IN an effort to not linger too long on how much time has
passed between my last blog post and this most current one, I’ll put it simply:
a lot of time has passed. Therefore, it would be silly to try to catch y’all up
on everything. So I won’t. The holiday season was, understandably, a very
difficult time for me, which is probably the reason why I didn’t write much if
at all in the month of December. Every time I sat down to write something, it
just sounded boo-hooey and not truly indicative of how great this experience
has been for me thus far.
But yay we made it through the holiday season! What a
wreathy little hurdle that was. I think for any expatish American abroad,
December and early January will always be difficult. I am glad that, looking
forward, there are few such culturally-charged periods of time looming in front
of me. Unless of course you count Groundhog’s day which is COMING AT ANY MOMENT
AND I CAN TELL YOU WITH 100% CERTAINTY THAT HERE IN THAILAND WE’LL DEFINITELY
BE HAVING INFINITY WEEKS LEFT OF HEAT!
I clearly spend a lot of time alone because I cracked up for
a good minute after typing that “joke” out.
Anyway, since I said I wasn’t going to go into any great
detail about the last month and a half of my time here in Thailand, I thought I’d
make a handy dandy little map to show you where in Thailand/SE Asia I have
travelled thus far, because a lot of my time has been spent travelling around
this amazing region of the world.
As you can see, I’ve been lucky enough to see a lot of
Thailand and even a little sneak-peek of our neighbor to the north, Laos. And
though travel in SE Asia is dominated by long hours on over-packed buses that
ramble through mountains and curved roads at speeds at Iwouldn’tevenwannaknow
miles per hour, I can surely say that my experiences in travel have done
nothing but strengthen my fascination and fondness for Thailand. Thai people
are as different as any other group of people—Isaan Thai are different than
Northern Thai and are certainly different than Central or Southern Thai—but
their spirit of giving and helpfulness is pervasive wherever you go.
I think of the young Thai woman I met in a 7/11 in Khon Kaen
who gave me wrong directions to the bus station and then ran after me for five
minutes to correct her mistake after I’d left. I think of the hostel owner in
Chiang Mai who offered me tea and let me move into my room early because I look
tired. I think of the man in Nan who dragged a ragamuffin group of farangs into
the mountains for a weekend of water rafting and, upon receiving our payment,
told us he would be giving it to the members of the impoverished hill tribes
nearby.
To say that all Thai people are kind or that all Thai people
are generous is reductive and certainly not true; however, I will say that the
lengths that most Thai people will go
to make sure you know where you’re going or that you know what you’re doing or
that you’re taking care of yourself as best as you can is simply astounding.
And perhaps it is especially astounding because of the ways in which this
kindness or generosity is extended to strangers—Americans
are kind and generous too, but not often to people we don’t know. Here, it
doesn’t really matter if you’ve known each other for five minutes or five
months—if you need help or are completely lost, there will be someone there to
help you in whatever ways they can.
As a person used to figuring a lot of things out on my own,
this is obviously something I’m having to get used to. In the American context,
asking for help is a sign of weakness. Here, this couldn’t be further from the
truth. Whether it’s a teacher making and sharing breakfast with colleagues
before school starts or students letting other students copy their work so that
they won’t be embarrassed by failing, there is an openness of giving and
sharing in this culture that is at times both beautiful and very weird.
But just so yall don’t think that Thai people are
lovey-dovey and we’re-all-in-this-togethery all the time, here’s a funny
anecdote from an interaction I had with an Older Female Teacher at my school:
OFT: Cody, do you like to play basketball?
Cody: Sure, yes! Do you?
OFT: My favorite thing is to play basketball. My least
favorite thing is to lose, so I play by myself and always win.
Maybe I’ll update more regularly from now on. Probably not!
But stay tuned anyway.
Cody
