Saturday, May 21st, 2011 – AngThong Thailand
Oh the ebbs and flows of human emotion. After a bad week of sad spirits, homesickness and loneliness, I am happy again, normal, contented. Watching sheet after sheet of rain fall from a half-clouded blue sky as the thunder slowly rolls across the expanse is so peaceful. I love teaching. It’s amazing how quickly I allow myself to grow attached to strangers. These kids are so smart, so full of energy, so respectful. They are my kids and I love them already – so excited to learn more about them, their quirks and idiosyncrasies. I especially can’t wait to read what they write. I love reading what others think, how they feel, it’s the reason I studied (and continue to study) literature. I love hearing other people’s stories. Our stories define us, individually, nationally, collectively – our identities, the things we hold most dear, the experiences recorded in history books and epics and novels, everything we are is wrapped in language. And language developed to communicate, to tell stories, to describe this crazy world surrounding us.
I love teaching English, teaching a language. It’s a skill that will make my kids more valuable in the very challenging Thai workplace. Tourism being the largest industry of the nation, Thais can no longer afford to not know English. After two years of techie work and waiting tables, I finally feel productive again. Which is not to say that I was not productive before- on the contrary, I learned so much about the service industry in America, and those kinds of services are necessary and valuable. It was not a waste of my time, but I felt so mentally unchallenged that it seemed like a waste of my skills and talent. Being here, I am finally applying those skills I worked so hard for at school. School has always been my life, and it always will be. I am a scholar, always learning, always with my nose in books or out there, hands-on, living life to the fullest. Go big or go home. I get sick of myself when I’m feeling sad or lonely, because it means I’m not out there living and getting the most out of this experience.
Yesterday a few of the Thai teachers went out of their way to drive me to a neighboring school and meet the Muay Thai instructor there. I noticed that it was the first time I was by myself and surrounded by non-English speaking Thais. I love that feeling. I love sort of watching myself from a bird’s eye view in the hands of these complete strangers, feeling so safe with them, as they ask me questions about my history with kickboxing. I like marveling at it all, where the road of life has taken me. They set everything up for me, these teachers, and they didn’t have to. If you come here, you will find that the majority of Thais are so friendly and welcoming, ready to help you at a moment’s notice, and they will usually go above and beyond. I think it’s simply a cultural/religious thing. Buddhism is all about compassion, and people earn merit here by doing good things. What goes around, comes around, and good karma is constantly being cultivated here. I have never thought so much about the little actions I do that may bring me good fortune in the future.
Unfortunately, the school is a bit too far for me to walk, run, or ride a bicycle, which means, to the utter dismay of myself (and probably my mom), that I am going to buy a motorbike (scooter). I will have to learn how to drive it, and I will have to learn to drive on the left side of the road. Don’t worry mom, I will buy a very good helmet, and I will stay on the left and drive very slow. All the crazy traffic will just pass me by. I have been half-heartedly considering getting a bike here for a while, but never thought I would actually bring myself to do it. But hey, go big or go home, right? Training Muay Thai is one of my biggest goals and reasons for coming here, so I have to do this. And in order to do this I must buy a bike. There are no taxi services in this town, so it’s either this or beg for rides and hitchhike. Plus, I feel like it’s a cultural thing – everybody here rides scooters, so this will be another step in my cultural immersion, and it will allow me and my roomies to go visit other areas of AngThong that we simply cannot get to on foot or by bus.
In other news, learning Thai is effing hard. I highly doubt there are any English speaking Thai tutors in this town, there’s just no demand or necessity for it. Which means I am kind of on my own learning the Thai script (alphabet). And I must learn the Thai script in order to truly know how to speak the language properly. Transliteration is simply not Thai, for example, kun cheu a-rai ka? (what’s your name? literally: you name what?) could also sometimes be spelled kuhn choo a ray kha?, or guhn tcheu arai ga? Transliteration/Romanized version of Thai is not thai, and in fact, makes learning the language harder because it’s inefficient. I think I am going to look for a Thai tutor in Ayutthaya, which is just a 30 minute bus ride away, and it only costs about a dollar to get there. I still can’t believe how cheap it is here – the 1-3 hour bus/minivan ride to Bangkok is only 80 baht, just under three dollars! Amazing. At the nicest restaurant in town I can get a fried shrimp nugget appetizer to split, chicken stir-fry with rice, a large pepsi, and a big piece of delicious chocolate cake all for under five dollars! Life is good.
Ok, well, I am ready to go get some yummy food somewhere again. I’ve become accustomed to pointing at something random on the menu I cannot read, and hoping for the best. Things are cheap, so if I don’t like it, I can order something else I do like, kow pat gap gai (chicken fried rice), or pad pak (veggie stir-fry), or pad thai. And I’ve started keeping a little Thai notebook purely for language purposes, and in it I keep notes on different foods, how you say them and descriptions, whether I liked it or not, those kinds of things. Anywho, I know what I need to be happy. I need to throw myself into different activities, just throw myself into the culture and give myself over to the strangeness of it all, the wonder, the bewilderment. I need to listen more, practice more, ask questions, make friends, be patient. Above all else, I need to learn how to remember Thai names better….
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