Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action

Last week we celebrated the start of Buddhist Lent. For the next 3 months all monks will have to sleep in the temple and in the past they could not leave the temple at all. In town many of the schools participate in parades to the temples to be blessed and taught by the monks. Our students made offerings of food and medicine and brought a huge candle to the temple. The older students at the nearby high school wore traditional Thai dress and sported very festive hair styles. It was pretty cool to watch everything. It’s also been really interesting seeing how this eastern religion permeates life here. When you see the extreme respect that everyone gives to monks and to statues of Buddha, it makes sense that students bow to teachers and that I’m supposed to hold my glass below the glass of someone older than me. The title of this blog is a Buddhist understanding of life and the path to rightness. I included it because I think it’s beautifully simple and that it encompasses my appreciation of Buddhism.

The monks and our students during the Lent celebration

In celebration of Buddhist Lent, we did not have school on Thursday or Friday. We went to Chiang Mai for the holiday. We took a 5 hour bus ride (that costs the equivalent of $10 for first class!!) to the second largest city in Thailand (Chiang Mai). We took the night bus so we arrived around 3:30 am. We called our hotel about 2 weeks before to confirm our reservation and to make sure it was ok that we were arriving so early in the morning. All was set in advance. However, when we arrived the hotel manager informed us that the hotel was full as of the previous night. After a lot of conversation and complete expression of our exasperation she offered us the hotel restaurant for the remainder of the night/morning (until a room became free). Because it was 4 am and we were just coming off a 5 hour bus ride, we were too tired to search for a new hotel, so we reluctantly accepted. We then slept on the booths in the restaurant until about 7 am. It was undoubtedly the worst “night” of “sleep” that I’ve ever had. Around 9 (after we had eaten breakfast in the restaurant we just slept in) she told us there was a non air conditioned room available for us, which we gladly slept in until our rooms were ready at 11. It was a pretty strange experience. Suffice it to say that we won’t be staying there again and we won’t be taking the night bus again. “Mai ben lai” was the theme of the night. Mai ben lai (or mai pen rai, Thais switch L’s and R’s and B’s and P’s all the time) just means don’t stress over it or don’t worry about it. It kinda puts things back into perspective.

How we slept that first night, in our restaurant booths.

Anyway our weekend in Chiang Mai was pretty great. Because it is such a large city (that is still extremely cheap by western standards) it has a great deal of tourism and a lot of western amenities that you can’t find in Nan. To start, in the area where our hotel is, it took us a solid 5 hours to see anyone who was Thai who was not either working or dating a foreigner. We did not have to use Thai at all. We felt like we were forcing some merchants and restaurant owners to talk to us in Thai. It was very strange coming from Nan where most people speak no English. But we were still able to enjoy ourselves. In Chiang Mai there are like 5 Starbucks and a few Burger Kings and a McDonalds. We even saw a Subway and a Haagen Daz. There are a lot of English bookstores so we got to buy some books. There is a huge mall with a movie theater and we got to see the new Batman movie in English (with Thai subtitles)!!!! It was nice to feel a bit western again but the Thai part of Chiang Mai was not lost on us. We visited the Doi Suthep temple which is a large temple on the top of a mountain overlooking the city. It is a beautiful place and the views of the city were really nice. We also took a tour of the national park and we stopped at three amazing waterfalls and visited the highest point in Thailand. We stopped at this research station that had recently been developed to farm flowers and vegetables and research sustainable processes for the area. The whole region used to be filled with opium fields. We visited the king and queen pagodas, two very large temples made on the King and Queen’s 60^th birthdays to…umm…. celebrate them. We also visited the weekend markets where I bought farmer and fisherman’s pants which are these adorable and really comfortable pants that perhaps at one point in time fisherman and farmers wore. We went to a traditional khantoke dinner where we saw several kinds of Thai dance and performances. There was fire dancing and a dance with candles and swords. There was definitely a lot to see and do in Chiang Mai and we most definitely want to go back in the near future.

Me below a Buddha statue at the Doi Suthep temple

The pagoda at the temple. People would walk around this holding candles and praying

The sword dance at the khantoke dinner

The candle dance. It was painful to watch this because you could see the hot wax dripping onto their hands.

I think thing that struck me most about the city were the black people I saw. Because it’s so touristy I saw other black folks from a lot of different parts of the world; Europe, the US, North Africa. But when I say black people I don’t just mean individuals, there was a black presence in Chiang Mai. We walked into one store with woven blankets and wall hangings and were immediately struck by how African the patterns were. I took a few more steps and saw the picture below showing “Women from the African Ark.”

In a fabric store in Chiang Mai

We passed a bar called Rasta-bar in bright red, yellow, and green colors. We saw another restaurant called the Freedom Bar with pictures of Bob Marley on the front and a mural of a guy with an Afro. It was really cool.

At the freedom bar

Bob Marley collage, also at the Freedom bar

Six Weeks Later

Last week I started going to muay Thai training. We got these horrible directions (all directions in Nan are horrible, streets don’t have names, it’s all by landmarks) from some of the teachers who were here last year and me and two of the girls biked to the camp. We arrived (after a few wrong turns) at the camp, which was really just a mat, a boxing ring, and some weight lifting machines in someone’s backyard. We see some people and start miming and saying “muay Thai?” After a few minutes he starts showing us the basic punching move. We politely say the phrase to ask how much he will charge us and he politely refused and continued to show us the moves. We stayed for about an hour. It was an amazing workout. On the mat he showed us the punch and knee attacks. Then we got into the boxing ring and put on gloves. We practiced by punching pads he was wearing. Then he showed us the basic kick. There is still fairly large language barrier so I don’t know any official names of any of the moves. But we are collectively working on that. However, it turns out that I’ve got pretty decent form and a pretty powerful punch and kick. I need to work on the knee move a lot more. My back was sore and so were the insides of my elbows. It’s been really fun though and I’m very excited that I’m getting the chance to train with them for free.

Yesterday I judged an English speaking competition. The competition was at the local high school around the corner from where I teach. A few of our school’s students participated (none that I teach but two that Kelly teach). The competitions were initially a little bit strange to us. The students are given in advance several topics to come up with speeches for. The younger children get topics like “my school” and “my family.” The older students have topics like “the environment” and “my ambitions.” Our younger students do not write their own speeches. Their Thai teachers ask them questions about their families and what they like to do at school and then write the speeches. The students then memorize them and the foreign teachers help with pronunciation, sentence structure, and things like that. The older students (and by old and young I mean 6-11 vs. 16-18) actually write more of their own speeches and their teachers help to make them better. At the competitions the students pick a topic and if they like that topic they give a speech on that topic. If they don’t they can pick one other topic. This means that the students have to memorize two to three speeches for each competition. The speeches have to be 3-5 minutes long and we judge on pronunciation, accuracy, presentation, personality, content, and a few other things. I had a lot of fun. I judged level 4, the oldest students. A lot of the speeches were really good. The students who came in first place gave a speech on the environment. She started her speech by singing part of “Heal the World.” I was really surprised because she had an amazing voice and her pronunciation was really impressive. I gave her the most points of any contestant because she referenced global warming, CFCs, polar ice caps, and Al Gore and an Inconvenient Truth. I mean come on, I know people fluent in English who wouldn’t have done as well. She and the girls in second and third place will go on to a larger competition in a few weeks. One of my students and one of Kelly’s and Kathy’s will go to that same competition.

There are a few things that were initially surprising and/or disturbing to me that I’m now completely used to. The first is, disturbingly enough, bugs in my food. There is always a bug in or around my food. It’s an ongoing joke with me and the girls, because it’s almost always my food or the food nearest me that ends up with bugs in it. But usually I just pick it out and keep moving. In the states I would’ve sent it back and have lost my appetite or something ridiculous. In truth, it’s really nice not to care about that sort of thing. I’m also more ok with strangers touching me. Thai people tend to touch your arms or your hair or your stomach or your shoulders, just because they look or feel different than their own. Again, in the states, that not exactly ok, but I have no problem with it here. The last major thing that I’ve gotten at least more used to is that Thai people don’t seem to believe that any information is private. For instance a teacher might introduce a friend by saying “This is Nong, he has diarrhea.” And that will be completely ok. A teacher might mention casually (and for no reason) that a student is in Bangkok for the weekend because her parents are divorced. One time, Kelly had her students drawing pictures of their families. Her co teacher takes her to one of the students who is drawing a picture of his father. She then proceeds to tell Kelly (with the child clearly listening) the story of how the student’s father committed suicide a month ago. At the English speaking competition Helena judged a speech about a student’s family where, 30 seconds into it, she learned that his father died when he was a baby, his mother abandoned him and he has never seen her nor does he know her name, and he lives with his extremely poor grandmother. I don’t think anyone I know would let a small child put that into a speech. But it really is the Thai way. It’s ok for everyone to know everything.

So I’m about to begin my 6th week of teaching. They say that the first 6 weeks are the hardest. Setting classroom routines, maintaining student respect, encouraging interest in the subject, and effectively teaching are all supposed to be accomplished by that point. The truth is it doesn’t feel like it’s been almost a month and a half. 6 weeks ago I was graduating from college. I didn’t have 63 students dependent on me to learn a language. I wasn’t learning a new language or attempting a martial art. I had never touched an elephant, let alone ridden on one. A lot’s happened in 6 weeks and I’m really happy about all of it. That’s the best feeling, I really enjoy life. I love teaching and my students make me so excited. Everyday I learn more Thai or try something new and I’m enjoying every minute of it.

A Brief Musical interlude (Send me stuff)

A few updates. Last Thursday was language appreciation day. We missed literally the first three hours of school. It was almost like a really long talent show. Except they gave out awards and several students took a quiz on stage (kinda like a gameshow, except much less exciting). Some of my 5th graders put on a play about a princess crossing an ocean and being attacked…or something like that. Anyway it was cute for the most part. Some 6th graders did karaoke in these really interesting costumes. As a sidenote, most Thai singing is not pleasant to non-Thai ears. We’ve concluded that in order to make it in the Thai music industry you have to always sing about unrequited love and sound really bad. But I digress, the kids had a lot of fun and hopefully appreciated their language.

We’ve been able to hang out a few times with the other farangs (westerners) in Nan. We went to the one bar in Nan last Friday. That was interesting. There are randomly a fair amount of foreigners in Nan teaching English (and by a fair amount, I mean like 15-20). Most are from the UK but there are some from the Philippines and obviously the US. We try to get together occasionally to hang out. The bar was pretty cool. There were two bands (apparently the owner of the bar is in one of the bands) and they played mostly Thai pop but a few US songs. I think my favorite song of the evening was a Thai song with the lyrics “I’m heartbroken, but I’m not gay.” The bar etiquette was a little strange for me. Apparently you do not dance in front of the band. You dance standing next to your table (where you have no room and where everyone who’s not dancing blatantly stares). It was a good time though. Also we are slowly but surely learning lyrics to Thai songs.

To end, I’d like to say that I welcome any and all packages from you (my amazing family and friends). Packages may include (but should not be limited to) DVDs (I’ll take whatever I can get) and books, pictures of you, US snacks that won’t spoil (oatmeal, pretzels, chips, mac and cheese, applesauce? etc), and toys and stickers for the kids. But I’m sure I’ll love anything you send me. It takes about 10 days for things to arrive here.
My address is
Karen Bailey
Bandon Srisermkasikorn School
T. Nai Waing
Amphur Muang
Nan 55000
THAILAND

The students had the opportunity to go to concert by a band with all blind performers. They had so much fun. These are some of my 5th graders dancing: Miew, Khaidow, Mook, Milk and On2 (because there are two Ons)

My 5th graders dressed for the play for Thai Language appreciation day. From L to R, Un, one of the boys (can’t tell with the mask), Nampet, Benz, Joop-Jang, and Miew.

Some of the younger students dressed for their play.

Elephants and Appreciation

Last Thursday was Thailand’s national Teacher Appreciation day. We participated in a very touching ceremony. In Thailand, the career hierarchy is such that teachers rank just below monks. Teachers are respected and revered for all that they do in society. So every year in June, the students appreciate them. We met in the hall which is just a covered multipurpose area where the students go for gym and prayer. All 800 students sat in the hall. They sat by grade level and gender and sang and recited prayers and words of appreciation to the most experienced teachers. The students made offerings to Buddha and presented the teachers with gorgeous flower bouquets. The school recognized me and the other foreign teachers with a beautiful bouquet. Following the Buddhist offerings and recognition of specific teachers, all teachers sat down in front of the children. When their grade level was called they ran to the teachers, bowed in front of them and gave them flowers that they had picked and wrapped in banana leaves. It was truly amazing. They were on their hands and knees bowing before us with their heads literally touching the ground. It is a sign of thanks and honor that I have never witnessed in the States. Obviously, I did not feel deserving, but I was very touched.

Flowers for their teachers

Two of my students, Tor and Manoon

On Saturday we went Elephant riding. AMAZING! There are apparently only three elephants left in the area that we are able to ride, the four of us rode two of them. We drove about 30 minutes east of our city to a national park. We met our guides and climbed onto the Elephants. We did this by getting above them on a small hill and stepping onto their heads (this disturbed me greatly) and into a small bench attached to their backs. Then we were on our way. It was kind of a bumpy ride…if the bumps were really large and regular. Each step the elephant took lifted or dropped us a lot. But you got used to his stride quickly. Most of the ride (which lasted about an hour) we were on a relatively narrow road. At one point the elephants were walking by putting one foot directly in front of the other (because the path was so narrow). To add to this, they were always walking to the edge of the path and eating. Initially, we were kind of scared, but you get used to all this.

When you are on flat ground it is a wonderfully relaxing ride. The forests are beautiful. Not a whole lot in the way of mammal or bird life, but tons of cool insects and sun blocking trees and foliage. But when we were going downhill, we were pretty certain we would fall off the elephant. The bench we are seated on (obviously) leans forward when the elephant goes down a steep hill (of which there were many). We had to lean completely back and hold on for dear life…it made it all very exciting. All in all it was a really awesome time. We rode the elephants with their trainers sitting on their shoulders and it was amazing all the things they had taught them. They directed them either left or right by nudging them behind the ears (the same way a horse rider might use spurs or reins). When there was a large branch (or even a tree!!!) in our way, they directed the elephants to move them and they listened with no problem. The one thing the trainers could not control was the elephants urge to eat, but we didn’t mind that.

Our elephants-Edwin (left) and Horton the Old Faithful (right). Obviously those are names we came up with. The chains around his neck connected to his foot so they could not run.

The elephant dropping his head so we could get on

The way the bench connected to the elephant so that it did not actually flip when they go downhill.

Stopping for a bite to eat

Amazing eyes

Me holding the chains

Hung nam u ti nai kaa?

The title of this blog means “where is the bathroom” in Thai. I titled it that because this blog entry is going to be all about the logistics of my life in Nan. It’s a lot of information, so I sectioned it.

Nan
Nan is in the North of Thailand, population approx. 24,000. The streets do not have names, at least none that we’re aware of. People get around by bike, motorbike, car, or trucks with seats in the back. There are three markets that take place on weekdays. There is a morning market where they sell fruit, rice, friend chicken, flowers, and incense, and two evening markets. At one evening market they sell raw fish and fruits and at the other they sell typical Thai foods, like noodle soups and pad thai. There are seven 7-11 stores in Nan, but they don’t really sell much that is American, except a few kinds of chips and coke-flavored slurpees. Shops on the streets sell everything from bootleg DVDs (mostly in Thai) and handbags and flip flops to pizza and the Nan equivalent of a smoothie (nam sum). This week I started searching to find muy Thai (a Thai style of martial arts) lessons but have yet to find any.

Your average street in Nan, and a bike with an especially plush seat.

My bedroom, note the sink is outside of the bathroom.

My home
I live in an apartment complex with 7 apartments. My apartment has 3 rooms-a bedroom (the size of a small American bedroom), a bathroom (the size of an American closet), and a very small room in the front (about the size of an American bathroom) which currently holds my shoes and not much else. I live next door to the other girls I teach with (Helena, who graduated from Marist college in NY, Kathy, who graduated from Rutgers, and Kelly, who graduated from Vanderbilt with her masters.) Below and next door to us live high school students, who, in Thailand (or at least Nan), move away from their families to go to high school because the schools are far away. Next door on the other side lives the aunt of our landlady. Most people between the ages of 12 and 60 ride motorbikes. We ride bicycles that have been used by the foreign teachers at our school for the past few years.

Our apartment from the outside

andthe flower in the pond in front of our apartment

My school
I teach at Bandon Srisermkasikorn school. I teach grades 5/1 and 6/1. There are also 5/2-5/5 and 6/2-6/5 students, they are less advanced. My students call me Ajarn Karen, pronounced ajaahn. I have a desk in the English room, where I sit in between classes, but I do not have my own classroom. I travel between the two classes teaching English, as do all the English teachers. When I enter the classroom all the students stand up and greet me with “Hello Ajarn Karen. How are you today?” I respond and ask how they are. Then I have to tell them to sit down. Sometimes I forget and end up starting class with them standing. When class ends, they all stand and say thank you and see you tomorrow. It’s very cute, I will upload a video. I have a co teacher when I am in class. In both my 6th and 5th grade class my co teachers speak enough English to translate whenever there is a huge language barrier. Typically, however, they do not do very much. My biggest problems in class are students not being on task because they did not understand the assignment or directions. Oftentimes it takes a lot of explaining. Typically in class we practice pronunciation, speaking, and vocabulary. I can focus on writing with the more advanced students. Yesterday I taught my students a song/rap about the Three Billy Goats Gruff. It took them a while to be able to say the lyrics quickly, but they really enjoyed it. I hope to teach them dance moves soon.

Money
1 US dollar is equivalent to about 31 Thai baht. We will get paid for the first time on the 30th. We get paid 24,000 baht on the last day of each month, which is more than most teachers make at our school. Our rent is 2,500 baht. The average meal of noodles or rice is 25 baht. Smoothies or coke are 10 or 15 baht. A bottle of water (none of the water in Nan is drinkable, the Thai people do not drink it) is about 5 baht (which is less than a quarter!!). If we want non Thai food (like pizza, pasta, or hamburgers) it will cost more than 100 baht. Laundry (we don’t have washers or dryers) is 50-100 baht per load.

Noodle soup. The balls are pork, pretty tasty but a ton of sodium.Thai people eat by picking food up with the chopsticks and placing it onto the spoon. I’ve become very good at it.

A typical day
I wake up between 6 and 6:30 and am ready to go by 7:15. We ride our bikes to school, it’s about a 3 min ride away. It takes us an extra 5 minutes to get into the school because all the little kids stop us to say hello and give us high 5. We are supposed to be at school by 7:30. We sign in and then get breakfast of either sticky rice with egg custard and coconut milk or fried dough. At around 8 the English room fills with the sounds of young Thai children singing songs. They have a song for the King of Thailand, a song for Buddha, and a song for the school. Class begins at 9 am. I teach 3-4 hours a day (and I have one day where I only teach 2) for a total of 16 hours a week. In between classes we lesson plan, or write blogs, or play solitare, or practice speaking English with some of the students, whatever we desire. We leave school at 4 pm, unless of course they are spraying for mosquitoes because there have been cases of dengue fever and our classes are cancelled (which happened on Friday). After school we run errands-post office, laundry, internet café, etc. We usually get dinner around 6 or 7, we might bike to the night market, or the restaurant down the street from us, or try somewhere that’s been recommended to us. After dinner we might get nam sum and relax outside our apartment. I usually go to sleep around 11. I hope to add Thai lessons once a week, and muy thai lessons to the routine soon.


I think that covers most of the details. More blogs to come soon.

Welcoming you to Nan

(Me at my desk in the English room on my first day of class)







Thailand is an amazingly beautiful place with, so far, amazingly friendly people. I am living in a three-room apartment next door to the other three teachers I came here with, and we are getting along great We live in Nan, a small city in the North of Thailand. We all teach English at the same school where I’m blessed to have the most advanced students, the oldest ones and the ones whose families pay extra for them to have eight hours (rather than 1 hour) of English instruction a week. The kids are awesome. There are a few trouble makers and last week I had to call a few of them out for passing notes and throwing a ball in class, but in general they are very excited to be learning English. I think the most initially striking things about the kids are their nicknames (chu len in Thai). Their given names are quite complicated and difficult to pronounce. But we call them by their nicknames and in my two classes I have a Name, Benz, Bell, Book, Bible, Poop-Pup, Arm, Or, Yo, You, Milk, Mild, Mill, and a Prince. Their nicknames are given to them by their families, some have meaning in Thai, but most don’t.



The three other teachers and I are four of very few westerners, or farang, that live in Nan. When we walk through school or through town we get lots of smiles, stares, and yells. My boss hinted (as I introduced myself to the entire school) that I might be the first black person to step foot in Nan. One of the students pinched my skin and said “black?” Another student asked if have had my hair braided since I was a baby. One of the kindergarten students walked up to me and stared blankly at me. She then shook my hand, whispered to an older student in Thai and continued to stare. It was cute, despite the oddness of it all. The man who cooks the most spectacular pad thai at the night market that we frequent asked me if I was from Africa and in general most people do not assume that I am from the United States.

On Saturday we took a tour of northern Thai culture. We visited several waterfalls, saw traditional weaving and Thai houses, went to two Buddhist temples (and rang the gongs!!!!), stopped at a fruit market, bought rattan woven chairs, and visited a cave (pictures below). Our guide also taught us a ton of useful phrases. In the coming months we hope to spend a few days in the jungle camping out, go white water rafting and kayaking, spend the day elephant riding, and visit the major cities near Nan (and by near, I mean a 6 hour bus ride away, rather than an 11 hour ride).

I hope to be able to share with everyone all the things I’m learning about life as I spend time in Thailand. The first major revelation that I had is that I am blessed with an amazing group of friends, both from home and school. One of my fellow teachers could tell by just looking at the pictures I have with me, that my friends are unusually great. And as I listen to my new friends tell stories about their friends at home I realize (with no offense to them) that my friends are a very special group, that most people are never lucky enough to have.



Until next time…Sawatdee kaa







These are Buddha statues that were in the cave that we traveled to. Every year the entire town of Nan (pop. about 20,000) visits the cave to worship.

This is one of the doors of the temple we visited. I don't know if anyone actually prays there still, but it's beautiful.



























This is the Nan river.
















Below are rice planters. They cover their entire body to protect themsevles from the sun. We passed by the homes of several of these planters. They are traditional Thai homes with tin roofs and modest furniture. Strangely enough, most of them have very large flatscreen televisions.
Very large spiders (the bigger one, larger than my hand) that we saw in the cave. NOT poisonous.