First Days

It’s the end of my first weekend here in Phrae, and as far as first impressions go, this place couldn’t get much better. My housing accommodations are fantastic, the town is like a Thai version of Monmouth, and the people I encounter are some of the kindest I’ve met. General living here is wonderful. 

Teaching, on the other hand, could do with some improvement. I’ve been teaching the fourth grade for three days so far and it has been the definition of chaos. Allow me to indulge in a ranty list for further explanation: 

• There’s an assembly every morning at my school, during which on our first day us teachers were required to make an impromptu introduction speech to the student body of 5,555 students
• The 10 English teachers (eight from America) were given schedules, all of which were slightly wrong in one way or another
• I skipped my very first class to go on a tour of the school (and by tour of the school I mean one of the English teachers from last term was told very casually asked to explain all of the building to us newbies) 
• Once I made it to my first class, there was no Thai teacher there and I was greeted by a class of screaming kids who only spoke English when they were attempting to get me to play a game with them
• On day two, the foreign language director (a 50-something shorter slender Thai woman with short black hair, glasses, and a stern face) came up to my desk, showed me a piece of paper with another new English teacher’s picture on it and said very matter of factly, “She will make 28,000 baht each month, you will make 25,000 baht.” I came to find out this was because she’s teacher certified, whereas I am not. Although another new teacher from America is going to be teaching science and since he has a degree in science they will give him 28,000, but my degree in English and my teaching of English does not result in such a salary. Confusing. 
• On day two I also was given the task of teaching music in English. So now I’m an English and music teacher. No one told me what this is supposed to mean, so, when left to my own devices, I taught the kids The Itsy Bitsy Spider. 

This post is random and probably doesn’t make sense because I’ve given about zero background and lacked much detail, but I’m not going to fix it since the randomness of it serves as a perfect metaphor for my teaching in Thailand experience thus far. More stories--and hopefully more clarity--to come soon.

Thai Times

I’ve been in Thailand for three days and I’ve already experienced three once-in-a-life-time events. I also feel like I’ve been here a lifetime. 

Event number one: Tiger Kingdom 

Chelsea, her mom Jennie, her aunt Sarah, and I went to the Tiger Kingdom in Chiang Mai. It’s like a zoo, but only for tigers: big tigers, medium tigers, small tigers, smallest tigers, sick tigers, feisty tigers, sleepy tigers...and a couple random parrots. The draw of the Tiger Kingdom is that you actually get to hang out with these grand cats. You go into their cages, lie down with them, rub their bellies, feed the babies, and take a million pictures as urged by the tiger attendants. We began our tiger experience with the biggest ones, which were about two years old. It was initially terrifying. This big Thai man told us to sit next to these cats nearly twice our size, and if we weren’t comfortable looking enough he would tell us to lie down with them. It was an experience so opposite from the United States. It was virtually rule free, which goes against every obediently raised bone in my body. There were a few guidelines, like don’t approach the tiger from its head, don’t use a flash on your camera, and don’t make loud or fast motions. But for the most part you just do what you want around these tigers--including wrapping the tiger’s tail around your neck. The best part of the day was lying with the itty-bitty baby tigers. They are like playful kittens, but also sleepy kittens. (Side note: this is why you can hang out with the tigers. They are pretty much constantly sleepy. They aren’t doped or anything, they’re just sleepy. These ones were also raised by humans, so they see people as one of their own). The attendant in the smallest tiger playpen was a jokester. He kept himself entertained throughout the day by messing with us farangs (white people). He started by telling us the tiger we were playing with was a liger (any Napoleon Dynamite fans out there?). Then when Sarah was petting it he said, “It’s a boy, you see--one furry ball. You can touch one furry ball. So smooth, touch furry ball!” As Sarah gently fondled the baby tiger the attendant man laughed and laughed. Despite being made out to be a fool, I can appreciate someone enjoying their job. 

Event number two: Flight of the Gibbons 

Gibbons are monkeys in the jungle and flying like them means zip-lining amongst their trees. The four of us partook in a four hour zip-lining excursion with our Thai instructors Home & Boat. Boat didn’t speak English very well, but Home was pretty good, so good that he was able to joke with us nearly the entire time. Home kicked off the day by including himself in our family and telling us we could call him Homie. He would say from the top of a zip-line platform, “Are you ready, my family?” We became tight with crazy Homie throughout the course. The zip-line course was so long that I lost track of how many platforms and lines we crossed. We zip-lined downward, then hiked up for a long time, saw some monkeys, and then zip-lined downward again for hours. Some lines were long, others were sort, during others Boat & Homie would say, “Look out for that tree” and then swing us on the line right next to it. The platforms that connected the lines were like tree houses--the best tree houses ever. If we weren’t zip-lining from one platform to the next, we were walking on Indiana Jones-like rope bridges. Unlike a rollercoaster where you wait all day and then the high lasts for a mere 30 seconds, this experience went on for hours and was thrilling every moment. 

Event number three: Elephant Training & Trekking

Speaking of moments that last forever, the next event was a three day elephant trek in the jungle of Lampang. Chelsea signed us four up for The Mahout Training School and the rest of us had no idea what we’d really gotten ourselves into. The experience began at 8:30am on Sunday, October 21st. We were given Mahout suits to dress ourselves in for the next three days. Mahouts are the elephant trainers and they wear special uniforms of dark blue and a thick linen, so you can imagine how sweaty us foreigners were in the getup. After dressing for the occasion, we were briefed on Thai elephant commands and then drew cards with the names of our elephants and their official mahouts. My elephant was Singkorn, who is 33 years old and a mother of three with another on the way (I didn’t find out until about 36 hours into the experience that she was pregnant, so I felt very bad for kicking & yelling at a pregnant elephant). My mahout was Berm, a 40-something year old Thai man from Lampang who spoke nearly no English and deeply loved Singkorn. This was common of the mahouts; they love their elephants and don’t know two licks of English. After meeting our elephants and mahouts, we were instructed to climb atop them. This went so poorly for all. At one point, my mahout looked at me, terrified & clueless atop my elephant, and questioned “3 days?” and I ashamedly replied “Yes...” and we both buckled up for a very long trekking experience. Luckily the experience only got better with time. The first day we went on to watch other elephants put on a show, learned how to make elephant dung paper, and bathed our elephants in a reservoir. By bathed our elephants I mean our mahouts lead the elephants with us on them into a body of water until they dunked down to the point of making us float. Then we left the elephants in the jungle to sleep for the night as we returned to our accommodations at the training school. When my mahout and I returned to the jungle to fetch Singkorn the next morning, she had torn down the tree she was chained to. My mahout simply said, “Oh...wow” then we carried on with the day. The second day consisted of trekking into the depths of the jungle on our elephants for an hour or so before finding our camp. The camp had three raised bamboo huts; that night we slept on one under mosquito nets while our mahouts slept on one on the opposite side of the camp without any amenities. There was also a kitchen type hut and three Thai-style toilets (ceramic toilets without plumbing, so you flush by pouring a bucket of water down them). Along with us and our mahouts, there were a couple older Thai women who served as kitchen staff as well as a young Thai woman named Mat who served as a sort of tour guide/organizer/language mediator. Mat was awesome, she gave us much insight into the mahout lifestyle. After settling into camp, our mahouts took us on a jungle hike to a beautiful waterfall, stopping along the way to pick wild nuts, exotic flowers, and chop down bamboo walking sticks for us. Despite not being to communicate, the mahouts were very kind and generous toward us. Later on they each carved us our own bamboo cups and made rice and hot water in bamboo shoots over a campfire. Once the evening set in, my favorite mahout moment occurred: the mahouts invited us to take moonshine whiskey shots with them. They carved their own bamboo shot glasses, made their own whiskey, and were kind enough to share it with us. It was a hilarious situation looking back on it. Chelsea and I had never really drank together before and Chelsea and her mom had definitely never taken shots together before. The whiskey was shockingly good, some of the best I’ve had. The mahouts would speak in Thai, us in English, and occasionally we’d stumble through questions in the same language. Mat assisted in translating from time to time and Chelsea did the best she could in Thai, but for the most part we all just laughed at each other taking shots. The best was when my mahout found out we were teachers. He acknowledged the word, gave us a look of shock, and then passed an adamant shot our way accompanied by a  gleeful chuckle. It’s safe to say we slept soundly on our stiff beds of bamboo that night. The next morning we roused ourselves, mounted the elephants one last time, and headed back to the Training School to receive our official Mahout Training Completion certificates before saying our goodbyes. It was a rocky start, but in the end I can admit this will likely become one of my most cherished adventures. 

Welcome to the Real Thai World

On Wednesday, October 17th at 2:50pm I left from SFO to fly to Beijing then onward to Bangkok. I’m currently sitting in the Bangkok airport waiting for my Thai Airways flight from BKK to Chiang Mai where I’ll meet up with Chelsea and her family. 

It hasn’t quite hit me yet, but I’m in Thailand. And I’ll be here for five months. So far the trip has been just peachy. Flying and traveling in general can be a doozy, but this trip has been surprisingly successful so far. Don’t get me wrong, there have already been snafus and there is great potential for it all to go downhill from here. 

It’s crazy to think that just this morning (er, yesterday morning? Time zones are confusing) I was watching Price is Right in my living room in San Ramon. Yes, PIR was my last American TV experience, and I’d have it no other way. And coincidentally enough one of the grand prizes in the final showcase showdown was a trip to Thailand. So crazy. Despite that aligning coincidence and being packed & ready to go, it was ridiculously hard to leave. Saying goodbye to my dad and my dog at home was one thing, then the farewell with my mom at airport really made me lose it. So I tucked my pride aside and began this independent journey as a weeping girl in the security check line. Off to a good start, right? 

As I sat at my gate, I had this panic attack of what am I doing. Sometimes I don’t understand why I choose to do the things I do. Luckily Donald Miller understands them better than I do in his book “Through Painted Deserts”: 

“It’s interesting how you sometimes have to leave home before you can ask difficult questions, how the questions never come up in the room you grew up in, in the town in which you were born. It’s funny how you can’t ask difficult questions in a familiar place, how you have to stand back a few feet to see things in a new way before you realize nothing that is happening to you is normal.”   

Well said, Don. Anyway, as I’m mid perplexing thought, I hear a “Hey there!” from behind me. It was none other than Derek Lopez, my longtime college friend and fellow future Thailand teacher. Even though Derek & I are not going to be teaching in the same city, he and I planned to fly to the country together. It often times makes layovers and transfers less stressful to spout out confusion and airport frustrations to a familiar face. 

Derek had flown from Portland to SFO with two girls teaching through the same program (CIEE) as him. Suddenly I went from being very lonely to part of a foursome. None of us sat near each other on the plane, but that was probably for the better. Derek said he strolled by my seat a couple times and I was conked out. Initially I thought I wasn’t going to sleep on the flight, but then I popped some Dramamine and next thing I knew I’d slept through an entire movie and perhaps a snack (drat!). Btw, for anyone flying to Asia in the near future, I wouldn’t recommend Air China. There is only one TV per section of the plane and it’s not very good quality. The first movie played was some Chinese movie, fair enough. The next was War Horse, which I had to stop watching because the idea of a boy giving up his horse to a war was more sad to me than the idea of me going to Thailand for five months. Seriously, I said in my head “Sheesh, at least I didn’t have to give up a horse.” Once I unplugged my headphones from the sad movie, I slept pretty much the rest of the time. It wasn’t until later that I found out they had played The Lorax next. 

After our 12 hour flight, we got to Beijing and the foursome met up again to attempt to figure out where to go. It was way more difficult than it needed to be and we only had an hour and 40 minutes to get it figured out. After finally finding the International Transfers booth, we had to wait for a worker to come acknowledge our presence--frustrating. That took longer than needed before we could head down to the Chinese security. This was just the worst, most poorly organized security I’ve ever been through. There were two young workers, a boy and a girl, and I’m fairly certain they were mocking us or flirting with each other the whole time. There were no signs indicating what to remove from your bag, so it took each of us about three tries before they cleared our carry-ons. I pulled out my water bottle and asked the male worker if I could keep my water. He said “yes, yes” then proceeded to throw it away. After that snafu, we had to walk what must have been half a mile to our gate, which was now boarding passengers. We had zero time to enjoy the luxuries the Beijing airport had to offer. 

I slept through pretty much the entire second flight, which was 5.5 hours long. I woke once for the food service, and then I realized if I ate that food I was going to hurl, so I just mushed it around in the containers before returning it to the flight attendant. After this flight we found another CIEE program member and the now five-some traveled to customs and baggage. Customs was suuuper easy and took a total of 2 minutes tops. Then we all got our bags really fast (last time Wendy & I went to Thailand it took about an hour for our bags to pop out, so huge improvement this time). Then came the awkward moment where the CIEE peeps & I had differing plans. They left the airport to split a cab and find their program hotel, whereas I had to figure out how to stay in the airport in order to catch my separate flight to Chiang Mai. 

I thought this would be really nerve-racking and scary to navigate on my own, but so far I’m loving it. Seriously. Thai people are so friendly and helpful. I found a rolling cart for my giant travel backpack and I’ve been pushing it around like a content shopper ever since. They don’t have free wifi here, but they do have these web phone/internet access machines. I used one of them to contact my family and was lucky enough to catch my sister on gchat. After that I bought some Thai water and a coconut/taro biscuit. Lol to Thai food. Now I’m writing this blog and realizing I still have to navigate a flight transaction on my own as well as find Chelsea in Chiang Mai. Here goes nothing!

The Price Is Right (FULL) Experience

Sunday evening my mom and I drove to Southern California in a last ditch effort to get me a Visa from the Thai Consulate in LA so I can teach legally in Thailand. The entire three and a half day excursion was full of shots in the dark. The motto of the trip was “Well, let’s just give it a try,” accompanied with a shoulder shrug. Our four-ish days went something like this: drive to San Clemente, sleep, wake up early & drive to LA, drop off forms at the consulate, go to Price Is Right, drive back to SC, sleep, wake up early & drive back to LA, pick up passport with Visa in it (SUCCESS!!!), drive out to Newport beach, frolic in the ocean, drive to Irvine Kaiser and get a rabies shot, drive to SC, frolic in a slightly more southern ocean, sleep, wake up, get in one last beach visit, and drive back to San Ramon. It was quite the eventful trip, but I’m not going to pretend like you all want to hear about anything else besides Price Is Right, because, let’s face it, PIR is the best ever. 

The Price Is Right Experience*: 

*Disclaimer: This is about to be a major spoiler alert. If you don’t want the mystery magic of PIR to be ruined for you, then by all means please stop reading now. 

This is your last chance. Seriously, stop reading. 

Ok, if you insist. 

The PIR Experience started out with me getting tickets (which are always free, btw) on my phone and then lacking a printer to provide actual documentation of said tickets. Regardless, Mom & I lined up outside the CBS studios with the other PIR hopefuls. (Side note: on a separate trip to LA we tried to get into PIR, made shirts, printed out tickets, and got to the studios with what we thought was plenty of time. However, preparedness does not guarantee you entry to a taping, and sadly we were turned away before we even got onto the premises.) Once we got to the front of the entry line I showed the PIR man with a clipboard my phone, and to my surprise he didn’t even look at it twice before handing us our numbers and sending us through the studio gates. 

Now, when I say the studio gates I mean we walked through a parking lot and then were held in a covered outdoor waiting area. In this area no one official tells you what to do, but everyone glares at you when you ask questions. It was weird. Finally Mom and I asked some other audience members where to go and they directed us to the end of an aluminum bench. We were in this area for about an hour, during which we filled out on camera consent forms, got our IDs checked, became aquatinted with people around us, and received our very own Price Is Right name tags. I always imagined this to be a ceremonious process during which a very old woman who’d been writing name tags for PIR for a lifetime would take your name and turn it into gameshow memorabilia to cherish forever. I was wrong. Instead, a UCSB graduate (shout out to my gaucho pride readers) comes down the line of benches, asks your name, and very casually whips it out on a sticker. As Mom chatted her up, the name-writer revealed she doesn’t even do this every day. Sometimes she works for other CBS shoes, like Dancing With The Stars. Her CBS badge read “Guest Specialist,” and apparently that day she showed up to work and they said she should write PIR name tags for her shift. Talk about shattering the glass. Oh, fun fact: they are required to write your full legal first name on the tag, so I had to be Katelin for the day. 

After the name tags were written, we were shuffled to the other side of the building to sit in another covered outdoor area to wait some more. But before you round the building, they stop you to take pictures with your party in front of a green screen and then they try to sell them to you for a ridiculous amount later in line. Since it was just Mom & me, of course we had to get creative. They did tell everyone to act like they’d just won a car, or been called on down, or got to spin the wheel. It was hilarious to watch everyone “act” for a moment. 

On the second side of the building, they try to sell you food and you just sit for a long time. Somewhere during this side of the building they tell you just how long of a day it’s going to be. We got there at about 11:00am, were let into the building a little before 12:00, then made it to the second outdoor waiting area around 1:15, and then they tell you you’ll be there until 3:00 ish, and you don’t go in the actual studio until 4:10pm. 

At the end of side two of outdoor waiting, the all important interview occurs. This is the big moment to shine. The producer Stan and a young blonde girl in a red dress came out and had groups of ten from the line stand up, go off to the side of a railing (separation for his own protection, I assume), and cheer like crazy. Stan is super charismatic and says things like, “Are you all ready to come on down?” and then without direct instructions everyone being interviewed goes nuts with enthusiasm. Then Stan goes down the line and asks really simple questions like what’s your job, what’s your favorite game on PIR, and other things that don’t elicit much response from the future audience members. In our interview portion, you could really tell who he liked and who he breezed over without a second thought. He ask everyone in our group their occupation and a bartender guy who had mild banter with Stan ended up in the final showcase later on. Crazy. Mom & I were ok. Mom was witty and friendly as always, but I was super nervous and just sweet. He chatted with us for longer than many people in our group, but sadly not enough to result in a “Come on down!” for either of us. The interview portion was very telling though. As a matter of fact we found out that one of the two lively young women who’d been next to us through the whole experience, LaWanda, worked for the TSA in LAX. She was so hilarious, sadly she didn’t get picked either. 

After the interviews, we moved to another side of the building where we went through security to make sure we weren’t packing and then they confiscated our cell phones (absolutely NO pictures on the premises...clearly I snuck a few). Then we sat on some more benches (this story is riveting, isn’t it?). But these benches were the best because they had views of several overhead flat screen TVs on which we were shown a previous episode of PIR. They brought out their best material--it was a double showcase winner.

Finally, after three different holding locations and four hours of waiting, it was time to go inside the studio....then we had to wait on the stairwell to get up to the actual studio room. Once we rounded the second flight of stairs, there it was: the Price Is Right set. It was glorious. I smacked my mom on the arm, pointed, squealed a little bit, and realized it was truly happening. I was going to get to see a live taping of The Price Is Right. Brace yourselves for a major spoiler alert: the studio is tiny. Like itty bitty in comparison to the illusion shown on TV. With the trickery of lenses and whatnot, the studio looks like a high school gym or football field even. In actuality, it’s like a mansion’s living room. It seats 300 people, which sounds like a lot, but I cannot express to you how tiny it really is. Even the announcer George Gray came out and asked whose first time it was and then joked in a whisper “It’s really tiny, isn’t it?” George was great, btw. He’s funny, quick-witted, and surprisingly crucial to the production aspect of the show. The shockingly small stage held all the prizes and games behind moveable doors or drop down curtain things. I always imagined they were running back and forth and panning the camera over multiple stage areas, but truly it’s all just right there in the teeny space. 

Once it was time to start taping, things started moving really quickly and a lot of it was a blur. To recap, it went something like this: 

• The stage manager came out and asked us to clap & scream when told and, most importantly, to stay with Drew onstage.
• Then the man of the hour, Drew Carey, miraculously appeared out of nowhere with his unnecessary but still adorable small microphone.  
• George called down the first four names. 
• The second female called was a bridesmaid in a wedding group right in front of us. The woman called up was sitting directly in front of me, so I should be getting some camera time there. 
• The whole time a producer is on stage waving his arms frantically motioning to clap and scream. 
• A prize appears for the four contestants to bid on, but it is hard to see for everyone in the audience because there are cameras all up in the prize’s grill. 
• A producer and some other dude motion for the rest of the audience to yell out guesses and hold up numbers on their fingers. 
• No one can hear a thing during this process, so I’m not sure how anyone ever gets close to guessing the actual price. 
• A woman wins the bidding war, runs up on stage, gets to chat with Drew, and then gets to play...PLINKO!!! (I couldn’t believe I got to be there for an actual game of Plinko. Dream come true with an additional dream wrapped inside it.) 
• The models appear out of objects, hidden doors, and even prizes really randomly.
• Fun fact: My favorite model, Rachel the blonde one, is pregnant! Due in February and still strutting her stuff on PIR. 
• More people get called up and play games and come on down and bid and get called up and play other games and continue in that cycle. It’s a serious whirlwind. 

More stories from the whirlwind: 

One of the best aspects of going to a taping is the banter with Drew during “commercial breaks.” He stays out on the stage and just chats with the audience while they’re setting up the next games and prizes. Drew wished people happy birthday, happy engagement, happy wedding, happy anniversary, and he even signed a girl’s shirt. Drew was way more hilarious and dirty minded in person than on TV. This one guy behind us, who looked like the black younger version of Drew, was wearing a shirt that said “Drew Carey’s Love Child” so Drew chatted with him. It went like this: 

Drew: “That’s a hilarious shirt, man.”

Love Child: “DREW, I’M YOUR LOVE CHILD.” 

Drew (while mimicking tugging at his collar): “Not the way I do it kid, not the way I do it.” 

Lots of laughter from the audience

Drew: “How old are you anyway? And where are you from?”

Love Child: “35 and I live here now, but I was born in Vegas.” 

Drew: “Vegas, huh? What was I doing when I was 20? Shoot, yeah, you could be my kid. What do you do for a living?” 

Love Child: “I work for Budweiser.” 

Drew: “That’s my boy!” 

And then Drew continued to make negligent parent jokes and child support humor. Then the sound lady played the song “Love Child.” So funny. 

Later on during commercial time banter, Drew was chatting with someone on one side of the stage when all of a sudden this older black lady from the opposite side shouted out, “Drew, I waited outside all day and then they went and stuck me in the corner!” Her seat really was in a kind of corner situation. Drew went and sympathized with her and asked her what she did for a living. Turns out she’s a gospel singer, so of course the audience started chanting sing, sing, sing and sure enough she stood up in all of her orange outfitted glory and sang. She bellowed out the most beautiful version of “Amazing Grace” I’ve ever heard. Everyone cheered and gave her a standing ovation, and a tech guy even came out from behind the stage and clapped for her. It was magical. 

Those are some stories you’d never know if you were just watching the show, but I do have something for everyone to keep their eye out for while watching this particular episode. There was a tall, older blonde woman who looked like an aged Barbie that gets called up on stage and is wearing the shortest of short shorts. As she walked the four steps up to the stage you could actually see the bottom of her butt cheeks hanging out. And due to age and gravity and this being a family show, it was not pretty. Anyway, when she came back to spin the wheel, she had pants on. I guess they went and found her a pair of pants, because that’s def not what she came in wearing. That woman ended up making it to the showcase showdown along with our bartender guy from the interview phase. I won’t completely spoil the episode and tell you who wins, you’ll have to tune in to CBS at 10:00am on December 17th, 2012 to find out. 

After the showcase showdown, they did one last giveaway. They put everyone’s names/info in a basket and pulled one name out for a lucky winner to receive a come on down from George, an interaction with Drew & the model Manuela, and some prize money. Then, before we were dismissed, a producer came out and asked us to do one more take of a missed shot for them. Apparently when they were filming some jewelry with us in the background our faces weren’t enthusiastic & dazzled by diamonds enough. They also had us reshoot the beginning pan-over-the-audience shot. So we screamed with excitement like we hadn’t been held captive for hours. Then they ushered us out silently as George rerecorded a few descriptions of products and one contestant’s name that he screwed up. 

Finally, we were released from the studio at about 6:10pm, seven hours after arriving for an experience of a lifetime we weren’t sure would happen. My mom and I left with sore faces & hands, but also a bucket of memories. Worth it. 

One more plug before I end the world’s longest blog post: watch The Price Is Right on December 17th at 10:00am on CBS & look for my mom & me in the fourth row on the right!!!