banana tree stumps, fireworks, and beauty competitions: loi kratong 2009

i keep waiting for things to calm down here. i keep waiting for a boring day, for a day when i might just miss the usa, for a day when all i want to do is go to bed.

but it's just not happening. every day has been beautiful in some way. oh, god, i sound so lame when i say crap like that. whatever.

today was loi kratong (often spelled loy kratong, but since romanizing thai words is all a phonetic guessing game anyway, i decided i'd like to spell it l-o-i), which meant no classes, an introduction speech from us farang in front of the entire school, and a traditional thai dance put on by us farang ourselves.

oh, yes, friends. we did the dance today. after hours of practice (hmmm...that's actually a generous term for how much serious practicing we did), we took the stage and shook our groove things like nobody's ever seen. here, i'll set the scene for you.

more than three thousand thai kids are sitting in the gymnasium, enjoying the loi kratong assembly and festivities. when i say "enjoying," i mean screaming their heads off any time one of their classmates gets on stage to sing. these kids are easily excitable. after maybe 20 minutes of other performances, our dance leader tuk signals to us that it's our turn, and we line up in order with our partners.

a word about what we look like: bizarre. we've all got our thai costumes on, which for girls means a red jacket with a black wrap around skirt and a scarf-type deal wrapped over our shoulder, and for boys means a neon green shirt with a bright red sash tied around their waist.

as soon as the thai students see us farang walking toward the stage, they go wild. i've never seen an entrance like this at a school, much less for me. we felt precisely like rock stars.

we got on stage, the music started, and we messed up the dances about 80 times. the girls went in when we were supposed to go out, nobody faced the outside of the circle when we needed to, blah blah blah. but we (farang and students) were all cracking up way too much to notice. i know somebody took a video, so i'll try to let you know when that comes in to play.

oh, we gave little introduction "speeches" earlier in the day (speech=two sentences, one says where you're from, the other says how excited you are to be here), but they weren't really a big deal. especially in comparison to the rest of the day.

so on loi kratong, the big to-do is to make a "kratong" (which means something like boat) out of some trunk from a banana tree, the banana tree leaves, and a crap ton of beautiful flowers. then you stick a candle and some incense in it, take it to the river at night, and float it ("loi") in the river. in the afternoon, bird, who's another one of the thai teachers, brought us some kratong stuff and helped us make our own. at the end of the day, she told us to go to this one wat where everybody in town goes for the loi kratong fest.

around 8 pm, seven of us found a taxi (hrmm...don't think of a car when you read this. more like an enhanced motorbike with a tiny, open trailer), showed him the piece of paper bird wrote the name of the wat on, and hopped in. when we got off, we were greeted with fluorescent lights, firecracker noises, and enough kratongs for the world. look at pictures. i can't say that enough when i talk about thailand. my words are a petty excuse for explaining how incredible things are here.

we found our way to the river and set off our kratongs, which is supposed to bring good luck and health. you can write the names of whomever you like on a piece of paper and stick it in your kratong, and legend has it that the buddha will bring all of those people good luck and health. (of course i put your name on it.) you also put a finger nail (which i forgot) and a piece of your hair in the kratong to bring good luck to yourself.

with the kratongs headed down the river, we were content to hang around the festival and soak it in. the guys (ian and sam) got all pyro-happy and found some fireworks. these things aren't regulated here whatsoever (the fireworks, not the boys), so people were setting them off pretty much everywhere. getting hurt potential was at about 78%.

on our tuk tuk ride back, we were all so giddy from such a phenomenal day that we couldn't knock smiles off our faces. now i'm going to bed way later than i planned, and i meant to upload more pictures for you, and i meant to watch that episode of glee, but i don't even care. i fucking love this country.

p.s. i forgot so much stuff. i meant to tell you about the beauty contests, the flying lanterns, the general thrill of tuk tuk rides, and more specifics about kratongs. but this is already a novel, so i'll hold back. i'll save the stories for another time.

suphanburi, thailand

i'd liken this town to san jose, i suppose. it's about an hour and a half outside of bangkok, depending on how you get there. lots of people live here, but mostly just because they work here. you wouldn't go out of your way to visit suphanburi as a tourist. lots of schools in this area, lots of stores, big ol' mall and a tesco lotus, which is a thai version of target (it's been a fantastic substitute so far).

so even though it's not filled with gorgeous waterfalls, huge buddhist temples, or famous old bridges, this isn't to say there's nothing to see and do in suphanburi. like on thursday night, ally, maddy, and i took a walk toward the river that runs through town, just because we wanted to get outside. we just kept wandering, and eventually stumbled upon this:




just a gigantic dragon, chillin there like it ain't no thang. we asked some people at school about it the next day, and it's apparently a big chinese culture museum. if i did things like actually research a town before i live in it, i probably would've known that, but so it goes. either way, we were massively impressed and plan on going back in the light of day to actually go inside.

then yesterday, on the hottest halloween of my life and also the only one i didn't dress up for (sadface), a bunch of us were wandering the streets of suphanburi on our way to the tower, which is this big thing in the middle-ish of town. we figured we'd get to the bottom of it, look up and go, "whoa, that's really big," then go home.

but then there was a fountain. i just tried to attach a picture but blogger was like, "no, stop it, you can't do this right now," so you'll have to look on fbook. the fountain was a massive circle and water spurted up from the ground, choreographed with some thai tunes. we frolicked (i've never used this word more appropriately) in the fountain forever, then walked home along the river in our comfortably wet clothes. perfect halloween.

that messy teacher

you know that teacher who sweats and gets the blue whiteboard marker all over her face and her white clothes?

that's me.

both wednesday and thursday, i managed to give myself a blue mustache, and yesterday i was smart enough to lean against the eraser holder along the bottom of the white board, which put a huge line of blue across my cream-colored skirt. good job, nicki.

oh, well. the kids don't seem to mind or disrespect me for it, but then again, they're not the type to openly be rude to me. i don't have to teach today...my co-teacher told me yesterday that she'll be doing all the lessons, so i'm just going to sit back and relax.

so one of my activities has been to pair the students up and have them introduce their partner in front of the class. i thought this would be a boring activity and the kids would hate me, but it's turned out to be a riot. even my choosing of partners has lead to hilarity. i paired this guy and this girl up, and when they were called to the front of the classroom, the kids uttered a huge "oOoOOoOoOo!" i leaned over to one of the girls and asked what everyone was so excited about.

her: "they're both the tallest in the class."
me: "ohhhh, so they're going to be in love." (and i make a heart with my hands)
her: (squealing and giggling) "yessss yes!"

so i'm a thai match maker. nbd. later in that same class, two girls came up and everyone just busted up. i asked another girl what was so funny, and she goes, "they have the same hair!"

everyone here has the same hair. seriously, everyone wears a uniform and all the younger girls have to have their hair cut the same (it's at this hideous length right below their ears. tough haircut for a pubescent girl). these two girls who had "the same hair," i guess, maybe hadn't had a haircut for a few weeks? both had their hair parted in the middle?

another question i like to ask the kids is where they want to live. one of the most popular answers from the girls has been korea. in fact, the first girl to mention korea in class usually gets another one of those "oOoOOoOOo!" noises. so i asked them what was so great about korea. i guess there's some sort of singer or multiple singers from korea? my co-teacher tells me they have "korean fever." lolz.

anyway, i'm off to another day of class. this afternoon we get fitted for our thai costumes for monday. one of the american directors took the big sizes to america, so we're going to have to squeeze into some tiny thai ones. this will be interesting.

"hello, teacher!"

tash, maddy, and i walked into sanguan ying (school) today at 8 a.m., just as planned. everybody stared at us when we walked through the middle of campus, like we were celebrities. it was just like that scene from 500 days of summer. we needed more group dancing, baseball hitting, and campy music.

we were shown to our desks (hell yeah i have my own desk in the teacher office), so we sat down and started sifting through papers left behind by former english teachers. we were introduced to some other english teachers who would also be our co-teachers (typically they pair a westerner with a thai teacher for the sake of order in the classroom. westerners can't really discipline the kids, so we leave it to the thai teachers. other than punishment, the westerners are in charge). at about 8:35, miew (who is my co-teacher for my M4, or 9th grade, students) came up to me. here's pretty much how the convo went:

other teacher: "nicki, you ready to teach?"

me: "today?"

other teacher: "yes, at 8:30."

me (after i look at the clock and realize that's five minutes ago and i have a minor freak out inside my body): "umm...yeah, i think i can. i would rather start tomorrow, if that's okay."

other teacher: "relax, nicki. just play game."

well, okay, sure. that sounds easy enough. so i get all enthused but also nervous, so i sweat, but that's okay because there isn't a/c in the classroom so i'd be sweating anyway.

the thing about this situation that's most baffling to me is that it wasn't even that big of a deal that i was just thrown into my brand new job with little introduction. the thai teachers didn't seem to mind that i hadn't actually had teaching practice or that i didn't even know what a thai classroom looked like. it was just like, "okay, go on, start teaching. everyone does it. you'll be fine. just head on out. we'll help you if you need, but you probably won't. you'll be great."

and surprisingly, i didn't even do that badly. i used up all of my class time and my students seemed to like me, so it's all good. i did some simple introduction activities (introduced myself, had students pair up then interview and introduce each other) and learned thai kids are their own breed. for example, dark brown and gray were both favorite colors in my classes (and these are classes full of girls). when asked where they wanted to live, more than a handful of my girls in the smart class* said places like "belgium, germany, luxembourg, and "holliand."

since i only have each class once a week, i figure i'll get to use this same lesson until next wednesday. ballin. this teacher thing is the best. we also get free lunch every day, and next monday we foreigners will be participating in the holiday (koy kratong or something like that...i'll probably be able to explain more next week) by doing a traditional thai dance on stage in front of the whole school in the full get up and everything.

SERIOUSLY.

*this is really what the thai teachers call the kids in the gifted class. they openly favor them and like them better.

i'm so so so sorry for not writing for the last week. i've been in hotels where i had to pay to get internet, and i had other things to spend money and time on. but now i'm here, so that's all that matters.

the first week here was jam-packed of thrilling orientation activities like teacher training and thai society lessons and repetition. YEAHHHHH! sarcasm. the actual lessons were boring half the time because they didn't have that much to say to us, so they just filled up time by repeating what we'd already been told.

so the actual learning part of orientation was terrible, but no matter. i got to meet a crap ton of awesome people, and it seems like most people with the program are pretty cool. of course there are a few bad seeds, but you can't really expect an entire group of 91 people to be awesome all the time.

but oeg (overseas education group, the group in charge of the program) isn't made of pure evil. i know this because they planned this excellent trip for all of us to the grand palace in bangkok, which was absolutely phenomenal. you have to look at pictures. i can't really do it justice with words. (but here i go, trying anyway...) the entire thing has gold glittering all over it, curly doos at the end of the rooftops, and brilliant colors in between. the big to-do at the grand palace is visiting the emerald buddha, which is probably the most sacred of all buddhist items. funny story: the buddha is actually jade, but the abbot who found it thought it was emerald, word started spreading about an "emerald" buddha, and the name stuck.

so that was tuesday or wednesday or something (i don't know. i've completely lost track of what day it is), and for the rest of the week we did dumb orientation crap until we ventured to kanchanaburi for some elephant riding, bamboo rafting, and relaxing at a resort on the river kwai. indeed, we went to the actual bridge over the river kwai, then ate dinner at a floating restaurant almost below the bridge. this was all on the same day we hopped on the back of some elephants, took an incredibly relaxing raft ride, ate some delicious food, and spent the night drinking, dancing and swimming. the day was easily in the top 10 most perfect days of my life.

now i'm sitting in my apartment in suphanburi, getting ready for possibly my first lesson (yeesh) and writing what has become a semi-dull blog post. no real witticisms this time.

i have so much more to tell you, and i promise i'll have funnier/more fascinating posts later, once i can get on the internet more than once every five days. but right now, i've got the hiccups and i'm exhausted from a day of setting up new life. my rock-hard bed is looking rather inviting.

i made it. now i'm crashing.

oh my god. i’m so tired. it’s almost 8 pm on Tuesday night here, which makes it just about 6 am on Tuesday morning in California. I haven’t slept since Sunday night. OH MY GOD I’M SO TIRED. but maddy and i need to stay up until at least 9 pm here to cure the jet lag. well, I suppose we don’t HAVE to. nobody’s going to shoot us if we crawl under the sheets at 8:30. but we set this arbitrary time and since I’m an Arnold, I really stick to made-up rules no matter what. so 9 pm it is.

(I should note here that I’m typing this in word first, which should explain the capital letters, despite my earlier tirades on the subject.)

so. I owe you some stories about how I finally arrived here, but plane/airport stories are all kind of the same and dull. the flights went seamlessly smooth, and the transfers were (mostly) easy. we left at 1:20 am on Sunday night/Monday morning and stayed in darkness until Tuesday morning coming in to hong kong. for our entire 14-hour flight, we felt like it was near 4 am…like, we were tired enough that we could doze off, but if we occupied ourselves (aka ate something) we could stay awake. it’s a weird feeling.

but I know you, friends and family, and I know you’re curious why I put that sneaky “mostly” in parentheses up there. I’ll explain.

I’ve had a cold for the last week or so, but it hasn’t been bad. at this point, it’s only a stuffy nose, so the only disturbance to my life has been excessive nose blowing. not a big deal. but since the spread of swine flu, everyone’s been really freaking out about swine flu. I thought the US was bad; nay, dear friend. When you arrive in hong kong, you have to fill out a health inspection report type deal, where you put in your name, passport, etc., and you check if you have one/any of these various symptoms, like fever, runny nose, cough, sore throat, blah blah blah. lying crossed my mind, but only for a brief second; I knew my stupid runny nose wasn’t the freaking flu. so I check off the “stuffy nose” box on the piece of paper and head off toward the immigration tables, paper and passport in hand. once we get to the front of the line, I hand my stuff to the health inspection guy.

HIG: (looks over paper, points to stuffy nose box) “is this a problem for you?”
me: (in typical, worry-free nicki fashion) “Oh, yeah.”
HIG: (leans over to fellow HIG, says some stuff in probably mandarin) “okay, we’re going to have to take you down to have some simple tests.”

what’s funny here is I didn’t even really stress. as the guy lead me away from the immigration station, I called out to maddy that I would meet her back there soon and followed quickly behind the guy. he handed me a mask (lol yes, I know) and took me to this little medical area downstairs, where the sweetest asian woman took my temperature (in my ears) and told me I didn’t have a fever, so I was safe to travel. (so dad, be reassured: you didn’t pass me swine flu. the hong kong airport has confirmed it.)

hrm. I probably wanted to share other wildly interesting stories, but I can’t think right now. I’ve never wanted to sleep so much in my life. (that’s probably not true. one time I was up all night writing a paper for my presidency class and around 5 am I couldn’t believe how much time I’d spent on a STUPID PAPER. then I found $5.)

I’ll share more stories with you when I’m not aching to watch my eyelids so badly.

what will i forget?

isn't this always a fun game to play when you're packing?

i always remember to pack dumb things like christmas mouse ears, three pairs of flip flops, and pez dispensers (note: these things are all actually coming with me). but knowing me, i'll forget something major like my camera battery or wallet. silly nicki.

anyway, my flight leaves at 1:20 am out of sfo, so maddy and i are aiming to get to the airport around 10:30 pm. then we fly 14 hours to hong kong, kick it there for 2 hours, and then hop on another plane for a two and a half hour trip to bangkok. we'll arrive in bkk at 10:35 am local time, meet up with a group of people from the teach in thailand program, then hopefully go to a hotel where we'll be able to shower because i'm gonna be DIRTY. traveling dirty is a special kind of gross...full of grease and so caked on. YUMMY.