More Christmas

Keats has just written a blog entry for yesterday but since it is Christmas and I am in the giving mood I figured why not have two posts in two days. You guys have worked hard this year and I feel you deserve it. I just got back from work on Christmas day, definitely a strange concept for me. It was a bit hard to actually get my head around the fact that today was indeed Christmas and that I would be going to work. I think the reason it was so hard to comprehend was due to the fact that I have nothing around me that I usually associate with Christmas. I won’t be seeing my family today, there’s no real tree with presents under it, and its not cold at all. Keats did however get me a sweet Fernando Torres Liverpool jersey. The quality on the forgery is the best I have seen so far in Thailand. She also got me two muay thai lessons when we will be up in Chiang Mai. I’m pretty excited to check it out but also a bit apprehensive about getting my ass handed to me by some Thai guys. I got her a pink shirt to wear on Tuesdays. The color for Tuesday is pink and it’s a big deal because one of the Princesses that the people love the most was born on a Tuesday. I also got her cooking lessons at an organic farm in Chiang Mai so hopefully she’ll be able to learn how to make some of our favorite dishes from over here and be able to make them back home.
I feel like I should talk a little more about today and what it has been like. It started off with me being woken up by Daniel, my American friend and fellow teacher, and Wu, the Chinese teacher at our school. They both dressed up like elves with beards. This was no problem for Daniel who already has a beard but it was a bit of trouble for Wu who can’t really grow one. So they came over and borrowed some of Keats’ eyeliner or something like that and Daniel then proceeded to draw a beard on Wu’s face. Wu is very much a by the book kind of guy and takes his appearance very seriously so it was awesome to watch him squirm around and complain while Daniel drew all over him. It ended up looking really good but Wu washed it off midway through the day, what a quitter.
When I got to school I was told that my classes would be in the auditorium doing some Christmas related things. I was pretty happy about that because Thursday is the day with the worst schedule. I teach my three, I don’t want to say dumbest but definitely slowest, classes all in a row to start the day. So it was nice to know I would have a break from the classroom today. I was supposed to be helping the kids do something called a quiz tree. It was set up as a Christmas tree with ornaments on it made of paper. On the ornaments were questions in English. The kids would pay 5 baht to get a piece of paper and then they would take an ornament off the tree and if they answered the question right I would sign their paper. Some of the questions were really easy like what is your name and where do you live and things like that. Some of them were a bit harder like what are three words that start with v. And some of them were just unfair like what is the capital of Austria, I think its Vienna but I don’t really know, and how do you spell February, that’s definitely the hardest month of all to spell. After helping with that for a while I went downstairs to where the M4 kids had set up a food market and were selling all kinds of food and drink. Some of it looked really good and some of it looked absolutely terrible. I ended up eating some Chinese pork dumplings and some fried chicken. It was a very healthy Christmas meal, I think Jesus would have been pleased. Towards the end of the day some of the older grades started putting on a fashion show and they had coordinated dances to go along with it. Most of the dances were super lame and boring but a few were absolutely hilarious. There was one that was hip hop themed and some of the kids were getting super into it. I think were going to post a video of it a little bit later so you can enjoy it as well. There was also a fashion show/dance set to the song I will survive. It definitely had some sexual themes that were made even more awesome/ridiculous due to the fact that the two dancers grinding on each other were both guys. The kids really had a good time with that. I have to commend Thailand for being so open about sexuality and not discriminating against anyone because they are gay or bi sexual or whatever. I’m wondering when people will stop caring about that stuff in the US, I mean Jerry Falwell died a while ago right? After the dances and fashion shows somehow the KFC chicken mascot got brought up on stage and started dancing around too. It was a very surreal thing to watch on Christmas. I feel that they expose these kids to too much corporate branding over here, but whatever it’s the way it is. After all that Keats and I left school and came home. It was nice to not have to do any real work today besides help kids answer questions and eat food. It just would have made me realize how much I miss my family and all the familiarities of Christmas if I would have had to put in a full work day. I hope all of you enjoy the presents and the food and the family that come along with Christmas and also enjoy the cold I am starting to miss that over here. Happy Holidays to everybody and have a Happy New Year as well.

Pat

Christmas in Trang

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

While many of you are enjoying a nice vacation or at least break from school or work, Patrick and I have to continue to work on Christmas Eve Day, Christmas Day and the day after Christmas Day. Thailand is predominantly Buddhist country with some Muslims and Christians. Unlike the States they do not recognize Christmas or the time around Christmas as a holiday. Last Thursday at our weekly faculty meeting we learned that we would in fact be celebrating Christmas at school by doing various Christmas activities on Christmas Day. Pat was volunteered to dress up as Santa and I was assigned to teach each of my classes a different Christmas song (yes that would be 10 different Christmas songs.) After having a failed lesson on Thanksgiving, I was going to avoid Christmas and just do seasons and months, but I was informed that we had to partake in the “Christmas activities” with our classes. For the past three days I have been teaching “Jingle Bells,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “Must be Santa Claus,” etc which has made for a lot of solo, acappella singing which is not pretty. The Christmas cheer has been brought to Thailand, so do not worry. (Pat and I also have a small Christmas tree in our house that is attempting a festive mood at our place. It is hard to believe that Christmas is tomorrow as the weather is hot and humid and we are living in a tropical place.)

Two weekends ago, we went back to AoNang Beach in Krabi. After such a wonderful weekend in Phuket, we had a hard time wanting to stay in Trang for the weekend. We caught a fairly early bus allowing us to arrive in Krabi before the sunset. To keep the cost down, we ate mostly at the roadside Thai food stands outside of the Krabi McDonalds and Starbucks. We could get Pad Thai or Fried Rice for 35 baht (or $1) as opposed to the touristy restaurants that charge closer to 120 baht or more for meals. We spent plenty of time reading on the beach and playing in the water, walking along the shops on the streets and eating Thai food. While there were still a fair amount of tourists, we noticed much less than even the month before. You could also sense a sadness and desperation from the shopkeepers. The bad economy and the closing of the airport are definitely affecting Thailand. The number one industry is tourism and both have had a hard hit.

Last weekend we took a rode trip with Daniel and our motorbikes to a nearby island, Koh Mook. On our ride we noticed a huge amount of police officers lining both sides of the road maybe 150 ft apart. The road was also lined with Thai flags and purple flags. We were very curious as to what was going on and for miles we observed police and flags. After taking a ferry across a river in Kantang, we passed Thai students lined up along the road waving Thai flags. We stopped to take pictures and learned that the King’s son’s wife was driving through. It was quite the scene for the King’s son’s wife.

The drive to the pier was about one hour and then we chartered a longtail boat to Koh Mook which took around 30-45 minutes. We ended up staying in a bungalow on the beach with a fan and bathroom. It was nothing too nice, but it was on the beach with a great view. We quickly found that the power was turned off from about midnight until 6pm the following day, so having a fan really meant nothing. On Saturday we chartered a boat and visited some other islands in the area and went to the Emerald Cave. The Emerald Cave is a natural chimney. You swim into the cave and through the dark for about 10 minutes and then you come to a beach that is surrounded on all sides with limestone rocks. It was absolutely gorgeous, but everyone and their brother was there. There was a hoard of Asians jumping and splashing each other while taking pictures. We swam back out and loaded up our longtail to go snorkeling a bit and then visit Koh Hai and Koh Kradan. We ate lunch on Koh Hai and walked along the beaches admiring the white sand and amazingly turquoise water. From Koh Hai we took a painfully bumpy boat ride to Koh Kradan where we laid on the quiet beach and swam. The ocean was incredible rough, which sent us bumping up and down on the longtail boat and gripping the sides with white knuckles. For dinner we ate at a resort on the beach. There was a grill set up on the beach beside the tables with a small wooden boat full of ice and fish for display for the diners to choose. There was a marlin between 2 and 3 ft long along with other large fish, Phuket lobsters, Tiger Prawns (that were HUGE), and crabs. Pat and I split the marlin and a pizza, that was really delicious!! Throughout the weekend we spent a lot of time at a place called Mookies. It is a restaurant, bar and tent hotel run by an Australian and his Thai wife. The hotel is made up of a handful of tents that have a bed, fan and light. We were at first turned off by the idea of spending the weekend in tents, but after staying in the bungalow on the beach we decided we would stay at Mookies if we ever went back. The atmosphere was fun and we met some cool people from around the world.

That is quite a bit of catching up to do. We are spending this weekend in Trang in preparation for our trip to Bangkok and Chiang Mai on Tuesday.

Phuket and more

I know its been a while since I’ve written a blog post, and I know many of you out there have found yourself thinking hey what are Pat’s thoughts about everything. Well I’m about to give them to you. Keats and I just got back from a pretty awesome vacation in Phuket. It’s one of the larger islands a bit north of Trang. We were lucky enough to have a family connection in Phuket that hooked us up with a place to stay. Keats Aunt Carter, who passed away about 10 years ago, was friends with this guy Barry who now lives in Phuket. Through Keats uncle we were put into contact with him and arranged to go up to Phuket to visit. Phuket is a great place to go for a vacation, especially when you have a nice free place to stay for a few days. Barry had a really sweet house with all kinds of art and souvenirs from all over Asia and India. He was very much a traveling hippie back in the 70’s and had some really great stories to tell us about some of the things he has seen and done. He was also generous enough to share with us several bottles of red wine, something we had definitely been missing greatly in Trang. He also had a kitchen and a grill so I took it upon myself to cook some meals for us all while we were there. We had filet mignon, not the cheap fake filet that Trang is famous for but real stuff, and ribs and a salad for dinner one night. The next night we had pasta with tomato sauce and fresh vegetables and another delicious salad made by our friend Sven, from Berlin visiting his Thai girlfriend Aow. Barry also had a really nice garden where we did a lot of eating and equally as much drinking, I’m pretty sure his extra dry martinis could have been lit on fire. It was just really awesome to have someone be so welcoming and generous with everything that he has. I think its something that Keats and I appreciated even more given the fact that were both poor college graduates. On one of the days Barry drove us all over the island in his truck to see some of the viewpoints that not to many of the tourists know about. Some of these sights were really amazing to see, the sea mixed with the green hills and blended with the development of some of the major beaches made for some great photos. He also took us by one of his favorite local artists, a guy named Niran. Barry has several pieces by him in his house and he encouraged Keats and I to buy some art from him that we really liked. It was nice to have someone encourage me to buy something I have absolutely no idea of where to put. I think I might take him a photo of a giant Buddha in nature and have him draw his interpretation of it. That’s right I’m commissioning art over here, what are you doing? I’m like the Catholic church, minus that whole child sex scandal. One of my favorite things about the trip was the food that we had in restaurants, it was nice to be able to order a pizza or a sandwich and not pay too much for it. I still really enjoy Thai food but it is nice to have an alternative every now and then. The beaches in Phuket were absolutely gorgeous, they cost 100 baht to get on but that got you a nice chair and an umbrella. They also would bring whatever drinks you wanted right to your chair, it was pretty much like a living Corona commercial except it was just a different kind of light watery tasting beer. Needless to say the beaches were amazing the water was completely clear, I could see my feet in 6 feet of water. I don’t think I will ever go back to the beaches in North Carolina again knowing what I do now. And one of the best parts is Phuket is only a 5 hour trip from Trang, I have driven 5 hours to go to way worse and much more boring places, I’m looking straight at you Aiken SC. Well I’m done now trying to explain how awesome and great my past weekend was. The only bad part about it was Barry got bitten by his neighbors dog but in the end it kind of worked out for Keats and I because it meant we got to stay an extra day and take care of him, sorry Wichienmatu School. What kind of guests would we be if we left him in that condition.
I guess now I will try to talk a bit about school and some of the frustrations I have been having with it. It has gotten very difficult to deal with the extreme language barrier with some of my classes. Some of my better classes will pick up on an idea almost instantly and some others will just stare at me with that classic stare that lets you know they have no idea what your saying. We also have pretty much no interaction with the Thai teachers who teach our kids English. I still don’t really know who my co teachers are and I’ve been working here for almost two months. I’ve been trying to understand the Thai education system and not get to angry with it but for the most part I don’t really see why they keep it in place. If they ever wonder why their number one industry is other people coming to see their country they must look no farther then their school system. I don’t want to complain to much right now but if I post another thing about this in a few days you will know things have gotten worse.
Now I would like to discuss something that has given me much joy lately. That is watching our Tar Heels destroy anyone who would even think of stepping to us. Through the great power of the internet I was able to watch us demolish Michigan St, in the state of Michigan no less, by 36. Was I the only one who loved seeing Sheed in the house, I love that guy. Here is a great website to look at if you also love Sheed http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Loge/7346/ . My personal favorite on that list is that he got thrown out of the McDonalds All American game. Anyway we are absolutely dominating right now something I really love to see. Lawson is a machine and Tyler has been his usual animal self on the block. Its been nice to see Deon man up as well. It was also nice to see Duke lose to Michigan and shoot 20 percent from three. See what happens after you fire a Duke grad, Tommy Amaker, good things start to happen. Whats Quin Snyder doing these days? I cant wait to skip work and watch the UNC-Duke game in an internet café. I might have to re schedule my return flight by about a month and land in Detroit so I can watch us cut down the nets. Well I think that’s enough writing for now. I’m about to watch an episode of the Sopranos, anyone who thinks that show is better than The Wire is definitely white and definitely not a smart person. Is the Wire still on BET, I hope not. Is there still a BET, I really hope not. I’ll post more soon I promise.


Pat