Thanksgiving in Trang

Friday, November 28th

Happy Thanksgiving!

Even though the lessons covering Thanksgiving and the festivities of Turkey Day continue in the classroom, our Thanksgiving is officially over with no surprises. Classes went as usual, it rained like every other day this week, and we met Daniel, the only other American teacher at our school, at a hotel to eat our Thanksgiving feast and give thanks together. Daniel and Pat shared a cheeseburger and fillet mignon while I enjoyed a cheeseburger to myself followed by an ice cream sundae. We could not have found a more American meal in Trang and it was probably our most expensive meal costing around $7 per person. The fillet and burger were not too bad, but the meat had a different consistency and the cheese was a bit funky. (For the most part cheese is a very rare occurance in Thailand.) Sadly our Thanksgiving felt like any other rainy, school day in Trang with the exception of being able to talk to our extended families on video chat and use the holiday as an excuse for a lesson plan.

Lesson plans always seem like a great idea at first, but after teaching the lesson 10 times you are over the initial excitement of your creativity. In honor of Thanksgiving, I chose to play several rounds of Hangman covering the appropriate vocabulary: Thanksgiving, Holiday, Thursday, Feast, Turkey and Pumpkin Pie. As each word was discovered, I explained its importance and relationship to Thanksgiving. We quickly reviewed the basics of Thanksgiving avoiding the Pilgrims and Indians and the mass slaughter that that involves, and then I passed out a wordsearch with Thanksgiving words. Wordsearches work miracles!!!!! My worst classes were nearly silent hovering over their papers. Even after the bell sounded (i.e. the air raid drill), they continued to sit in their seats trying to finish the wordsearch!!! Thai students can be very maticulous about their work. Most of the students carry around rulers and whiteout. A handful of students actually used their rulers to make straight lines on their wordsearches!! And any paper turned in is usually covered with whiteout and freshly written answers over the whiteout.

So I thought the Thanksgiving lesson plan was excellent. Lots of games but they are still learning some vocabulary and about a cultural holiday. The students ate it up, but teaching it 10 times is a bit much. That is like 60 rounds of Hangman!! The first and second period you teach a lesson it is like practice, you figure out what works and what doesn't. By the third period, you have ironed out any problems that there may have been. By the fifth period, you are bored with the lesson and over your initial creativity. By the eighth and ninth period who are just wishing that your classes do not show up because you are so over the lesson and then you still have the tenth period. This all spans a three-day period of teaching. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are lesson 1 of the week and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday are lesson 2. So you are probably asking, "Well Keats, why don't you just change up the lesson for each class?" Well that would be fun to come up with 10 different lessons and also the kids are all taking the same mid-term and final exams so I have to teach them all the same things. Hmmm...interesting.

As for the weather here in Trang...it is rainy and has been rainy for maybe two weeks. It is not a constant downpour, but when it stops raining it is still overcast and dark. It is always a pleasure to wake up to the sound of rain and remember that Popeye the motorbike is taking us to school. It is not really that hot. Fairly comfortable especially with a breeze, but no sun. The last time I remember seeing the sun was when we were at the beach in Krabi. I may have seen it since then but the rain has drowned that out. We picked up our laundry yesterday which we had dropped off Tuesday only to find that all of it was all still damp. So now our one room house looks like a shanty town with laundry hanging all over the place and smells like mildewy clothes. Until the rain stops, there is not much hope for dry clothes. Pat told me this morning that the weather forecast says that it is going to rain for the next 3 weeks!! Hmmm...interesting.

There is not too much planned for the weekend as we are working an English camp all day Saturday. If we are lucky, maybe Sunday will be a nice day and a bit relaxing. Next weekend is a three-day weekend and we are heading to Phuket!!

Pictures of Wichienmatu School

Beautiful Beaches

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

There actually are beautiful beaches in Thailand despite our disappointment from the Ko Lanta beaches. We expected white sand, teal water and beautiful islands jutting out in the horizon and Ko Lanta fell far from that. This past weekend we went to Ao Nang Beach in Krabi with Daniel and Niamh, two other English teachers at our school. We took a two hour bus ride, which was fairly nice with AC, quality Thai music videos, and absolutely no shocks making for a bumpy adventure. Having arrived after dark, we did not know what to expect except something more or less like Ko Lanta. We checked into our hotel, which was a newly renovated place with 5 rooms and run by a spacy Calfornian. Our room was nice and big with a large contemporary painting of batman and catwoman kissing. We had AC, hot water, TV (with English channels), a DVD player and DVDs (including The Dark Knight), and a fridge!! Hot water being one of the most exciting points. Krabi is much more built up with restaurants, bars, touristy shops and LOTS AND LOTS of farangs. It was strange stepping out of our farang-free world of Trang into the farang hot spot. Pat said it was like being in the cool club and then all the sudden it not being cool any more. There were not the stares, hellos and honks that we were becoming accustomed to in Trang. Saturday morning when we could see the beach, we realized that Thailand does in fact have the beautiful beaches that you see in all of the guide books and all of the pictures ever taken of Thailand. Saturday we decided to go on an afternoon/evening snorkeling trip that was incredible. We hung out, shopped and walked around until 3pm when a longtail boat took us to a larger speed boat where our snorkeling adventure would begin. Niamh and I sat in awe at the front of the boat watching as the islands in the distance grew closer. It was BEAUTIFUL!!! The snorkeling was fine. The visibility was not super, but we saw several fish and corals. We stopped to snorkel at two different islands. We ate dinner on the boat and watch the sunset behind the islands. After it was dark, we headed to the darkest area we could find to go for a night swim and see the bioluminecense which were really cool!! As you splashed around, they would light up like glitter or fireflies all around you. We swam around with our snorkel masks on splashing around to see them light up!! The speedboat took us back to a longtail which took us back to shore and we wondered around Ao Nang shopping and eating a latenight snack at roadside carts. Sunday, after checking out of our hotel, we took a longtail boat to Railay, which is not an island, but the only way to get to it is by boat. Limestone cliffs surround the beach and only a few hotels are in the area. The limestone cliffs were beautiful, the sand white, the water warm and teal, and the islands sat beautifully in the horizon. After a few hours of laying out, swimming, and reading, we walked to a beach on a different side. As we approached the second beach, we were met by monkeys jumping all over the place and stealing trash and food. The second beach was just as beautiful and also crowded with tourists. We stayed for a few hours and then took the longtail boat back to AoNang and then a bus back to Trang.

Only in Thailand

Thursday, November 13, 2008

So we are just about finished with week two of teaching. Last weekend the Swedish couple, Jarmo and Johanna, that we met at the beach came to Trang for the weekend. It was a rainy weekend, so our hopes for driving motorbikes to the beach for a day just did not work out. After wandering the streets of Trang Saturday, we decided to try to find some waterfalls outside of Trang on Sunday. We waited until the rain slowed and then took our bikes and headed out. We drove about an hour out of town to find the first waterfall. The drive was beautiful with brilliant green rice paddies and navy blue mountains with darkish storm clouds. The first waterfall was amazing! Absolutely no one else was there and the waterfall was beautiful. After good luck with the first one, we tried to find a second. We followed some signs to a deserted parking lot and market and then hiked until we ran into a rubber tree farm in the middle of nowhere. We ended up hiking 30 or 45 minutes and never found a waterfall. (Later talking with our coordinator we found out that the waterfall had some how collapsed or something.) We headed back to Trang to find dinner in the night market which consisted of skewered and grilled meats, Thai omelets with muscles, a variety of pre-made noodle dishes (one that was green noodles with tofu), fried coconut balls with banana in the center, sticky rice with coconut and coconut custard, and sugar coated donuts.

Last night (Wednesday) was Loy Katron, which was explained to me as a festival that marks the end of the rainy season along with the full moon. Loads of people gather at temples, or wats, in what resembled a state fair but in Thai style. There was lots of food!! All kinds of meat skewered on sticks and grilled, candies and cakes, pancakes made from sticky rice and red beans, sweet waffles with corn, brightly colored juices…There was a moon walk and merry-go-round and stages set up for traditional dances and drumming. In the far corner, there was a beauty pageant taking place where the women in sparkling dresses had their name, age, height and weight announced over the loud speaker. Amongst the crowd were monks, young and old, in bright orange tunics and flip-flops. By the river for around 50 cents you could buy a “katron” which was a floating bouquet made from banana tree trunks, banana leaves, incense sticks and candles. You light the incense and the candle and set the bouquet on the river saying a prayer to please the river god and to release the evil from the past year. Pat and I shared a “katron” and squeezed through the crowd to the river to release our “katron.” The dark river was spotted with flickering candles drifting and congregating in the current as other peoples bouquets went by. Under tents there were oversized “katrons” displayed on tables that looked like they may be judged. Some resembled the small ones floating down the river with banana leaves and orchids while others were more contemporary including an earth that was on fire and a computer sucking the brains of the user.

Today Pat and I took an unnecessary trip to Kantang, a neighboring town. Our coordinator took over my class in the middle of the period and sent me to meet her husband in the parking lot to get our visas extended in Kantang. It ended up after the 30 minute drive and 20 minutes of paperwork that we could not extend our visa yet. We have to wait until January. I ended up missing two classes and we were 15 minutes late to our last class. On Thursdays we have English Department meetings and today we quickly learned that Thai teachers are very similar to Thai students. They talked while the meeting was being run and their cell phones rang in the middle and they answer them. Hmm…I guess that apples do not fall far from the tree.

To end today’s blog, I have a few things that seem to only happen in Thailand:

-The ending buzzer on our washing machine is a compilation of Christmas carols including “Dashing through the snow” and “Santa is coming to town”

-The bell between classes at school sounds like an air raid drill.
-On Thursdays at our school, 7th, 8th and 9th graders wear girl scout and boy scout uniforms and one male teacher wears it also.

-Chip flavors include “Double Cheese Pork Burger,” “Spicy Squid,” “Thai Basil”

-There is a wedding dress shop on almost every corner. There are probably at least 5 in Trang Town.

-Thais eat everything spicy including their fruit. Most fruit comes with a sugar, salt and chili flake mixture that you dip fruit slices in.

A Day in the life of Pat

I know its been a little while since I last wrote a blog post and I know my people out there are hungry to know what Pat is thinking and feeling these days. So I feel it is my obligation, no my duty, to let you all know how things are going for me in Trang these days. The school I work at is fairly large it has about 2000 or so kids here broken up into 6 grades, M1-M6. I am teaching M1 and the kids there are 12 and 13 years old. Its pretty crazy that some of them who haven’t hit puberty yet are still like 4 feet tall and some of them are 5-6 or taller. I do have to announce that I did make a kid cry on my first day. He was one of the kids who was sitting in the back and would not shut up. So I made him sit in the front of the classroom facing the rest of the class. I guess this was just too much shame for his Thai heart to handle and he broke down and started crying. And if you can imagine how awkward it must feel to make someone cry on your first day of work it felt exactly like that. However the next day when I saw the cryer he bowed to me really low, the lower you bow the more respect is shown. So I’m pretty sure he knows what time it is.
As for my other classes I teach 10 classes of about 45 kids twice a week. I’ll give you a moment to do the math in your head to figure out how many young lives I am molding into my image on a weekly basis. It’s only a matter of time before they begin to live and breathe for all things UNC basketball related. Isn’t that why I came here anyway to enhance their cultural understanding of all things English related?

What I have found when interacting with the kids is that they know how to spell and read way more words than they know how to accurately pronounce. For instance they constantly mispronounce the letter “v” as “we” and the letter “r” as “ahh.” I try to correct them but sometimes they just cannot say it correctly. I’m hoping to slowly wear down their mispronunciations like a river does a rock until there is nothing left but accurate pronunciations. However I’m sure that is just a hopeless pipedream much like my dream to teach someone here how to make a chipotle style burrito.

I figured here I would write about some of the things in Thailand that just trip me out in general. For starters every day has a color associated with it. For instance Monday is yellow, Tuesday is pink, and I think Wednesday is green. And because the King was born on a Monday around 70 percent of the people will wear yellow every Monday. For instance I am sitting in the teachers lounge right now and every single person in this room but me is wearing yellow. And in case your wondering how many people are in here with me its 10. And that brings me to another thing that freaks me out here. How much the people actually love the king. There are pictures of him everywhere, and I mean everywhere. There is a picture of him in every room in the school. There is one in every restaurant and probably one in every home. There are also huge pictures of him on billboards and roadside stands. Some of his pictures in Bangkok make the Lebron “we are all witnesses” billboard look like garbage. King James needs to bow down to the real King baby, or get a better marketing team. Step your game up Nike. If I didn’t know how much these people genuinely love this man I would have sworn it was beaten into them. That’s the only other way I would imagine to explain the massive amounts of love and respect this guy gets. And I have yet to figure out what it is he does or how he amassed his huge fortune, around 25 billion US. I know he has done a lot of social projects and things like that to better the people of Thailand’s lives. But it seems like a pretty sweet setup he has going on over here. When the entire country gets the day off on your birthday you know you’re the man. Another thing that I find very interesting is the fact that there seems to be no driving rules here, if you can do it and get away with it its pretty much legal. Its funny that’s the way I viewed driving when I was 16 but was soon checked back down to earth after that first car accident. You can pass whenever you want, drive on the wrong side of the road do whatever you want. You can also try to fit as many people as you want on a motor scooter. The record I have seen so far is 5 people, but I’m hoping some brave Thai soul will try to best that soon. One last thing that I will tell you guys about that makes me laugh every time is the fact that every time I walk into my class one student will say “stand up please” and they will all stand up and then in a very sing songy voice they will all say “Good Morning Teacher.” Then I usually say “what’s up guys” or something else to throw them off. But they don’t understand that because all they are conditioned to respond to is “How are you?” And then they say “Fine Thanks and You?” I’m really hoping to break them of their conditioning and get them to say some different things. I am really hoping to get them to say “What’s happening hot stuff” Long Duck Dong style but I’m sure that might raise some eyebrows over here. I know at least Rod will understand that last part. I’m sure I will have more things to tell you all about soon that I either find really funny or extremely frustrating.

For now life in Trang is pretty good, its been a bit of an adjustment but I expected that. The food we eat is pretty good and extremely cheap, it costs me and Keats about 2 dollars to eat dinner every night. Our lunches are even cheaper at about 50 cents per person. Well I’ve written enough for one day and I’m sure some of you guys are bored now after reading all that. I’ll try to post a bit more soon.

Pat

First Day of Class

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Tuesday, November 4, 2008

We have both successfully made it through our first and second days of teaching. To start with it was quite interesting. Yesterday was the first day of class so we cruised in on our Popeye scooter, parked somewhat illegally right next to the one and only building that we had been in before yesterday. The students were gathering in a large mass directly in front of the main building where they line up all 3,000 of them in lines based on their grade level and classes to sing the Thai national anthem with the raising of the flag, say a prayer of some sort and then sit as they listen to announcements projected across the masses with a loud speaker. Pat and I went to the teachers' lounge on the second floor and watched over this morning assembly as we tried to figure out where our first class was. We gathered our rosters for our 10 sections that were largely in Thai and then we headed to our buildings. My rosters revealed that my classes would be between 34 and 50 students but most were between 45 and 50. I arrived at my first class hot and nervous and thus already sweating in the early Thai morning. I turned to write on the blackboard and immediately a voice said "stand up!" and then the class said in unison "good morning teacher!" They would not sit until I told them to take their seats and then they thanked me. My first class must have been close to 48 students. My lesson plan was to draw a picture of myself on the board and have them guess about my name, age, where I was from, and if I had any pets or siblings. Then they would pair up and draw the person sitting next to them and answer the same questions which I would collect and then be able to know their nicknames (not Thai names) and student numbers. My first class was loud and they were a bit difficult to teach but for the most part they followed the lesson which I followed with a couple of rounds of Halloween themed Hangman. I went directly to my second class, which ended up being quiet, well-behaved and they knew quite a bit of English. They followed the lesson beautifully and had some great sketches of each other. I then had a few periods for planning and lunch during which I met up with Pat and we attempted to brave the student canteen. We found some soup that supposedly had chicken in it and some pineapple which would do just fine for a first day of lunch. With two classes under my belt I was feeling pretty good, but my last two classes were quite a challenge. Both were incredibly loud and struggled to follow the lesson. I was unable to gather everyone's nickname so I resorted to them writing their own on the roster which was complete chaos. During one of the classes I confiscated a cell phone because a student was taking a call in class, and during the last class I asked two students to leave for the remainder of the period because they would not behave even after having one of them move seats to the front and center. I felt a bit defeated after my last two classes. The classes are so large and the students are on such a large spectrum of English abilities. At the end of the day, I was not nervous about teaching but I was a bit apprehensive about day two. On Tuesdays, I only teach two classes, one first period (8:30-9:20) and one seventh (1:30-2:20), which makes for a long lunch and planning period. My first class was incredible!! They were so well behaved and they followed the lesson and the directions and understood what I was saying!!! There were only 34 students and they were quiet and respectful and interested in the class. My last class was wild and loud and did not even understand "Draw a picture," which made the lesson quite challenging. So all in all teaching in Thailand is interesting. The Thai education system is very different from what I am used to, so it is difficult to understand. Pat's day went well, but he made a kid cry which he will have to write about soon.

But on a different note, the students can be quite amusing. They get to choose their own nicknames which makes it easier for foreign teachers to know who they are. So the nicknames are really funny. Here are some examples: Beer, Best, Game, Ball, Benz, Rainbow, Nut, Bank, Mail, Golf, Rainbow, Book, Boss, Arm, Film, Mild and it goes on and on. The pictures posted for today are drawings that my students did of fellow students, which are really funny. Take a look at some of the nicknames.

So all is well in Trang. We are handling teaching thus far. We just got a refrigerator and washing machine, and I wish I could accurately describe the washing situation this afternoon. It is unlike any washer you have probably seen. We rolled the washer down a couple of steps to our back porch where it was hooked to a spigot with a hose, the drain hose hung off the porch and an electric cord coming from the bathroom. It was quite the set up. At least our clothes are clean and hanging to dry.

Halloween at the Beach

Photographs:
1. Pat and Jarmo with their new found idol Rob. Rob worked at the hotel as a driver, but he was also a muay thai boxer, the best fire thrower at our hotel, singer and band member, and he had the "Rob" hair style. Pat and Jarmo were huge fans!
2. Pat and I at sunset on Ko Lanta.
3 and 4. Our Popeye scooter.
5. The interior of our house in Trang.
6 and 7. The Emerald Resort at Ko Lanta and our room.
8. One of the fire shows at Ko Lanta.
9. Johanna and Jarmo, our new Swedish friends, with Pat and me
10. The beach at Ko Lanta.


Saturday, November 1, 2008

Today Keats and I returned from the island of Ko Lanta to Trang. The place where we stayed on the island seemed at first to not be the greatest of places. However after we settled in and checked out some online reviews of other places on the island that included price and also user comments, we decided we were best off where we were. The place was called the Emerald Lanta Resort. I’m pretty sure in Thailand you can just throw the word resort on the end of whatever it is you have to make it seem more appealing to tourists. We ended up staying in the first house that over looked the ocean, which was fine until we found out we were paying about 10 dollars more a night than the people staying 2 houses down from us. When we approached the boss about moving to a cheaper room he ended up just giving us a “secret price” on the condition that we tell no one. I’m pretty sure it was just because they didn’t feel like cleaning two rooms for us. So the room that we were paying 500 baht for (about 15 dollars) one day will now be 2000 baht because high season has just started. It was almost like a switch was flicked that turned the resort into a place where only about 8 people were staying into a place with about 30 all in one day.
The resort ended up being one of the best places I have ever stayed, not so much because of the location but more so because of the staff. The people that work at the resort I think have the best jobs on the planet, at least during the low season. They would hang out with us all day either talking to us about whatever or playing pool with us on their slightly damaged table. Then in the evening they would play soccer on the beach with us and then drink beers with us at the bar after dinner. They then would put on a fire show which consisted of them lighting various things on fire and spinning them around while trying not to light the bar on fire. They are all pretty much a big family that runs a resort and hangs out with each other. I wonder if the little kids that live in the resort realize how rich their lives are. Not in the sense of having tons of money but in the sense that they their lives consist of running around a beach with their brothers laughing and playing all day. Like I said the staff at the resort was really great. I have never been genuinely sad to leave behind people that work at a hotel but they were really great to be around. It was refreshing to be around so many people who are just genuinely happy all the time. The laughter around there is really contagious. It was great to be around so many different types of people, Muslim, Christian, even a few crazy Germans all having a great time together. All in all we had a great time whether that was laying out at the beach, playing pool, or playing cards with our newfound Swedish friends Jarmo and Johanna. However we are now back in Trang to the “real world”. But this world still seems a bit strange and new to me.
On another note we ended up buying a motor scooter today to help us get around town a bit easier. As we are located awkwardly in between everything a scooter was really our only means of transportation. We bought a second hand automatic red motor bike. The best part is there is a picture of Popeye on the seat, so you know its badass. Tonight we took our new purchase for a spin and ate dinner at this little food stand/restaurant for about 2 dollars total (80 baht). Now that we are back to the internet we should be able to post more frequently so they wont all be this long, sorry about that. And I can also obsessively check online to see when Hansbrough’s leg has healed. We’ll be sure to post soon and let you all know how our first day of classes went (which is Monday). Hopefully we will make it through them alright but you never know. Thanks for reading.

Pat