Loy Krathong

On Wednesday at Fashion ,we had the party for Loy Krathong where we had a crafts class on how to make Krathong, the banana leaf and flower boats. The festival itself was last night and it is absolutely beautiful. Nadia took me and another teacher, Ben, to the night market by the river where everyone flocked to buy and make Krathongs and set them into the canal. The festival itself is to thank the River God as well as apologize for any bad things that people have done to it. So everyone builds beautiful boats and says some prayers then leans over and puts their krathong in the canal to float on. Some are made of bread so the river fish can eat them, others made of plastic, but most are made of the banana trees. Before the entrance, people were buying lanterns and lighting the middle, making wishes, and letting them float into the sky. It was beautiful. Me, Nadia, and Ben all released a lantern and made a wish for the new year.

 

We didn't buy any krathongs since we'd made them earlier in the week, but we watched as hundreds gathered to set their boats in the river with hopes of a better year ahead. Nadia told me how some people put a bit of money on the boats for the River God and in the morning, children are reaching into the canals grabbing the coins and taking them. Oddly enough, when leaving around 12:30am, there were two men in a seemingly sinking canoe/boat that were picking up peoples Krathongs and taking out the coins. I found this extremely odd, as everyone could see them and it's a pretty big loss of face. Everyone was shooting off sparklers and some were shooting off serious fireworks and they exploded over the bridge with all the boats lighting up the river underneath. Young Thai couples would make boats with love written on them or in hearts, ya know all the adorable shit. But it actually was quite cute. Overall it was a really good night and I'm really glad I got to be a part of such a gorgeous festival.

The Joys of Life: Food & Friends

      Had such an awesome night with all my new friends from training. I hope I can stay in touch with all of them, even though we'll be working at different branches. Being in my own kitchen as it was taken over by Thai girls, it reminded me of my own family. Chattering away while chopping and peeling more food than ever would be necessary to feed six girls. That's what reminded me of my family the most. The amount of food bought was obscene, yet unlike my Jewish relatives, almost everything was finished. I now have a fully stocked kitchen too, with everything I'd need in it (or so I think) to make some authentic Thai food. The made fried chicken wings marinated in soy sauce and garlic which was delicious and fairly easy from the looks of it. Also fried chicken skins and the chili garlic chicken that Nadia made. There was also a dish Kat made with chicken, Thai eggplant, mini corns, chilis, and a few other things I think. It looked like it was going to be extremely spicy, but it was just delicious. Afterwards, we sat around and had girl chatter for a few hours. It was really nice and I am so glad to have met them all. Hopefully, we will all be able to hang out again, maybe make it a monthly thing or something. I definitely want to stay in touch with all of them. I also  hope I can see the other people from training in the future at big corporate events and parties.

       In other news the training today was boring, but I found out I'm not supposed to ask for leave until March 8th, which really sucks. My first day actually teaching is tomorrow starting at 12pm to 9pm. We'll see how the commute goes in the morning. I'm getting  hours of prep and then I'm observing a class before I teach my first one at 6 I think. It should be a fun day. Wish I had some new clothes to wear, but that'll have to wait until next week.

Homoeroticism, an Old Man, and Abe Lincoln on the 5 Dollar Bill

Okay, so I did something worthwhile or at least interesting today. I left my apartment and went to the MOCA. Bangkok's newest Museum of Contemporary Art. It was in interesting place indeed. With many interesting things indeed... Upon entering there is a life size Salvador Dali painting a portrait which you can sit in and take a picture in. 

             

There is a theme of homo-eroticism in lots of Thai Art
from what I saw

 So that's cool. There's also three bronze statues of horses. One of which contains two horses on top of each other, licking one another's balls. The irony is added to this by the title of the work, "Adam and Steve." I haven't figured out how to interpret that yet. Anyways the first floor contains some gorgeous work of Thai photographers. Also some phenomenal painting. A reoccurring theme of life and death, along with breasts on pretty much everything including free floating breasts. I'm not sure if this somehow represents giving life or fertility or what, but I hope to look into it...maybe.

My Favorite

Either way the museum was beautiful and afterwards I went for a two hour Thai massage to counter the week of sleeping on my brick called a bed. Thai massage, as I said before is always an experience. This time the woman dug her knees into my ass cheeks while putting her elbow on my shoulder blades and went in the crazy circular motion. It was...riveting? I don't know honestly they are quite painful for at least the first thirty minutes before it can even begin to feel good, but walking away I felt good and it as $10 for 2 hours so I'll be back. When I thought about this post during my massage, it was a lot funnier and longer in my head, but ya'll like pictures anyways so I'm just going to flood you with the best ones from today. Last day of training tomorrow!!!

Take a good look at this one. It has Obama in the sternum of the ribcage and Abe Lincoln on the 5 dollar bill on top of some Thai Baht.

Also, I was recently informed that several states are "petitioning to succeed from the Union". If you actually think this sounds like a reasonable action get off my page! Good luck taking away my rights and trying to re-enslave black people.

Mugshots or Tequila shots?

      This week of training has been...a week of training for 8 hour days and an hour commute each way. That said I really like everyone I'm training with. I think I said that already, actually I am positive I did, but I want to tell you some more about them. Normally, there's that one person in the group that sucks, but that's not the case here. Nadia, is the Thai girl who's going to teach me to cook and works at Fashion with me as a PT. Ben is a  Brit who kind of looks like Harry from McFly, and Sam is an American from Georgia that looks like he belongs on a yacht at all times. I wish everyone was coming to Fashion with us, especially this girl, Tip. She's Thai and absolutely hilarious. She's really petite and excited a lot and she doodles drawings of either Samara from The Ring on all of her papers or a picture of a monk standing next to a dog. Both of which I find absolutely hysterical... 

Example A

     All the Thai girlfriends I've met have been extremely open and honest with me, honestly to a surprising level for having just met me a week ago. We have a final day of training for IT on Monday that gets out early and I've invited a bunch of the girls over for dinner and maybe a movie after. I'm a little nervous to make dinner, but I'm going to aim for something they haven't had a lot so they won't be able to tell if it's bad and I'm definitely not making Thai food. That said I finally got to go grocery shopping and buy real food so I'm going to get more comfortable with my kitchen this weekend.
     I went to pick up my visa pictures that I had taken a few days ago and they came out hilarious. The woman asked me if I wanted to see and when she showed me I just bust out laughing. Then she started laughing too and we just stared at my picture together and laughed. You aren't allowed to smile, but at least I look like a classy criminal. My mugshots better be that fierce, call Tyra!

      Tuesday I start at Fashion. I'm feeling quite conflicted about whether to move or not. For starters, I don't have a car to move and I'm acquiring more shit that would make it even more difficult to move. Also, I'm not crazy about moving away from the MRT line to where I can only get to one by an hour van. However, Fashion is a cheaper place to live and the commute wouldn't cost me at least $130 USD out of pocket ( in addition to my travel stipend). Plus, with utilities here and a possibly 8,000 baht commute I'm looking at living and travel expenses being about 20,000 baht alone and that's WAY too much. Either way I won't have the funds to move for at least a few months and I should probably get past the probation period first, which is 119 days.

   This unfortunately means that I can't take any days off until three months have passed. Which means when Amir comes I can't take any time off, but thankfully I have about 7 days off while he's here anyways because it's the holiday season and I get two days off a week anyways. YAY!!! I'm super excited and he'll be here for the Full Moon party in Koh Phangan which is going to be awesome I believe. Finally get to be with this handsome stud who I now haven't seen in almost two years now...that should be a crime.

        Last night, I went out with all the trainees for some drinks. We had a really good time, but I left somewhat early with the girls because I was so tired. I think some of the girls may be coming over for dinner and a movie on Monday after training and some happy hour drinks, but we'll see...

Everyone Likes a Working Girl, a fighter, and Rod Stewart

Had my first day of training in Silom. But wait, before this I had to go to the US Embassy for "Citizen services" aka getting robbed by my own country. You have to make an appointment to go and of course they had none until the day my training started, so I traveled an hour to get to my 8:15am appointment. I get there and there's a million people in one line, none in the line I'm supposed to be waiting in, but of course due to ...miscommunication I end up in the other line, only for a woman to chase me down and bring me inside. At which point they take my ID, my phones, and put it in some lock box. I flashed a creepy teethy smile at the security guard. I'm visibly annoyed at this point, but I can't communicate that so I might as well look creepy. He smiles back, which would have never flown is he was American, but because he's Thai he smiles and lets me go through security. Finally, get into the citizen services which is consisting solely of American men who seem to be married to non-American women. I wonder how much a marriage visa is because extra pages are $82 and a letter they stamp without reading or checking any other former documentation costs $50. CRIMINAL.
      Anyways, got to Silom start the training, it's insanely boring I can't even tell you what was said aside from the rules about Personal Leave, pay/banking, and a ten minute break. By the way, McDonald's sells popcorn. Three other people in the training group work at Fashion Island with me. Two teachers, one American guy from Atlanta, one British guy, and a Thai girl who is a private tutor. We went to Fashion Island together and met everyone in the staff. Everyone is so nice. The Sales girls/Education Consultants are all super sweet and I will probably try and get them to take me shopping wherever they go. The private tutors are super helpful and sweet and there is also the director, the maids, and the teachers. Unfortunately, the rest of the training is in Silom, so I won't see them again until I start teaching next Tuesday, but I'm excited 1) cause it means new friends 2) cause my new friends seem awesome.
In other news after the training, I went to meet up with my new friend who I got wine with the other night. Went to her family home, met her parents who are absolutely hilarious and ended up coming with us to this big show Bangkok Music Festival. It was basically a deserted train station converted into a market converted into a venue. I met a few of her friends who were super nice, all interns at this NGO that works to...something about preventing child exploitation? We had a really good time, there were tons of DJs, good music and good food in the market right outside. Overall a high ranking night for sure...

          

 
    This is a sprawling post because it's summarizing a few days, but anyways the next night I went out in Thonglor which is actually a very cool, up and coming area. Went to a restaurant called the Witch's Tavern, which basically looks like Halloween inside and there's a Thai version of Rod Stewart singing karaoke inside. We went to a rooftop hookah bar after, then on to our first actual local club which was basically the first experience with the Bangkok underground. It was insane, every table had a hookah and a bottle of Johnnie Walker black label and everyone was just chugging it straight from the bottle and chasing with water. Hardcore Thais. They had chandeliers in the shape of unicorns.
  The next day we went to a free Muay thai show that was filmed live for Channel 7 News Broadcast. All locals, screaming, betting (which is illegal) in Thai. It was definitely a very cool experience and it was free vs the 2500 baht bullshit at Lumphini. Afterwards we ate at and wondered around Chatuchak Market. Didn't wonder much though before I felt absolutely filthy and just went home.

We're going to check you for Syphilis now...

To get a work visa in Thailand you need to pass a medical exam, in which they take your blood pressure, blood type, check for Syphilis, Elephantiasis, Leprosy, drug addiction, and alcoholism. All the casual things, I'm sure you understand. So I went to the local hospital because my landlord assured my that they spoke English here. My taxi driver dropped me at the Emergency room entrance so it got off to a weird start with men running to the cab opening doors and me just walking out. I had the paper I needed in Thai so they understood what I wanted, but it seemed their best English was "Please take a seat". A woman took me outside to a golf cart that was waiting and drove me to another building where there was an eye health office and then wherever I was. Maybe general practitioners, I'm not sure. Anyways, the nurse who was 'taking care of me' brought over a questionnaire and kind of went through it. She basically read the English words but didn't exactly form them into questions. Example she said the word blood, I looked down said type A positive and she smiled nodded tapped my arm and pointed to Syphilis. I said ' uh no have syphilis', she hits my arm again says blood and I realize now that she was saying we will test your blood for it, but that was not clear earlier. Despite it being the cleanest hospital I've ever been in I still got nervous when she used the needle and this tiny daunting voice kept telling me I was going to get Staff. After going back to the lobby to wait a bit, I got called into the doctors office, who I was very relieved to learn spoke English. She checked my breathing, had me sit on the table and despite me wearing pants they put a towel over my legs. She rolled my shirt up a bit and for the first time I felt kind of embarrassed for having a belly button ring. I don't really know why but I just felt like she was going to judge me for it or something. She pressed on my stomach and liver and asked me if it felt tender. I said no and apparently that was my test for drug addiction and alcoholism. No pee test or anything. Anyways the whole thing took maybe an hour and some change and it cost me less $17. Hows that for Healthcare reform. Speaking of which at this point and I still don't know who the new President is. I get in a cab and the Thai driver asked where I come from, I said America and he shouted Obama. I smiled and said the election was today and asked if he won. He nodded, but I wasn't clear if he understood. As soon as I connected to wifi in the apartment I could tell he had won within seconds of Facebook uploading. At this point my day turned around and I went to go have dinner and drinks with a girl I met at the Halloween show. We went to this amazing Japanese restaurant where I got a noodle set with gyoza, kimchi, rice, miso soup, and some unknown tofu thing. All for $5. It was delicious. Then we walked to this place that has wine for 99baht which is about $3. It was super classy and a section of the Hyatt Erawan. Definitely, going back. The night was really good, lots of great conversation, as we chatted about Politics, America, Thailand, personal lives, school, and jobs. It was really nice just to have some free flowing intellectual conversation and I hope her and I will become good friends. I will also say that now is a great time to be living outside the US. Seeing America through an outside lense looking in is so much different. Ethnocentrism doesn't even begin to explain how self absorbed the country is, yes American decisions have an outreaching affect, but they don't make or break every other country's state of well being. People love or hate America, but there's a good fucking reason nobody is in-between.
    On the other hand, today I have done absolutely nothing. Tomorrow, I have my first day of training that starts at ten. However, before this I have to go into the US Embassy to get that letter and my passport pages. I should probably remember to bring a shitload of money and my passport and degree. Fashion Island hired two other teachers as well so I will get to meet them tomorrow, which is exciting. They are both dudes, and there is only one other female teacher there so I kind of wonder why that is but maybe they will live somewhere near me so I can commute with one of them.Anywho, I should have another update after at least the weekend. Enjoy yours!

Employment, Elephants, and Erawan

       My dear friends and anonymous stalkers, it has been a while. That is because since my last post, I made the decision to refrain from posting until I had a job. This is for your sake as I wanted to give you something more entertaining to read than..."today I woke up at 3pm again and went on Facebook, then I ate Cup of Noodles, then I watched Nat Geo Wild and went to bed." See I have spared you. Good news is I am officially a teacher as of October 31st, 2012. Being unemployed really is not that cool or fun. It involves way too many empty calories. Therefore, I am quite excited to start training as of this upcoming Friday the 9th. However, this next week will consist of me pulling money out of my ass in order to pay for new passport pages, however much it costs for a medical exam, passport photos, to get a letter saying the name on my diploma is actually me since the name does not match my passport, plus my visa one month extension and whatever else they can come up with. Anyways, I promised I had held out on you because now I finally have interesting things to tell you about, so I'm going to start telling you them rather than giving you my upcoming invoice and begging for donations.
         Ok so after I got the call about the job offer, its time to celebrate regardless but it's also Halloween. Two friends from my training program and a new found friend of a friend who is traveling through Southeast Asia all decide to go to this club in Sukhumvit for this performance by DJ Gareth Emery. We had a lot of fun and met some new people, that I definitely plan to force into being my new friends. One was a Swedish girl going to Fashion school in Bangkok and there was a boy and a girl who both grew up and went to high school in Bangkok, but had British or American parents. The girl was doing an internship after graduating college and I can't remember what the guy was doing, but I assume working. Anyways we had a very nice time and the next day I was invited by this friend of a friend (my new found friend Greg) to accompany him to his next location, Kanchanaburi. The place itself is beautiful. Set right on the river with the backdrop of whatever mountains ( I should Google it) cover the horizon.

 I really appreciated the opportunity to get out of Bangkok and I will definitely need to make a habit out of it because after a while I start craving something beautiful. The place we stayed at is called a 'Pae' which is what they call guesthouses that float on the water. My former student informed me of this and told me the feeling of being on it is called 'Sabai' which means "Easy life but be happy." I think that describes my little mini vacation very accurately. When I interviewed last week one of the managers told be there is a common Thai phrase, "Sabai, Sabai,...,..." I forget the end of it, but she translated it as something along the lines of be happy, be happy, have fun, have fun. Honest words to live by I'd say. We arrived there in the evening, had dinner, and then ventured around the local night market...where they also sell puppies, along with DVDs, clothes, make-up, and a large variety of food, including anything from pig blood soup to cake pops. To each their own.
        The next day we went to Elephant World (if you're interested...Here's there website). Here they take in older, sick, or abused elephants that have been pushed out of their herd (Hester Prynne status... smile if you got the reference). They feed the elephants and people go there and volunteer to take care of the elephants for months at a time. Volunteers can also come for the day, like we did, stay overnight, or stay a few days. So first we fed the elephants what I think were pumpkins or gourds or squash. They would wrap their trunks around it and then put it into their mouths. I can't describe how many of these we fed them, but I'm sure you can imagine because they are elephants and their stomach can hold 15 liters at a time which is as fascinating as it is disgusting. I would love to dissect an elephant and get a glimpse of all that. You could probably fit a small child in it's stomach...yeah, I'm going to look that up later. Okay anyways after that we went with the elephants down by the river where they drank part of their 150 liters of water a day requirement.

View of the River from the Top Camp

Then we went off to cut up vegetables for sticky rice to feed the elephants that have lost their last set of teeth. Elephants get six sets of teeth throughout their lives. In the wild when this happens they usually can't eat anymore and they are removed from the herd by the other elephants and left to die alone. Nature is a cruel thing folks. So we made some sticky rice then some riceballs and fed them to the elephants. I was actually scared shitless of the bull elephant we were supposed to be feeding these to and just stayed back and watched. These balls were not placed in their trunks but plopped directly into their mouths. I realize they didn't have any teeth, but they are still massive wild animals. After this we broke for lunch and then set out into the forest, jungle, random location with trees and the slew of Burmese guys who took care of the elephants started chopping down bananas trees and loading them into the trucks for the elephants lunch. After loading up one truck, we realized the one intended to take the people back was out of gas. The other truck with the trees drove back to go some. While we waited in the scorching heat one of the guys started foraging for edible plants. I'm not exactly sure why since we weren't exactly on the verge of death out there, but he brought back some peas and some sugar cane that when you gnaw on a sweet juice comes out of. It was actually pretty good. The second truck returned with a large Coke bottle half way filled with gasoline. It seems to be enough and we drove back to the camp on a baht bus that was seconds away from the benches becoming unhinged. It was a little nerve wracking, but what is adventure if not a close friend of death itself? When we got back, we went to the river to swim and bathe the elephants. It was awesome, but really overwhelming at the same time because you'd be standing in the water next to one elephant and another would come up on your other side and you'd have to stop and wonder whether you were about to die being smooshed to death by elephants. We went back to feed the elephants another fifteen pound snack of corn, which they can surprisingly peel using their trunks alone.

After spending the entire day there we were exhausted and planned an early following day to go trek the waterfalls of Erawan. There are seven waterfalls along the hike and they were each gorgeous and you could swim in I think all of them. The water was so clear and gorgeous and we stopped to swim in a few of them. The rest of the day after the decent down was spent in transit, buses to bus stations, buses back to Bangkok and then finally a cab back to my apartment. Greg left to continue his journey to the old capital, Auttaya.

      I slept for most of it, but when the 2 hour bus to Bangkok took 3 1/2 I started to get a bit nervous that I had taken the wrong bus. Thanks to my 'mai dee' Thai skills, I was able to talk to another passenger and make sure we were going to the right place. He then helped me at our stop and was very nice as was my taxi driver who was fooled by my initial Thai then probably as stressed as I was when he couldn't find my apartment and I was out of all the Thai I know. That said, my Thai is getting much better and I am getting much more confident. That concludes my fabulous eventful weekend, but I did come back to some saddening news that one of my close friends here will be departing to find work in Ho Chi Minh. On a more positive note, I finally met one of my neighbors who is a Thai math teacher at an English school. He said to call him Bad as in "Bad boy" and I assume that's his Thai nickname and telling foreigners that is the only way he can get them to say it right. He seems super friendly, offered to show us all around the neighborhood, and said anytime we are ever in trouble and need someone to speak Thai we can call him and he'd help us, which is a huge extremely nice offer, but that's how Thai people are. Like I said before Thai people will just take care of you, no questions asked. Okay there are a few other tid bits I wanted to bring up before I wrap this up...

       Okay, last week after leaving a club at 6am a prostitute sat down with me and Russell and we started chatting. She insisted on buying us dinner because she wanted us to eat Thai food. She ordered us this really good, but very spicy chicken vegetables and rice. She said she was half-Thai, half Laos but reiterated multiple times that even though she was half Laos that she loves the King. Then she went on to explain to us that she doesn't want us to judge her and she knows that all foreigners think of Thai girls as prostitutes and we just don't understand how rich our countries are and how poor Thailand is...think about it.

       Second, abortion is illegal in Thailand and although the abortion pill is registered it is very difficult to get a hold of. Women on Waves is an organization that provides assistance to women seeking abortions in places where they are illegal. Running the organization from a base in the Netherlands and a boat that sails from place to place to give women help that they need. This organization is amazing and you should be aware of it, possibly donate to it, and definitely tell your friends about it's http://www.womenonwaves.org/