Summer School

I finished my part-time job at a tutoring center last week! For the past month I had been working at a brand-new school started by a former Thai colleague. The summer school program was for kids aged 5-10, and each week focused on a famous story. The first week was "Alice in Wonderland".

It was fun, but boy, was I exhausted! It's hard enough teaching kids, harder still when you can't communicate with them at all. At the high school, all of my students could speak English. These kids were too young to know more than just a few words.

I've never been so tired in my life! It was fun and rewarding, but made me glad I'm not a full-time Prathom teacher!

Each week we did games, activities, dancing, yoga, crafts, and science experiments.

When we studied "The Wizard of Oz", they made a tornado in a bottle.

 

When we studied "Aladdin", they used static electricity to make a flying carpet "fly". And when we talked about "Treasure Island", we did an experiment where the students guessed if an object would float or sink.

Some of the kids were super sweet and always wanted to talk to me, even if it was just to point to something and tell me the color, or ask me "what?" (is that in English).

I'll miss them! It was fun, and a totally new different experience for me. Now, finally, I'll take my summer break!

Hotel English

For the last month, since graduation, I've been working part time twice a week teaching English to a group of staff at a hotel in Bangkok.

It's been fun! Every Tuesday and Thursday I take the Purple Line to Nonthaburi, and teach pronunciation, formal/polite English, and speaking to a group of about 15 front desk staff.

The students have been really receptive. I guess that's not too surprising - they already use English every day in their job, and since their job is to deal with guests, they can't be too shy. That makes the class very fun.

Teaching adults is different from what I normally do as a high school teacher, but I'm enjoying a new set of challenges and adapting to a different teaching style. This month has really challenged me, since I've been teaching both adults and little kids.

My time teaching at the hotel is coming to an end, but I've enjoyed the new experience.

And it's nice to spend some time at a fancy hotel, even if it's just for a few hours a week!

Songkran Day 3

Songkran

 Today, Sunday, is the third and final day of the Songkran Festival. However, since the holiday falls on a weekend this year, the Thai government has made tomorrow a national holiday as well! I'm really enjoying the time off, even if I'm mostly hanging out at my apartment.

Paragon mall

 This morning I went out to Siam Paragon mall downtown. There was a Songkran exhibition set up showcasing dozens of historic Buddha images.

washing the statues

There was also an area for people to wash the Buddha statues, which is one of the traditional ways to celebrate the festival. I think it's interesting how a huge luxury shopping mall can have one of the more traditional celebrations that I've seen this year!

 

statue on Songkran

Happy Songkran! I've got one more day off tomorrow, and I'm going to make the most of my restful time at home before heading back to work on Tuesday.

Songkran Day 2

Today is the second day of Songkran!

I stayed inside today mostly, although I did walk to Max Value, the tiny little just down the road from my condo.

On the short walk there (basically just next door) I got powdered!

A group of revelers standing on the corner in their bright Songkran shirts were splashing passers-by and smearing scented powder on their faces. Luckily for me, they were fairly merciful, and spared me the water! I did get some powder, though. It smelled really nice!

Songkran Day 1

Today is the first day of the Songkran Festival!

Songkran is the three-day Thai new year festival, falling on April 13, 14, and 15 every year. It's the most important day in the Thai calendar. Songkran is a day of remembrance when Buddhists will give blessings to their elders by washing their hands with silver cups full of water. It's also a time to bless the Buddha statues by washing them with holy water too. Many public places, including the subway and the supermarket (shown below) have set up little shrines where people can perform this ritual.

preparing for Songkran

But nowadays, Songkran is so much more than that. Over the years, the reverent washing ceremony has evolved and transformed into the huge kingdom-wide water fight it has become today.

water guns for sale at my nearby grocery store

The malls are all decorated in bright colors, and nearly everybody wears colorful floral Hawaiian shirts during this period.

decorations at the mall

This year, the Thai government has been trying to encourage more people to wear traditional Thai outfits during the festival as well.

Central Lat Prao Shopping Mall

Today, for the first day of Songkran, I walked down to Soi Rangnam, near Victory Monument, where the King Power duty free mall was hosting a Songkran fair. Pinky is working through the holiday, and it's not so much fun to go to a water fight by yourself, so I am going to be taking it kind of easy during the holiday, resting, keeping cool from the terrible heat outside, and enjoying the time off.

at the entrance to the fair

The fair at King Power was a lot of fun! Very low-key, and no splashing water.

at King Power

There was a large market area set up selling traditional food and handmade crafts.

handicrafts

There was even a small floating market!

floating market

 It wasn't too crowded, and everybody was having a really good time.

Thai snacks for sale

 Past the floating market was a little area full of vintage shops.

vinyl record shop

vintage toy shop

I didn't stay out too long, because it's very very hot right now, but it was really fun to visit! Pinky will have a day off on Monday, and hopefully we can meet up to join in the Songkran festivities if they are still going on. This year, since Songkran falls on the weekend, Monday is a holiday too!

The Purple Train

After about a year and a half of it being open, I finally got to take the brand-new(ish) MRT Purple Line!

The train opened in August 2016, and I've been meaning to check it out, but never really had the chance. It's the first of many new metro lines due to open up in Bangkok in the coming years. The city's transport is really set to expand, and I think that's exciting.

The Purple Line is run by the Mass Rapid Transit Authority, the same organization that runs the MRT Blue Line subway through the city. The Purple Line, however, is not a subway. It's a Skytrain like the BTS (Bangkok Transit System) a different company that runs the city's skytrains which kind of connect to the subway at a few places, although each system uses different ticketing and fare cards. It's confusing, and all of the lines were supposed to be integrated into one city-wide transport card by 2015, but here we are, three years later, and still waiting. Oh, and that's not even considering the Airport Rail Link, run by the State Railway of Thailand, another elevated rail that runs to the city on yet another fare system! But, that's Bangkok for you.

The new Purple Line begins at a station called Tao Poon, which until recently didn't even connect to the Blue Line. The two stations were about a kilometer apart, and although there was a shuttle bus, nobody really bothered taking it. The city was wondering why nobody was riding the Purple Line. Eventually they constructed one new stop running from Bang Su to Tao Poon.

The subway slowly rises up out of the ground onto an elevated rail and now finally connects to the Purple Line in a big, clean, remarkably modern and beautiful station.

It still wasn't very crowded, but I have to admit, the station and the trains look great! They look so clean and new! It's a very modern style, and a different design from any of the other lines.

The Purple Line runs just out of town into Nonthaburi, a suburb of Bangkok. It's amazing how quickly the city disappears and is replaced with scenes like this:

This is just a few stops away from one of the busiest places in the whole city!

I'm taking the Purple Line into work for a new part-time tutoring gig I'm doing teaching English to a hotel staff. It's been fun! I'll write a post about that soon. Stay tuned!

Qingming

Last year, Pinky and I decided to connect a bit to her Chinese-Thai ancestry by adopting some of the Chinese festivals.

a Chinese shrine

We sort of celebrated the Hungry Ghost Festival, but never really got around to burning the joss paper like we were supposed to. Well, now it's almost time for the Qingming Festival, another Chinese festival dedicated to remembering one's ancestors. It's a time to visit one's ancestral graves in the springtime to sweep and clean them for the next year. It's also time to burn more joss paper!

burning joss paper

 We actually finally got around to burning our "ghost money" in Pinky's back yard sometime around last December. It was too late for the Ghost Festival and too early for Qingming, so let's just say that it counts for both!

Ghost Money

I wrote a little about Ghost Money (or Joss Paper) before. You can buy paper money and luxury goods to burn to send to your ancestors in Heaven. We don't take it seriously, but it's just kind of fun to connect to a bit of culture.

burning Ghost Money

Anyway, we burned all of the paper money and paper iphones that had been cluttering up my apartment for a few months. I guess it's a good time to write about it now, though, since it is the Qingming Festival after all!

Easter Sunday 2016

Happy Easter, everyone, from Bangkok, Thailand! I was up early this morning to meet my former boss and very good friend, Mr. Geoffrey, at Christ Church for the 7:30am Easter service.

It was a muggy, drizzly Easter morning, but it was dry and bright inside the church. Christ Church, also known as the "English Church", is a parish in the Diocese of Singapore of the Church of the Province of Southeast Asia, the regional Anglican Church. Though definitely Anglican, it was originally founded in 1862 to be a place of worship for all English-speaking Christians, and due to its position in Thailand, attracts a congregation of many different Protestant denominational backgrounds. Nowadays, there are services in both English and Thai.

As a fun note, Queen Elizabeth II herself once worshiped at Christ Church during a tour of Asia!

Father Tim, the vicar, presided over the small early morning congregation of mostly old people (and me). The 10:00 service would be much, much larger, especially on Easter. They had even set up overflow seating in the parish hall. The service was a very nice Anglican Easter service, and afterwards there was a small Easter breakfast provided in the parish hall.

Father Tim and the assistant vicar, Henry (who for some reason, despite being the assistant, is a bishop) joined in the breakfast of tea, coffee, boiled eggs, cornflakes, and toast with butter and marmalade. Bishop Henry came in his purple shirt and collar, and Father Tim in a very festive baby blue vest decorated with a pattern of fluffy springtime sheep.

"Happy Easter, everyone!" Father Tim called from the head of the long table. "What are we all doing?"

"Listening to you yak", Geoffrey called back jokingly.

"Well", Tim teased back, "that is your Easter privilege!"

I really enjoy the English expat crowd.

Happy Easter, one and all!