But I Never Wanted to Be Snow White

I would be remiss if I didn’t dedicate a blog post to all of my best friends at Sansai. I realized as I wrote this that it was a lot longer than I expected. I’m definitely not living alone this year.

Geckos: Lizzy, may she rest in peace, was my first gecko. Geckos are very territorial so once she showed up, she stayed put for a while. She lived in the walls and ceiling of my kitchen and bathroom until Clyde, my other gecko, appeared in my living room. For a while they co-existed but it is now several months since my last Lizzy-sighting. I believe Clyde has either scared Lizzy off or eaten her so that he can have free range of the house. I’ve found him trying to snuggle in my make-shift couch on the ground or blocking the staircase when I get up to pee in the middle of the night. Clyde is quite a character: he will freeze when he knows I’ve seen him and only retreat back into the ceiling when I turn my back. He often thinks he’s hidden but his tail will still be sticking out much like a toddler who throws a blanket over himself but his feet are still showing. My geckos, while a bit freaky when I first discovered them, are fabulous listeners. I’ve been told they will only bite if you corner them, so I’m happy to coexist despite the absolute animosity with which the Thais will talk about them. I’ve also been told that if a gecko jumps on me the only way to get rid of that bad luck is to get struck by lightning…so let’s keep our fingers crossed on that one.

Frogs: There’s a single frog who is a frequent visitor of my little Sansai home. For weeks, every single morning I would discover him under my couch pillows, which I now habitually check for Clyde before laying down. I would scoop him up in a shoe and fling him out the front door every day. More recently, I discovered him nestled in my tissue box. I suppose he’s just looking for a cozy place to live but a bit unsettling to pull out a tissue and have a frog fall on my lap. Apparently, this frog is apparently territorial as even if I take it across campus, blindfold it, and spin it around three times he will be in my couch again within the week.

Snakes: This was a real turning point. My reaction to seeing a snake squeeze under my door and start poking around was a groan that I had to get up from the couch to take care of this. How annoying. I grabbed my broom and carefully starting poking it towards the door from a couple steps safely up my staircase. After several minutes of failure I finally swung open the door and just swept him towards the opening. The poor thing couldn’t get a grip on the tile to slither correctly so just spastically squirmed as I accosted him with my broom until he was out the door. I now occasionally leave limes outside my door as local wisdom says snakes are deterred by lime juice. Seems to be working.

Flying Termites: These termites will blossom all of the sudden one day in the rainy season and attack any light they can find. In the time it took me to get upstairs and back it felt like the 8th plague had taken over. I ran to turn off any light source and turn up my outside lights but the cleanup in the morning was awful. These bugs have the lightest wings that fall off so easily. I am still sweeping them out of my house.

ANTS: A ginormous pain in the ass. NOTHING can be left out. I keep all food safely in the fridge, in a couple tested ant-proof Tupperware containers, or in a bucket of water so that the ants get into them. However, these terrible creatures have also chewed through plastic bags and invaded a box of tampons, my computer, and my cotton swabs. Sometimes I see their marching line across my wall and attempt to find their destination to no avail. Luckily there is a spray for when there are just a few too many to handle.

Cockroaches: Of course there are a few but I only seem to find them when I leave the house for a week and they will be belly up when I get home. Apparently they are exceptional hiders when they’re not dead.

Scorpions: I had only two and they were potentially the same one. (Right? Only two like that’s a lucky thing) The first seemed dead and I was sweeping then he sprung to life from within the pile of dust and started scurrying around the floor. Did you know how fast a scorpion moves? I trapped him under my broom and hock-pucked him out the door. Several weeks later I found another that was most definitely dead.

Spiders: I let most of the spiders coexist to get rid of my bugs however some are huge and I’m afraid they’ll get rid of me. One morning I lifted a pillow to discover I had both a frog and spider cuddle bugs for the past hour. I was not thrilled.

Lizards: These guys are just cute. I don’t mind them one bit since they eat the little bugs. Only once did I have the issue where one fell into my toaster when it was in the process of making my breakfast and caused the thing to spark and die with a fried lizard at the bottom. Rough way to go.

One of my students asked me today if I have friends in Thailand. I told her I have too many, and I showed her a picture of me and Clyde. She definitely thinks there’s something wrong with me now. 

Single Lady

I was preparing my lesson by placing several poorly hand-drawn pictures on the board when one of my students points to a picture of a blond girl and says “Teacher, you”. I laughed because she’s only assigning me the picture because of the hair color, and she points to a picture of a boy and says “Teacher, boyfriend.” I laugh a little harder and say no, no. So she points to another picture of a boy with different colored hair and says again “Teacher, boyfriend?” Good thinking, I tell them I don’t have a boyfriend. The student then points to another picture and asks “Teacher, girlfriend?”

I love my students.

When I studied in Senegal, I often lied about my relationship status jumping to already being married in hopes that it would deter the marriage proposal that was about to spill from the mouths of Senegalese men. For fun I even told them that I had four husbands (since they are allowed to take four wives) just to see the shock on their face as the thought about the switched gender roles.

In Thailand I may use the “boyfriend” line to deter a random songtao driver or food vendor, but I don’t lie to my coworkers or students. When the words “I don’t have a boyfriend” are understood, frankly everyone’s appalled. “But you’re so beautiful” is the usual argument against my single status.

Not to toot my own horn but I’ve been told I’m beautiful almost every day at my school. The word has unfortunately lost a lot of its power. Simply being a blond foreigner who’s in shape is enough to make me qualify as Miss America; although, once I scraped up my knees my coworkers informed me that the dream of Miss America is now dead.

Beauty is a tough concept to grapple with. The media is filled with advertisements for whitening creams because conversely to America, white and pale is beautiful. At least my teachers don’t go so far as calling me “ugly” when I return from a weekend outdoors but they have comments like: “Oh Kendra. So much sun” with a clear look of disappointment that I would do such a thing to my body.

Thais are very blunt about your appearance: if your dress makes you look like a teenager, if your hair is “not so beautiful today as it was yesterday”, or if you’re “fat, fat, fat, fat, fat…”

Stateside, if I wore a new shirt and received a few compliments throughout the day that would make me so happy and want to wear it again. When I wear a new shirt here, if I don’t get multiple compliments on it then it’s considered an ugly shirt and won’t likely wear it again.

A favorite moment on my birthday was among all the birthday wishes stood one teacher who said “Kendra, I wish you happy for your birthday….And I wish you make a boyfriend this year.”

Priorities. I’m 23, single, and beautiful… get to it, Kendra.

World Elephant Day

When I applied to Fulbright Thailand, I had no legitimate connection to the country. Don’t tell my scholarship advisor, but I believe half the reason why Thailand appealed to me when other South East Asian countries didn’t was because the country itself is shaped like an elephant (thus the title of this blog compilation). The culture is sprinkled with symbolism for elephants- particularly in Buddhism.

Taken from Bali Sun Tours website. Note the mahout up from with the bull hook.

What most tourists don’t know, what I didn’t know, is the absolute torture that elephants are subjected to in tourism and logging industries in Thailand. If you make someone think about it, it’s doubtful that they expect elephants to have a truly pleasant time working in circuses or painting pictures but you don’t expect, or want, to draw the connection from something so cute to an act so disgusting. In order for that elephant to paint a picture or prance around at the circus, its spirit is broken by being beaten, starved, chained, awake for days, and forced away from its mother as a baby. The process of domesticating an elephant in order to use it for tourism is an extremely brutal, disgusting process. The elephant only consents to “perform” out of absolute terror: fear of being beaten or stabbed by its mahout. The baskets that you see so many tourists nestled into as they wobble back and forth up a mountain is slowly crippling an elephant that isn’t built to hold that weight on that part of its body. One look at the pictures advertising this “once in a lifetime experience” to tourists will reveal a mahout perched on the head holding the hook, a weapon of choice that is similar in shape to a fire poker, to the head of the elephant urging it to continue when it has been walking tirelessly all day. The logging industry wraps chains around elephants to haul enormous trees up the mountain side; once again with the mahout atop poking it along with a knife, hook, or whip.

Taken from AlternativeWay.net. 

A baby being "broken".

Elephants are revered in temples but treated so poorly in reality. This is not exclusive to Thailand  but throughout South East Asia.  Luckily some people are starting to take notice. Many trekking camps are converting to non-violent practices and are getting rid of the baskets. There are sanctuaries in Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar for rescued elephants.

I took the opportunity to volunteer a week at the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai. It is self-described as a rehabilitation park for handicapped and rescued elephants. Their injuries are as devastating and varied as: mutilated feet from land mines, broken legs from logging accidents, broken or displaced hips from forced breeding, blindness from torture or years of camera flashes, and numerous mental problems due to years of torture in logging or tourism.

Taken from Elephant Nature Park website.

Maedo enjoying the mud despite her ongoing injuries.

Arguably the park’s most handicapped elephant, Maedo, has the most devastating story that I heard. She was working in the logging industry which is constant labor hauling trees up the mountain in steep, slippery terrain by a chain that digs into the elephants skin with each pull. When the elephant isn’t going fast enough it gets stabbed by the mahout’s hook. Maedo had an accident while logging and broke her ankle. It never healed properly. The mahouts didn’t find her entirely useless: they chained all four of her legs and led a bull to her to breed. Some interaction between Maedo and the bull was poorly received: he raped her, beat her, and stood guard for several days so that no one could get to her to help. Once they were able to unchain her they found that she couldn’t even stand on her own as her hip was dislocated and her spinal cord separated from her spine. They build a wooden structure to hold up her limp body and bring her into the city to beg for money on the streets. Luckily this is where the people at the Elephant Nature Park found her and began the process of negotiating for her. Despite all of this in her past, she is said to be the kindest elephant in the park, but it breaks your heart to see her inch across the lawn, her hip dislocating every step she takes.

This is the norm. No elephant has a pleasant story any more. There are so few left in the wild and most that are working are the most cruelty treated animals I’ve ever seen. The camps that have started to change their ways have done so only out of support of tourists. If you have the special opportunity to visit this beautiful corner of the world and you want to interact with these amazing creatures (as you should), do your research and be sure you are supporting the right industry. Avoid the elephant paintings and circuses, don’t ride in the baskets, don’t give money or food to begging street elephants, don’t use your flash if you take a picture of an elephant, and don’t go to any camp that still uses hooks, knives or anything violent on the elephants in order to control them. The industry will not change so long as tourists are requesting these practices, if you express that you don't want that life for these elephants then you'll start to make a change. Elephants are fascinating animals for who they are: let them be their happy selves, not who the mahout is forcing them to be.

But Why Can’t I Call You Fat?

Each of the directors with his certificate for completing the workshop

Fulbright staff and English Teachers in front

(Photo taken from Fulbright's Facebook page)

This week was round two of teaching English to the directors of Thai schools. The directors were so pleased with the progress they had made last time that they requested a second workshop with us to continue their education.

The English teachers I worked with last time were not available to return so I was accompanied by two other English teachers from my program this time. It was very pleasant to see how happy the directors were to see me again, and how comfortable they were to converse with me despite their struggles with English!

We worked on pronunciation (do you say "die-rector" "dee-rector" or "der-rector"...they were not pleased when we each said it differently), how to have small talk, how to give a tour of your school and town, and how to present about your school. I was leading the small talk session the morning of day one. I had prepared some sample dialogues for practice but had prefaced the exercise with example topics of what to avoid:

Do Not Talk About:                                                                    

-Age                                                                                        “How old are you?”

-Weight                                                                                   “You are fat.”

-Physical appearance                                                             “You are very pretty.”

-Alcohol                                                                                  “Do you like whiskey?”

-Religion                                                                                 “What religion are you?”

-Politics                                                                                   “What do you think of Obama?”

The first two groups listened carefully, and followed with many questions about what is acceptable and offensive language to us Americans. Many of the men had a serious “oh-shit” face on when they realized that they have said almost every single one of these phrases to us just in the last workshop we held, thus why they each made the list. These are exceptionally common phrases in Thailand, and not considered offensive or taboo in Thai culture but even necessary at times. For example, talking about age in Thailand is common practice because you address those who are older than you as “Pee” and those who are younger as “Nong” (I will be addressed as “Pee Kendra” and “Nong Kendra” depending on who is talking to me). Many times that is someone’s first question to a new-comer in order to avoid making their own cultural faux-pas.

The most wondrous teaching moment of the day was when my last group sat down for the small talk session and one of the directors immediately said “Hello, my teacher. You look more beautiful today than the last time.” Great. Prime segue into my topic about what not to say to a foreigner. I begin the lesson, and as we proceed through the list above he immediately apologizes when he notices his error. I reassured him by saying that I understand because I have spent enough time in Thai culture. I know it was genuinely meant as a compliment, but when a 50 year-old man is complimenting my looks in a professional setting I can’t help but have that initial uncomfortable reaction, probably due in large part to the growing awareness of sexual harassment in the States.

Then it took a turn. What my group began to ask me, more or less, is why it is their responsibility to adjust their speaking and not that of the other party’s in the conversation. They asked me if I warn my American friends who come to Thailand that they should expect to hear these things that are considered exceptionally normal in Thai culture (as if I am personal friends with all Americans who come to Thailand).

Something to remember is these are middle-aged men run schools of around 50-100 students and 3-7 staff members in rural Thailand. Lampang province is not the most disconnected province from tourism and the greater world, but these men have very little reason to engage in the global community and have very little prior experience.

It was a bit shocking at first to hear them ask me why it is their responsibility and not the other party’s. Although I had not defined a particular situation at first, I believe most of the directors assumed that they would be interacting with a foreigner in Thailand rather than being the visitor themselves, as that was the situation they were currently in while speaking to me. Therefore, they felt if you come to their home you should play by their rules. That’s valid. I have no right to say they are in the wrong if I am in Thailand and the things they say make me uncomfortable. But if you have a guest in your home don’t you do your best to make them feel comfortable, even if it means changing your routine a bit? And as a guest, you expect to be make adjustments from your normal routine. It’s a compromise. It’s a thought that has certainly crossed everyone’s mind when you travel or interact with foreigners: whose responsibility is it to adapt? But there is no code or rule. Culture is a complicated game. The responsibility falls to those who are educated about the cultural differences, and they further have the responsibility to educate others. Although these directors challenged the idea at first, the next day they were eager to report what they had learned from the day before. When they arrived at the meeting room the sought me out to say “Teacher, we don’t talk about age. Don’t say you look sexy, or you are thin. Don’t offer you whiskey…” listing off each item on their fingers as they dug through their thoughts.

I was a proud teacher. 

Krung Tep and Bangkok…Same Same.

Something that took me an embarrassingly long time to learn is that Bangkok is not called Bangkok in Thai: it’s actually “Krung Tep Maka Nakhon” or just “Krung Tep.” It means city of angels despite the brunt of many jokes “Bangkok” has born over the years. In fact, this is the abbreviated version of a much longer name which holds the Guinness Book of World Records for longest name of a place. This is a recent video released by the Peace Corps which is too fitting to this post:

 

A peer of mine showed the video to a Thai friend who commented that this man in one of ten people who knows the full name: making the point that it is not common to use the full name, only for ceremonial purposes. King Rama I established the new capitial in 1782, and anointed the city with this name which roughtly translates to this:

“The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city (of Ayutthaya) of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn.”

Clearly the king was fond of his new capital, although apparently foreigners have never caught on to the new name.

Broadway in Bangkok

I’m currently in Bangkok for a six-week internship over school vacation, and as I took the subway every morning I stared enviously at this gigantic poster for Broadway’s Beauty and the Beast. My roommate and I decided to indulge a little bit while we are in Bangkok and have the chance, as this is likely our only opportunity to see a play until we are home next year.

We bought the ticket online, looked up where to go, and discovered upon arrival (much to our amusement) that the theatre was on the top floor of a shopping mall. We have discovered that just about every shopping mall in Bangkok (and there are many!) has a movie theatre on the top floor. Movie theatres clearly haven’t hit the same financial problems as the US. Sure enough, the Broadway-equivalent theatre has found its home on the top floor of a mall as well.

After picking up our tickets we noticed how much effort had been put in for a travelling show. They set up the entire lobby for photo-ops. You could pose with the rose or take you picture with any number of the posters from the play that were framed around the entry way. A big difference from the standard poster out front on a NYC sidewalk with which it is customary to take your picture.

Everyone taking their pictures before the play. It was a madhouse after the show...

Apparently a Thai architect worked on Broadway for many years and returned to Thailand with the vision of a theatre of similar standards for Bangkok. He build the Mueng Thai Rachadalai Theatre that you can see below so that Thailand can participate in the world of theatre with its own productions as well as housing international tours like Beauty and the Beast. In fact, one of Thailand’s productions will find its way to Broadway next year.

(Photo from www.rachadali.com)

We were also shocked that the event appealed more widely to Thais than foreigners. We expected, as the play is English (and set in France making this even odder), there wouldn’t be as much local interest. As we settled into our seats we noticed large flat-screens in the corners of the theatre and deduced that the play has been subtitled in Thai.

Having taken a translation course before, I know the challenges this poor person faced when trying to subtitle the production. Particularly in a play like Beauty and the Beast, the songs and a lot of the humor involves puns with both the French and English language, idiomatic expressions, and cultural references that simply don’t translate well. When attempting to do so, the translator typically tries to find similar puns, expressions, and references in the host language but I imagine over an entire play there are many jokes lost. 

We had noticed, as the only foreigners within a certain diameter of our seats, that we were the only ones laughing at jokes that truly depended on the language. Clearly some things didn’t get translated. For example, Lumière was giving a tour of the castle and ended with “I always say, if it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it!” I know the joke is a bit old, but I don't think that's why we were the only two laughing.

We were very happy with the night, both to indulge in our love of theatre which has been absent from our Thai lives, as well as an unexpected cultural moment. I will definitely be looking forward to a trip or two to Broadway when I get home next year though!

Pin the Flower on the Student

My favorite senior (Yes, I have favorites. Get over it.)

Graduation day at Sansai. My first semester teaching English in Thailand is over and some of my students are leaving school. Unfortunately, due to the absurd amount of holidays and class cancellations, my senior class was the group I saw the least. 

Sansai Wittayakom School educates 7^th-12^th grade students. Even though they stay in the same school, we graduate the 9^th graders as well as our seniors. I’ve asked a lot of questions about this and can’t figure it out. It is some sort of coming-of-age or right-of-passage to “graduate” from 8^th to 9^th grade, but those students will be right back at Sansai Wittayakom come May. It’s not like the US and many other countries where many students attend separate schools for middle school and high school, so a graduation ceremony is justified, albeit a bit ridiculous. Then again we hold full-fledged ceremonies for graduating kindergartners now…

Helping  a buddy out and pinning his cards on to his shirt.

The Mama noodles necklace.

Thai secondary school graduation is for the school and the students, not the family. The underclassmen (11^th, 10^th, 8^th, and 7^th graders) will decorate the school (missing half-a-days class for it) and often bring in small gifts for their upperclassmen friends. They proudly adorn their gifts on their bodies: pinning cards to their blouses and hanging pictures around their necks. They may be the most unique graduation gifts I have ever seen. They remind me of Valentine’s Day cards from elementary school when you made 30 of the same card with a small candy attached to distribute among your classmates. Some were even more unique, my favorite was a Mama scarf with two bowls of instant noodles hanging around the boy’s neck. By the end of the day some students couldn’t even carry all of their goodies: candies, flowers, fake flowers, stuffed animals, and who knows what else.

So many goodies.

Many of the teachers laugh at the students’ costly and flashy forms of celebration but also remark that they are modeling themselves after college graduations. Although the colleges do the classic diploma ceremony with robes and a cap as we do, though the princess hands them their diploma, they also have these very social-orientated practices as their expression of friendship, and congratulations.

Thailand values aesthetics. It's a theme I've noted across many fronts: first priority is appearence. There were several areas set up, and broken down within the day, for the sole purpose taking pictures: more specifically selfies.

Some photo-opt scenes set up at the school.

The graduation itself was kicked off at morning assembly when I had the nice opportunity to participate in part of the ceremony. Every teacher lined up in front of the students and all of our 9^th and 12^th grade students filed through to receive a flower pin from one of the teachers.  Only thought on my mind: I’m most definitely going to stick one of these children with the pin. I had to repeat it with four or five students so chances were high, but I pulled through. I was proud that these students at least had the sense to say “Thank you” in English to the foreign teacher (who was holding a giant pin to their chest).

Sitting outside the spirit house.

Graduates parading into the school receiving gifts from friends in the crowd.

Following the flower-pinning ceremony, all the graduating students proceeded to the front gate of the school to pay respect to the Buddha at the spirit house. They then paraded in, stopping along the way to be decorated with cards and candy from their friends who lined the driveway. At the end of the parade, in small groups they were honored by the underclassmen in a unique way which you can see in the video below.

A special way of saying thank you and congratulations to the graduates.

The teachers tying a string around students' wrists for luck.

After taking a moment to have a snack and deposit their treasures at a table in the canteen, the teachers, myself included, led the graduating students upstairs to the auditorium. There were many songs, prayers, pictures, speeches from both faculty and students, and emotion to fill the morning. We held one more ceremony where the teachers tied a string around the students’ wrists for good luck. As we filled out of the auditorium the teachers lined the exit to salute each student as they exited and “Wai”-ed the teachers as an expression of gratitude and respect. The ceremony was very symbolic as an educator: leading my students, wishing them luck, and letting them leave no longer under our guard.

We joined the students for a special lunch accompanied by the school’s band but the afternoon was left to the students to socialize and celebrate. Many of the teachers retreated to their offices to finish grading and let the students enjoy their party. Early that evening both the students and teachers had cleared out early to leave a quiet Sansai….until Monday morning when the unhappy children have return for final exams!