"May your wisdom be as wide as the ocean."

- my prayer painting... thing...

Today was our last day in Vietnam.  We taxied to the University and met with our professors there before setting out to visit a couple of pagodas.  The first was sort of like the Doi Sutep of the Hanoi area, with the temple complex being the largest and highest in the area.  No elephants expiring on the site though.  Bummer.  Ian, Patricia and I got harassed for not purchasing snacks at one of the auxilliary temples.  Vietnamese Buddhism could use a Jesus-in-the-temple figure; just about everyone we've visited has had a bunch of vendor stalls near, if not inside, it.

The second pagoda we visited was much smaller, but we spent our entire visit with the abbott, who was fantastic.  They made us a vegetarian meal for lunch.  Most were very surprised because it was the best meal we had in Vietnam.  No joke. After lunch we had question and answer time with the Abbott.  This was so amazing, despite the copious amounts of translating (interpreting) that had to occur.  We had been to monk chats and such in Thailand, and spoke with many Thai people (who have a better handle on their Buddhism than Vietnamese, since VN Buddhism really combines a bunch of other practices for most people), but this was the first time we were able to ask our questions to a learned monk, who had dedicated his life to learning about and practicing Buddhism.  In Vietnam they practice a form of Mahayana Buddhism, versus the Theravada Buddhism practiced in Thailand.  While Mahayana swears off meat entirely (and not really in VN...), where they are allowed to eat meat given certain requirements are met in Theravada Buddhism, in all other manners, Mahayana seems to be less strict than Theravada Buddhism.  For example, in Thailand, monks could not take or give something directly from or to a woman.  This is not the case in Vietnam or apparently Mahayana Buddhism in general. In the same vein, while in Thailand novice monks can participate in monk chats and just talk with people about Buddhism, fully ordained monks cannot - it's seen as fun or frivolous. So this was the first time we had been able to talk with a monk who was fully versed in Buddhist belief and teaching.  I'm not certain about others, but I definitely got clearer answers to some of my questions about Buddhism today. 

After Q & A, the Abbott made us prayer scroll things.  These are a Chinese influence, I believe, but basically they are a sort of prayer or blessing written for each individual in traditional Vietnamese characters.  Each has a main character or message in the center in large characters, and a secondary message or explanation on the right in smaller characters.  On the left, the monk who writes it signs his name.  Then a buddha image gets stamped at the very top. My prayer reads:

"May your wisdom be as wide as the sea.

May you teach your students with unending enthusiasm."

Each of the Vietnamese people translated the characters a little differently, so I feel the exact translation is a little loose or cloudy, but this pieces together my favorite translations. I can't wait to get it back home and framed and hung somewhere. :)

I also keep finding the most adorable puppies in Vietnam that I want to bring home to North Carolina with me.  But that's still a ways off in the future, and I would have a hard time sneaking one through customs. 

Leaving bright and early (5 a.m.) tomorrow for Cambodia!

"I realize that it was a bitchy and self-serving thing to do... but I have no regrets."

- fellow asia-termer

Today two of our number decided they were too cool for school, and ditched as soon as our taxi arrived at VNU.  At least one of their cooperating teachers (and possibly both) then ran around A2 looking for them all morning and we, the remainder, got to feel like shit all afternoon as our culture teachers asked repeatedly where they were and if they were okay and all we could do was look around awkwardly and tell them, essentially, that we can't respect our hosts and classmates and students enough to honor our commitments.  

I am thoroughly disappointed. 

But also pleasantly surprised by others who were just as upset by the sitch' as I was, which (let's be honest) doesn't happen very often, because I apparently have an odd sense of politeness.  

Group drama aside, today was a good day.  Andy and I worked with a third year honor's interpreting class for our morning.  I knew this must be true to some extent before, but this class showed just how much like a GIANT game of telephone translation and interpretation can be. There are simply too many nuances that get added or left behind from one language to another for it to work perfectly. 

The basic premise of this class was someone would tell a story in Vietnamese, then someone would translate it for us, then Andy and I would tell it to another student who had been outside when the story was first told (so our English was their first hearing) and finally that student would retranslate the story back into Vietnamese.  So, yeah, giant game of telephone. Most of the time it came out okay, there was one story in particular that Andy and I had a lot of trouble remembering some details - particularly numbers - because it was very long and we were not always told everything in a logical order.  When the student retelling our English story in Vietnamese finished, the original story teller was like "... Uh... No..." The teacher, who had just been listening, then explained where the mistakes had happened and what they could do better next time.  It was a very interesting experience to be there. 

They also make a distinction between "translating" (which is taught as a separate class) and "interpreting" (the class we attended).  Translating is where you have a document and you translate word by word, or sentence by sentence, where as interpreting is when you are taking in spoken information in one language, processing it and saying the same information (or story) again in a different language. I think we choose not to make this distinction as often, because we like to imagine that an interpreter is just a translation conduit, but in reality, this is not the case. How can they be?  It's the same as a 100% unbiased reporter; just not gonna happen. And I had never thought about or realized this until today when I saw the two used side by side. 

This afternoon we gave reports on our three field trips during our culture class.  The way the class was organized was very different than I had hoped/planned for, but really it was probably as much as I should have expected.  Hopefully that will make more sense when I post my report, but in short, I'm having a bit more culture shock (culture confusion?) in Vietnam than I did in Thailand.  It's not anything that disrupts my day, or makes it overly difficult to live here; it's more cultural differences that make me dislike studying here. While I'm sure some of this is me reading more into situations than I should, trying to observe and take in a foreign culture, I feel that some of my observations are valid.  I also realize I'm being vague, but I'm still working on my paper where I'm exploring this idea. I'll post it soon though, (because I have to turn it in soon) and hopefully I will be better able to express this at that time. 

This evening we are leaving for Sapa, the French-built and founded resort town. Excited. Must go pack!

Getting ready to ship out.

I currently have 43 mosquito bites, or scabs in the case of the three-week-old ones; seven patches of heat rash; and one area of massive allergic reaction from dust (at least that’s what I think it is... it developed while I was at AIDSNet and coated with a thick layer of the gray stuff). It sucks. Really if the ten or so itchy bites would stop itching and the heat rash would stop itching, I would be golden... But, alas, that’s not how these things work. Oh yeah. And I got most of those bites while wearing bug spray. And my foot is still sore from being run over by the elevator three weeks or so ago. My baby toe isn’t as swollen anymore though, which is stellar.

Aside from wanting to rip my legs off just above the knee, this week has been pretty good. Big accomplishments:

- took the final in Thai Language...didn’t completely bomb the interview part (we covered the second half of our textbook in about a third of the time we took on the first half, which meant that the train of knowledge kind of zoomed past us), and our two skits went really well. Not as fabulous as Ian, Nathan, and Ajaan John’s, which was kick-ass and incorporated pre-made props, but all things considered, it was fun. Catherine played a puppy that I was selling to Jenna. She (C.) made this part of the skit 100x better by looking unhappy when I allowed myself to be bargained down, and “barked” with happiness at the big bag of dog food (ahaan maw) rather than the small one. After that, we cut to the Doctor’s office, in which the doctor-patient consultation ended with “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes” in Thai. That’s right. We translated it - tones and all.

- Since we finished our language class, we’ve now moved on to Thai Writing. We thought the language was difficult... yeah. Whatever. Speaking is easy peasy compared to writing. Aiy. If I learn any letters or am able to read any words, I’ll be impressed. I just have no idea how I’m going to master a new alphabet. (Tips?)

- I have all of my laundry clean. Yes! No needing to pack dirty clothes in my suitcase when we leave for Vietnam!

- I discovered a way of getting through HR class without leaving frustrated - doodling. I write and doodle my angry ideas, rather than get into arguments. Not only does it make me feel better, sometimes my ideas congeal into less angry and more coherent thoughts as I doodle and so not only do I not get angry, I’m also articulate. Woo!

- Today was my last “official” day at AIDSNet. *Tear* AND -- I finished the resource center project! I am the most proud about this achievement. I really wasn’t sure I was going to finish before we left for Vietnam and Cambodia, but I did. And they threw me a “going away party” and want me to come visit. Amazing. I understood little of what was being said around me in Lanna-Thai (the northern dialect they all speak), but everyone was laughing so much, that it was contagious. And they gave me a Thai nickname - Mahlee - which means “Jasmine,” which I find to be the perfect correlation. I’ve also gotten through both booklets on paper once, so I can hopefully finish editing for them in Vietnam.

- Really, I cannot express how much I loved working at AIDSNet...I wish I could take them up on their offer to go back.

“We don’t generally know what day of the week we were born on.”

- us to our Thai teacher

We’re learning days of the week and other calendar information right now.  I can now tell all interested Thais when my birthday is. Pretty cool.  

Apparently in Thailand the newspaper horoscopes go by day of the week rather than astrological sign. So rather than being an Aries, Cancer, or Pisces, to read your horoscope in the daily paper you need to know which day of the week you were born on. Magazine horoscopes go by sign, because they’re published monthly... or something.  

Right after she teaches us the days of the week, Ajaan Jang asks us “Wan gud wan aray?” - On what day of the week were you born?  We’re like “Jigga wha? Making that shit up...” and then said random days. Drex was happy we just answered the question rather than being honest and saying we didn’t know. He tried to stress that a lot before our midterm - “You don’t actually need to know how to say all the different dishes of food,” he would tell us. “Just learn one or two you can say right away, without thinking about it. That’s all you need to do in order to pass.”

This story came from a few weeks ago, but in the flurry of Emily getting sick, I forgot to post it.  

Emily and Holly are teaching Burmese orphan refugee children English for their volunteer project.  The whole group of children are rather unwieldy and petulant.  Something about being starved of attention and suffering huge trauma before the age of 5 will do that to children.  Even in the midst of all this rambunctiousness, a few particularly bad kids stand out.  The first I heard about was Oo-Oo.  They’re pretty sure his name isn’t Oo-Oo, but he wouldn’t tell them his real name.  And he thought misbehaving was just the funniest thing ever. But apparently he’s coming around; he saved Emily from small(er) child tickle-tackle attacks the last time they went to school. 

Along with Oo-Oo another stand-out is Rock Throw Kid. The gist of the story is that one child likes to throw rocks at other children. He also hits them and runs around class a lot. (Recently he did something bad enough to warrant a visit from the principal, who carried him off by his ear.) One day, when much rock throwing occurred Em and Holly came back and discussed for a while what a problem child Rock Throw Kid was. The conversation ended like this:

Emily: “As much as I give rock throw kid a hard time for acting out, he did get kicked out of his country.” 

Holly: “Yeah, but so did head rock kid.”

*giggling*

Emily “And that is one thing that we've learned - social injustice does not beget social injustice.”

*more giggling*

I think our next installment will have to be Holly’s Song-Taow Chronicles. She has some great stories. All the exciting things happen to her.  Included will also be Andy and Chris’s Great Tuk-Tuk Adventure.  

“If you stand in the same place for too long, the sticky comes off on your feet.” “...Eew. It does!”

Laos, Day 2... And return to Chiang Mai

On our second day in Laos the whole group of us nine students decided to trek to the waterfall and possibly on a cave tour as a group. We decided to meet for breakfast and head out as soon as possible afterwards. That was as far as our planning got. We had no idea where the waterfall was or if we could walk or if we had to take a taxi. We didn't even really know how to get a boat/cave tour. Oh yeah, and we're in Laos so we don't speak the language at all. Fun.

We set out, swimsuits on under our clothes, and walk the 15 minutes from our hotel to the main "downtown" of Luang Prabang. We're starting to squabble about whether to just ask a taxi or try to get a tour company to help us when one of the taxi drivers stops to talk to us.

Now, the taxis in Laos are a bit different than those in Chiang Mai. In Chiang Mai you have a handful of regular taxis, but mostly people get around using song-taows - covered pickup trucks with benches in the back (also called rot-dang or "red machine", because song-taows are almost exclusively red) - or tuk-tuks (covered three-wheeled motorbikes with a bench on the back). In Luang Prabang the most common sight was the love child of song-taows and tuk-tuks, which we christened the song-tuk. This name makes no sense if you look at the Thai etymology, but it's definitely fun to say.

So, back to the song-tuk driver. We try to explain to him in a mix of broken Thai and English that we need to get 9 people to the waterfall, and we want to know how much and how long this will take us. It took about 15 minutes for us to get the whole deal worked out, but eventually everyone is satisfied that the driver is going to take us to the waterfall and bring us back, and he'll do it for a reasonable price. Sweet. Then we take a closer look at the back of the song-tuk and worry a little about it both fitting us all and getting 9 Americans (who are fairly larger than Lao and Thai people) all the way to the top of the mountain. Hmm... but no time for nay-sayers! We're going to the waterfall. :) This is why I love traveling with this group.

It takes us over an hour to get up to the park where the waterfall is located, and our song-tuk gets a flat tire when we're about 15 minutes from the park. But the drive up is gorgeous. Laos is very green and has these beautiful mountains that while not as young and rugged as the Rockies are also not yet as old and rounded as the Appalachians. They're teenaged mountains and are a fabulous mix of points and outcrops, but still completely green. Gorgeous. And some farms have a rice crop in the field right now, which is not the case in Chiang Mai, so we all spent the ride up taking a ton of pictures. I kept trying to take pictures of the villages and towns we drove through to the point that people started telling me to stop. But I couldn't. I'll post some of the best when I have some time.

Once we get to the park, we find out we still need to purchase tickets for the waterfall itself, and the ticket people are very cranky because we only have baht rather than kip (last time I listen when Drexler says we don't need to change money). We're also pretty sure that they over charged us. But it was still worth every penny.

The waterfall we visited has about a bajillion levels as the water makes it's way down the mountain to the rice paddies and eventually the Mekong. I started by walking up to the base of the main falls. You aren't allowed to swim in this part of the falls anymore - although they have lots of postcards with people swimming, so I think you could in the past. Once we were done climbing around on the rocks and taking pictures, most of our group wandered back down the hiking trail a ways, until we reached a quiet pool where we decided to swim. Our pool was not posted as a swimming or no swimming area, and we took the lack of signage to mean that it was allowed, just not publicized. We quickly found out why it wasn't publicized, too. There were lot and lots of rocks at unpredictable intervals. The were mostly rounded but you could still scrape shins and elbows on them if you weren't careful. Also, the decaying leaves and sand made a very squishy and sticky bottom of the pool, and as we found out - if you stood in one place for too long the bottom would coat your feet with the sticky slime. Fun! Despite this, swimming was still a blast. And very refreshing (read - freezing cold). 

That night we went to see a performance of traditional Lao dance.  They performed a portion of the Ramayana - think Beowulf, or Illiad/Odessy, or King Arthur and then make it Asian and Buddhist, and then you kind of have a cultural understanding of the Ramayana. It tells the story of two lovers who go through a bunch of rebirths and perils in order to be together. He goes to war and she gets kidnapped but remains chaste.  The part of the story we saw involved the Princess being tempted by two separate men - one of whom wanted to kill her handmaids too - and not only did she refuse them and remain chaste, she also saved her handmaids.  Pretty badass for a pouty princess. 

After the dance, we went out to dinner and had delicious pizza. Drex also wanted us to try Mekong Whiskey.  I still like girlier drinks better. Drex and I also had the "what are you going to do with your life" talk. His daughter just graduated with a masters in journalism and he seems to think that would be great for me to do. I still think I'm gonna end up teaching girls in Pakistan or working with some group in Africa.  I don't really have active plans for either, I just feel like it's an eventuality at this point.  I also told Drex that I'm still thinking about grad/law school at some point. His response was something about how all of that could still lead to journalism. Apparently he really thinks I should grow up to be Samantha Power. 

After dinner we spent some time at the market, looking around mostly, and then headed back to the hotel.  As this is going on I'm hearing the first stories about a ghostly visit that two of our party supposedly had at the hotel the night before. 

It was pretty freaky stuff.  Vera couldn't sleep on one side of her bed, because the ghost would push her until she moved. She and Michelle both saw someone that was not either of them in the room that night. Then my roommate tells me she wants to sleep in the haunted room with Becca, leaving me alone for the night. 

So we're all in a bit of a creepy mood when we get back to the hotel, at which point Becca finds her key missing. Did the ghost steal it? Vera and Michelle were going to stay with Becca, rather than in the haunted room - was this the ghost's way of trying to dissuade them from leaving? This is what everyone was thinking, but, priorities, we get the hotel to unlock Becca's room and check to see all of her things are still there... Everything's there, but it's been moved... Definitely the ghost.  

Or as it turned out two creepy men, who turned the key in the next morning.  Becca had moved out of her room and into mine and Catherine's the evening before, once we were certain the desk clerk hadn't just misplaced the key.  Ghost or no ghost, no one was okay with her sleeping in that room when someone, or something, else had the key. 

The next morning we left and flew back to Chiang Mai.  Nothing too exciting happened. We had the same flight attendant as we did on the flight to Laos. That was kinda crazy. 

And that was my adventure in Laos. 

“I just ate a baby animal?!” - Laos Day 1

Friday we left for Laos.  We were only staying the weekend, and this was definitely the lightest I have ever packed. Ever. I was pretty proud of myself. I even used everything that I brought - including the deck of cards, which was probably the biggest stretch. Before we left for the Chiang Mai Airport on Friday morning, I spent 60 baht on all-organic (read all citronella) bug spray, because, well, I forgot to start my malaria meds on time... oops. I was a day late.  And really, only 12 hours late. So not horrible, and better than one member of our group who just decided not to take his. I am being a good kid though and taking them for the full week after the day we got back, and I'm even making sure to take them at the same time everyday.  I take meds the way Emily takes care of her diabetes - "Why do I feel funny? Oh yeah. I haven't taken drugs (or in her case insulin) yet today."

But anyway. Laos. Or Lao People's Democratic Republic as the country is apparently called. 

We cancelled class for Friday and took off for the airport at 11.  As we're all gathering downstairs with our overnight bags, Ajaan John turns up with a HUGE bunch of bananas.  He was out walking and decided we might all like to have some food for the airport.  Luckily for him security, while frequent at the Chiang Mai Airport (we went thru three times), was not very strict, so he was able to bring them through to the waiting area, and may have even brought some on the plane. 

While we were waiting to board our flight, I started editing the English language booklets for my NGO. I had tried to do this once before, but got intimidated by this opening paragraph "Students at the age of curiosity: experimenting with off-class sex education.  At the conjuncture age, high school students have much to learn and cope with changes in relation to the environment."  Jigga wha!? (and yes I have been channeling Amelia lately.)  I still don't know what to do with that, so at the airport I started in on the other booklet, and got through about half of it during our weekend trip. It was interesting though, because I did a lot more editing of "quotes" than I have ever done before.  I figure people know how to speak, someone just doesn't quite know how to translate their articulate comments from Thai so that they are equally articulate in English.  I'm just taking it that next step. 

So not only did we go through security three times at the airport, not only was our boarding delayed for almost an hour (no clue why).  The whole Lao Airlines experience was pretty different than other plane rides I've taken.  When it was finally time for us to board, we exit the gate, but there is no plane in sight. Instead we get on busses that are built like a cross between tour busses and subway cars. After about 15 seconds on the bus, we've gone around the corner of the airport building and are stopping in front of the smallest, most brightly colored airplane I have ever seen.  The Lao Airlines logo is very tropical and once you climb the stairs into the back of the plane, the upholstry is even more neon and flowery.  I was impressed. It was dreadful. Once we're airborne they conduct the fastest meal service I have ever experienced - it seems even more harried than the 45 minute flight from CR to Chicago, despite it being an hour long flight. It is also the shortest safety presentation - basically they told us how to fasted our seatbelts, that there were four exits and to read the safety card for all other information.  (On the way home, the woman sitting next to me says something like "that's basically their way of saying 'don't bother. if we go down in this plane you're screwed anyway.")

Our hotel in Laos was beautiful.  Lots of dark wood, everywhere; comfy beds and soft pillows (a nice change from Thailand; dressers (not that we needed them for two days); complimentary drinking water; and a GORGEOUS rooftop garden. I think Emily and I declared "This roof garden kicks Mountain View's garden's ass!" You could see all the mountains surrounding Luang Prabang and there were hammocks to sit and read in. Sweet!  Emily still got bored of the roof pretty quick and decided we should go walking around the town. 

While Luang Prabang is a fairly large city as far as Laos goes, and is possibly the most popular tourist spot (due to having two rivers - both called Mekong - caves and a waterfall in or close to the town) it is tiny compared to Chiang Mai, and even Cedar Rapids. It's probably closer to the size of Mahtomedi or White Bear Lake, Minnesota - where I grew up. We wandered around the two wats (or vats in Lao, but still said like a "w") next to our hotel. At the first vat, we saw a guy jogging around the chedi. Em and I joked how he was gaining merit while getting his exercise - multi-tasking, Buddhist style! I bought postcards for 8 baht at the market between the two wats. A lot of people here in Chiang Mai like to charge 20 B. It makes me sad. After the vats we just wandered around the city for a while up and down the two streets by our hotel - which were not, in fact, the most interesting, but we didn't want to get lost. Our wanderings also included a quest for Lao music we had heard from our roof, and occasionally caught snippets of while elsewhere on the street. Turned out it was coming from another vat at the end of the block. 

Things that struck us while we walked were, in no particular order: fewer street animals, less western looking structures, the cobbled street and sidewalk, less smog, more small children and young mothers, fewer motorized vehicles and those that existed were more likely to be motor bikes than trucks (including the "song-tuks" as we christened them - the size of song-taows, but pulled by a three-wheeled motor bike (like tuk-tuks) rather than a truck), and bikes were more popular than anything, lots of wood or coal fires, rather than electric things, fewer lights on patios or at vender stands. 

The vats we walked around and others we passed all had what we think were Mara images.  Emily and I couldn't figure out why they would want to build Mara statues, since Mara represents all the worldly vices that the Buddha had to ignore to reach enlightenment and then worked to subdue.  One of the poses of the Buddha is actually called "Subduing Mara." Mara is usually represented by a woman with uber long hair that she's wielding like a whip. These statues were definitely women with whip-like hair, but she didn't look as crazed as Mara usually does. So... I'm not sure if they were or not [Edit - Monday - So apparently they are not Mara images but instead are the Rice Goddess - Mae Phosop (meaning Mother Rice) who is very, very important in Northern Thai and Lao folklore and traditional religion.  Not Mara; Mae (said Mah) Phosop (said Pohso).]

Along with vat vs. wat there are other subtle differences between Thai and Lao.  They're similar enough that whenever people were talking, I felt like I should be able to understand at least something, but I didn't. Here are some English-Thai-Lao comparisons:

Thank you (very much) : Kop khun (mak) kha : Kop jai (lai lai)

Dollar : Baht : Kip

Hello : Sawadee kha : Sa bai dee

How are you : Sa bai dee : I actually don't know this Lao, but notice that "Hello" in Lao is the same as "How are you" in Thai.

The last great adventure of our first day in Laos was going out to dinner at a French/Lao restaurant.  They mostly just served French food, some of it with a Lao twist.  I had the most delicious pumpkin soup, ever. Oh I wish that could be in my life more often. Two of the other people I was traveling with decided to order meats they had never had before - quail for Nikki and lamb for Gen. As we're about halfway through out main dishes and sampling each other's food, Gen asks "What's the difference between lamb and sheep anyway? Is it male and female?" "No. Sheep is the adult and lamb is the baby," I respond. Gen's eye's get wide and her jaw drops as she gets this petrified look on her face.  As we start to ask her if she's okay she says "I just ate a baby animal?!" and starts apologizing to her lamb. Nikki, Holly and I try to calm her down, explaining that lambs live good lives and it's not a baby, persay, just a younger sheep. But she pushes her plate away a little and starts to cry. "I just feel so bad. I'm so guilty I ate a baby."  

My telling of the story is most likely no where near as funny as it was in real life, but as it happened Holly and I were in silent stitches. I have never seen anyone get so upset over food before, and I watched my younger brother freak out over a feed-lot and give up burgers for a month. Gen is such a sweetie. :)

Introspection and a Rant

Today I apparently reached a boiling point of sorts.  

It started a few weeks ago, when we got into a debate about Buddhism during our Human Rights class. A sub-group couldn't accept that a religion founded by a prince leaving his wife and child could have as its goal the end of suffering or have anything to add to the study and protection of human rights. This sub-group also took great issue with the buddhist ideal of unattachment.  All of their comments in class went something like this "Maybe it's because I haven't really studied Buddhism in-depth, but I don't understand how (x precept of Buddhism) can be a good thing."  So, those of us (such as myself) who have studied Buddhism, would try to jump in and explain the concept at hand.  Granted we generally did so via trying to relate it to something similar in western culture or Christianity, but even when we didn't, our thoughts, suggestions and interpretations were shot down as invalid. We were wrong every time we tried to defend eastern thought as not less than western thought, just different. Everything had to be value judgements, and our comfort zone had to be ascribed the higher value. 

It was infuriating. My roommate (the other person who attempted to explain Buddhist thought) and I vented for a while after class, and the next day I let it go.  Whatever, people are entitled to opinions, and westerners (particularly Americans) are famous for believing they are always right and therefore better. And I figured I wasn't completely innocent on that count either. 

That next weekend, we went to visit an NGO that works to provide women living in the Burmese refugee camps with a means of income, allowing them to provide for their families while living in Thailand. Like many of the NGOs we're hearing from, most of what they do is technically not allowed by the Thai government, and these women are taking a risk in talking with us.  As with about half of the NGOs, it's run by people who are farang, just as we are.  In this case, the women running the organization are Filipino.  English is their third language.  But to many of my compatriots this does not mean that we should put out any extra effort to understand the complexities of the work the NGO does, or try to work within and accept the language barrier we are functioning through. Rather than showing any understanding, a few people spend the entire walk back from the NGO, opining about how the group doesn't do enough (no shit, the Thai and Burmese governments won't let them), or that the women presenting to us didn't satisfactorily answer a particular question (which she did answer, just not as directly as a native english speaker would have).

Again, I didn't argue much.  It didn't seem like a battle that could be won, so why fight it? But it did start me simmering a little.

This last week, things really started to "overcook my grits." (Come on! Anyone get the reference?) On Monday, Kacie and I met with an Ajaan at Maw Chaw who Drex describes as "a force of nature," which she is.  Ajaan Nok is wildly intelligent and gender/social change oriented and wanted to find a way to hook Kacie and I up with English majors with similar interests to help us with our gender-related independent studies. Ajaan Nok suggested that we attend some presentations of five majors final English capstone projects that were occurring later that week (Wed. - Fri.).  The idea behind the projects is that all the senior english majors due this massive research project as one of their final classes, and then they create some kind of public presentation, whether that's a poster presentation at the Faculty of Humanities presentation day, or something else, they don't care. So this year, 4 students put on dramatic presentations relating to their research and it ended up being all 11 of us that went to each presentation rather than just Kacie and I, which was fine, in general. 

The first of these presentations was on Wednesday afternoon.  It consisted of a series of Bob Dylan songs performed by a group of CMU English students. The English major doing the project played guitar and enlisted friends to sing and play bass, keyboard and drums. Before each song, the researching student would introduce it, telling the title, the album it was originally released on, the year, at a little about the American context of the song. Then they would perform, and after the song the student would explain more about the original meaning of the song in American society and culture and then compare that to contemporary Thailand. After the Dylan performance, there was another on "Black Music" (his - the thai student's - words, not mine).  This one really didn't make a whole lot of sense and didn't seem well researched or considered at all. I was frustrated though on the way home, because not only did people tear apart the second performance, they also ravaged the Dylan one as well.  This continued all week, and grew to include the third and fourth performances (Pocahontas and Phantom of the Opera) as well. 

There is a time and a place for being critical and discussing gaps in a presentation or an argument, but I truly feel this was not it. 

Yes, racial discrimination in Thailand is different than it was in the United States.  There is not the history of slavery and does not appear to be the complete hatred that was pervasive in U.S. culture. But there is segregation to the extreme with hill-tribe people not being allowed to leave villages to work or gain an education and there is a sense that they constitute a different race, a separate people not worthy of full citizenship or rights in Thai society.  These differences do not mean that the situation is any less serious than racism in the United States; it is still a huge problem to overcome and a valid comparison to make.  

Yes, the "black music" presentation kind of missed the boat. A lot. But do we need to continue harping on it for two weeks? Pocahontas as well - yeah it was a disney remake and not a true representation of the Pocahontas story, but how many Americans know the true story? Yeah, not a whole lot. Why should you expect Thais to?

And Phantom was fucking fantastic. Yes, most of the singers were untrained, but let's see you do any better when you perform a condensed Thai opera, okay? Then you can judge. 

Today in our Thai culture class, it was happening again. We had a Thai ajaan come to speak about gender in Thailand. She started her talk by saying that she wouldn't have time to talk about men as much, so her talk was going to focus on women.  Being someone who tries to give simplified talks, I saw this merely as an attempt at full disclosure - saying "Hey - this is usually something I would teach in a semester, and I'm gonna try and boil it down to two hours." This was apparently, though, just another thing to criticize. As was her points about the way children's literature reinforces stereotypical gender roles. Really, the whole argument came down to a complete misunderstanding and disrespect for feminism and feminist thought, but it also was another chance to criticize the Thais and call them stupid. Trying to avoid conflict (as is my m.o.) I head for the song-taow - headphones in hand.  I stop to talk to two other students, who are also fuming (but I think about different issues).  As a result of this momentary hold up, I can't get into the song-taow, get the music playing and turned up loud enough in time to miss hearing all the ranting going on as everyone hops in and sits down... and... I snap. 

Comment: How can you be like "this is a talk on gender" and then say that you're going to completely ignore one gender?!

Me: Okay.  That's not fair - that's just what you call it - even in America - it's "gender studies" when perhaps it really means "women's studies." And while that might be a valid criticism, it's not a reason to write off her whole fucking talk --

Comment: I don't know if that's what we were trying to do --

Me: It's not just this time - there are other instances too.  All the student presentations?  I'm so fucking sick and tired of us all being so critical and condescending of every Thai presentation we go to.  We're supposed to be here to learn about another culture. This is not fucking America, this is their second language, cut them some slack. Be fucking respectful. 

Then I checked out... I really, really did not want to fight, no matter how much those sound like fighting words. I did want to be heard and listened to, just once, which probably didn't happen... but oh well. I wasn't really a bastion of reason when I let that one loose. 

When we got back, I was the last one to get out of the song-taow and I paced around outside for a couple of minutes so that I didn't have to see anyone. Luckily for me it was also my roommate's music lesson day, so she hadn't come back with us, leaving me the room to myself.  I spent the rest of the afternoon alone, and even made someone knock on my door three times before I would open it.  You know I'm pissed when I'm feeling that misanthropic. 

The whole point of this is not to rant about my group, or to badmouth anyone or our trip.  It was an interesting experience for me to work on writing this and discover just how much emphasis I put on respecting others and being curious about the culture around me, and to realize that others to not necessarily place the same kind of emphasis on these things.  I truly feel like a guest and as though I have a job to learn about my hosts (the people of Thailand).  I can't and shouldn't just carry on as I always have.  I need to learn their language, or at least be making an effort to while I'm here - not just expecting to be able to get by with English. And it frustrates me when others feel they can simply decide that Thai is "an ugly language" that they shouldn't need to study - the vendors understand pointing and grunts, why isn't that enough?  In my mind, it simply isn't. It's disrespectful and unacceptable. We are guests and we are students. Be respectful, understanding, open to learning something. 

Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?  Am I completely crazy?  If you think so, you can tell me, I'm used to it. And, I'm curious.  These are my e-two cents. Fire away. 

Only viewers in the United States can watch these full-length episodes.

- ABC.com

This message just ruined Emily's and my night.  We were going to catch up on the Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice and Pushing Daisies, but no. No. Thai people aren't good enough for online episodes. Sad face.

My apologies for all the long, long posts as of late.  I'll try to keep them a bit more brief in the future for everyone's sake.  

On Friday (1/23), Thai class got very interesting.  We played a relay game where we had to perform basic math in Thai (with the goal of learning numbers - I'll have to remember this tactic for when I'm teaching). We were split into two teams, and whichever team could finish the stack of problems first won the relay.  First off, my team won the relay, which basically makes us Thai masters.  Second, it was pretty fun - and funny.  It was great to see the enthusiasm of everyone (especially a-jaan John, who actually bounced up and down at one point) and the different competitive strategies each person employed.  We also tried to learn the names of different foods, and failed miserably.  Seriously, how were we supposed to memorize "sweet and sour stir fried vegetables with minced pork" and the like in ten minutes?

Friday night a-jaan Bob took us out to a restaurant that specializes in northern Thai dishes.  He was most excited about feeding us fried raw pork sausage.  It was better than I expected, but I still couldn't eat much more than a bite.  I just kept thinking about the House episode where a woman almost dies from a parasite she picked up from under-cooked pork.  So, yeah, the sausage was fried, but it was also still somewhat raw, and I have a goal to avoid worms at least as well as I avoid fungus (aka mushrooms, which I refuse to eat).  The three different kinds of chicken and fish curry and fried pumpkin were way better than raw pork.  

After our incredible dinner, Drex took a small group of us to the wine bar he promised to show me.  It seemed more like the central locale for the European and New Zealand/Australia ex-pats, rather than the center of the GLBT community, but was a ton of fun nonetheless.  Emily, Holly, Kacie and I were all finishing our drinks when the server came over with four smaller glasses and a carafe of more wine.  Before we can correct his apparent mistake, he's distributed the glasses and is pouring us glasses of chardonnay.  He says to us "This wine comes from Buddha" which sounds a bit sketchy to the group of us Christian foreigners.  As we look at him a bit questioningly he continues "This means that someone has gotten it for you, but doesn't want you to know who they are.  So, it's from Buddha."  

From all of us - Thanks, Buddha.  Your gift definitely made my night wonderful.

After we got sick of telling ghost stories over white wine, we decided to catch a song-taow back to the guesthouse. Our song-taow already had a few other people in it (a single lady, a couple and their child), so we took a detour to drop them off.  When they got out the driver got in an argument with one of the riders.  We think that we witnessed our first ride and dash and the driver wanted the woman to pay for herself and the three other people who ran off. Here's hoping that never happens to a group of us. 

Today (Saturday 1/24), we went to see a famous temple located on a mountain that overlooks Chiang Mai.  The ride up and down from the mountain top was INSANE.  The road was originally built by buddhists trying to make merit, a way long time ago.  I don't think the angles, curves, slopes - anything - has been reevaluated since the road was originally built for foot and cart traffic.  Now it's a bit wider and paved, but still has crazy steep inclines and over 180-degree curves, many of which are blind. Also add into that mix Thai drivers' penchants for lane markings being suggestions, speed limits ignored, and you end up with the group of us wondering if the four-hour walk up the mountain might not have been a better idea. 

At (almost) the top of the mountain sat Doi Sutep, a very grand wat.  On the outer wall of the wat, a beautiful mural depicted the story of Buddha and his journey to enlightenment.  Drexler took us around and told the story.  Every once in a while we would reach a panel where he would say something like "And I don't know what this is, so don't ask me about it." After we explored the Buddha story, each of us wandered the wat on our own or in small groups.  Some of us have begun giving offerings at the wats we visit, becoming a little more Buddhist each time.  I find it calming and a great way to be spiritual or religious on this trip with a group of secularists. Give offerings and pray at wats, come home and say a rosary before bed. That's how I do. 

Out side the temple itself there were a great many vendors selling everything from food to postcards to other souveneirs, secular and religious.  We all ended up gorging ourselves on banana corndogs (a corndog, but with a banana rather than a hotdog inside), banana chips, and sticky rice in a bamboo tube (which has a Thai name, but I forget it).  I got chased by a lady determined to sell me a bell.  

After Doi Sutep, we went a little further up the mountain to visit a hill tribe village.  I was interested to discover that the tribe we were visiting was Hmong, since I know many Hmong from the Twin Cities.  The hill tribes - Hmong and others - that are native to Thailand apparently used to recieve all of their income from opium plantations, but unlike in, say, Colombia, the Thai government has been much more successful in helping the tribes transition from opium to other forms of agriculture and trade.  That said, the tribes are also subject to great discrimination because many were forced to immigrate here from other countries and most are now denied Thai citizenship, so they live in this stateless limbo. At least the Thais aren't killing them, like the Chinese and Burmese were. 

After the Hmong village, we went to visit a jade factory. I think Drex had built it up a little bit.  It was interesting, but not as exciting as he had made it sound. 

That night Patricia and I went out for coffee and to catch up, which was excellent.  She's so happy and adorable right now.  I tell her it's nauseating, but really, it just makes me smile.  After, we got drinks at the bar.  Mine was neon blue and called an Adios Motherfucker.  Not as delicious as I had hoped.  It was also Gen's birthday, so we had chocolate cake.  For a country that loves their flavors - one of which is sugar - Thais really fail at making sweets. Patricia and I are thinking about walking across town to get dark chocolate M&Ms at the one 7-11 that carries them.  Chocolate has become our black market. 

After unsealing, please quickly drink down.

 - bottle of green tea with milk

To quickly catch us up on the last three days, on Tuesday (1/20) Emily and I spent the morning working on our Human Rights readings for a-jaan John (a-jaan being Thai for teacher).  We decided that we wanted to wander for a place to read, because sitting in the guesthouse felt like a waste of Thailand. 

The first couple of readings were somewhat frustrating.  First, I disliked the way both authors wrote.  They came off as rather western and condescending. Second, I feel the authors placed too much emphasis on certain rights, at the expense of more basic rights/needs.  They were awfully focused on civil/political rights (like voting, protesting, unions, independent free press, etc.) rather than whether or not people have food, water, shelter, a means of living. I'm not saying civil and political rights aren't important or necessary or deserved, but how can you worry about whether or not someone can protest their government if they don't have food to eat? And, to repeat the oft-asked African Politics question, why is western/American democracy the only "right" way to govern a country? Third, the reading was extremely dense and, I would submit, a bad choice for a first class.  Especially when you view how class actually went, but I'll get to that in a minute. 

In our wanderings Em and I found ourselves in a residential area, fairly free of farong.  We stopped for a while at a shop where the matron did not speak english and the three of us used some pretty kick ass pantomiming skills to buy/sell drinks. She was the sweetest lady too, very smiley and friendly. 

We stayed there for a while, but we really wanted some coffee or milk tea, so after about an hour we wandered some more, and found a guesthouse cafe, that was full of farong.  They sold coffee grown by a nearby hill tribe, which was okay - tasted kind of like espresso.  I miss Costa Rican coffee.  As we were contemplating lunch, a-jaan John (whose homework we were doing) walked into the cafe and asked to join us. Turns out the cafe was one of the premier vegetarian eateries in Chiang Mai.  Who knew? We all tried vegetarian versions of northern Thai specialties.  Emily had some sort of curry. I had finely chopped tofu-meat with spicy veggies over rice. John was so excited that they served brown, instead of white, rice. 

After lunch it was time for Thai class at Maw Chaw, so we boarded our song-taow and set off across town.  Now, each year, as western bodies adjust to eastern bugs, the students all get some rough stomach ailments.  A-jaan Bob guesses that we either bring the stomache flu with us from Coe, or its Asian digestive bacteria kicking the American digestive bacteria out of our GI tracts.  Each year, the ailment is named after the first student to get it.  This year it's named after my roommate, Holly (nickname Holly-Bolly) but the best being sick story goes to Chris, Bolly victim number two.  As we rode to Maw Chaw on Tuesday, the Bollys caught up with Chris and he vomited out the back of the song-taow all across the city streets of Chiang Mai. By the end of class three hours later he was fine. So the Bollys (or Woerhles or Claytons as previous years know them) go.  

Tuesday in Thai class we learned how to introduce ourselves, say how we are feeling and where we are from.  Here's what I know:

Sa-wa-ti kha. Di-chan chuu Heather kha.  Di-chan naam-sakun Lewis kha. Di-chan mai chuu-len kha (I don't have a nickname). 

Sa-bai-di (I am well). 

Di-chan maa-jaak muang Mahtomedi, rak Minnesota, pra-theet America kha.  Baan di-chan yu thii tha-non Wedgewood kha (My house is on the street Wedgewood).

I can also ask for all of that information.  Pretty sweet. 

After class we went to a-jaan Bob's favorite place to sit and write.  It's a fantastic tea shop a couple of blocks from the main gate of Maw Chaw.  I asked if there was a bathroom in Thai and was understood; I'm pretty proud. Emily got the most amazing peach tea - it tasted like biting into a warm peach, no joke. Bob said this was his favorite place, because it's the only shop in Chiang Mai that can successfully make western cakes; everywhere else they taste like cardboard, but these were delicious.  Along with the great refreshments, we also had a really fantastic conversation, granted about Coe and Cedar Rapids, mostly, rather than Thailand, but thought provoking nonetheless. It was nice to talk with our two a-jaans for a while, rather than simply asking something about Thai or how to get somewhere. 

After the tea shop, a group of us went to the mall.  Along with exploring, we had a pretty diverse list of purchases to make (sandals, towel, alarm clocks, shower curtain, cell phones, phone cards... ). The mall here has (I think) four floors.  The bottom floor is mostly food stalls and technology stores.  On the third floor we found a department store.  I bought sandals from a shoe shop on the second floor.  The only real difference from the malls at home was that the open areas of the mall had been taken over by vendors of various items.  Some appeared to be overflow from nearby stores, but others were independent.  It was kind of like having a kiosk at the malls back home, but bigger.  Think outdoor market meets mall kiosk. The food court area was this way as well. 

Since it had gotten dark while we were shopping and getting massages (yes we stopped for Thai massages at the mall - proceeds went to the senior citizens' club), we decided to ride back.  Instead of taking song-taows, we decided to live on the wild side and take tuk-tuks. While song-taows are most definitely road worthy and safe, one questions if tuk-tuks can claim the same, being glorified tricycles. As we drove through the mall's parking garage ramps, it felt like we were on a roller coaster and going around curves always made you wonder if the tuk-tuk would stay upright, but it was so much fun and also 5 baht cheaper than a song-taow once we haggled down the price.  

When we got back from the mall, Kacie, Emily  and I went to a local bar and had a couple of drinks and discussed homesickness and our mild culture shock (really inspiring conversation, huh?).  Kacie and Emily got one of the best cocktails I've ever had.  Next time we go out I'm writing down what's in it so I can add it to the Cocktail Hour bar book, right next to the Agua de Sevilla. 

Once back from the bar, we watched the inauguration proceedings.  What was with John Roberts fumbling the oath of office? Congratulations to our new President!

Wednesday (1/21) everyone slept in after our late night watching the inauguration.  We had our third day of Thai class, where the highlight was harrassing a group of Thai CMU students so we could practice asking and receiving answers about names, nicknames, where people are from, and where they're currently staying. It was one of the most awkward experiences of my life. For a very descriptive retelling by Chris, click here.

Wednesday afternoon Kacie, Emily and I went to a cafe by CMU to finish our reading for a-jaan John's Human Rights class.  The cafe described itself as a milk bar and served a strange assortment of milkshakes, toast, garlic bread and mashed potatoes.  Needless to say we binged a little on the American flavors.  Then we flagged ourselves a song-taow to get back to the guesthouse. As with each time we manage to do something on our own, we were a little proud of ourselves. 

During our song-taow ride, Kacie initiated an interesting discussion about culture shock.  She feels that Thailand isn't really all that different from the U.S., that it is just as consumerist, citing the malls, markets and the expensive trinkets our Maw Chaw buddies have.  I guess I feel differently.  Wandering the city (both here and in Bangkok), you do see many shops but most are selling food and other things people need for their daily lives.  There also is not the largesse and excess that is so rampant as you wander the streets of Minneapolis, Washington, or Chicago.  People here aren't forming corporations, dealing with imaginary money, building high-rises.  They're doing what business they can to make a living. I realize this is a generalization; there are well-off Thais and a lot of resources go to keeping the temples dazzling with their gold-leaf everything.  But I guess I, unlike Kacie, feel a difference. I can't go buy a bottle of champaigne at 10 pm (like we tried to do for the inauguration); the mall closes at 8 so everyone can go home, see their kids. All the drinks you buy at cafes or on the street are tiny - they last me five or ten minutes, versus the at least a half hour at home. At the 7-11 people buy one drink or one snack at a time, versus us Americans who go in and buy three or four things at once.  Yeah, our student buddies have the newest cell phones and Mo has a wicked expensive car, but I'm not sure that's the rule either; and I'm pretty certain the huge markets are at least partially for the benefit of tourists. 

Long story short, perhaps the cultural differences are not as pronounced as we had been lead to believe they were, but I definitely wouldn't go so far as to say that I feel totally at home here either. 

Yesterday, (Thursday 1/22) we didn't have Thai class because Maw Chaw was having their graduation ceremony, complete with a visit from the princess.  So, instead of Thai class we each met with John and Bob to discuss our independent studies.  Mine has changed a bit from the original topic.  Bob and John suggested, as we were in the Chicago airport, that I direct The Vagina Monologues in Chiang Mai.  It seems that it will end up working out, since there is a group of English majors that need to do a performance-based final project. My final project then, would be to write a monologue based on the stories of the thai women I meet. I think it has the potential to go very well and be extremely interesting, but a lot of the factors that would make it successful or not are out of my control, which makes me nervous. I don't really like resting my grade and graduating GPA on circumstances I can't control, but John and Bob seem to think it will be amazing, so here goes! I still plan to try and learn as much as I can about kateoy culture, and hopefully integrate that into my monologue, but John thinks focusing on TVM will be a better use of my time right now, which is probably legitimate since I had been wanting to do a soc-like project, but really had no idea how to go about it. 

Also with our free day, we went to wat Jedii Luang so we could participate in monk chats. Monk Chats are basically what the name implies.  English speakers go to the wat and talk to monks who want to learn or practice their English skills. Most of the time we discussed monk life and Buddhist thought. Probably the most interesting tid-bit we learned is that the only monks who can participate in chats are the younger monks and novice monks.  Fully ordained/higher level monks can't have fun or talk to women, which excludes them from the chats. When our monk told us this, I kind of felt like I was helping to lead him away from his goal of attaining enlightenment.  But he seemed good for a chat, so I didn't feel too guilty. 

Today (Friday 1/23) we go back to CMU for language class.  I think this next lesson is on food. 

First Days in Chiang Mai

Sunday (1/18) we arrived in Chiang Mai, via train from Bangkok. We all looked a bit worse for wear after spending a night on the train and wanted nothing more than to reach the guesthouse so we could shower and change clothes. But these thoughts were temporarily driven from our minds by the amazing welcoming committee from the university that met us at the train station. Two professors and four students came. If I understood everything right, the profs were our program director and one of our Thai professors, and the students are going to serve as our official guides to Chiang Mai University and city. They helped us with our luggage and into song-taows (red pick-up trucks with the bed converted into benches - they serve as busses around Chiang Mai) and brought us garlands that are some kind of buddhist good-luck charm.

The city of Chiang Mai has an old city and a new city. The old city lies in the southwest quadrant of the whole of Chiang Mai and is separated from the new city by a brick wall in varying states of still standing to decrepit. The wall originally fortified the city against attack. Outside the wall lies a moat, again originally built to further protect the city. Now the moat has fountains and fish and at least portions of it are being used to test a new water quality regimen.

The old city wall has four original gates, one for each cardinal direction. Our guesthouse (Mountain View Guesthouse) is located just inside the north gate, also known as Chang Puak Gate (or White Elephant Gate in English). Once we had showered, changed clothes and relaxed a bit after the train ride, we trekked from the north gate to the new city side of the east gate for a Sunday night walking market. This market was HUGE. It takes over a square that is a daily market and then the next four or five blocks as well. Nikki, Gen and I wandered the market together, haggling for some deals and trying to take in as much as we could. I have some pictures of the crowd and street musicians, which I will post as soon as I can get pictures off my camera (I apparently forgot my cord stateside).

On our way back from the market we got lost and decided to ask for directions after hitting a handful of dead ends and finding ourselves next to the prison. It turns out we really were only a couple of blocks too far west and not far enough north.

Monday (1/19) we started our lives as Chiang Mai University students. That morning I couldn't wait to go downstairs and see us all in our matching black and white outfits! It was really strange to see everone in uniforms when I was used to them in colorful sweats, but still familiar because the Chiang Mai University (CMU) uniforms are very similar to the uniform I wore in high school. Mostly though, I was just really excited for Thai class and to re-meet our CMU buddies (picture will appear shortly!).

When we first arrived we met with the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. Rather than "departments," each section of the school are called "faculties" here. The Dean welcomed us and told us a bit about CMU and the FoH in particular. The faculty was founded in the 1960s and has grown significantly since then. This year, they graduated 5000 undergrad students and 300 grad students from that Faculty alone. At CMU (or Maw Chaw as the locals call it) Humanities includes Psychology, Foreign Languages, Thai Lit and Language, Home Economics, History, Philosophy and Religion.

After our introduction from the Dean, we reunited with our Thai buddies - DiDi, Mo, Mai (or Jessi - because she likes Jessica Alba), and Pan - who are actually French students. After mingling over coffee and potato filled pastries, we boarded a purple, elongated golf cart for a tour of CMU campus. The purple golf carts serve as the campus busses and seat about 10-12 people. We saw all the different Faculties' buildings, trekked around the campus lake, tried CMU milkshakes (made by the Faculty of Agriculture students), and discussed life as a CMU versus a Coe student. One of my favorite moments was walking back from the lake. Chris confessed he had the song "Part of Your World" from the Little Mermaid stuck in his head and a few of us started belting out as much of the song as we could remember. When we stopped at one point, at a loss as to what lyrics came next, DiDi jumped in and continued the sing-a-long with us. Disney had it at least partially right with that "small world" business.

Once we finished our tour, we went to the Student Union to look around an perhaps buy lunch. We also aquired our fifth unofficial buddy, DiDi's friend Top. While at the Union we stopped in the campus store, where everything is lavender and elephants. Eating at CMU was also a bit of an adventure because it was one of the few places we've been so far that had no English at all around the food stands. I eventually let Jessi order for me.

Lunch also provided this gem from Top: "I usually eat my rice with food." - said to Holly who was the first to come down with the stomach ailment this year and decided to just have white rice for lunch.

After pointing out the best place on campus to get coffee (HB7 for 10 baht), our buddies left so that we could start Thai language class. This first day we just learned the phonetics of the language. For a taste of Thai - try to tell the difference between a "t" in say Text versus a "t" in for example Still. They are two different consonants in Thai. Now repeat that distinction with "p" and "k." And imagine a vowel that sounds like getting punched in the gut. Yeah. This is going well.

After class we met back up with our buddies and got ice cream. Mo and Jessi marked many of their favorite sights and hangouts on our maps, so we are never at a loss for places to visit. Still waiting for the perfect opportunity to go to the nightclub with Mo though.

Jan. 15-17 Recap: Bangkok

January 15th we arrived in Bangkok! With our delay in Chicago and then Narita/Tokyo, we arrived in BKK in the early afternoon. The day was gorgeous, sunny and in the 80s (compared with the double digits below zero in the Midwest!). We took taxi buses to our guesthouse by the train station, to unload luggage and then wandered the city. The group of us 9 students travelled around in a huge group this first night, and a couple of times we heard locals exclaim something like "Farong line!" enjoying the sight of us like ducks in a row.

As we wandered the city, I kept wishing I could read the graffitti we saw. Graffiti in the U.S. is fascinating enough, but this was in Thai! I was so disappointed that I couldn't read and truly appreciate it. (And no, I don't care about the road signs, just the graffiti).

Bangkok is a much busier city - or at least more chaotic in its busyness - than the U.S. cities I've been in. There is such a rush of people everywhere - on foot, on scooters and motorbikes, in tuk-tuks (glorified motorbikes), and in other vehicles. And it seems only turn signals and stop lights are required. Crosswalks, lanes, speeds, even sometimes whether sidewalks belong to peds or bikes are all up for interpretation. My mom would be horrified by how close vehicles drive to one another (if her comments to me are any indication!).

The taxis here are very brightly colored - hot pink is our favorite, but they also come in fire truck red, bright blue, irridescent purple, orange and often have another color of stripe along the side (green, white, yellow and blue are most common). Emily, Casey and I are thinking about painting my car when we get back.

That night we had dinner as a group so that we could learn how to order food for ourselves. This meant that our profs taught us the word for "I would like" and then we are supposed to point at the menu: "Kaw... (point)." Also at dinner we learned how to say "excuse me" - kaw tope. This simple two syllable phrase proved quite difficult for our group, however, due to Thai tones. In english a rising tone indicates a question, and (in english) you can change a statement to a question just by raising the tone of your voice on the last word. So, when we were practicing "excuse me" in Thai we would say "kaw tope" and give both words a rising tone, since we were trying to ask for confirmation or correction of our pronounciations. In doing this though, we completely destroyed the meaning of the phrase.

On the 16th (Friday) each of us students woke up at various times anywhere between 4:00 am and 10:00 am, due to jet lag. It's pretty amazing - we're all in bed by 8 or 9 and most of us get up by 7. Our parents would love us in Thailand so much more - no more angry, sleepy mornings! By 9:00 we were leaving the guesthouse, again as a large group of foreign students, to try to find ourselves some food. We had wandered past a bunch of delicious smelling food stands in BKK's Chinatown (it has a Chinatown and an Indiatown) the day before, so we decided to try to find these stalls again. And this brings us to our first cultural lesson:

Food is not as readily available in Thailand as it is in the US. Our wanderings did not bring the same bounty of smells and people that we had seen the night before and eventually a local who took pity on the "lost" farong told us that, 1 - it was too early to get food (since most stalls and vendors do not open until 10:30 for lunch time) and 2 - we were not in a safe part of town to be wandering around in. Oops. He suggested we take a tuk-tuk or taxi to the other side of town and see the sights. This we did not do, since we were going later that day with our profs, but we did cross the couple of streets to the "better, safer" side. As we did this, the first stalls began to open and we were able to purchase chai yen (milk tea) and some rice dishes for about 45 baht total (just over a dollar), making it the cheapest meal I have ever eaten.

That afternoon we took a boat tour around the city. Originally, the only way to get around Bangkok was by boat; there were no roads. Even today, gridlock around the city's streets can become bad enough that sometimes water taxi is still the best option. Our tour took us first to a Snake Farm, which had a zoo-like area and also included a snake show. During the show they milked a cobra and did a bunch of other stunts with mildly to very poisonous local snakes. I touched a python, had a monkey repeatedly grab my knee looking for food, and I fed nuts to a bear.

The next stop was a wat (buddhist temple) called Temple of the Dawn. It is built in the Cambodian style of temples (meaning it had a lot of tall, narrow towers), and was decorated with broken pottery imported/stolen from China. Here we spent a lot of time looking around at all the different buddha statues in various areas of the temple and most, if not all, of our group climbed the extremely narrow stairs to the highest public level of the main temple (about halfway up the tallest spire). These steps were so steep that to climb them you were almost on hands and knees and had to turn your feet sideways on the step if you wanted to have any chance of them fitting on the stairs. It was intense. (I hope to post pictures once we reach Chiang Mai; I apologize for not being able to now.)

Our final stop was an outdoor market at a pier. Translated the pier is called "Elephant Pier." One part of the market is famous for it's large amount of buddhist amulets. There was so much food and drinks to partake in at the market. We all bought various fruits - rambutans, mangosteens, various banana varieties, mango - and some sort of food, whether a rice dish or skewers of meat. Chai yen and rosella juice have become the groups favorite drinks, while we have also tried guava juice and soda, pineapple soda, strawberry soda, chrysanthemum juice, parsley juice, green coconut juice, tangerine juice, and some sort of fruit punch. I am the only one who despises green coconut juice - it was such a weird mix of sweet, bitter and salty, but I was the only one who disliked it. And parsley juice was surprisingly good - it tasted tangy and fresh, like raw parsley, but also sweet. Very refreshing.

I know how to say hello (swa-tee-kah), lonely (wa-way), excuse me (kaw-tope) and I'd like a thai iced tea (kaw-chai-yen). Basically, I'm ready to move here! (NO.) I think I really need to figure out Yes, No, Sorry, Thank you, Just walking and Bathroom/Toilet because I keep trying to say these things in Spanish or English - neither of which are helpful. Drex and John (our professors) keep using their Thai skills, with taxi drivers or vendors or to get random tour people to leave us alone; its like they're teasing us. I can't wait to start Thai classes at Chiang Mai.

Today (Saturday, Jan. 17th) we continued our tour around Bangkok, seeing Wat Pho - home of the Reclining Buddha (which is HUGE) and another wat attached to the Royal Palace that is home of the Emerald Buddha. I will post more about these places and pictures tomorrow, however, since I need to go meet the group for our train to Chiang Mai! So excited!

Awesome Lingo Tool

I'm kind of a language nerd, in that I love learning about other languages, listening to other languages, finding similarities between languages, exploring how languages shape cultures - if it deals with words, I'm there.  So, the other night I decided to google references for my independent study and for information on Thai language and culture, and stumbled across this site. I am in LOVE with it.  

Called Omniglot, it has information on the development, history, alphabet, and pronunciation for hundreds of different languages. It also includes external links, sample text (both the Torah/Bible story of the Tower of Babel, and from the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and useful travel phrases.  It even has a host of created languages (like Klingon - the key to my brothers' hearts)!  I could spend hours exploring, hope you all have some fun too!