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.