Back to normal life

Today marked the beginning of midterms for the students at Strisrinan.  Which means that I have a week to do whatever work I need to, since I don't get to give my tests until after the midterm exam period.  This actually works out pretty well for me--I will be finishing my TEFL training.  I began it before I came to Thailand, but when I arrived I had spotty internet accessibility and fell irrevocably behind in the assignments.  So in order to complete the class and receive my certification, I began an official extension and have the next week to do the work I didn't finish before.  This means I have a ton of lesson plans to write, but at least I have some spare time to do it.

In other news my body seems to have decided that it is mission critical to visit the orthodontist in every foreign country.  Translation: my permanent retainer broke last night (the last time it broke was literally 2 weeks into my Spain semester).  So I spent a good chunk of today visiting different orthodontists in town to get it fixed.  We went to 6 different offices in total.  The basic response was that of confusion--they had never seen any orthodontic device glued on the inside of the teeth, only the outside.  According to these dentists, only a skilled practitioner could fix this.  Meaning I would probably have to go to Chiang Mai or Bangkok to get it done.  It was suggested that there might be a dentist in Phrae who could repair it for me, but there was a great deal of uncertainty.

Luckily we doubled back to the first dentist's office to get more details, and this time we actually spoke with the orthodontist.  After looking at my mouth, she asked me why I had a permanent retainer and not a removable one.  I dunno, because my orthodontist chose to do it that way?  She just wanted to say that it was much easier to clean removable ones--true, but it is also easier to forget to wear them, negating the entire orthodontic process.  Ahh well.  Anyway, the upside to this is that she said she could fix it.  Yay!!!  I was relieved to hear that I wouldn't have to remove it or go to Chiang Mai this weekend to get it fixed.  So tomorrow at 4:30 I will head back for the repairs.

I also have encountered a really interesting blog.  It is called Legal Nomads and basically talks about food, travel, and life in general.  I stumbled upon it while doing some research for one of my own blog entries, and now I am hooked.  It is written by a woman who quite her job as a NYC lawyer after 5 years to travel for a bit.  She always intended to go back, but has now been travelling, eating, and writing her way around the world for 5 years.  I find her writing to be fascinating and I am truly inspired by her life story.  I guess it just spoke to me considering my recent history.  So I wrote to her, and she is quite nice.  I have been enjoying following her adventures, and some of you might too.  It seems she is planning a food tour in Bangkok during my fall break (perfect timing), so I am hoping I will get to do that.  We will see what happens when some of the details get fleshed out.

Anyway, that is all for now.  I am actually going to bed super early tonight--sleep has been elusive of late.  And although my days aren't terribly stressful at the moment, I could still use some more shut eye.  See you later!

P.S.  In hearing people talk about the parade, apparently everyone in town thought I was a student--a bit awkward.  It seems the makeup did make me look younger, or else I really just look as young as people say I do!  Still, I really don't think I look as young as Sunny, our AFS (foreign exchange) student from Finland.  But maybe that is just me.

The Candle Parade

So as I mentioned before, this Monday and Tuesday were school holidays for Asana Bucha and Khao Pansa, roughly translated to Buddhist lent.  This is when the monks retreat to the temples for the rainy season.  The parade we had on Friday was in preparation for this--the candles are offered to the monks for their time in solitude during the rains.  The most famous of the candle parades is in Ubon Ratchathani in the eastern part of the country.  Their floats are incredibly elaborate, and the candles are nothing short of breathtaking.  That being said, my breath was taken away by our ceremony here in Nan, so I really can't complain.

In Nan the parade is performed by our school.  There is a second municipal parade, but this takes place outside of the city.  So it is just our school that does the main parade for town.  This was truly a blessing--none of the teachers I know in other schools really got to see this parade, much less participate in it.  The other large school in town had some flowers/traditional dancing for a couple hours in the morning, but our procession dwarfed all the other ceremonies by comparison.

A few days before the ceremony I was approached by Pee Nong (one of the 4 Pee Nongs I know, this one works in the English Department and is married to Mark, a Brit) to participate in the parade.  The parade is split into 8 colors, with a float for each one.  She was representing purple (สีม่วง) and invited me to be the sign bearer for the color.  I was ecstatic!  To be fair, I had no idea what the ceremony was, what would be expected of me, or anything else, but I was so excited to be invited to join.  I did have to decided between spending the weekend in Vietnam or participating in the parade--it turns out this was a no brainer.  I don't regret skipping Vietnam for a second: this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, but I will have many more chances to see Vietnam.

Over the next couple days it was revealed to me that all I would need to do was show up, look pretty (and like a falang, basically), and walk around the parade route.  I would have to be picked up around 4:30 a.m. on the morning of the parade so that my hair/makeup could get done.  Then I would go and have my costume done.  Thankfully the students would take care of all the details: I just needed to be there.

So Thursday night rolls around and I have all the best intentions of going to bed early...which doesn't happen.  Instead I am up until about 1 a.m., meaning that I get 3 hours of sleep.  Uggh.  I hear the knock on my door as the students (Patti and Bam--for some reason it just makes me think of the Flintstones) arrive.  I was told they had a car to take me to the hairdresser--this turns out to be a motorcycle.  No helmets, of course, and the three of us pile onto the bike and are zipping through the streets of Nan at a truly ungodly hour.

We arrive at the salon and I find that there are several girls already there.  In fact, I am one of the last ones there--I think they wanted to let the poor falang sleep in as much as possible.  The hair experience was...unique.  I have never had so much shit in my hair, and I have had a lot of crap in there for various proms.  They used hair spray to make it sticky/coarse, then combed/teased it back to give my white-girl hair a bit of volume.  Then they added bits of fake hair.  My hair being significantly lighter than that of most Asians made it a bit more difficult--I ended up with a bunch of reddish-brown hair.  Ahh well!  Then the flowers and decorative pieces were added.  It was sooooo heavy by the end.  I can't even believe it.  But it did hold together pretty well.  I only had to shove the pins back in a few times.

Early stages of the hair--minus flowers and other ornaments

One of my lady-boy hairdressers hard at work

The reddish hair

Hair 2.0--now with flowers

Once the hair was prepared, it was on to the next set of lady-boys at the salon to do my makeup.  I have to say I think they did a pretty good job.  I was a tad nervous ahead of time because Rhea kept talking about how they would cake the makeup on.  In fact, she said that last year when she saw the parade she was glad she hadn't been asked to join in because of the amount of makeup you have to wear (she says she is allergic to it?).  While I was worried, I decided I just didn't care.  Even if my skin broke out from being exposed to a lot of makeup, I figured it was worth it.  And in the end, they did a really nice job, so there wasn't even a problem.

Next it was time for costumes.  The students came back to get me, and we went to someone's house to get in our outfits.  Most of the group from the purple procession was there getting ready.  Once again, I was one of the later ones to arrive, but not the last.  There were many different costumes, all variations on the purple color theme, and dependent on your job in the procession.  So my costume was similar to many of the girls who carried flowers, but it was unique because I was the only person carrying a sign.  Everyone was tired, but also seemed excited by the parade.  It was fun to see the students as they underwent their transformation from teenagers to beautiful Thai princes/princesses.  It was pretty astounding.

I also liked to see how the clothing was put on.  The skirts I was familiar with--it is the same type I wear every Friday.  It is basically a tube of cloth you step into, then fold the spar material toward your left.  You then have a string tied around your waist like a belt to hold the skirt up, and the top of the skirt folds down to cover the string. The top was different.  You take off your shirt (leave on bra) and get wrapped in white silk.  This is then tied onto you.  Over the white silk (wrapped at breast level) is draped the second silk--mine was pink and purple.  This is draped over your shoulder and pinned in place.  A very pretty effect overall.

So early!!!

Wrapping the underlayer (pink in this case)

Pinning on the draped fabric 

Tying on the base layer--you tie, spin/wrap around, then tuck it in

Breakfast time (a.k.a. my M5 students are silly)

It took quite a long time to get everyone ready--a few hours at least.  I was just getting my clothing done here, but many of the students were also getting hair/makeup too (I guess if they had less elaborate requirements).  It was fun, but I didn't have my phone with me and I got sleepy at times.  Finally, after  much primping and preening, it seemed we were about ready.

Finishing touches for our leading lady

The boys getting a bit of powder...much to their chagrin

They were dangerous with those umbrellas!

Time to go!

So we hopped in a bus and set out for school.  The plan at this point was for my camera to go to Pee Neat to take pictures.  I had actually wanted to give it to her the day before, but she assured me would just get it in the morning.  Well of course the parade is about to start and nobody has any clue where she is, so they take my bag from me with instructions to deliver it to Pee Neat or Rhea.  As it turns out, nobody could find them, so they gave the bag to Mark instead.  I did find Pee Neat before the parade began, and she told me she would find Mark and get the camera from him.  Alas, this was not to be either--he had locked it in his car and gone to the hotel across town to watch the parade.  But Pee Neat and Rhea didn't know this, so they went to the hotel to find Mark, only to discover that the camera was locked in his car back at school. AGGGG!!!!  Anyway, the bottom line here is that I don't have any of my own pictures from the event, but I have stolen them from Rhea, Gina, Goi (a physics teacher friend), and the school's own Facebook page.  So enjoy!  Also, I have just put a few here ("a few" being a relative term), but at the end there will be a link to the full albums so you can peruse the photos at your leisure.

With Pee Neat

Pee Aoff (I teach M2 chemistry with him)

Rhea in Thai clothes for the first time!

Leaving the school grounds to begin the parade

The orange float

The school director (in pink) with the red float

Gina (center) and teacher Jaran

Light blue

Part of the ASEAN group

The red sign holder

I liked the peacocks (our float had some too, but these are cooler)

Me and Gina

The beautiful girls from the purple group

Our float! Taken after the parade

Me with Pee Nong #2 (my right) and Pee Goi (my left)

Pee Nong #3--he has the cutest daughters EVER

I could add a million more pictures, but I have a feeling this is already enough.  I will just throw them all in albums so you can look at them if you feel like it.  In short, the parade was amazing.  There were weird things, like the fact that I had no idea where to go--this was helped by the fact that I was just following the group ahead of me.  However, speed of walking was an issue.  It was very slow.  This is because if anyone wants to take a picture of you, you stop.  And I mean for everyone, not just the official photographers.  Hence the parade takes several hours to go about a mile.  Also, I was told by one person to keep the distance between me and the group ahead pretty small--about 15-20 meters.  So that is what I was doing.  Until about 1/3 of the way through the parade, when my student "handlers" told me I needed to stop going so close.  Oops.  And then there was the issue of playing leap frog.  Sometimes the group ahead of us would be about 300 meters ahead, other times just a few.  In general, I was trying to keep the space pretty constant.  So when there was a huge gap, I would increase my speed from a shamble to a walk.  Well, I got scolded by my handlers again for going too fast.  I am sure they hated me by the end of it, and I do feel bad, but I kind of wish someone had given me some instructions ahead of time.  Ahh well, that is the Thai way I guess!

My students thought I was pretty surprising in my Thai outfit.  While I am used to hearing "suay" (beautiful) around here because of how different I look, the parade took it to a whole new level.  All of my students kept coming up to me and telling me how beautiful I looked that day.  It really was touching.  I was so happy to be a part of it.  On a related note, I am pretty sure I have never had so many random people take my picture--I am sure it was quite funny for them to see the white girl in Thai clothing.  But they all seemed to like it, and so did I, so that is what counts.

Funny side note: my friend Ping Pong said that he saw me in the morning and couldn't even tell it was me.  He wasn't sure whether not it was me, so he didn't come talk to me.  I guess he didn't know I was going to be marching!

Anyway, it was a truly amazing experience.  It has definitely been a highlight of my time in Thailand, and has been one of the best experiences of my life thus far.  Not something I will soon forget!

Album Links
Prepping for the Parade
Hair, Makeup, Costumes
The Parade
Dancing and other Festivities

My new bike and cooking part 2

So I am skipping a post on the candle parade because it is taking a while to get the pictures organized--hopefully I will get it posted within the next day or two.  I will say that it was a truly amazing experience, probably one of the best in my life.  Definitely worth skipping the trip to Vietnam!

Today (Monday) and tomorrow are vacations from school for Vassa, or Buddhist lent.  For 3 months (during the rainy season) the monks stay on the monastery grounds.  In the old times the villagers would offer candles to the monks so that they could see and continue their work during this time of sequestration, hence the candle parade preceding Vassa.  Now the candle parade is a more elaborate/ornamental ceremony, but candles still are offered to the monks for Vassa.

Anyway, last week was really exhausting, so Saturday I spent a lot of time sleeping.  Then my weekly chores (cleaning, laundry, etc.) before my trip to the walking market.  It was, as always, a wonderful evening.  I even had a cheeseburger, although I think it might have actually been made of pork.  Doesn't matter much, it was delicious.

Yesterday morning I also accomplished another task: purchase a bicycle.  I have been meaning to do so for some time, but didn't want to unless I had a native Thai with me to help with the bargaining.  In the end I got a new (as opposed to used Japanese) bike with a nice basket.  Also a bell and lights, etc.  It was funny, the bike shop seemed convinced that I would want a huge cruiser type bike, since all foreigners seem to prefer them.  I didn't really know how to respond to that--they were gigantic and twice the price.  Definitely a sturdier bike, but I'm still not really sure why that would be the go-to bike for foreigners.  I opted for the Thai-manufactured bike (the seat had to be raised all the way to fit me).

Pretty snazzy! (and yes, I know it is locked wrong in this pic)

So today Rhea and I took our bikes to Wat Phumin.  I was feeling bad for not having visited in the 3 months I have lived here--all my Thai friends are shocked by this fact.  But I shouldn't have felt bad.  Rhea hadn't been in 1 year + 3 months, and Gina hasn't been in the 4 years she had lived in Nan.  They have seen it driving by, but never stopped by.

The temple is quite pretty, but the most impressive part of it is inside: the murals.  They are not nearly as old as the original temple, but are of great interest since they depict the old style of daily life in Nan.  Also, some of the murals tell the story of the founding of Nan province.  The details are fuzzy to me (since they were conveyed to me by one of my students), but the story goes that there was a Burmese prince that fell in love with a local Thai girl, the daughter of a farmer.  As all stories go, their parents did not approve of the match: a prince and a farmgirl!!  Fighting ensued.  Sadly the remainder of the story is a bit of a mystery to me.  I will have to ask for some clarification.

The most famous mural: "The Whisper"

I really liked this one.  Not sure what it means, but it was pretty

Edit: according to my father, there's no mystery to the "mystery mural": it's the chicken race teaching the humans the Chicken Dance!

I had a very nice time with the visit.  I would have liked to spend a bit longer, but it seemed that Rhea was anxious to leave, so I figured I would come back some other time.  So we headed out and went to the market to pick up food for dinner.  My plan: finally attempt to cook green curry.

Green curry was probably one of my more despised Thai dishes before actually coming to Thailand.  For some reason it always had a smell to it that reminded me of rotten food.  It smelled decidedly bad.  Like something that would make you sick if you were to eat it.  So much so that when my dad would order it at restaurants, my mom and I would have him put the dish on another table so we wouldn't lose our appetite.  But somehow green curry is different here.  It doesn't have that dirty smell/taste.  In fact, it is probably my favorite curry here--it has the best balance of sweet, salt, and spice.  And so I endeavored to try my hand at green curry.

First of all, I didn't make my own chili paste.  I have done it before (in my Chiang Mai cooking class), but it is a pain in the ass to make and it has to age once it is made.  Plus most Thais don't make their own paste either--they just buy the paste and go from there.  Another thing that will surprise you: those aren't peas.  They are tiny little eggplants.  I was shocked by them the first time I encountered them.  They do taste a bit like eggplant, but they are more bitter and not as soft.

Fairy eggplant + Pea eggplant.  Big eggplant don't really exist here

Most of the prep.  See our new dish rack! I love it.

Adding the chicken...chopped breast would have been better

About time to add the Kaffir lime leaf

Time to eat (with rice vermicelli)

Close up (and classy tupperware lid/trivet)

Well, I would say it was a success.  I think in the future I would definitely use chicken breast and chop it rather than legs/wings--this is due to cooking time and ease of eating.  Otherwise things went well.  The recipe called for some sugar, but I thought it had enough with the coconut milk.  Also, they had me add water, but it got too thin so I needed to add some extra coconut milk.  But mostly it was pretty solid.  With a few tweaks I think it would be quite successful.  Messy in our "kitchen," but that is to be expected.

Anyway, it is time for some sleep so I don't sleep through my entire day off.  I am happy with how the last few days have gone.  Tomorrow I plan to work on my candle parade blog entry, and in a few days I might make some pork with holy basil--a very tasty stir fried dish.  See you all later!