Bangkok - boooo, Siem Reap - yay!

Back in Bangkok for a day.

SIEM REAP WAS AMAZING. The entire two weeks was just so cool. The people (PEPY group, guides, locals, other foreigners), the food (seriously), the landscapes, the sites and the work. The entire experience far exceeded my expectations.


Interesting things

1. I used a parasol for the first time in my life.
2. I ate the local specialties and loved it. Fish amok, lok lak, ice coffee with condensed milk. Fish amok is, well, fish, in kind of a coconut curry thing. Yeah, that's right, I ate curry. And liked it. And continued to order it. We had a lot of set menus which was really good because it forced me to step beyond my "chicken with cashews" comfort zone.
3. Thai language actually came from Khmer and Khmer is just totally nuts. The script is way more squiggly and the vowels are even stranger. But, here's the cool part, no tones. I can count to 100 and have the "hello, what's your name, my name is..., nice to meet you" conversation. Khmer looooooooooves its vowels. "Kn'yom ereek erie-eh da (or sa, not sure) banh jue-aup ne-aik" might mean nice to meet you. Cambodians also REALLY want to practice their English and speak English, which was fun. We met one kid who just came up to Abby and me and said, "Can I walk with you? I want to practice my English." We said sure. He spoke really well, except got a little tripped up with "film" because it's a lot easier to say "flim." Abby was nice about it and said, "So what do you want to do, go watch the flim? Ha ha ha ha. Where's your friend? Watching the flim? Ha ha ha ha." I'm nicer so we went through the sounds. "fffff" "iiiiiii" "llllll" "mmmmmmm" "ffff-iiiii-llll-mmm" "ff-ii-ll-mm" "flim" Oh well. He'll work on it. Otherwise he spoke really well. Another thing. Abby sounds kind of mean, but it totally works in Cambodia. They're like insta-friends who you can automatically joke around with. It's really fun. I guess a lot of the time they're hoping to charm you into spending money on them somehow (tuk-tuk drivers, street kids, people outside stores) but I think they also like being friendly and talking to foreigners. A security guy at the airport, as I was putting my bag on the scanner, said, "Where you come from?" and anytime I smiled at people they would always smile back. It's really cool. You forget how uncommon that is until you see a foreigner and realize you don't really ever smile at them, because if you did it would probably just be weird. At the immigration booth as I was leaving I had to take a picture (everyone does) and I gave a huge smile and the officer laughed. I told him that I was in Cambodia and everyone smiles in Cambodia and he said I was right, Cambodians love to smile.
4. I was part of a group and loved it. And they were mostly JETs but it was cool. And the two couples weren't annoying and couple-ey. I had a roommate who I had a ton of fun with and met people I'll definitely be keeping in touch with.
5. The airports are amazing. It was my first time in Phnom Penh airport, so I can't compare, but the Siem Reap airport was just stunning. Completely redone from last year. Very strange. Not the arrivals part (domestic was even funnier than the international from last year - just a room with a table where the bags were put), but the departures part, it was crazy. If anyone googles Siem Reap International Airport and finds nice pictures, post a comment. It was beautiful. And they had ANZ (Australia New Zealand) Banks all over the place, with international ATMs. Also new from last year. I can't believe what a difference a year makes, but I guess it's good.
6. Almost everyday I was completely drenched with sweat and/or cement and/or mud and couldn't be happier. The sweat would seriously take over my entire shirt and my face looked like I was taking a shower, but I was more than happy to be like that. Not when we were walking around the temples - then it was really annoying. But working or playing with kids the sweat felt like a true achievement.
7. The street kids are something else. "Hello, where you from?" "Um, the moon." "Oh the moon? I'm from the sky. You buy my postcards. 10 for $1" "No thanks." "Buy my postcards, 10 for $1." "No thanks." "Buy my postcards, 10 for $1. Good price for you." "Buy my water, $1. Buy my water, $1. Buy my water, $1. Good price for you." "Ok, I buy your water, $1, you buy my postcards $2" "Um, no thanks. Maybe tomorrow" "Can not do tomorrow! Tomorrow I go to school!" "You don't go to school, you sell postcards on the street. If you go to school, why aren't you there now?" "Today holiday! Tomorrow I go to school." "I think you're lying." "I no lie! I promise! (holds out pinky)" "Hmm..." "Buy my postcards, $1." "Sorry, I don't need postcards." "You send to your boyfriend." "I already did." "You send one more." "Hm... no." "You send to your mother." "She's got enough." "Buy my postcards, $1." "No thanks. I'm ok." "Why you no buy?" "Because I don't want to." "Why you no want?" "Cause I don't need them" "Why you no need?" "Because!" "Why because?" "Sorry, I'm not going to buy." "If you no buy, I wish you no boyfriend." "That's not nice." "If you no buy, I wish you no dollars." "Oh, come on. You're being mean, why would I buy from you now?" "If you no buy, I wish you no son." "You're mean. I don't want to talk to you anymore." "I see you later, you buy my postcards?" Or, they don't have postcards and they just walk around with dead looking babies and say, "Money for baby... money for baby..." and point to empty bottles. The postcard kids are usually really cute and happy and playful. The ones with the dead looking babies are sad and really dirty. They tap your shoulder and stare and when you move they follow and pull your shirt, stare and point to the bottle. Very strange, but the worst was that we saw one kid with one baby one day and then a different baby the next day. And when the babies are awake the kids walk around happy. Don't get me wrong. The kids are really helpful. They've shown me where my friends have gone when I've gotten distracted on multiple occasions and usually they're just nice and happy and fun to talk with. Most of the time, even if you're not buying they'll talk to you and ask questions, and then just say goodbye as soon as they see someone who looks like they might buy.
8. Not all NGOs get along. A lot of them hate each other and think they're doing eveything wrong. I guess that's probably a worldwide thing.
9. There were more Japanese in Cambodia than in Japan I think.
10. I loved it and hope to return in the near future.

Also...
- I thought I left my glasses in Bangkok and freaked out for a good two hours. Called the guesthouse, wrote emails, called Lisa who was still staying there. They were in a compartment I hadn't checked in my bag.
- I locked my keys in my bag
- I left the keys at the top of the bag and could pull the zippers apart enough to get the keys out.
- I hurt myself when I heard the ice cream man coming in a small silk weaving village. I heard the noise, jumped, or leaped or something onto ground that wasn't the same level as what I had been on.
- One morning when we went to the temples for sunrise we went to one far out where people usually don't go for sunrise. The people who were supposed to open the gate didn't and because it was before sunrise, our dude almost ran into it. He didn't. But while swerving to miss it he flew off his bike and the tuk tuk went on top of his bike. We were ok, but he was on the ground. No helmet. We were afraid he had a concussion or something but he was fine. Not completely fine, but not willing to admit it to us. Scary scary scary. We bought him water and said he could go back if he wanted, but his only response to all of our freaking out was, "No problem, no problem" as he was holding his head, showing us his ripped pants, the cut on his elbow and making the "aawwwwww" face.
- Traffic goes in 4 directions on one street at all times. Sometimes five or six. The way to get from one side of the street to the other is to drive into oncoming traffic until you can merge across into the correct lane. Madness. That's why a lot of them don't wear helmets. It's all madness and helmets constrict their vision. But, plus side, I saw traffic lights for the first time this time. Frequently ignored by tuk tuks and motorbikes, but the cars seemed to take notice.
- I saw Angkor Wat for the second time and got to enjoy it a lot more than the first time. While posing for a group picture Helen said, "Smile, you're only at Angkor Wat twice." I thought that was really funny. Who goes to Angkor Wat twice? We did get to see a jungle temple way out in the middle of nowhere. And got to climb all over it. Tourists probably won't be able to do in the near future. Ha ha.
- There are geckos everywhere. They're my favorite apartment mate. Way cooler than ants, mosquitoes and cockroaches.
- Hair growing out of a mole is lucky in Cambodia. Therefore the luckiest is he who has the longest mole hair. And let me just say, tourguide Ta is one lucky guy.
- Cambodia doesn't really get the "ice cream milkshake" idea. It's ice, milk, and then maybe a scoop of ice cream, but the ice shaving really have a way of ruining the whole thing. Just don't get your hopes up like I did. Over and over again.
- PEPY is really, really cool. The whole trip, experience, attitude was really nice. Especially after Bangkok. It was a good balance of working, playing, seeing, learning and eating and sleeping. I'm so excited to see what the future holds and hopefully be a part of it.

Now I'm in Bangkok. Writing a blog. Figuring out life. Packing.

Phnom Penh

Suas Dtai! I'm in Cambodia and loving it. I leave Phnom Penh tomorrow and wish I had at least one more day. I've had such an amazing time here.

Short version:

Me to Steph - My trip mostly consists of learning about really depressing stuff and then meeting little kids and taking pictures with them.

Steph to me - Glad that things are good in Cambodia even though things are bad in Cambodia.


Well put, Steph.
In addition to my first statement I also built a huge water tank out of cement, kind of.


Long version:

I don't feel like making paragraphs. So this'll have to do.

- RDI (Resource Development International) is one of the coolest organizations I've heard about in a long time. I was so impressed with all the stuff they're doing and I hope I can figure out some way to work with them in the future. They do the super serious stuff like the water purification and how to deal with animal waste so it doesn't cause disease for the humans (just to name a few, I could go on and on) but then to get all of their messages across they use kareoke and puppets and really cool media that people actually pay attention to! Check their website here! We got a tour to see all of their projects and I was just walked around with my jaw dropped. It was really really cool.

- CCF 1 (Cambodian Children's Fund) is such a happy (and sad at the same time)place. You see the kids there and they are look ecstatic all the time. They love life, people, talking, playing on the computer, doing their hair and everything else they do. We went to CCF (boys and girls (age 5 - 13) and got to sit in on their drama class. THESE KIDS CAN ACT! Oh my god. They were doing improv scenes (I think) and there was one scene where a girl died and her friend was kneeling by her side screaming her name. I started crying. And the whole scene was in Khmer. I couldn't believe it. Dane (American, English teacher in Japan, on the trip with his Japanese girlfriend) and I did a scene (in English) and when we sat back down a bunch of kids were saying, "Good good!" and then one kid said, "It was not good, it was Iceland!" Ok not really, he said, "excellent!" but I heard Iceland and was confused for a minute. But overall it was just so amazing to think about the things that we've always taken for granted that these kids are learning for the first time. Health and hygiene is a very very very unknown concept for these kids. (Remember, 80% of them were picking garbage and living at the dump) Most come in with lice, scavies, diarrhea, salmonella, and a ton of weird diseases I've never heard of. And then CCF has to cure all of that so they don't give it to the rest of the kids. Personally, when I heard "Medical Center" I thought of a nurse's office, which, technically I guess it is, but it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more important than any nurse's office in a school or anything. In addition, they have to teach them how to use their own toothbrush, brush, etc. All of this stuff is very very new for them. So you go there are you're totally blown away by how eager they are to learn, to talk to you, to give you hugs and it's really easy to forget that these kids can by 13 years old and have picked garbage for their entire lives, may or may not have a family and have probably never been to school. Two girls there were the youngest daughters of a mother of 4 who had sold her first two off for prostitution and had just been caught for trying to sell the last two. She's now in jail and her daughters are at CCF. AND EVERY KID THERE ARE SOME EQUALLY DISTURBING STORY. It's intense.

- CCF2 was built for older girls to give them vocational training. Girls have way less value in Cambodian culture and, because of prostitution and the rest, are in need of more help. So CCF2 is just for girls and has vocational training for the older ones. We went there tonight and got (absolutely hideous) makesovers from the girls in beauty class. Blue eyeshadow, bright pink lipstick. It was applied quite well, they just need to work on their coloring. Don't worry, I have pictures. The girls there (and at CCF1 also) also have culture class from 6-8 where they either learn about Khmer instruments, dance, and just general culture stuff. Their dancing is awesome! So as soon as you walk into CCF2 you have like one or two girls grab you, give you a hug for like 5 minutes and then hold your hand for the rest of the time you're there. It's quite surreal. But again, as with CCF1, each girl we saw was just SOOOO happy to be there.

- Rainy season is no joke here. We went to the work site Tuesday, worked for an hour and a half and then it started raining. When you're working with cement you're not left with many choices. Wednesday it rained a little bit but we still worked and then today we finished just in time before the biggest rain I've seen since getting here. I really wasn't impressed with Bangkok's "rainy season" but Cambodia's convinced me that it exists. Rainy season is no joke.

- Oh yeah, we were only at the work site for three days. We were in a tiny village outside Phnom Penh. We drove up to two huge piles of sand and one of rocks. First we moved to rocks over to the area, then we made cement and started making the foundation. We were grassroots, yo! Manual cement mixing. We had enough time to get the foundation laid down and then it started raining and we called it a day. Construction is pretty boring, but you know what isn't? Hanging out with kids! School was out of session but as soon as the kids see a van of foreigners drive up they were all over us! And not begging for money! The boys started helping and then the girls got in it too! I was so proud of them! We were just passing buckets of cement down a line and then they would run the empty buckets back to the top of the line. So cool! We also learned some names, some Khmer and some hand games. Wednesday was also really fun. We got to know the kids better, and one of the mother's actually invited us to her house across the street. The 12 year old son went upstairs and put music on and we had a huge dance party. So fun. She's the "English teacher" for their school and knows about 10 English words. So we said those 10 words over and over. I had such an awesome time on Wednesday I was kind of sad that we weren't going back on Thursday, but we went back today and everything was still fun! Katy (Australian, English teacher in Japan)brought a soccer ball and we had an intense game of soccer (kinda) at like 8 in the morning (while waiting for the cement). I say kinda cause it was 3 against 3 but without any goals. Every one seemed happy enough just trying to pass it to their teammates and keep it away from the people who weren't on their team. How un-Western, huh? Katy started saying, "Let's set up some goals!" but it never really caught on and then we realized maybe we weren't being very culturally sensitive and we don't NEED to have goals all the time, sometime just having fun is just as good. I was so sad to say goodbye to them all today. Of course, I have a billion pictures and I'm hoping to get a ton printed up to give to them. After a while I just gave my camera to one of the older boys, a 12 year old named Ro-Tua (I think) and told him to go nuts taking pictures. He really dug it. THESE KIDS LOVE CAMERAS! And digital is so satisfying because then I can feel like I'm taking it for them and not just for me. As soon as they see a camera they put their arm around their friend and start smiling and then race to the camera to see the finished product. It's a really handy tool to have. I'm planning on getting a lot of the pictures developed and sent back to the village when the RDI people go back to 1) finish the tank (we couldn't) and/or 2) do the whole education aspect of it (which we didn't get to do because school was on break). They also taught me Khmer! So that was cool too. We had Dance Party 2.0 today too which was a nice way to say goodbye. One thing we saw today that we hadn't seen any other day were a bunch of orphan kids. You see these kids like Li-asa (you'll see a ton of pictures of her) and you think "aww, her clothing is so old and ripped, and she's getting covered in mud as she plays in the rain, and she's not even wearing any shoes. How cute and poor Cambodian villge of her" and then you see a family of 4 kids, half of them not wearing any clothing, not speaking, with infected cuts and scrapes all over them and the inflated stomach like in the Sally Struthers commercials, looking like they haven't washed in a week, staring at you as you eat your lunch and then you think, "Woah, I guess Li-asa's living the life of luxury up here." Turns out their parents are both dead and they live in a shack together. Or something like that. We gave them the leftovers from our lunch and they took all the utensils too. Scott (CCF founder) is actually going to go up there tomorrow and see what their deal is and maybe bring them to CCF.

- So since we were only at the site for three days here's what we were doing the other days. Sunday - killing fields, genocide museum, which used to a torture prison, which had used to be high school. Pol Pot was a, excuse my language, fucking nut. I can't even get into it right now. Informative, depressing, powerful, emotional, intense. Monday - Royal Palace (could have skipped, not into that stuff that much), then Stoeay Machey to see the dump. It's literally a dump with about 100 dumps a day. People just stand around waiting to go through and get what recyclables they can. They all have a little village there which is all just on garbage. We had to walk over a strange combination of sludge and plastic bags. The kids seemed super happy, very different than the pictures on the CCF website but they all had weird things wrong with them and occasionally there would be a really sick one and or a tiny girl bald in spot with raised purple spots and then you realize, oh right, they live on a dump. I have a ton of pictures which can explain it a lot better. In the afternoon we went to, I don't know, maybe an old capital or something? I wasn't paying any attention. There were kids there and I was hanging out with them. There was a group of about 15 boys and they tried to be tourguides, taught Khmer, played in the rain with each other, showed off their breakdancing skills, smiled for pictures, and spoke in English. There was one kid in particular, Tu-nah I think, that I was talking to and he was so cool to hang out with. He was 12 and really smart and funny. When I saw the bus I was kind of bummed because he and his friends had been so interesting so I was saying, "I got to go, bye" and he says, "$5 for school?" and then it was all over. I said "Oh. Um... I'm sorry. I can't." And it just got weirder and weirder. I felt so used! So then I was thinking "wait, so did you just put on an hour long act to get $5 from me?" It's really kind of frustrating. They seem to genuinely have a good time and I can't decide how I'm supposed to feel. You're not supposed to give them money because then it encourages begging and the money definitely won't go to school, but then what are his options? How else is he going to possibly have a chance to go to school? (Schools cost money here) CCF can't just take everyone. But then you also don't want to raise a nation on begging from Westerns. ARGH! It's really frustrating.
Oh and on Thursday we took a boat ride to a silk village where they tried to toally rip us off on silks but we also got to see horse and cow drawn carriages which was interesting. And then we took cyclo tours of Phnom Penh. Cyclo = a bike with a seat with a wheel on either side instead of a front tire. It was with an NGO that helps smokers or something. I don't completely understand. There are a lot of NGOs here. They all had non-smoking shirts. IT WAS FUN! We went around town getting really confused/happy/excited looks from people. It felt very similar to what I imagine the obscure country singers feel during the Thanksgiving Parade.

Ok - I'm tired. I have a flight tomorrow to Siem Reap.

Last thing - being with a group. It's been interesting. I was totally freaked out at first. I'm one of 4 non-JETs (English teachers in Japan) and the sight seeing with a bus and a tour guide just felt so weird. But, by today I'm feeling a lot more comfortable. It's nice to be with a group of people sometimes! I can ask their opinions about what color scarf I should get and talk about Justin's new album and be with people with senses of humor much more similar to mine than the TEFL people.

So that's me! I'm doing well.

Last day in Bangkok, kinda.

So a quick entry on my last day in Bangkok, kinda -

(Pictures here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigramroad/sets/72157594233815336)

My class is over. It feels weird. I handed in my portfolio with a billion pages of lesson plans, materials, reflections, observations, a case study and a fake lesson plan. Intense stuff.

On Thursday we were supposed to go to the orphanage that every group goes to at the end of their course. In true Thai style, they decided to have a Sports Day and we couldn't go. No worries! Chichester is totally hooked up and we went to a new school, 2 hours north of Bangkok that they've never been to before. It was ridiculously awesome.

Ninety two kids, grades 1-6 who have never had a native speaking English teacher. We walked into the room and they were sitting there, perfect posture, notebooks open, pencils in their hands. There were 6 classrooms and 7 people so Lisa and I shared the first grade class. OH GOD, THEY WERE SO CUTE. They knew "My name is..." So we did that first. Then we played a jumping game where they got to yell out "Jumping, jumping, jumping, jumping, hop hop hop, run aroung in circles, run around in circles, then we stop" (to the tune of "Frere Jacques" I don't think I spelled that right." They are totally into repeating, so it was fun. Then we went to "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes!" We skipped the eyes and ears part. These kids were 6.

Then we got to "our lessson" on animals. We taught them cow, fish, cat, dog, turtle, pig, snake, and elephant. It was fun! Then we moved all the desks and chairs and put all the pictures them on the floor. Lisa and I stood at opposite ends of the room and said, "Bring me an elephant!" Then they'd go through all the pictures on the floor and try to find the elephant. Lisa and I both had sets so there were two each time. The kids dug it but were most of them had no clue what was going on. They just lined up with whatever picture they had. That was ok, we would just say, "Nooooo. That's a turtle. I want an elephant!" and they'd go back and do it again. Some of them got it and would actually get the right ones. So that was cool. Then we took the pictures and put them up all over the room and said, "Run to the... turtle!" and everyone ran. After a while of that we all got tired and so we gave them the pictures and some markers and colored pencils and they colored. Then we walked around and got each kid to say the name of the animal they were coloring. There was one superstar who knew them all and loved talking, there was one girl who was confused most of the time, but always knew fish, some that were still answering in Thai. Which was ok with me. They're 6. Even knowing a cow is a cow in one language is hard enough. But by the end of coloring time they definitely knew the animal they were drawing.

Then was lunch which was a feast. Man, foreigners have such a weird status. Loved, hated, it's both ends. I guess we're kind of hated because we're loved. The same reason that they make a shit ton of food and then the regular teachers get our leftovers (weird weird weird) is why cab drivers take you to gem stores and tailors and force you to buy stuff. (Hasn't happened to me yet though!)

After lunch we went back and played games with the alphabet. They all knew the alphabet but only in the order of the song. I had cool flashcards (thank you Cross-Cultural Solutions!) and so we went through it and they knew all the letters. But as soon as you go from J back to E they get totally thrown off. It was cute. So we did a little bit more drilling. And then we did the pictures on the floor game. It was fun again and much harder because 1) half of the English alphabet sounds pretty similar (B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V, Z (not for them though, cause they call it Zed); I, Y; A, J, K; M, N). Each letter in the Thai alphabet has a word that goes with so it's alot easier. The character that makes the /g/ sound is called "gau gai" which is very distinguishable from the /s/ sound, called "sau sua" etc, etc. Like if a was called "ay apple" it would be easier than just "ay." So we did that for a while, it was pretty hard. The kids would sing the song and look at the poster to figure out which letter was which. We turned it into a boys vs. girl thing for who could find them faster. Again, there were at least two of each letter so sometimes there were ties, which was nice.

Then we played the slapping the board game. Girls lined up on one side, boys on the other. We wrote letters on the chalkboard and then yelled out a letter and the person in front of the line has to race to the board and hit the letter. It was fun! They didn't always know them, but their team would help them out and this way everyone got a chance. Most of the time they would just race to the board and hit whatever letter was closest then look at us or their group, we'd say, "Noooo, find the M! M like MOUSE" and then they'd actually look for the letter. Girls totally won. And W was by far their favorite letter in case anyone was wondering.

Then we gave them the sheets (we had photocopies too) and they colored happily again.

The day was awesome. The kids were so cool. They just repeated everything we said. I would say, "What is this?" while pointing to an elephant and they'd say, "What is this?" And if I said, "oops" they'd say, "oops!" All of the instructions were body language. To explain that only one person was supposed to run to the board at a time I was crouching on the floor holding my arms like a gate, so that they could only get passed one at a time. But they got it! Not surprisingly, it really made me want to teach little kids in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately, schools in the middle of nowhere usually don't have foreign teachers and where they do, the kids that young usually have a Thai teacher. Most schools only for foreign teachers for middle school and higher.

The hill tribe school might be like this but I might be too much of a wimp to be the only foreigner. Ahhh, we'll see.

So - 13th to 24th - Cambodia, the 26th to 2nd - chillin with Gregg, after that - don't know!

AUA Chiang Mai isn't hiring this term, and I'm not sure if I want to work there anyway. I think I need a little of time to just think about stuff. Language school? Middle of nowhere? City high school? Volunteering? Cambodia? Laos? Chiang Mai?

I have no idea! I got to see some elephants. That's for damn sure. I have a feeling they hold the answers to all of my questions.

I put more pictures up - the school, Chichester and 1/3 of my Yellow Shirt Day pictures. Today is Mother Day. It's like Mother's Day but it's celebrated on the Queens Birthday so first and foremost is Queen Mother but the rest of the mother's get recognition too. I guess the Queen got jealous of the whole shirt thing, so she has light blue shirts that say "Love Mother" so this weekend is Light Blue Shirt Weekend.

P.S. It's in the high 90's right now. This isn't a hot day, this is average. But no worries, it'll cools off at night. Last night was 88 and tonight should be about 86. I haven't stopped sweating for 4 weeks. Except for when I'm in an air conditioned place when I'm scared of dying of hypothermia becuase it's 10 below.

Ok Cambodia here I come?!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!

That was from my tongue, and my mouth, and my throat, and my sinuses, and my esophagus, and my brain, and my stomach, and very soon to be the rest of digestive system.

There's a foodcourt on the 4th floor of the complex where my school is. A Thai foodcourt has a bunch of very simple stands with dishes ranging from 20 to 40 baht ($0.50 - $1), like a Mom 'N Pop version of a mall food court. So in the spirit of adventure, Lisa and I went up there last week to try it out.

Usually, at the schools and the malls, where the same system is set up they usually have a ton of dishes on display and you can just point. Here, I don't know why, the fronts are pretty empty and I guess the food is all prepared in the back, which makes it hard to order if you can't read the menu. (It would take me a long time, and I probably wouldn't know what most of it meant anyway.) So we found one lady that had food displayed AND she spoke English! So we went with her. I got some sweet pork thing and Lisa got fish curry. Mine was fine, but Lisa was freaking out about how hot hers was. The lady hadn't even mentioned a word. She obviously knew we were lame westerners without the strong palette of a Thai! Ugh. So Lisa got through it, in pain, and I reminded myself always to ask if it's hot or not.

So then I went back again and got something else that was supposed to be chicken with cashews dish but they didn't have chicken, so it was weirdly seasoned rice with pork and cashews. It kind of sucked, but it was food and I ate it. I had some vouchers left over so I went back today to finish them off. (Oh yeah - you pay a cashier ahead of time for a bunch of vouchers in different increments - 5, 10, 20 - and then hand them over to the people, not actual cash).

I went back to the lady. I told her I only had 20 baht so she showed me the dishes I could get. There was one that just looked like pork, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and no chilies, so I went with that one. I asked if it was hot and she said, "not very!"

LIAR!!!!! I walked over to a table in the corner (I was sitting by myself, again, totally not cool in Thailand) and began to eat. OH MY GOD. Ok, so what had happened was that the chilies had been sliced up and there were itsy bitsy pieces of chilies, and their juice and their seeds, ALL OVER EVERYTHING. My poor cucumbers - ruined! But there was a lot of rice so I thought maybe it could even it all out. I started eating and I couldn't believe the immediate response. My mouth hurt, my eyes were tearing, my nose was running and I think my tongue was throbbing. I thought maybe I'd get used to it if I kept going, and I was hungry, and I've been wanting to be able to "eat Thai food" so I kept going and got through a little more. I didn't get used to it, I actually started feeling really weird and got a little dizzy. So then I stopped, about a third of the way through. I then went through the rest of the plate trying to get any seeds or itsy bitsy chili pieces off or the cucumber, rice, onion, even tomato and eating it that way. It helped a little but there was still chili-ness all over everything so I finally gave up with about a third still left on the plate.

This meal hurt every part of my body. Mind you that I'm a supertaster (it's been scientifically proven) so all you normal tasters, you couldn't even understand the pain that I've just been through.

So, after the meal, I went to 7-Eleven and got ice cream which I've just been putting on my tongue and letting it sit there until it melts off. I don't want even want to eat it - I just want it to heal my mouth.

---
Update on teaching: I changed the rice on a plate idea to a strawberry milkshake recipe. I had the recipe on the board and then pictures of ingredients that were wrong (too many strawberries, too much sugar, not enough milk) and had them get to it that way, while trying to avoid explaining quantifiers as much as possible. (Quantifiers = "spoonfuls" of sugar, "cups" of milk). So I didn't draw rice, but I did learn how to draw a pretty nice blender. Then we talked about Bangkok and it's problems in combination with countable and uncountable nouns, like traffic (uncountable, uses much) and traffic jams (countable, uses many). Not easy! But we decided on TOO MUCH NOISE! TOO MANY TRAFFIC JAMS! NOT ENOUGH PARKS! Then, the last activity was say one complaint you have with the world. I said, "There is too much pollution." A 13 year old girl said, "There are too many women." "Women?" "Yes, women." And then I heard her say it in Thai to her cousin, so she actually meant that. That was weird. But there are a lot of women (females by birth plus ladyboys) in Thailand, so I could see why she might feel that way. Wow, spicy food to ladyboys in one blog, yay Thailand!

I'm a Muai Thai Boxing Champion!

Last night Lisa met a girl named Sophia or Sophie or something. She's a girl that lives at Discovery Lodge. I don't know how long she's been there, but she has 30 pairs of heeled strappy shoes, at least 15 hats, and at least 15 handbags to match. She's half Thai, half Malaysian. This makes her darker skinned than most Thai, so she pretends to think she's ugly (white is the cool thing around here, every face/body product is whitening which I'd like to say is weird, but we do it with teeth, and tanning seems just as ridiculous to them, so I'll keep quiet) but she's a model, and she's gorgeous and she has 4 mirrors in her living room and smiles at herself constantly in all the mirrors so I'm pretty sure she knows she's beautiful. Anyway, she's a part time model and then a freelance aerobics/yoga/boxing/self-defense teacher. So Lisa met her, and then came down to tell me about her and then we went back and did aerobics/yoga/boxing/self-defense with her. We started with yoga inside her apartment but it was really hot, so we moved outside to our "patio" (parking lot) and did boxing and self-defense stuff outside. She went through like 5 outfits over the course of the 3 hours. But it was really fun! I was jumping and sweating and doing the karate "huh!" thing and doing ridiculous looking kicks and all this stuff. I decided I want to be able to be able to get into the bridge position by leaning backwards (right now I can lay on my back and get up, but can't get to it from a standing position) and then, be able to stand back up from that. Pretty huge goals, but I usually do nothing at night so maybe I'll get bored enough to actually practice. Anyway, it was really fun, I was active and social and learning stuff. Usually I'm sitting, eating whatever's in my fridge and watching really bad HBO movies. (I'm working on an embarrassing list of the movies I've seen since getting here.)

Last thing about Sophie. She's cool, she's beautiful but not by being tiny, she's taller than me and is super strong, she speaks pretty good English, and wants to take Lisa and me out with her friends this weekend. Cool. She dresses all sexy when she goes out (but only takes very modest modeling jobs as to not upset her dad) but she's apparently not a "bar girl" cause she has a boyfriend. More about the boyfriend. He's from England. They've been dating for 5 years. She's never been to England. He's 55. Oh right, Sophie's 23. Ugh. It's so strange. I've worked hard to get over the white guys with Thai girl thing (for the most part) but when he's over 50, and she's younger then half his age, yeah, that still creeps me out. Oh Thailand.

Tomorrow I'm teaching a course to pre-intermediate students about "too much/many" and "not enough." I think I'm going to start by asking them how much rice usually goes on a plate and then draw a plate with rice overflowing so they say "No no no! Need less!" and then just a couple of grains of rice so they say "No no no! Need more!" and then I'll set the stage perfectly for too much and not enough. I'm so good. Now I just need to figure out how to draw rice on a plate.

Wish me luck!

More answers about Bangkok

From Barbara:
they kind of look like they're wearing the uniform required by their job. Does your new clothing for work look like that?
I know from my one Thai co-worker- they really DO feel the king ROCKS!
I'm surprised -shouldn't be, I guess- that there is a 7-11 in Bangkok. I'm glad you're in Asia while it still looks and seems very different from the USA.
Are you speaking Thai on a regular basis? Are you understood?Do you understand people speaking in Thai to you? Any clue about their written language?


The picture only shows the more formal of the yellow shirts. For class I wear a dress shirt, a (dress) skirt and flip flops. I bought a pair of fancy shoes but they still hurt my feet too much to wear them everyday. When we go to schools and when I teach at night I wear the fancy shoes that hurt my feet, otherwise I wear the flip flops. I have yet to purchase a yellow shirt.

An acceptable substitute for the dress shirt would be the yellow collared shirts in the picture or even a yellow t-shirt with the "We love the King" script on it. The boy at reception at the school wear a shirt and tie and suit pants everyday, but on Mondays he wears his yellow t-shirt with a jacket. It's like casual-"We-love-the-King" Mondays I guess.

There are 7-11s all over the place. I've been able to stand in one 7-11 and see 2 other 7-11s at the same time. McDonalds, Starbucks, it's all here. One of the girls at the Starbucks above my school asked me my name one day and now says "Sawatdee Ka, Beth!" whenever I go in. Her name is Nit. Oh yeah, everyone in Thailand has a nickname. They'll have a name like Pimasudamikareatkamnit that means something really deep and profound and then go by Nit. That's great, that's fine. But sometimes it's hard to remember if someone's name was Nit, Not, Nat, Net, Nut or a vowel in between (there are a bunch, don't kid yourself in thinking that just cause we don't have a letter for it, it doesn't exist. It does and we pronounce them all the time.) Or worse, the diphthongs (two vowels together in the same sound) - Niot, Nout, Nuet. Or, still worse, the tripthongs - Niuat (still one syllable). So yeah, it's tough to fit all those sounds into one little name. And then when I introduce myself they said, "Is that your nickname? What's your long name? What's your name mean?" And I say, "Um, this is my full name and my nickname and it doesn't mean anything, my parents just like the name." I wasn't sure if they could handle the official, "House of God" explanation. It would make my parents look a little too proud.


Are you speaking Thai on a regular basis? Are you understood?Do you understand people speaking in Thai to you? Any clue about their written language?

I try to speak Thai with a couple of people a day. My girl Nit at Starbucks (although I don't know how to say "Spinach and Cheese Puff" in Thai yet), the round pork ball vendor (see pictures), sometimes the reception boy at school and sometimes my security guard. Occasionally a taxi driver or someone to ask for directions but it's weird when they ask you to repeat what you've said in English cause they could understand you better that way.

I understand overall about 1/4 of what's said to me. The last time I was in a cab and he said something to me about going to sleep. I answered, "Yes, I'm going home and going to sleep."

As for the written language I actually like that a lot more. I learned the alphabet at the Hunter class I took so I can read alright. There are 44 letters and 32 vowels (see, I told you there can be more than 5) so I don't know them all, but I know the most common ones. Last week I wanted to order chicken and cashews and I actually read it off the menu and knew what I was saying! Gai (chicken) pad (noodles) medmamuang (cashews)! So that was really, really exciting. Usually if I can read it 1)it's just the Thai script for something I knew in English (in the pictures see Pretz and Raja Resort) or 2) I don't know what the word means. So to be able to read something and understand what it means in Thai was very exciting. It happened again with a telephone company ad (I read the Thai word for telephone) and a conditioner ad (I read the Thai words for "Your hairs likes water"). I think I've mentioned this before but another difficulty is that they only put spaces between sentences, and not between words, so itslikeyouhadtoreadeverythinglikethis. Which is really hard! I do have a dictionary with an English --> Thai (script and transliteration) and Thai script --> English and Thai transliteration --> English. So I could read a word, look up how it's said (I don't know the order of the Thai alphabet to look it up the real way yet) and find the English meaning. I did that with a sign in the subway. The English part of the sign says "To Trains" but I know "train" and I knew "to" and the Thai part didn't say either. But, I looked it up and it was saying "entrance" which I guess is a fair substitute.

So the speaking will come eventually. In the meantime, I'm having enough fun with the reading to be entertained. And there's always the security guy if I'm ever in search of a speaking partner.

Last thing, my mom responded to my last post about the love for the King

Everyone's not hostile and
angry about the government?? What's that about!!!!


They are. They love the King, but they hate the Prime Minister (not everyone, just those damn protest-loving Bangkok Liberals! Just kidding.) Huge protests everyday were messing up Bangkok traffic even more than it usually is and finally the PM decided to hold snap election, last April. He did win just over 50% but not the 80% he was expecting, so he said "fine, fine, someone else, be the PM" but then no one did anything, so he's back in but with a different name.

The protests stopped though.

That's why everyone loves the King - he doesn't do anything! I've heard that he occasionally says, "Recycle, Thailand!" (he has yet to say, "Save the elephants, Thailand!") But even when he says, "recycle" everyone says "Ok ok ok! We love the King!" but then doesn't really do it.

So that's more about Thailand.

In cheerier news, my friend Gregg is coming to Thailand for 1 week at the end of August, and we're going to attempt to squeeze my 6 week Thailand trip last time into one week. I'll meet him when he gets into Bangkok, two days after I get back from Cambodia. Then we'll go to Elephant Nature Park, down to the crazy party beach, over to the quiet, peaceful beach and then he'll go back to LA and I'll finally move to Chiang Mai for real and get a job and set up a semi-normal life.

And this morning I taught a lesson based around "Bugs and Insects Sold For Human Consumption In Thailand!" The vocabulary was ant, grasshopper, scorpion, spider, cicada, beetle, snail, cockroach, and worm.

Bon Appetite!