Chut Thai

My M5 (high school junior) class has been working on a big project this quarter called "Tourist Day."

M5 is one of the most fun classes to plan, because it's the only English main class which is taught by two of the American teachers, so we get the chance to do some more advanced and interesting things. The project didn't start out big. Originally, we planned for students to get in groups and make a presentation about a different country. When the administration learned about our project, and that it would coincide with the annual arrival of our Australian exchange students, it was made clear that we were expected to make this a much bigger affair than we had originally anticipated.

I will elaborate on this project further in a later post, but essentially, the students had to prepare a presentation for their chosen country as if they were a tour agency. Part of the project had them dress up in traditional costumes from their chosen country, so we teachers (as the judges for this event) decided to surprise the students and dress in the Thai national costume. Thai people really seem to love it when foreigners embrace the culture. The hardest part was keeping it a secret. Our office isn't really that private, but Nat and Cherry, the two Thai teachers who teach M5 with Ryan and me, had a tailor come in to measure and fit us between classes for our Chut Thai - the official formal Thai national dress.

I'm pretty Thai for a white guy (haha, get it?)

The women's design of the national costume is based off of traditional royal Thai clothing, while the men's style was designed by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) after a visit to British India in 1871. Previously, men had worn something more like loose robes, but King Rama V introduced the new pattern as a way of bridging traditional Asian style with western fashion. The result is a light colored high-collared "raj jacket" worn with traditional Thai-style pants. Today, this style of clothing is worn only in very formal occasions, such as weddings or state affairs.

The day of the event was the most difficult, because we had to hide in our office for an hour or so without letting any of the students see. This was made much more difficult by the fact that every Thai (and one British) teacher or administrator at the school wanted to take photos with us.

from left to right: me, Geoffrey, and Yul Brynner

It's really amazing. Thais love taking photos! No event would be complete without at least a dozen photo shoots. I'm hardly exaggerating. The school photographer even came out to pose us in the administration office in front of a portrait of the King and Queen. When we finally met the students, I ended up in more "selfies" than I could keep track of. It was kind of fun to be a celebrity for a while! The kids all cheered when they saw us in our outfits for the first time. Teacher Kate (who doesn't teach this class) joined us as well, partly because we needed an odd number of judges to make the decision more fair, but mostly because we thought it would be cool for all of us to dress up.