สวัสดีค่ะ

My new address is:
2/1 Soy Prachasuksan
Muang Nakhon Phanom City
Nakhon Phanom Province
48000 THAILAND
If you would like to look at videos from my trip I am uploading them at www.youtube.com/user/emma1elizabeth

"The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for. "

"See things as they are and write about them. Don’t waste your creative energy trying to make things up. Even if you are writing fiction, write the things you see and know."

Sometimes my weeks are full of adventure,
And sometimes my weeks are relaxing and slow.
So please be patient with updates,
You want to read them as much as I want to write them.
Peace and Love.

PS. As this is an imperfect world and as this adventure I am on is full of unexpected surprises, I would like to apologise in advance for any comments that may seem offensive or full of frusteration. This whole experience is new and exciting for me, but there are things that I find different and frusterating. I'm not writing about them to complain, but to write the truth of my exchange, the people I meet and all of the places I go to. Because if everything were perfect, it wouldn't be an adventure... it would be a vacation.


Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Hakuna Matata

These past two weeks have been long and eventful. My computer was magically broken when I got home on Sunday so I delayed writing this blog post until I could upload pictures. I just talked to my host dad and he's going to Bangkok until Tuesday and will fix my computer when he gets back. I wasn't going to leave you all hanging until then, so I will upload pictures in a seperate blog post later... and now, for the good stuff.

Two days after the Lai Rua Fai festival I was off on a VIP airconditioned bus to Korat where I would meet Bam, her twin sister Bell and her parents. I lucked out and got the very front seat of the double decker bus, which meant lots of legroom, the best view and the easiest spot to sleep in. So for most of the 8 hour bus ride I did just that - and looked out the window. It was a jungle out there, literally. Down the side of the windy forest road were slopes the plummeted deeper and deeper until you couldn't see the bottom. And yet, the trees that grew out from the bottom of the ravines were taller than any tree I've ever seen in Canada. Completely bare trunks without a twig or blemish until the top quarter that is covered in branches and long leaves. Then there were the mountains, not a single stone mountain in sight. Every mountain, every hill, every rock is covered in grass, or trees, or bushes. The world is green and blue in Thailand. The blue of the water, the green of the foliage. It was breathtaking and I couldn't help but start to see tigers running around in the thick jungle, monkeys climbing on the vines and every species of bird taking flight into the sky. There was a thick jungle, there were vines and the sky was as clear as crystal - but the animals were a figment of my imagination.

After the seemingly short busride [I don't even notice long rides anymore, I can stare out the window for hours and never get bored with the trees] I arrived in Korate where Bam and Bell were waiting for me under and umbrella to protect themselves from the sunrays. Classicly Thai. That night we went out shopping, went to the market and ate dinner on their floor [some more classic Thai].

On Friday we set out in their mom's car to Bangkok which was only a 3 hour drive away. But of course you need to take into account that Thai people LOVE buying food, even if they aren't going to eat it and they're giving it to someone else. So you need to add roughly two more hours on top of that to cover stopping time. On our journey we stopped at the side of the to get peanuts from a can [why some woman decided the best way to sell her peanuts was on the side of the highway.. I will never know], corn juice [delicious], 8 cobs of corn, gas station/chocolate and finally.. heaven. The best icecream I have ever had is made at a small fresh milk farm with a ow in the window and everything. They also have amazing milk candies, that I ate too many of. Anyways, I will never look at icecream the same again, that short pitstop inspired me to make icecream for the rest of my life. We'll see how that goes.
We arrived in Bangkok and proceeded to go to 3 DIFFERENT MALLS. At one of said malls there was a giant crowd of overly rambunctious girls screaming at some Korean pop band that was playing in the foodcourt.

I also became aware of just how many foreigners there are in Bangkok. It disgusts me a little, not that there are foreigners, but just how "un-Thai" that city is. I felt like I was in Toronto, except that all the shopkeepers were Thai. The worst part was that everyone just assumed I was another foreigner who doesn't know how to say anything in Thai and so they spoke English with me. Even when I explained IN THAI that I could speak Thai and understand them, they still struggled over speaking English. Oh well, I was a traveller in Bangkok, I could deal with being a traveller in Thailand for a week.

Bam and Bell wanted to take me to JJ market, the biggest market in the country that is roughly the size of three football fields and sells items from all over the country. You can pretty much buy anything there and according to my fellow exchange student Micheal "If you can't find it, you weren't looking hard enough". JJ is a weekend market that opens up very late on Friday night and closes on Sunday night. They decided we should go right when it opened at 3am and try to get a bargain on stuff. So at 3 am on a Friday night their older sister came with us to the market and we walked through the mazelike corriders of stall upon stall of clothing until 7 am when we figured we should get some sleep before Bam and Bell had to go to their class. We were woken up at noon to drop off Bam and Bell and then their older sister Beem took me to JJ again, to look through all the stalls that hadn't been open the night before. It was a completely different place during the day.
First of all, there were a billion foreigners [which was to be expected seeing as we were in BANGKOK], you could barely move through the corridors it was so crowded, and all of the amazing things were now for sale. I spent most of the 5 hours that afternoon looking through the hundreds of stalls with artifacts, jewellery, leather and silk from chiang mai, and another big chunk looking at all the pets! I have to tell you, saying there were pets there does not do justice to just how much of this market was isolated for dogs, cats, squirrels, turtles, tarantulas, gerbils, hamsters, snakes and bunnies. They were adorable, I wanted to take home almost every animal, especially the squirrels who had to be sedated and looked really upsetting.
It was the most amazing place I have ever been, everything seemed so magical and colourful. You really could buy anything you were looking for. If it weren't for the mass amount of foreigners I would camp out and sleep there for the rest of my trip. I ended up spending WAY too much money [for a Thai person to spend that is] but I bought all of my Christmas presents and even a bunch of stuff for myself. I have now made myself a deal that I will not buy anything else until my trip with the exchange students in December.

The next day we went to this pottery village on a boat tour of the river. We had to cross the river to the small temple at the other side first, and to get to the river crossing we had to walk through ANOTHER temple. That night it had rained a lot so the streets were flooded. We had to walk across sandbags and planks of wood so we didn't trudge through the foot deep water, and then we had to sit in the back of this small carriage while a Thai man pulled us with his bike. It was an interesting experience, that's all I can say. The boat tour falls into the same guidelines as a car ride - you must stop a billion times for food before you get to the destination. They pulled the boat over at 4 different dessert shops for people to get out and buy food. The only stop I enjoyed was the stop that was next to a wat. I made my merit with incense, candles and gold and then we got to write our names on tiles that they were going to use to redo the roof. I guess now I will officially be a part of that temple; that's pretty cool if I do say so myself.

The rest of the week went by slowly, I wanted to go to the English bookstore so two seperate days they took me to malls and finally I found the Twilight Series and have read almost all four books since I bought them - one week ago. That proves to you just how much time I have on my hands. On Wednesday I went with Bam and her friend to see Eagle Eye [IN ENGLISH!]. It was a pretty fattening and foreign day - we had icecream from Swensens, I had KFC and popcorn, and we watched Shia LaBoeuf running around in an English film with Thai subtitles. It was unsettling being so "non-Thai".

On Thursday we headed back for Korat on a bus with a crying baby sitting in front of me. It wasn't quite as pleasant as the car ride to Bangkok. Then on Friday we went to Khon Kaen so that Bam and Bell could take part in their orientation meeting for Rebounds and Outbounds.
I ended up meeting up with 18 other exchange students who came in from the villages around Khon Kaen and we spent the weekend hanging out together. I can't exactly say what we did all weekend, some people might not appreciate how rambunctious we are, but we did get to know each other really well and I can't wait to see them again. My favourite moment had to be when Clayton put on his ipod to "Hakuna Matata" [in Portuguese] and we all sang the lyrics in our own language while jumping up and down on the beds. Having Hakuna Matata sung in 5 different languages really brings people together, and Hakuna Matata is the best way to reflect the Thai lifestyle - it means no worries for the rest of your days.

October 24th -26th had to be the best weekend I've had since I've been here, one of the best in my life. It sounds silly to say that when I just met the exchange students on Friday, but I consider them all amazing friends and I know that leaving them at the end of the year will be extremely difficult. We have so many memories just from this one weekend, and I can't wait to make more with everyone in our future trips.

I came home on Sunday night at 7 pm to find Nakhon Phanom just as I left it: full of misquitoes, humid as anything and with my host mother ecstatic to see me. I really did miss her, when I have to leave families it will be tough to live my first home behind. I walked in the door to a package from my mom, a Halloween card that sings the Ghostbuster theme song from my sister, and one of my favourite foods waiting for me on the table.

"We are the world"

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Angels

I didn't think I was going to cry - when I got the phone call last night I didn't even feel sad like I thought I would, and I had no problem going to sleep. It must have been the fact that I knew it was coming. She had been in the hospice for months now and my parents kept me updated on how she was doing, she wasn't doing well. I knew it would be sometime this week that we would lose her, so when my parents called me yesterday I knew before I even answered the phone what kind of news they had for me.

My nana died peacefully on Sunday morning with my parents, aunt and uncle there. "She's with Poppa now" my dad said. However that is hardly a silver lining to how I feel at the moment. I was surprisingly fine yesterday, I didn't cry at all - I even managed to still laugh and smile at things and I didn't really think about it much. That's the only silver lining of being here during this; I am extremely sheltered from my emotions, and the real world. I didn't have to watch her suffer the last two months, I didn't see her declining day by day and I didn't have to wonder when the last time I saw her would be. I already knew when that was - it was the afternoon of Saturday, August 2nd 2008. The day before I left for Thailand. I think that maybe I couldn't cry yesterday because I have cried so much already that when her time finally came to an end, I was relieved that all her pain was over.

I talked to my sisters and my parents again this morning, the funeral is on Wednesday and the visitation is on Tuesday. But I won't be there. Heather was telling me about the last time she talked to my nana, and after Ashley and her told her how much they loved her, she asked for me. "She's in Thailand, but she loves you" my mom said. At that, I started crying. I know I'm not to blame and I shouldn't feel guilty, but I can't help but feel horrible for not being there with her during these last two months. I feel horrible that I'm not there for them, for my family. It's rediculous to feel bad, but I do, and I can't help but keep thinking back to the last time I saw her; two months ago in the hospice when we both knew that when I came home she wouldn't be there. That was the hardest day of my life.

I remember in my grandparents' house there was a big map in the basement, with coloured tacks in all the countries they had travelled to. I like to think that their love for travelling is what inspired me, and I know now that it has. I always looked at that map and thought of how wonderful it would be go to those countries, to see the things my grandparents had seen, to travel all over the world. She was always so brave, so strong and the healthiest woman I had even known. I honestly never thought she would pass away; it seemed impossible. She inspired me to be determined, cheerful and adventurous. It's because of her that I'm here in Thailand, and I could not thank her enough.

I love you nana, rest in peace.
<3

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Lai Rua Fai - Floating Lit Boats

Lai Rua Fai - Floating Lit Boats
Okay so last night after I got back from the Thai dance performance, Suzanne and I had a two hour nap on my bed and took showers to get all the hairspray out of our hair [it was hilarious, Suzanne's looked like she was wearing a sombrero, and I had a whole bunch of hair I didn't know I had]. We went to buy a ticket for me to go to Bangkok tomorrow [I will explain later] and then we went to Kate and Klao's house to go with their family to see the fire boats. We all piled into one pickup truck becuase there were so many cars on the road and there would be no where to park. It reminded me a lot of the Sound of Music, but just imagine all of Burlington being packed full of cars and people walking everywhere, not just downtown. I have never fit that many people in one vehicle before:

Kate & Klao plus their mom, dad and three sisters
Mi Jung and her little brother [these are Kate & Klao's nephew and niece]
Kate & Klao's two aunts and their uncles
Their grandparents
Suzanne & Emma
Another woman and her two children [I forget how they are related]

Kate and I sat on the edge of the hatchback and dangled our feet over the side of the truck. It was nice driving through the city; there was so much to look at and so many people to say hi to [I find that every time I go out now, I see someone I know]. We drove as close to the river as we could before their dad had to pull over and let us hop out while he looked for somewhere to park. We went on the ferris wheel [it's super small and rickety, but it has a nice view of the temple grounds] and apparently there was a dead cow that had two heads somewhere but I was too lazy to go see it. It felt really different being in a fair that is inside the temple grounds, it felt like we were sinning against Buddha. They were selling icecream, paintings, beebee guns and food all right beside a temple; there was also the cow, a merry-go-round, a giant blow up slide, the ferris wheel and a few smaller games there too. I always thought of temples as a very sacred place where I need to be extremely holy and polite, but everyone was just wandering around visiting stalls, buying guns and playing games. It was definetely weird.


We found a spot to sit where they pulled out a small checkered tarp to lay on the ground and we sat and watched one of the boats being lit. There are so many lights on each one, and watching it being lit [it took about an hour] was nuts! I can't believe how much work they put into it, not only to build the bamboo boat, but to place all the lights in such beautiful designs and then light them was crazy.

After the first boat was lit it started to float down the river and more boats came by afterwards. Some of them had electronics and sections of light would move, and the dragon on one of them sprayed fireworks from its mouth. Others shot fireworks off behind them and the crowd "Oohed" and "Awed". There were some that didn't have electronics or fireworks but were so beautiful I couldn't help staring at them even as they floated farther and farther away.

We didn't get to see all the boats because it was getting late and we started to get bored of sitting and waiting for the boats to come so we went and got some food at a vendor as well as some icecream and headed home.

This morning I was woken up at 8am by the phone in my room ringing - my host mother was calling me from downstairs. Apparently Suzanne's father was going to pick me up at 8:40 so that Suzanne and I could go get interviewed with Ronald McDonald about RMHC who were making a presentation at Suzanne's school. I also had to wear my school uniform. Another unwanted surprise, I had been planning on sleeping in.

Suzanne's father came at 9:15 [only slightly late] and we went to Suzanne's school to find the hall full of people. We sat around and listened to Thai people talking for about an hour [which we couldn't understand] and then they had us come and take pictures with them as they gave free glasses to a bunch of kids. I still wonder why they need us in pictures when we have NOTHING to do with RMHC. Then we were told we needed to help herd students from station to station to get their eyes checked. They didn't really need our help, Suzanne and I just sat by a station for an hour and a half and watched them test the student's eyes. They were giving out free glasses to everyone and we watched some younger kids burst into tears when they couldn't read some of the letters on the poster. We also saw an Albino Thai child, which was really odd but really cool at the same time. I will feel bad if the kid grows up and the Thai people treat them like they treat us - it gets VERY annoying.

We finally got fed up with doing nothing, we hadn't even been interviewed yet, so we found Suzanne's dad and told him we wanted to do the interview and leave. We found the woman who was doing the interview and after I got my eyes checked [they were going to give me free glasses if I needed them - which I don't] we each did a seperate interview with Ronald McDonald himself. I got to speak a bit of Thai and then they invited us to tour with the Ronald McDonald mobile in April when they come around during our next break. We'll see how that works out.

So tomorrow I am off to Bangkok to stay with Bam [a Thai student who was on exchange in Canada last year] and she is going to take me to Dream World, JJ market and a bunch of other places in Bangkok. I am super excited :) I am taking the bus tomorrow morning at 7:30 am to meet her in Korat and then we will go to Bangkok together tomorrow night. I will probably come home around the 26th of October so that I only miss one week of school [it starts again on Monday]. Until then, Peace and Love.

"There are many ways of moving forward, but only one of standing still"

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Wat Phra That Phanom - Lai Rua Fai Festival

October 14th 2008 - The day of the biggest festival in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand; also known as Lai Rua Fai.
This is the day that my dance class, host parents, rotary club and friends had been talking about and preparing for over the last two months. Suzanne and I have been going to Thai dance class everyday for the past three weeks to practice for our performance in front of Wat Phra That Phanom [at least we were supposed to be there everyday, but we weren't]. Wat Phra That Phanom is the most sacred temple in the Northeast of Thailand because apparently, the chedi holds Buddha's left pinky.
My school's Thai dancers weren't performing at the temple this year, so I was invited to dance with Nakhon Phanom Witayakhom school's Thai dancers. Suzanne goes to that highschool and her mother is the Thai dance teacher. There are about 30 dancers from NPW and Thai dancers go over the top with their hair, accessories, costumes and makeup. This meant that we had to go the night before the performance to get our hair done so that we wouldn't be rushed in the morning.
So last night Suzanne and I headed to NPW to get our hair done at around 7:30pm and when we got there Suzanne immediately was taken over to get her hair done, and I ate dinner with some of the girls on straw mats outside. To do Suzanne's hair they took a big ring of black yarn and pulled all her hair up around it and then pulled it into a bun; the classic Thai dancing hairstyle. It looked nice, but I wondered how they were planning to do my hair as
a. my hair is too light and thin to cover up a big black ring of yarn, and
b. my hair is not long enough to cover up a big black ring of yarn

It turned out that they just teased the life out of my hair and made a "Emma's hair ring" out of the teased hair. It didn't look quite as tidy as Suzanne's; since it was held up on it's own the front of my hair swooped up like a mohawk and I didn't have a bun in the middle. This was solved by the girls finding a fake black bun and spray painting it gold. Gold, not blonde. Gold. Suzanne and I still laugh about how the giant spray-painted fake hair perfectly resembled elephant poo. And it was going to sit on my head. The colour was no where near the same colour as my hair, but I guess it was better than wearing a black bun.
This morning we had to be at the school for 2:30 so that all the dancers would be dressed with their hair and makeup done and ready to go at 6am. Most of the dancers slept at the school, but Suzanne and I slept at her house becuase her mother is the teacher and would be waking us up anyways.
We didn't end up going to sleep. We arrived at her house at 11pm, ate cornflakes, avoided the cockroaches in the kitchen while we did the dishes and then we sat on the computer and drank coffee for two hours until her host mom came out to tell us we needed to wake up. We were still up.

Once we got to the school at 2:30, the adventure began.

First I had to get my hair fixed with another can of hairspray, some bobby pins and a hair dryer. It was fixed 4 times before we left [note to self, grow your hair long - it makes life much easier]. They put two big yellow sunflowers in it to dress it up nice and fancy - I kept them though I'm not sure if we were supposed to or not.

Station 1 - Foundation. Suzanne and I took turns going from station to station where students [usually boys] would cover our faces with layers and layers of makeup. Station 1 was foundation where a cute Thai boy [I think he's gay, most of the male Thai dancers are] smudged foundation all over our faces, ears and necks. After I was finished I looked in the mirror and it felt weird to have such a perfectly blemish free face.

Station 2 - Eyebrows. Good Moses, I scared myself when I looked in the mirror. It wouldn't have been so bad if they had the proper colour of eyebrow pencil to somewhat look nice with my hair colour. But instead they used the same eyebrow pencil [that they use on the Thail girls who have BLACK hair] for Suzanne and I, leaving us with extremely chiseled eyebrows that did not in any way match our hair. One eyebrow was drawn higher than the other, but they were drawn perfectly on my eyebrows so maybe my eyebrows are just naturally lopsided. Either way it looked rediculous.

Station 3 - Eye Makeup. Another male Thai dancer perfected our highlights and shadows all over our faces. He started by putting red along my eyebrow/eye crevice, then brown and purple and finally finishing with white on our eyes as well as all along our nose to make us look like the sun is on our faces. We tried to explain that we are white skinned, we already have these highlights and shadows when we go outside, but they would not listen. There is a rule of thumb for makeup - make it look like you're not wearing any. This does not apply for Thai dancers, I swear I had enough blush on my face that someone back in Canada could see that it was abnormal if they peered over to Thailand with a telescope. However, he was probably the most talented makeup artist ever, though it was hard not to laugh while he was doing my makeup becuase Suzanne and I kept talking about how stupid we looked.


Station 4 - Fake Eyelashes. With the amount of makeup we had on, we would have looked stupid if we hadn't had some excessive eyelashes to go with the excessive pounds of makeup. So we were given some [Suzanne got one's with rhinestones on them.. lucky!] and I got my eyelids superglued together a few times until finally the girl doing them said they looked fine and she covered up the glue with eyeliner. Thick eyeliner that was not drawn straight. She then proceeded to put black eyeshadow all along the bottom of my eye.. it was hideous. Suzanne was not given the pleasure of the ulgy black makeup so I decided it was not needed and took it off. It looked much nicer once I had finished.

Station 5 - Costume.
First, there is one thing you need to know about Thai people - they never admit when they are wrong, and they like to keep the falangs out of the loop for practically everything so we are usually surprised with a change of plans everyday. Today's surprise - they had made us custom costumes becuase we are taller than Thai students, but they had not asked for our measurements. Another thing to keep in mind is that I am not only shorter than Suzanne but I have th emost odd proportioned body of anyone I know - super long torso and short legs. So when they brought in two custom skirts for us that were too long for Suzanne, there was NO WAY IN HELL that it would fit me. The skirt dragged on the floor and instead of giving me a regular Thai skirt [that I would fit in since I have the same length legs as them] they decided to roll it over 4 times and completely resew it - while we are supposed to be leaving for the temple. The costume was a three quarter length, yellow, collared jacket with a long green skirt and sash. They also seemed to think we were much skinnier than we are because they could not tie the belt around and had to pin it and make it look like it was tied. Much too much effort when they could have given me a Thai student's skirt, or else asked for our measurements three weeks ago when we started learning the dances.
The whole situation baffles me.

Station 6/7/8 - Lipstick. That's right, there was not just one station to perfect our lips, there were three. The lipstick process was practically pointless as 2 minutes later I had lipstick all over my teeth and ended up wiping most of it off. I also fell on Suzanne while taking a picture on the moving bus and I had a nice pink lip mark on my yellow jacket. Classy.

We were on our way to Wat Phra That Phanom.
When we arrived there we sat for a little bit and then walked all the way down the street [in our bare feet on the concrete ground] and lined up to dance towards the temple. One of the things I am still frusterated with is how many people ask for pictures. They don't even know me, where I am from, what my name is or why I am in their country; they just want a picture of me. They want pictures of me by myself, with Suzanne, with them and with their children. It blows my mind why they would take pictures of a complete stranger. I can just imagine them showing the picture to a friend saying "This is some falang I saw at Phra That Phanom".
"Oh really, where was she from?"
"I'm not really sure"
"Why was she there?
"I don't know"
Now honestly people, honestly. Does that make any sense? So after we took a bunch of pictures with a ton of different women who literally dragged us to different people for pictures [they also put their arms around me and touched my butt!!!] we started dancing. Horribly enough, the dancers from the 5 other schools knew a different version of this first dance and our school had no idea what was going on. We caught on eventually and had to be on our toes for when they changed hand movements, then finally we stopped and chanted for what seemed like forever! It was so hot outside that I was sweating buckets, and sweating with that much makeup on is extremely itchy. By the end of it half my foundation was smudged and i had drips of skin coloured sweat on my jacket. They fixed my hair [for the sixth time] and fixed my makeup but adding another pound of foundation on my chin, cheeks and forehead.

After taking a break for a little while [and taking pictures with a billion more people who I was never introduced to] we did the peacock dance. We were all equipped with two long peacock feathers each which we flung around and waved. After the peacock dance we were pulled over to take a group shot.
For the record, I would officially like to say that I hate women who dress in all pink. Every single woman here who has dressed in all pink has made my life hell, and a particularly frilled pink woman took literally 100 pictures of us. She kept dragging us around, walking in front of the other paparazzi members to fix our peacock feathers or move us and each different pose she took 10 pictures. She kept changing us around, moving us into different photos and taking us off by ourselves until finally, I looked at Suzanne and said "run away... seriously, run". Half of them don't even ask for your picture, they just pull you beside someone and snap a bunch of pictures then run away. It took Suzanne and I 10 minutes to get back to our straw mat at the temple where we could eat. People kept pulling us to take pictures and at that point I was so tired from lack of sleep, exhausted from the heat and pissed off from being pulled all over the place that I finally just walked away from everyone and whenever someone asked for a picture I said "NO". I felt horrible saying no to people, but if I had kept saying yes I would never come back to Canada. We took a bunch of pictures with friends [which I don't mind so much, since I know them] and then we lined up for our third and final dance. We stood outside the big doors leading outside of the temple and we were all jumping around dancing and hooting. It was so much fun. After we left the temple grounds and walked out to the crowd, boys from our school would start chants of "OH! OH! OH! OH!" and everyone would join in with clapping or cheering or shouts of "Areeba!!!" on my part. The spectators were allowed to come into the dancers and take pictures, and within 30 seconds Suzanne and I were swarmed with people trying to get us to stop dancing to take a picture with them.

Dancing at Wat Phra That Phanom was over by 12pm and the day hadn't even begun, but it was the most amazing thing I have done in a long time. I will write a different blog post about the rest of Lai Rua Fai later this week.

"So won't you tell me why you live like you're afraid to die. You die like you're afraid to go"

Monday, October 13, 2008

ANGER

Just so you know, you all fail at commenting.
I spend hours typing on this darn thing to give you all a nice experience of my travels and yet my last three posts [from two weeks ago] have recieved TWO COMMENTS. Both of which were from Jared [bless his soul].
For serious! Get your butts onto the comment button and let me know what you think, ask a question or simply say hello.
I would like to know that my hard effort is noticed.

Peace and love

Emma.

By the way, tomorrow morning [ie. Monday night in el Canada] Suzanne and I will be dancing Thai dance at Phra That Phanom [the most sacred temple in the Northeast of Thailand] equipped with pounds of makeup, peacock feathers and retarded hair styles.
Apparently we are going to be interviewed before the dancing commences and it will be aired on CNN, BBC and 5 stations all over Thailand.
This means between 8-9 am or after. [ie. You should start taping on Monday night and tape all of Tuesday as well, you never know].
Hopefully you can take a gander and see Suzanne and I all decked out in traditional Thai costume.

love.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Anti Falang Week

Okay, so I have been major slacking on the update this week [except not nearly as bad as my other exchange friends, some of which who haven’t updated in 3 months!!!!!]. But I have been super busy, and on the days I haven’t been busy I’ve been super lazy and not in the mood to write about my awesome weekend. This past week I have spent without any other English folk. Suzanne is off in Bangkok and so are the Australians. Lots of my week was boring but I did get the chance to go to some really cool places. So folks, this is going to be a long one.
On Saturday my host mom woke me up by phoning my room and asking me if I would like to go to a boat race with her friend. I said no, I already had plans. You know how you answer something and then ten seconds later you realise you meant something else so you change your mind? That was me. After hanging up and attempting to fall back asleep for literally 15 seconds, I called the kitchen and said “Nevermind, what time?” The boat race was awesome, not that it took more than 1 minute in total. However it was with my second host family, who are amazing! They have a massive house, and this time I mean gorgeous as in mansion gorgeous, with a big gate, lots of trees, a fountain, a big round about driveway and dogs! FOUR DOGS! I am going to be so happy to have pets again, I never realised just how much I depend on animals in my life until they’re not there anymore. Now I won’t have to play with the street animals [though I still will] and possibly get rabies [which I won’t because Thai animals love me for some reason]. They also have two daughters, one of which is 14 and goes to my school. Her name is Nong [little sister] Meen. The other one is 15 but studies in Bangkok because she has lots of friends there. Her name is Nong Nurse. My second host father is a bank manager and my second host mother is a nurse at the hospital in Nakhon Phanom. Neither of them speak English, but the girls speak a little. It will be very different living in a house where I don’t have someone that speaks fluent English; it will be good for me to learn Thai though.
The boat race was in Tha Uthen, a small village in Nakhon Phanom about 45 minutes away. They had a giant fair with Robo-cat balloons, Thai dancing, Aerobic competitions, games, food, clothes and of course – boat racing on the Mekong River. The boats had dragon heads on the ends and there were about 30 people in each one, rowing their hearts out. It was really cool, but like I said it didn’t last more than a minute so we spent most of the time wandering the fair. After a while we went to eat lunch. I was still in J period so I had ma ma [noodles kind of like Mr. Noodles] and covered it with peanut sauce. I think my family was slightly disgusted at the odd assortment of food I had in my bowl, but I thought it was delicious. Anything coated in peanut sauce is fine by me; peanut sauce has become the staple of my Thai diet. Then they introduced me to this really yummy dessert – Khanom Daeng. There really is no way to describe it except that it is some sort of gelatin with nuts and coconut and soy bean mush in the middle. It’s delicious though, I have eaten 4 in the past 15 minutes. Then we went to the same Wat I went to on Aom’s birthday; unfortunately the cat was not there this time. Afterwards we headed off to my host parents’ friend’s house. It sometimes frustrates me that Thai people are so spontaneous. They never tell you where they are going and all of a sudden you find yourself somewhere you hadn’t planned on going, and you didn’t really want to go there in the first place. Not that I was upset to be spending time with my future family, but I was very tired and I was hoping we were heading home soon. Instead we arrived at her house, and they told me to sleep, on a random bed that they had JUST kicked a boy out of. I felt bad for him, he looked tired. I felt bad sleeping when I was at someone’s house but it appeared that we had gone there specifically to sleep. I still don’t understand why we didn’t just drive home and sleep in our own houses. I woke up after 45 minutes and my mom and sister were sleeping on the floor, my dad had fallen asleep in a chair and my other sister was sorting through papers. I fell back asleep.

An hour and a half later I woke up and my host mom was bringing in bananas and long gong [an AMAZING tropical fruit]. We sat on the floor and ate the fruit out of a bag – classic Thai. Then we ate more: somtam, noodles, a rice dessert, more bananas and long gong, another rice dessert with beans and nuts. The somtam was way too spicy to eat, my mouth burned for hours afterwards from only just tasting it. I usually order somtam with very few chile peppers, if any. This one had been ordered “extra spicy”, just for me. I politely refused and after we ate we headed home. I had time to shower and cool off in my room and then I went to their house to pick up my sisters for dinner. They took me to the school to eat ahan J and then we went to had smoothies. They are really nice girls, but sometimes it is hard to talk to them because they speak almost no English, and I don’t know what to say to them in Thai.
SUNDAY -read on, there's more-
Wat in the wilderness... I forget the name

LING!! He reminds me of Jumanji

That's right, I fed a monkey a banana.

Cows (:

The view of the lake and wat from the center of the lake.

On Sunday my host parents took me to Sakon Nakhon for the day. I took the day off from eating J because it was going to be the only time I would have the choice to have ahan falang for a long time. We got there and went to lunch at a really nice restaurant where I had steak, fries, coleslaw, garlic bread and a cappuccino. My parents ate rice, naturally, since they are Thai. We bought a lot of things from the bakery downstairs too: bread, cake, cookies, desserts, croissants and rolls. They showed me that the bus station is just across the street from this restaurant – I guess that means that they allow me to come here with my friends if I would like. We picked up my Khun Paw’s brother at his house and he took us on a long car ride into the countryside. The entire way there I talked with Khun Mae about the Canadian healthcare system. She was very interested and now wants to move to Canada. I told her she could live with me (: Finally, civilization, in the form of the most beautiful Wat on the edge of a crystal clear lake. Apparently people who have cancer are brought to this Wat to become healthier and relax. I can see how they would relax here, everything is so beautiful and natural. The Wat itself was beautiful, but it wasn’t anything special compared to other Wat’s I have seen. The foliage of the site was breath-taking though, giant palm trees, banana trees, vibrant pink flowers and red leaved bushes. There are many buildings on the site; the houses of monks, smaller shrines, buildings where the patients stay and finally the pathways that led straight out into the lake. One of them went right out into the middle of the lake and you could feed the carp if you bought fish food from the old woman sitting on a bench nearby. Then there were the animals. We were about to get in the car to drive to another one of the shrines on the lot when Khun Paw came running up from a hill.

Khun Paw: “LING! LING!”
Emma: “OMG?! LING?!!!!!!”
[Emma running after Khun Paw]

Ling is Thai for monkey. I had wanted to see a monkey since I got here, it only made sense that a jungle country would have monkeys. There were four of them in a cage [I guess the monks wouldn’t appreciate it if there were monkeys running all over the place] but they were SO cute and the stuck their arms out of the fence and let me hold their hands. It is so crazy how similar their hands are to human’s. They have long fingers and wrinkly palms. Their arms are slightly hairier but it was amazing just the same. One of the monkeys reminded me of the monkeys in Jumanji. I definitely imagined a herd of elephants, zebras and rhinos running through the forest and crushing our car. Khun Paw is terrified of monkies. Actually, he’s terrified and hates all animals, so he kept yelling “GLOO-AH! GLOO-AH!” [scared, scared] when I would put my hand out and stroke their arms or hold their hands. Then a man came over carrying a bunch of bananas [yes, monkeys eat bananas, it is not a lie].

One of the most valuable lessons I have learned from being a Rotary exchange student is “Always ask”. So I did, and I ended up being able to feed the monkeys bananas from my hands and take pictures with them. Other than the monkeys I saw swans, peacocks, cows, frogs, snakes and carp. It was like the African lion safari… at a temple.

After we left we went to “The Big C” where I got to eat KFC (: The colonel must not have liked me that day though because within 20 minutes I felt sick as I was wandering the department store searching for marshmallows and oatmeal. I returned to the cafeteria and my host parents told me they were going to take me to Swenson’s, a real treat. Swenson’s is a big ice cream store with some of the BEST ice cream ever, and it is very popular in Thailand. Unfortunately since my province is the size of Burlington with the population of Grimsby, we don’t have one. This would be my one chance to have ice cream this good for a while. I kept feeling sicker by the minute, but my host mother seemed so excited for me to try “the big one” so I tried to suck it up. I told her I felt sick but she looked so disappointed so I told her I would be fine and went to the washroom before we ate. I threw up. Enough to make me feel a little better, but not enough that I would be able to eat ice cream right after. I did anyways. It was delicious. Rocky road with chocolate sauce, peanuts, REAL whipped cream and a chocolate covered cherry on top – The Big Rocky Mountain. I felt fine after drinking a glass of warm water and taking some medicine, but as soon as I stood up and started walking to the car I got major heart burn and I felt sick again. I threw up in a garbage can at “The Big C”. Classy. By then my host parents were worried and insisted we go to a doctor, or the hospital. I assured them it would be fine, it was just a stomach ache, probably from eating so much meat after barely eating any protein for 3 days. I just needed to sleep.

In the car Khun Mae whipped out her Magic Asian Oil. That’s what I like to call it. She offers it to me for everything – mosquito bites, stomach aches, head aches, colds, nausea, cramps, sore joints. It reminds me of the man in My Big Fat Greek Wedding who insists on putting Windex on everything. She sat in the back seat with me, had me roll up my shirt and for the entire 20 minute drive she rubbed her Magic Asian Oil all over my stomach and stuck it under my nose to inhale the fumes. It smells like vicks, but surprisingly it made me feel better. During all this magic we doctor’s office hopped but there were too many people ate all the offices. I couldn’t help but physically laugh out loud at the situation. Me sitting in the back seat like a pregnant woman with my host mom rubbing and massaging my stomach while we pulled up to doctor’s office after doctor’s office – slowing down, muttering in Thai that there were too many people and then pulling back into the driving lane.

After dropping off my uncle we headed back to Nakhon Phanom, with me sleeping in the backseat. I was under the impression we were just going to go home and I would head to bed, but when I woke up we were at the hospital. It didn’t take long, about fifteen minutes and I found out that:
a. I have lost 4 pounds since I’ve been here
b. I have something called dyspepsia from eating extremely spicy food and changing my diet habits so drastically. The spicy somtam from Saturday gave me massive heartburn and the fact that I ate so much meat after not eating protein for a while made my stomach upset. Nothing medicine and sleep won’t cure.

This past week I have been recovering, though now my lips are swollen and dry [which apparently is also from the somtam] and I sometimes feel sick randomly. These past few days have been boring, Monday I stayed home all day and played guitar and ate. Tuesday I ran a bunch of errands with my host parents and went to the opening of the festival. I started Thai dancing again, which I try to avoid most of the time and have been going to drink coffee by myself a lot during my lunch breaks. It's not too bad going alone, I have invested in a fond friendship with the women at Meurang and today they asked me "Emma, would you like the same as yesterday?"

The festival is amazing, though I was extremely disappointed on Tuesday when I went and my mystery jacket was not there. For those of you who I haven't told, the story of the mystery jacket goes like this:
Every month we have a big market that comes to our province for a week and sells stuff from all over the country but the stalls are different at each one, sometimes they even change up during the week. One day Suzanne and I were wandering said market and I had noticed a couple days before a tent with a bunch of colourful military jackets. As I walked by them I said, I want one of those. So when Suzanne and I walked by the same tent we decided to try them on. Now these were not average jackets. First of all they were military style, with the small buttons all the way down that don't do up, and a collar [not unlike that of a Burlington Teen Tour Band uniform]. They were also made up of cotton and silk fabric patches, sewed together all over the outside in a mosaic of colour and design. I found one particular jacket that I tried on and I loved. It's kind of like something that Phoebe from friends would wear, she can wear it and it looks nice but if you saw it in a mall you would think that whoever made it was on acid when they came up with the design. It is the kind of jacket that everyone looks at and thinks.. good god I would NEVER wear that, but as soon as someone who can pull it off puts it on, it's amazing. I could pull it off. I don't know why, or how I could possibly have been blessed with such a dream jacket but it looked good, and I wanted it. The only problem was that it was 1300 baht. That is just over 30 dollars, which is NOT expensive for a jacket like that. But because I am now practically Thai, I think that is expensive and I want to bargain. The only problem is that I still need some practicing with bargaining so I decided I would come back with my host mom and she could bargain for me. I came back the next day with my host mom and they were gone. Disappeared from the face of the earth. My host mom reassured me that when the festival came they would be there selling them, becuase everyone comes to the festival to sell their items. The festival is here, I have lurked every corner of the fair and they are not here. My mystery jacket is gone forever, and I do not even have a remote idea of where I could buy one. It's funny, because when I first tried it on, it looked nice but it wasn't anything special. If it was amazing I wouldn't have cared about the price and just paid for it. But I didn't LOVE it; now i do. It's crazy how that happens, how you don't realise how much you love something until you can't have it. Or how you don't notice how much you miss someone until they're gone.

Kind of like people.

“You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”

PS. I have started to upload some of my videos onto youtube.
If you want to look at them the link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPLfQvxP8pA
You can just go over to "More from: emma1elizabeth" and a bunch of them are up there.

<3

Friday, October 3, 2008

Temptation Island

Emma mai sabai [I am not well].
I woke up this morning with excrutiating pain in my right calf.
Just my right calf.
Why? I have no idea. I'm going to assume it is a mixture of Thai dance, badminton, tennis, yoga and all the bik riding I have been doing. I must have pulled something. So instead of going out today like I planned, I stayed home. I can barely walk anywhere let alone use my bike, so I only left the house twice; once to buy white out and pens at the store across the street, and the other to go to a farewell party for two of the English teachers at my school.

I am currently in J period. This is a special time of the year when Chinese Buddhists give up meat and anything made from an animal for nine days. I had always wanted to try being vegan, it looked like a piece of cake; and I'm sure it would be had I still been in Canada. Here, it is much more difficult; practically everything has eggs, milk or meat in it. The things I can eat are: fruits and vegetables, sticky/steamed rice, selected types of noodles, nuts and beans. On day number one I thought it was going to be a piece of cake. Then, as I was mid eating a peanut butter sandwich, Suzanne reminded me that bread has eggs in it. Damn. Later that day I went to play badminton with some friends and afterwards they wanted to go out and eat. They wanted to get Ba Mee [egg noodles]. I told them I would come but I couldn't eat it, because it is made with eggs. Instead they took me to a little shop where I could buy ahan J [vegan food] and then we went to eat cake. Actually, they ate cake and I watched in jealousy.

Today wasn't as bad. This morning I woke up and went downstairs to eat breakfast [at 1pm]. I was in my pyjamas which consisted of a spaghetti strap tanktop and short pyjama shorts that were flowy, and I was going commando. It wouldn't have been a problem if my host dad hadn't decided to come home early from work, and bring a friend. So I stood in the kitchen peeling a mangoe and cutting up bananas while my host father's friend awkwardly tried to make conversation. I escaped quickly to my computer haven. I spent the rest of the day working on Nathan's christmas present while I read two previous exchange student's blogs. At around 5 my host mom came home and told me we had a party to go to at 6. I played my guitar for a little bit and then I got ready.

The restaurant served the most DELICIOUS food. Salad with nuts and eggs, fish suki, deep fried chicken and calamari. Of course, I couldn't eat any of it because of J so they had a salad made especially for me, without eggs or dressing, but lots of peanuts. One of the teachers gave me salad dressing she made, it was really good. I ate an entire platter of salad... to myself. The breaker point was the moong satay. Quite possibly my favourite food here. It is so simple, pork with peanut sauce. But the peanut sauce is to DIE for. In the end, to somewhat fix my temptation I ate the peanut sauce on more salad, and cucumbers. Then when I ran out of cucumbers, I ate spoonfuls of the sauce. It was wonderful, not perfect... but it was still really AWESOME.

Of course at every Thai get together, there has to be karaoke. Since I am the exchange student who they like to show off, and I can speak English with a proper English accent, everytime there is karaoke I am forced to sing, whether I want to or not. I usually do want to. Today I sang:

Dancing Queen
Take a chance on me
Tears in heaven
Let it be
Heart of gold
Stand by me
Wind beneath my wings


And a few other songs where I was pulled in to sing them though I had never heard it before. It's funny how Thai people seem to know more of the older English songs than the falangs do! After singing way too much karaoke [with a man who was super drunk and kept dancing around and singing out of key] and saying good byes I came home. Laden down with left over moong satay. Apparently it will still be good in a week when I am finished J if I keep it in the fridge. The only problem now is me NOT eating it everytime I open the fridge. The fridge is constantly tempting me... scrambled eggs? Can't have them. Bread? Stay away. Moong satay? Nope.

Self discipline Emma, self discipline.

Today also marks the 2 month anniversary of my departure from Canada. It seems like the time has flown by, but at the same time it makes me sad that 1/6th of my trip is already over.

"Did you ever know that you're my hero, you're everything I wish I could be"

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Pride

Today I got an email from my mom telling me I made honour roll at MM, and had I been in Canada I would have a celebration to go to at the school. I should feel proud that my efforts in school paid off [at least enough to recieve free cookies and coffee... as well as a certificate], but today, I can not feel proud of something so small. For today, I spoke Thai.

To everyone who I have yet to complain to about the Thai language, it is difficult. Not only do you have to learn a new language, but a new alphabet. On top of that, Thai is a tonal language. This means that you could think you are saying "near" when you are actually saying "far", or you try to say "kangaroo" but you actually say "lizard". This makes it both difficult to speak, and understand people, especially since Thai people speak lightning fast and when you ask them to slow down they repeat what they said at the exact same speed. Finally, having an accent is horribly overrated. Half of the time when I KNOW I have said something correctly, the Thai people still can't understand me because of my accent. How the British and Australian foreigners survive, I will never know. Particularly with the elderly Thais, my Thai friends will have to repeat exactly what I said so that they can understand.

Since I have been here I have somewhat mastered a Thai accent [at least I think I have, the Thai people always say I pronounce things very well], but I still cannot be understood on the phone. Cellphones, with their sometimes horrible reception are initially a problem, but when you add a foreigner trying to speak a tonal language, it really is painful. I will phone my host mother who is used to my accent more than anyone, and I will tell her in Thai what I am doing, where I am going or what time I will be home. She does not understand. I don't understand her either. In the end after I try to repeat my plans to her five or six times, she asks me in English "What do you want to do?" I answer her in English. Communication; it's not Thai, but we communicate and that's all I can ask for... at the moment.

Today my host Aunt and Uncle in Bang Pa-In, Ayutthaya phoned. I lived with them for my first week here, and they are probably the most friendly and loving Thai people I have met. Leaving them and coming 12 hours away to Nakhon Phanom was a tear jerker. My host Aunt and Uncle can speak very little English; I had a hard time understanding what was going on when I lived with them and usually just copied what they did. I can remember the time I spent with them, when I learned the basic Thai phrases: "I like this" "Thank you" "Delicious". When I spoke on the phone with Koon Mae Noi [my host aunt], she spoke just as fast as she always did, but I could understand her. For the first time since I have seen them I could have a full conversation with her, completely in Thai. For the first time since I've been in Thailand I had a full conversation, in Thai, on the PHONE, with no English words spoken. Not one. She understood me perfectly; I was never asked to repeat anything and I never had to ask her to repeat anything in return. Perfect Thai communication. I told her about my plans for the school break, what I had been doing, that I had made many friends and that I will be dancing at Wat Phra That Phanom on the 14th of October. She told me that they would be coming to visit on the 10th of October, would see me dancing in the festival and that they may try to see me when I go to Bangkok at the end of the month. This was the kind of communication I had been longing for. Not the communication we settle for when we are sick of trying to understand, but that heavenly moment where you can have a conversation, and enjoy it.

No award, celebration or certificate could make me more proud of myself than I am today. I had always worried that I would be the only exchange student who wouldn't learn the language. But I have, and soon I will be fluent. I was always proud of myself, just for setting out on a journey, that has become my life. I am proud of myself for leaving my family, friends and country behind; I'm proud of myself for trying new things to do, eat and wear; for adapting to Thai rules, the Thai way of life. I'm proud of myself for waking up every day and going to sleep every night, not homesick or sad, but blissfully happy. I am always proud of myself for something, whether it is being particularly kind to someone, or for eating something I never would have eaten, just to be polite.

Today, however, I am proud that I can speak Thai.