful goodbyes, and we left with such a feeling of loss.  Why was it that these public university students we knew for a single evening were more open and inviting than the students with whom we lived and saw every day back in Chiang Mai?  I had a depressing glance at how my time here could have been had I been befriended by Thai girls eager to take me out on the town.

Rotting the Brain, Thai-Style.

Mae Chaem seems to ooze blog topics for me!  I’d like to explain a little bit about the phenomenon that is Thai soap operas.  Each night in the village we would spend our evening sitting on the floor in front of the television watching various soap operas, called lakorns (lakorn actually means ‘play’ but now commonly refers to these two-hour long dramatic episodes).  While some were Korean (described to me as the fancier, glossier soap operas), my favorite was a Thai show called “Ti Da Va Non.”  I had seen this show playing in the lobby at the campus library (can you imagine a soap opera being played in the background at the libraries of universities at home?), but in Mae Chaem I was lucky enough to be able to watch it with Tot, our translator for the trip.

“Ti Da Va Non” is essentially a Jane in the Jungle soap opera. The show’s title shares the name of the main character, a wild haired, wide-eyed girl dressed in “jungle wear” (obviously, this consists of a jagged leopard-print top and matching short skirt) who has been raised in the jungle all of her life. Tot asked me if stories like this about people being raised by animals were true, and I tried to think of the versions we had at home. Surely Romulus and Remus were truly raised by wolves, right? Were Tarzan, George of the Jungle and Mowgli from the Jungle Book all fictional characters? I couldn’t say for sure. I told him I think there has to be some truth, or else where do the stories come from!

I am not sure what has happened within the time frame of the show, but when I came upon it she was now living within civil society, still dressed in her jungle gear, being taken around my a slew of stereotypes.  I will give you a link to a great blog I came across that perfectly captures the whiny, dimwitted beauties who star in these shows, as well as their array of colorful costars.  http://www.thai-blogs.com/index.php/2005/09/30/how_to_write_a_thai_soap_opera?blog=8

At one point I asked who the man on the screen was and Tot told me “Oh, that is her father. He knows who she is but she doesn’t know about him yet because people are keeping it from her. She will find out soon.” Too bad I didn’t get to see that part, I imagine I missed out on a lot of fine dramatic acting in that episode. I asked Tot what people think about these characters, and he acknowledged that they are extremely stupid, but also very amusing and entertaining. Perhaps it was because I couldn’t understand the language (who knows, it may have been insanely witty!), but I don’t think I could ever get hooked on a show that mind-numbingly obtuse.

Ti Da Va Non is truly the most airhead character of all; she walks around starry eyed and bewildered like she truly was raised in the jungle. Somehow she can speak Thai yet she is confused by anything anyone says – at least that is what her expression implied. While the antics she gets herself into as she accommodates to (Western??) culture are silly, I can’t imagine watching episode after episode of this stuff. Although, as I acknowledge to myself how many times I have watched Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid and Tarzan, I realize that there is a charming appeal to watching someone get “humanized.”

Thai soap operas are extremely interesting because they go beyond the campiness of American soap operas – even beyond the ridiculousness of Telenovelas – and reach a whole new level of absurdity. Slapstick and physical comedy are a huge part of the show, as are sound effects – ridiculous, cartoon-like sound effects that make it seem like it is made for children. The actors and actresses barely look Thai – yet they express the ideal appearance one wishes for: beyond pale skin, wide eyes, and a slender nose with a bridge – all of which are distinctively Western features. The reason, Tot told me, is that most actors and models are only half-Thai. It is their Western features that get them work, which I found sort of unnerving.

There is no concept of television being evil here as there is in the states – college students especially tend to reject watching television at home whereas here I would often find my roommates and other Thai students still watching cartoons. I wonder if it is because of this that, once they reach adulthood, they only graduate from cartoons to campy soap operas. With shows like these, I feel someone really should stress that television does rot your brain, or introduce some intelligent shows (you know, the Discovery or Animal Planet-style shows – or at least some American primetime drama) ASAP.

You’re dyeing to know and I’m dyeing to tell you

While I was in Mae Chaem (I know, I’m sorry, I bet you thought we were finished with Mae Chaem for good) we spent a good portion of one day at the house and workshop of Somtob Chaikrath, a man who spends his days harvesting hawm (the Thai word for indigo) and transforming these green leafy plants into a deep indigo dye in which he dyes freshly spun cotton.  Sounds like a nice life, no?  I was lucky enough to be shown the entire process of natural dyeing, but unfortunately it didn’t really fit into my paper anymore.  So I will share it here.

We first met Somtob in a field as he gathered the plants, chopping them down with a sickle.

Somtob and his sickle in the hawm field

The plants should be picked sometime between the third and fourth month of growth.  Somtob informed me that it has to be collected between six and nine in the morning or else the sun will be too strong and make it lose its color. I didn’t understand how this little green leaf was going to produce an indigo color.  We gave him a lift back to his house where he showed us his workshop – everything was completely blue, which I thought was a nice touch.

So Blue! See the undyed cotton on the right and the dyed thread on the left?

If that’s the color you’re going to be working with every day, you may as well go all out.  Make everything blue!  Okay, dyeing.  This will be short, I hope.

First, you soak the leaf and a little bit of the stem (this implies that you have to separate a lot of the leaves and discard most of the stems – ugh) for two nights in water and calcium oxide.   You use about fifteen kilograms of the leaf (the plant’s actual name is Indigofera tinctoria, common name…True Indigo) and soak it in seventy to eighty liters of water.

Bubbly fermentation. The leaves are held down by big (blue!) stones.

After a few hours, the leaves become saturated and fermentation begins.  Wikipedia tells me that the fermentation converts the glycoside indican naturally present in the plant into the blue dye indigotin.  Ohh!  And here I thought we were making indigo cider. A thick layer of bubbles and scum forms at the top of the tank. The smell of the fermented indigo plant is very distinct.  It’s funny, but just by looking at the pictures of the place I can smell that strange, sweet, almost nauseating smell.

After it sits you add what I believe is sodium hydroxide (either white or hot pink!  he said it made no difference to the color, and also informed me that older people mix the sodium hydroxide powder with tea leaves and chew it as a gum).

They stir it 400 times at a time, taking turns.

Then, using this bizarre pole with a basket attached, you stir the trashcan full of liquid continuously for hours.  Not a fun job.  After this oxidation process is over, you let it settle.  The water will turn a yellowish-brown color and the insoluble  indigo dye will fill the bottom of the trash can with a thick, blue sludge. You strain this and mix the gunk that is left with tamarind juice and ash water (this is made by burning all of those leftover stems and straining water through the ash – I love that everything is used!).  This stops the enzyme reaction that creates the dye.

Before dyeing the cotton, you must boil the thread to strip it of any oil that has attached during its handling.  As Somtob dipped the thread into the chewy looking liquid I was reminded of mashing up ink berries as a kid to make potions and paint.  The fabric looks green as he sloshes it through the dye, but as he holds it in front of me it magically turns into blue.

See? Chewy! Can you see the greenish color in the pot?

He IS making potions, after all!  I am told that to make the dark blue color found on most of his textiles, he has to dye it three or four more times.  He also told me that the plant will produce different colors depending on the location – the resulting color is usually darker when grown on the mountain and lighter when grown near rivers.

Throughout the year, Somtob and his wife harvest a variety of plants producing a variety of colors.  The indigo plant and another plant which produces a brown color are the only materials that use a cold dyeing process.  He explains to me that the hot process is done during the hot season because the color will stick better than in the rainy season.  I take his word for it.  Somtob also had a little sewing shop he runs behind his house.  He sells the dyed thread to weavers, who then weave it into fabric and sell it back to him to make clothing.

As I just went on a quest to find the real name of this plant, I came across some interesting facts about indigo dye.  It is actually one of the most important colors of dye in history (can you imagine?  really, haven’t you ever thought to yourself “What color dye is the most important in history?’), being not only one of the oldest but also one of the most

The Finished Product!

valuable because of the rarity of natural blue dyes.  It is this dye that colored the uniforms of police officers, hospital staff, military personnel and the workman’s clothes worn by millions of people, inspiring the term “blue-collar worker.”  The first blue jeans were dyed using this natural indigo dye!  The most interesting fact I found with which I shall leave you: in India, the indigo plant has been dubbed “the dog-bite shrub” and is used to treat rabies.  Crazy!

Paradise is found on the back of a motorcy

Last month Peter and I were invited back to Mae Chaem to gain perspective on the topics we chose for our globalization papers.  Peter’s paper dealt with the farming industry in the face of globalization, while I, big surprise, decided to focus on globalization’s effect on the textile industry.  In true Thai style, we were told that perhaps we would have the opportunity to arrange a trip, and the next day we were informed that, as it so happened, two members of the Raks Thai Foundation were returning from Chiang Mai to interview a Hmong weaving group in Mae Chaem that weekend, and we were welcome to hitch a ride and accompany them.  Raks Thai is an NGO that works to develop sustainable communities (see raksthai.org for more information).  Last time we went to Mae Chaem, we were given a lecture on Mae Chaem by Khun Jaeb, the Senior Field Officer of Raks Thai.  She talked a lot about the problems farmers have been facing and also mentioned the foundation’s development and supporting of weaving groups established throughout the district.  Khun Jaeb set up the entire trip, for which I am extremely grateful!

Peter, my weekend companion, in the tomato fields

Peter and I had just chosen our paper topics, having vague, romantic notions of what we wanted to discuss in our papers, and were a bit worried about making the most of this opportunity.  What knowledge would we be able to gain without yet having any sense of direction?  Fortunately, we weren’t too concerned – we were content with simply returning to this rural paradise, regardless of the excursion’s academic success.  Luckily, I realized we would not have a very productive weekend whatsoever if we did not have a translator, so Ajan
Ho found an English major to come along.

A day later we met Tot, our new Thai friend and translator, at a hotel near the train station in town, tracked down our ride (a pick-up truck – this would certainly be better than the open-air cattle truck we were packed into last time for the bumpy, three hour drive) and headed out.  The drive was much better – I slept most of the way.  Halfway into the ride, however, we turned onto a tiny “road” – two rows of cement on which tires were supposed to balance (mind the cracks and gaps and holes!) – up to a village for a pit stop.  As I groggily get out of the car I am handed a mug of instant coffee and sit on a chair in someone’s yard.  There is a lot of commotion, and we are told we have come during preparations for a wedding.

Beautiful, right?  Romantic, no?

No.

As I sit, sleepy and bewildered, I try to sip m coffee as I listen – for twenty minutes – to the wails of three pigs being beaten to death with a large stick (small log?), tied to a tree, and then thrown – in its entirety – onto a fire.  Let me tell you, beating something to death is not a humane way to kill.  At least the pigs certainly didn’t think so – those porkers squealed and sreamed and hung onto their life for as long as possibly – or rather, much longer than I would have liked.  As Peter and I allowed our horrified, amused gazes to meet, we knew that this would set the tone for the entire weekend.  And we couldn’t wait.

As it turned out, the pig wasn’t as foreboding as we thought.  I felt a strange pride when I found that I was more comfortable with the slow life of Mae Chaem than our city-raised companion was.  The weekend was amazingly relaxing, those who work at Raks Thai were kind enough to take full days out of their schedule to show Peter and I around the weaving and agricultural world of Mae Chaem.  As we went from textile store to organic farm to dyer’s house to tomato fields, we learned that our two topics had a close relationship.  Everyone we talked to were farmers, once subsistence growers who were enticed by the projeced profits a cash crops and now found themselves scrambling to get out of debt.  They could not pay back the substantial loans taken out to afford new crops and machinery and chemicals, and industries which contract the farmers do everything they can to make extra money – even so far as genetically altering seeds to produce only a single harvest, forcing the farmers to depend on them season after season for new crops.  It is because of this that women still weave.

Weaving was once synonymous with femininity, around which a girl’s pivotal steps into womanhood were measured.  A girl began learning the skills from her mother and grandmother once she reached an age eligible for marriage.  Men courted young women in the evenings, sitting at their looms underneath their stilted houses, and when she married a woman was expected to present textiles to her mother-in-law to prove her skill and worth.  But women no longer wear the textiles they weave.  Sitting at their looms in modern Western clothing, today women weave during the dry season and at night – any time they are not farming – to made a small extra profit.  “Small” is not to be taken lightly.  Somsri Rooying, a woman born and raised in Mae Chaem, was kind enough to let me interview her (cough, Ajan Jessica!) as she sat at her loom, effortlessly weaving a signature pha sin tin jok, the famous, intricately designed tube skirt woven only in Mae Chaem (don’t worry, I got one!), using a porcupine quill.

Somsri Rooying at her loom with her porcupine quill, two diamonds is a single day

Producing an average of two squares a day, one skirt can take up to a month to complete.  Once they are finished the skirts are sold for 850 baht.  While this is about $28, the raw materials cost the weavers 800 baht.  A month’s worth of labor translates to less than $2.  Somsri tells me that most of the patterns made today use a lot less color than the traditional patterns, many of which have been lost over the years because few are interested in learning a more difficult pattern that takes more time and materials.  I am tol that weavers produce more now than past generations, but they cannot produce enough to export them.  So women sell their textiles to local weaving shops or to men from the city who will cell the skirts for a higher profit to tourists at night bazaars or Sunday markets.

When I ask Somsri why she chooses to continue weaving when it makes so little, she replies that she has no choice but to do anything she can do in her fee time to make money.  She feels that weaving is harder than work on the farm “because you must sit all day and use more eyesight.”  She recalls the first finished piece she ever wove, it sold for 50 baht.  She was twelve and very proud.

I could have spent the rest of my days in Thailand doing what I did during my second trip to Mae Chaem.  Roaming the mountainside on the back of a motorbike, through the rolling hills and tiny webs of villages, watching weavers and dyers create works of art from materials found in the earth, sitting with tomato pickers as they sorted their crops, sharing a juicy, fresh tomato hot from the sun, talking to Burmese migrant workers in the fields and tasting fresh cucumbers, parsley and dill from the largest herb garden I’ve ever seen.  It may be a difficult life, but its certainly a beautiful one.

Rolling hills of rice and corn, fluffy clouds and sunny sky, all viewed on the back of a motorcy!

Headbutting with Hierarchy

As my time here is quickly dwindling, I have been straying from my computer and exploring my surroundings.  The longer I am here, the more aware I become of the dramatic differences between an equality-centered society and a hierarchical one.  We live in a society where everyone is presumed to have a fair chance at success – regardless of age, race or income, every one of us can get any job, live any dream – even become president! (thank you, Obama, for kindly emphasizing my point)  Students challenge teachers, children challenge parents, and our boss and our president do not automatically get our respect just because of their positions.  We work for ourselves to achieve our own goals and, when we fail, it is a personal dissapointment.

This is not the case in Thailand.  The power-distance here is much greater than at home,and by that I mean that the gap between those in charge and those not is large, defined and generally accepted.  The King rules supreme, revered by all in the most dramatic sense.  His picture can be found soaring above our heads in every household and storefront, and as I’ve mentioned before, his birth day color, yellow, is worn every Monday in his honor.  Even all of the government protesting in Bangkok, which you may have read about, is not directed at the king – I’m sure on Monday they protest in yellow too!

Just the way you address someone is telling of this society’s concern with hierarchy.  Thais have an innate ability to tell your age, which is of utmost importance for if you are younger than the person to whom you are speaking, you address them as Pee, wheras if they are younger you address them as Nawng.  Pee is the prefix for an older sibling, Pee Chai is older brother and Pee Sow is older sister.  As you might have guessed, Nawng Chai is younger brother and Nawng Sow is younger sister.  (Interested in the word for sibling? Pee Nawng!  Sometimes Thai just makes so much sense.)  The only time this addressing ettiquite does not depend on age is when someone is of a substantially higher or lower position than another person, and in that case even an older gentleman can be addressed as Nawng if the younger person speaking holds a higher title.

The president of St. Mary’s, Maggie O’Brien, visited Payap recently and took the St. Mary’s students and our program’s staff out to dinner.  Two past exchange students who once spent a semester at St. Mary’s were also invited, and one of them, a girl who came to St. Mary’s two years ago, was accompanied by her fiance, a fellow St. Mary’s alumni!  (Ho Nguyen fondly tells us that when the Thai girl first came to St. Mary’s, he appointed one of his students to take care of her.  Now, three years later, they are engaged!  Guess the guy took his job pretty seriously.)  There was one last guest, Cherry, a Thai girl who is thinking about studying at St. Mary’s next spring.  I sat next to her and tried my best to convince her that it would be a decision she wouldn’t regret.  But I learned from Ajan Ray later that many Thai students do not study abroad because they are simply not allowed.  After going through the entire process and getting accepted, many Thai parents decide at the last minute not to let their child go.  And unlike in America, this is not a jumping point from which the child can negotiate a yes – the parents’ word is final.  Thai parents are very protective of their children, and in turn, Thai children are typically very dependent on their parents.  A teenager having a part-time job is hard to come by here, simply because their parents feel the child should be at home, devoting their time to their family and their studies.  When a child fails or does something wrong, it is not a personal failure but a complete degradation reflected on the family as a whole.

Students who do make it abroad often find the teaching strategy in America to be shockingly disrespectful.  The Thai education system is very much teacher-centric, with the teacher lecturing to a class of silent, passive students who accept everything the teacher says without challenge or question.  Imagine the stress of coming into a classroom where the student is expected to participate, encouraged to ask for clarification, and often put on the spot during class.

It is not that I find this high power-distance, hierarchical society to be flawed, for our highly competitive, bratty generation is certainly not one to admire.  But you can imagine the amount of times this distinct cultural difference has led to many an uncomfortable situation.  One I particularly found stressful has finally passed here in the dorms of Paradornparp International House.  Last month, all of the Thai students ended their semester and moved out during their month-long semester break.  As it so happened, for five of those days, a Christian convention was coming through and staying at PIH.  We receive an e-mail saying that some of us may need to move rooms to accomodate the 500+ Christians, and that we should pair up and inform the desk downstairs of our new, temporary American roommates by the end of the week.  By the end of that day, the front desk posted a list of pre-determined roommates, all of whom had to leave their room and go to a new room.  We would then be expected to move again when the Thai students came back, having a total of three rooms during our four months here.  This made a lot of us feel unwanted, as if we weren’t real students at Payap and could just be shuffled around at the administration’s convenience.  Being the unabashedly American students we are, we challenged this executive decision that was made without a thought as to how vexatious this situation may be for us.  In the end, only half of us moved, joining the other half in their already established rooms.

Now our Thai friends are returning and we have split up once again, and I find myself in my original room with my third roommate.  Ammy has decided to get a single, and although I haven’t seen her yet I was told her decision was because of her frequent and increasing migraines (although I would have gladly explained that I have been a well-trained ice-pack retriever and noise reducer since childhood!).  My second roommate was my friend Annie, whose parents are both from Thailand, which has proven to be both a blessing and a curse as an American exchange student in Thailand.  She has the advantage of speaking Thai fluently, automatically giving her the disadvantage of being our go-to translator and often the recipient of many strange looks as she fluidly switches between bursts of English and Thai.

My third roommate has dropped her stuff off but has yet to move in.  Her name is pronounced “Dthuuy”, but I have yet to spend any time with her so I can find out her Anglican spelling.  I know her only as one of Ammy’s friends, and I am excited to get to know her.  Unfortunately, when I came home last night, she stopped in and told me that she couldn’t sleep here because of the way her bed was positioned by the door (funny, for Ammy switched it so her head wouldn’t be by the window!), and so she slept in a friends room last night.  I rearranged the room after she left, and I’m hoping she’ll be back soon and happy with the new accomodations.  It is always an interesting time having a Thai roommate, and I am excited to give you more updates soon.

Going Up-Country, A Triangular Triumph!

We recently traveled to northern Thailand, passing through Chiang Rai and visiting the Golden Triangle, the magical spot where Thailand, Laos and Burma meet.  It sounds silly but it really was surreal standing over the water and being able to look around at three different countries at once.

The Golden Triangle in all of its glory

It was incredibly tempting to dive into the water and paddle over, but actually soon it will be even easier than that.  The “Burmese” “government” (using either of these words is rather questionable) is extremely interested in providing tourists with those wonders not legal in its neighboring countries.  No!!  Not opium and prostitutes – well, okay, yes, opium and prostitutes – but casinos.  A brand new casino is being built just over the border (even visible from the Golden Triangle), and a ski-lift of sorts is in talks of being built over the borderline, so one will just have to leave their passport in Thailand, hop on the lift and be carried into Burma for a night of gambling fun!

Close to the Golden Triangle is the meticulously designed Hall of Opium Museum.  The museum was actually funded by the Chinese government, and it was one of the most cleverly designed museums I’ve ever walked through.  Unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take pictures – and this stopped me from snapping shots as I walked through the hallway meant to summon the feelings of an opium trip and through the rooms with rotating floors and the giant cargo ship replica – but by the time I got to the opium products that were once produced by pharmaceutical companies, my snap-happy self just couldn’t take it anymore.  The ads for Bayer Heroin and Coca-Cola, the “Intellectual beverage” made with cocaine, were just too much to pass up.  Evidence was needed.

Other highlights during the trip included a visit to the KMT Museum, located in the incredibly Chinese town of Mae Salong – which we all would have liked to have more time to explore – and the very informal “museum” (a couple of rooms filled with whiteboards displaying tons of old photographs taped to them) located in Khun Sa’s old home and base headquarters in Terd Thai (stifle your elementary giggles!  no, just kidding – please don’t!  …terd!).  Khun Sa was a Burmese warlord, the leader of the Shan United Army who also happened to be nicknamed the “Opium King.”  Both of these places cannot be found on any tourist maps and are pretty far off the beaten path, so it was a pretty special experience being able to visit these hidden cultural gems of the North.  We also visited some really beautiful wats on the way home which I’m sure you will enjoy pictures of in a month or two when I get them up.  I’m really trying to make it through my pictures!  Did you see I put up all of the Mae Chaem albums?  One album for each day!  I can’t help it that I want to share everything I see!!

Oh, and how could I forget, we visited one of Thailand’s most notorious resturaunts, Cabbages and Condoms.  I’ll let you wait for the pictures to experience that one too.  Written tenderly over the entrance to their restaurant is a sign that reads “Our food is guaranteed not to cause pregnancy”  Phew!  Wait, is there something I should know about the food in the rest of Thailand?

Also, perhaps the highlight of my entire trip to Thailand happened this weekend.  We came across a karaoke bar with the BEST selection of Western songs that I have seen so far (whoda thunkit’d be in the little town of Chiang Saen?!).  I am happy to report that I came to Thailand and sang karaoke to one of my favorite songs, Lulu’s “To Sir With Love” – my life is complete.

A Trip to the Hospital (Don’t worry, I was just a spectator!)

Leaving class last Monday, my friend Kelsey casually mentioned that her stomach had been hurting for the past few days and so she would be going to the hospital after lunch.  Well, if I was sick enough to want to go to the hospital, and if that hospital happened to be in another country in which another language is spoken, I would want company.  So I asked her if she would like some company, she in fact did, and off we went.

After the 120 baht song-taow ride to McCormick Hospital, our driver asked us if when we’d like him to come back.  It’s generally less expensive if you pay round trip, so often when going out to eat or shop you give a time when you’d like to be picked up.  But really, do Thais usually know how much time they will spend at a hospital?  In any case we did not, so we sent him on his way.

My favorite part of the hospital: the "Tammy & the Doctor" uniforms all the nurses wear. I'd be muchly beholdin' if someone could find me a set!

When we get into the hospital, it feels a little chaotic.  There are patients laying in gurneys near the entrance, and above all the normal hospital beeps and chatter was the ominous sound of construction coming from farther down the corridor.

that woman sat there the entire time we were there

Nothing like a little jackhammer to ease your pain and worry away! These scary noises don’t seem to have any effect on those waiting, sitting silently watching one another or the television in the corner playing soap operas.  The layout is a huge, HUGE waiting room with little examination rooms and offices all along the perimeter.  Kelsey goes to the front desk and informs them that she is a student from Payap, and they direct us to the opposite end of the hall.  To be treated as a patient from Payap, one must first go to the nurse’s office on campus and get a reference note.  They had a form in English to fill out, and we were directed to one of the many waiting areas.  The first was the wooden benches.  Sitting, watching and waiting, I couldn’t help but feel like I was at the MVA (or DMV for you non-Marylanders).

a doctor and nurse giving the pseudomedical staredown in front of two examination rooms

There was certainly not a hospital feel.  No hospital smell, no one who looked like they were in any real, immediate pain (except for those in the gurneys, of course), and although I have no doubts about its cleanliness, it just didn’t have that bleach white hospital feeling from home.  And the woman walking around selling lottery tickets didn’t help.

So after waiting in one spot, Kelsey is taken to the center of the waiting room where she is weighed and her blood pressure is taken, and then we are sent to a different waiting area – plastic bucket seats.  After sitting there for a while, assuring Kelsey that she does not seem to be in enough pain to possibly have internal bleeding (I should know!), she is taken to a room in front of us.  She comes out after fifteen minutes and tells me she has to give a urine sample, and once she drops that off they tell her they will meet with her again when her test results come back in an hour.  Fun!  The drilling and hammering in the neighboring room filled my ears with agony and my heart with terror.  Remind me not to get sick in Thailand, for this isn’t the most comforting atmosphere.  Thank goodness the ceiling is covered (COVERED) in fans, because sitting in a room full of (potentially sick) people in the middle of the day in Thailand is not the most comfortable activity.

patients waiting patiently

Luckily the test results only took thirty or forty minutes, came back fine, and in she went into the exam room again.  She came out alive with the doctor’s verdict: pulled muscle during her weekend deep-tissue massage.  When picking up her percription for muscle relaxers, the nurse behind the counter asked “Do you beleive in Jesus?”  She answered no.  “May I have a moment of your time to chat?”  Once again, negatory.  I was surprised, albiet we were at a Christian-funded hospital, that the staff would be so forward to their patients.  One weeks supply of muscle relaxers and, oh, eternal commitment to your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

Ajan Gloowhy and Ajan Gwang! Session Two of Two

After the craziness of our first lesson, Miriam and I were pumped to teach a second class.  This time we would have no required agenda and would be traveling to the other Payap campus to teach nurses who have signed up for a special set of lessons that would only consist of people from my program going over to teach.  Just us, which is a lot of pressure because if we don’t teach them anything worthwhile then this would be a lot of wasted time for them.  And they have very strict schedules.  And curfews!  They are basically prisoners of Payap and, like most training to be in the medical profession, do not have very much free time to themselves.  So we were going to have to make this count.

We were very excited to teach them practical patient care vocabulary, planning on doing going over body parts (“Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”, perhaps?) and running through a few skits practicing patient-nurse interaction.  However, when we ran this by one of our friends who taught during the first session (we were running the second), she said that they knew English pretty well and were more concerned with practicing speaking and listening.  So we threw out our plans and decided to just go with an open mind and open agenda (but, just in case, I brought along my Thai phrasebook that had some great basic phrases for patients to tell doctors and possible answers).

When we got there, there were ten eager nurses awaiting our arrival.  We found a classroom and sat down, at a conference table, Miriam toward one end and I at the other.  The girl next to me said “I am very excited to learn from you!”  No pressure.

We went around the room and introduced ourselves, and then asked what they liked to do in their free time.  It ranged from dancing to travelling to reading the bible.  One girl, the traveller, said she enjoyed taking pictures and I emphatically told her that I did as well, and admitted that in the month I’ve been here I have taken an absurd amount.  “Would you find it very interesting to take a picture of us?”  At hearing the girl beside me ask this, I said “YEES, I WOULD FIND IT SO INTERESTING TO TAKE A PICTURE OF YOU!”  And reached for my camera at once.  “Oh, I was only joking!” she protested, but it was too late, the camera had been retrieved and I said “Well that’s too bad, because I’m just going to have to do it anyway!”  And so we all got up, found a random guy walked past the room, and posed.  Cuteness ensued.

Ajan Gwang, Ajan Gloowhy and our crew of knowledgable nurses!

After our introductions, we split the group between us and simply talked about random things for the rest of class. I asked my five if they liked American music, and they sad “Oh, yes! Awa Laweeng!”  Hmm, I thought..that doesn’t sound like an American name to me.  I double checked.  “Awa Laweeng?”  “Awulll Laweeeen!”  They tried a few more times until finally one girl wrote A-V-I-L on her paper.

Avril Lavigne!!!!

Seriously?  Avril Lavigne??

I told the that she is actually Canadian, and that I do not like her very much.  “But she is so cool!  And pretty!  And dresses so cute!”  Are we thinking of the same Avril Lavigne?  Then I remembered that I had my iPod and speakers with me, and that Interchorus just so happened to sing “Complicated”.  So I played it.  They thought it was pretty cool that we were singing A Cappella, and with my iPod out I started going through pictures and songs and showing them my family and pictures of my campus and Halloween costumes.  We got to Annie’s costume last year and I tried to explain the game Twister, which after drawing a colorless Twister mat decided it was best to just show them, and got on the floor.  They were amused, but whether they completely got it will remain a mystery.

We just spent the rest of the hour chatting, I asked them more questions about themselves.  (“How many siblings do you have?”  “Oh…just me.”  “Oh so you are an only child!”  “Yes.  I am an only child.  And one brother and one sister.”)  And tried to explain urban, suburban, and rural.  I then said that I lived in the middle of nowhere, and realized that was a silly idiom to introduce and then have to explain.  Then the girls asked me to teach them some American slang, and I’m afraid I was at a loss.  “What do you say, like, cool?”  I gave them awesome, rad, sweet, sick, and “That’s the shit!” but they didn’t seem too impressed.  I felt bad, but I completely drew a blank for any absurd slang we use nowadays.  Guess I’m out of the lingo loop!

An hour passed WAY too quickly, and when it was time for our song-taow to pick us up and take us back to PIH, we scrambled to get everyone’s e-mail address so we can hang out again.  They all said they couldn’t wait to see us next time, and it broke my heart to tell them that each session would be with someone new.  Four of the girls asked if they could wait with us in the front for our song-taow (so sweet!!), but unfortunately it had already arrived.  They walked us right up to the front anyhow and we said one last goodbye to the sweetest little nurses I have ever met.  Now enough of this blog, I need to e-mail my new friends!

Ajan Gloowhy and Ajan Gwang! Session One of Two

Yesterday Miriam and I had the absolute pleasure of teaching an English 101 class here at Payap University.  We were a little nervous going into it, having met with the teacher and receiving warnings of her students’ shyness to speak, limited ability to understand and general lack of enthusiasm.  But we chose not to let this damper our enthusiasm.  Ajan Alex (the regular teacher) gave us a list of vocabularly for the unit they were covering, most of them having to do with food – course, diet, dessert, measure, weigh, count, recipe, serve, service, order, taste, healthy, delicious, boring, fascinating, special, really and fairly.  Seeing how there were less than twenty words and an hour and a half during which we had to go over them, we thought we would have plenty of time to spare and planned on filling this space with hangman, an explanation of food-related idioms, serving some delicious desserts for them to taste (Pepsi and three different flavors of wafers from which they could order) , and lots of vocab-related music.

You Can Get It If You Really Want It – Jimmy Cliff

You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me – Smokey Robinson

And some having to do with diet, dessert, and healthy, like

Drive Through Skit – Tenacious D

Junk Food Junkie – Larry Groce

And some that help explain special, in all of its colorful ways

Supermodel – Jill Sobule

(also good for diet and healthy, if you know the lyrics!)

Special Fred – Steven Lynch

(you have no idea how excited we were to use this)

Ajan Alex also gave us a copy of their homework from last class, a great representation of the King – no, not their King, the King.  All about Elvis and his love of food.  Did you know Elvis would often wake up late – at 5pm – to have a hearty breakfast?  Were you aware of the time Elvis ate 250g of chocolate and 6 scoops of ice cream in his limosuine before meeting the President?  Did you know his last meal was 4 scoops of chocolate ice cream and 8 chocolate cookies?  I believe the last line was “It was his love of food and use of drugs that ultimately killed him.”  Fascinating!

So, obviously, we had to play some Elvis Presley, too.

When we got there, however, our plans were altered.  Each of the students nearly did a double take and hopped back out of the classroom when they saw us standing at the front of the room, then proceeded to stand outside and count rooms to make sure they were in the right place.  They finally, begrudgingly came in and asked in a very concerned manner, “Wheh ees Ajan Alek?  Ajan Alek??”

After Ajan Alex and the fifteen or so students arrived within the first fifteen minutes of class, we began.  Talking at a normal pace, I watched my words buzz rapidly over their heads, and realized that this

would     be   a    slooow  (slooooow)  pro-cess.

We began by having them read the Elvis article out loud first, and then checked for comprehension.  Slim to none.  With great dissapointed, we realized that listening to songs would be completely useless (although we did listen to Elvis very softly during this excersize).  We tried to explain as best we could, slowly introducing some of the vocab words.  “Elvis likes to eat DELICIOUS food.  He thinks this food TASTES DELICIOUS.  Is this food HEALTHY for him?  No.  Elvis had a very UNHEALTHY DIET.”  I’m afraid it was hard not to initially use healthy and delicious as antonyms, but then when we went to find examples of not-so-delicious healthy food, we could only come up with salad.  Those Thais like their healthy foods!

It ended up taking the entire class time to just go over the vocabulary words, and I am not very confident that they left with that great of an understanding.  I drew lots of pictures, though – a fat lady and a skinny lady, saying that one eats DELICIOUS food and one eats HEALTHY food.  I also tried to explain that diet doesn’t always mean everything you eat, but it can also be used as a change in what you eat (i.e. the fat lady must DIET to become the skinny lady – less DELICIOUS foods and more HEALTHY foods).  I felt a little helpless when, after asking if candy is delicious, we got an emphatic NO!  Oh, well.  Moving on.

Course was a tricky concept to decribe because in Thailand all sense of order in a meal in completely missing.  Thais usually order their food first, and then later order drinks.  Food will come out as it is ready and drinks may not come out until you’re halfway finished eating.  Some diners will be completely finished before others even get their food!  Also, soup is not a first course as it is in America, it is just another meal, so explaining first course (“Little things!  Or soup or salad.”), second course (“The meat and vegetables and noodles”), and third course (this one was easier – DESSERT!) was difficult.  I’m not sure if they completely got it, because they have nothing off of which they can base this concept.

I don’t think recipe got through to them at all, because once again, cookbooks are not very Thai.  Unlike in America where meals come from a plethora of cultures and have countless variations, there are only a number of Thai dishes that one knows how to prepare, and they are usually taught to you by your parents through demonstration.  In fact, one of my Thai friends last week asked me if it was true that in America, no one knows how to cook anything and so they all use cookbooks.  I wrote a fake recipe for chocolate chip cookies on the board and tried to explain that you have to mix things in a certain order and you have to MEASURE or COUNT the ingredients (sugar you measure, eggs you count!) for it to turn out right.

My favorite part of the class was teaching the adjectives and adverbs.  We animatedly acted out boring and fascinating, asking if the class was BORING (and then proceeded to put our heads in our hands and fall asleep) or FASCINATING (leaning out of our chair in extreme interest, giving our most fascinating, happy-surprise face).  We then handed out snacks, asking them what they found fascinating or boring.  Most of the answers were great, even if some of the answers showed that they didn’t quite get it.  “I find….winning!  Fascinating!”  “Learning….is boring.”  “Reading.  Boring.”  “To study, it is boring.”  And my favorite, an answer from one of the boys in the back which Miriam informed me of after class:  “I think it is fascinating to…. make love!”  Accompanied by a ferocious wink.

I think I startled them with my approach to differentiating adverbs.  “When you are sad, you can be a little bit sad, where no one will know on the outside but you still feel sad on the inside.  Or (as I turn my face into my saddest pout) you can be FAIRLY sad, where people can tell.  Or maybe, you’re feeling REALLY sad (now through broken sobs) and- you just -are- so– sad!!”  They gasped in bewilderment at their sobbing Ajan, but I think they got that one.

the always fascinating, never boring, fairly delicious and all-around really special Ajan Gloowhy and Ajan Gwang (Gwang means beetle!)

We finished everyting just in time, and as we cleaned up the trash from the snacks they enthusiastically enjoyed, I had really mixed feelings.  Thai language is my favorite class of the day, and we spend much of the time writing in Thai, asking to know more and more new words, and beraging Ajan Ray with questions about grammar and word choice.  The whole time we are speaking and writing and learning useful questions and phrases.  English class for them is about memorizing a few vocab words long enough to pass the test, and then move on, hopefully without being completely lost.  No one asked a single question.  They all nodded silently when we asked if they understood.  It made me wonder why they would ever take the class in the first place.  I also found their textbook to be really overwhelming (they barely understood anything we said, but their homework was to read an entire article in English).  Their book was filled paragraphs made up of dense wording, completely in English, with a small vocab list in the back.  Everything had to be learned through context.  While this seems like it would be a good approach, I was shocked to see that, halfway through the book, they could barely speak.  My Thai friends at Payap told me that it is very common for a Thai student to be able to read and write English but not be able to speak or understand spoken word.  Seems pretty pointless!

Still, it just made me want to teach more.  I enjoyed being silly and loosening them up, and a sense of pride when I felt that I was actually conveying what I wanted them to learn.  Teaching really is such a rewarding process and I can easily see how it can be both addicting and extremely frustrating.

Don’t worry, I’m not changing careers quite yet.  I’ll just add that to my back-up list.