Bangkok Protocol Item 1

Here is the protocol for coming home after work in Bangkok:

1.  Walk up the stairs in non air conditioned building in order to avoid the oppressive heat of standing in a tiny elevator with sixty seven other people.

2. Stand sweating at door trying to dig key out of the very bottom of your bag because you're too sleepy and impatient in the morning to put it somewhere more convenient.

3.  Walk through door and immediately(before even closing it all the way) start stripping off clothing while walking toward air conditioning switch.  Turn on AC and also the fan you have in your room.

4.  Position fan 1 foot away from you and lie naked on your bed until you stop feeling like you have been walking on the surface of the sun.

5.  Shower.

Teaching English in Thailand is HARD!  There are almost forty kids in our Prathom 2(second grade) speaking class!  

The kids are wild and loud, and Simone and I can hardly reel them in for long enough to get them to sing their ABCs.

They can't understand most of what we say, so coming up with things to do with them is difficult.  We are supposed to play games and sing and talk in that class, but the kids can't understand what we want them to do!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaah!  

The class seems to go on forevvvvver.  

California Wow

California Wow is the name of the gym that Amy, Star, and I joined yesterday(Amy and Star are two of my teaching colleagues).  It is on the top of a mall and it is the most technologically advanced gym I have ever seen.  I don't need my gym to be technologically advanced, I just need it to be accessible, but California Wow is like the Jetson's gym.

So you know how when you're in a class at the gym and you're trying to keep up but you have no idea how to get your leg to do that while breathing and stretching at the same time?  Try doing it when the instructor is speaking in a different language!  Hahahahaha!  It occurred to me about 30 seconds before the class began that it was going to be conducted in Thai.  We got a kick out of trying to follow the guy's frantic gestures.

Good times.

Sleeeeepy.

School Days

Today was the first day of school.  The school and classroom environment is sooo different from what I am familiar with in US public schools.

In the US, teachers spend half their time managing behavior: "sit still", "be quiet", "i'll turn your card", "I'll call your parents", and on and on and on.  It definitely has an affect on efficiency, how can you teach if you're spending all of your time trying to control your students???

At C--------- School, the children act like... well children!  They are loud and grab eachother and don't walk in straight lines.  They jump up and down in their desks and chat amongst themselves in class.  The teachers just ignore this behavior, and, get this, use a microphone to counter the loudness of the children.  But you know what?  As soon as there is work to be done, its business time, and without being reminded, the children quietly stay on task. 

There is something to be said for allowing a little chaos, it doesn't seem to heed productivity at all.  On the contrary, the children seem more willing to do their work, school is fun and relaxed.

The teachers are equally laid-back when it comes to planning.  Classes, trips, and lesson plans change on a minute-by-minute basis, and nobody seems to mind or worry about it.  Its a great environment to work in, once one gets used to never knowing what will happen next.

Life in Thailand

The second the plane started descending into Bangkok, I knew I was going to love it here.  The lush greenery was such a stark contrast to the brown, oppressive sights of Taipei.  We were offered delicious tropical fruits by beautiful Thai women when we deboarded.  The customs process was a breeze.  We were met by some people from Chitralada and taken by van to our apartments. 

My one room apartment is on the fourth floor and has a couch, a King size bed, a table and two chairs, a vanity, a wardrobe, and a small bathroom.  It’s perfect.  The neighborhoods are called sois, and we live on Ratchaprarop (La cha pra rope)  Soi 14. The alley in front of our house is filled with small shops and carts selling all sorts of fruit and cooked food and goods.  In our building, there is a pool, a fitness room, and a sauna(why you would want to go into a sauna in this heat and humidity, I’ll never guess).  There is also a convenience store, dry cleaning and laundry,  and a small café in our building, and a Thai massage parlor, which is amazing!!! It costs about 5.00 for a full body massage. 

We are very close to the sky train, an elevated train.  There are so many HUGE malls, its crazy.  Today I went to one with seven floors!  SEVEN!

We went on a river boat ride to try and find the Grand Palace Temple, but we got lost, as we often do.   The streets are very chaotic, and all of the signs are in Thai, so it is very difficult to find things.  Taxis, thank goodness, are everywhere and very inexpensive, so if you get lost, you just jump in a cab. 

Oh yeah, and we took our first Tuk Tuk ride!

We found some excellent Mexican food, thank goodness, because I haven’t quite figured out what to eat here yet.  Vegetarian doesn’t always translate well.

 

Work

Our first day of work at the C-------- Palace School was last Wednesday.  We get picked up in a van every morning and are driven to school.  The palace is surrounded by a moat full of what we thought were alligators, but what are actually giant monitor lizards, the largest lizards in the world.  They let you walk right up to them!  There are guards at the gate with big machine guns.  Scary!  The palace is closed to the public, only a privileged few get to see inside.  

We first had a lunch of traditional Thai food and some delicious tropical fruit, including fresh lychee, my favorite.  Then we had an orientation and set up bank accounts with the bank within the palace grounds so that we could get paid, chaching!  

The next two days were spent planning lessons for the next week, as school begins Monday.  I will be teaching prathom 5, which can be equated to our fifth grade.  The school is broken up into three sections:  Kindergarten 1-3(three years as opposed to one, ages 4-6), Pratthom 1-6, and Matthayom 1-6.  School is broken up into periods of one hour each, much like our high school system.  Mondays I teach speech for Pratthom 5, three periods with 20 students each.  Tuesday and Wednesday I teach reading three periods, and Thursday and Friday I get to teach speech to Pratthom 2, my favorite grade! 

Our dress code is very strict, we must wear collared, button-down shirts, and long skirts every day.  There are colors for each day: Monday:yellow, Tuesday:pink, Wednesday:green, Thursday:orange, Friday:blue.  The colors are related to the days that the royal family was born.  The King was born on a Monday, and his color is yellow...

The King is very loved and revered by the people, and you cannot walk five feet without seeing a picture of him.  It seems that he is a very compassionate and caring leader.

The people we work with are soooo nice, they are so interested in us and so welcoming and willing to help.  They keep feeding us!!!  It has been slightly confusing and frustrating because things seem disorganized and unplanned, everything changes last minute, and we recieve very little specific information.  But we have been told that this is partly a cultural difference that we just have to get used to, as Thai communication is high context, and based less on explicit information than US culture.  

We have our own desks in the little English department office.  I sit next to Amy.  School starts tomorrow.  Wheeee!

Taipei itinerary

Day 1:  

The airport was crowded but soooo quiet and peaceful.  Arrived at hotel and drop off bags and stuff at the front desk.  Go straight to the shuttle.  The driving is crazy, people weave in and out of traffic, scooters go right between big trucks and scrape the sides.  There are no turning laws, you just turn when you feel like, from where you feel like, whether you block traffic or not.  If you are a pedestrian, watch out!  If you get in someone’s way they will not slow down but they will be courteous enough to blare their horn at you.  

We are driven to the National Taipei University, where we wait outside, exhausted, in the thick, warm air of Taipei, waiting for Peter, the Communications professor who will be our host.  When he arrives, we are directed to get onto one of the public buses that we have seen driving around.  They are very tall, like tour buses, and have fancy curtains in all of the windows.  VERY nice, for public transportation. We thought we were already at the University but apparently there is another campus.  We are all grimy and tired, and feel terrible that we are being introduced to people this way.  

We get to the University, a beautiful, large new campus, and are escorted to a classroom where we are to sit in on a lecture on Nonverbal communication.  We are asked to stand up and introduce ourselves in the microphone, which is so embarrassing considering our condition.  Our translators in the class, other students, are sooo sweet.  Mine were Ettie and Howard.  Ettie asked if she could take a picture with me. Soo cute! 

The bathroom was an adventure to say the least.  There is no toilet paper in Taipei, you have to carry it around with you in little pouches that look like Kleenex pouches.  It is sold everywhere.  The toilet is in the floor and I had a fun time trying to figure out what to do.  

We are then taken on a tour of the University and to the President’s Office where we are presented with gifts.  We eat lunch in a cafeteria, and a very nice student helps me find something vegetarian.  It is Bao, a kind of rice bun with bamboo and mushrooms inside.  I can’t stand the food here.  Thank God there is a Starbucks on the first floor of our hotel.  

We then go to the annual play that the Communications Department puts on.  We were expecting a little thrown-together production, but it was actually excellent, and had I not been jetlagged and exhausted, I would have enjoyed it.  The actors were amazing, even though they are speaking a second language, English.  The play was called Communicating Doors.  Very racy.  

Our hosts were so gracious, patient, welcoming, and kind.  We take the bus and then the sky train back to the hotel and decide to shower and go explore.   Everything in the bathroom is covered with plastic, and I soon discover why.  There are no shower curtains, and the water pressure can be compared with that of a firehose.  When you turn it on it sprays EVERYWHERE.  Its one of those showerheads on a hose that you can take off, only there is no place to hang it, so when you need a free hand you have to put it down and it flys around the bathroom like when you let go of a hose.  I was laughing hysterically and the entire bathroom was soaked, wall to wall, by the time I was done. 

We end up at a restaurant where no one speaks English and the menu is all in Mandarin.  I opt not to order anyting but Taiwan beer.  It cost $4 U.S, but it was HUGE.  and very good.  We got nice and drunk and loud.  We staggered home through the brigtly lit alleyways, lined with parked scooters and boutiques, restaurants and street vendors.  Amy peed in a fishpond.  (she was really drunk, she wouldn’t do that normally).  Simone and I chastised her the next day.  Poor fish! 

Day 2: National Palace Museum: Amazing, we saw some relics as old as 8,000 years!

                                                  at the museum:

Taiwanese Television station: watched the taping of a very strange show, we could not quite figure out what was going on, but it was fun.

Night Market:Dazzling, Bright Lights, Throngs of People, Unfamiliar Smells assaulting my senses., Everything under the sun for sale, Every part of animals cooked and for sale from hundreds of tiny, unsanitary looking carts, Like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

Day 3:

Taipei 101: Tallest building in the world.

Day4: on to Thailand!

Strange!

Taipei is CARAAAAZY

The Building that we stayed in in Taipei earns the distinction of being the single most RANDOM Building on the Planet.  

Our building (The Most Random Building on the Planet)

The Elevator has only these numbers: 1 2 7 8 9 10 11 12 13  what happened to the other floors?  Lets take the stairs and find out…

Floor 14:  pool hall, internet café

Floor 13: Our hotel (has scales out front at the welcoming table.  why? Also serves breakfast of things like ham cubes and shredded cheese with peas.  ???)

Floor 12:  Like something straight out of a horror movie, totally empty, doors chained up with huge chainlocks, but if you peek through you can see floors covered in what appears to be sand(lots of it).  On the ceiling of the hallway some strange web of wires is strung geometrically, covered in cobwebs.  The windows are all boarded up with wood that is at least a foot thick.  Are they trying to keep someone (thing) out or in?

a pic of the creepy stuff on the ceiling.

Floor 11: Empty

Floor 10: Corporate Offices(Shining Blick Enterprises)

Floor 9: Billiards, Textile company

Floor 8: The Snooker Club(gambling hall) Movie rental place with individual rooms to watch movies in.  cool!

Floor 7: Eden Club (really fancy Bordello)

Floor 6: Mystery(doors locked, elevator will not open)

Floor 5: Mystery

Floor 4: California Fitness floor 2

Floor 3: California Fitness

Floor 2: Fancy retaurant with disgusting food.

Floor 1: Starbucks, something called an nightlife complex, Shoe boutique

 

Taipei

Wow our first two days in Taipei have been insane.

We arrived at the airport and the first thing we had to do was walk through a sensor that measured our temperature to make sure that we didn't have a fever that could be an indicator of possible swine flu.  Not kidding. 

Everyone here wears masks, and they even have stylish ones.  There are a MILLION scooters everywhere and a special lane on the freeway just for the scooters.  People drive like maniacs and we have watched death being cheated many times already.  Everyone has been very friendly and helpful.  The city itself is chaotic and dirty and the smells are the strangest part.  They are so unfamiliar and definitely unpleasant.  Our hotel is on the 13th floor(gulp) of a very strange building.  Some of the other occupants: pool hall, movie theater, nudey bar... and then there are these three creepy empty floors.  There is no button on the elevators for the empty floors.  Eeeeerie.
I HATE the food, everything, even the coffee at Starbucks, tastes like fish.  No joke.

Yesterday we deboarded and went straight to National Taipei University, where we spent a long, grimy, jetlagged day being led around the campus in a zombie-like state.  Then later we were so deleriously tired we decided to wander around.  The nightlife is insane, and we wound up in a restaurant where no one spoke English and we had to just guess which items to get(no pictures).  I(as you might guess) opted to just have a beer and no food. The beers are insanely HUGE and cost 2.00.  

Today we went to the National Palace Museum and had a tour of the largest exhibit of Chinese artifacts, some as old as 8000 years old!  We also went to see a Taiwanese show being taped, which was entirely in Manderin and trying to figure out what was happening was quite amusing.  The Taiwanese really really like to use sound effects in their shows.  I lost count of how many boings, meows, and clashes we heard.  Now we are getting ready to go visit one of the famous night markets, which only open after sundown.

This is craaazy!!! Love you miss you!