Thai Schools Under Military Rule

"In Thai schools, a drill sergeant's dream of regimentation rooted in the military dictatorships of the past, discipline and enforced deference prevail. At a public school in this industrial Bangkok suburb, teachers wield bamboo canes and reprimand students for long hair, ordering it sheared on the spot. Students are inspected for dirty fingernails, colored socks, or any other violation of the school dress code."

 - Excerpt from "In Thailand's Schools, Vestiges of Military Rule" by Thomas Fuller

Last Friday I sat in on a Friday meeting between a secondary school's student body and faculty. While I had never sat in on these meetings last semester, I assumed this weekly ritual would not be much different from the morning "meetings" I had witnessed at the primary schools: Grades One through Six students standing in six rows on the lawn, facing the teacher wearing a Scouts' uniform and holding a bamboo stick reminiscent of Ms. Trunchbull's outfit from Roald Dahl's Matilda. The teacher will usually lecture the students on the school guidelines and bring up truancies from the past week (going to the bathroom without permission, taking too long on water breaks, etc.), to which the students will reply, "Yes, Teacher! No, Teacher! Thank you, Teacher!" Once the orders are given, the meeting is adjourned and the students will march in their six neat lines off the lawn and to their morning lessons.

Friday afternoon greets me with the sight of approximately 150 secondary school students, all sitting in a dozen rows on the cement floor of the school's meeting area between the library and the principal's office. The chatter and giggles amongst the teens suddenly disappears as a male faculty member enters the area in full-military uniform: green camouflage pants-and-shirt combo with shiny black lace-up boots, all accompanied by a metal rod in the teacher's left hand and a pair of scissors in his right hand. "Good afternoon, Mr. Trunchbull," I think to myself.

As predicted, the Friday afternoon announcements follow suit with student-teacher meetings past:

"Are sixth-grade girls allowed to wear blue bows to school?"
"No, Teacher!"
"Do you have to wear your motorcycle helmets to and from school?"
"Yes, Teacher!"

After lecturing the students about which of the three school uniforms corresponded with which days of the schoolweek, Mr. Trunchbull talks about the school's hair regulations and uses students as props to show the appropriate length for sixth-grade bob cuts and ninth-grade ponytails. When Mr. Trunchbull discusses hair regulations for male students, he requests a volunteer from the audience to come to the front of the meeting hall. Since nobody comes up, Mr. Trunchbull points his scissors at a Grade 9 student sitting in the back and says in accented English, "Come here, please!" As soon as a skinny 14-year-old Thai boy quickly walks to the front of the room, Mr. Trunchbull has the "volunteer" model for his classmates by facing forward, to the sides, and backwards.

"Is his hair too long?"
"Um... no, teacher?"
"Speak louder students, IS HIS HAIR TOO LONG?" *motions at the back of the student's neck*
"Yes, Teacher!"

As if the students said the magic words, this second reply prompts Mr. Trunchbull to set aside the metal rod and place his left hand on the ninth grader's head. Once the student bends his head forward, Mr. Trunchbull starts snipping away at the back of the student's head, with pieces of black hair falling to the cement. As my mind takes in what is happening, I think back to a lesson from Pre-Service Training last February: if you see a school faculty member do something unsettling, control your reaction by touching the roof of your mouth with your tongue. 30 seconds of keeping my jaw from dropping passed, and the teacher excused the student by saying, "Sit down, please." The student obediently thanks Mr. Trunchbull and quickly walks back to his seat, with his new patches of baldness visible to the 100+ sets of eyes in the meeting hall.

Later that afternoon, I spoke with one of my co-teachers about the impromptu haircut at the meeting and asked for her input on the Thai school system. While she agrees that the Thai school system's discipline practices should be re-evaluated and students' potential should not be limited to a militarized mold, she reminds me that we are serving students in a rural area of Northern Thailand. Although some of Bangkok's students are petitioning for broader freedoms of expression in the classroom, potential in the major cities has yet to change the minds of headmasters and teachers whose backgrounds are rooted from the principles of respecting elders and upholding the law.

As someone who eats lunch with such teachers every week, I respect their work. However, as someone who has gotten to know much of the student body these past fifteen months, I see potential that has yet to be met with opportunity. I do not know how or when, but I hope to show the local schools how students can serve alongside their superiors rather than under them.

Dear Lou Dobbs

Dear Lou Dobbs,

A friend shared with me a link to your "Lou Dobbs Tonight" May 29th segment discussing a Pew study on women in the American workforce. It saddens me to hear the sentiments of you, Juan Williams, and Erick Erickson concerning the 40% of women acting as breadwinners in American families. However, after much thought, I think I owe you and Wednesday's guest speakers a "thank you" for exercising your U.S. First Amendment rights and hope that you well lend your ears as I follow suit and exercise my right to free speech with a story:

I come from a family that conflicts with Mr. Erickson's idea of a "nuclear" family. My early childhood progressed in an all-female household with a single mother who always put me first even as she pursued her undergraduate degree, while my grandmother and aunt helped raise me with the values of humble beginnings and unconditional love. When I was three years old, my mom married the person I call "Dad": someone whose family situation strays from the one you and your guest speakers hope for, yet whose family also raised him through a household of hard work ethic and a support system of loving parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and so on. My mom, dad and I experienced hardship during their first years of their marriage: budgets were tight, first apartments were questionable, and first jobs, that my parents hoped wouldn’t be permanent, left them exhausted. I admit that my out-of-the-ordinary family faced many hardships, but raising a daughter wasn't one of them. From my mother, I gained the values of trust and forgiveness. From my father, I gained the values of assertiveness and tenacity. From both, I learned the importance of perseverance in a land of opportunity. Without these values, none of my immediate family members would be where we are now.

Currently, I am more than halfway through my service as a community development Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand. Three weeks ago, I biked to a nearby secondary school to discuss an English communications curriculum with their student body. After my presentation, nearly a dozen 13-to-15-year-old female Thai students approached me with questions about my background; as a Peace Corps Volunteer whose Second Goal is to educate local communities about Americans, I happily obliged. Much of the group was surprised that this 22-year-old Asian American woman has traveled to so many places and volunteered for low-income communities, all of which was achieved without a male partner alongside me. I proudly shared that thanks to the influences of a hard-working family and the female role models I've been blessed with since Day One, I know that all women are capable of doing anything, but I also realize that not all of them are able. I'm grateful for the opportunities I've come across as an American citizen, and because of the opportunities the women - and men - in my family have helped me to have.

Your segment on America's female breadwinners reminds me that I owe it to myself to share my experiences with my Thai community members and pay it forward. I'm reminded that with your opinions come many examples of modern families that would say otherwise. In response to Mr. Williams' concerns about the children of future generations, I wish you could meet the young Thai girls who want to learn how to make recycled goods and sell them at the local markets. In response to Mr. Erickson's concerns towards the roles of men and women, I wish you could witness the strength of the Thai community women who tend to their farms, succeed in the local markets, and raise some of the nicest children I know. Most of all, I wish you could all see what I see in America's workforce - who my female community members look up to: women who can provide for their families, live up to their expectations, and thrive beyond the nuclear mold to which you wish to revert America's female breadwinners to.

So again, I thank you and Wednesday's guest speakers for reminding me of my non-nuclear family, a family that raised me to be who I am today. I am grateful that this week's segment ignited reactions that will guide me to teach female members of my Peace Corps site to strive for success despite the opinions of others. More importantly, I am thankful that there are people like you, Erick Erickson, and Juan Williams who remind women like my mom, my grandmother, my aunt, and me that we amount to more than your expectations.

Until next time, Lou Dobbs, I wish you and your family well. I see that you are the proud parent of two sons and two daughters. I hope that your daughters Hilary and Heather realize their potential as women, and I whole-heartedly hope their successes prove your segment wrong.

Sincerely,


Sara Kline

All Sorts of Mind

Na-na jit tung: "All sorts of mind"
   (Source: Wikiquotes)

Different people = different tastes. With Month #18 in Thailand coming around the corner, I like to think my community's perception of foreign foods now progresses beyond hamburgers and spaghetti, just like my opinion of fried bugs on a food plate is more "Nom nom nom" than "No, no no!" Granted, my heart still stops when my landlord adds fish sauce to my spaghetti container, while Thai counterparts gasp as I eat my noodle soup without a spoonful of sugar and a packet of chili flakes. But for the most part, our cultural exchanges are finally meeting a sort of dietary harmony in which all sorts of mind can cook and consume in peace. Not in the mood for buffalo soup? Na-na jit tung, but thanks for the offer. The banana bread is too sweet for a co-worker's taste buds? Na-na jit tung, but it's amazing that a volunteer can bake using a rice cooker!

I wish I could tell you we're handling all sorts of mind with nonchalant grace, but we occasionally lose our cool when what we thought was a universal truth is shattered. Two weeks ago, I decided to add chocolate chips to the pancake batter before whipping up some breakfast for my host family. While my host sister Get gobbled up her serving, my host mom was swooshing around her flapjack disc with her spoon:

Me: Do you not like the pancakes?
Meh Amporn: It's okay, I just don't like to eat chocolate.

A widely-known meme site was spot on with my reaction to the news:

"When someone says they don't like chocolate" #whatshouldwecallme

Institutional-Thaised

Red: Would you knock it off? Brooks ain't no bug. He's just... just institutionalized.

Heywood: Institutionalized, my a**.

Red: The man's been in here fifty years, Heywood. Fifty years! This is all he knows. In here, he's an important man. He's an educated man. Outside, he's nothin'! Just a used up con with arthritis in both hands. These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized.

Heywood: S***. I could never get like that.

Prisoner: Oh yeah? Say that when you been here as long as Brooks has.

“The Shawshank Redemption” (1994)

I’m not saying my time in Thailand feels like a prison sentence, but Morgan Freeman’s character hits it right on the nose: we’ve been institutionalized – in my case, institutional-Thaised. I’m adding more chili flakes to my noodle soup bowl and less cooling powder to my body in the Thai summer heat. Biking to and from schools/offices/clinics/markets is less of a pain and more of a routine, with water bottles and my backpack in tow as everyday-accessories. I chat up my usual fruit-and-vegetable vendors at the weekend market, while passers-by shout out my name as I wave and smile back like a local celebrity. The students stop by my house everyday after school for bingo or crafts or both, with my landlord or neighbors making their occasional drop-offs of Thai soups, fruit slices, and sugary kanoms to stock up my fridge with. As neighbors’ lights go off and gates lock up before 8 PM, I settle into my pajamas and close my curtains, usually sleeping before 10 PM unless a crazy night of online-tv marathons or podcasts-and-crafts is in order. A rooster’s call or the village leader’s morning announcements will wake me at 6:30 AM, and it’s just another day. As my friend and fellow blogger Sarah Lingo likes to say, “Same day, different kanom.”

With 17 out of 27 months under our belts, my fellow volunteers and I lead second-lives in our respective sites and it seems strange that many of us will be heading elsewhere in 10 months’ time. The first months at site dragged along as I sweated out my daydreams of America in 100-plus degree heat last spring, yet now I can’t believe we’re already halfway through 2013. By this time next year, I’ll wonder why one pound of mangoes is four times the price of a 1-kg bag of mangoes in Northern Thailand. By this time next year, I’ll wonder why the tables at BJ’s Brewery forgot to put out the assortment of chili pastes, sugar, and fish sauce bottles, while my request for chopsticks will confuse the waiter who is handing me a plate of potato skins. By this time next year, saying “Hello Students!” to kids passing me on the streets will gravitate concerned parents away from me and towards their mobile phones and/or pepper spray. By this time next year, I will search frantically for my bike in a grocery store parking lot while my parents and sister wait for me next to their car and cart of groceries. By this time next year, I will potentially be a stranger to my own country, overcome with institutional-Thaisation and a need to ask new acquaintances if they’ve eaten lunch yet or if they can eat spicy food.

Earlier today, one of the finance department officers entered the community development office for document signatures. I pulled out a box of coconut kanoms for the officer to try. He smiled, took one, and asked if I had eaten lunch yet. When I told him I would go to a housewarming party in an hour, he asked, “Gin pet daai mai?” (“Can you eat spicy food?”). We proceeded to compare meat prices in Thailand vs. North America. Institutional-Thaisation at its finest.

It's More Fun in the Philippines

Along Palawan's shoreline

Local kids playing at a rest stop on the way to the Underground River

Time to race

Zip-lining 850 meters over Palawan's waters

At the mouth of the Puerto Princesa Underground River

Avocado + ube ice cream

Halo-halo = happy-happy

Water-side lounging areas along Pristine Beach, Puerto Princesa

Tamilok with a side of red onion and vinegar

1 Norwegian couple + 1 French woman + 2 Peace Corps volunteers + 1 basketball player + 3 Filipino tourists = one awesome tour group in Puerto Princesa

Exploring the mouth of the Underground River

The Philippines's largest ferris wheel

Can you spot Taal Volcano? 

A tri-lingual restaurant band that can sing English, Tagalog, and Spanish songs

Oh Jose Rizal..

Our carriage ride through Intramuros

Crocodile sisig, kare kare with oxtail, and lechon kawali

It's more fun in the Philippines!

Clear blue water, soft sandy beaches, 850-meter zip-line from island hilltops over said waters and beaches, exotic foods that'll blow your mind, a horse-drawn carriage ride down a collection of colonial-styled buildings in the capital, more exotic foods with a view of a Taal Volcano, good music, good company, and did I forget to mention the food? Last month's trip to Palawan and Manila went by too quickly and, being back in rural Thailand, my appetite requests introducing my community to the culinary fun that includes kare kare and halo halo. I'm already counting down the days till I go explore the Philippines again come next spring *10 months till close of service!* Check out the promotion video below; you''ll all agree that it is indeed more fun in the Philippines.

How To Survive A Rot Tour Ride

Riding a rot tour (tour bus) throughout Thailand is quite the event in Peace Corps Volunteers’ travels. Every time you board a bus, the driver insists on speeding down highways and disregarding the 50+ lives in tow. Someone sitting in front of you reclines their seat to the point where you’re clutching your knees to your chest in fetal position. If you’re a volunteer who has to take overnight buses often, such as myself, you’ll be unfortunate enough to have a screaming baby (cuter the baby, louder the scream) and a seemingly calm-looking Thai passenger who belts out snores so powerful that you’ll wonder if the passenger has a brass instrument for a set of lungs. And as you suddenly fall into a desperate attempt at sleep after hours of this mayhem, the rot tour’s speakers will blast your eardrums with Thai karaoke tunes at 4:30 AM, with the bus hostess welcoming you with over-sweetened coffee boxes and a sweet bread filled with dried pork. Oh joy.

A fellow volunteer and blogger El Langland calculated that the average Peace Corps Thailand volunteer has spent roughly 24 days’ worth of their sweet time hanging on to his/her arm rest for dear life as the volunteer sits in fetal position and endures a 160 kilometer-per-hour death ride down highways while listening to a deafening symphony of crying babies, snoring passengers, and abnormally loud Thai music to the point of traveler’s insomnia. However, a year’s worth of bus travel throughout the country has taught each of us the do’s and don’ts of rot tour travel that makes our experience a bit more enjoyable.

Comfort before price.

Like many Peace Corps volunteers, I want to make the most out of my monthly allowance and leave out as many luxuries as possible. However, when it comes to bus rides, I need to be comfortable for my 12-hour overnighter from Chiang Rai to the central or northeastern regions. Sombat Tour is my best option, as it provides neck pillows for dozing-off head support and leg rests high enough to rest my knees. This past weekend, I strayed from the familiar and took an Issan Tour bus from Khon Kaen to Chiang Rai: no air conditioning for the first three hours, and several motor failures resulting in 16 hours of sweaty rot tour hell. The 150-baht difference in Issan Tour and Sombat Tour tickets = so not worth it.

Bring some snacks.

You may get hungry on the bus and find that there is one 20-minute food-and-bathroom stop throughout an 8-plus-hour journey to your destination, so keep some snacks handy. Even though most tour buses provide you with snacks and bottled water, I bring a Clif bar and an extra bottled water as back-up.

Cover up for the cold.

Thailand’s climate is warm, but rot tour climate is generally colder than the average Thai province. Wear pants and bring a cover-up for the bus ride; if you’re on an overnight bus, the bus hostess will provide passengers with blankets.

Protect your ears.

The screaming baby? The passenger with the giant snore? The overwhelmingly loud karaoke music at 4:30 AM? Keep your ears guarded with a fully-charged music device and/or a set of earplugs. Seriously, I’d rather forget snacks and a blanket than forget to charge my iPod: I learned the hard way when the battery ran out 2 hours into the overnight ride to Khon Kaen this past weekend, while a burly Thai man with baritone-like sleeping sounds serenaded the whole bus till 5 AM. PROTECT YOUR EARS.

Stake your claim.

As soon as your bus arrives at the station, place your things in the over-seat shelves before you have to replace your leg space with your backpack. If your bus does not have arm rests between seats, beware of the occasional passenger whose arm flops over or shoulder/knees/butt invade a good third of your seat.

Keep yourself entertained.

If your stomach can handle the crazy speeds down a winding highway path, bring a book or magazine to read! I have a huge book of Sudoku puzzles my family gave me for Christmas, so I tend to bring that along with my Kindle and a reading light (bus lights off after 8 PM on most buses). If the American-Thai-dubbed movie doesn’t interest you, take out your fully charged laptop and earplugs to watch something on your hard drive.

Hold on for dear life, close your eyes, and pray.

Just kidding! But not really.

**Related memes:

Public transportation

After taking an overnight bus

When I step off the transit/bus into the big city

And for those of us living up north: Driving through the mountains on an old bus

I Am Not An English Teacher.

Last year’s Pre-Service Training for the CBOD (Community-Based Organizational Development) trainees touched on a variety of subject areas: early educational development; environmental preservation; health; youth development; economic development; information and technology; life skills. Since Peace Corps Thailand’s TCCO program deals with teacher collaborations, we CBOD trainees saw teaching English as a responsibility we should not harbor. We are community development volunteers and not English teachers. We should not be teaching English in the schools everyday, but instead we should be integrating into all sectors of our site community in order to be an effective CBOD volunteer.

From the moment I arrived at site last March, people I met would make the same request for one-on-one “sah-peak Een-glish” lessons with themselves or with their sons/daughters/nieces/nephews/cousins. My Education Officer requested that I go to all nine early education centers from May until July to teach 2-to-5-year-olds their ABCs, while every paw-aw (principal) in the village wanted me to be their schools’ kruu paa-saa an-grit. With a smile, I would reply to every request with, “I am not an English teacher,” hoping the requests for English lessons would lessen and requests for assistance with HIV/AIDS and economic development projects would soon be on the rise.

Last May, I caved and started an English Games Club on Sundays at my host family’s house. The first two sessions started off with over a dozen students ages 5 to 15 years attending for games I had put together the night before: “How Are You” Bingo, Red Light/Green Light, Food Bingo, draw a map of the community, follow directions blind-folded, and even more bingo. Word spread of my English Games Club, and requests for English lessons returned from the village elders. “I am not an English teacher,” I repeated, assuring the community members that I was only playing games with the neighborhood students on the weekends and I would not be teaching English everyday. However, having 12+ children greet me with “Good Morning, Teacher” at 4 PM was not helping confirm my status as a CBOD volunteer.

The English Games Club group size dwindled from over a dozen to between five and ten neighborhood kids who became weekly regulars at the Sunday afternoon sessions. Before I knew it, the sessions would extend to two hours, with the children and I discussing my family and hobbies back in the States compared to life in the village. After packing up my materials and heading home, my host sister Get and landlord’s nephew (also Get) would bike down the street with me to help make dinner and draw pictures for my house. Pii Kung, a sixth grader living across the street from my host family’s house, came to my house several times a week to have me check her English homework and constantly asked me to teach English games to her class across the street. “I am not an English teacher,” I replied. The look in Pii Kung’s eyes looked hopeful, and I eventually gave in to her request adding, “Only once a week!”

It has been nine months since I started facilitating primary school English lessons on Tuesdays, and I must admit: I wish I had caved sooner. In the nine months’ worth of Tuesdays I have helped teach English at the Yang Hom Primary School, over 60 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th graders, their English teacher, and I surprised each other and ourselves with how much we’ve accomplished, including but not limited to:

• Celebrated Halloween and Christmas;
• Named the different places to visit throughout the village in English;
• Read and wrote letters in English to pen pals in Little Rock, AR;
• Received postcards from three different countries;
• Learned how to do the Hokey Pokey and turn ourselves around;
• Discussed why water and milk is healthy, while alcohol and soda is not healthy;
• Perfected musical chairs in a variety of English vocabulary categories;
• Discussed why Valentine’s Day can be celebrated with family, friends, and classmates instead of just boyfriends/girlfriends;
• Recognized positive English compliments that every student and teacher embodies;
• Learned how to hop like a kangaroo, swerve like a snake, and eat like a panda.

Six weeks ago, 5th and 6^th grade students, teachers, and relatives gathered at Yang Hom Primary School for the Grade 6 graduation. My co-teacher Kruu Meeo had me sit amongst the 6^th graders for a prayer from one of the village elders, whose constant mumbling was met with giggles from the students and myself. After prayer came the bai sii ceremony, when relatives and teachers bless students with pieces of white string around their wrists to wash away worries and welcome a new era – in this case, the beginning of middle school and the pre-teen years. I wished each of the 21 6^th graders best of luck in middle school and reminders to continue studying their English this summer; like the elder’s mumbling throughout prayer, this reminder was also met with giggles.

Once the 5^th grade girls performed an end-of-the-year traditional Thai dance, the speeches from the top male and female students of the class commenced. After Nong Pam thanked the staff for their help as he moves on to a school in another district next term, Pii Kung’s speech came to a surprising end as I heard my name being called on the microphone and I saw my co-teacher quickly wave her hand at me to come to the front of the library. 13 of the 6^th grade students quickly lined up with red plastic roses in their hands as Pii Kung looked at me to say the following (translated from Thai):

“We want to thank Kruu Sara for teaching us English. My mom says I am shy and need to speak English better. Kruu Sara help me not be shy anymore and now I speak English better. We miss you Kruu Sara when we go to secondary school.”

As each of the students presented me with a rose and wai’ed me with a smile, I could feel the tears welling up. Despite my mental protests against giving a speech, Kruu Meeo handed me the microphone in front of 50+ pairs of eyes watching me hold in the tears and listening to my voice quiver. “I am not an English teacher,” I wanted to say, but instead this is what came out of my mouth:

"The students asked me for several months to teach English, and their moms and dads ask me everyday to teach English. I am not an English teacher, but when I teach English to your students every week, it makes me happy. When I am sad at site and when I miss America, your students make me happy when they learn new English words and smile everyday. You are all lucky to have smart sons and daughters. I am here for one more year, so do not be sad, students. You are always my students and I am happy that I am your teacher."