Mom and Dad’s Grand 'Pah-jahn-pie'

I know many of you must be wondering how Keith and Louise are faring in Thailand. Admittedly, I was more than apprehensive about their decision (well, Dad’s decision) to venture to the Far East. Anyone who has ever met my parents can understand my unease. Mom enjoys the comforts of home. She likes doing laundry and curling up in the chaise with a good book. She also likes seat toilets. Dad talks, a lot, and usually at a high decibel level. He likes having meaningful conversations with strangers, and this usually requires a response on the other end, in English, (although, now that I think about it, not always). I wouldn’t exactly call either of them ‘culturally sensitive.’ Don’t get me wrong, they’re very sweet, kind, and tolerant, but neither of them watches the Travel Channel or the Amazing Race as religiously as I do.

Despite my many honest warnings about potential issues they might have in this country, Dad booked the plane tickets (much to Mom’s initial dismay) and the decision was made. Now again, don’t read into this! I was excited that they would be coming, I was just feeling as though any problems they had would put my head on the chopping block. Is it possible that I’m overprotective of my parents?

After 30+ hours of airports and airplanes, they arrived in Chiang Mai early on Thursday morning. Erin and I made the trek to the city to see them Friday, after school. I couldn’t take my usual nap on the bus ride there. Were they doing okay? Had Mom’s bladder exploded from refusing to squat? Had Dad landed himself in a Thai prison with his wild hand gestures and strong political views? The two arrived at the Arcade Station to pick us up with their driver . . .yes driver. Let me explain. My parents have befriended the sweet Thai woman who owns a Thai restaurant in Nashua. It turns out that this is the best friendship that has ever happened to them. Ae’s brother lives in Chiang Mai, working as a professor at the university. He lives on an amazing piece of property just outside of the city limits, and let’s just say that the guy has some serious cake. He has ensured that my parents are completely looked after and comfortable, hooking them up with drivers, all the Thai fruit they can eat, and an itinerary jam-packed with wat visiting, elephant riding, and market shopping.

“This is Mi, our driver, isn’t he so cute?” said Mom after embracing her long-lost daughter. I could tell by her beaming smile that I had been completely off the mark. She was having the time of her life! Mi drove us back to our guest house for the weekend (funded by Mom and Dad) and I could immediately see why. This was nothing like the Jonadda Guesthouse, where Erin and I usually call home in Chiang Mai. There was a garden in the lobby, free snacks galore, and an owner who loved chatting, (perfect for Dad!). Erin and I dropped our bags in our lovely room, (we’ve both become experts at sharing a big bed without invading each other’s personal bubbles,) and Dad went upstairs to freshen up. Dad freshened for quite a while, and then he came downstairs wearing a pair of ridiculous ‘play pants’ (in Emily language) or ‘fisherman’s pants’ that he’d picked up at the local market, pretending that he would be going to dinner in them. Ha. Although I’m immune to his practical jokes after dealing with them for 23+ years, I was pleased to see him embracing Thai fashion!
The four of us shared a delicious traditional Northern Thai dinner consisting of somtam, nam prik ong, green curry, pad gapaow, and sticky rice. Aroy maak maak! Mom and Dad thoroughly enjoyed each and every dish Erin and I threw at them! Of course we completed the evening with some roti, Thai fried dough with chocolate and bananas.

A theme of the weekend seemed to be “buy, buy, buy.’ You see, things in Thailand are cheap, very cheap. Erin and I usually pay 25 baht for dinner in Hangchat (about 75 cents) each night. 5 baht (15 cents) can buy you a large bottle of water, or even a bag of doughnuts. In Chiang Mai, things are not so cheap, but 200 baht (about 6 dollars) can still buy you a shirt, skirt, or a pretty awesome chotchke. For Mom and Dad, this means everything is free. For Erin and I, who are on Thai salaries , everything is not free, and we must control our compulsive spending. As it turns out, Mom + Dad + baht = hilarity. Dad would pull out a handful of one-baht coins, and say to Erin, “these are useless, right?” No Dad! You can get yourself a treat or a fruit with those! 400 baht for a table cloth? “Louise, we have to.” 9-tiered teak candle holder? How could one live without such a vital decoration. Mom would often pull out her wallet full of baht, and flash it around as if it was a fistful of nickels. “What’s this green one?” As Erin says, “It’s just monopoly money to them.”

My Thai bargaining skills only made them feel better about their spending. They were getting a deal on all of their crap! “Em, come here, come here, come here, I need you. I want to buy this T-shirt. I want it cheaper.” After buying a handicraft, Mom would get all excited and think that the sellers were her friends! It seemed she thought that they were only lowering prices for her. Ohh, Mom. Let’s just say that after visiting three markets over the course of the weekend, many pairs of ridiculous pants and piles of chotch were bought and Erin is now a Thai art collector. Mom and Dad are horrible influences.

Besides the shopping, we also went on a pah-jahn-pie (adventure) to beautiful Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain in Thailand. Dad had read in a guide book that the mountaintop is great for bird-watching, and despite his attention deficit issues, it’s become an interest of his in recent years. Alas, no birds were seen. Sorry, Dad. Dad did, however, find someone to have ridiculous conversations with in Jarran, our driver for the day. Enjoy this video of an attempted crossing of the language barrier.
Sunday was a day of massages. At the market, the girls got foot massages and sipped fruit shakes. Then, back at the guesthouse, Dad, Erin, and I got Thai massages. Sabai, sabai. I should add that Dad had two Thai massages in three days. Someone might be getting spoiled . . .

The two are currently in Phuket lounging at the beach. As I wrangled escaping 14 year olds back into the classroom this morning, I was more than slightly jealous of them. They’ll get theirs, though. They will arrive in Hangchat on Sunday. I’ve trained the students to say “Mr. Duval, Mrs. Duval. How are you?” Lund Dang, one of our favorite Hangchat cooks, is already preparing a special menu for them. Something tells me that their pah-jahn-pie is just beginning . . .

Holiday School

As we have mentioned previously, we go to what Sutham likes to call a “holiday school”. This means that there seem to be more days off or in-school activity days than actual school days. So far, Emily and I have taught very few full weeks of classes, and not just because we have taken days off or because of holidays. For some reason or another, at least a few of the fourteen classes we teach a week will not show up. For example, every time there is a school event which causes classes to be cancelled, like Cultural Day or Christmas, students will also skip class on days prior to prepare for the event. Last week grades 9, 10, and 11 went on a Boy and Girl Scout field trip from Tuesday until Friday, which meant that none of them were in class on Monday either. Obviously preparation was needed to skip four days of school…it’s not as easy as it looks, you know. Emily and I both teach classes from every grade, so when half the school is gone we have half as many classes. In addition, grades 7 and 8 took off classes on that Tuesday because, apparently, they needed the entire day to “clean” the campus. Upon further inspection it looked more like each class had picked one person to sweep some leaves while the rest played tag or napped. Oh yeah, and don’t forget grade 12. Although they were not on the field trip either, they were supposedly “studying math and science without teachers” all week. I’m sure they were extremely productive considering that they graduate in less than 2 months and their senioritis is off the charts (apparently it’s a world-wide phenomenon).

In general, the 12^th grade classes are real wildcards. On any given day they could be in our class or they could have taken a Senior Skip Day, or maybe just a Skip Emily and Erin’s Class Day, but we figure out by simply waiting to see if they show up. At least 25 minutes is needed to make this determination though, because that’s how much time they need even if they do plan on showing up (side note: classes are only 50 minutes long). My personal favorite of their class-skipping tactics is when they simply lay outside instead of coming to class, but chose to do so in plain view of the English wing. Either they aren’t very sneaky or they like to rub it in our faces that we have no control over them. You would think that they would be scared of the repercussions of their actions, but all the other teachers say is, “Oh well, its grade 12.” They sure do keep you on your toes, though. Little rascals!

Sports Days also seem to be a weekly occurrence. Although our school held its own class-cancelling, 2-day Sports Day in November, some of our students are so sporty that they also need to attend the event at neighboring schools. Any time there are a lot of boys missing from class its safe to guess that they are off playing soccer (football) somewhere. There was also a week-long trip that the boys in grades 7, 8, and 9 took to become monks in honor of the King’s birthday. If Emily or I had a class in any of these grades we were left with half of a class (not complaining though, we got a lot more done in that week with only girls than we ever had with the rowdy boys present). Then there is “student army training” for the older boys. Even though every Tuesday at school is a half-day of classes, with the afternoon reserved for this army training (and boy and girl scouts for the younger students), there are occasional day and week-long training camps in addition. Next there are the academic competitions that are always happening. One day it’s a science competition, the next it’s math, and so on. This means your brightest students, which keep you sane, will be gone for a day. The English competition happened to occur on a weekend, so no missed school day for us, but an extra school day instead. No wonder none of the students like English!

On top of all those missed classes, add in the holidays like the King’s Birthday, which was then combined with Constitution Day to make a 4-day weekend; a half day for Loy Kratong; and another 4-day weekend for New Years, and you have yourself a “holiday school”. The best part is, none of the teachers seem to know about the events or the exact dates of the holidays beforehand and none are too bothered by the fact. This means that Emily and I are definitely kept in the dark, so each day we wait to see which of our classes will show up, and if they do, how many students will be present. It’s always a mystery! We certainly can’t complain though because holiday schools are prettttty relaxing, and we’ve heard some horror stories from students in our program at much stricter schools. As Sutham put it, “I used to teach in Bangkok and it was so much work, so I came to this school for a vacation. I’m slowly easing into retirement.”

My Newly Formed Superiority Complex

So we have spent more than two consecutive weeks in humble Hang Chat and my self-esteem is at an all-time high. Here’s why.
Some of you may be aware of the Thai obsession with attractiveness, and a very specific paragon of beauty that they all value and strive for. This ideal includes fair skin, large eyes, a thin and pointy nose, well-defined cheek bones, straight and shiny hair, and thin legs, just to name a few characteristics. The models that Thai girls look up to tend to be Korean, because they traditionally encompass these characteristics (to a greater degree than Thais). Sadly, plastic surgery is becoming a growing trend among young Thai men and woman who are getting their faces restructured to look ‘Korean.’ Erin and I are most definitely not Korean, but lucky for us, we seem to (surprisingly) encompass some Korean traits! Jackpot! It turns out that beauty is in the eye of the . . .Thai!

On one occasion, towards the beginning of my time here, I was mid-lesson, doing my elaborate ‘song and dance’ of over-pronunciation and word miming, when a young girl looks at me and said, “Teacher, you have beautiful eyes.” “Ummmm, oh well, umm thank-you! You too, I mean . . . ok, well, ummm, back to the lesson,” I stammered while blushing and beaming. I’ve never been one to take a compliment well. Maybe I was under-complimented as a child, (I’ll stop analyzing before Mom gets angry). As embarrassed as I was at this moment, I must admit that it was nice to be complimented so directly and sincerely. Ohhh, haven’t we all been told we’re beautiful by those schmucks at the bars who are trying to take us home with them? But this was a genuine compliment from a young Thai girl who wanted nothing of me, (I don’t submit grades,) only to tell me she liked my blue eyes.

A brief caveat: sometimes the only English word the students know is ‘beautiful,’ so they throw it around like ‘hello.’ “Teacher, beautiful!” Erin and I often hear as we walk to school in the morning. It’s the equivalent of saying ‘hello’ for them. But, I will continue to enjoy these compliments whether they are intentional or not.

Occasionally the compliments are a little odd, due to the language barrier. Apparently in Thai, ‘sexy’ does not have the same connotation that it does in English. Occasionally the students will use the word, although in these cases I completely ignore it and pretend I didn’t hear it. Who do I look like, Mary Kay Letourneau? Sometimes, however, Lun’s brother, Pi Sak, (the undercover police officer) who speaks NO English will greet Erin and myself by giving us two thumbs up, a huge smile, and saying “sexy, sexy!” Creepy? At first, a little bit, but it turns out that I love Pi Sak, and if he wants to tell me I’m sexy, it’s fine! He thinks it’s a synonym of beautiful and it’s one of the only English words he knows. I probably still blush when he says it, but I always give a very sincere “thank you.”

Update to the ‘sexy’ situation: Lun has (since this post was initially written) informed me that I am not sexy. According to Lun, Erin is sexy, very sexy, but I am not. I was floored by this assessment. I of course encouragd her to elaborate. “Emily, I think, very very sweet, cute, and lovely, but not sexy. Erin, sexy.” Neither Erin nor I felt complimented, but smiled and accepted. Way to keep my ego in check, Lun, thank you!

This past weekend, the compliments were taken to the next level by Lun and Pi Annie, our wonderful friend who, along with her husband and mother, own one of our favorite restaurants in town. We had just found out that Annie is preggers! Congratulations Annie! I of course was so excited for her and her husband, although sad that I won’t be here to welcome the arrival of the little one, (I’m having baby withdrawals, as the majority of my waking hours were spent with babies back in Boston, and now I’m surrounded by pubescent teens, ugh).

Annie started up with the flattery, even more than usual, as she discussed her hopes for her little bun in the oven. Lun translated as Annie said “I want my baby to be like you. I will look at you two all the time so that my baby can look like you. Nice skin, beautiful!!!” Oh Annie, judging by the look of you and your husband, your baby will not look anything like Erin or me. Then things got taken to the next level. Erin and I were sipping our chaou minaus (iced lemon tea) enjoying the beautiful day and the company of Lun and Annie, when the girls suddenly began jabbering away. Then Lun was staring at our faces. “What is it Lun,” I said. “We think you have beautiful eyebrows, very thin” she said. We of course thanked her and explained that we pluck the occasional stray hair. “OHHHHHH, hurts!” she responded. Our beauty comes with a price, Lun. I then said to her, that her eyebrows are very nice too! Let’s face it, Asian people are not exactly known for being hairy! Her eyebrows looked just fine to me! “Ohhhhhh nooooo, too thin!” It turns out that poor Lun has minimal self-esteem. 3 minutes passed and Erin and I continued to sip our tea. Annie and Lun jabber jabber jabbered. “What, Lun?” “I think beautiful teeth! Very beautiful, so straight!” We thanked her and explained that we both had braces for 2 years apiece. “Ohhhhhhh very expensive, I think!!!” she responded. Yes Lun, very very very expensive. Again, it is the price of beauty. Although Lun’s appraisal of our beauty may have been diminished just a bit with these new bits of information (plucking, braces, oh my!) she remained persistent. Annie and Lun jabber jabber jabbered some more. “Yes, Lun?” “Annie think that every expression you make on your face, very beautiful! Beautiful in every emotion!” This was the breaking point, I really couldn’t take anymore.
Erin and I burst into hysterics. It doesn’t even make sense! A. I'd say I'm average-looking, maybe cute at best. B. I am most certainly not beautiful in every facial expression I make. I mean maybe Gisele Bundchen would fall into this category, but I’m sure even she has her ‘off days.’ Erin then made a ridiculous face and said, “Am I beautiful now?” “STILL BEAUTIFUL!” Lun exclaimed. We threw in the towel, we just couldn’t argue any further. “We will touch your stomach sometimes so that maybe we can pass on our traits to your baby,” Erin informed Annie. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

Since then we have been given some other ridiculous compliments by Lun, and have tried to argue them to no avail.
Lun -“You both wear jeans very beautifully. Good shape!”
Erin – “I can barely button these jeans. I can’t even move right now.”

Lun – “You have very beautiful hands, so small”
Me – “They are midget hands. I look like a child. People make fun of them all the time.”

What is the point of all this? For me, it further reaffirms the idea that as humans we will always desire what we don’t have. I wish I didn’t, er, fill out my jeans quite so much. But for our very petite Thai friend with less, um, assets, a little extra junk in the trunk is a good thing. I’ve always hated my midget hands and yearned for long, delicate fingers. Lun has lovely thin fingers but thinks they are much too long. The Thai girls use whitening lotions on their skin, while American girls are spending hundreds of dollars a year and giving themselves skin cancer at the tanning salon to become ‘Thai-colored.’

Oh, and the other point of this? My self-esteem is at an all time high and although I used to shy away from compliments, and still try to fight Lun when the compliments don’t make sense, I’m getting used to the excessive flattery! When I get back to Beantown, those men at the bars are really going to have to work for my attention.

"You are so beautiful.”

“HA! Is that the best you can do? You’re going to have to get a little more creative than that, Sport. I’ve lived in Thailand!”

Excuse Me, Do You Speak Robot?

Since this post is only thoughts and not about any specific event, I have included random pictures that never made it on here, including plenty of waterfall shots (top at Chae Son National Park and the others from Chiang Mai) and Emily and I with the cast of Pan’s play, Baan Saitong.

Learning a new language is not easy, so we never expected to be speaking fluent Thai after only 5 months in Thailand. And although we have picked up a bunch of words (although mostly related to food because we are always eating) and have moved on to making sentences, we are having some serious struggles. At first we were really frustrated by the poor English abilities of our students, thinking how at their age we knew French, which we had also been taking since elementary school, much better than they know English. Trying to learn Thai has given us a much better understanding of how hard it is for them, though. Besides the fact that Thai has a totally different alphabet, with 44 consonants and 22 vowels, most of their sounds do not directly correspond to the sounds of our letters. For example, the Thai language has a character that corresponds to the sound “ng” in English, which is a sound that is extremely difficult for an English speaker to say at the beginning of a word (try saying “nguang”, or elephant trunk), while our “x” does not correspond to any of the Thai characters, and is therefore almost impossible for Thais to say. There are also characters that correspond to two sounds in our alphabet. For example, there is one that corresponds to both v and w. So although v and w sound totally different in English, when speaking Thai you can choose either sound to make in place of the character. Therefore, a van becomes a “wan,” and this always cracks us up.

The Thai language also has no articles, does not conjugate its verbs, and allows for speaking in fragments. Therefore, it makes sense that the students say things like “I rides bike to school.” When you want to say a sentence in French, it is possible, although usually not perfectly correct, to translate each English word into French. This excludes word-order problems, which also occur in Thai (adjectives also go after nouns). In spoken Thai, fragments are the normal way of speaking, so if you translate each word from English you will sound completely ridiculous. For example, if you want to ask someone if they are enjoying their food all you say is “Arroy, mai?” or “Delicious, no?” At first, we thought that people were speaking to us like this so that it would be easier for us to understand, but then we realized that everyone does it. Try as I might to learn how to speak in full sentences, it just isn’t necessary. I want to sound like a Thai-speaking expert when someone asks me if I had a nice weekend by saying, “Yes, I had a great time!” (in Thai) but all I need to say is “Sanook, sanook!” or “Fun, fun”.

You would think that we’d gain confidence in our Thai speaking after learning a couple words and phrases, but just because you know how to say something in Thai does not mean you are saying it so that a Thai person can actually understand you. This brings us to the topic of tones. Oh tones, you will be the death of me! Thai is a tonal language, meaning that every Thai syllable has one of five tones: low, middle, high, rising, or falling, which determine their meaning. This does not seem very important since every syllable in English technically has a correct tone, but if said wrong can usually still be understood. In Thai, a mispronounced tone usually means you are saying another word altogether, since many Thai words are only one syllable. For example, the Thai word “pa” can mean 5 different things when said in each of the 5 tones, either: to throw away, forest, aunt, or two ways of saying Dad. Although it’s exciting to learn a new word, we will most likely use the wrong tone and be misunderstood when trying to use it. For example, soi said in a rising tone means beautiful, but when said in a middle tone, which is flat, can mean bad luck, which is not something you want to refer to in Thailand, where everyone is superstitious and lottery tickets are sold on every street corner. The most frustrating thing about the tones is that they are barely audible to the English-speaking ear. When we hear Lun use a word at dinner that we don’t know, we will repeat it, exactly as she said it (or so we think) and she will say, “No, no, like this” and repeat exactly what we thought we just said. But no, the tone is different. We feel like we are deaf when Lun says a word, we repeat after her, she repeats again, and we, again, repeat it wrong.

Although mastering tones is very important to becoming a fluent Thai speaker, we have also learned that honing your robot-speaking skills is valuable. Speaking Robot simply means making your voice sound exactly like a robot’s, with no stresses, tones, or emotion. When we first went to visit Jessie in Chiang Rai she had told us that the only way a tuk-tuk driver could understand the name of her school (Rong Rian Chulabporn) to take her home was if she spoke Robot, which she demonstrated for us. We laughed and were sure that she must be exaggerating, but soon found out that she was not. The next time we went to visit her we had to catch our own tuk-tuk to her school. When we said the name to the driver he looked at us puzzled and shook his head. Since we knew the school was well-known and not very far away, we kept repeating the name. He called over the other tuk-tuk drivers so they could all listen and laugh at the supposedly non-existant place that we wanted to go. Then we got Jessie on the phone to attempt the pronunciation, but with no luck. Frustrated, Emily jokingly said to me in perfect Robot: “Rong Rian Chulabporn”, and suddenly one of the tuk-tuk drivers turned around and goes, “Oh!! You want Rong Rian Chulaporn!!”…umm yeah, isn’t that what we were saying!? Robot doesn’t only work for the Chulabporn School but also for other words, because another friend reported success speaking Robot near Bangkok.

Since our Thai is not coming along as quickly as we may have liked, when we are with the Thai English teachers they always speak English with us, with sporadic attempts at teaching us Thai. Although, for Thais, they are exceptionally good at English, things still get lost in translation…and mostly with Pan. I will add that we fully understand that we are the ones who came to a foreign country and can barely speak baby-talk in its language, and therefore do not expect superb English out of people who do not need it to survive. We simply find humor in the confusion that can occur when English and Thai come face to face. The most notable mix-up occurred one night when Pan, as she often does, dropped us off at Big C (Thai Walmart) to entertain ourselves while she went home to rest and change before the night’s events. She was taking us to see some sort of singing and dancing performance at her daughter’s high school. Sometimes when she drops us at Big C she expects us to get dinner without her and sometimes we aren’t supposed to because we are going out to dinner with her after. So when we got in the car we asked her if we should get dinner and she said something unclear like, “Yes, you two will eat together.” Just to clarify we asked if she would be eating with us, and we thought she said no. She also said that she would pick us back up at 6:30, and with the performance beginning at 7:00 we thought this was only further evidence that we were supposed to eat without her. But when Pan picked us up and drove us to a place that wasn’t a school, Emily turned to me and said, “Soooo, I don’t think we were supposed to eat.” Then we felt bad because Pan had to eat alone while we just stared at her (we had eaten both a large dinner and dessert so we couldn’t even attempt eating again just to be polite). We tried to explain how we misunderstood her, and she said it was fine, but in reality she was probably thinking, “Wow, they are slow”.

Overall, our communication with Thais is often blurry, but hand motions and slow-mo speaking seem to do the trick most of the time…and getting used to Thai is difficult because we are used to speaking in full, grammatically correct sentences as to not sound stupid in English. We are learning though, and it’s slowly slipping into our English, so don’t be surprised when we come home sounding like toddlers.

I will leave you with the fun fact that there is a Thai vegetable that’s name is pronounced the same as the “F word” in English…always makes us leap and go “What did you say?” whenever we hear it.

Until next time…and keep practicing your Robot if you ever want to visit.

Happy New Year . . .2553!

In Thailand, rather than New Year’s resolutions, people deliver “New Year’s Wishes,” something that you wish or hope for someone else. We found this out the hard way, when we walked in on Pan giving an emotional speech filled with New Year’s Wishes for her Matayom 4 homeroom last week. She ran up to us and forced us to give an emotional speech to these kids who can’t understand us when we speak. I should add that her co-teacher was videotaping the awkward speeches. Mine involved a lot of nice words like “fun,” “laughter,” and “happiness.” So, bloggers, in the Thai holiday spirit, my New Year’s Wish for you is that you all appreciate and enjoy the small (or big) adventures life hands you, and that you always accept the microphone when somebody asks you to sing karaoke.
Before our mini-vacation, we had a very special New Year’s party with the faculty of the English department. Pan informed us about the existance of this party, that would take place at our house, two days before it occurred. God, Pan! Give me some time to clean the jungle house please before I have guests! At 4 PM on the nose, Sutham, Pan, Lun, Ning, and Noy pulled up to the jungle house in all their glory. Pan brought a Korean styyyyyy electric grill and a suki pot. A suki pot is a large bowl with a burner under it, in which you cook vegetables, noodles, tofu, and even meat. Although, I took a pass on the fish tofu. Pan also arrived with her full karaoke system, including speakers. Hilarity ensued. Sutham sort of hogged the thing, as he loves singing. At one point adorable, precious Ning said to Erin and I, “I want you to sing next. I like hearing native English speakers sing.” Apparently she had had it up to here with Sutham’s antics. Here is a video of him singing "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" which I have discovered is sort of the theme song of Thailand.

Even Camp came! Apparently Pan invited him because we had spent some time with him on Christmas, although she did make him leave at one point to buy more Coke and ice, and loved forcing him to take pictures of all of us. Poor Camp, can’t catch a break but smiles in spite of it. So maybe it was a little stressful for me, cleaning up the remnants of the fun (don’t want to come home from vacation to a dirty house!) but it was great spending time with our co-workers!

As many of you have seen from my large assortment of pictures, we spent New Year’s weekend in paradise. We flew to Phuket, an island in the south of Thailand, on Wednesday and after a pina colada toast on Patong Beach and a beautiful sunset, we were ready for live music. We found a large stage set up on the beach and realized that although it was December 30, the New Year’s party had officially begun. There was a “host,” for the music, stunt show, and bartending performances, a young Thai woman who had apparently learned to speak English by watching MTV. She said things in Thai accented valley girl lingo like, “They are like ready to rock alllll of you.” Or the classic, “I really like need like 3 people to come up on the stage and win these T Shirts. I like think there are like people raising their hands but to be honest, I cannot like see youuuuu!” She was a trip. We got to take in a performance by the popular Thai rapper, Joey Boy, and somebody named DJ Spidermonkey. I have included the youtube link to some video footage at the bottom of the post. I watched some Thai 19 year old college students dance in the most awesome way I’ve ever seen Thai people dance, (I ended up talking to them . . .they go to college in Phuket, obviously a party school, right?) and then two handsome young Brits came and sat with Erin and myself at our table.

Erin often says: never talk to anyone about politics, religion, or weird tattoos or jewelry (they always have sad emotional significance). All of these topics are buzz kills and conversation killers. Her theory has proven true yet again. The Brits happen to be in the army, living in Brunei (Erin had never heard of it, I wasn’t exactly sure where it was – strike 1 in the conversation). Then Jase (that’s not even a real name . . .) brought up American politics. “For Pete’s sake,” I thought to myself. “I might as well just say goodbye to these fellas right now.” For those who know me, know that as sad as it is, I have never had the political fire in my soul, and unfortunately for the conversation with Jase (not a name), Erin is similar to me in this regard. I don’t really know what he asked me, or exactly what I said. I know I mentioned not getting a lot of internet reception in Hangchat and coming from a conservative family. It’s like asking somebody how they tripped on the sidewalk, it just sort of happened and there’s nothing that could have prevented it. Within 5 minutes, the jolly old blokes had moved on to the Tiger Dance Club. To my dismay, I realized that Jase had left a nearly full beer behind. I must have been pretty awful for him to leave a nearly full beer behind. If I was at least bearable, he could have changed the topic and finished his beer in a few minutes. From now on, I will stick to my usual conversation starter reserved for these situations. “You know, I once won a karaoke contest in Boston . . .”

A few words about Patong. It was seedy, really seedy. There were probably more prostitutes than vacationers. And all the prostitutes have patrons, mostly obese, middle-aged, white men. Oh and there were male prostitutes too, who some of the girls thought were suit salesmen and Erin thought “was selling candy or something.” The beach was great, but one night in the town was more than enough for me, thank you very much.
For New Year’s Eve we met up with some friends from the program, had a nice dinner, then went back to the Beach Party for yet another concert (BigAss, a VERY popular rock band, a favorite among our students) and more fireworks than I’ve ever seen in my life! It was lots of fun. For those of you who weren't aware, there was a full moon on New Year's Eve. It was also a blue moon, which means there were two full moons in the month of December. A blue moon happens once every 18 years, but it may never happen again on New Year's Eve in your lifetime! Thai people are very into full moons. Apparently this may have contributed to the size of the party!

Then we ended up staying out until 4:15 am. How did this happen? We went to some dance club and one of the boys from our program was paying for our drinks. Where is all of his money coming from? I certainly don’t have any extra baht lying around, especially after a vacation to Phuket! Boys!
And, a part of my New Year’s Eve that will never be forgotten is Carlos. Not to name names but Teacher Katie (one of our long lost CIEE friends,) met a ‘friend’ at her hostel who she invited out. Carlos was an Australian man who for some reason, accepted her invitation although none of his friends did. He came out with us and often stood there awkwardly while we talked to our CIEE friends. We constantly felt pity for this poor guy. We kept asking ourselves, “WHY DID CARLOS COME OUT????” I tried to strike up a conversation with him, but it was almost too pathetic. I will add that Carlos was dressed head to toe in white, with running sneakers, and a lanyard with his keys on it. “Carlos, that lanyard is killing me.”
The day after New Year’s, we managed to roll out of bed at 7 (AM!) to catch the ferry to Koh Phi Phi Don. This is the island, next to the island, where Leonardo, my boyfriend, filmed his movie The Beach. Sadly Leo couldn’t make it to visit me, his girlfriend, for the New Year, but I forgive him because he’s just that handsome. It was a lot more heavenly, peaceful, and scenic than Patong, although we were pretty tired from the previous night’s festivities. We visited two of the island’s beaches, the central Hat Tonsai, and the more remote and a bit more upscale Hat Yao. There’s not much else to say except that the beaches were amazing, (despite a bout with heat rash, ew) it was so great to visit with and catch up with all our CIEE friends, and it was one of the best ways I can think of to welcome the arrival of 2010 (2553, in Thai . . .something having to do with Buddhism, according to Lun). Put “Visit Islands in Thailand” on your 'bucket list' (the vocab term I have assigned Lun for this week). Here is a video with some more pictures and concert excerpts! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imhOzmNywS4
Happy New Year everyone!