Things that live in my house!

Expats, Backpackers, Tourist, oh my!

I have decided there are several types of foreigners in Thailand. You have expats, the foreigner who is here for work. Expats have homes and sometimes families, but because they are here for work they are clean and have a purpose. They understand and generally are more respectful to the natives.Then you have backpackers. There is some Thai word for them which I think in Thai means bird shit because apparently that is what they look like. There are those backpackers that do not bathe, wear Birkenstocks and keens, smoke, have dreads and long beards, and wear very hippy, loose clothing. This is not all backpackers, but I am accurately describing the 5 people sitting across from me at the guesthouse or hostel I am at right now. There are also clean backpackers who are traveling around the world before they settle down into jobs. They are respectful, adventurous, and interested in the culture. Then you have the Ashram crew – the people who are hear for a month to practice yoga , meditation, and live out in a temple. Finally, you have the tourist who is just in Thailand for a week. They are decently dressed, have canon cameras, and are here to see the sights and enjoy the great shopping.

This weekend is my first experience with the backpacking crew. Five other Fulbrights and myself are staying in a cute, clean, little quest house/ dormitory/hostel and splitting a 6 person room with a bathroom. For about $3 dollars a night it is amazing! In the lobby is a great meeting area to discuss the previous travelers of the other guest and hear their story.

I was dropped off this morning my one of my teacher’s cousins and his girlfriend. They were coming to the city to spend the weekend studying at the local university. It is so different being so connected to a community and then coming to the backpacking community who are live a nomadic, unconnected life. I really feel like I have connections in my community, and I further realized this 15 minutes after I was dropped off- My Thai ride called to make sure I was safe and had met my friends.

It is so strange because in my community I am so conscience about what I wear and how I dress because I do not want to disrupt or offend any local values. The backpacking community, however, wears skimpy dresses and short shorts. This atmosphere is kind of nice because it offers a few days to be more of myself. I am not wearing skimpy clothes, but I do feel more comfortable to wear shorts or skirts that come above my knee, and I feel more comfortable wearing sunglasses because among westerners this is not a sign of flaunting wealth.

The backpacking community only offered another fold in confusion of my identity here in Thailand. I am not a tourist, I am not a local, and I am not a backpacker, but I do have many friends and a community I am attached to. I don’t have any answers, but I have gained a lot of sympathy for those who travel/move to another country for extended periods of time. Often it feels like I have left Earth and landed on Mars, and the voyage is rather humorous.

The acidental funeral

Today, accidentally, I attended the 5^th day of the funeral ceremony. Unlike American culture, funerals last several days. The average is 7 days, but with the kings birthday on Monday the ceremony had to be shortened (monks are not allowed to perform sad ceremonies on the kings birthday apparently). The richer a family is the longer the ceremony and vice versa with poorer families. I found out all this information from a family relatives, a 30 year old female accountant from Bangkok, who had come up for the final day of the funeral. Along with her excellent English skills, she also had an amazing perspective. She said “I think one of the biggest things you will learn is Thai culture, and when you understand how we think, then we will have a more peaceful world. The community will also come to understand you.” Because of this mindset she took the liberty to explain many of the aspects of the ceremony.

I have heard the monk chanting for several nights because the temple wall lies about 15 feet from my home, and the monks use a microphone and speakers to projects the chants to the community. I was not aware of all the actions that took place until now. First the closest relative of the deceased gave a prayer, then a monk sat up on a platform and performed some sort of prayer that last about thirty minutes. From what I could understand the monk then gave a 30 minute recap of the deceased life. This was followed by more chanting with the three other monks including one 10 year. The closest relative then read the names of everyone who had donated money, and the donor came up to the monks and offered food, incense, or monk robes.

The three hour ceremony was concluded with a meal. Apparently it has become a new tradition to offer your guest snacks in a box. My “funereal narrator” told me that with ceremonies lasting so long, you want to be polite to your guest and let them take the meal home. She also added that in a village like mine many of the guests are farmers and have had a very long day at work. In Bangkok funerals only last 45 minutes to hour. The final interesting tradition is that the meal is not supposed to be anything long like a noodle, because this would represent a long time to mourn. Instead the food should be snacks and something cut up; however, long items are often served at weddings to represent a long marriage.

As I mentioned I accidently found myself at the funeral. One of my teachers, PiOy had told me that I could meet PiPie at 7 O’clock in the temple to discuss my travel arrangements for tomorrow, or at least that is what I thought I translated. I arrived at the temple at seven O’clock and was greeted with “sit down”. Before I realized any different the ceremony had started. This is one of the great things about Thailand. I never really know where the day is going to take me, or what wonderful people I am going to meet. I learned so much about the village and funerals and was able to share in a very intimate ceremony with a family. One of the elderly ladies I met that night said it best in her broken English “You not leave Thailand because soon you have many family here.”

The White Out Effect

My students love to copy. It is not in a malicious or sneaky way, but in a collective lets all be the same way. As I wrote before one of my peer teacher's has a rule that states : "You must work in groups on in-class assignments." I tried to fight this concept at first, and I still do when I think it is hindering my students from thinking on their own, but I am not as adiment as I once was.

However, My grandmother sent me a quote today that really synthesized the problem with all the collective copying: Mediocre ideas enjoy copying what happens to be working right this minute.

I find that my students will white out some great idea they had because it is not exaclty as the person next to them had, and then copy their peer's work. For example last week we were learning about "MY SCHOOL". I had the students draw in groups a brian web of differnt ways to describe their school ( I used groups because I don't have enough paper for all my studenst, and they are often more confident with vocab with others). When I was checking the brain webs I noticed that several of the groups had whited out great things they had written just because it was not one of the main concepts I had covered. For example, I had one group white out "garden" and other group white out "44 teachers". I want my students to be creative and think beyond what is working right now, but it is a hard concept for them to grasp especially with the readily avialilble white out pen.

For now I will contine to say "OK, OK, Good" and maybe overtime the white out pens will slowly disappear from my class. It is not that I have a problem with them correcting grammar and spelling with pens, but I feel that erasing good ideas is draining individual thinking. I would reather my students try and make mistakes then not try at all.