Thursday Musings

Christmas setup along the beach

We're wrapping up the seventh week of school, but it turns out that the month of December doesn't actually involve too much teaching. We started the month with the King's birthday followed by a government holiday which led to two long weekends in a row. Then this week we had to take off two days of school to handle some legal work which involved two trips to immigration, and next week we have a day off to attend some sort of festival (details to follow because I don't know much now). So December is shaping out to be a pretty easy month! The Christmas spirit is starting to spread into the smaller towns of Thailand and we can now see Christmas lights in our own city instead of having to venture down to the touristy areas of Pattaya, which is pretty exciting, but still absolutely nothing like the states. This is my second holiday season away from home and I'm learning that I do better when I adapt to a life of denial, as opposed to embracing all things holiday. I tried not to make a big deal about Thanksgiving because fully acknowledging that I was missing my favorite holiday with my family would probably make me cry in the middle of school; so instead I pretended it was a normal Thursday in Thailand. Although I plan on skyping my family for their christmas morning I still have to go through the entire day at school, so for the first half of my day I'll try to just focus on the present, and I'll allow myself to fully embrace Christmas once I'm settled in front of my computer with my family on the other side of the screen.

Another perfect day at Koh Larn Island

Because Christmas isn't a legit holiday in Thailand there isn't as much holiday time as I'm used to. We'll still be teaching the full week of Christmas (minus the random and unrelated festival on Wednesday) and we're just getting a long weekend for New Year's Eve, so while everyone in the states is home for the holidays and buzzing with Christmas spirit, things are relatively calm in our neck of the woods. Last weekend we had a four day weekend so we had some fellow English teachers visit from the Northeast of Thailand, which gave us our first try of being tour guides in our own city! Of course we went to Koh Larn Island (it's becoming a regular place in my life) and we tried out some of Pattaya's clubs at night. We decided to "splurge" on a hotel room in Pattaya instead of dealing with taxis after a night out. I say "splurge" because the hotel room was a total of $14 USD, which we then split three ways.. big spenders! I'm still constantly baffled by the prices in Thailand and am continuously amazed when I add up my spending at the end of the week only to find that I spent a grand total of $10 all week on food.

The prices in Thailand make it all too easy for westerners to come over and enjoy themselves for practically nothing, but I'm constantly reminded that this is a huge difference between ourselves and the local Thais. Although some of the teachers at my school seem to have a decent amount of money from their parents or spouse, most are living off of the mediocre teacher's salary that they're receiving each month. As someone who loves to travel, my form of small talk usually steers down the path of travel (shocker, right?) but I'm finding that that's not something I can talk about with many Thais. Many of the local teachers have been to some of the nearby islands but beyond that they really don't have the means to do anything else. Only about a quarter of the teachers appear to have ever left Thailand, and I know of none that have left Southeast Asia, and whenever I ask why, their answer is always about money. It would take three months salary to afford a roundtrip ticket to the United States and that's just not a feasible option for many people, no matter how badly they want to go. It seems that most Thai people can easily live within their means and lead a comfortable lifestyle within Thailand, but it's been interesting to see how well they would do outside of their country. I can't imagine how a Thai person would react to paying $25 for a meal or $5 for a coffee. As someone who was born and raised in an economically comfortable lifestyle it's been a crazy experience to come to Thailand and to see the differences between myself and Thais. It's been extremely humbling and has made me realize how fortunate I am to come from America. It has also made me realize how many habits and expectations I could ditch in my daily life. Do I need to go to the coffee shop every day, do I need to have an endless supply of outfits in my closet, do I really need ten different purses (maybe) and a huge collection of shoes? I plan on traveling as much as possible while I'm here, because this will most likely be my only time living in Southeast Asia so I plan to take full advantage of that, but besides that, I've calmed down a lot with my daily life and what I spend money on.

Got milk?

One thing that I've found particularly amusing about Thai culture is their affinity for milk. I can't even count the number of teachers who have asked me about my milk drinking habits: how much do I drink, what's the best time to drink milk etc. I'm slightly convinced that they think milk has magic powers. The government provides free milk to our school (pictured to the left) and the students drinking it multiple times throughout the day. Obviously I understand that milk is good for growing kids, especially when it comes to bone health, but many people have also talked about the importance of milk for the brain and how it's best to drink it in the afternoon or before important tests. It's all a bit confusing to me. I'm also baffled by the form their milk comes in. Apparently once a month we get a huge shipment of milk to the school which is supposed to last for the entire month. It was weird enough that the milk arrived in a non-refrigerated truck and was stored in the non-refrigerated teacher's lounge, but it's also supposed to last for a month? Perhaps it is magic milk if it's sitting around for that long..
While we're on the subject of milk, Thailand loves condensed milk (and everything else sugary). I had no idea that this ingredient would become a regular in my life. Every iced coffee gets topped off with a hearty serving of condensed milk and it is sold it small bags at every market I've visited. Any freshly made dessert will most likely have a large serving of condensed milk and I've even see some people drinking it straight from the can (the same cardinal brand we have in the states). I've accepted that my weekly frozen coffee is most likely 10x more unhealthy than it should be. I imagined myself eating exotic foods every day and smoothies made of fresh fruit, but in reality I'm just eating a ton of rice and mass amounts of ramen from 7-Eleven, although the fresh fruit is still a reality, so that's nice! And my tolerance for spicy foods has increased drastically, which is an added bonuses.  Add an extra serving of mashed potatoes on your plate for me on Christmas!