Giving Thanks in Thailand

This year's Thanksgiving was very different from previous years in almost every way. For starters, it was hot and humid on Thanksgiving Day this year. Also, with four days off, our tradition usually was to get together with my parents for a Chinese-American feast on the day of the holiday, with traditional Thanksgiving fare and Chinese food. The next few days might be spent attending holiday festivities in our area, decorating for Christmas, and seeing friends.

This year, Thanksgiving Day was business as usual here. The day actually snuck up on us because there was no fanfare about it at all. With the day being a regular school day and no oven in our kitchen, we thought we would skip the holiday this year and let the day pass like any other day.

I was missing our annual tradition with my family, but the ex-pat community being what it is here, with people looking out for and supporting each other (one of the things I love about being here), we were invited by another family to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. There was a beautifully cooked turkey (they have an oven in their kitchen), mashed potatoes, broccoli, apple sauce, gravy, pumpkin pie, and Bailey's Irish cream, all homemade (one gets very good at making one's own food living in a country where western items are hard to find) and incredibly tasty. We brought over mashed pumpkin/squash, stuffing, and my husband's amazing homemade pasta. We also had wine for the second time since arriving here. It was pretty good wine, but like all western things, good wine also is rare in Thailand.

Thanksgiving dinner.

It was a great evening filled with eating, drinking, chatter, and laughter. It was so much fun. Sitting there, amidst the chatter and laughter, I realized how happy I felt. I hadn't felt that way in a long time. It was wonderful.

Friday night, we celebrated Thanksgiving again with another group of friends, this time Thai style at a restaurant. It was another great night with a few of our favorite people here. One of them is a fourth-grade teacher who is amazing with little kids, whom my son just adores and who adores my son as well. Another wonderful meal -- green papaya salad, green mango with shrimp salad, green curry with bamboo, pad see ew, cashew chicken, and fried rice. It was a perfect, low-key way to end our week.

Our view at dinner.

Accompanying our dinner was the soothing sound of the fountain in the lake.

From left to right: Cashew chicken, green curry, and green papaya salad (the dish on the right were some extra toppings).

During these celebrations, I realized that, for the first time in a long time, it seemed like all the parts of my life were finally coming together like pieces of a puzzle. I felt such genuine gratitude (and that is rare for me) for having the life that I now do: being able to live out my dream; having my husband and my little guy by my side as we go on this adventure together; meeting and making really amazing and kind new friends; having the wonderful friends that I do back in the U.S.; and having the means to stay connected with them. I feel empowered that I set out to change my life for the better, and have been able to accomplish this goal so far. I feel so lucky that I've been able to have this life-changing experience in this lifetime.

Busy Bee

This past month has gone by in a whirlwind! So much going on and so much to do. First of all, besides doing all the housework, I've also been working a ton, subbing at least twice a week, sometimes for the entire week, at all levels -- elementary, middle-school, and high-school. I had a chance to sub for a third-grade teacher a couple of weeks ago, which I was nervous about because I had never worked with elementary-level kids except through volunteer opportunities with my son's class, which is always with the teacher present and fully in charge. Well, I was very pleasantly surprised. Thanks to my son and his love affair with potty jokes, comic books, Captain Underpants, and the Magic Tree House books, I was able to relate well to the boys, who all had similar senses of humor and interests. The girls were all so sweet, helpful, and lovely. The most amazing thing of all, though, was how well they all worked on their own. The entire day. The teacher gave me group activities for them to complete, and they would listen to the instructions and get on it immediately, staying on task most of the time! The most I had to do the entire day was to ask them to keep their voices down a little; otherwise, no behavioral issues whatsoever. I'm sure it also helped that they had four specials that day, so they spent only about half of the school day with me. But now, whenever the students see me at school, they run up to me to say hi and tell me about whatever exciting thing is going on with them. So cute and sweet.

On top of all this, I've also started a Chinese "club" once a week after school. I had been thinking about giving my son some Chinese lessons of my own so he wouldn't forget the Chinese he had learned in the U.S. the past couple of years, but could never get motivated enough. The school offers an after-school Chinese club once a week, but I've heard it has kids of all levels and isn't well-run. Then one of my friends here started her kids with private Mandarin lessons once a week, but mentioned to me that she was feeling that it wasn't enough, so we decided to get our kids together once a week for me to teach them also. It was a good motivator for me to get started with my son. We've only met two or three times, but it's been another good creative outlet for me and a nice way for me to get my own Mandarin writing and speaking skills back.

Then, this past week, I was contacted by a (British?) family to provide Mandarin tutoring for their two young girls, but I think they live closer to, or in, downtown Bangkok, so we'll see what comes of that. I've also learned of some tutoring opportunities at our school, which I'm investigating. 

I've also been working with my son after school several days a week to supplement what he's learning in school. I've mentioned before that his class is currently learning material that he already did last year. This is especially true in math. [And I hate the math program that the elementary school here uses. I've seen the math program for grades 1, 2, and 4 so far, and it just gets worse and worse.] So my husband and I met with the elementary school staff -- his teacher, math coach, guidance counselor -- to figure out how to better accommodate his needs and provide some differentiation for him. After a lot of talking and defensiveness on the part of the principal and math coach, they finally gave us higher-level materials that he can work on in class and on his own, including an awesome online program that is much clearer and easier to understand.

[Meeting with this principal has certainly given me a renewed appreciation for our principal from our school back home, who always kept an open mind and was so amazingly open to talking and working with parents.]

So we're all tired; it's nearing the end of the first semester. Looking forward to taking a break from the everyday routine during our 17-day semester break, which is coming up in about three weeks. Can't wait!!

A Weekend of Firsts and Celebrations

This weekend was a busy one! On Friday night, we got to eat our first burgers in Thailand! It was every bit as delicious as we have been imaging all these months (yes, finding and eating American and western food is now a bigger deal than eating Thai or other Asian foods).

The place is called Amp Saloon. It looks every bit like a saloon as one can imagine. Inside, it was crude and rustic, with a few battered tables and chairs, but also cozy corner spots of low coffee tables surrounded by rickety, but comfortable, chairs and couches. There also was a pool table and a mechanical riding horse for kids in the middle of the room. The wall decorations were eclectic, ranging from hub caps to portraits of Che Guevara. In the background, "real" American music -- Journey, Sting, Cranberries -- played. Notice they also do tattoos.

Next door, the restaurant also has a store connected to it selling everything from t-shirts to wacky, random things, such as...well, you can see a little bit for yourself here.

We started out with two appetizers: hot wings that looked more like drumsticks and another dish called larb, which tasted way better than it sounds. It is basically a minced meat (I think we got pork) mixed with spices, mint, and other herbs, and fried with chili peppers. Then the six of us each got a Smoky Burger -- a burger bigger than the size of my hand with cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and a tangy barbeque sauce. YUM. All the burgers could be made with pork or beef. Over beer, we enjoyed the American food and western ambiance, and hung out and chatted with our friends while our kids played. A sweet way to start the weekend.

Saturday night, my husband and I got a chance to go out on our first date night since arriving here. It was also an early celebration of my upcoming birthday....The big 4-0!! Yikes!! Meanwhile, our son was at another family's house for his first on-his-own sleepover. That also meant that we got a whole night to ourselves for the first time in about four years!!

Getting ready for a night out and going out for the night here is a bit different from when we did it in the U.S. in several ways:
1) Because I still don't have a hair dryer here, I dried my hair by sitting in front of our fan.
2) Even though I normally don't wear makeup on a daily basis, I would usually wear it for a night out. Here, however, I didn't because I didn't want to look like my face had melted before we even got to dinner. I don't know what I was worried about, though, because taxi drivers and restaurants here usually have their air conditioners on full blast even when it's cool and pleasant outside.
3) Whereas we would just get in our car and drive to our destination for the night in the U.S., here, we had to get on our scooter to get to the main street and hire a taxi. So there I was, trying to navigate getting and sitting on the scooter and walking on the uneven sidewalks in my nice dress and heels. Then there were all the people staring at us in our dressy clothes as we passed on our scooter and walked down the streets. In our area, everyone usually dresses very casually and it's rare to see someone dressed up. Closer to downtown and in downtown Bangkok, however, dressing up is more a way of daily life.

On our way to dinner, we saw Christmas trees and decorations already up and lit in all their glory. We also saw a convoy of BMW police cars and a limo. Everyone stopped to let the convoy pass. We were wondering what that was about when we saw the words "Royal Police" on the BMWs, so it must've been someone from the royal family passing us.

It was wonderful to be out and about in the city on a Saturday night and be part of the liveliness of it all. It reminded me a lot of New York City with its vibrancy. We thoroughly enjoyed our dinner at an Italian restaurant on Sukhumvit Road. Aside from another nerve-wracking taxi ride home (we kept telling the driver to slow down, and he kept apologizing without ever slowing down), it was just like date night back at home.

The restaurant:

First course was a delicious salad with prosciutto, feta cheese, and pine nuts drizzled with a vinaigrette dressing and served in a bread bowl.

Bread sticks...literally:

For the main course, my husband had the most delicious braised beef brisket, and I had risotto with porcini mushrooms and prawns that was pretty good, but I've had better in the U.S.

Desserts were tiramisu and hazelnut ice cream. Both were yummy!

In the meantime, my son had a blast playing with his friends Saturday night, staying up chatting and watching movies. Perhaps too much fun...When he was brought home mid-morning on Sunday, he started crying because he didn't want to come home! But we enjoyed our Sunday morning sans kid too. I woke up early as I'm used to doing with my son being an early bird, listening for him, then remembering that we were alone and had the luxury to stay in bed! It was a dream (hehe) to be able to stay in bed until 8:00, something we have not done since my son was born.

This weekend also was Loy Krathong Festival. Some believe the festival celebrates the goddess of water, while others believe it is Brahmin in origin. In any event, during the celebration, small floating rafts (the translation for "loy krathong") made with banana leaves, lotus flowers, lit candles, and incense are floated down a body of water, carrying away the owners' bad luck and sins.

The most famous of this festival takes place in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where the Yi Peng Festival also takes place at the same time. The festivities include parades, rituals and ceremonies, concerts, food, and other types of merry-making. Lanterns are launched into the sky. The pictures show this to be an amazing event (friends who went came home with breathtaking pictures just like this):

Many teachers at the school were able to get their act together early enough that they were able to go up there for the weekend to witness this awesome event for themselves. Since we weren't (definitely next year!), we enjoyed the local celebrations here instead.

In his Thai class, my son made a floating raft of his own so he could participate during the festival. He then came home and showed me how to fold and make the "lotus flowers" on his float.

Because the ones made in school were made with styrofoam, which takes a long time to break down, one of the American teachers, also a mom, decided to make some krathongs that are environmentally friendly. So Saturday afternoon, a few of us got together with our boys and held a krathong-making party!

It was a blast. We first walked around the neighborhood to scavenge for various types of leaves and flowers. With the huge variety of plants and flowers that bloom year-round here in Thailand, we had no shortage of choices. We gathered blades of grass and vines to tie with, used spaghetti noodles as sticks, and long leaves as wraps. The mom who came up with this idea also baked some rings out of dough as the base, and we brought rice cakes to attach to the rings to help them float. It's amazing how creative one can get without all the usual store-bought supplies that we are used to having in the U.S.!

The boys, ranging from ages 3 to 9, were all so creative in making their krathongs. And they all really got into it, sharing ideas and admiring each others' handiwork.

The finds from our "scavenge hunt":

My son making his krathong:

Everybody's handiwork...with the Thai flag in the background, which is appropriate. So beautiful!

This (Sunday) evening, at sundown, the Loy Krathong festivities began at the lake in our development. There were dancing performances and vendors selling food and drinks, toys, flowers, and krathongs. Very festive!

It was a beautiful evening with a full moon over the lake.

My son and his friend solemnly launched their krathongs. There also was a fireworks show to be held, but we did not stay for it since there is school tomorrow. Watching the krathongs being launched peacefully into the water was a perfect end to the beautiful evening.

Deciphering Thai Parenting

For the past three months or so, I've been volunteering in my son's class every four days. I thought it would help me to learn more about the Thai culture, especially with regard to kids and parenting, since most kids in my son's class are Thai. But the more I learn and see, the more curious and puzzled I get about the Thai parents, their ways of parenting, and their mindsets. Of course, I'm speaking here of only a small number of middle- and upper-class parents, the ones at our school, since I have no experience with Thai parents outside of the school.

Back in the U.S., parenting sometimes could feel like a competitive sport. Many parents with the means and resources enroll their children as young as two or three years old in multiple "extracurricular" activities -- sports, music, language lessons, tutoring. These parents care about their children's academic achievements and are very involved in their children's school lives.

Here, that is not quite the case. Although the parents care deeply about education, and have high expectations of their children when it come to education, they are not very involved. For example, there is no such thing as parent volunteers here. When I initially approached my son's teacher about volunteering in the class, she was ecstatic as she was used to having very active parent volunteers back in the U.S., but was no longer getting this type of support here. But first, she had to ask the school whether it's something that it allows and get permission for me to volunteer!

The parents here also don't really get involved with their children's school or homework. As I was explained by my son's teacher, while they expect the kids to get homework, they also expect the kids to do it on their own. I initially thought it was only when the children get into the upper grades that the parents become more hands-off, but it appears to be as early as first grade.

I've also noticed that many of the kids in my son's class are working at a very low academic level. Even now, with the end of the first semester of first grade only about four weeks away, some of the kids are still reading only very basic words, such as "cat". For math, some of the kids can't even decompose a number like 5. But to me, the more surprising part is the parents' reaction to this. I think, back in the U.S., many parents would be worried and try to get their kids as much help as possible to catch them up to the rest of the class. Here, however, the parents seem to have very relaxed attitudes about it and don't feel a need to get their kids more help. While I think this more relaxed attitude is healthy, their reaction is surprising to me because these parents certainly have the means and resources to help their children. They are able to (and often do) buy their children everything they can possibly ever want, are constantly taking their children on exotic trips, and live lives of luxury. Maybe it is because they're already shelling out a decent amount of money to pay for their children's schooling, so they feel the school should do the educating?

[Related to that last question, while I'm sure the parents want to ensure their kids are getting the best education they can afford, there also is an element of status in this. We've noticed, while in downtown Bangkok, that many older Thai kids will wear their school uniforms on the weekends, and have  learned that the Thai kids will wear their private-school uniforms on the weekends as a status symbol!]

I've also noticed that the Thai kids are pretty coddled and dependent compared to their American counterparts. The parents and their household help do a lot for them, even things they are totally capable of doing themselves. I've seen in public parents feeding children as old as 8 or 9 years old! It was a bit shocking to witness. When the kids returned to school after our October break, many clung to their parents and sobbed like they weren't going to see their parents ever again. When I volunteer in my son's class, some kids cling to me the entire time I'm there and require me to help them do their work every step of the way, even though they've done the same type of work on their own many times already.

Yet despite this lack of pushing on the parents' part, the children are still able to meet and exceed their parents' academic expectations. On top of that, they're also very involved in extracurricular activities, such as music and language lessons. In a few years, some of the kids in my son's class will likely become well-known musicians in Thailand, playing in orchestras and performing for the royal family. I know some 12-year-old students already with full-fledged careers as musicians. They get up at 4 a.m. to practice their instruments for two hours before heading to school at 6 a.m., and then practice for two more hours after getting home from school!

All this has been completely mind-boggling to me: These parents don't need to push and hover, aren't very involved at all, and sometimes treat their children as if they're incapable of doing anything for themselves; yet, they are still able to instill discipline and ensure high levels of achievement in their children. I'm genuinely curious how they do it, and one of my missions is to figure it out. 

Not Old MacDonald's Farm

Yesterday, we took a trip to our first "farm" here. What's the big deal, you ask? Well, this was not any ordinary farm with cows, goats, pigs, and chickens. This was a snake farm. It's more of a nature center, but it was all about snakes. The "farm" is housed on the grounds and in one of the buildings of the Red Cross Society of Siam in downtown Bangkok. Established in 1929, it is the second oldest snake farm in the world. It provides education to the public on the different types of snakes found in Thailand, treatment for snake bites, and what to do if confronted with various types of snakes (this would've been helpful when we had found that snake in our house a couple of months ago!).

The Red Cross Society of Siam building.

Entrance to the snake farm.

Grounds of the snake farm.

Would never have guessed that snakes are crawling all over such a pretty place like this!

Some snakes that were kept outdoors:

A python.

A pile o' snakes.

Another python.

This one was trying to climb up the wall of its habitat.

This snake was trying to get at us through the glass.

Inside the Red Cross building:

So the information sign said that this was the type of snake that we found in our house a couple of months ago, though this snake didn't look at all like the snake in the picture or the one we found. It may have been a baby.

It was trying to get a frog that was in the tank. We watched for at least 10 minutes while the snake ever so slowly maneuvered itself closer to the frog. I have to hand it to the snake for being so patient and persistent. All the frogs held completely still and waited to see what the snake would do. Finally, the frog in this picture moved and the snake actually changed directions and attempted to go for another frog, but it failed and slithered back up the tree.

We had no idea there were rednecks here in Thailand too!

An albino snake.

Learning about the science of snakes:

Specimens of snakes.

More specimens.

A video on how a snake's venom affects a human body and kills.

The science behind how snake venom works.

Snake facts.

Hope I never have a snake fly into me!!

Learning about snake mythology:

Learning about the development of snakes and their bodies:

How snake embryos develop.

The internal organs of a snake.

The skin of a rattlesnake.

The left one is the skull of a king cobra.

The skeleton of a king cobra.

The skeleton of a python.

The highlight of the day was a "snake show." Staff members brought out different types of snakes, both venomous and non-venomous, to show to the audience, sometimes trying to excite and aggravate them. We learned about each snake, what to do if confronted with each type of snake, and how to catch them (yeah, right). Some of the snakes in the show:

First one up was the king cobra, a venomous snake. The man who brought it out would poke it and aggravate it, so it was trying to get at the man. It was quite exciting.

After pooping in front of an entire audience and being laughed at by all the kids, the king cobra just didn't appear as dangerous anymore....

This man showed us how to catch a king cobra ('cuz it's that easy). I was probably just a foot away from the snake here, which was kind of nerve-wracking.

A Siamese python's venom is actually much more potent than a king cobra's. These Siamese pythons kept hissing at this man to warn him.

Man and snake face off.

A banded krait, also venomous.

A wolf snake.

At the end of the show, the staff brought out a gigantic python and invited audience members to go down to the stage area to have the python put around them for photos. My husband did it, but I passed. My son had wanted to do it, but he worried the python would be too big and too heavy, and he didn't want to try it together with my husband. Overall, a fascinating and entertaining place, and an educational experience, but it'll be a long while before I voluntarily go to a place full of snakes again.