The English Competition

Much to Stuart and Kristin's dismay, I got out of class today to attend one of the English competitions in Ayutthaya. Two of my students had been preparing for a couple of weeks, and I had been coaching them, so I was invited to go along.

This is actually the third time there's been an competition since the beginning of the semester. The students are supposed to write (I say "supposed to" because it's usually the teachers who write it) and present a 5-minute essay on a topic given to them. I am continually amazed at how adept Thai's are at memorization--if they were mutants that would be their power--the fact that they are able to memorize a 5 minute speech in another language baffles me; there's no way I could memorize a 5 minute speech in Thai. Regardless, both the students and the teachers take these competitions very seriously. I am continually told to cancel my classes so that I can coach the students in the competition instead. I haven't taught a full lesson to my 4/2's in about a month due to various English competitions. I'm not complaining, I'm just amazed by their prioritization. My best guess is that success in these competitions is a big honor for the the school (Thai's are all about acquiring honor). Anyway, two of my favorite students were participating in this contest: my favorite student and the boy who likes illegally downloading music. Thus, I was very motivated for them to do well and regularly stayed late to help them out.

This morning the group assembled and left for Ayutthaya. In typical Thai-fashion, 8 students were going even though only 4 of them were actually competing. Except for my two M4's everyone else was an M6 (the equivalent of a high school senior). They were all from Kristin's 6/1 class, which, from what I've seen, consists only of lady-boys and their posse of girl friends. They're actually a big deal around campus, kind of like the coolest kids in school that also happen to be the teachers' pets. I don't think I've ever seen them apart, which must be why the rest of them were allowed to come. The bus ride itself was hilarity. The driver got lost multiple times and everyone yelled at him as he weaved through traffic at 120 km/hour. Based on their vocal inflections, I think the lady-boys were having a pretty raunchy conversation, because Ra-Tree (the head of the English Department) would occasionally smack them and they would give her a saucy-sounding response. Then she would laugh because the Thai teachers are just as entertained by the lady-boys as the phrang are.

We finally arrived at the university that was hosting the competition, and all the staffers were amazed at my presence because I was a phrang, but I wasn't one of the judges. From what I gather, all of these competitions have to have at least one phrang judge just to give them a sense of credibility. As I looked around the room, I immediately thought that our students were in trouble. The only male students in the competition were the ones from our school. There's a reason for this: the girls' English always sounds much better than boys' regardless of their level. We had three boys (technically 2 because of the lady-boy) and one girl, so the odds didn't appear to be in our favor.

The event started with a 15 minute advertisement for the university. Ra-Tree told me that the university didn't have a very good reputation and was trying to promote itself through the English competition. First place included a free scholarship to the university, but all our students wrinkled their faces in disgust at this prospect. After this, the judges were introduced. Today Fortune smiled on us: the phrang judge ended up being a FABULOUS actor-turned-English-teacher from New York. The judges were all asked to give a speech, and I was introduced and asked to give a speech because being a phrang meant that I might as well have been judge. One of the Thai judges preceded to spend half-an-hour talking about himself, I guess just because. Here's an important lesson for anyone coming to Thailand: never give a Thai a microphone. Even the shyest, most soft-spoken Thai will suddenly discover their inner Cicero when handed a mic. Finally the competition began.

The students from the other schools seemed to be about the same level as our students. Ra-Tree pointed a group of girls and declared that they had unfairly beat our students at the last competition; clearly, she was set on revenge. The first member of our group to present was our lady-boy. His speech, in my opinion, was the highlight of the competition. Even among lady-boys, this kid is the most outrageous. When Kristin coached him, we both had to cover our mouths in fake contemplation and we couldn't make eye contact or we would lose it. Now, imagine this going on for 5 minutes in complete silence. Even worse, before the competition Ra-Tree had to periodically yell at him because he kept putting on more and more make-up and lipstick; by the time he walked onto stage he was practically a geisha. I can proudly point to the fact that I didn't laugh as a testament to my great willpower. Afterwards, the phrang judge told me that he wanted give him 1st just because he was so adorable. I'd have to agree, but I'd also mention that his English was fairly clear and understandable if someone were to accuse me of bias. Unfortunately, Meen was in the unenviable position of having to follow his show-stopping performance.

Since we had arrived, Meen had been in pretty rough shape. The Speed-style bus ride combined with nervousness (this was her first English competition) had almost given her a panic attack and she had to spend several minutes outside trying to regain her breath. While her pronunciation was good, she was having a lot of difficulty remembering the speech. Although I appeared outwardly calm, I was just as nervous for her. I mean, what teacher wants to see their favorite student publicly humiliated? Ra-Tree tried (unsuccessfully) to calm her down by pointing out that she was the prettiest girl in the room. Ra-Tree then turned to me for affirmation and I confidently nodded. This didn't really work, but I'm glad to say that she went up there and got through it relatively painlessly. She forgot a lot of the speech, but Ra-Tree had to foresight send a copy of the speech with her, and she was able to read off the paper. She took the whole experience in stride and vowed to improve next time. It helped that the two girls who followed her completely bungled their speeches.

Not long after Meen, it was Tae's turn. Tae is an English competition veteran and is basically Ra-Tree's go-to guy. It showed as he confidently spoke for the full 5 minutes, with only the slightest hesitation during one section. I was just as proud of him as I was of Meen. After lunch and some deliberation on the judges' part, the winners were announced. Apparently, our lady-boy's charm was not limited to us as the judges awarded him runner-up. Although he was very surprised, I wasn't at all when Tae's name was called for the winner. For first place he was awarded 3,000 baht (about 100 U.S.) and a scholarship to the university which he'll probably turn down in two year. For second place, our lady-boy was given 2,000 bath which I have no doubt he'll use to buy designer clothes. Overall, it was a great success for Bang Pa-In Raja School, though I may have received a few dirty glances from the other students and teachers; maybe they think having a phrang coach is cheating.

While we waited for the minibus to arrive, I had good conversations with Meen and Tae (half in English, half in Thai). I taught Meen "lady-boy," and she then called Tae a lady-boy about 10 times which he denied profusely. Ra-Tree was quite pleased and said that I made the students feel confident. For my part, I was happy to have to opportunity to go. Tomorrow Stuart and I get to dress up as Santa Claus and parade about the school, so this will be quite the week for me.

Bang Pa-In Raja School: representin'

Thai Traffic and Fun Things about the Language

Recently I rented a motorbike from my co-worker Stuart. Among ex-pats a motorbike and a Thai girlfriend/boyfriend are the ultimate sign of status; if you have those then everyone takes you seriously. Today I broke up with my girlfriend, so I'm not really sure where I stand, but I'm sure I can regain my street cred quickly enough. Regardless, I still have my motorbike.

Prior to coming to Thailand, I had sort-of, kind-of ridden motorbikes, and after a rough start (I fell over within 10 seconds of driving), I've gotten pretty comfortable on them. Unfortunately, the difficulty in driving comes less from driving and more from the traffic. To be frank, there are no traffic laws in Thailand that I'm aware of. Remember the oft-quoted line from Pirates of the Caribbean, "They're not so much rules as guidelines"? Yeah, that can be applied to Thai land. Because of the English influence, you drive on the left side of the road...except when you feel like driving on the right side. People generally respect stoplights, but there aren't very many of them. There are several major intersections where they have traffic lights, but they are never turned on. As far as I can tell, at these it's simply go when you feel like it. At these I just follow the "safety in numbers" axiom and wait for someone else to go first and ride beside them. Also: to my understanding, there aren't speed limits. So yeah, that's fun.

If there's a benefit to all this stupidity, it's that the Thai's understand the traffic laws as well as I do. What separates me from them is that they're just a lot braver (read that: insane). Thai's, especially the ones on motorbikes, are absolutely fearless. Every culture has its own mental exercise that they like to ponder when they're bored. For example, Germans look at a car and wonder, "How many people can I fit in there?" Thai's see a small space and must think, "I wonder if I can fit a motorbike through there?" Lord knows, they certainly try to squeeze them anywhere and everywhere they can. Their other mental exercise is, "How much can I fit onto a motorbike?" It's quite common to see a whole family of 4 squeezed onto one motorbike...with their shopping bags (apparently, Rob and Oanagh saw one that had their dog with them as well).

Pa Sa Thai: Esoteric

As I've mentioned earlier, I've been studying Thai at night. To say the least, Thai's a funny language. I've mentioned that it's tonal, which makes it damn near impossible for non-Thai's. Essentially, every word has up to five different meanings based on the tones (every word in Thai is one syllable). I can hear tones fairly decently, but I can't really speak them. This is unfortunate because a lot of Thai's are mentally lazy and don't bother trying to figure out what you're saying. For instance, on Saturday Rob, Neil, and I went to this mall Future Park (about halfway between Ayutthaya and Bangkok) to see Avatar. Afterwards, we tried to find a minibus back to Ayutthaya. I asked a Thai, "Minibus Ayutthaya yu tii-nay khab?" ("Where is the Ayutthaya minibus?") She understood everything but Ayutthaya, so she disappeared and came back with someone else. I repeated myself and after scratching his head for 10 seconds, he said, "OH! AyutthaYA!" and pointed to the minibus.

So, I realize my pronunciation wasn't perfect, but to be fair to me, everything was right except for the second syllable of "Ayutthaya." This might have changed the meaning to rhino or something, but the first woman should have been able to figure it out contextually. I mean, three phrang are probably asking for a minibus to Ayutthaya and not your mother's spoon. However, rather than work that out she just grabbed someone else. This especially irritates me because we were really spoiled in Chiang Mai. No matter how badly we butchered Thai, they always understood us in Chiang Mai.

Some other intricacies of the Thai language:

• There's no actual word(s) for "yes" or "no." Khrab can sometimes function as "yes." Chai ("It is") is often used as "yes," but there's no actual word for it. Instead if someone asks you if you are hungry, Kun Hiu Ma Khab?, you reply Hiu ("Hungry").
• I mentioned it earlier, but in Thai things are often defined by what they are not. Ma Sa bay dee ("sick") translates to "not well." Mai Khab ("no," kind of) translates to "not yes." The full name of Bangkok takes about a minute-and-a-half for a Thai to say (no joke). Our theory is that it translates to something like, "The city in Thailand that is not Patthaya, not Pai, not Chiang Mai, not Phuket, not that city in the South, etc."
• One of the highlights of Thai is that it is written exactly how it sounds. This makes it very beneficial to learn to read Thai. So far, I can read about 15 characters (there are 44 total). Hopefully this will help with the tones.
• Thai's have added tones to many words that they've borrowed from English. Ironically enough, it can be quite frustrating to use English words. Sometimes I'll get a mocha in the mornings. Everytime I say, ao mocha, the cashier shouts back at me, "MochAAA!" Ok, listen for a minute, my country is the home of Starbucks; I'm pretty sure I know how to say mocha, thank you very much.
• One of the biggest insults in Thai is to call someone kwaai (like "Qui" in "Quiet"), which means buffalo. This means that you are stupid like a buffalo. I have a group of boys in my 4/1 who are obsessed with saying "buffaloes." Right now we're working on environmental slogans. They came up with two gems: 1) "Wear one pair of underwear per 2 days" and 2) "Use less vehicles, use more buffaloes." This is the kind of creativity that I love. One day, I'm going to bring the Bob Marley song "Buffalo Soldier" in and play it for them. It will blow their minds.
• Ko Tot ("Please," "Excuse me," and "I'm sorry") is kind of similar to Ko Toi ("lady-boy"). I think I accidentally called about 50 people lady-boy during my first three weeks in Thailand.
• Pronouns are dropped all the time in Thai. This never makes things confusing (/sarcasm).
• Almost all Thai's giggle incessantly whenever you try to speak Thai. Most of the time I don't really mind, but sometimes when I'm in a foul mood I want to laugh in their face when they try to speak English.

By the way, I feel stupid for not having done this earlier, but two of the guys that were in my TESOL class have a blog that is insanely good. One of them is photographer/filmmaker so he has lots of legit pictures of Thailand (lord knows, I never post any). Check it out. A particular good entry is on the various teaching certifications, which I'm almost afraid to link because it really puts my epic 3 posts on teaching to shame. Then I realized I lost my dignity a long time ago; here it is.

Random Thoughts and Musings

During the week I don't do a lot. Most days, I do any combination of four things when I get home from work: nap, read, bask in the air-con, or hit up an Internet cafe. I brought along the greatest invention ever--my Kindle (the iPod of books for the unenlightened)--thus, I've managed to read quite a bit since coming here. Yesterday, out of boredom, I tallied up everything that I had read since coming and found out that I've read 14 novels. I have the Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Sir Walter Scott (impulse buy) on my Kindle, and have steadily been working my way through each. I'm almost finished with RLS, and just have 3 more of his novels to read (not including short stories, travel writing, and literary essays). Once I read Sense and Sensibility I can say that I've read all of Jane's works. I've also managed to put down 2 collections of essays on the X-Men (I'm fairly confident that I am the entire demographic of the X-Men/Literary Theory industry), a few books on basketball, Dune, The Beach, and The Hobbit. Anyway, I was kind of interested by it.


Last week I noticed a funny thing about male and female phrang in Thailand: the guys tend to speak much, much more Thai than the ladies. I'm not exactly sure why this is, and there are exceptions, but among my classmates, the men's Thai is significantly better than the women's. The other week, I had dinner with Elana and Michelle, who also live in Ayutthaya. I was kind of shocked because they know no Thai outside of Sawadee ("hello"). When we got the bill, I had to ask how much and then translate it for them. I was especially surprised because I learned "how much" (tau rai) and the numbers during my first week, and we've been here 3 months now. I mean I know men's brains are bigger (/end sarcasm), but I figured that they would have picked up more by now. Because I have too much free time on my hands, I come up with theories for phenomenon such as this. My theory: all the male phrang are interested in Thai women, whereas most of the phrang women have no interest in Thai men, giving them less incentive to learn the language. This theory has holes (Kristin's Thai is better than mine, and her boyfriend Tom is with her in Ayutthaya), but I think there may be some truth to it. For my part, I've began studying Thai, and I can't deny that the thought hadn't crossed my mind (to be fair, it's not my primary reason for learning Thai, which is that I don't want to be an asshole American).


Last week, I had a revelation about graduate school. When I originally applied to graduate school, I had no back-up plan if I didn't get accepted or if I didn't get funding. When my schools started to waffle on whether or not I'd get an assistantship, I was scared because I had no other contingency. Fortunately, I stumbled upon this program and was able to say, "Fuck you, I'm going to Thailand" to them. This year is much different. At the end of the semester, I'll have a TESOL certificate that will allow me to teach anywhere in Asia (and parts of Africa and South America). Basically, I have options. At this point, the grad schools that I applied to need me more than I need them, even if they don't know it yet. Not to be immodest, but I'm a good student who can excel in any program. On the other hand, I love living in Thailand: I live very comfortably, the people are in love with me (or with my skin color), and I get to take weekend trips to fabulous beaches and ancient temples; I can honestly say that I could see myself living here for 5 years. Can any graduate program really compete with that? Admittedly, I really want to go to grad school, but if they're being ambiguous about my funding, I can just tell them to screw themselves (I won't actually do that, calm down) and go back to Thailand...or Korea, or China, or Japan. See, where I'm going with this?

So the Thai's are kind of racist....

(So I'm still a sucker for Disney movies. This is why I'm happy that I never grew up. That being said, the song is pseudo-relevant to the post. I was trying to think of songs that involved racism, but all that came to my head was Public Enemy and N.W.A. Seeing as I'm trying to diversify my musical choices, I instead opted for "Colors of the Wind.")

I've alluded to this before, but the Thai's are really racist. No, seriously, they're really racist. To summarize:

Ethnicity's that the Thai's like: White Americans and Europeans, Thai's, Bob Marley, Che Guevara

Ethnicity's that the Thai's don't like: Everyone else

Granted, Thai's are friendly and non-confrontational, so they (probably) won't treat these other groups any differently, but they don't like them. However, they especially hate the Burmese, any Muslims, Japanese, Chinese, Indians, and black people.

Their hatred for the Burmese is simple enough: they are their natural enemies, much like the English-French, French-Germans, and Israeli-Everyone else in the Middle East. In fact, the Burmese sacked and burned down the old capital Ayutthaya (where I live) no less than 8 times. So yeah, I kind of understand that one. The Muslims (technically Islamics, but I'm American and therefore they are interchangeable) are responsible for the violence in the South. Additionally, the Thai's tend to be wary of any kind of fanaticism (one of their great character strengths in my opinion). Their dislike of the others is much more shrouded in mystery. Fortunately, one of my Thai acquaintances was kind enough to explain why the Thai's don't like these people.

According to Thai's, the Japanese are rude, the Chinese are rude and stupid, and the Indians are dirty. However, no one is able to tell me why Thai's don't like black people. I have a few theories, but nothing has been substantiated. In terms of skin color, Thai's love white skin. Whereas in the States, we go out of our way to get tans (or fake tans), they go out of their way to become whiter. In every 7/11, there are multiple bottles of skin whitening cream. In one of the nicer department stores I even saw a cream that was supposed to make your nipples pinker. One of the big trends right now are the contacts that make your eyes massive and blue. They think it makes them look really beautiful, but I have trouble shaking images of The Shining out of my head. Considering all the trouble Thai's go through to appear whiter, it kind of makes sense that they wouldn't like black people. Another of my theories is that they associate blacks with Islam, furthering their dislike, but I can't confirm this. It might not be an exaggeration to say that Thailand is one of the few nations that would have preferred John McCain to Barack Obama.

(I'm sorry buddy. Just give them 15 years, they'll come around.)

I think the racism makes itself very evident in Thai food. Thai's are notoriously picky; they pretty much only like Thai food. I love Thai food, but this is rather unfortunate for me because I had hoped to enjoy good Middle Eastern food, good Indian food, and good Chinese food while I was over here. I've been told that it is to be had in Bangkok, which features large neighborhoods of all three, but in Ayutthaya, I'm definitely lacking for variety. Ironically enough, after Thai food, you're most likely to find Western food, which they do like. McDonald's and KFC have pissed all over Thailand (just like the rest of the world, I supposed) and they can be found here. As ex-pats, we have a general policy: Thai food during the week, Western food on the weekends. If you're traveling to Thailand, you have to eat Thai food the entire time you're here. But we live here, so different rules apply to us.

The Post Where I Finally Talk About Teaching (Part 3)

(Aww...fuck it.)

So I feel like the first two entries have been mostly devoted to what we educators call "setting the context," something we were told to do ad nauseum throughout our training class. Now I'm ready to get into the nitty-gritty of a Thai classroom, but first, an amusing anecdote:

Last week I received a notice from my placement company that in order to get my work permit, they needed me to get a test for syphillis. At first I was a bit taken a back; I mean, I've had a good time in Thailand, but I didn't think it had gotten back to my bosses. Plus, I didn't believe there was any cause for concern to begin with, but then I realized that they had sent the email to all their employees. I'm kind of dumb sometimes, I know. Anyway, I needed to get tested for syphillis.

I needed to get a motorcycle taxi to the hospital, but I don't know the word for hospital; fortunately, living for almost three months in Thailand has taught me to be extremely creative. Thus I said in Thai, "When you're sick, you go to....." and the driver knew immediately what I wanted. Unfortunately, communicating with the uneducated driver who spoke no English was far easier than trying to communicate at the hospital.

I get to the hospital and try to tell them I need a blood test. I actually know the words for "blood test," but I'm bad at tones they had no idea what I was saying. Instead they kept asking me again and again what my symptoms were. I told them multiple times that I was healthy (another great example of things defined by what they are not in Thai, the literal translation of "sick" is "not well," therefore I couldn't very well say that I was not sick, or "not not well"). The Thai nurses would just say, "Ok. Ok. Ok." and ask me again if my arm was broken. Finally, after 45 minutes of this, they took me to see a doctor. In Thailand, medicine is only taught in English, so all Thai doctors are fluent in English. This particular one had been sitting in his office reading a newspaper for the entire 45 minutes, but whatever. Within two minutes, he had translated what I needed to the nurses and given the proper orders. An hour later, I had test results in hand (negative...BOO-YAH!) and was ready to go.

Classroom Management: I'm Occasionally an Asshole to my Students

I mentioned that many (sometimes 90%) of the students pay absolutely no attention, instead chatting among themselves, texting (or talking) on their cell phones, reading, etc. Most days in my lower-level classes, I just ignore these kids and simply teach the ones who want to learn. Last week I was in a particularly foul mood, and (it seemed) like the bad students were being especially noisy, so I declared emotional warfare on my students.

One of the odd nuances of Thai culture that westerners don't understand is the idea of losing face (respect). Thai's are deathly afraid of losing face and will go to unreasonable lengths to prevent this, especially when they involve doing the kinds of things that westerners would actually consider to cause loss of face. Rob's example of not knowing where something is, so instead pretending to know and sending you to the wrong place is a great example of this. The Thai nurses who pretended to understand what I was saying instead of saying "Mai Ca Jay" ("I don't understand") are another great example. The Thai children are the same when it comes to losing face so I'll occasionally exploit it.

One of the ways I do this is through a game called popcorn. I take a sheet of paper, wad it up into a ball, and toss it randomly over my shoulder. Whomever it hits, or whoever's desk it lands on has to stand up and speak the dialogue that I had been going over. If a class is misbehaving, I won't toss it randomly. Instead I'll ignore the worst troublemakers (while filing them away in my brain) and continue teaching. When it's time for the students to speak. I immediately chuck the ball at these kids. Then I make them come to the front of the classroom and speak the dialogue while the rest of the class is silent. Naturally, they have no idea what to say. Because these are the lower-level classes they can't read English either, so they're doubly-fucked. I then say to them (through the Thai teacher): "You were sitting in the back, yelling with your friends. I understand, you know this already. So you can teach the class." With the first kid or two, I usually drag these periods for as long as possible before I finally tell them what to say, or let the other students tell them what to say. After embarassing a few students, I begin to let the students choose who goes next. Thai students are even more sadistic than I am. They know who hasn't been paying attention and target them ruthlessly.

Another face-losing technique that I've used successfully is something that was used in my high school. I went to a catholic all-boys school where they believed that punishments should fit the crime. If someone was continually acting out in class, they would be forced to spend all of lunch sitting at the top of a ladder...in the middle of the cafeteria....with a sign around their neck that read, "I need attention." Granted this was rare, but it was effective as hell. I've used this twice and both times it has worked beautifully. I've made two boys move their desks to the front of the room, facing the rest of the class, and told the class, "Look at them. They need attention. Give them your attention." The Thai teacher doesn't even have to translate, everyone in that room knows what's going on. I love the reactions on the boys' faces. At first they try to play it off, like they find it's amusing, but after a minute of silence with 60 pairs of eyes beaming down on them, they cave....they always cave. One of the boys put his face into the desk and covered it with his hands.

This week, I was sick, so I wasn't going to try yelling above my classroom. Another, less potentially therapy-inducing method for getting the students to quiet down is to simply stand at the front and not say anything. This makes the students incredibly uncomfortable and they'll eventually shut up on their own. On Wednesday, my 2/8's were being obnoxiously loud despite the fact that I was going over what would be on the test next week. Frankly, I wanted to simply dismiss them completely and let them fail the test, but I noticed that about half the students were earnestly taking notes and paying attention. This particular classroom had the desks arranged in groups rather than rows, and 3 of the 6 clumps were good students (ironically enough, they were scattered randomly rather than the 3 closest to me). I felt bad about fucking these kids over, but I also didn't want to yell over everyone else. I came up with a good solution: I grabbed a sheet of notebook paper and wrote everything down on that rather than the chalk board. I then went to each group and went over the test with them, making sure they understood everything. I was prepared to do the same with any of the other 3 groups if they asked, but none of them even noticed. Sometimes favoritism is the best policy.

Teaching English to Students Who Don't Speak English

During our ATI sessions, we were given a very specific format to stick to when speaking English. We are supposed to use 4-line dialogues, demonstate the whole dialogue by yourself several times and then move onto working with students. I'm sure the method has worked in the past, but, at least with my kids, it's a steaming pile of shit. The teacher/teacher modeling involves the teacher physically moving back and forth to demonstrate the distinction between roles. I tried using the method once and my students just thought I was crazy; even worse, they were too busy laughing to pay attention to what the dialogue was and didn't know any of it. I do my own thing now.

As I've mentioned, I usually start with funny pictures and/or funny acting to catch the students' attention. Then I will write an individual vocabulary word on the board. I've been teaching advanced feelings to my 4's, so I would draw a cup of coffee with a skull and crossbones, then mime throwing up, to the students' delight, before writing "I feel disgusted" on the board. I then say the word(s) several times aloud and have the students repeat it back to me. If it's a particularly long word or features sounds they struggle with, I'll break it down and pronounce every syllable, and really exaggerate some sounds. Then I move onto the next word(s). Rinse and repeat.

(I'm not quite finished yet, but I feel bad for not posting in a while, so take it already Veronica Corningstone. I'll let you know when I update it.)

Things I have learned about Thai's

So I'm still working on the final post about teaching in Thailand, but in the meantime my friend Rob has been writing a series of Facebook notes about the Thai's with input from our ATI class. They're a fun and enlightening read, but keep in my mind that they are written by a bitter, sarcastic Englishmen who describes his favorite activity as "being negative."

Okay so here's what i have learnt about the Thais over the past few weeks - feel free to add more if you feel I've left anything out. I love the Thai people, but they really can be very strange sometimes........

• 1) Thais cannot tell the time - there are 4 systems for telling the time, some of which depend on which region you are in. Their inability is shown by their sense of timekeeping.
• 2) Thais cannot be flustered - the attitude of Mai Pen Rai means they never worry, leave everything to the last minute and infuriate Westerners.
• 3) Thais are possibly colour blind - the system for colours in Thailand is ridiculous, for example the word for purple is the same as the word for mango.
• 4) Thais have no sense of rhythm - just try and get a class of Thai children to repeat a simple drum beat and you'll see what I mean. (I added, "I think their inability to tell time goes hand and hand with being unable to keep a beat. They have literally no perception of time whether it be a half-second or two hours. The next time I want to burn an hour lesson I'll try explaining Daylight Savings Time to them.")
• 5) Thais hate Thursdays - the word for Thursday is about 5 syllables longer than every other day - i think that it translates to "day that is shit and no where near as good as Friday"
• 6) Thais take pleasure in simple things - for example the I.T teacher at my school who loves Harry Potter. The only thing he wants in the world is a pair of Harry Potter glasses.
• 7) Thais are fascinated by blond hair - hence all the stairs I get from small children, old ladies and I.T teachers who love Harry Potter
• 8) Thais have never heard of the Nazi Party or Adolf Hitler - a man walked past me at a festival with the biggest Swastika on his tee-shirt that I have ever seen in my life and all my fellow teachers wondered why i looked like I had seen a ghost. When I tried to explain just why a man should never have a Swastika on his tee-shirt they shrugged their shoulders and said they didn't understand. Then they said Mai Pen Rai
• 9) All Thais support Liverpool - see a few months ago when the Thai national team played Liverpool and all the Thais in the crowd supported Liverpool.
• 10) Thai motorcyclists are fucking nuts!!! - in no other country in the world would you see a family of 4 plus shopping ride a motorcycle through a busy city at rush hour.
• 11) Thais are more than capable of wasting your time - such as by insisting that you go to a 3 hour orientation meeting and then conducting 2 and a half hours of it in Thai. They even told us that we could help ourselves to food in Thai, then wondered why none of the Westerners moved!
• 12) Thais believe that a straw is compulsory with any drink - which includes a large Chang beer, meaning that the straw will sink into the beer and inevitably choke you when you forget about it later.
• 13) Thais are not responsible enough to be allowed fireworks - no further explanation needed if you have seen the Thais swing a firework over their head and release at the last possible moment. Or if you have seen them launch over the heads of a large group of Westerners.
• 14) Thais believe that anything you buy should go into a carrier bag - whether that be a small bottle of coke, or something that is already in a bag. I brought a carrier bag with me to 7/11, put my shopping in it, the Thai clerk took the bag and put it inside of another bag!
• 15) Thais don't believe in prior warning - for example when they recently fumigated the school for mosquitos whilst I was still teaching a class.
• 16) Thais will rather pretend they know where something is rather than lose face - which is a little infuriating when numerous Thais send you all over Ayuttahya looking for a bus, only to have another Thai send you back in another direction.
• 17) Thais have only just received the Doris Day song Que Sera Sera - I wondered why all the children at my school were singing it, and I have been told that it is number 1 in the charts at the moment, after a group of children sang it on a popular Thai television show. (Amy added, "A co-worker told me it is so popular because it was recently featured here in a commercial for insurance. Under the principals direction, my students will be signing it for our school Christmas show next month. Instead of whatever-will be will be, I just say whatever.")
• 18) Thais believe that a bucket constitutes bathroom sanitation - however better the rest of Thai life may be compared to back home, using the bathroom in Thailand is not a pleasant experience.
• 19) Thais believe that if you can speak 20 words of Thai then you are fluent - the woman who runs the laundrette next door to my flat chats away to me in Thai everytime i see her, and i smile and nod and say "tchai krap" when prompted. The reason she does this is because I know the numbers and told her that i would come back to collect my laundry at "hok mon yen" (6pm)
• 20) There are at least 2 ladyboys in every single class - no idea why, that's just Thailand for you. It is really nice to see such acceptance from teenagers though.

The Post Where I Finally Talk About Teaching (Part 2)

(The songs that are featured in these posts are on my I-Pod, which I listen to everyday during my commute to and from school.)

Morning Ceremony

Although I arrive in Bang Pa-In around 6:45, school doesn't actually begin until 7:45, so I kill an hour eating breakfast, reveling in my celebrity status as I walk along the school's campus, brushing my teeth, and spinning around in circles in my swivel chair. At 7:45, morning ceremony begins. The students (all 2,000) gather on the football (soccer, for the unenlightened) pitch. The students form perfect lines, exactly an arm's length apart. The real teachers prowl about the students, making sure that they are forming lines while the phrang teachers (Stuart, Kristin, and I) sit at one of the lunch benches. The band then plays the three mandatory songs: the national anthem, the school song, and the national song for schoolchildren. After the songs are finished, the students will then kneel on the grass and begin their morning prayers. Afterwards, a Thai teacher (usually the guy we've dubbed the Nazi) will take over the microphone and begin a morning talk. I don't know what the other teachers say, but the Nazi essentially berates the students for 10 minutes. Around the 10-minute mark he begins what we've dubbed freestylin', which means that he turns the mic off and he screams on his own lung power. Ironically enough, as he does this all the students are fidgeting, cleaning their nails, etc.

The highlight of morning assemblies are on Tuesday mornings. Every week, one of the phrang teachers is responsible for "Word of the Day." We pick a word and one of our classes to perform the word. We read the definition and have the students spell it out with giant cardboard letters. Then we give an example of usage and the students act it out. My first word, naturally, was "entourage." My example: "Britney Spears' entourage got into a fight with Michael Jackson's entourage." As I was preparing for this, there was never any doubt in my mind that the class lady-boy would fill the role of Britney Spears, which he performed admirably. However, as awesome as "entourage" was, it didn't compare to Stuart's "negotiation," as in "to negotiate with a terrorist, or with a suicide jumper." Even though I'm not due up again for another 2 weeks, I already have my next word planned--"miscommunication"--as in, "every day of work in a Thai school features at least one miscommunication." I think only Stuart and Kristin will find it funny, but then again, that's the whole point of "Word of the Day."

My Students

I have about 900 students total, 400 of which I see twice a week. It seems like there are a lot more girls than boys, though I haven't actually tried counting and have no explanation for this. In general, Thai's tend to be very laid back academically. That's a polite way of saying that they are very lazy. This is not true of the 1's and 2's, and about half of the 3's and 4's, but for everyone else, minus the token good student in each classroom, it's true. Teaching in Thailand has made me realize how many basic features of school we take for granted in the United States. For instance, there is apparently no rule against cell phones, so the students will have them out during class and be blatantly texting, sometimes even talking on the phone. More often than not, the students won't bother taking notes, or even pulling out their notebooks, or really even pretend to take notes. Danielle, who I replaced, had taught in Korea before coming to Thailand. In Korea, the students are very serious and very self-motivated so it was a shock coming into Thailand. Apparently, she was told by the Thai teachers that she was too boring and too difficult.

That being said, the Thai students are incredibly fun to teach. They respond really well to any kind of humor, especially facial gestures and acting out concepts in a silly way. Without a doubt, it's a blessing that I have more girls than boys, because the girls are better behaved and generally more likable. I'm not sure whether they're all actually as sweet as they seem to be or if they just pretend to be, but I don't really care. The boys are more of a handful. The lower-level boys will constantly be getting up, hitting each other, and (to use my old Catholic school's terminology) grabassing. I think the huge difference in behavior comes from the fact that traditional gender roles are alive and well in Thailand. Girls are taught to be (mostly) quiet, respectful, and obedient, whereas it's thought that "boys will be boys." The lady-boys are a lot of fun because they combine the best of both worlds. They're loud--usually the lady-boys are the loudest in the classroom--like the boys, but are respectful and pay attention like the girls. I won't even begin to deny that I prefer the girls to the boys, although the best boys are usually more fun than the best girls. I think the best teaching job would be to a teacher at an all-girls school; however, you would miss out on the lady-boys and that would be a damn shame.

The other day Kristin and I would talking about the couples, and I said that I didn't want any of my girls to date any of my boys because I wanted them to idolize me constantly. I added that none of the boys were good enough for the girls anyway, and Kristin strongly agreed with this sentiment. After having thought about it some more, I'd be willing to slightly retract that statement and say that there are about 10 of my boys who I would allow to date my girls, but no more 10 of my boys are deserving of even the worst of my girls.

My Emotional Girlfriends

A question that I get asked often is, "Do you have any favorites?" I can say "yes" to this without the slightest hesitation. There are 4 girls in my 4/3 and 4/4 (2 in each) that are my absolute favorites. I'll even go as far to say that there's roughly a 70% chance that I'll someday marry one of these girls. I realize it may be tedious and borderline-creepy to read about my infatuation with some of my students, but when you're in love you want to proclaim it from a mountain. This blog is my proverbial mountain, so let me tell you why I love these girls.

For the first three weeks of my 4/3 and 4/4 classes, I was without a Thai teacher because she was out with surgery. I try not rely on the Thai teacher anyway, so this wouldn't have been a big deal except that I was charged with teaching my students about job interviews, including vocabulary such as "qualifications" and "work experience." Every day of these classes was an exercise in absolute failure. I would try to explain everything in the simplest terms possible and none of my students would understand. I'd explain over and over again in different ways and still nothing. Granted, this is partially because the 4/3's and 4/4's are clever, but are slackers and only about half of them actually pay attention, but the majority of the blame falls on my shoulders. The silver lining of these classes were the four girls who would sit in the front, listen with rapt attention, and take immaculate notes. They were not unique in this regard, but they were very unique in that they would ask questions and ask me for clarification (even the good Thai students never do this and it pisses me off because I know that 60% of what I say doesn't make sense to native English-speakers, much less to Thai students). It wasn't very long before they understood and without any prompting on my part, they explained everything to their classmates in Thai.

Students like these are the reason why I come to class everyday optimistic and in a good mood, and why I never let myself half-ass a lesson. I have other students who speak better English than these girls, but none of my students has a better attitude. My 4/3 and 4/4 classes are my favorites because of these girls. One of the girls asked me for my email address so she could practice English; anyone else I would have told to fuck off, but I was more than happy to give it to her.

Adam told me about his "emotional boyfriend," who he's never dated or even been with, but they pretty much function as a couple anyway. When I told him about these girls, we decided that they were my emotional girlfriends. I'll probably end up dating some other Thai girl (who hopefully isn't one of my students), but my heart will always belong to them.

My Teaching Style

I've been working with children in some fashion or another for the past 6 years, so I can say that I'm comfortable with them and fairly knowledgeable. One of my jobs was as a summer camp counselor, and I've used all of my tricks from two summers to teach English to Thai's. As a counselor, my philosophy was, "I don't keep up with my students, they keep up with me." I apply this same idea to teaching and it works wonderfully.

Thai students are used to listening to their teachers drone on in a monotonous voice into a microphone for 50 minutes, so when their teacher comes in running around and screaming their interest is immediately peaked. If I can, I always try to shout at (not yell at, there's a distinction) my students. Thai's have an undeserved reputation as quiet; it's really the exact opposite. Thai's are fucking loud, and when I shout at them, it essentially gives them permission to shout back at me. I also exaggerate the English sounds, which they are entertained by to no end. Finally, I draw lots of funny pictures on the board and act out them out in the silliest way possible. On my first day, Kristin told me that Thai students don't want a teacher, they want a clown. I'm more than happy to be their clown and they respond to it.

Reading this you probably get the impression that I'm a really good, really effective teacher. That is far from the case. In reality, I'm an absolutely shitty teacher. Thai students generally don't understand me because I talk too fast (I'm getting better, but for me this is hand-in-hand with high energy) and I don't always explain things very well. I constantly feel guilty because I'm not a better teacher, but I also understand that I have a difficult job that I was completely unprepared for, and that I get better every day. I think that I'll probably be a pretty good teacher by the end of the semester, just in time to leave back to the States. Unfortunately, I'll be replaced by someone who is also brand-new and therefore a shitty teacher so I feel bad for my students. They really deserve some kind of recognition for the crap they have to put up with.

The Teacher's Conundrum (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Exploit the System to Give my Good Students Good Grades)

One of the more unique aspects of my school is that I'm expected to give a test every two weeks. There are many of my friends who are not expected to give a test all semester, and most are only expected to give a midterm and a final. I don't particularly mind giving tests so frequently, as they kill a week's worth of lesson plans (one day of test review, one day for tests), but grading the tests is incredibly difficult. The teacher's conundrum is this: if one of your good students makes a bad grade, do you find a way to change the grade to a good one and risk setting a precedent? I always answer yes to this question.

More often than not, I find that my good students make a mistake because they tried to do too much, get too creative, or think outside the box. Whereas the majority of the students will simply regurgitate the boring and simple examples that I gave them during the test review. Last week I gave my 4/1-4/4's a test on job interviews. One of the questions asked them to pick a dream job and list their qualifications for that job. When I explained it, I tried to make it fairly simple, so the qualifications were things like "I'm patient," "I'm honest," "I like working with children." Naturally these were the majority of my answers. However, many of my good students got very creative. One of my boys in 4/1 wanted to be a computer programmer. He listed one of his qualifications as "I can design security sistems for intel companies." Teacher's conundrum: do I count off because he misspelled "systems" (an easy mistake for a non native English speaker), or do I find a way to give him credit? My students compare their tests when they get them back, so I know that I have to be consistent, otherwise they'll call me on it. Thus, I have to get creative and exploit flaws in my own test to make sure that this kid gets a good grade (this is the same kid who told me his favorite after school activity was "illegally downloading music on the Internet"....there's no way he doesn't make an A in my class); after all I can't award points for "awesomeness" even though I'd like to.

Fun Anecdotes (I'll add more as I think of them)

• One of my students came into class wearing a hoodie that read "Real Men Use Viagra." It took all my willpower not to burst into laughter.
• When I taught "swagger" to my 2/9's, I had the class lady-boy come to the front to demonstrate. He didn't swagger so much as he strutted like he was on the runway. He even did the spin.
• On Friday I accidentally taught my 3/8's "fuck." I was trying to teach them "funk," but as it would happen, Thai's can't make the "nt" sound. However, they are quite adept at the "ck" sound. Thus I was treated to a chorus of fuck's. Out of curiosity, I had them say "monk"; they said, "muck." At least they don't know what they're saying.

The Post Where I Finally Talk About Teaching (Part 1)

(So I have now been teaching for almost four weeks and I feel like I have had enough of the experience to properly write about it. I have so much to say that I'll try to separate this into sections to make reading a little bit less confusing as well as creating some structure for myself.)

The Daily Commute

My days begin like this: I wake up at about 5:15 and take a cold shower (we don't have hot water in my apartment building), get dressed, and leave by 5:45. I walk through the market, which is very active even in the early morning (who knows when the fuck those people get up), for about a mile to get to the ferry. I take the ferry across the river, walk a block to the train station, and board the train for Bang Pa-In, which lasts about 20-30 min. I then take a song-taw from the train station to my school. All in all, my daily commute is about an hour there and back, yet I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. As cheesy as it may sound, there's a certain satisfaction that comes with knowing that I walk a mile before the sun comes up (by the way, there are several roosters in the market. Growing up in the city, I was always under the impression that they crow a few times and that's it. Actually they never shut the fuck up. Seriously, they crow like 50 times) to put in an honest day's labor. I come home exhausted every day and haven't once regretted coming over here.

My Classes (Age and Level)

But anyway, onto my school. As far as Thai schools go, my school is incredibly nice. It has about 2,000 students, ranging from grades M1-M6 (7th-12th grades in America). Each grade is divided into 10 classes of about 50 students each, such as M4/1-M4/10. The lower the number on the right, the better the students. 1's and 2's are the honors students, while 3's and 4's are fairly smart as well. The 5-10's know little to no English, although there is usually at least a few students in these classes that seem to have a pretty good grasp, leading me to wonder how the students are divided in the first place. I have M2/8-2/10, all the M3's, and M4/1-M4/4. I have the 1-4's twice a week and everyone else once a week. If you're good at math then you know that means I teach about 27 classes a week. While this is about 7 classes more than most English teachers teach, I like my school enough that I don't really mind. There are two other phrang at my school, one of whom, Stuart, has been living and teaching in Thailand for the past 5 years. He has taught at four schools and says that ours is easily the best one.

General Classroom Structure and Design

The classes themselves are supposed to be 55 min. each, but in reality I teach more like 35-40 min. I've mentioned this before, but I'll elaborate: Thai people have no sense of time. I've theorized that this is partly because they have 6 different ways to tell time, only one of which makes any sense. By the time you've finished giving someone the time and they've finished making sense of it an hour has passed and you're late anyway. This is coupled to the fact that Thai's are never in a hurry to make sure that nothing ever starts when it's supposed to. So the students stroll in 10-15 min. late. On the rare occasion when they are on time, there's mutual awkwardness between them and I, because each of us did not expect the other to actually show up on time. When enough students have wandered in, one student will shout, "Please stand up!" The entire class will stand and say in unison, "Good morning/afternoon teacher." I will then say, "Good morning/afternoon students. Please sit down," to which they will respond, "Thank you teacher" and sit down. Apparently, they have to stand until you give them permission to sit down, meaning that in theory I could make them stand for the entire class period, but I like my students, so I just tell them to sit down right away. When the bell sounds to end the period, a student will again shout, "Please stand up." They will all say, "Thank you, teacheeeerrrrrr." I will usually say, "You're welcome students, have a great day," but most of the students bolt before I'm can finish speaking.

The classrooms themselves are not air-conditioned. The first two weeks were agonizing, and I would literally sweat buckets which my students thought was hilarious. When I would get back to my apartment in the afternoons, I would take my clothes off and every article was literally soaking wet. There might be a small dry patch somewhere on my pants, but even this was rare. Fortunately, it's winter now, meaning that the temperature has dropped to a chilly 80 degrees. If nothing else at least I'm no longer sweating.

Other than the lack of air-con, the rooms are fairly similar to American classrooms. They are about 60 desks crammed into each room, divided into rows of two-by-two. The majority of my classrooms are basically gender-segregated--the girls tend to sit on the left, the boys on the right. The exception, naturally, are the lady-boys (I'll get into more on them later). There is at least one lady-boy in each class, and if it wasn't already apparent, the fact that they are sitting amidst a sea of girls makes it blatantly obvious. Not unlike American classrooms, it's fairly easy to spot the good students, as they sit in the center block. The peripheries tend to be occupied by the bad students. The ratio of good/bad students usually depends on the level. The majority of the higher-level students tend be good students, whereas in the lower-level classes, you may have only 2 students out of 50 that pay attention and try to learn.

Even though I only see my students twice a week, they are actually taking multiple English classes daily. The Thai teachers teach them grammar, whereas I'm responsible for conversational English. Thus, when I was given topics by my Thai teachers for 3/1-3/4 and 4/1-4/4, they heavily emphasized speaking. I was never actually given any topics for 3/5-3/10 and 2/8-2/10, so I've basically been teaching them whatever I want. It's kind of unfortunate, but the Thai school system essentially views 5-10's as a lost cause (at least when it comes to speaking English) and has absolutely no expectation that they will learn anything. This can be kind of liberating for me, as I'm free to teach them anything, and if they actually remember it, well great. Thus, I've been teaching my 2/9's a bunch of cultural English words like "swagger," "posse," "what's up?," "yeaaaah," and "naaww." They fucking love it.

Thai Teachers

All of my classrooms have Thai teachers in them. At first their presence made me really uncomfortable; I assumed that they kind of hated me because I'm half their age and have no teaching experience, yet I make 3x more money than they do. Some of my friends have told me horror stories where this is the case, and the Thai teachers intentionally rile up the students to get back at the phrang. Fortunately, this is not the case at my school. I think my teachers generally like me and appreciate the energy and excitement that I bring to the classroom even if they have the occasional (justified) concern about my competency. The teachers are incredibly helpful in the classroom. In the rowdier classrooms, they help maintain some semblance of order, although to be fair I try not to rely on them. They will also help translate or explain some of the more difficult concepts to the students. Recently, I taken to alternating between English and Thai, especially in my lower level classes because it helps me practice my Thai (the students love to correct my pronunciations), but there are a lot of things I can't say which my teachers can.

My Status at School and the Students' Reactions to Me

In another post I mentioned how much Thai's love white people. There is nowhere where this is more evident than at a Thai school. I am a celebrity in every sense of the word. As I walk around my schools' massive campus, students run up to me and say, "Hello teacher," or "Hello Scott." They also want to shake my hand constantly. I told several of the boys that my favorite football team (because I don't really like American football and I've been hanging out with a bunch of Englishmen, I now refuse to call it "soccer) is Fulham, so they will shout, "FULHAM!" as I walk by. The boys love to talk with me about football, even the ones who speak next to no English. My status as phrang teacher makes me a little bit different than the normal student-teacher relationship. Many of the boys tend to view me more as their buddy than their teacher. If I were on top of my game, I'd discourage this.

The girls present an even bigger problem. Thai girls are incredibly flirtatious, and I hear "Teacher handsome" or "Teacher beautiful" at least 150 times a day. Unfortunately, I only exasperated the problem when I told my classes that I was only 22. You should have seen the way the girls' eyes lit up, and I immediately received a dozen requests for my telephone number and my email address. I'm also asked constantly whether I have a girlfriend (or boyfriend, from the lady-boys). I wouldn't have answered except my Thai teachers egged me into answering. I kind of wish I would have lied and said yes, but I (stupidly) answered truthfully and said no. There's even a group of girls that I refer to collectively as my "fanclub" who follow me around in between classes. I'd be lying if I were to say that I didn't secretly enjoy this attention, but it's probably not helping my personality; I was already kind of vain, now I'm almost insufferable. Granted, I realize that all of these girls are not serious and that for many of them, the hero-worship is more of a joke, but even considering this I'd speculate that 75% of my female students (and a few lady-boys as well) have some kind of a crush on me. Remember, I'm young (most teachers are well over 30), white (in my last post I detailed how far this trait goes in Thailand), and (not be immodest) relatively good-looking. Those for good enough for me when I was in junior high and high school.

From what I can gather, you never really lose your celebrity status. Stuart and Kristin receive similar attention and they have been teaching there for a year. This isn't the worst thing in the world; if nothing else, any time you need to kill some time in any of your classes, you can just tell them information about yourself, and your students will listen with rapt attention. As I mentioned earlier, we are regarded differently than Thai teachers. For one, students will try things with you that they wouldn't dream of with a Thai teacher (like asking for your telephone number). I sometimes shudder to think what they're saying among themselves during class. I've tried to sell them into thinking that I actually understand more Thai than I let on, and just ignored anything inappropriate, but they've definitely seen through this facade.

(I didn't originally intend to, but I'm going to have to write about my teaching experience in installments. Look for Part 2 sometime this weekend.)

So I've Been Converted...

Do what you do Sean Kingston. (Ctrl + left click)

It's funny because I was pretty hesitant going into this weekend. Patthaya has a (deserved) reputation for appealing to a certain clientele, and I don't definitely do not fall into that category. I mean I'm pretty amused by the ridiculous redlight districts for like half an hour but after that I just get kind of grossed out. So going into it, I kept asking myself if I really wanted a whole weekend of this. Plus the Patthaya beach was supposed to be shit, so that killed half the reasons to go in the first place. Thankfully, all of my preconceived notions were destroyed, and the half that weren't I was kind of hoping were true anyway.

20 Nov. 2009

So the group consisted of myself, Meg, Kerry, Cassie, David, and Adam. This meant that, as I bro-ishly pointed out during the bus ride, I was "the only one interested in the vag." Both a blessing and a curse I suppose. In any case, we arrived in Patthaya around 10. We were staying in Jomtien, which is about a 10 min. drive from downtown and is actually really nice and chill. Really it's your standard upscale-ish beach town except that it's really cheap. Our hostel was the nicest I've stayed in thus far, probably because it was run by two sweet gay queens, whom Adam and I would run into later at Nab. The six of us dived into a few beers and left for Patthaya proper and the walking street. Patthaya's walking street is one of the seedier areas of the town and is, essentially, a string of go-go bars and brothels. It's one of small section of the country where you can safely say that every Thai woman on the street has her price. The highlight of the walking street involved one such woman and Adam.

Each bar had about 4 or 5 women standing outside trying to draw the tourists in (this is pretty much the case in a lot of Thailand). One such woman sprinted over to Adam and grappled him. Adam (it's pretty obvious that he's gay) informed her, "I'm gay." Her response: "I love Gay Men!" and she wrapped her leg around his waist Salsa-dancing style and proceeded to dry-hump the shit out of him.

After we got that out of the way, Adam and I left for club sector. There was a group of three clubs called Nab which featured a gay club, a lesbian club, and a straight club. The others had gone to bed at this point so it was just us; Adam really wanted to go to the gay club, and I wasn't really in the mood to prowl the straight club by myself, so I opted to just be his wingman in the gay club. Oddly enough, this ended up being the best decision I could have made.

I won't lie, even I was kind of uncomfortable for the first ten minutes or so. There were several Thai guys who would try to stick their thumbs up my butthole every time I walked by. Naturally, they were seated by the bathroom and I had been drinking heavily, so I was walking by a lot. Unfortunately, the bathroom was the proverbial frying pan. There were 3 guys in the bathroom who would aggressively attempt to give you back massages while you peed, and they would not go away how many times you said no. Probably during one of my fifty trips to the bathroom, Adam met up with Woody. Woody is a hair cutter who is the epitome of the Thai "bottom" (this is the gay terminology of Thailand according to Adam). He was obsessed with Adam, loved me too, and bought us both like 4 drinks. His sister/cousin/friend/I don't know (he kept referring to her as his "sister" but Thai's do that a lot when they're not related) was with him as well, and I can honestly say that she was the most attractive woman that I have ever seen in person. I can't emphasize this enough, the only women who are comparable to her are the ones on TV and in movies. So Adam hooked up with Woody kind of (he wasn't really into him) and I hooked up with Woody's sister. It was a good night for us.

21 Nov. 2009

Saturday we spent almost the entire day at the beach in Jomtien. While the beach was not the picturesque Thai beach with crystal blue waters, it was as nice as any beach you'll find in the States. In the afternoon Adam, Cassie, and I walked along for the beach several hours and passed both the gay beach and the main tourist beach. If you didn't know this, you should be aware that Russians have pissed on Patthaya and claimed it as their own. I'm not particularly upset about this, after all Americans and Brits have been doing this for years, but it does give the town an interesting flavor. The Russian beach is pretty ridiculous. Eastern Europeans have a strange fascination with speedos and I don't like to impose my own culture on others, but I have to say that they should really get over it. If nothing else, there's certainly no lack of self-confidence among the Russians. Are you overweight and hairy? Sure, go ahead and wear that yellow thong. The women were just as bad. There were many women that were topless and wearing thongs, but they weren't the ones you wanted to be topless and wearing a thong.

While walking through the Russian beach, we amused ourselves by categorizing the various ex-pats. There are sex-pats (any male with a Thai girlfriend, although the completely true stereotype is the old pervert with the young girl), the gay sex-pats (almost as common), and the reverse sex-pats (Western women with Thai men, not nearly as common). Conveniently, each of us had filled one of the categories.

The gay beach was probably the highlight of the day. It was everything I had hoped it would be and then some. Young Thai men running around in speedos and being lotioned up by old Russians, Americans, and English. Sometimes you just have to look at the trainwreck head on. When you do, you'll find that it can actually be pretty damn entertaining; that was the gay beach. Adam loved every second of it, because he was easily the most attractive westerner there and was gawked at like a celebrity (I enjoyed a similar distinction while walking by the Russian beach).

That night we went back to Walking Street and Nab. Woody was there, but his sister was not. On the plus side, no one tried to stick their thumb up my ass. The highlight of the night was the show. If Alan Ginsberg and Baz Luhrman co-wrote a drag show it may have looked like this. There were drag queens breaking out in song and dance routines. One of the centerpieces of the show was a dwarf lady-boy who glamorously removed her top and strutted about wearing only a thong. Remember what I said about the trainwreck?

22 Nov. 2009



So I had a lot of time to think on the trip back to Ayutthaya, and I drastically reassessed some of my original hangups about sex. Coming into Thailand, I decided that I didn't want to get with any Thai girls or have a Thai girlfriend. After all, that's what the creepy old men do, and I don't want to be associated with them. Truthfully, some of it was also an ego thing. I want to know that someone wants me for me, and not because I'm a phrang (foreigner) with money; it's sort of little boy-ish, but this is how fragile my vanity is. I've tried to further rationalize this mentality by arguing that it's misogynistic to take advantage of the socio-economic situation, but I've realized how wrong every one of my arguments were.

Every male phrang who has spent any significant time in Thailand has a Thai girlfriend. Up until recently, I had kind of turned my nose up to them. However, I now realize that they have it figured out. How invaluable is it to have someone who is able to help you with the language and sort out the everyday problems you run into (like finding a doctor's note for your work permit....goddammit)? It certainly doesn't hurt that she's also beautiful, sweet, and really loves you.

You see, originally I assumed that Thai women are interested in phrang only because we have money and can get them a greencard. This is partially true, but not completely true. Really, Thai's fucking love white people--it's like Fox News' wetdream (also like Fox News Thai's are also really rascist, but I'll get into that some other time. Suffice to say, they don't like black people). The hair, the eyes, the skin, the builds, everything about us is attractive to them because it is so different from what they have. Rob and I theorized that anyone of us can get with 70% of Thai women based solely on the fact that we're white. Our chances go up even further because we're not creepy old men (by the way Thai's love to define presence by absence: "no" literally translates to "not yes"), we're young, and, yes, relatively good-looking. Even more, we represent a culture that they find incredibly fascinating. It's like that line from The Foreigner, "Because I'm a foreigner, I don't even have to have a personality. Everybody just gives me one!" So yes, we probably have money and offer a chance at a greencard, but that's not the only reason they like us.

From our perspective, Thai women are actually better options than most American women (sorry). As Americans we love to complicate our relationships. Maybe it's the prospect of make-up sex or maybe it's because we aren't naturally pragmatic people, but we do this. A girl once told my friend that she didn't want to be with him because she was afraid that she might "like him too much," and I do not doubt her sincerity. However, even if you translated it perfectly, a Thai woman would not understand that statement at all. Their mentality is simple: you like her, she likes you, you are together.

I'm not trying to say that I'll never date another American woman and I apologize if it sounds like I'm bashing on American women. I'm really not. I'm just saying that in this particular context a westerner may not be the most desirable person. I know I shouldn't have to justify potentially dating a Thai girl, but I wanted to overrationalize the fact that I've been converted, sorry about that.

Anyway, I spent a grand total of about 2,000 Baht (66 American) on the weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I'm still working on multiple posts, one of which is on teaching--I'm hoping to have this one finished within a few days.

Should be back soon

Epic post on teaching coming soon (maybe tomorrow). I've also started a semi-scholarly post on Queer Theory and Disney Channel Original Movies, but that probably is a few weeks away.

This weekend a large group of us are headed to Patthaya. Patthaya is a beach where all the Thai families go for vacation...it's also the sex capital of Southeast Asia. Needless to say, there will be an epic post about Patthaya.

Also, one of these days when my labtop decides to quit being a bastard and the internet is consistent, I'll upload some pictures onto the website. The end of the week is looking very busy and my computer is moodier than Russell Crowe, so I wouldn't expect that anytime soon.

Peace.

The Bus Ride

29/30 Oct. 2009
After three weeks, my certification class is over and I'm moving to Ayutthaya to begin my job. There are several of us that have been placed within the Ayutthaya region (about an hour outside of Bangkok), and four of us opted to take the overnight bus from Chiang Mai to Ayutthaya. Thai buses are definitely not made for Westerners, but it wasn't crowded so we were at least able to take two seats each. Karl and I watched Boondock Saints on his laptop, popped a couple of Ambien, and would have passed out for the next eight hours had not a few things happened. The first was that I had to use the bathroom, which was downstairs. There was a group of four French people behind us, one of whom left his shit in the middle of the aisle. I was walking back to my seat when I tripped over this. I tried to grab one of the seats to steady myself, but instead grabbed the head of a sleeping Frenchwoman, who screamed bloody murder when I grabbed her head. I tried explaining in English, but the Ambien made me slur all my words together, plus she didn't speak any English (or probably Thai for that matter...fucking French). I eventually gave up and went back to sleep.

A little while later, I was again awakened when we stopped at a night market to get food. I wandered down to the store to buy some chips and spent at least five minutes trying to figure out what I wanted. Even though the chips are made by Lay's, they are not like what we are used to. In Thailand they apparently want their chips to taste like full meals, so you get flavors like spicy chili squid, pork spareribs, and Vietnamese seafood. I opted for the ham-and-swiss-sandwich flavor and got back onto the bus. As I was scarfing down the chips, an interesting thing happened: I decided to go spelunking into the chip bag.

If you've never experienced Ambien let me tell you a little about it. Ambien is a prescription sleeping pill that is much, much stronger than Valium. I told Karl, "Ambien is going to knock you out for eight hours, if for some reason it doesn't, shit gets weird." This is how I found myself spelunking in the chip bag (I was looking for Gandhi so I could get a blessing from him). I'm pretty sure that I didn't actually try to fit my head in it, but I don't want to testify to it under oath. During our stop, Karl and I had a 10 min. conversation that consisted of 3 words (I'm not exaggerating) and a lot of grunts. Fortunately, after half an hour of this, the bus left and we were able to go back to sleep.

The bus arrived in Ayutthaya at 4:30, and Tom, who's been to Ayutthaya before, told Karl and I to go to Tony's Place, a local guesthouse where all the phrang hang out. It was closed and the lights were turned off, but they left the door open to the lounge so we went in, grabbed a couple of sofa's, and sat down. One of the Thai's who worked there woke up and came over to us. I tried to explain the situation in broken, Ambien-affected Thai, but he just took me upstairs, pointed me to a hammock, and went back to sleep, and that is why I love this country.

The next morning, one of my placement company employees took me to my apartment and got me settled in. The apartment itself is pretty nice, but basic. Bed, desk, two chairs, balcony, shower, toilet. The apartments are across the street from the bus station and two blocks from downtown. Ayutthaya itself is about 81,000 people and seems like a really cool place. All of the Americans and English swear it's the best city in Thailand, and it seems like a really chill place. Life is good.

An Open Letter (and Ode) to My Brown Pumas

(As I write this, someone is playing a melancholy tune on the hotel piano, maybe it's better that way)

Hey guys,

This is a letter that I never wanted to write, and I never wanted for you to read. We've had some great times together these past 3 and a half years together, haven't we? You've been there for me a lot, like all those times I've drunkenly wandered for hours in downtown Little Rock, Fayetteville, and Chiang Mai. You've never complained at all, just kept trudging along. I probably haven't told you this enough, but I loved you more than any other pair of shoes I've ever owned. In fact, I am more attached to you than any person has a right to be to their shoes. Sure, we've had our rough patches, like when I bought those Penguins, but I've always come back to you.

I'm so sorry, but I can't come back to you anymore. It's really unfair of me to focus on the negatives after all the love you've given to me, but you do squeak and you are kind of falling apart. Don't take that the wrong way, you've held up better than any reasonable person could ever ask, especially after all you've been through. I never wanted to admit it, but those hikes up mountains and hours of walking have taken their toll. Surely you must ache all the time. I'd like to lie and say that I'm doing this for you, but it's for me as well.

Today when I was at the Chiang Mai mall (which is bigger than any mall I've been in), I just knew that it was time to find someone else. It was cruel of me to bring you when I did, but it was something I needed to do then and there. Truthfully, I thought that since I was in Asia I might as well go all-out and by some douchebag hipster shoes. Admittedly, I surprised that they were so expensive, considering that the Thai's are so poor. I mean, seriously, there's a reason why most places can't a take a 1,000 baht note (about $40), yet all these Western stores like Puma and Converse wanted 2,500-3,000. I mean Thai teaches earn 8,000 a month, that's a third of their paycheck. Who are these rich Thai's that buy all this? It's not like there were any Westerners in the mall.

But I digress. I saw those hipster Van's and I was enamored. Don't get me wrong, it's nothing like when I bought you. Even though it was close to 4 years ago, I remember it perfectly: I saw you at Journey and it was love at first sight. I like to think that you loved me then too. Then that guy at Journey tried to sell me a bootleg copy of Employee of the Month while I purchasing you and I knew that we had something special. You were never douchey hipster shoes, you were just cool.

I'm not quitting you completely. It's not like I'm going to throw you or anything. You know that you'll always have a place in my heart. Plus, I'll probably bust you out for those occasions when I don't care about Asia, I just care about me. You'll always be a part of me. Thanks for everything, I don't deserve your loyalty.

Scott

Make it Rain

I feel like I sort of slighted my Friday night in the last post, so I'm going to go into some more depth after having had time to let it stew.

While we were in the bar, we managed to get a deck of cards and began playing Circle of Fire. Naturally, the scantily-dressed barmaids loved it. One of the rules we made was that you had to scream "Make it rain!" every time you took a drink. They never got tired of it. It got to the point where they would actually anticipate it and run over before we said it. Between the two bars, we drank 3 beers and 4 Long Island Ice Teas each in less than 2 hours, so I'm actually surprised that we did as well as we did. Apparently, Neil asked the bartender where a good club was and he referred him to the gay club, which is how we ended up there.

The club itself was really large for Thailand, maybe the size of the kickboxing arena. I can't really recall much, but it had flashing lights, a live band, and a giant pit of people dancing, which I guess are staples of the Euro club scene. All the Thai's left me alone, which makes sense, because I was visibly hammered and that's not sexy no matter who you are. However, Neil and Rob told me when they went to the bathroom they were aggressively sought out by several of the patrons. Apparently, they tried to give them massages as they peed, and Neil eventually gave them 300 Baht (about $10) to go away.

17 Oct 2009
A strange thing happened to me this morning: my shorts didn't fit as well as they seemed to earlier this week. I can't be sure, but I think I may have dropped at least one (maybe two) size(s). This is not unique to me, as my classmates have reported similar phenomenons. This is especially strange because almost everyone in the program is young, healthy, and very fit. At least half of us run. I don't think there's a single person who would qualify as being "overweight" (except on WiiFit...bastards), yet we are all dropping weight at an insane rate. I've been here a week, have eaten out every day, consumed large quantities of alcohol, and still have probably dropped 3-5 lbs. I realized that I would lose weight over here (hence, I weighed myself before I left), but jesus man. I feel like I could so dominate Biggest Loser right now. If there's anyone looking to drop a few pounds, take my advice and follow the Thailand-plan.

This Week in Chiang Mai

Ok, so I'm nearly finished with the Rubio essay, but in the meantime here's some of the things that have actually been going on in Thailand. There's probably too much for one entry, but I'm going to try anyway.

Since coming here, I've:

• Had three incredibly debauched nights, each culminating in it's own climatic ending
• Sworn off alcohol after said nights
• Drunkenly wandered into a Thai gay club (more on that later)
• Been to a Thai kickboxing match
  
• Run twice in miserable heat
• Gotten diarrhea
  
• Spoken about as much Thai as I did back in the States

As part of my time in Thailand, I have to attend American TESOL training for the first three weeks. While this training isn't particularly difficult, it is time consuming. Basically we are in class from 9 a.m. to at least 5 p.m. everyday (one day we got out at 4, one day we got out at 7:30). These sessions are absolutely brutal, especially for 35 Americans and Brits who came over to the country expecting to do nothing but party the whole time. Are the classes informative? Probably. Helpful? Probably. Boring as shit? Definitely. So, unfortunately, we don't have as much down-time as any of us would like. Yet, in spite of all these complications, we all have managed to squeeze in some amazing times thus far.

The Thai people are exactly as advertised: shy, soft-spoken, non-confrontational, and never in a hurry. Seriously, I thought American college students meandered, we're not worthy at all. More importantly they all speak enough English that none us are forced to rely on our Thai (probably best for everyone). Thai is a tonal language, and frankly, as Westerners we are almost incapable of making many of the sounds. Sure, we'll probably learn eventually, but for the moment we might as well not even bother speaking Thai. This is actually somewhat disheartening for me, as I vowed not to be the asshole American who never learns the language, but it looks more and more like that may be a possibility. I'm also disheartened by the fact that I'm having trouble uploading pictures (not that I've taken any anyway). But whatever, if you're actually reading this, you just want to hear about how drunk I got anyway.

14 Oct. 2009
One of the most popular pastimes in Thailand is Muay Thai. You may be familiar with this, as it used by many UFC fighters. I can't even begin to tell you how often you are accosted in the street but people handing out flyers for the next match. Brandon, one of the guys in the program, trains in Muay Thai, and at his suggestion a group of about ten of us decided to attend one of the matches. After haggling with a song-taw driver (never accept the first price they offer), we made our way to the arena. If you get the opportunity, you should do a Google Image search of song-taw (or maybe song-tau's). Basically, they're small trucks with camper shells. Only benches have been installed in the truck bed. They're probably the cheapest and most accessible form of transportation in the city, and we use them whenever we can't walk. Along the way, the driver stopped (twice) to ask for directions, despite the fact that this arena isn't exactly small. When we arrived, he decided that he wanted to hang around and watch the fight. The arena itself looked like it was taken directly out of the Street Fighter, an underrated movie by the way; The ring was in the middle, with a bunch of fold-out chairs placed alongside it. Surrounding the lower-level was an upper-tier made out of wood and completely populated by foreigners. Naturally, we sat in the upper-tier. From what I can gather, the majority of the foreigners were English and American, and almost all of them had intense dreadlocks and reeked of hippie.

As the fights began, a small traditional-Thai band began to play. Brandon informed us that this helped the fighters keep their rhythm throughout the match. I'm glad I was sober, because otherwise it might have sounded as if a cat were being strangled. There were about the seven fights, the publicized fight featuring "Bia France," who, as you might guess, was French. The fights themselves were thoroughly entertaining affairs, but the best part were the Thai fans. A couple hundred respectable, middle-aged Thai men sat next to the ring, and they would jump and scream every time a blow was landed. Further, there was a constant exchange of money. They made me think of the Vietnamese men that Frank always gambles with on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Watching them was probably just as enjoyable as watching the fighters. The final fighter featured a fighter named "James Bond," who was actually Thai, but I didn't see if he won or lost, because I got into an epic conversation about the World Cup with Rob and Neil.

16 Oct. 2009
So last night I went out with Rob and Neil (two Englishmen of the highest caliber). We started out in the night bazaar, which I need to write about in a separate post, then made our way to the some of bars in downtown Chiang Mai. There was a string of about ten in a row, and each had about 4 or 5 women of ill repute who would literally try to grab you and pull you in as you walked by. Part of my Thai repertoire is "Mai au khrap," which means "I don't want any." Rob pointed out later that this may not have been exactly the right thing to say, but at least it got them to leave me alone. After deciding on a bar, we were continually pestered by a string of Thai children anywhere from 4 to 7 years old, hounding us to buy necklaces and the like. In spite of this, we managed to get completely sloshed. In my state, Neil appeared to be the least drunk, so the duty of leading us to the next bar fell on him. We then wandered into a ridiculously expensive Euro-style club where we ran into our fellow classmates Adam, David, Kerry, and Olga. Adam politely informed us, "You realize this is a gay club right?" No idea. Being the open-minded people that we are, we shrugged it off and proceeded to join them in an intense dance session; finally making our way home.

A note about running in Thailand
It's miserable, completely fucking miserable. However, I'm a stubborn bastard so I've managed to sack up and do it for the past week. The other day I got to the point where I had to take my shirt off. I never run without a shirt because it's kind of douchebaggy, but I didn't care at this point. The moment I stripped it off I was greeted with lots of catcalls and whistles by the locals. I was pretty flattered.