Right after we arrived on Thursday, Mo took the three new American teachers to an assembly for the incoming M1 students and their parents. The assembly room was packed with people, but Mo led us up to the front of the stage to sit with the other teachers. All of the students were seated on one side of the hall, their parents on the other. We were sitting in three rows on front of the stage. Behind us was an ornate shrine. The school is officially Buddhist. On rather side of the shrine was a large portrait of the King and Queen, and a Thai flag and yellow royal standard respectively.
The head teacher was introduced, and she went to the podium to address the new students. I will have some of these students in one of my classes; I'm teaching M1-M4, 7-10th grade in the US. After a minute, we realized that the head teacher was introducing new teachers. Mo leaned over and whispered to us to stand and wai to the parents when our names were read. A wai is a sort of bow. The hands are placed in a prayer-like way on front of your chest, and you bow your head down to your hands. The Thais do it really gracefully. Us, not so much.
I didn't recognize my name at first, but I realized everyone had turned to look at me, and I quickly stood and bowed. Everyone laughed, which intake as a good sign; at least they're not too serious. After we had all been introduced, the students were each recognized. One of the teachers read each of their names, and they came to the stage in small groups to lay flowers at the alter, light incense and candles, and bow down for a prayer for the year. By the end of the assembly, the hall smelled really good. The air was heavy with perfume, flowers, and incense, and I was getting sleepy even though it was early.
Luckily though, it was just about time for lunch. At the dining room we met back up with Geoffrey, who always sits at the same spot. We joined him at his table.
The thing about lunch is that none of us actually know how to prepare it. On Friday they served a rice dish and soup. We thought that all these toppings went on the rice, and the soup was the side. It turns out that everything was supposed to go in the soup! Nobody cared though. Geoffrey warned us not to listen to the recommendations of the Thai teachers; they will recommend really weird combinations. I noticed many of them putting spoonful after spoonful of sugar into their soup! I've noticed that the Thais really love sugar. I have no idea how they all stay so skinny!
After lunch we had a department meeting where the other teachers went over our schedules with us and gave each of us a copy of our textbooks, workbooks, and teacher manual. The books are British, and some of the wording is funny. Grant warned us to listen to the dialogue CD's before we play them in class, otherwise we might start laughing because the dialogue is so ridiculous. There doesn't seem to be much structure in how we teach our class. I have no idea what to do, and neither it seems do my other American colleagues. I guess we'll just figure it out.
That afternoon we met someone new in the English office. Suzy Person came from Baylor in 1990, and was one of the first BU teachers in Thailand She and her family still have a house in Texas, but she works part time at Mathayom now. It turns out that she grew up in Ft Worth and went to Southwest High School! It's good to have another Texan in the office.
In the afternoon, the teachers had organized an English department reception tea so we could all get to know one another before classes start. The head teacher spoke first. She said that the English department is like a family. Then Geoffrey introduced us one by one. Again, we stood and gave a wai. Then we ate. I think we will be doing a lot of eating in Thailand.
The woman who founded the school back in the 50's was there. She is an English teacher as well, and her daughter in law made brownies. Someone else brought melon balls on sticky rice. I had so many! They just kept bringing us food, and I didn't want to be rude. No complaints though, everything was delicious. They even made sure that there was English style black tea, although Geoffrey may have had a hand in that. There was also a weird purple drink. It was made from flowers, they told us, and it looked refreshing. It was very sweet with a weird salty/bitter aftertaste. I don't know how I feel about it.
The head teacher came to speak with me. She asked me about the tornados last week. She seems very nice. Her son is in the MBA program at Baylor. Oi, a coworker in my office also went to Baylor for her MA. She told me how she used to live in the apartments on 5th street and how she always went to the HEB there. I walked to that store all the time!
Geoffrey gave the Mathayom teachers each a map of the city, and during the reception all the teachers wanted to recommend places for us to go. They circled a few of the main sites in the city and wrote down what metro stops to take to get there. They highly recommended the Chatuchak Market for this weekend.
Grant met us at the school to take us to get our phones set up at the mall. We are finally starting to see some of the city. To get to the mall we had to walk to the nearest BTS station. Bangkok has an elevated "Skytrain" and a subway called the MRT. To get to the mall we had to take both. Grant helped us buy metro cards and load them up with Baht. The Skytrain and metro are both air-conditioned!
My carrier, Sprint, was really nice and unlocked the phone and suspended my account so that I could get a Thai SIM card, but not everyone was able to do that, and had to pay to get their phones unlocked here. I got a Thai SIM card and a good monthly plan, so I'm finally all set up! Grant left us at his subway stop, but told us how to get home. He even texted the directions and what to tell the cab driver phonetically in case we had any trouble. Everything was going well, we got off at the right station, Lat Prao (our street), but it suddenly started to rain. In Thailand we are getting close to monsoon season. So far it had been sunny, but that night it poured on us for about an hour, and we couldn't get any taxis to stop for us for a long time. Finally we just ran up to a taxi stopped at a light and jumped in before he could say no. We told him "Lat Prao see sip hoak" (our address - Lat Prao 46) and he took us back home. It's super cheap, split between three or four of us getting home only costs B20 or so - less than a dollar!
Congrats on your Thailand Adventures!!
ReplyDeleteMary Gail Masters