Lukchup

A couple of weeks back, before the New Year holiday, our boss asked us foreign teachers if we would teach a Conversational English class to the other teachers at the school. To be honest, we weren't thrilled about the idea at first, not only because it would add an hour to our weekly schedules, but the extra time planning an advanced class for adults without any cirriculum was going to take some time as well. But of course, we couldn't say no. We know our place in the social hierarchy at the school. We were each given a list of suggested topics (eg. "discussing classes", "telling someone about your school", "planning and having meetings", etc.) and four sign-up sheets (one for each ajarn American) were posted around the school. I thought I was being really clever for scheduling my class for Friday afternoon after lunch, but in the end I ended up with the biggest class!

After the first week's meeting in the library though, I was happy to be teaching this class. It's very different teaching adults who really want to learn, and it's been fun getting to know some teachers outside of the English department. One day in class, I mentioned something to the teachers about how I had had some sort of really special Thai snack at Loi Kratong. All the teachers began talking amongst themselves, then told me that they would teach me how to make it at our next class!

Lukchup

I'm really lucky that many of the "students" in my class are the cooking and home-economics teachers, and they were really excited to teach me how to make Lukchup. The next week, we all met in one of the art rooms, where they had everything prepared, including the recipe typed in both English and Thai.

I didn't find out until later that this recipe had actually caused quite a bit of commotion around the office. That morning while I had been in class, one of the teachers had apparently brought the Thai recipe to Nat, a Thai English teacher in our office, to translate. She was stressing out about it, because the directions were very Thai and included steps like "make coconut water" and "prepare bean paste", which a non-Thai wouldn't understand. She eventually enlisted the help of Ryan, and the two of them spent all morning trying to translate the recipe into English. Later that afternoon when I returned from my "Teacher Class" with a bowl of Lukchup, they couldn't believe that they had been working so hard all morning just to type a recipe that my class was going to show me!

"You mean we spent all morning doing this for Michael!" Nat exclaimed in mock disdain when we figured it out.

It's actually pretty simple to make, once you know how. You take a small ball of mung bean paste and mould it into the shape of a fruit (usually a tropical Thai fruit), then paint it with food coloring to be the proper color. After that, you take the little lukchup on skewers and dip them into clear gelatin three times to get a solid coating. Last, decorate with small leaves to make the fruits look more realistic.

They showed me how to make mango, papaya, rose-apple, orange, cherry, mangosteen, and (my favorite design) corn!

The week after, the class taught me how to make somtam (spicy papaya salad). They seem to be much more interested in these things than in the topics that the school had suggested, and I'm perfectly happy going off the lesson plan to make a more interesting lesson. Next week we are going to have a lesson about cooking instructions, ingredients, etc.

It's fun teaching this class, because it gives us a chance to meet other teachers outside of the English office. Actually, I think that's part of the reason that they asked us to teach this class, so that we can become more involved around the school and get to know more of the teachers who are sometimes not completely comfortable speaking in English.