Not Busy, Just Thai'd Up

 

Anyway, I love his informative tangents.  Apparently Thais have long complicated names now, but they are given nicknames which come from some crazy story or characteristic from when they were little.  “Gai” means “chicken (or rooster, he claims)”- I won’t give the entire story, but he was placed on top of a pheasant cage when he was little because of lots of words.  The Thai word for pheasant is “chicken of the sky”, but it is too feminine, so they shortened it to gai, for chicken.  Awesome, right?!  He also gave us a history of the Thai king and his family- apparently the king was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  Small world!

 

Then there’s Social and Cultural History with Ajan Ratanaporn, and Globalization with Ajan Paul Chambers.  I’m excited to write a 20-page paper for globalization, which is weird.  I would say more about these classes, but I’m peeved at how many pages of boring reading I did and have yet to do for these classes.  For Social and Cultural, we did go on a field trip to Wat Chammadevi, the Hariphunchai National Museum, and the Wat Prat...I need to go figure out how to spell this one...but the field trip part was fun and informational.

 

Bloop bloop bleep blop.  So, I totally forgot what I did this past week- last Monday seems forever ago.  Time to consult my daily journal!

 

Monday night, Laura the Lovely Australian took us to a jazz bar called North Gate.  I loved it.  There weren’t many people, the atmosphere was chill, there was a dude doing pop and locks in the corner next to the old rocking bunny child’s plaything, and they played a couple of songs I could sing along to (“Girl from Impanema” and “Just the Two of Us”). 

 

Tuesday morning, Laura the Soft-Spoken and I went to a Presbyterian service spoken in all Thai.  They had a Christian rock band playing, then a minister spoke for about forty minutes about Matthew 1-4.  Fortunately, the head of the ministry at Payap, Esther, was there to translate the Thai for us.  It was super! I’ve never been to a Presbyterian service- it seemed so chill, and all of the young people were really into it.  The minister was more advisory than “preachy” I think, so the atmosphere was really comfortable and lax.  By no means am I gonna become a Christian, but I enjoyed the service, and seeing how things are done in a different church in a different country.  This church on campus is super awesome by the way.  Its architecture has a mix of Buddhist and Christian influence to make a statement about the harmonization of religion and that it does not matter where you worship, but that you are doing worship.  It’s just beautiful.  It looks like a Christian church due to the large cross on top, but the roof is in the shape of the Buddhist lotus.  It was also built over water- rad right?

 

So let’s see.  Bike shopping- I don’t think I’m gonna get a bike.  I suck at riding a bike, and the roads here are not friendly for bikes and pedestrians.  The sidewalk is a concept that barely exists- if it does, there are very large obstructions such as trees, cars, or a nonsensical end- and the roads are not the most even.  Also, traffic can be scary- I haven’t seen very many crosswalks, and even if you have the little walking man sign, some people still won’t stop.

 

Monkey Club on Wednesday night- I didn’t feel like doing homework.  My friend, Pek, wanted to take us out to this nice club to see a popular Thai band, Tattoo Color play.  Dude, we were very much underdressed.  Thai girls like to dress up- even at school, there are so many girls wearing heels with their uniforms.  Oh well- I forgot my booty skirts at home.  I liked the live bands, especially the one that kept playing American pop songs.  American pop+Thai accent is adorable.  But Tattoo Color was definitely the highlight of my night- they are really good and entertaining, AND they played songs I know by Electric Neon Lamp and POLYCAT, and Two Door Cinema Club! AWWWWW YEAAAA! The atmosphere was interesting though.  The Thai people didn’t really dance unless they were close to us American folk who were dancing like crazy baffoons.  Ya gotta feel the music and move it, Thailand.  Leg’go.  It was a good time until my groove got ruined by people wanted to get through the crowd (STAY IN ONE PLACE AND DANCE!), and tiny tables with drinks poking my bum.  Not a good feel.

 

Vair interesting politics talk that I went to voluntarily…MEDITATION! With the Green Papaya Sangha at the Yoga Tree Studio.  It was beautiful.  We did sitting and walking meditation in the style of Zen Buddhism.  I highly recommend meditation to people- just do it.  It will make you calmer, and more self-aware, and very intriguing thoughts will come to you.

 

Friday- watched The Bourne Legacy at a theater.  Buying tickets was such a hassle.  We had to choose our seats on this touch screen because you must have assigned seats, and then…idk it was a hassle.  Inside the theater, they played 30 minutes of advertisements (my fave is for Fisho chips), then everyone stood up for the playing of the King’s Song.  The people’s loyalty and love for their king is just amazing.  They play the King’s Song I think every day, and during that time, people stop and stand attentively.  It’s amazing.  I’ve never seen so many people do something in unison.  The movie was okay.  But like, what does it have to do with the Bourne trilogy?

 

Saturday, I returned to the Yoga Tree Studio for an introduction to the Hakomi method of self-discovery with Adam How.  I won’t talk about it too much because this post is already so long, and I have SO MUCH MORE TO TELL! I think the most surprising aspect of this experience was that we had to have interesting interactions with others in order to understand how we carry ourselves or perceive ourselves in the world.  In the first experiment, each of us had to sit in front of one other person in silence, and just observe them and “connect” with them.  Twas a slightly uncomfortable and intriguing experience.  Some people didn’t like it, but others did.  I could go on for pages about this, but I am not sure that I could truly express everything that I thought and felt and experienced in two hours.  Ask me about it some other time.

 

Then, Mexican food in Thailand.  We went to this place called El Toro…I don’t want to say it was bad, but like it wasn’t good.  I was totally thrown for a loop because there were Asian versions of everything.  Alex had vanilla yogurt instead of sour cream with her taco, and my refried beans were made out of black beans instead of pinto beans.  The most mind-boggling was the fact that Thai was being spoken at a Mexican restaurant.  Instead of “muchas gracias,” I had to say “kob kun kha”.  Talk about culture faux pas.  After that, we walked around, I bought some books at a used book store, then we sat down in a random bar.  This bar was super cute.  The servers were transvestites, they made the straws curve near the top so that they looked like hearts, and then they pulled out Connect 4 and this weird dice game for us to play.  I loved everything about it except for the lemon juice I ordered.

 

Next day! Twas a food day.  For dinner, Alex and I accompanied Allen, Goi, and Seven (our Payap friends that studied at SMCM last semester) to Duke’s for good ol’ American food.  I almost cried at the amount of cheese I had on my plate.  I LOVE CHEESE.  It’s almost the only thing I miss about America.  It was lovely to see my friends again, but the highlight of the day was going to the Free Bird Café.  I urge everyone to please click on the link and read about this place.  Tis why I won’t write about it here- please- it’ll be worth it. And if you are too lazy, I will write about it again soon.