Children’s Day

Saturday, January 12th was Children’s Day in Thailand. So, naturally, Watmethang celebrated it big time on Friday. Initially we were told we would have to teach during the morning and then our afternoon classes would be canceled for Children’s Day activities. It slowly became apparent that none of our normal Friday routines would be occurring. 

The day started off with the usual morning assembly, which then led into the unusual visiting of a slew of monks. About ten monks came to our campus, draped in their fabrics of orange, in order to bless the children with chants and in return receive offerings from the kids. So instead of teaching my first period, I watched all the students line up and unload bags of snacks and gifts into the bowls of monks. This ritual went well into second period. It was adorable, to say the least, and quite the time killer. 

By the time my next period rolled around, many of the English teachers had already returned to the office with bags of goodies from the students and stories of parties occurring in their classes. To be on the safe side, I planned a lesson anyway and went with supplies in hand to my 4/1 classroom. When I got to the room, the desks were pushed aside, the kids were having a feast on the floor, and everyone was singing along to Thai music videos playing on the oversized TV in their class. The students invited me to sit, gave me a plate of food & a drink, and attempted to get me to sing along. A Thai teacher then came in and rigged a microphone to the setup, turning the room into a Karaoke frenzy. The kids took turns singing their favorite songs in the mic as students from other classes peered in the doorway making for quite the audience. The Thai teacher who brought the microphone--normally a stern woman with a knack for rule following--was singing each song louder than the kids, and when no one would take the mic readily she jumped on it. Though she doesn’t know much English, she was insistent on getting me to sing. She kept telling students in Thai to tell me in English to sing just one song. Sadly, I don’t speak or read Thai nor do I know any of the tunes to the songs. She didn’t believe me and continued to offer the mic anyway. 

After partying it up all morning, the kids went outside for an afternoon of carnival activities. There were booths of darts (with actual darts, too dangerous in America, but here it’s ok for elementary schoolers), balloon popping, eating races (This one was gross. Kids had to stuff their mouths with powdery sweets, run to a dish, splash water on their faces, eat more food, and then run again. I thought everyone was going to barf.), ring toss, “Thai golf” (students had to tie an elongated gourd of some sort to their waists and then thrust at a ball until they got it across a line, it was a really phallic game that only boys wanted to play), and of course a singing competition. At the singing competition, it was mostly students singing snip-its of songs in Thai and teachers dancing off to the side. But, at the very end of the day, an itsy bitsy boy shyly took the stage, whispered something to the temporary DJ, held the mic with two tinny hands, and started belting out the 70’s hit “I Will Survive.” And he was GOOD. Granted, he probably didn’t know what he was saying. Regardless, the crowd went wild and all of us English teachers couldn’t help but to sing along. After that success, more students emerged with their best versions of English songs. One humorously jolly 5th grade boy even busted out “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic. Turns out Thai ladyboys make for excellent Celine Dion impersonators. 

Once the day was done, the kids came away with armfuls of carnival prizes and us teachers came away with bags of Thai snacks. The extravaganza may have been more exhausting than a normal day of teaching, but it was also 100x more entertaining.