Watch the whole thing.

What's your favorite part? Mine's probably the old guy pole dancing. Enjoy.

October 22nd

Hey. Sorry it's been a while. Here are some things I've been thinking about, noticing, etc.



1. A majority of pens in Thailand suck. For about a week I bought a pen a day trying to find one that actually wrote every time you put in on paper. I had to go to the stationary section of the fancy department store to find a regular pen that worked every time I put it on paper. This whole pen catastrophe was very unexpected, but I'm happy I learned from it. Also on the topic of pens, I've learned that most Thais don't know how to use rollerball (like the one in the picture, have to hold at an angle, not ballpoint) pens. I gave my rollerball pen to 5 Thai people and watched them all think the pen was broken. It was awkward. I handled it by giving them a different pen and trying to remember that maybe Thais just don't do rollerball pens. I didn't feel like lessons on pen holding should be part of my Western influence in Thailand. I spend a lot of time trying to explain the idea of indivduality ("What food do Americans eat? Hamburgers, right?"), and trying to convince them that most things in movies aren't the way they are in real life (I watched the Woodstock '99 DVD which spends more time on topless girls than on the music and spent the entire time saying, "America's not like that! Those are kids who are very drunk and on a lot of drugs! I promise you - you don't normally see topless girls everywhere!") and why black people aren't bad (again, from movies, and they're not ashamed about their feelings because they have no reason to be). And that's why I figured I could skip the pen issue.

2. There are a bazillion ways to tell time in Thailand. Let's say you want to express the idea of 5pm - you have 6 options. No joke. And, even with that, or maybe because of it, there's "Thai time", which means anywhere from 15 minutes to 6 hours later than what the proposed "Western (and Japanese) time". Japanese are exempt from getting made fun of when it comes to food, sweating, anger and voice volume, but they're included in the getting made fun of for caring about time too much.

3. Quick Thai lesson - Glai (mid tone) = far away. Glai (falling tone) = near. Got to love Thai language. Also, at first there was a mall, and everyone called it Central (pronounced Centron) and then a NEW mall opened! And guess what it's called? Central (Pronounced Centron). They both have more official names but no one uses them. In my class I have Tang-mo 1 and Tang-mo 2, but the malls don't even have numbers with them.

4. Ice coffee is really cheap and really good and available from 1) any coffee shop 2) any restaurant 3) 7-11 (cans and ice coffee dispenser, like a slurpee machine) 4) ice coffee stand near the food stalls and, my favorite, 5) ice coffee bike man! He drives around on his motorbike with his ice coffee dispensing sidecar.

5. Thais really do take this King guy pretty seriously. In my Thai class we were learning about how to give directions and, in an attempt to be clever and funny, the Belgium guy took out some postcards he had just bought and put added them to the little town we had constructed on the floor of the classroom. But one of them had the King on it and Tuk (like "took" but with that hard "dt" sound), our teacher, flipped out! She said, "NO! YOU CAN NOT!!!!! NO NO NO! NEVER!" No having the King touch the floor. Or postcard of the King touch the floor. And then she told us that she's understanding about it but that Thai people would flip out if anyone did that in front of them. But her freak out was the most serious I've ever seen a Thai being, and Thais are really proud of their non-freaking out nature, so pretty much, I'm terrified of how upset a Thai person must be to actually freak out, and I guess I won't be putting any postcards of the King on the floor anytime soon.

6. I got my first Thai paycheck. I made $241 for three weeks of work. Yay! And that's the lowest it'll be because I just started my two 3-hour Saturday classes and next weeknight term I'll teach 3 classes instead of 2. The paycheck wasn't actually a paycheck as much as a pay slip because they do direct deposit. Still cool!

7. The skirts I bought in Bangkok don't really fit that great but I've come up with a solution - paper clip the skirt to my underwear! Then the back won't slip down at strange angles and show my underwear. It's like a belt! And my shirts are long enough to cover the paper clips. The day I started doing that I also did some last minute tailoring on my shirt with some masking tape. I've become quite resourceful. A month ago I also had a minor ant infestation which I solved quickly with a good dose of ultra power Listerine. I bought it by accident, but it came in very handy.

8. In my weeknight classes we're working on past tense, so I gave them this sheet of paper with a bunch of pictures and they had to work in groups to write a story. There was a boy and a girl and a danceclub and the guy passing out (in the official story he wanted to look stronger so wore a bunch of jackets and then passed out - a premade story, not mine) and most of the groups wrote grammatically correct, but pretty boring stories but one group wrote this whole thing where the woman turned out to be a ladyboy and that's why the guy fainted. It was awesome! Hearing them using the past tense while using their imaginations was such a cool feeling. In my first class I have a lot of trouble getting them to say anything that's not already written in the book. If the past tense chapter happens to revolve around what did you do this weekend, then, despite all my efforts, they go back to "I went shopping" and "I slept" but the second class gets all creative and sometime even uses new grammar to make fun of each other which I think is just great. It's not real making fun of, it's more someone asking about someone else's girlfriend or boyfriend and then the whole class goes, "oooooooooooooooo!!!!!" and then the person asked covers their face and giggles, but then answers using the past tense! It's cute.

9. Thai's have a different directional concept. Everything is from the speaker's point of view. So if someone tells you to "Go left of the chair" that means go so that the person speaking (facing the chair) will see you to the left of the chair. So you better stand to the right of the chair. And, Tuk explained that "North, South, East, West aren't Thai ideas." Between this and Thai time, I'm really excited for my Dad to visit. And poor Stephie and her left/right problems. Or, maybe, she's just been using the Thai directional concept without knowing it this whole time.

10. I've been going to my yoga class when possible and it turns out for all the things I can't do (the list is very long) I can sit in the lotus position which apparently is difficult for even people who are good at yoga. I think it's because my thighs are so fat, my feet have a lot of area to sit on. Either way, my teacher actually said, "Nice work Beth" for the first time. Usually he only says my name when he's saying, "For those of you who aren't flexible (pause)Beth(pause) you can ..." or "Beth, you look like a donkey. The motion should be slow and controlled. Use your abdominal muscles. If you can't do it, it's because you don't have any." That was when I was trying to a headstand against the wall. The only girl in class that day (there were only 2!) was a super pro who didn't even need the freaking wall. That's ok. I also realized yesterday another reason he's kind of strange is not only the spandex, overbite and extreme rudeness, but he also rolls his "r"s and exaggerates all his vowels. Like he's in a movie mocking English accents.

10. Shopping is still funny. I go straight for the L, XL, or XXL if they have it and still 9 times out of 10 it's still too small.


Ok - enough talk. Here's some music I've been enjoying lately.

Fool's Garden - Lemon Tree - Not Thai, but I first heard them in a Thai bar. When I asked, a Thai person told me it was The Beatles. I had a hard time believing that. So I found the video but I couldn't tell where they were from and if the song was current of 30 years old. I did a bit more research and decided that they're Czech and it's a current song.

Here's the actual video for Fool's Garden - Lemon Tree
If anyone has more info, I'd love to hear it.

Here's a live version. Not as cool as the video, but it's what was on YouTube.



Bird Thongchai - HUGE deal in Thailand. I dig this song. I bought he album. The rest of the songs are slow love songs. I guess I kind of knew that before I bought it.


Leaving Thailand again. Here's a Japanese group called Depapepe, two guitars no vocals, and they have a bunch of slow songs and then this fun little happy number. The only video I could find was off of their website. It's only 30 seconds, but if you're up for an adventure here are the directions.

1) http://www.sonymusic.co.jp/Music/Info/depapepe/
2) "Discography"
3) "Single"
4) Second one down - Japanese name, but says Lahaina on the cover once you click it
5) Video icon for track 1

It's nice.

Back to Thailand for you dose of love songs, but with a twist. Farang love song! Actually, Farang and Japanese love! In Thailand! They're both reading The Notebook! How cute! Yamin & The Dogs. (Quick Thai lesson - "yuu nai hua-jai" means "in my heart". See how many times you can hear it.)

New strangest video yet!

The band is called Same Same, their album is called Meaning of Happy. Sounds Thai enough, right? But they're white and they've somehow managed to score the first western pop meets luk-tung (traditional Thai) singer duet. Nice work, guys! How'd you do it? Wait, who are you? Are you really singing in Thai? What's going on here?

Ok, so, remember The Moffatts? A country band made up of 4 brothers under the age of 12? From Nashville? I hear they had a huge hit in 1994? Well, apparently they had a second pop/love album in 1998 that no one in the West cared about, but did just great over here. So the idential twins (Same Same, get it?) eventually came to Thailand with a deal from Sony BMG Thailand and recorded an album, did tours of Bangkok high schools and made it on to my Thai pop TV channel. Strange strange strange. They just left to go back to Canada to write some more ( I know, I know - you thought they from Nashville, right? Yeah, me too. Nope, Canadian Nashville posers!). But they'll be back to Thailand to record their album hopefully early 2007! Oh, and the crazy street the woman is walking on with the dancing guys is Khao San Road in Bangkok. Boo!!!!

How does this compare to Jonas and Christy (the farang duo who sing luk-tung)?

Pictures from Chiang Mai, the coup, Lamphun and Lampang!

Elephant Nature Park on Animal Planet

October 8th at 5:00pm on Animal Planet.

The first 20-25 minutes are about Lek, the Park and the elephants.

I can't watch it here, so you should. And then tell me about it.

I'll write more later. Things are really busy. I leave my apartment around 9:30, go to Thai class from 10 - 12, eat food, come back to nap/check email/get changed into teacher clothing/start lesson planning and then head back over to AUA between 2 and 3, work on lesson plans/have meetings/observe other teachers, teach from 6:10 - 8:25, then eat dinner, come home, go to sleep. It's kind of a lot. I don't really have much time. I really want to go to the elephant park this weekend but I also feel like I'm way behind on AUA stuff (I'm in the training process so I have a lot of assignments) and should get caught up with that. They usually advise new teachers not to do the Thai class their first term but I was really anxious so I convinced John to let me do it. Right now I only teach Tuesday through Friday. Saturday classes start on the 14th, which is why I wanted to go to the park this weekend but I don't think I can. And I still have Thai class on Monday anyway.

I'll put pictures up soon. I have a lot waiting. I'm really tired now though. My Thai teacher makes fun of me everyday cause I'm always yawning.

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Here's a conversation I had with Erica about Thai names...
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me: ping, yim, ying, non, pot (somewhere between how we'd say pot and put), air, ew,
11:38 PM nui, nut, nat, koy, ta-mong 1 and ta-mong 2
team, pele, golf, tahn, ahmy, mag (sometimes mack), big
11:39 PM som, ann, field, fame, nitnoy, ton, por, tar
these are my kids
and gun
11:40 PM ehcharpe: no way
big probably isn't big, huh...
11:41 PM me: nope!
ehcharpe: where do the names come from?
11:42 PM me: sometimes it's the first syllable of their last name, or a syllable of their name (which are super long), but they can also just make them up out of nowhere
ehcharpe: sports seems like a big influence
me: pele and golf i don't think are from their names
ehcharpe: yeah.
11:43 PM team? field?
11:44 PM me: field isn't really field, it's probably more like fio, but for someone reading an english name to say it right they should just say field.
if we read fio then we'd probably say it in two syllables
and her name is just one
but if you say field, you'll say it in one syllable
11:45 PM and you never really pronounce the ld part anyway
just put your tongue on the roof of your mouth.
ehcharpe: interesting
11:46 PM me: another one of my friends names is nee-oo, or nio, or neo, but again with the one syllable, so he says his name is neil and then foreingers can say it right
11:48 PM and team could be spelled teem or tiim or teme, because it could all be the same sound but someone probably said, oh there's an english word like that, spelled like this, so you should spell your nickname like this.
11:51 PM ehcharpe: so i'd be err, but i could also be air b/c it's a nice word and the sound is about the same?
11:52 PM me: exactly
my air is a boy by the way
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REMEMBER TO WATCH ANIMAL PLANET SUNDAY OCTOBER 8TH AT 5:00PM!

AND ADD THEM ON MYSPACE www.myspace.com/elephantnaturepark