"Guys! Guys! Everyone's WHITE!!"

 - us, going through passport control in Chicago. 

Shortly after this was chorused, we realized everyone also spoke English and thus we sounded like horrible, horrible people - particularly Ian, who added "I LOVE white people!" to the end of his wonderings. 

I'm back in Cedar Rapids at this point, am almost over jet-lag, and am generally adjusting just fine to being back in the states.  It really is wonderful to see all of my sorority sisters and other friends around campus.  It is still strange and novel to wander around a college campus instead of a city block; to smell fresh air, with a hint of various blossoms, rather than tropical heat and car exhaust.  I'm always cold, which is very strange to this Minnesota girl.  Makes North Carolina a more welcome idea in my life.  :) I actually had to borrow a pair of flats from a friend here to keep my toes from freezing off. 

Some culture-shock-ish moments to report:

1. My second or third night back in the states, I went with a friend to the store.  I didn't break down while pondering carbohydrates, as I was warned I might.  Rather I was confused as to why all the swimsuits were so numerous.  After all that season was over, most of the suits should be sold already; soon it would be too cold to swim.  Then I remembered that although, that was how the seasons felt to me, it is indeed the start of summer here, not the end of it. Whitney and I had a good laugh about that thought process, when I shared it.

2. My phone fascinates me. I LOVE sending text messages and calling people.  Friday evening I just sat and stared at it for a while, trying to think of people to message or call. Text messages don't always come out right the first time around though.  Gonna need to redevelop some of that muscle memory. 

3. I am getting over this, but for the first week or so being back, I had a very low "people quota" meaning, I could only deal with seeing so many people per day.  I want to say last Thursday, I had lunch and coffee with two people and that was about all the socializing I could deal with.  I knew that I should go see other friends, but I just couldn't, so I spent the evening as a hermit with one or two other people I was staying with, watching movies.  This is so so weird for me.  I normally love people and being around others. It's kind of a bummer I was a hermit during the week before finals and now want to socialize when everyone has tests. Oh well. Only two more days of tests, and then it's all social until graduation.  

Countdowns:

5 days until I see my family!

6 days until graduation

8 days until I officially have a place to live...

49 days until Teach for America

“I want one of those, and one of those, and that!”

- Ajaan Bob’s imagining of Rama IV

On Sunday, Bob took me to a Royal Palace and the city and ruins of Ayutthaya.  This was possibly the most memorable day trip of the lot.  We started by taking the Bangkok subway, which uses these really cool one-trip token things.  They're plastic and have a computer chip inside that records where you are going and how much you paid and controls the gate that lets you in and out of the subway.  The tokens probably are not actually that interesting, but I thought they were cool. We rode the subway to the train station (sa-ta-nee rot fai), where we got 12 baht, 3rd class tickets to the palace.  

3rd class train is quite the experience, let me tell you. It’s basically open-air, because all of the windows were open before we left the station. Each set of benches is slightly smaller than a car’s backseat, but most of the time you cram three people onto them anyway.  I sat next to a mother with two kids, one about 4 the other not yet walking. Vendors push around all the bodies in the seats and in the isles, hawking everything from rice, juice, water to nylon hammocks.  Two of the men sitting by Bob, across the isle from me, bought four or five hammocks from the vendor.  They thought it was the sweetest deal ever.  The mother sharing my seat bought her four-year-old some rice.  And she promptly got train-sick while eating it. As the train began to fill, people ran out of seats and began crowing in the isles.  This did not deter the vendors traveling up and down the train. One man standing near me had a fish the size of someone’s face in a bag of water, as though it were a goldfish he were taking home from the petstore. When we were a station away from our stop Bob and I got up and made our way to the door of the car. This was necessary because none of the station stops were very long. I ended up standing in the space between two cars, watching the ground fly past below, thinking it wasn’t so different from riding the accordion of a two-car bus. 

The palace we went to see is located in the country about a two-hour train ride from Bangkok. It was built by Ramas IV and V in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  The idea behind the palace was to build one of everything that Rama IV saw on a European tour.  No joke.  They had a French palace, and English manor, a Chinese palace, gothic cathedral turned buddhist wat, among other buildings and parks. It was crazy.  All of the buildings had very vibrant colors as well - the french house was yellow, the english one was purple, chinese red, observatory yellow and red stripes... very interesting and rather strange to see them all crammed into the same place instead of hundreds of miles apart. 

Once we had exhausted the palace, Bob and I took a boat up the river (the traditional means of travel around Thailand, especially around Bangkok) to Ayutthaya.  

After the kingdom of Sukkhothai fell out of power, the kindom of Ayutthaya became dominant in Siam.  The capital city once held at least one million people and was a great center of trade between India, Europe, China and the rest of Southeast Asia. In 1776 it was ransacked and destroyed by the Burmese, who came in, burned everything they could, stole and melted all the Buddha images, and killed as many as they could - including monks.  This is especially strange to me, since the Burmese are Theravada Buddhists, as are the Thais/Siamese.  Seems you might kill different kinds of Buddhists, but your own sect?  I don't know. 

This destruction had a different result than the destruction of Sukkhothai.  Sukkhothai was destroyed and then left as ruins.  Other cities became important, diminishing new construction, so the ruins in Sukkhothai are all that is left in Sukkhothai.  Ayutthaya on the other hand, has been rebuilt around the ruins.  You have to drive thru a growing urban center to get from one ruined wat or palace to another.  Also, some of the ruined temples have rebuilt active wats inside them.  I'm not certain how I feel about this difference or exactly how it affected my experience viewing the ruins.  I didn't always feel that the ruins were as impressive as at Angkor or Sukkhothai, but at the same time, it was really interesting to see a ruined jedi at one end of a soccerfield, or a gleaming new white wat situated in the center of a walled-in group of ruins.

"I AM your father!"

 - Darth Vader, to Luke.

Random? Not at all!  

Tonight Jena and I decided that the Bangkok airport looks oddly reminiscent of Star Wars.  Particularly the walkway between plane and gate.  That looks EXACTLY like the walkway where Luke meets Vader after leaving the Ewok village. 

Yeah. Weird.

And... The entry way (exit way?) of the airport looks like the medical ship where Luke gets his metal hand. It was trippy. 

Here in BKK we're staying at the Christian Guesthouse. I am surrounded by so much Jesus right now.  More than any other time this semester.  It's also a little weird.  Where did Buddha go? 

The most ironic thing about the guesthouse is it's location - right next to one of the largest red-light districts in Bangkok.  Prime real estate here. If everyone were not leaving for the beach at 8:30 tomorrow morning I'm fairly certain we would be out exploring.  

Countdowns:

1 day til I take the Praxis

2 days til Bob and I go to Ayuthaya

4 days til the longest day ever (aka we fly home)

16 days til graduation

"But, uh, it's like ten in the morning Acomb."

"Yeah, but I already finished my beer. It's whiskey time!"

- one of us, and one of our Thai profs, during a northern thai Songkran festival at CMU.

This confirms, if nothing else does, that Flunk Day does exist in the real world. You just have to live in Northern Thailand. 

I knew 19 of 23 letters I was told to write today.  And I was really close on a couple of others.  I just can't tell the difference between the way Ajaan Acomb says "f" and "p".  Oops. Or the difference between "tong" and "toong" when said by natives. 

Also found out today that one of our language profs was let out of the hospital the other day.  Yay Ajaan Jang!  Very glad she's well and back to good health. 

It's been a productive past few days, with all three "chapters" of my independent study started, and my final reflection for HR class half done.  I think.  I may need to start over. I think it works, but I need a second pair of eyes. The internet in Chiang Mai has been in and out, though which is ANNOYING!!  The internet cafe has been sans internet since they reopened post songkran.  So sad. Emily and I are sitting at a cafe down the block with the cheapest menu items possible so we can use their wifi.  I wish they sold wifi cards at 7-eleven like they sell water and phone cards (public wifi exsists - I can see it, I just don't know how to log in!).  

We have a week left in Thailand.  Each day I go out to do something I think about those things that are going to be so different very soon.  For example, right now I'm sitting in a full cafe and I can hear my keys click over the sound of all the other customers talking, over the kitchen, the wait staff, the music.  That would never happen back home - we talk too loud.  I would still be aware of the keys clicking, but thru my fingers rather than my ears.  

I will soon have to wait for crosswalks in order to cross the street, because traffic will more likely run me over than stop (unlike Thailand and the opposite of Vietnam, where you just have to go, because otherwise they DON'T stop).  I'll have to drive again.  And not drive the way Khun Ahn (our Thai song-taow driver) or the VN taxis drove.  That might, maybe work in Chi-town... but no where else in the states. :) And when I get home, I won't be going back to college (or at least not for long), or the midwest... I'm moving and teaching and stuff.  Old balls (yeah Liz, me too now). Wow.  

Either way, I'm almost more concerned about culture shock coming home than I was going abroad.  Weird, right?  Who does that? Other than crazy old me... Either way, it's a back-of-the-mind kind of thing right now.  More worried about finishing my papers and taking the praxis within the next seven days.  

See some of you soon!

Happy Water-Fighting!

Thai New Year has just ended. Called Songkran, this festival is unlike any other I have experienced. After the religious obligations have been fulfilled (if you are one of those wat-going Buddhists), the entire rest of the week is devoted to a country-wide water-fight. People camp out around the moat, outside their houses or stores, in the back of pickup trucks - anywhere really - with buckets, squirtguns, hoses, tubs and bags of water.  It's insane and so much fun, as long as you properly prepare - ie everything in plastic bags, no white clothes, etc. 

Unfortunately for me, I was sick with a stomach bug (as best as I can tell, some combo of traveller's diarrheah and/or giardia?) for almost all of Songkran. I never made it to the moat, which is where most of the action is.  I did however manage on the last two days to venture around Nimmanhaimin a little bit, which was nice.  I had a "cultural exchange" as Emily likes to call it, with a small boy who had to struggle between his wish to drench/bless everyone who passed his parents shop and his concern that he shouldn't splash the farang girl.  Since he was hesitating I turned around and smiled at him over my shoulder, which he correctly took to mean "Splash me already!" So he threw a bucket of water at my face.  *smile* It kinda made my day. 

Other than Songkran and getting well, my time back in Chiang Mai has been filled with work - independent study, human rights class, and a couple other papers to finish before graduation, studying for the Praxis tests (for my life post-asia), setting up teaching observations (also for life post-asia), and finishing those booklets for AIDSNet... oy. Emily and I have found time to go to the Night Bazaar and the Sunday Market, but no getting lost and having asian adventures. 

I hope to be posting pictures later this week, if I can afford internet.  I'll keep you posted. 

Fairytale, take three and a Return to Reality

The other big visit we made in Phnom Penh, before leaving for Angkor Wat, was the S-21 killing field, Choung Ek. This is what I had to say immediately after the experience:

At the entrance I am greeted with skulls in a twisted form of remembrance, pushing against traditional beliefs in order to make an overt statement. I want to pay respects and do my part to honor the dead, but can't bring myself to do so at this place designed for me, irrespective of the victims needs, beliefs, desires. Instead, my muted cries of agony and apology subconsciously are hurled out to the five directions.

On the right, the site is mapped; graves are marked by boxes, some of the worst given a number and description of who had been hatefully tossed inside. On the final panel the broken English declares that this holocaust was worse than The Holocaust. I wonder at how one can even claim to calculate the value of suffering. What categories are measured - body counts, how they died, what they endured beforehand? Is it better to know why you are being killed, or does ignorance make death more bearable?

Turn left and exhumed graves begin to appear. At first they are merely pits filled with rancid rain water. Then the scraps of clothing become more numerous and capture my eye. Remnants of a life destroyed before their time, left out to fray, thin, and someday rot. I am told the rain has hidden further gruesome memories of life unlived, masking fragments of bone in mud. I can't say I mind.

As butterfly couples float around my shoulders, the garment scraps give way to human scraps. My toe hits an ulna, my heel just misses canines and molars. Horrified, I wonder why they remain unceremoniously packed into the path rather than properly cared for - buried, cremated or even preserved, entombed in plexiglass.

Turn left again and the reverse of skulls is what I now see, signaling my tour is complete. Again I mourn their caging and can only wonder at what I have seen.


I don't really have more to say than that...


When we weren't visiting these sites, we were teaching english at a music school. The kids were so much fun to teach and be with. They taught me how to count and say hello and good bye in Khmer. I have never seen anyone smile as much as they did either. Always smiling.

Non-Sequiter

Okay. This has nothing to do with Asia, and everything to do with my life after Asia. But I'm kinda freaking out and need advice from older, wiser folk, or others who are also graduating and moving and such.

AAAHHHHH! (Whew... now that that's out...)

How does one find housing, when one moves to a new city? Or roomates? How does one live and pay rent and phone and internets, and food and stuff... with minimal income? Or make a deposit on said housing? In essence, how does one live in the real world?

I will be graduating upon my return from these Asian Ambulations, (which is getting a little too close for comfort!), and once that ordeal is over, I'll be joining Teach for America and moving to North Carolina. And Craigslist intimidated me earlier today. As did my pre-TFA planning checklists I was provided with... *whimper*

I never thought graduating would be scarier than traveling halfway around the world.