"Trouble is a Friend" . . .

There will be a Thanksgiving update (with pictures from Pan's camera) coming soon. I have to leave that one to Erin.

Exciting update people! WE HAVE FOUND THE CATCHY SONG!!!

The reason we couldn't find it was because IT IS AN ENGLISH SONG. That's right, an English song. So one of two things was happening. Either the Thai singers are so bad at their pronunciation that we thought it was a Thai song. Or perhaps more likely, it has been translated into Thai (as is a common practice) and it is sung in Thai at the bars.

'Emily! Erin! How did you make this amazing discovery?' Well, we were out in Lampang on Saturday night with Lun and her undercover cop brother (Erin and I intended to go out on our own, but they informed us that no cabs run after 8, because the cab drivers have to go home to their families . . .don't get me started). We were sans motorbike, so we had no choice but to accept the offer of a ride to and from the bar (and some middle-aged company at the bar). So here we were, out with two 40+ year old people, drinking Heinekens, watching the Thai college kids dance, and lamenting the loss of our youth. All of a sudden the song comes on at the bar. "THAT'S THE SONG! THAT'S THE SONG!" I shouted, giving Erin a swift punch in the ribs. "THAT'S THE SONG!!!" We began shouting like lunatics. "OhhhhhOhh!" Lun responded in the Thai way that I would have to imitate in person. She sprinted to the DJ booth and came back with an artist, and a title that did not make sense. "He says it is Lenka. The song is "And Two More is Friend." Ok, whatevs Lun. At least we have an artist!

Let me also add that Lenka is very very very big here. She is an Australian singer (supposedly) who is most well known for the song "The Show." The students are obsessed. Pan is obsessed, it is her ringtone.

I arrived at school this morning, googled Lenka, and . . .ahh haaa "Trouble is a Friend." Makes sense! Download this song people, it's amazing.

More about the weekend? Still no pictures and Erin does not have the correct battery charger still :( So REALLY no pictures. Tar - anytime you're ready to mail my camera . . . I foresee a several thousand baht purchase in my future. I will try to paint pictures with words.

After our VERY exciting Saturday night with Lun and Pi Sak, we slept in Lampang. We had planned to meet up with a friend on Sunday to do . . .well we didn't know what. Let me introduce Mike. He is from China, and is finishing up university in Lampang, majoring in Thai. He teaches Chinese once a week at Hangchat Wittaya, which is how we met him. He is 100% adorable and nice with "an angelic face" as Erin and I like to say. In addition to Chinese, he is fluent in Thai, and I would say pretty conversational in English (although he brings his electronic translator with him when he spends time with us). So I called Mike on Sunday morning and said "What do you want to do today?" "I love fishing," he responded. Fishing it is then. He gave us a tour of his college campus, he bought us lunch at a little "Chinese restaurant" across the street, (basically less spicy Thai food) then we went fishing with him and his other Chinese friends, and two American friends who are also teaching English in Lampang (yesss, we can speak our rapid-fire English for a whole afternoon!) Let me add that at the restaurant, an older Thai woman approached me, began and began poking my skin in disgust. She seemed to think my freckles were some sort of skin disease. "I was born like this! It's okay!"

I will now paint a picture of the fishing event with my words.

Small aqua-teal pond, lined with palm trees.
Gorgeous orange setting sun after a perfectly clear 85 degree day.
Chinese college students sharing some Singha and laughs.
Inappropriately loud Americans eating ice cream and rice.
Stray dogs and cats begging for food.
Thais with hats and masks (don't let the sun touch your skin and make you dark . . .) reeling in fish after fish.
Smiles all around.

At the man-made pond, you are allowed to catch fish (quite large fish!) but you must throw them back. I didn't fish. I ate ice cream and talked to the Americans. Overall, I'd say as close to a perfect Sunday as you can get. I wish I had a camera. Download "Trouble is a Friend."

Peace

Cultural Day = A Day at the Circus

Last Monday was “Cultural Day” at our school. This was a day sponsored by the Social Studies department when classes were cancelled while activities went on to celebrate Thai culture, past and present…I think. Honestly, Emily and I only found out about Cultural Day a few days before it occurred and it was never really explained to us, so we really had no clue what was going on most of the day. One thing we were informed of was that our presence was requested in the parade through the center of town, which kicked off the start of the day. We slowly found out that they actually wanted us to lead the parade and do so while wearing traditional Thai attire. We were given about 6 items that made up this outfit, with no instructions as to how to don them. A miniature piece of white cloth was supposed to be our “shirt”, while a large colored sheet was supposed to be our “skirt”. We were also given a sash, some fake beads, and a silver belt. With the help of many safety pins and binder clips we were able to attach the pieces to our bodies, only praying that they wouldn’t fall off mid-parade.

Unfortunately, we were only running on about 4 hours of sleep for this big day, since we had to catch the 5 AM bus back to Hang Chat after our weekend in Chiang Mai. We were nervous we might not make it back in time to get to the parade and we didn’t want to let everyone down… I mean, how could the parade possibly go on without us leading it?!? Luckily, we made it to the center of town with a few minutes to spare, enough time for the teachers to take a million and a half pictures of us. They each took turns standing next to me and Emily, one by one, with the teacher taking the picture switching in for the teacher that had already gotten a picture with us. The hilarious old gym teacher even made us pose for head shots on his camera phone as we squinted into the sun. We were told later in the day that the reason the teachers were so much more excited to see us today than they ever had been before was because it is very exciting for Thais to see foreigners in their traditional garb.

Without delay, the parade began at 8 AM with me and Emily at the lead, holding a sign displaying the name of our school. Technically, we were not the very first people in the parade, as there were parade announcers in a van ahead of us. It seems that every Thai parade is lead by or has multiple vans with their back hatch open exposing speakers that emit the sounds of announcers to the crowd. We had no clue what they were saying, but every so often we would hear our names being said…hopefully they were saying something nice. Anyways, we were given no instruction (as usual) as to how fast to walk or if we should be stopping every so often, so we just strolled along at varying speeds. At one point, someone from the van had to jump out and tell us we were walking too fast and then the students behind us would periodically tell us to speed up or slow down. The funniest part was that the traffic was not stopped for the parade, so there were cars coming at us from the opposite side of the road and passing us from behind the entire time. We didn’t have much of a crowd either, only a few people with young children waving on the side of the road. The purpose of the parade seemed to be more for fun than for entertaining the town. Side note: it felt about 90 degrees throughout the parade even though it was only 8 in the morning, and we were staring into the sun the entire time. So you can just imagine what Emily and I looked like as we were squinting and sweating but all the while trying to wave and keep a smile on our faces, as we were told this was our chance to be formally introduced to the town.

While the parade was going on, the students that were not a part of the parade remained at school to set up huts in which they displayed their Thai culture project, which seemed to fall into two categories: either selling a Thai food they had made or displaying boards with research they had done on some Thailand-related topic. When we got back to school after the parade we were told to just “walk around” and see everything. We tried to visit every hut, eating and drinking lots of different things to the point of belly aches, telling every grade their food was very good, no matter what it tasted like (we are desperate for them to like us so that they will behave in class).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p06-e7xPMpI

The day was basically a circus, with students running free throughout the campus, doing as they pleased. There were also many performances throughout the day, with students dancing, playing the drums, and performing skits. Some of the more bizarre events that occurred were the “Somtam Dance” and the massage station. Somtam is papaya salad. It comes in many different varieties, but most are super spicy. You are basically not Thai unless you like this dish, so me and Emily are slowly warming up to it as neither of us like American salad, but we have found some less spicy kinds that we enjoy…sort of. Anyways, the dish is so popular it even has its own ridiculous dance and the older students performed it for everyone, while peeling and mixing and preparing dish. The dance is impossible to describe and therefore the Youtube video above has been included for your pleasure (notice the plates of Somtam on the table on the right). Who knew making food could be so much fun? The creepy zooming on the 'girl' with the sash is an attempt to capture "Ram," one of the ladyboy students (boys who dress/act like girls). Ram was truly in his element because he was allowed to wear girl's clothes (on regular school days he has to keep his hair short and wear a boy's uniform).

Then there was the massage station. The Thais are known for their massages, and apparently they teach them young here. One of the courses at our school is a massage class where students are taught to be masseuses. On Cultural Day these students were giving free massages to teachers. Emily and I could not believe our eyes when we saw students rubbing the feet of their teachers and even giving full body massages. I can’t say I would have ever gotten anywhere near the feet of my high school teachers…no, thank you! But we couldn’t pass up on this priceless opportunity so we jumped right in for an hour foot massage…don’t worry we aren’t slave drivers, we tipped a whole 50 baht (less than $1.50), which is considered a good tip (gotta love the exchange rate)!

Overall, with our lack of sleep, Emily and I were grateful for a “fun day” at school instead of classes. It is a lot easier to make it through a foot massage than a class full of energetic, paper plane throwing 14 year olds when you are tired from a long weekend!

One Camera Recovered!!

OK, exciting news! I forgot both my camera cord and charger in America (I brought a charger but it was for someone else in my family's camera, so I'm not THAT forgetful)! Anyways, my package finally arrived from home with both so we now have at least one functioning camera, since Emily's is still in Chiang Mai being fixed (it should be returned within a week). Although I don't have many pictures because we had being using Emily's, knowing that whatever pictures I took we wouldn't be able to upload, I did start taking pictures after Emily's camera broke. Therefore we will skip the Chiang Mai update for now until Emily's camera is returned.

No Camera, Day 7

Still no camera, or word from Tor. If Thailand has taught me anything so far, it is patience.

A few anecdotes from the week:

I have discovered my favorite class. M 5.3 (11th grade). This week only 8 of them were there (all girls, + 1 'ladyboy' - more to come on 'him' later.) The other students were at scholastic competitions of varying sorts. We had a "chill" day since it was the last period of the day and there were only a few kids. I taught them my famous continent song and then they wanted me to sing. "I don't know what to sing," I protested. "Sing song Christmas!" little Som chimed in. Did you say Christmas song?!? Obviously I will sing a Christmas song! So I serenaded the little cherubs with "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire . . ." They were captivated - then they told me I had beautiful eyes. Erin and I have decided that because people are always telling us we're beautiful, when we go back to America, we won't be able to adjust to being completely average again. We'll see.

Last night Erin and I hit the "disco" in Lampang with some new Thai friends who own a restaurant we frequent. We shared a bottle of whiskey and laughed as one man, about 1 foot away from Erin, just stared at her for the entire night. Then we looked around and tried to find me a "Thai boyfriend." As Erin says, if I get a Thai boyfriend it will be so entertaining for her, and this blog as well. Sadly, no digits were secured except for a girl who wants to be our friend. We'll take it.

In Boston, after a night of drinking, a common practice is to purchase and down an $8 sausage. Here, we went to a small restaurant for fried rice. Erin ate two heaping portions. In her words "each plate was enough to feed a family of 4 people." I was too busy making friends, singing Linkin Park's "Numb," and challenging Asians to ping pong tournaments to eat my rice. So Erin ate my plate and her own. Whiskey hangover? No. Rice hangover.

There is a Thai pop song that we really like. Think of the catchiest song you can. This song is 100 times catchier. We are sort of obsessed with it. I can't stop humming it. And the live bands play it at every bar - sometimes twice in a night! Of course, it's in Thai so we have no way of knowing the words, or even the name of the song. Today, Pan took us to Lampang for lunch and shopping. We are in such dire need of this song that we proceeded to visit every music store in the mall and hum, yes, HUM, the song to the teenagers who work there, to try to find out the name or artist. We got a lot of strange looks, but no song. We did buy a Carabao CD. Sort of like Thai hippie music - maybe Santana meets the Rolling Stones . . .? 50 songs on the CD and only $2.50! We will become Carabao experts! We will try to hum our catchy song to each of our classes on Monday. That's 800 students and 1600 ears that can perhaps recognize this RIDICULOUSLY POPULAR song that clearly we cannot hum properly.

Erin has a new hobby. She has purchased an English-Thai dictionary. She likes to read a Thai word to a Thai person, and see if they know what word she is saying. Pan calls this game "Talent America Erin." (I think she's going for "America's Got Talent with Erin!") Sometimes Pan calls for a "repeat," but Erin is doing surprisingly well. She is going to find a new competitor in Lun tonight, although Lun does not yet know about our fun new game.

Lesson plan for this week:
1. Play Adam Sandler's Thanksgiving song
2. Make the kids walk around and gobble like turkeys
3. Thanksgiving vocabulary word search
4. Draw hand turkeys

Life is good.

Bad news . . .

Hello!!!

After an amazing weekend in Chiang Mai (think, full body massage, mountain temples, red wine, whiskey, and market shopping) my camera seems to have bitten the dust.

On Sunday afternoon we visited a beautiful waterfall on Doi Suthep, a mountain, for a little sliding and swimming. Of course, clumsy Em fell in the water while crossing some rocks, and the bag and items within it got wet. Our Thai friend Tor (our driver for the weekend . . .we stayed with a very WEALTHY professor for part of the weekend) very kindly offered to try to get the camera repaired for me and should be mailing it back to me by next week. Tor is the bomb.

SO KEEP THE FINGERS CROSSED EVERYONE. Erin is also waiting for the battery charger and usb for her camera, so it might be a week or 2 until we get some pictures up here. Since stories tend to be boring without pictures, the blog might go on a brief hiatus for this time. We will be sure to keep notes on all of our experiences and update you once the camera situation has been resolved.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Kru Nate, Man or Myth?

Let me just begin this with a short note: Nate, if you ever read this at any point, you have made quite an impact on each and every Hangchat resident. Here is the proof.

Kru means teacher in Thai. I am “Kru Emily.” Erin is “Kru Erin.”

Nate was our predecessor. He participated in the Teach in Thailand Program last year and lived and worked at the Hangchat Wittaya for a full year. He left shortly before we arrived.

Apparently Nate is a Thai God. The people here are absolutely obsessed with him . . .I mean OBSESSED. Everywhere we go, especially restaurants, we can barely get our broken Thai greeting out before we hear the words “Kru Nate” echo from the mouths of both owners and patrons alike. I thought I understood at first. Nate was one of the few (VERY few) farangs in Hangchat for that year. We are now farangs in Hangchat. We are also teaching at Hangchat Wittaya, like he did for 2 semesters. They are comparing us to him. . .totally normal and to be expected.

It’s so much more than that. He’s sort of started a new religion around here, the Kru Nate religion. He has mesmerized the people with his whiskey drinking, soccer playing, Thai speaking, and motorbike riding ways. There are many legends circulating Hangchat about him. “One time, he paid for a group of his students to eat dinner at a restaurant.” “He would ride the motorbike all the way to Chiang Mai.” “He would start drinking whiskey at 3 pm.” He seems to have befriended everybody. The motorbike we ride is not “Sutham’s motorbike” or even “The Farangs’ motorbike,” it is “Kru Nate Motorbike.” Honest to God, the day we took motorbike lessons from Lun, she just kept repeating the words “Kru Nate motorbike” over and over and over again. She seemed to think it was very funny that we, veritable imposters, were riding the motorbike of Kru Nate.

Furthermore, the owner of every restaurant we go to informs us that Kru Nate ate there every single day, and he or she serves up Kru Nate’s favorite food in Hangchat. Is it possible that this God of a man was eating 7-8 meals per day? Keep in mind, he also ate at the “cantine” or cafeteria every day for lunch. (Of course he loved the cantine food the most). This larger than life character loved hot and spicy food, (the hotter the better, in fact) and tried every single menu item at every single eatery during his time in Hangchat (so adventurous). He would even use his superhuman strength and knowledge of the Thai language, (practically fluent by the time he departed,) to work at restaurants and help out as needed.

Last week we visited the restaurant of Lund Dang (Uncle Dang) who kept ordering us to send certain messages to Nate through the internet. We must tell him that Lund Dang misses him very much. Does he remember the noodle dish that he used to eat all the time? Lund Dang, at one point during our dinner, appeared at our table with a notepad that contained writing from this mythological man! Imagine, an actual tangible artifact! We read the few lines where Kru Nate had written his phone number and address, along with a couple of his favorite dishes at the restaurant. Then we had to look at a cell phone picture of him and say how handsome we thought he was. Everyone asks if we ever met him. When we tell them that we did meet him briefly in Bangkok, they look at us with a knowing gleam in their eye . . .as if saying, “Well, then, you get it.”

What impossibly large shoes to fill! Will we ever possibly be able to carve out our own niche in Hangchat after such a crater has been formed by this man? All we can do is try, and try we will. I will never be able to eat meals loaded up with chili peppers. I will never be able to converse in Thai. I will never enjoy eating pork liver, and I will never be able to eat 13 meals a day. But maybe, just maybe I will be able to work my way into these Thai hearts in some other fashion – my karaoke skills? My amazing dance moves? We will see, we will see.

Ridin' Dirty

When Emily and I first received our placement in Thailand we were told that along with housing we would be given both bicycles and a motorbike. We assumed that there was some sort of translation problem and there was no way they would actually be providing us with anything motorized. When we met Sutham, our director, at our orientation in Bangkok he told us we would in fact be lent his old motorbike (called a “motorcyke” in Thailand). When we told him that we had be warned by our program that we are not insured for motorbike accidents and should not ride them while in Thailand, he told us we didn’t really have a choice if we ever wanted to get anywhere on our own. We didn’t want to be prisoners in our Jungle House so we agreed to take the risk (please refer to old post by “Miss Independent” aka Emily).

The entire first week the other teachers kept asking us “Did you learn to ride the motorbike yet?” We didn’t know how they thought we were magically going to learn if none of them were willing to teach us but we would just laugh and say “No, not yet!”. Then, Lun told us that at the end of the week her nephew Dart (in an old post I thought his name was Dat, well I was wrong…this occurs often regarding any and all Thai words/pronunciations) would come over and teach us. The end of the week came and went and we realized that 19 year old college boys have better things to do than teach adult farang (quiz time: do you remember what this means from previous posts?...didn’t think so, it means foreigner!) to ride motorbikes that the Thai master riding as young children, even though it is not legal for them to drive them until age 15. But finally on Sunday Lun brought her 15 year old niece Dream (again, she was referred to as Din in a previous post, but honestly, they do not say “Dream” when they pronounce her name!) over to teach us. Yes, it is a little embarrassing to have someone that many years our junior teaching us, if you were wondering.

There are a few things you need to know about the motorbike. First, a motorbike is NOT a motorcycle. It is smaller and goes much slower, maybe 40 or 50 at its fastest, similar to a moped. Our motorbike is quite large as motorbikes go though, as it used to be ridden by our male director. Therefore, it is very heavy and takes a lot of effort to hold up or move. It is also very hard to start and requires you to throw all of your body weight into pushing the starter pedal (at first it took us about 15 tries to start it, which was extremely embarrassing when in public, but Emily seems to have the hang of it and we are down to about 2-3 tries these days). Lastly, it is extremely noisy due to its old age, and many people have told us they can “always hear us coming”…oh, great!

Dream held her motorbike lessons on a big field at the school. We were pretty fast learners, as we picked up the gear changing, turning, and stopping rather easily. Although honestly, since neither Lun nor Dream are fluent enough in English to know every word necessary for giving driving lessons, I’m not sure I really know what I'm doing. For example, I randomly change gears as I please, not understanding precisely how you decide when it is time (both Emily and I drive automatic cars). Emily practiced on Lun’s bike (which looks like a joke next to ours because it is so much smaller, it is the green one in the pictures) while I used ours (the red one). Lun is very overprotective of us and assumes we will crash and die at any moment so she made us drive in circles over and over and over, even though being on an open field wasn’t great practice for being on a Thai highway with other, much larger, vehicles (and on the left side of the road, too). She kept saying things like “Ohhhhh, maybe you should go slooower!” and anytime I stopped because I had had enough of practicing she would say “Ohhhh, maybe you should keep going!” Meanwhile, Dream laughed at us as our motorbikes jumped and jolted forward every time we changed gears. Finally, we had to tell Lun that we had had enough and were ready to hit the real roads! She started to panic (which she probably should have considering the only road outside the school happens to be a highway), but one more lap around the field and we were going to die of boredom. Emily jumped on the back of my motorbike (very brave move) and we made the super-long 2 mile journey to “downtown” Hang Chat.

In Thailand, motorbikes are driven all the way to the left side of the road, sometimes even on the shoulder if they are too slow (so obviously Lun had us driving here), so that cars can easily pass. We made it safely, with Lun looking back at us every 2 seconds to make sure we were still behind her.

It is now over a week later and we are basically experts…or so we like to think. So far I am the only one who has driven the motorbike out of the school’s property. Emily is capable but not confident enough to take it to the real roads yet. This is ok though, because I like driving and Emily is the pro engine starter…we make such a great team! We have still only gotten as far as downtown Hang Chat, so nothing over 3 miles, and it was just this weekend that we were granted the privilege of leaving our house via motorbike without a chaperone (Lun had been driving her motorbike from her house to ours and then driving ahead of us, even though her house is right in center of the downtown area, which is always our destination). Hopefully in the coming weeks we will start adding some distance trips, like going into the closest city of Lampang, which is about 20 minutes by car, so probably 30 or more by motorbike.

Please enjoy the video footage I captured of Emily’s first go on the motorbike.

Loy Krathong

Happy Loy Krathong everybody!!!



Loy Krathrong is an awesome Thai (Buddhist) holiday that occurs on the first full moon of November. This year it took place on Monday, November 2. Everybody in the community makes (or buys, if you're lame) "krathongs" or floats made out of banana tree trunks, banana leaves, and flowers. You top them with a candle and some spare change, then float them in the river to bring good luck for the coming year. Lampang is very well known for the Loy Krathong holiday because the river is a major part of the town. In addition to floating the Krathongs, people also light a small fire that is attached to a huge "balloon" (reminded us of the "boy in the balloon scandal" a few weeks ago back in the States) and float it up to the sky. Another good luck thing, I assume. I don't ask questions, I just do it . . .I figure I can use all the good luck I can get.



Pan and her daughter Poon took us to the center of town to join in the festivities after a wonderful steak dinner (THANKS PAN!!!!) and daiquiri shots - mmmmm. Enjoy the video (if it works . . .apparently I'm infringing on some copyright laws with the song?)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTkF3ndp_ao


And update, our address is as follows .. . .we live on the school's campus so things can be sent to the school


Hang Chat Wittaya School
166 Moo 5
Hang Chat District, Lampang 52190
Thailand


Ain't too proud to beg . . .SEND US THINGS PLEASE!

Happy Halloween and Sightseeing with Pan

Happy Halloween!!! See above for some Thai interpretations of what Halloween consists of. Of course, when I think Halloween, I think alien space man.

Well, we have survived our first weekend in Hangchat. As another “farang” (white person) at the elephant center informed us on Saturday, often when one embarks on such an adventure, the first week is exciting as everything is brand new. Then, after a week or two, a certain amount of depression sets in as one may become frustrated with certain lifestyle changes or, dare I say it? . . .homesick. I think we began to feel this a little bit – see my below post – mainly because of our isolated location. But I always get cheered up after an afternoon or evening out with some of our Thai friends, I love having the opportunity to meet new people!

On Friday night Lun, (my favorite Thai so far!) took us along to her niece’s 15th birthday party. Erin will elaborate in the next post.

On Saturday we went to . . . everywhere . . . with Pan. Yikes. First we went to the very famous elephant center in Hangchat with both Pan and Lun. Unfortunately, the ladies had the wrong time for the elephant show, so we only caught the end, but then we went to the elephant hospital and got to meet some baby elephants! The littlest one was only 21 days old!!! Pan almost wet her pants. Pan is a nurturer to the max. She sees us as her little charity cases and sort of treats us like little adopted stray puppies. Seeing her interact with the infant elephant, however, made me feel a little bit better. She treats all of God’s creatures like this, not just us. Please enjoy the video.

I must admit, I’m really not an animal person, but that little elephant was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. Then Pan forced the mahout (elephant trainer) to stand next to us for a picture, while she was taking the picture. Naughty 1 year old elephant was sticking it's trunk in her purse (I hate when that happens). Then we headed to a very famous and ancient Buddhist temple just outside of Lampang. It was beautiful, and Pan loved telling us about the history of the 1,300 year old architecture.

Then we went to a marketplace in Hangchat, which is apparently very famous. I really could have done some serious damage with the shopping, lots of beautiful souvenirs and chotchkies priced cheaply. I even had a goal of something I wanted to buy: something to hang on the bare walls of my bedroom! I’m starting to go crazy from looking at the white walls. I found a lovely and big fan made out of cloth for only about $5 that I was just about to buy, when Pan came over, told me I wasn’t allowed to buy it, and said I can do better than that in Chiang Mai. Oh really, Pan? Are we going to Chiang Mai today? I don’t really want to wait a month until I can get a decoration for my wall. Granted she probably just doesn’t want me to get taken advantage of. But $5 for this decoration was very reasonable . . it was huge! And I really don’t care about the quality. I just want something to look at when I’m in my bed besides the geckos climbing my walls and ceiling. I was a little peeved. Then, Erin wanted to buy a purse, and Pan completely shut her down. “No we don’t buy, we look, OK we’re leaving.” THANKS FOR TAKING US TO THE MARKET, PAN.

Then we went to a ceramics outlet. . .literally it was like being in HomeGoods or something. Erin and I are still a little confused about this pit stop, especially since we weren’t allowed to buy anything. I think Pan just wanted the free coffee.

Finally, we had dinner in Lampang with Sutham, Pan, the former (now retired) principal of the Hangchat Wittaya, and a school board member who is responsible for some of the furniture in our “bungalow,” as the principal likes to call it. Can you say ‘euphemism?’ So now, I will be referring to our Jungle House as our private bungalow. The school board member is going to try to arrange for us to have internet in our bungalow. This guy’s awesome.

Posts and photos about motorbike instruction to come shortly!

You can call us the Birthday Crashers!

At school on Friday, Lun told me and Emily that we were invited to go to a birthday dinner that night for her niece who was turning 15. We obviously had no plans due to our lack of independent transportation so we gladly accepted. We were not sure what to expect but we were thinking it was going to be a decently-sized gathering that we could observe quietly while smiling and pretending to understand what was going on.

We heard a beep outside our house around 5pm and outside in a small pickup truck was Lun, her brother (a private detective in town who has long hair and dresses like a teenager to trick drug dealers into thinking that he is one of them before he busts them), and her 19 year old nephew named Dat. First we drove to a car shop where Dat picked up his car after having a new CD player installed, from which he bumps hilarious American music like Lionel Richie sung by a Thai man (which Emily refers to as his “smooth beats which he probably seduces Thai girls with”). Then we drove to the restaurant where the “party” was being held. We quickly realized that it was not a big celebration that we had been invited to, but instead a small, intimate family gathering. Lun’s sister-in-law and the birthday girl, whose name we asked about a million times but could never quite understand the pronunciation of (Emily thinks its “Din”), were the only other people waiting for us at the restaurant. This is when me and Emily found out we had become birthday crashers (possible sequel to “Wedding Crashers”??). When we saw the birthday girl we immediately greeted her with excited “Happy Birthday’s”, but her only reaction was a half-smile. Overall, it seemed like she was pretty unhappy that we were joining her birthday celebration. This is totally understandable considering she had never met us before, didn’t invite us, and we don’t even speak her language.

Luckily, the dinner was one of our best meals yet (Emily liked more than one thing on the table for once!!). The Thai always order many dishes and share them, so even if you don’t like them all you are bound to like at least a few. There were chicken drumsticks, beef, rice, papaya salad (called somtam), and soup to name a few. Me and Emily also shared a big Heineken and the dad kept looking at us and yelling “Drink, drink!” while doing a chugging motion. At first we thought this meant that we needed to drink faster because we were about to leave, but then we realized that he just thought it was funny to watch us chug our beer (we are always the joke). The best part of dinner was when we tried to get a picture taken of the table. We asked Lun to ask the waiter for us, but he declined and had to ask someone else to take it for us (still not sure why). We couldn’t tell if the family really wanted to be in our picture or not, but then Lun’s brother requested a second picture be taken from the other end of the table, so we thought they were getting into it. Upon inspection of the photo we realized that Emily and I were the only ones smiling though, with extra-big and dorky farang (foreigner) smiles, so I guess they really weren’t feeling it…whoops (check it out below)!

After dinner we went to the mall to get ice cream cake. Emily was obviously in heaven because she had prepared herself to go the 5 months in Thailand without one of her favorite foods, but to her surprise the Thai enjoy eat ice cream too! Of course we had to make it awkward by singing “Happy Birthday” in English to the little girl. We promised to sing quietly as not to be totally embarrassing, but they said they don’t always sing on birthdays and we thought it was too sad for her to miss out on.

After dessert, we went to an outdoor bar that was located right in the mall parking lot called “Beer Garden” (it is hilarious how many English words can be found in Thailand, for example on shirts or signs or as restaurant names, when so few people speak the language). There was a live band singing Thai songs and an overhead projector shooting a European soccer game on a big screen…and there was obviously beer, too. Emily and I got another Heineken to “Drink, drink!” together. At one point, neither of the two children was at the table and when we asked where they went we were told that they had gone inside to sign karaoke. Of course, Emily was pretty mad she wasn’t invited since she loooves karaoke and has been having withdrawals. When they came out we asked them how it went and they said they had sung two Thai songs together. Emily and I found it hilarious that a 19 year old boy would sing duets with his 15 year old sister by choice…but then again, we are surprised everyday by the people here!

PS: Emily tried to hug Lun’s sister-in-law goodbye because we were so thankful to her and her family for taking us so many places and paying for everything. Unfortunately, since the Thai don’t often hug one another Emily’s hug ended up looking much more like a head lock and I had a nice laugh watching it happen (I made sure to skip the hug when I said goodbye).

Update: We hung out again with Lun’s niece all day on Sunday and we think she likes us now and would possibly even invite us to her next party so we don’t have to crash!

Update 2: Emily tried to hug another Thai on Monday, this time the daughter of one of our co-workers. Again, it didn’t go so smoothly. Will she ever learn?

Hello Cake, I would like you to meet Dung

Wednesday morning, only hours after arriving in Hang Chat, was our first day of teaching. Many of the other teachers on our program were told they would have a few days of orientation before they started teaching, in which they would be shown around the school, introduced to the students and teachers, and given books and materials with which to make lesson plans. At the Hang Chat Wittaya School (me and Emily’s new place of employment), orientation does not exist and neither do teaching materials. Therefore, we were obviously very nervous and unsure of what to expect. All we were told after being dropped at the Jungle House was to “go to the main building and sign in by 8 am.” Figuring out what that even meant was our first adventure of the day, good thing Emily had us out of the house by 7:30! At about 8:15 we were escorted to the court yard where the opening announcements are done each day, and we were introduced to the almost 700 students grade 7-12 (called “Matayom” 1-6). They put us on the spot after making us stand in front of the whole school while they talked about us in Thai when they suddenly turned and said, “OK, introduce yourselves and tell the students why you are here and what you hope to do.” Of course I made Emily go first and she had lots of random things to say even though we are unsure that any of the students even understood us.

I didn’t have a class until second period but Emily had one first period, which was supposed to start at 8:30. We sat in the English teachers’ lounge with the other teachers and as the clock struck 8:45 and no one was telling her where to go we finally asked and they said “Oh, the students are just late, wait until you see them come down the hall.” So now we know that class starts whenever the students arrive which is usually at least 10 minutes after class is scheduled to start. This is because the students are not given time between classes to get from building to building, and there are 4 buildings on the campus, with the English building being the furthest back and on the 4^th floor (MAJOR quad workout)!

Then, second period I had my first class. I think we are all aware that I have no teaching experience while Emily went to school to be a teacher, so I was basically having a panic attack before my first class. Although Emily will probably want to point out that she was nervous too, as teaching English to Thai students when you do not speak Thai is not the same as teaching American students in their native tongue. Emily and I had talked and helped each other make similar lesson plans to get through the 50 minute classes on the first day, focusing on introducing ourselves to the students and then having the students introduce themselves to us. My first class was small with only about 15 students that were in grade 11 (“Matayom 5”), so the lesson went pretty smoothly. I cannot say the same about my second class! There were about 30 students this time and they were only in grade 8 (“Matayom 2”). The class consisted of me talking to myself and being ignored…quite awkward. For example, I would say “My name is Erin” while making wild hand motions pointing to myself, then I would say “Repeat” and point to the class while simultaneously pointing to the sentence on the board word by word. The “repeat sentence” seemed to go exactly as the when I introduced the sentence though, with exactly zero students joining in, except maybe one over-achiever shyly mouthing it to herself (the over-achievers and well-behaved students are usually girls) in the corner. The rest of the class went similarly as I taught myself that “A is for apple” and told myself that “I drew a frog”. At the end I tried to give the students a break by allowing them to get up from their seats and move around, as I asked them to get in line in order of their height. This exercise quickly ended as not one student would stand up from their seat…again, awkward. Emily’s day seemed to go a bit more smoothly, probably because she has more teacher instincts and is willing to “tell jokes” as she likes to say, but she did have to confiscate white-out from a naughty grade 7 boy that was using it to draw all over the walls and his desk. She didn’t even give it back…she definitely showed them whose boss!

Lastly, one very interesting thing is the students’ names. In Thailand, most people have very long names and therefore they go by nicknames. The nicknames are especially useful for Emily and I because they are easier for us to remember as they are shorter, so we have been having the students make name plates for their desks. The nicknames range from totally random English words (Cake, Boot, Toy), to laugh-inducing words (Porn (meaning beauty in Thai), Kaka, Dung), to actual American names (Mike, Joy, Kat), to still unpronounceable words (Taew, Miew, Aex). The best part is that no matter what, whenever you say the students’ names they will always laugh at you like you pronounced it unbelievably wrong and ridiculously. This even goes for the names that are English words, which I think I should be telling them how to pronounce!

Quick Geography Lesson

In case you’re reading these posts and thinking - ‘wait . . .where?’ - here is a brief geography lesson.
Erin and I are in Thailand. Thailand is in Southeast Asia.

It borders Myanmar (or Burma, depending on who you talk to,) to the West and North, Laos to the North and East, Cambodia to the East, and Malaysia to the South. It lies between the Andaman Sea (on the West) and the Gulf of Thailand (on the East).

Lampang is a province and a ‘district’(city) in Northern Thailand. (Much like New York is a city in New York state). Hangchat is a different district in the province of Lampang, about 25 minutes from the city of Lampang. We live in Hangchat, Lampang.


Chiang Mai is also both a province and a district. It is the largest city in the Northern region of Thailand. We are about an hour outside the city of Chiang Mai (sort of like Nashua to Boston).


Our Jungle Bungalow is located on the campus of the Hangchat Wittaya School. Just go past the ping pong tables and cafeteria and follow the dirt road until you get to the janitor’s house. Hang a right. You’ll know it’s our bungalow because you’ll see Judy, our guard dog, lying on the porch. You’ll know it’s Judy because he’ll look dirty and hungry.

The Not-So-Independent Women

Caption for Photo: "Jungle House, or Prison?"

As we’ve mentioned, everybody in Hangchat has been extremely kind, generous, and friendly. Why am I still going slightly crazy, then?

As many of you are already aware, back in Boston I really valued my independence. I loved being able to hop on a T or a bus on my own and go shopping downtown. On a nice day, I would often walk down to the river and relax for an afternoon. Or, if the roommates were out of town, I could still go out for the night, (yes, you guessed it, on my own) and meet up with some other friends at a bar. Of course I had to be smart about it, but I never really felt ENDANGERED. This ease of mobility was mostly facilitated by the fact that Boston is a city, (and a small and walkable one, at that) with an abundance of public transportation options, cabs, etc.

In Hangchat, Erin and I are prisoners, at the mercy of our fellow teachers. The distance into the very small downtown area (food areas, stores, etc) is only about 2 km, which may seem completely walkable, but when you factor in the heat, the lack of sidewalks, and the abundance of crazy motorbikers . . .it might not be the safest and most pleasant stroll. Sutham provided us with bicycles, which are currently being repaired, so these will most likely become our mode of transportation to town, (However, it has been several years since I’ve ridden a bike so I may need a bit of a refresher). OK, great. Problem solved, right? Wrong. Because we are women, and white, our fellow teachers have mentioned on several occasions that we should never be out alone after dark. In addition, any time we see something that looks remotely fun (i.e a karaoke bar,) somebody tells us with a chuckle, “I don’t think you should go there, there are bad people there.” So, anything after 6 pm is out of the question, and it is not safe for us to kick back with a beer and horribly sung renditions of Celine Dion and Mariah Carey. Even with the bikes we are back to where we started . . .at the mercy of others for any kind of fun.

To get to Lampang and bigger stores, restaurants, and places to go out, it’s about a 20 minute drive . . .I will OBVIOUSLY not be biking this! So Sutham has kindly also supplied us with a motorbike. Erin (and I) will be getting lessons on how to drive this soon. . .should be interesting! I hope it goes well, because I think the motorbike could be my “Get Out of Jail Free Card.”
So, to all of our friends in Thailand, this is my plea to you. Let’s plan a fun outing soon!!! I need to break free out of Hangchat and spend time with people that are under 35 (and over 17!) We have discovered that there is a bus into Chiang Mai, although good luck to us, trying to tell Pan that she is not invited.

Just Hangin’ in Hang Chat!

We finally arrived in the town we are going to be living in, Hang Chat (town), Lampang (province), on Tuesday. We flew from Bangkok to Chang Mai (about a 9 hour drive straight north from Bangkok, but only an hour flight). We were greeted at the airport by our coordinator Sutham and then immediately attacked by Pan and Lun, two other English teachers at our school, both female, who were apparently so excited to meet us that they volunteered to take the ride to pick us up. Pan literally jumped on me and Emily screaming “I’m so excited!”…it was pretty cute, she even brought us bracelets made out of flowers as a welcoming gift.

Side note: Pan is slightly obsessed with me because I like coffee and so does she, while Emily doesn’t. We take personal coffee breaks together at school and even when we were out to lunch the other day she took me away to a coffee shop with her. Pan’s enjoyment of our common interest often causes her to want to hold me around the waist while we walk in public and she even sometimes enjoys simply sitting next to me and looking at my face and smiling. I mean, she likes Emily too, but our coffee connection brings Pan and I to another level.

Addition to this post from Emily: Imitation of Pan: “eRIN, cofFEE, NOW.” Clap clap. “WE HAVE cofFEE woooooooooooooo” (completely ignores me . . .maybe I would enjoy a nice iced tea, Pan?

If you are feeling bad for Emily, don’t worry, when both of us were in the car with Alex the other day he told us that we are different than other Americans they have had teach at their school because “Emily is so nice and friendly!” (umm, what about me, Alex???).

Anyways, Pan and Lun really boosted our confidence for the hour ride that followed from the airport to Hang Chat, saying “The princesses have arrived” and telling us how beautiful we are. Emily and I agreed that if they were ever to meet an American model or beauty queen they would probably faint since our sweaty, post-planes selves were able to get them so excited.

We finally arrived at our house, nicknamed the “Jungle House” because of its location in a thick forest, around 9 pm. Our “house” is located right on the campus of the school we teach at which is very convenient. Our street consists of four “houses”: ours and three of the school’s janitors’, which has already come in handy as we had a small leak in our kitchen that one of our handy neighbors was able to fix. The house is a lot bigger than we expected and we have it all to ourselves. It has two floors which consist of: a sitting room without furniture (which does not make for much sitting), a kitchen, and a bathroom with a shower that has hot water (which not everyone is lucky enough to have) downstairs, and then Emily and I both have our own rooms on the second floor. The entire house also has beautiful dark hardwood floors, which was unexpected. Emily thinks we are lacking in decorations, although the past American teachers did leave up a Christmas banner and lights. One other problem is that we only have a microwave and a fridge and thinking of meals to cook with the limited appliances, especially in a foreign country where most of the food is unfamiliar, is very difficult. We expect many Cup O’ Soup dinners in our future. We know we will never be lonely though because we have many pets including ants, spiders, and geckos. As Emily likes to say, “Its like going on a camping trip that never ends”.