o thailand!

o holy crap, how do i tell everything?

 well, my pictures were a bit out of date since another weekend has passed since they were taken. last weekend consisted of a hike up a mountain…puk something (puk is mountain) to this grand temple at the top. this hike is i hear the initiation hike for all freshmen at chiang mai university. anyone should get the hint by now that when the word “initiation” is used, we are not in for a simple day hike here, this is a steep climb that weaves through forest and ends by basically looking like we are hitchhiking down a road to the final destination. it is steep and basically awesome, i loved it, even the steep part that nearly killed me near the end…just kidding, it was tough, but i endured it. some of the guys and this one girl who is a runner and tall, skinny and blond (sound familiar?) wanted to run to the top of the final 305 steps up the temple, but i don’t know what the actual outcome was there. i do know that one of the health freak guys had a monitor on him and informed us we had walked the equivalent of 2000 calories, making our thai massage later all the more sweeter.

so, temple at the top of mountain….this might just be a fault of my imagination, but i actually created an expectation for this venture..whoops, never do that when in another country. this instance, however, might have been the result of watching “croaching tiger, hidden dragon” too many times. remember (and if you don’t, then go watch this movie cuz it rocks) at the end of the movie when sun is walking up the mountain where the woodan fighters train? remember how it was a steep, lush green mountain with rickory steps that looked like they had been carved out of the mountain? i believe there was also some mist involved in the whole affect. well, that is either amazing location finding on ang lee’s part or special effects, but this mountain in thailand was nothing like that; steep, but i suppose the best word i can use is touristy. and not just regular annoying, bratty, rude, obnoxious american touristy, the majority was asian tourism, which after spending an afternoon behind a group in the louvre, is not my most favorite group to be around. but i endured it and tooked a rediculous amount of photos…hey, might as well….

ajaan add, the thai professor who is basically ajaan mike’s right hand man here in thailand, provided us with a brief history of buddhism using the images painted on the walls of the temple. the story is that the relic of buddha was carried by an elephant up this mountain and when it reached the top it fell over dead. so they built a temple on that spot and buried the relic beneath the temple. this somewhat reminded me of the christian ritual of burying st. peter’s bones beneath the vatican…not a huge simularity, but it sparked a familar ritual cycle of rememberance for me.

most of the buddhists who would worship at this temple thousands of years ago could not read or write, so the story is depicted via paintings around the temple walls. i am proud to say though it has been eight years, i actually remembered some of the story from the buddhism unit in my sixth grade history class, at least the part about the buddha being kept in the temple all his childhood and devoid of all connection with things dead, old, or deformed…that is until he got out one day and saw a begger and dead people and then decided to leave his wife and son and the wealthy life he had about to be a king and become a monk. i can still see the slides in that portable at churchill all those years ago..wow….

anyway, i was about all touristed out, especially after i accidently looked at a woman’s paintings and didn’t buy one and she called me stingy in thai…o well, live and learn, or the thai way, mai pen rai. we took the see lot all the way back down the hill and we were all fading until we got back to the university and had lunch, listened to a woman talk to us about how to act in our host families (or tried to listen) and then we went to the massage. massages are great, some people would call painful, but i didn’t really think that. we practiced our thai with the ladies and they thought it was really cute that we knew how to ask their names and say how old we are in thai.

the next morning was the fateful morning: we met the host families. i hadn’t been really scared, i figured i would get a family i could adapt too regardless. however, with all the jitters floating around, it eventually got to me as well. well, let me say now: my host family is freakin’ awesome. if wes or brittany get this woman next year…holy crap, you are lucky and i will be jelous. khun maa is my mom and she is an older woman, a retired nutritionist teacher. she lives with her sister, maa puu i call her, and her nephew, i call pii nung. they have a maid i call pii boa and she doesn’t speak a word of english, which makes for a lot of smiling and giggles in the morning when she gives me breakfast. i asked for a small family and one with no pets and i got just that. at first i was bummed that there were no kids around, but after spending the entire afternoon at an internship with kids, it is such a relief to come back and just chill. they live in a modest house about 20 minutes from the university in the original city, i say modest since some individuals on our team live about 45 minutes away in mansions that have more electronic gadgets than i have back at home. i like this experience. pii nung runs an internet shop next to their house which i get to use for free. they have told me i can check here every day and i can use a web cam, but i don’t knew how that will work, pii nung will have to show me. the problem is as i write this, it’s about 5 am back home….

as you all probably gathered, i am teaching english at baan phatsawan. i actually should be making up a lesson plan for tomorrow because god i am going to need it. i taught my first class today and managed to keep rather calm, all those vbs days are starting to pay off. i am teaching in the 6th grade class, but that in no way implies ages, since they range from 10 to 13 since these kids are often not in the grade according to their age. we had an orintation on monday, but this time it was me teaching english in a class from 2 to 4 with a 10 minute break to 21 6th graders. looking back on it, it went rather quick, but any hesitations i might have had about not being a teacher were now confirmed: i can be a teacher (if i couldn’t, then i would be out of line with my entire genetic line), but it would not be something i would do right away. but i’m somewhat glad this is going to be tough- i chose not to be at the buddhist university because i thought i would be idle too much. this will be a sufficient amount of work and probably much more do-able once i have an idea of what i am doing. i’m just thinking one day at a time….and have even more respect, were it possible, for all you liberal studies major (ironically, none of us on the trip are liberal studies major). there is much more i can say about this internship, and that will come out in later entries…

since my khun maa was a nutritionist, i eat very healthy and she understands not to overfeed me. we discussed, in broken thai and english, that i have worried before coming that i would eat to much. she is great and understanding and is always giving me fruit saying “good vitamin b!” it’s basically the answer to a prayer i have been having from the day i was accepted. i hear about other girls being fed so much food and of course it’s a struggle for the vegatarians in the group (but i love meat, so this is not a problem!). my family is very buddhist- i found out last night that maa pii actually was a nun in a temple a couple of years ago. i still have to figure more of this out and am going to miss a few days of class and travel to bangkok for a buddhist festival in a month with my family. i told ajaan mike about it and he said i could miss since this is a great observing opportunity. to sum up my thoughts: kinda stoked….

we are going to a village this weekend, so i will be gone from thursday to sunday and i’m sure i will have plenty to say about that since i hear it is going to be an amazing memorable weekend…but i’ve been hearing that about everything, so….well, i’m sure it will be great cuz there will be cute little asian kids for me to hug and play soccer with, so, what more can you ask for?

i’ve been watching a lot of tv to absorb the thai language. it’s coming…slowly…..i should probably study more, but with time, i know i can only improve. watching tv is pretty freakin’ hilarious- people, mostly girls, in thai soap operas slap each other. a lot. and their perception of beauty is so different. watch commercials in the US and count how many times there is somthing about skin being smoother, younger, and darker. come here and it’s smoother, younger….and the ability to make your skin two shades lighter. i knew this about this culture before coming, but it’s still a shock- it took me seeing the same commercial about three times to figure out they were saying your skin will be more beautiful and ligher. interestingly, i have seen more for lighter skin on men than on women….

i’m hoping on my off days to go the the buddhist university and chill with my friends there, from america and the monks. they have this section of the university called “monk chat” which is basically where anyone can walk into the university, sit down, and chat with a monk about why they chose to become a monk and what works for them about buddhism. so basically, what i have wished to do for the last four years….needless to say, i will be learning lots from these monks, not to mention my family.

okay, wow, that was alot for you guys to read….sorry, i hope it was a nice break in the day or a humerous antidote for when you should be paying attention to a lecture. now i have to go do a large amount of reading, practicing, and lesson planning- crap, i keep forgetting i’m in school this semester too! just kidding, only sometimes……

i just looked over and saw a USB port on this computer, so next time i’ll plug in my camera and try to get some more photos on here before i leave as a sort of supplement to this thesis paper.

and in answer to your question in your lovely book christa juell- yes it is warm, yes santa barbara is all green from the rain, but it is warm here and i am absorbing every moment of it. now if only my skin would start to do the same…some cultural perceptions don’t change with the time zones…..

love you all and hope you’re doing well,

sarah

ps- “into the wild” is a really good fast read. “sex god” is just mind blowing amazing- i might be re-reading it on this trip. “the kite runner” is great and i’m in the middle of it.

pps- the sac bee predicted obama and mccain. cnn.com predicted hilary. let’s hope sacramento politics is not run by the weather forecasting team….

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~ by sarah davis on January 22, 2008.