Photos

I created an online album of photos to illustrate my experience of  living and teaching in Thailand!

Thailand 2012-2013

Thai style Thanksgiving on Sports Day!

Time in Thailand seems to be flying by! After October break I have had quite a few days off from teaching. I think I was wrong about August having a lot of holidays... What I mean is that I now realize the whole Thai school year has a lot of holidays or activities instead of school.


My first Thai Thanksgiving was at Monique's school. I think the best part about our Thai Thanksgiving was that her school was having "sports week" and so we all took the day off from our regular schools to play sports and have a Thanksgiving lunch. What I mean by we played sports, was that we really just all got different color polo shirts and watched the students play everything from football  (soccer) to table tennis. A main difference between Thailand and the US is that when it gets hotter in America people wear less clothing, but in Thailand people put on more clothing! Typical Thai "sports" outfits are long polyester sports pants and a polyester polo (the whole school wears the same ones - everyone is matching). First of all polyester in general is hot and does not breath well. Second they play outside in these outfits in the sun and heat. I find myself finding it hard to just sit in front of a fan in this outfit let alone run around in one.

Monique's school knew this is a big holiday in America so they wanted to make it special for us. In preparation they asked what we normally ate for Thanksgiving, we told them; turkey, salad, and potatoes. Monique's school found a Turkey for us (it was actually from the US) and had it cooked at the local restaurant bbq / rotisserie style. I think it might have been the best turkey I have ever had! Along with Turkey, the restaurant catered the rest of the lunch with some delicious traditional Thai food. We also had "Thai salad" meaning about 3 pieces of lettuce, shredded carrots and cabbage, beans, apples and a very very think mayonaiseish dressing. They managed to get potatoes too, but in the form of french fries...

We had another Thanksgiving with more traditional food on Saturday. Drew made garlic mashed potatoes and no-bake cookies, Monique made baked chicken, I made green bean casserole, apple crisp and Kraft macaroni and cheese. It was fun to cook all day and have some comfort food too!

It was also absolutely wonderful to phone in with my family on Thanksgiving! It made me really miss home and everyone back in the states, but then I realized I only have 3 more months in Thailand.




In terms of missing school for activities or Thai holidays, I  have outlined what the month of December and January look like for me.....

December (and the end of November):
- I had no school on November 29th and 30th - I actually have no idea why we didn't have school, but it was nice having a 4 day weekend.
- December 5th was the King's birthday - A national holiday and no school
- December 10th was "Constitution Law" day - Again I am not sure what this means
- December 13th we interviewed students for an exchange program (no teaching)

I think my favorite part about the interviews was when we asked one student who the current president of the United States was she answered "Justin Beiber".

- December 17th-21st Nong Wang (my second school) has sports competitions at another school (no teaching)
- December 20th-31st I am taking a vacation with Dad, Beth, Julia and Sam!

January
- December 31st-January 2nd is the New Years holiday
- January 9-10th Huatale School English Camp
- January 17-19th Pettpitayasan School English Camp
- January 24-28th were planning on taking a mini vacation to re-visit the famous full moon party

Then its already February

Ripe Fruit & Fake Flowers

Thai parties have been an essential part of our time in Chaiyaphum. Not only do they have them for just about anything, but we are invited to them on a regular basis (meaning maybe between 1-4 a week). It doesn't matter what kind of party your invited to there will always be food, alcohol and karaoke.
Being "farang" (foreigners) its is a requirement to sing before you can leave the party, trust me there is no way of getting out of it. We have been to "monk" parties, "welcome" parties, retirement parties, change of school parties,  funeral parties, dinner parties and more.

One of the the common Thai traditions at these welcome/ going away / retirement / change of school parties are gifts. The typical gift upon leaving or entering a new school along with the party is fake flowers. These flowers come in all colors and arrangements, they can range from a real bouquet you would buy at the grocery store to fake flowers in a pot. There is a "traditional" way to give and receive these flowers. First the head person (director, boss, government official etc.) gives some speech and then hands the person the flowers, but before that person can take them they hold out their arms placing the flower arrangement between themselves and the head person until lots of pictures have been taken. Of course no one actually smiles in the pictures, only before and after the picture. 

The only other presents are framed pictures of the King and Queen, blankets, towels and pottery vase things. 

Another component of Thai parties is consuming alcohol. There are 3 types of alcohol that you will find; whiskey, Thai beer, or Spy Red. Spy Red is what Thai people consider real wine, but really it is just a wine cooler. If there is no alcohol at the party it usually means its on school grounds (its against the law to bring alcohol onto government school property). While most people would be okay with this there are always the "bad" kids (teachers) that sneak in alcohol, of course you can always assume that these are teachers from Bangampan School.

On a completely different note, but another tidbit of Thai culture is the consumption of un-ripe fruit. I'm not sure if Thai people don't understand the concept of ripe fruit or they just like to eat sour things... They always make a "this is sour" face and say "oooy priow" (oooy, sour) like they don't like what they are eating (Thais do something similar to this with spicy food too - when they are crying and saying how spicy the food is they just keep eating it!!). To help with this sour taste they always eat it with this sugar chili dip. I don't really get why they don't wait until the fruit is sweet instead of dipping every bite in sugar! Frequent un-ripe fruit that we eat on the regular is mango, guava, papaya.