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.