tales from thailand: November 2012

So I figured I would write a post about teaching, since that is the primary reason for this trip (on paper anyway... the primary reason is really to experience a new culture and beautiful scenery but you get what I'm saying..)

I am teaching at Kanchanapisek Wittayala Nakhon Pathom Phratamnak Suankulap Matthayom school, Kanchanapisek for short. This is a public secondary school in Phutthamonthon, Nakhon Pathom Thailand.
Our school colors are purple and yellow, which are the colors of the princess because this school was a gift from the King to his daughter. There are just over 1,000 students at this school ranging from (U.S. equivalent) 7th-12th grade. In Thailand they are called Matthayom levels 1-6. I teach Matthayom 1, Matthayom 5, and Matthayom 6 which gives me a total of 21 classes a week. With my M. 1 students I teach english conversation and always try to wrap up the class with some sort of game.

My M.5 and M.6 students are learning english reading and writing which means that I have to teach them grammar and basic writing structure. Lets just say that my students aren't the only ones learning from these lesson plans... I basically had to re-learn sentence structure and sometimes my students have to correct me...oops...

Overall I am really enjoying teaching english to these kids. Some of my students are more advanced than others so engaging with the quiet ones or the rowdy ones is a daily struggle, but there is something pleasantly rewarding when you see that "aha" moment on a students face, like they all of a sudden understand what you're teaching and they're so pleased with themselves for figuring it out. I try to be as patient as I can with them, but when paper planes are being thrown out the window, or rulers are being thrown at other students, or badminton rackets are being smacked around... I get frustrated. Some of these kids are crazy ! And some of my M. 1s are so cute and well behaved... you just never know what each class is going to bring.

I really enjoy getting to know my students by asking them an attendance question every day about their interests. Its surprising how many of them love American musicians and films. Alexis and I also teach "english club" on Fridays with students who elected to take an extra english course. Last week we had a sing along to Justin Bieber's "Baby" and this week the girls have to coordinate a dance to perform for us, so most of the classroom experiences are positive !

Thai schools are very different than American schools. For one thing, they leave the doors open to all the classes and the hallways are like outdoor walkways (like at a motel). I only have 1 class in an air conditioned classroom, but thankfully our foreign language office has AC! The other biggest difference is the morning ceremony. Every morning the students gather outdoors in our "courtyard" where the Thai National Anthem is played as well as our school song. They also say a prayer every morning and various teachers make announcements about upcoming events at school. Sometimes the morning ceremony can last up to 45 minutes which is pretty brutal when you are standing outside in 90 degree weather at 8 am and you don't understand an ounce of Thai, but its interesting to learn about the cultural differences. Our first full week teaching, Alexis and I had to introduce ourselves to the entire school at the morning ceremony and accept a gift from the director. It was pretty intimidating !

Our students wear uniforms and have to keep their hair a certain way depending on their age. M. 1- M.4 female students have to keep their hair in a short bob between their ears and chin and must wear it down to school. M.5 and M.6 girls wear their hair longer, and pulled back in a pony tail with a bow. Mondays at school is "formal attire" so the students must wear these special hats to school and the Thai teachers wear brown suits. On Tuesdays, the students wear pink polo shirts with our school's logo. On Fridays, the students who participate in boy or girl scouts must wear their scout uniforms. Its very interesting to see how strict they are about these uniforms, I have seen teachers cut girls hair at the morning ceremony if it was too long! Also, every morning when the students arrive they must salute the teachers on welcome duty and have their uniforms inspected. The foreign language department has to greet them on Mondays so we have to be at school by 6:45 am... which means I have to buy a delicious iced coffee from our canteen for only 10 baht !

So far, teaching has been very enjoyable. I really like my students and the other teachers in our faculty are very kind and helpful. It is a very tiring job but it keeps me busy and I am really thankful for this experience. Hopefully I can say the same thing in March when the semester is over !

Introducing ourselves at the morning ceremony week 1 !

New teachers with the director week 1- most of them are university students teaching at our school for a semester as a type of "co-op"

Kanchanapisek

Courtyard where we stand every morning for the ceremony- at least its in the shade! Sort of...

Our students had a 3 day boy and girl scout camp so Alexis and I took the opportunity of a 5 day weekend to visit the northern city of Chiang Mai. Everyone at school told us Chiang Mai was very "cold" - literally every single teacher told us it "Chiang Mai- very cold!" Well, as you will see in my photos, 90 degrees every day is not cold and I was dripping sweat every day... but the city was very beautiful and we were able to cram a lot of fun activities in the 5 days we were there.

The first thing I noticed about Chiang Mai was how much greener the city was than Bangkok. When we landed, there were beautiful mountains covered with trees in the distance. The city itself has a lot of trees and gardens and it felt really nice to be surrounded by nature rather than dust and old buildings.

The city was way more low key than Bangkok and also very easy to walk around. It was very funny to see "western" restaurants everywhere, with mexican, italian, and american food. While we were in Chiang Mai we treated ourselves to burritos, nachos, and I even tried their version of buffalo chicken ! We had a good mix of thai food as well but it was nice to mix it up and eat some familiar foods from home. There were so many tourists in Chiang Mai it was shocking to see so many 'farangs' walking around because here in Salaya, everyone stares at us for being the only foreigners.

Our first night in Chiang Mai we walked around and explored, and went to the backpackers square of bars and restaurants. It was nice to hear live music and we chatted with some other travelers. We had a long day ahead of us though because we wanted to make sure we did as much as possible during our stay. So the next day we woke up and headed for the main gate where public taxis wait to take tourists to some of the famous spots. Our first destination was Wat Doi Suthep, a very famous temple located on a mountain outside the city. The temple was a beautiful structure and had amazing buddha statues everywhere. We also had the privilege of being blessed by a monk during our visit which is very good luck here in Thailand.

After Doi Suthep, we visited the Chiang Mai zoo, whose main attraction is panda bears!! I don't think I have ever seen a panda bear before, so I was extremely excited. There were also Koala bears and a bunch of other cool animals like white tigers, panthers, jaguars, and giraffes. It was so hot walking around the zoo but it was so fun to see the animals- especially the pandas!

Sunday was a very busy day, after the zoo we went to the Chiang Mai Walking Street which is a huge night market with tons of souvenirs, food, jewelry and clothes. Alexis and I stayed from open-close and loved looking at all the different stands. We had really great street food for dinner - my personal favorite was the banana-nutella crepe that I found !! One of my signature favorites :)

Monday was another busy day! In keeping with the animal theme, we visited Tiger Kingdom, where you get to play with tigers inside their cages! Alexis and I chose to play with the baby tigers because they were sooo cute... it was a little sad because the animals were sleeping the whole time (I think they were given tranquilizers :( ) so I probably wouldn't go back, but it was a once in a lifetime experience to pat a baby tiger! Towards the end of our visit, our little guy woke up and was walking around- he had the cutest little baby face ! It was really cool. After the tigers, Alexis and I walked around the Old City and at night, Alexis got a traditional Thai tattoo using bamboo instead of a tattoo gun. She says it didn't hurt, and watching the tattoo artist use the bamboo was actually very interesting. She got the number 5 in sanskrit because there are 5 members of her family, and the number 5 is said to represent travel, independence, and new experiences. No tattoos for me !!

Tuesday we ventured outside the city and did a nature hike at Mae Sa waterfall. It was really cool because the waterfall has 10 levels where you can stop and admire the river and the surrounding nature. Some of the levels were flat with lots of rocks, and others were very steep with beautiful trees and bamboo surrounding it. Again, I was dripping sweat so level 10 was very refreshing to stop and put my feet in the cool water. It felt really good to be in nature, although some of the bugs we saw were terrifying !!

Tuesday nigh we visited the famous night bazaar, which is another huge outdoor market in Chiang Mai. After our hike, we were tired and didn't really have the motivation to shop, but in one of the buildings we saw an ad for a free "Cabaret Show" and Alexis and I were sold- Thai drag queens? What could be more entertaining??! The show was hilarious, with Whitney Houston and Beyonce impersonators and some very crazy outfits. It was very entertaining.

Our last day in Chiang Mai, Wednesday, we decided to take a Thai cooking course. This was probably my favorite activity of our trip. Our cooking instructor, Ann, was very funny calling spicy food "sexy food" and making some sexual innuendos about mashing curry paste. Her english was excellent which made the cooking course that much easier. We made friends with 2 older british ladies and 2 women from Vermont. The cooking class was great because Ann gave us an overview of Thai spices and even took us on a tour at the local market to see where you could buy the ingredients.

As a group we chose to make curry, stir fry, and soup. Within each category we had 4 choices of what meal we actually wanted to cook. I chose Panang Curry as my curry- which is a sweet curry with a peanut and coconut base. The curry was absolutely delicious- probably my favorite thing I have eaten so far here in Thailand. The soup I chose to make was kind of bland... everyone else who chose my soup was disappointed but it was still interesting to learn. The stir fry I chose was pad thai with chicken and tofu (I have become a big fan of tofu because a lot of things here are made with seafood and I needed to mix up my chicken and rice routine). The pad thai was very good and it was interesting to learn how to make such a traditional Thai dish. Overall, the cooking course was great and I learned that I am very good at chopping and dicing vegetables. As a souvenir, we got to take home a cook book of everything on their menu so maybe when I return to the states I can practice my new skills.

Wednesday afternoon we headed to Chiang Mai airport and headed back to Bangkok. We got home at around 8:15 and had to start preparing for school the next day. So far Chiang Mai has been my favorite place in Thailand. With its natural beauty and historic temples, it was really cool to see a new region of Thailand and become familiar with a new city. I definitely want to return to the northern areas of Thailand, and look forward to seeing more of this amazing country.