Merry Christmas!

Dear All, There is quite a lot to tell and I will try to tell it all in order and in an understandable fashion as E says my letters and journal seem to have been written by a crazy person with no real order. Oops. We have our Christmas tree up and decorated, it's only green paper with glitter and a white paper angel all taped up to our wall but it's Christmas. We also have a green paper wreath hanging on our door and though it's dropping red glitter from it's bow at an alarming rate it certainly lends cheer to our hallway. It's good to have some sort of Christmas at home as it's our first Christmas away from home. It's also our three month anniversary in Thailand and the start of a whole new time for us as neither of us have ever been out of the country for more than three months at a time before. It's hard to have that time corresponding with a holiday like Christmas and we'll see how we handle it. Last Friday was the last day of the "Sport Day" activities at the school and they celebrated with a parade throughout Chiang Rai. It was better than I thought it would be and actually quite enjoyable for a school parading around for no other reason than they had participated in sports at their school. They had some interesting closing ceremonies that included but was not limited to a couple of speeches in Thai, a ringing of a great big gong, awards being given out and a performance by another schools band and color guard. The interesting thing about this color guard was that it was almost entirely made up of gay guys- they were extremely good but it did make you stop and think. You wouldn't have seen something like that in a Christian school in the States. There was also a cheering competition and that was different from anything I had been expecting. Whereas in America we expect the cheerleaders to, well, lead the cheering and get the crowd stirred up here the cheerleaders did a dance while their trained crowd clapped out a beat and sang a song or said the cheer while waving fans in a pattern. It was very odd, interesting but odd. That night Melou and Mary came over for dinner and taught us to make a Filipino dish, we're having cooking classes of a different sort with them and it's a lot of fun. Afterwards we sat down and watched A Knights Tale as Melou is almost as big a fan of Heath Ledger as Erika and I are and had never seen it. Saturday was also interesting as I went down to the French- Thai Alliance that's close to our building for my first drawing class. It was a class of Thai students and I was just going to sit in and observe for free to see if I thought the guy was a good teacher and see how things went. I got there a little after ten and figured that would be alright as nothing starts on time in Thailand. Not only was it alright, the teacher wasn't even there. I waited around for about twenty minutes while another teacher tried to get a hold of him before he called and told me his students had canceled and rescheduledfor "maybe two". I went home and Erika and I watched a movie and had a swim before I called him at two to ask if I should come down. He said he was there waiting for me so I booked it down and got there around two twenty... We were the only ones there, one student showed up at about two forty and the next at three o'clock and we sat down to sort of begin. By the time the third student got there at three thirty we were well into it and the fourth and last student didn't arrive until quarter to five. The whole place has a very relaxed attitude about it and no one seems to care if you're an hour or three late, needless to say this makes me a little nervous. It's more like joining a club or a small band of friends when you sign up for anything there than just taking a class and that first night they invited me and my sister out to drinks. We had other plans so said no but if I do end up taking classes there our social life is sure to expand if nothing else. Saturday night the Australian Network had a two and a half hour program they called Carols in the Domain and it was fun to watch as we have no Christmas music here with us. Hearing hymns and music about Jesus on International TV was also interesting and then the fact that everyone said Merry Christmas instead of something politically correct like Happy Holidays- Erika suggested that Australia is less threatened by religion as so few are religious. Sunday we walked down to the food festival that was happening in a park near us and found everything mostly closed down and dead, it turns out it's more of a night affair. Never the less we found some dishes for our apartment and got some great noodles for lunch before turning home. At church that night they had quite a little Christmas program with a play, carols, candles for everyone and communion- the first we've had since we've been in Thailand. Now we're starting the last week of school before the holidays and planning a party in our small apartment for Christmas day. Whew- that's quite enough for now I think, have a very Merry Christmas! Love to you all, Kristen Rose

MaeSae and the Super Highway

Dear All,
Last Friday we went up to Mae Sae, a town on the border of Burma, to get our visa's renewed and re stamped. A man named Chalang, who Erika has gotten to know as he's been the one driving her to and from the department of labor, the hospital for a form and the photo place trying to get all of her papers in order, was the one who drove us up there.
Chalong is a funny guy, Erika says he has some sort of business of his own on the side and when their out driving one place or another he often makes stops of his own. He doesn't speak a lot of English but he and E manage to communicate some of the time, he's a crazy driver like everyone here but adds the great touch of doing crazy sounds as he drives- air brakes and the like.
All we had to do to renew our visas was cross the border into what is now Myanmar, this costs roughly twelve dollars and we spent the afternoon shopping around the busy streets of the market there. The whole town lives off of tourists as it's such a popular place to get your visa taken care of as it's so accessible and easy and as such it's not the nicest of places with people in your face and obvious poverty. Everything is cheaper just across the border as well so we did our bit as tourists and bought fabric, candy, playing cards and wine.
On our way back from Mae Sae we stopped at one of the hundreds of small roadside shacks set up to sell strawberry's, strawberry wine and juice and tasted all of the different wines before deciding on the cheaper but delicious juice and a half kilo of fresh and delicious fruit. And once back in Chiang Rai we had to stop off at the small ice cream shop that Chalong takes E to whenever they go out on business. We all had coconut ice cream which was different enough on it's own and then Chalong got long green and pink string things as topping for his- Erika had had it once before and told me how awful it was, so she tried to make me get it. Instead I got chocolate and sprinkles and E got chocolate and squares of cake on top of hers. They put some of the weirdest things on top of their ice cream, corn being one of the favorites!
On Saturday we went out with a girl we met through church, she and her husband are from Colorado and have been in the area for two years, they work with an orphanage here in CR and with an Akha village up near Mae Salong. It was fun to talk to someone who lives nearby and we spent nearly the whole day chatting with Lori, we're looking forward to developing that relationship especially as she said we could borrow any of their books and movies and they have all five of the Alias DVD sets! Hello happy times!
Sunday we took our bikes down around the southern end of CR and saw a lot of the places that people had told us about, the old airport and the golf course being some of them. On our way back we headed in the direction of a grocery that has a lot of 'farang' food that Lori had told us about, it wasn't easy to find but when we did we had a hay-day and bought all sorts of homey food like cheese and Italian pasta. We had to get the tortilla chips they had and corn flakes! Peanut butter! It was all too much. Then, we're cycling away from the wonderful store with our baskets packed with bags and we have to cross what is known as the 'super highway'. Approximately eight lanes of busy traffic with crazy ass Thai drivers while on a bike with a full load of groceries! This was daunting enough to me (sometimes afraid of crossing the street in a normal place) but then the light turned yellow just as E reached the middle of the road and I couldn't get my bike to go. So I got to cross the insane super highway on a red light trying to beat the motorbikes who started before the light changed. I almost peed my pants.
Yesterday was a holiday, Constitution Day. Of course, the constitution was done away with during last Septembers coup so why we're still celebrating it is a bit of a mystery. As it was a holiday most everywhere was closed but did E get the day off? No, instead she went down to the school in a special new polo shirt for teachers 'sport day'. Sport day is a big deal here and the kids have been preparing for it for a long time and classes are getting shuffled around and cut down to make more time for practicing and the like- it's not just a day, we're learning, it's practically a whole weak of sports. And then we find out they have it for the teachers as well! I laughed a lot at that. E came in second in the three legged race with a fellow teacher and cheered for the other games but kindly refused to play any real sports, that's not really her forte. That's all for now, enjoy the pictures and I hope to hear from you soon. Kristen Rose

Pictures

Erika and I atop our elephant Dee!

Erika on our super long ride through the hills of Thailand.

The market a couple of blocks down the street, it's always busy and we visit it most days for one thing or another.

The view from our Condotel as the sunsets

Erika and our friend Michael watching our baloon float away.

There's our past in the form of a paper balloon, ready to fly away

These are the banana leaf boats they float down the river, lighting the incense and including all sorts of nick nacks like coins and hair clippings.

The feast we made the day we had cooking lessons with Da, we ate so much food that day and had left overs for several days.

That's right, I had a flannel- camo apron, and it was hot too!

Lounging by our pool!

Our little cookstove and Erika's excited face.

An image you see often here though not usually this large. This Budha was up in the village of ThaThon atop a small mountain.

Getting a foot message on our trip up the river.

Thai message, Erika was pushed and prodded into all sorts of positions and the woman used her feet, knees, elbows- whatever it took to contort E's body until it popped.

Our river trip!

Kristen painting at our dining room table, the yellow flower is E's work.

This man was lowered from the roof, pulled the tube he was working with up from the ground and then glued and screwed it in place while he sat on a little bench held up by just a rope- it was a precarious situation and we watched the whole thing from our window.

These are the kids from Dr. Sirirat's orphanage singing in front of the church.

Me and the little girl I call Peter Pan but who's name is actually Poy.

This was taken in one of the outhouses of the famous artist who thought the bathroom was the heart of the home. This was the monkey themed room.

One of Erika's fellow teachers singing kareoke, not just any song but Itsy Bitsy Teeny Tiny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini!

Our home in Thailand

Erika's October Letter

Schools in Thailand take the month of October off; it is a beak between terms. Nobody mentioned this fact to us when we were thinking about our potential arrival date. We have mostly spent the month enjoying a holiday in which we do nothing. My sister, Kristen, specializes in doing nothing--she's made a study of it--but she's had her work cut out trying to teach me to relax enough. Many of our days have involved little more than lying by the pool, swimming, reading, watching an English language movie on TV, exploring the city (after dark when it's cooler) and eating out.
The exceptions to this rigorous schedule were a river trip, a visit to a botanical garden up the mountain, visiting churches (Thai and English), attending meetings (as decorative furniture--our function is to show people that the school has us), cooking school and visits to our host family.
Chiangrai doesn't have much in the way of places to visit/tourist attractions. There is a hill tribe museum, which we've visited twice, a stage that nightly has some Thai cultural event (usually dancing or martial arts), and 6 Buddhist temples. There is a park somewhere that we haven't seen yet. There are about 70,000 people living in town and it is rather spread out. We live in a part of town that is perfect for us--the market is 3 blocks away, the school is 2 blocks away, there is an internet place about 2 blocks away and 4 restaurants within 200 yards of our building. We really like it. The only westerners who we see are living in our building--they are mostly middle age men living with very young Thai women. A few live alone. There are, of course, pleasant exceptions. We had a guy named Michael to dinner last night. He is oldish but is not the usual type you see here. He moved here to get away from the Bush administration and to work on his book--the great American intellectual novel. He teaches literature at one of the universities. He's quite an eccentric. It's nice to have an involved conversation with someone in one's own language. There are many more falang (Thai word for foreigner/westerner) in an adjacent part of town that we occasionally visit.
We've learned a few things about Thai culture in this month and a half of living here. They include: absolute unwillingness to ever confront things head-on (except personal matters that we would regard as untouchable as conversation items), approaching all situations with a smile and fascination with love, whiteness and westernness. We've learned that it is not surprising that no one said, "Hey, the middle of September is not the best time to come--you'll only be in time for exams and then we'll be on holiday." No one ever says no to you. They smile and come up with ways to redirect you. For people who like to communicate directly--cum westerners and myself especially--this is frustrating and seems manipulative. Well, it is manipulative but it's also the way their culture works so we're trying to learn to work within it without feeling deceptive. This is difficult.
For instance, there was no school after September but they allow students to retake their final exams 3 times if needed to pass! Most students don't do this, of course. However, because it's possible, every teacher is required to be at the school until the 10th of October, even if all of their students have passed. I asked if it was necessary for me to be there because I'd prefer not to be (teachers complain about it--they are super bored, they literally just sit around for a week and a half). They said that I could not be there--after all, I don't even have my own students. So Kristen and I were planning on traveling some. We stopped by the school on our way out of town one day and people freaked out. They didn't want us to leave. They said it was dangerous because of the coup (which hasn't affected the north at all and has barely done anything in the south), they said we would get malaria because we would be near Burma (our host family, part of whom was doing this admonishing, had taken us to the border of Burma the week before without thinking it was a problem), they said the river was dangerous(the boat driver thought that was funny when we asked) and they said that they'd decided that they'd really like us to take Thai lessons this month so we shouldn't travel.
All of these things were pretty much ridiculous. The crux of the matter is that they didn't want us to go because it would seem unfair to the other teachers and because they want to have us where they can watch us--they're terrified we will go to another school. We decided that we would go ahead with our plans when we had made them and no one had told us anything else in advance (so we took our river trip) and would try to comply when they mentioned anything ahead of time (so we'd stay in town the rest of the month and take Thai lessons). The funniest thing is that I showed up at school the next school day we were back and the Thai teacher they were planning on me studying with was not available--they would try some other people. These lessons never happened. This makes sense because they weren't that serious about me learning Thai--they wanted a way to get us to stay without saying, "You can't go, we don't want you to leave town."
Oh, wow, that was long and it's only one example of what we've encountered. I'm a little apprehensive of starting classes because the teachers I'm working with won't tell me what they expect from me in our classes together. I'm pretty much just planning lessons and hoping they won't get angry if I use all of class time. I visit each class in eighth and ninth grades once a week.
I know that this is getting irritatingly long, I just want to further explain the communication style by saying that despite this unwillingness to address issues in a straightforward way, people are plenty willing to say, "You are fat/old/young/white/well-endowed/ugly/pretty, etc" They don't say derogatory things about us that much--mainly because we're the ideal: young, white and female. They do say things to us about other people which is probably even more uncomfortable.
I'll close here. Thanks for putting up with me. I probably won't plague you all as a group for another month but I'm always happy to individually correspond with interested parties!

Erika

One more story: on my way here a construction worker called me beautiful. This is only an occasional thing, getting talked to on the street--it's not like Italy or Greece. It really makes me laugh, though, because the Thai word for beautiful is suwe and sounds a lot like someone calling the pigs in (soooweeee)!

Bikes, Boats and Elephants

Dear All,My sister Erika writes home once a month to update all of her friends on what is going on with her life and how teaching in Thailand is going and now her emails will also be posted on my blog along with my letters. She's very clever and amusing and I'm sure you'll all love her thoughts and impressions, perhaps even more so than mine but I don't want to know about it if that's the case.We met a couple from Scotland here and have gotten to know them, they used to live in our building and have now moved "out to the country" but manage being outside of town by having bikes that they use to commute on a regular basis. This week they are out of town on a trip and offered us the use of their bikes while they're away and we readily accepted.We went out and bought a road map of Chiang Rai as soon as we had the bikes and the first day Erika was free (Friday) we set out for what we thought would be a short ride around the north end of town to get us used to riding before doing anything big. Instead we ended up riding about twenty kilometers out of town to a Karen hill village on the river that has elehpants.It was a long, hard ride out there but we parked our bikes and hired an elephant for an hour. It was hilarious! First you had to walk up a ladder like staircase to a small platform where all the elephant men were sitting around doing nothing, Erika wouldn't even walk up this at first! By the time she followed me up there our elephant had walked right up to the platform and was ready for us to climb into the seat attached to his back with a rope and a chain. Our driver sat on the elephant with his legs tucked up under the elephants ears or else right on his forhead with his legs dangeling down the front of his face! He stopped the elephant and slid right off him and got me to sit where he had been sitting, it is crazy sitting on an elephant with your legs tucked under his ears. I was in bare feet, afraid to lose my sandals, and I could feel his skin wrinkling up with every step he took. The next time I ride an elephant though I will know to wear long pants, his thick and prickly hairs sure rubbed my thighs raw and that's not a fun experience! Erika took a turn sitting on the elephant and when we changed apparently my bag slipped, unnoticed, off our little bench. We were so enthralled with riding an elephant through the Thailand countryside that we didn't notice the bags disapearance until halfway through and then panic set in. We turned that elephant around and went back searching the ground for a dirt colored bag, as it had our keys, condotel card and all our money for the day in it we were pretty desperate to get it back and extatic when we finally found it and our elephant picked it up with his trunk and handed it to our driver!Needless to say the bike ride back was worse than the morning and by the time we got home my legs were jelly and i was on the verge of tears but I made it! And I was super impressed with myself too, I'm not much of an exerciser as some of you know but I sure did a job that day!We've used the bikes quite a lot since then, riding out to a lake near here and taking a paddle boat out and going down to what they call the beach and is really the river with an area that apparently you can swim in during the summer and eating in a little hut overlooking the water. We definately love the freedom the bikes give us and it's made us think of getting some once again, we're also thinking more of just renting them when Erika has a long weekend or we can go somewhere with someone.Tonight we're going out for pizza with our friend Michael from the condotel, he says we're keeping him sane as he's working like mad on his book and completely surrounded by Thai's all the time, we don't know how we could be a sane influence in anyone's life but roles have been reversed in many ways here in Thailand.Tomorrow is the Kings 80th birthday and, of course, they are having quite a celebration all over the country and school is closed for the day.That's all I have for now, I'll write again soon, Kristen Rose

Erika's November Letter

You know how sports broadcasts usually have two commentators? There is the person who really knows a lot about the sport and then there is a “color” commentator—someone to keep the dialogue going and introduce some interest for TV viewers. My job is kind of like the color commentator for English. I don’t teach grammar. I’m sure that fact makes some of you more comfortable—namely, people who have had to read my papers! I don’t instruct much at all. Instead, I tell my classes about culture in the US and play games with them that help them to understand spoken English and that force them to speak English. If this seems like a pretty easy gig to you, you are correct (or ‘right on the money’—a phrase I recently explained to a class).You may recall my apprehension last month as I prepared to begin the term. Although it’s a little more challenging than I make it sound, most of those apprehensions were unfounded. Most of the teachers with whom I work are great. Most of the kids are either well-behaved or funny in their mischief; I can handle either of those. There was one thing (maybe more!) that I forgot to consider when I decided to come here. It is an important consideration when contemplating teaching high school. I have never really liked teenagers in groups. Not even when I, myself, was a teenager. And yet, somehow, I find myself teaching teenagers. I am almost constantly in their company! In large groups. I think that I have done pretty well, though. I mean, I haven’t gone completely insane and they seem to like me. Actually, on my way here, one of my students told me he loved me, but I am not taking that as a comment on my teaching performance!There have been very significant adjustments, of course. Twice this month, the school schedule has changed. All the periods shifted to different times. No one told me about either of these changes before they happened. All of this switching of times has happened to make time for Sport Day practice. All I have been able to ascertain is that Sport Day is like a huge Field Day in which several schools participate. It is really important to them. So the academic periods became shorter and are sometimes skipped altogether so that kids can practice for their sports. But I asked some of my students and quite a few kids are not participating, so basically they run around for the extra hours. Or they cheer for their friends. They use drums and scream like cornered rabbits. Have you ever heard a rabbit scream? Try not to, it’s awful. It’s even worse when 75 kids are doing it in concert. I try to leave school grounds during this time. Anyway, schedule changes and disregard for academics in favor of a one-time sport event are examples of some of the things that throw me into a fresh confusion every time I think I’m settling into my own life.Here’s another thing that takes getting used to: the absolute subservience of students to teachers. As I walk across school grounds, kids bow to me. They have to get out of my way if I’m walking in a hallway. Other teachers never clear their own dishes in the cafeteria; they grab a passing kid and make them take their bowl. When we start and finish classes, my students bow and say hello or thank me—in unison. And teachers employ physical violence with some frequency. I have seen teachers hit kids with wooden rapiers (they have them around because the kids learn fencing in PE!), pinched (hard, they were still rubbing the spot 20 minutes later!), and a science project thrown against a wall (broken to smithereens). Kids never question this, apparently. It is difficult for an American to accept. I am mostly embarrassed. I try to deal with it gracefully, of course, but my egalitarian ideals, instilled by simple existence in America, have trouble with such unmerited deference.On the whole, though, my job is fun and challenging without being overly demanding. I am glad that I am here. I have realized recently how much I am learning here. There are things that I expected to learn: language, culture and some more (or any!) humility. I certainly am learning those. But I am learning so much about completely unexpected things. My sister and I went to the Hall of Opium, a museum that traces the history, political effects and current trafficking of the drug and its various forms, on Sunday. It is in the very north of Thailand, an area called the Golden Triangle because of its prominence in the drug industry for a few decades. I couldn’t believe how much I learned. That night, Kristen and I watched the news on TV as usual. We were discussing the possibly imminent coup in Fiji when I realized that I would probably not have any idea of the Fijian political situation if I were home. I also wouldn’t know nearly as much about Sri Lanka’s problems or even Iraq if I weren’t watching and reading international news. Beyond this, I have had time to think about subjects that I’ve learned about for the past few years. At the time, I only was able to shove these ideas into my brain. Now, I’m unfolding them and looking them over in a more thorough way. I’m able to decide what I think about these subjects. In short, it turns out that a year off was a really good decision. Despite contact with my 520 or so teenage students, I might come out of this a saner person! It seems ridiculous, right?Well, that’s about as much as I should write—probably more than you want to read!Until next month,Erika