This could be any house in Japan, but as you correctly surmised it is the very one that I reside in. Sorry I have no more droll musings to add about life in the world's second biggest economy, but such is the nature of things. Financial stability has the downside of not being half as interesting as living in an impoverished state (and state) where cows are currency.

Hardly back with a vengeance, but back nonetheless. I am happy to report that I am employed full-time (only in the warped world of teaching conversational English could 27.3333 ad-infinitum hours be considered full-time) and hope to be back in the money one of these days...months...years? Also in the good news department, paperwork for Pocky's visas is coming along without hitch, which should hopefully see her here in a couple of months. Well, now that my absence and is explained and my happenings are elucidated, we can soon get back to the uproarious humo(u)r that this blog is so renowned for. Will post shortly ;)

Lom Jomthong, my father-in-law, passed away yesterday.

My visa has become non-renewable due to new regulations that state three months of unemployment render the visa invalid, or something to that effect. I will return to Thailand on the 19th of October and re-enter Japan on the 26th of the same month. Hopefully, everything will go to plan and I will be back to work at the beginning of November, otherwise I will have some serious recourse to another Visa - the capitalized one.

We are mooving.Sorry I couldn't resist. It looks like we will move out of Khon Kaen to Nong Sao on the 2nd of September if everything goes to plan (which categorically never happens as there is no plan in Thailand). One thing is for sure, today is my last day of work at Be Smart. Yipee! I will be offline for several weeks with the move, but I thought one last post with a picture of our calf would be appropriate. The mother is not pictured, but we bought the pair. Beef futures, baby! - or baby beef futures! It's obvious the stress has gotten to me.

I suppose I will drivel on a bit about my preparations to go back to Japan. Monday the 29th is my last day with Be Smart and had I been I probably never would have taken the job in the first place. There is always a sense of lifted burden when quitting a job, even a good one, but I can tell you that with these guys it will be like the lifting of a curse.

In other news, we have a rental house out in the village. The rent is ridiculously low. Next time you spend thirty dollars consider that we have a two-storey house for that much a month. The downside is that I don't want to be present for this move from Khon Kaen to Nong Sao. My wife assures me that I won't have to lift a finger, but the plan had been that she would move after I had left. "Don't worry, you can just watch." I feel like a mafia Godfather ordering a hit; I don't want to be anywhere near the scene of the crime. Moving, even just watching it done, is something I have done far too much of recently and it gives me great stress. In any case, September 7th is D-day for all Thailand headaches to cease and Japan ones to begin

I could drivel on about my preparations to go back to Japan, but instead I've decided to post a picture of some cute village kids. Kids are kids where ever you go and these guys always seem to be having a great time playing in the dust, dirt and debris. It is hard to imagine what kind of futures they will have given their economic conditions, but for now they are as carefree as little crappers the world over.

Well, the visit was a smashing success. Pictured right is the bemused couple discovering the 'real' Thailand. Right down to the sunny weather on the day were drove out to the country, and overcast, yet comfortably cool weather on the other days, everything went to plan. Dan's back to beating his head against the wall in Japan where I will soon join him for the forehead to mural structure fun.

He cometh...

...my friend Dan, that is. On Monday Dan and his lovely fiancee will touch down in Prathet Thai where they will spend several days being dragged about Khon Kaen and Kalasin provinces. We may even stop at the Buddha on the hill pictured above. The poor couple don't know what they are in for. Dan will be subject to my long-winded pontifications on all things Thailand related as well as summaries to several books I have recently read on the development of human societies. His fiancee, Etsuko will be paraded through the local shops and markets by my wife where she will be pressured into purchasing anything she is unfortunate enough to glance at twice (and I am not talking about pushy vendors - they don't exist up here, my wife will do the shopping and hawking simultaneously). After two nights the miserable couple will undoubtedly regret their decision to come, but will realize that they are completely reliant on us for transportation, accommodation and communication, and therefore doggedly endure two more days of righteous rants and shopping sprees before they are allowed to return to the safety of their residence in Japan. Ha! I will now have the undivided attention of bored adults rather than bored schoolchildren.

Part of living in Thailand is plotting and scheming about getting rich quick. Realize that an income of twenty-thousand dollars a year would be very comfortable in Isaan and you'll understand the relative notion of getting rich. I've spun all sorts of silly ideas through my head on how I could supplement the monthly income. Of course in the end the best I could come up with is hauling my ass (and English speaking mouth) back to Japan. Nonetheless, I plan to be back here some day on a more permanent basis and I have seen the salary ceiling. So, what's my latest entrepreneurial epiphany? - Cattle! Some may poo poo the notion and point to my losses in '29 when all of my assets were tied up in railroads and pork bellies, but I have learned a thing or two in the meanwhile. For one thing, cows in Isaan can graze on public land, meaning free food. As a cow grows, its value increases. Also cows give birth to baby cows, known in ranching circles as 'calves'. These calves also have a certain monetary value, especially if they turn out to be male with big ears (a sure sign of virile apparatus). Finally, the cost of labor is so cheap that I could have me a couple of cattle hands for a song. I don't see how I can lose. Anybody wanting to get in early on the beef buy, just drop me a line.

I don't remember my yellow school bus being anywhere near this cool.

Life continues per normal here in the Northeast of Thailand, in the Southeast of Asia. Visa runs made, highway(patrol)men bribed, classes taught. In truth, I have found myself back on a bit of a teaching high with several decent classes to thank. One private student I am teaching is about to go to America where he will work on his doctoral dissertation on...(I kid you not) Health in the Transgendered Community. Interesting stuff indeed. The other class I am liking is a group of high school students, all of whom are going to do a year abroad in America starting quite soon. I am getting them up to speed on American History. The satisfying part in both of these classes is the knowledge that I may, in fact, be preparing people to actually do something with English. One of my biggest frustrations in Japan was that I spent a great amount of time teaching bored housewives and retirees. Nothing against them, but I couldn't see that I was doing anything of consequence. At times I felt little more than a talking harlot, pleasing people with my tongue...err...figuratively of course.

If like me you're concerned about the increasing population in the world then I don't need to tell you that by the year 2030 there will be another 2 billion people on earth. Now, I don't know where they are all going to go, but I have spent enough time in Japan to tell you that many people in one area makes for dour mugs on the early morning train commute and depressing scenes on the weekends when three hundred children vie for a stamp-sized piece of land calling itself a park. That's why I have gotten in early on a a piece of land in the depths of rural Thailand. Not only did I grab a whooping 1600 square meters, but you'll also notice the lack of neighbors. I plan to build a very big wall around the property and with whatever monies are left over I will construct a shelter of some sort. 2030 is about when I'll be thinking of retirement and I share the dream of all Gardners to live very far from thee neighbor. In the past Gardners have gone to such locales as Iceland, Greenland, New Hampshire and Montana to enjoy our special, misanthropic way of life, but urban sprawl and rich people from the cities building second houses have incurred on our lifestyle. Sadly, I think the Gardner way will succumb to the forces of globalization, but that won't stop my from participating in our centuries old tradition.

A friend in need (of a beer) is a friend indeed.

One of my best mate's, Daniel Pratt - a prodigious ale consumer and Yorkshireman rolled up in one, is threatening to come to Thailand. Now, this is not the first time a friend has told me that he/she was planning a visit, but I suspect from the number of emails he has sent me on the matter that he may actually be serious about it. This would be a great chance for me to practice my English conversation skills on a native speaker of the language as well as engage in the time honored tradition of bemoaning all things great and small over a fine Thai lager like, say, Heineken. To protect the identity of all concerned parties I have simply posted a picture of a glass of beer above. Most likely, if you met Mr. Pratt, you would find one of these obscuring his face anyway, so it is indeed a veritable mugshot.

Ma and Pok eat into their winnings.

Ma Song has won the lottery. I know you think I am taking the Mickey here, but I swear on my lucky, gold-enameled Buddha pendant it is true. I have dispatched Asian Alien field correspondent Nigel P. Witherspoon III to the village of Nong Sao to get the full story.

(camera pulls back from gaunt, pasty Englishman to reveal a small Isaan style dwelling. chicken sounds are distantly audible on the boom mike.)

Yes, very well then, this is Nigel P. Witherspoon the III reporting. I am here with Mrs. Jomthong. Mrs. Jomthong, if you will permit me to be so bold,what is the precise amount of your winnings?

1000 baht - Thai baht.

Right, Thai baht, yes, very well. And I should add for our readers residing in nations whose currency is not the afore mentioned 'Thai' baht, that the approximate value of one thousand 'Thai' baht is 13.379 Pounds British. Furthermore, those for whom the British Pound is not a money whose value is readily recognizable, well, you should have consider your allegiances while you had the chance. Right, moving along. Mrs. Jomthong, how do you plan to spend such a gigantesque sum of money, not all at once I should hope?

Well, I was able to visit my daughter and son-in-law for the second time in the week. Also I went to a local temple and made a donation. I might buy fresh fruit. I was thinking of going to an all-you-can eat restaurant. But my daughter assures me we can bilk that out of her husband at some later date.

Oh, very good, bilking, I should like to do some of that myself. They have me on an absolute pittance here, and I am from Sussex-on-Avonshire Trent. Are you familiar with East Anglia? A lovely place, really, lovely. But I digress. One last query, if you permit, if you were to approximate the total sum of monies you have spent over the years playing the lottery, would this winning put you now ahead of the proverbial 'game'?

Oh no, this is only about twenty five dollars US. Over the years I may well have dumped a thousand dollars into this lottery, not to mention other games of chance.

Oh, well, yes, with financial skills such as yours I cannot envision such a windfall be squandered, well not in the next twenty-four hours anyway. So, there we have it. A touch of serendipity befalls a humble villager from Nong Sao. Well, that's all for now. Reporting for Asian Alien, this has been Nigel P. Witherspoon the Third. Cheerio.

(camera cuts out several seconds later whilst Nigel vigorously brushes at his pant cuff in a vain effort to remove what appears to be chicken droppings)

No, really I insist - sleep on the floor.

For those of you whose free time is so inconsequential that you waste it tuning in to my musings, you may ask yourself, What has become of Ma Song? If you are a frequent follower, you will realize that my mother-in-law has been involved in more than her fair share of hijinks, often involving spitting or littering, that end up as fodder for my entries. You won’t have to scroll to far back to be reminded that only recently Ma had several health issues that concerned us deeply. If you were at all worried about her recovery – never fear; she has regained her sprightly spirit and is once again the bane of my existence. So where is she? you ask – why camped out on the floor of my living room as I write this! I mean, I know she must be in decent health if she was able to negotiate the several forms of public transport and a kilometer walk to make it from Nong Sao to our house in Khon Kaen, and all this without a phone call. Surely she must have been confident in her physical condition if she didn’t even bother to let us know she was coming so we could pick her up from the bus station. Really, I appreciate her not wanting to put us out or burden us, but it might have been nice to know she was coming in advance. You see, we might have been out or we might have been naked or we might just have not been in the mood for a visit, but hell we’re family, right?
One thing I’ll say about Ma Song is that the lady is hard as nails when it comes to sleeping. We have a decent sofa that folds into a bed, though often she prefers the firm support that can only be offered by a stone-tiled floor and will spend the night with only a thin carpet between her and our masonry. Even in her palatial estate in Nong Sao, she always gives me and the missus her bed and sleeps on the wooden floor with only a pillow as means of support. Sometimes I feel guilty about this, but then again we never show up unannounced...

You saw the sign. Beware of me!

I have received official word from Nova about my reemployment. They have officially and ambiguously stated that they are not hiring in Japan, but would consider extending me an interview. If you are confused by this, how do you think I feel? I am still trying to clarify what is meant by their response. There has been some speculation from people on the inside that the Japan based personnel offices don’t like hiring (may cut into their coffee breaks) and hence hang the “Beware of Dog” sign emblazoned with the image of a German Shepard, where in fact there is only a poodle on the property. A corroborating piece of evidence is the fact that they tried to pawn me off onto one of the overseas recruiting offices suggesting that might be a better option. Another ironic addition to the tale is that the attrition rate is running quite high and teachers are going unreplaced.

Did my monthly thirty second visit to Laos today. Only stopped twice by the porcine highway patrol. Using what must be considered either brilliant or pathetic in the extreme, the first officer who stopped us claimed that we shouldn’t be traveling in the right hand (passing) lane of the highway. What in the name of God’s creation to they create the two lanes for, I ask? He was happy to let of us with a gentle warning and relieve us of a negotiated 100 baht. “Keep left,” he uttered as we drove away. What’s more is that the police we’re positioned in a spot (in Thailand they don’t pull you over from behind, but rather stand in the middle of the road and wave you over) that isn’t far from an intersection, meaning that right turning cars would naturally turn into the right lane. The second swine snare – tis’ the swine that do the snaring, the public that is snared – we made through thanks to headlight flashing motorists traveling in the opposite direction that allowed me to pull into the non-bribery lane well in advance. We were stopped later and the officer almost had us on a registration violation for not displaying a sticker that lacked the very essence of its stickerness – adhesion, and thus was in our glove compartment. Not quick enough on his toes to manufacture any other porkpoop, the officer had to let us on our way.
In Thailand the police are simply the largest and best-organized criminal enterprise. Little more than highwaymen with uniforms, they have a military-like structure that means they answer to a central authority and not to local taxpayers. The only conciliation is that due to their meager salary, they are relatively inexpensive to payoff. One hundred baht is about two dollars and fifty cents US.

Rugrats

Sunday, June 05, 2005
A full day about to get underway – my weekends are decent with the exception of one kids’ class that is out of control. There are ten students aged six through ten (quite a spread) and several of them have zero attention span, consequently distracting the others and myself before we can even get underway. I have kind of given up on them, and though I am not proud to say it, I focus much more on crowd control than actual teaching. It fits really. Some parents drop their kids of at nine o’clock in the morning and pick them up mid-afternoon for a 10 to 12 lesson. If the term glorified babysitting was thrown around a lot in Nova (Japan) then I think we can drop the ‘glorified’ when talking about this set up.

Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Another day off finds me in the village of Nong Sao. I am starting to pick up a little Thai and Lao so my ability to interact is a fraction better than before. The talk of the day centered around the Miss Universe contest, which was held in Thailand this year. It’s a testament to what a globalized place the world has become when the water-cooler talk in fortune five hundred companies and the idle chatter of the idle villagers in rural Thailand is on the same topic. Now if we could distribute wealth as we do information…
In other news, I finally have several decent classes of students. Wow, what a difference. Being a teacher is akin to being a coach – good players (students) can make or break you. I’d like to think that I have enough skill to reach even those with less ability, but the job becomes so much more pleasant when working with self-motivated, intelligent individuals.

Thursday, May 26, 2005
Checking in from Lazy Land – and I am not just referring to my life. You know you are in Thailand when a truck spraying pesticides specifically aimed at mosquitoes (there must be a word for that, like anti-mostiquaires) drives through your neighborhood and you welcome the potentially harmful fumes they spray because you read about an outbreak of dengue fever several days before – fortunately not near here. Incidentally, there is no vaccination against dengue, but there is one against hepatitis A that would have helped the five hundred people living in the north infected with it vectored by contaminated ice from one particular factory. Hep A results from ingesting trace amounts of feces. I can’t suppress the juvenile urge to use the word fecal factory, so there it is – the ice all came from a fecal factory. Enough scaremongering, outbreaks and contaminations can happen anywhere.

Thursday, May 19, 2005
A great day off yesterday, we went to a local temple before lunch and I got some good pictures, which I added to my online photos in the album entitled Isaan. After lunch, we went and got a massage. Thai massage is well renowned and deservedly so. It is a full body massage that incorporates a fair amount of stretching and torquing in addition to the typical rubbing and kneading. It leaves you feeling not only relaxed, but also invigorated. Two hours set me back 250B, about 6$ - one of the real luxuries of living in this country, along with the food.

Saturday, May 07, 2005
I am about to begin a fairly long day of teaching. I am as stressed as I have been in a long time. This is not fun. I am considering giving my notice on this job and leaving at the beginning of July.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005
As a follow-up to the last entry, I actually called in sick the following day after a few too many that night. It is the first time I had missed work in over a year, and the first time in several years that I called in sick due to a hangover. In fact, I was not really so hung over, but the pressure of my situation had gotten to me. Ten days later I am feeling considerably better. My weekday schedule is down to about ten hours of teaching and one of my more recalcitrant group of learners is finishing in two days – yea! Unofficial word has it that I should be re-employed no problem at Nova - something that had me a bit worried.
It certainly is hot here and that may be affecting my health, that or the food. I had a slight case of the runs yesterday with a feverish feeling that never quite came to anything. I get this from time to time. Whether it’s the heat or not, the temperature has me feeling quite lethargic. Being in another transition situation has me feeling unproductive. On the one hand, I feel I should be studying Thai, but soon enough I won’t be here. On the other hand, I feel I should be putting myself into some writing, but the absence of a routine and the fact that I am leaving soon have me distracted.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005
We went to Kalasin yesterday to visit Ma Song in the hospital. I believe she had an inflammation of the intestine, though I am still not one hundred percent on the translation. She had stomach surgery and was not feeling well, to say the least, but was able to stand up and walk around. Going into hospitals is never something that I have liked. There were a number of full leg casts on people, some even young – motorcycle accidents I am sure.
We also took another look at our land. The government has just started to pave (more like concrete) our access road. This is a welcome thing, but it means that we have to put in more landfill to raise the level of our land to above the road. If not the land will flood as the rain runs of the road and onto the land. Another chunk of change. I am still waiting on a reply from Nova. Come hell or high water I will be in Japan in August or I will start to fall into the red.

Friday, May 06, 2005
Ma Song is back at home and walking around (how is it that this woman has become the center of my entries?). I am now entering return to Japan mindset and have spent countless hours on the internet exploring job and housing possibilities. I am fairly sure that I will be back at Nova, but there has been a big shakeup in the company. Essentially, from what I have gathered, the company wasn’t paying into the social insurance system that is mandatory for full-time employees in Japan. They (Nova) were probably operating under the foreigner don’t count mandate that is so prevalent in Asia. It actually is quite advantageous to teachers that they don’t have to pay into the social insurance as it is fairly expensive. In any case, seems as if the government believes foreigners do count when it comes time to collect revenue. The result of this social insurance scandal – if it can be called that – is a big restructuring of positions and hours. I am not sure that Nova is the great source of potential revenue that it might have once been for yours truly. I would consider another job, but Nova is such familiar territory that the transition back to Japan would be made easier if I was with them. Perhaps this time around I will be less Nova focused. I have heard that they are offering a variety of sub 40 lesson contracts. I wouldn’t mind venturing into private lessons or part-time work to keep me sane.
Today I informed my current employer that I would be leaving. She (only one of the ‘bosses’ was there) was quite cool about it. It fits with this place. Be Smart may be the ultimate employer in terms of leaving one be. It is just too bad that the flip side of the coin is a lack of professionalism and commitment to hiring and keeping good teachers. Honestly, can they really expect any longevity from full-timers when they don’t/can’t offer a working visa? Incidentally, it is hiring season in Thailand and my phone has been ringing quite a bit with job offers, most of them Bangkok based. A fair amount of job offers via email as well, and a couple that looked interesting here in Khon Kaen. But there is just nothing that compare in salary to a bad job in Japan.
One final note. I expressed some anxiety to my wife about our financial situation till I get back to Japan. I told her that I would probably go back earlier that planned due to a lack of funds. She thought about it for a moment with an air of gravity, then said, “So, are we going to go to the beach for a few days before you leave?” This is typical. I tell her we are having money problems and she suggests we go spend money. It’s an uphill battle, I tell ya’.

Saturday, May 07, 2005
I am about to begin a fairly long day of teaching. I am as stressed as I have been in a long time. This is not fun. I am considering giving my notice on this job and leaving at the beginning of July.

I was awoken this morning by a phone call from the Pa Tom (step-father-in-law) saying that Ma Song is in the hospital. After a morning of phone calls, it seems she is awaiting surgery on a stomach tumor. Obviously this is upsetting, especially for Pocky who has just dropped me at work and headed toward Kalasin to the hospital. I am sketchy on the details, but Ma Song is not the picture of health – she smokes and coughs a fair deal. Only last week she had been staying with us and complained of a stomachache.
At times like these the small Matt can’t help but to stick his head up and be heard. I gave Pok 5000bht (150$) to the hospital. Ma is covered by some sort of government insurance scheme for poor people, but there are always hidden costs with this kind of thing. Of course I foot the bill. I used to donate to charities and like many in the first world, felt pretty damn altruistic and noble in doing so. I still contribute to charity, though now it is a highly personal charity of my wife and her family. Sometimes I get the same warm feeling of helping people out that I got when giving to charitable organizations, sometimes it’s just a strain. Unlike the World Wildlife Fund, when the demands for money aren’t convenient I can’t just throw the donation form in the bin.
As long as I am bringing in a first world salary the cost of supporting Pok, her mother, father and by extension some others (stepfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins) who they live with isn’t much more than a couple of good nights out in Japan. Not too much of a sacrifice in Japan. But I’m not there now. It makes me question the viability of coming back here later. As long as her family is around I will be susceptible to unexpected financial burdens.
The small Matt dominates the bigger me and I probably will die having lived like most men, large brain performing small arithmetic for too many of my waking hours. A money grubber whose sole preoccupation is cerebral currency counting, I’ll pass my life hunched over a computer or calculator in a feeble chase after the dollar/yen/baht. Not much more to say on that subject. I hope Ma Song gets well.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005
I am at one of those points that further fuels the cynic in me while making a whipping boy of the small optimist that remains. Other than the fact I am unable to stop my financial hemorrhaging, I am stuck (very temporarily) in a job that brings out laziest in me. There is so little in the way of responsible administering and guidance that I fall into the rut of expecting nothing of my lessons. This is further reinforced by students who could care less about what’s being delivered as long as it is replete with games and the opportunity to use Thai as much as possible. Nobody becomes and overseas English teacher because it is a satisfactory line of work.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005
I’ve been battling a stress headache since the late afternoon. It’s a convergence of things, but the igniting spark was a response to an application to my former employer that I submitted earlier in the week. They wanted some additional information. It got me to thinking that there was the slimmest of possibilities they could say no to rehiring me. Not that I can see one reason why they wouldn’t – I have the assurance of my former boss that the ‘rehire’ box on my exit form was ticked. Still, it’s possible that someone somewhere for some reason would decide, ‘screw it, we’ve had enough of these whiney, I-want-my-job-back bastards’ and that would be that. The iceberg under the water is in part the way I was feeling yesterday, coupled with a headshaking cynicism towards my current employer. They have slated me for a TOEFL test class, which is fairly material heavy. I don’t mind doing it, but as of now there’s no material and the administrator is on about, “I wonder if we should get some material.” It’s like asking a law student if they want books to study for the bar. To delve into expletives – ri-fucking-diculous. If all goes well, I am only three months from heading back to Japan and I’ll be happy to give this job the heave-ho, despite (or due to) the fact that the working environment is so laid back.

I got back from the Songkran Festival on Friday the 15th, after four days of non-stop partying in the village of Nong Sao and the closest town, Kalasin. I took a lot of notes as I was thinking about doing a magazine article, but whether that ever comes to pass remains to be seen - I got a blanket rejection from the only rag (in print) that does Thai based stuff of this nature. Farang magazine is a joke anyway - no sour grapes of course. I am just going to post a lot of my notes ad hoc should anyone care to read... Check the pictures they are some of the more lively I have got since coming to Thailand.

Songkran is about community and respect for ones elders. It is a Buddhist holiday that marks the beginning of the Thai New Year. The ceremony of passing water from people to monks and elders symbolizes respect and enables the participants to make merit in Buddhist terms that they may improve their Karma. Songkran is a time for people to return home, relax and enjoy parades. Yeah, right. Songkran is about partying your testes off.

My packing list:

Hawaiian T-shirt 1
High volume squirt gun 1
Standard issue squirt gun 1
Baby Powder 2 bottles.

Last night the little kids were already out on the streets throwing water, mainly targeting the unprotected motorcyclists who took their splashes in good humor. The heart of the action takes place on street called, Khao San - in Kalasin, not the notorious Bangkok backpacker bedtown.

Tuesday went like this; me and a beer in front of a shitty bar, me and a beer under a tent along Khao San Rd. (Kalasin, not the Bangkok zoo of foreign species), me and a beer on the back of a pickup, me and a beer in Kalasin's hottest - and only - nightclub.

There are two clear camps between which the water is thrown; roadside tents housing beer drinking, barbecue eating adults toward the rear and squirt-gun shooting, water-throwing kids in the front, the second camp is comprised of pickup trucks sagging under the weight of one too many reveler in the back, usually with their own garbage bucket of water. The moving advantage of the trucks is often rendered moot by one of the tent attached partiers who steps in front of the pickup bringing it to a halt. There was a moment standing in the back of a pickup, squashed between a recently transformed 'woman', who was showing off her purchased parts, and a gay Thai trying to fix my hair, all the time trying to hold onto my beer and return-fire buckets of water, when I said to myself. "Maybe the American middle-class way of life with its tennis get-togethers and barbecues in the summer isn't so bad." On the other hand, if I was annoyed with all the same sex attention, I was having too much fun to really care, and then I said to myself, "Maybe the American middle-class way of life with its tennis get-togethers and barbecues in the summer is just as boring as I have always suspected."

A mere 24 hours of partying already had one of the partners oversleeping, and it weren't the author. It was 12 noon and I had neither beer in hand, on breath or even in sight. We were still in the village.

We got to Kalasin and started the Songkran routine: find pickup and driver, find water, find beer, drive through the streets throwing water and trying not to spill beer. There was an equal amount of enthusiasm on day two as there was day one. However, there was a big difference, whereas the first day had been very hot, the second was only warm at best and this made getting soaked and riding open-air cold, very cold at times.

I had brought a notepad on the first day. Ink ran and pages soaked, I dropped the whole idea of 'investigative journalism'.I was looking for a story, but all I was finding were headaches. A headache from the heat, a headache from the beer, a headache from the constant gawking attention.People kept speaking to me in the international language of drunk. Why is it that people think they can strangely master a language within the five seconds of meeting you simply because they are shitfaced? Most of the conversations went so:
Drunk: Hey you, bougpsouglkhesougdpa drink douklhgoi epuolsjhgsd happy happy you you dkjhsdu oaiyakhdf iuiahjkbklpou whiskey beer iouoihshskalh thank you happy songkran happy happy slkdhfouoiyapgou drink.
Me: Yeah...…yeah...…I see...…yeah happy...…yeah whiskey…...yeah beer...…your welcome...…ah, shut it.
For the most part I am pleased that the locals want to shower me with water and alcohol and not punches, but my goodwill toward drunks seems to fray after the second or third time they introduce themselves and start in with drunk speak. You'd think the complete lack of communication we experienced on the first couple attempts would dissuade them, but I guess in the drunken haze they seem to have remembered a new verb from high school English and want to give it a try.

Our car now looks like the victim of one of those eighties avant-garde paint splattering artists.

Pa Lom had lady luck on his side - probably the only lady on his side in a longtime. He was three hundred baht up and drunk in the am, meaning he had probably done better than three hundred at some point. Lom was sporting a Hawaiian shirt and some funked-out sunglasses. He was excited enough about his winnings to bicycle all the way to Ma Song's, but everyone ignored him and he eventually left.


Bad Songkran, bad songkran, bad songkran. Today we drove to Khon Kaen and back to find a credit card that was in Nong Sao the whole time. There were some harsh words spoken and I threw my credit card holder into the dashboard half a dozen times. We did manage to salvage some of the day. We went to watch people play "Gunkai". It is the board game that resembles a poor man's roulette. There are six symbols: fish, chicken, shrimp, crab, frog, water vessel. The game is simple enough. The players place there money on the board on the desired symbol, or between two symbols for a higher stakes version. Three cubes with the symbols are placed on a plate, covered with a basket, and shook. The cover removed reveals the winning symbols. Evidently, the game is not at all rigged in favor of the house as this year the house had lost some 30,000 baht as of today. It is rumored that last year was much better for the house. I should add that the house is decorated with strangely foiled rings.

After the gambling we went to the temple for the water ceremony where all this water tossing originated. At first we listened to the chanting that is so part and parcel with any religious gathering anywhere in the world. Some obligatory speeches. Then we lined up. Everyone had a bowl filled with water and some flowers for added scent. There was a long procession and receiving line like something you would see at a western wedding. The monks were first with their arms outstretched, forearms resting on pillows and palms filled with flowers. We poured water into their hands. After the ordained monks were the younger novices. They didn't have the luxury of little pillows for their forearms. Following the monks were the sixty year and ups all seated. We again poured water into their hands and they quite often sprinkled us with water. There was also a fire truck on the scene spraying the entire event and keeping the kids amused and elderly in a near state of diphtheria.

Pocky stayed up until five in the morning playing "Gunkai". For many of the villagers it seemed that the game was the only thing worthwhile about Songkran. Certainly Ma Song and Pok were into it. Ma Song, incidentally used 2000 baht we had given her to play the role of 'house' in several games. No odds in favor of the house, I mentioned already.

On Friday we went into one house where they performed a séance like ritual that saw all the village ladies drinking rice whiskey. I was really moved at this particular custom. It got me to thinking about something… Ah yes, my book about village life. Fascinating. I have become utterly fascinated by the village.

We drove the kids out to Lam Phao Dam. Played in the water with a horde of Thais all using inner tubes and staying very close to shore; they can't swim. The damn was absolutely swamped with people. We then went back to the village for more gaming fun. A pickup was headed out, so we jumped aboard and did a round of Kalasin. The last day was packed with pickups, traffic could hardly move.

Life may be a box full of chocolates, in that you never know what you’re going get; mine is an omelet. It might go back to the whole vacuum cleaner incident and a need for revenge, or it might have just been a spontaneous idea for fun at the foreigner’s expense, whatever the case, Pocky and Ma Song called me to dinner the other night and I sat down to an egg omelet that looked quite appetizing. It had scallions and little white beans I assumed to be some Thai ingredient that I was unfamiliar with. I pretty much subscribe to the ‘bite first, ask questions later’ school of culinary appreciation. So I dug in. The omelet yielded a mediocre taste that neither disgusted nor delighted. It was then that I was informed that the bean was in fact mot, ants. To be more precise, it was ant larvae, little white eggs, though some of them had started the metamorphosis from lice-like thing to full blown picnic predator, which is to say you could see their little ant eyes forming out of little ant heads. Put aside the whole visual and it wasn’t terrible, but it didn’t taste anywhere near good enough for me to forgive the sickening spectacle. I finished my meal, but not the omelet. Thing is, I was going to eat some of the locusts they sell at the local market as a kind of self-imposed dare, but no need for that now - plus, the bloke from Manchester, England I work with claims there are a lot of pesticides in the locusts. Guess ant larvae is the way to go for the protein deficient.

I have to be careful about what I post on this blog. I am giving away some price moments for free. Here’s another gem coming absolutely gratis. I have figured a way to defeat Ma Song and Pocky when they gang up on me in spitfire Lao and then laugh heartily while motioning at my midriff; I only need brandish our latest purchase…the vacuum. As the woman at the store put it when Pocky asked about the usage of the vacuum cleaner, “It comes from farang. Farang know how to use it.” (Insert the word ‘foreigner’ in the place of farang and you’ll see why Thailand isn’t part of the G7.) Well, come from farang it does, and I, for one, will be putting its magic powers to fine use if I hear one more beer belly quip in any Austro-Thai language. The fact is that the vacuum cleaner is not a standard appliance in the Thai home, then again rugs aren’t either. This means that the wild whirring of the vacuum is to me what gunpowder was to the conquistadors – a thunderstick. Both Pocky and her mom were extremely reluctant to touch the suction end of the device, and jumped when they did. Ma Song has dubbed it ‘the little car’ due to the two wheels and boxlike countenance. They have just gone off to get a movie but if they come back and start in on me, I’m reaching for my Imarflex VC-807 and we’re going to learn the expression “For the love of God, No!” in the Northern dialect of Thai.

Last Thursday I was in Laos for thirty seconds, maybe a minute or maybe fifteen. It all depends on our interpretation of being in Laos. If being in Laos is receiving permission to enter the People’s Democratic Republic – no laughing – then, I was indeed in Laos for the duration of time it took me to walk around the immigration building from the incoming to the outgoing side and wait to be stamped out. On the other hand, if we belong to the geographic school of thought that has me in Laos because I occupied a piece of real-estate on the Laotian side of the Mekong, well, then, it was closer to fifteen minutes that I had to wait for my visa to be approved, so that I could enter the Democratic People’s Republic – no smirks, either – for the duration of time it takes to walk around the immigration building to the exit side and wait to be stamped out of Laos. On my return to Thailand I was granted the 30 day transit visa thanks to my trusty passport from a developed country with appropriate visa agreements with the Thai Kingdom. To ease my perilous journey I hired a visa service. For 500 baht they did all my paperwork and drove me to Laos. I remained in the car as we went through immigration exiting Thailand. On the Lao side, I had to sit in a waiting area for my visa, but my ‘guide’ submitted all the documents and did all the talking. At no point in the process did I actually have to speak to anyone, which, being a bit of an introvert, I found very pleasant. I did have to exit the car as we re-entered Thailand, but no talking again. There was really no pretense in what we were doing. The guide wore a company shirt and was obviously familiar with a lot of the officials. I’m sure it was obvious that I had not really traveled to Laos. Thinking about it though, I was technically in the right. I had exited and re-entered Thailand. There are no minimum time restrictions for what constitutes leaving a country.
I used to take a certain pleasure in telling Brits that I had been to the United Kingdom for eighteen hours. I took the ferry over from Calais to Dover, hopped on a train, arrived in London, checked into a hostel, found a pub, obnoxiously ordered “one of those warm beers I hear so much about”, went back to the hostel, slept, awoke, headed to Gatwick airport and returned to the US. It would seem that now I can wind up my Laotian friends about having visited their country for thirty seconds. Come to think of it, I don’t really have any Laotian friends. Maybe I’ll make some on my next visit.

Every time I let this blog go for even a few days it becomes intimidating to make an entry because of the amount of material I could potentially cover. I’ll relegate this entry to my most cynical experience of the week, or should it be cynisizing experience?
I had agreed to start a French class on Monday from 10am to 11:30. There were, evidently 17 would-be francophones set to embark on the apprentisage of the belle langue. I was doing this class for a paltry 250 baht, (6$), which is low even for this country. In addition, the school provided only poor photo copies of a substandard text in guise of materials. Due to this, I spent a fair amount of my own time making up handouts. I have to admit I was a bit nervous about the class as I had never taught French before, and I am not a native-speaker of the language. I woke up to a rainy Monday morning, a first in a longtime. I got to the school about a half hour early to set up. Let me mention that this was the first class I was set to teach at this particular school (not my full-time). With materials ready to go and the whiteboard filled with weather related vocabulary, I awaited my eager élèves. At ten after ten none of my students had shown yet. On the other hand this is Thailand, but such consistency is rare here, surely one or two should have arrived just to make me feel uncomfortable about when to start the class before the others arrived fifteen to twenty minutes late. At twenty past the hour I became genuinely concerned. I went down stairs to inquire with the staff. Evidently all of the students had cancelled because of the rain. Granted many of them were on motorcycles, but all 17 ditched because of the rain? Merde! I was born in March, but it was March of ’75. Suffice it to say that I will not be teaching anymore lessons for that educational establishment. They had me sign a pay slip as if they intended to pay me, but only after they attempted to get me to teach a class later in the day in ‘lieu’ of my cancelled French class. Zut alors, ces Thais sont vraiment fous!

This is vintage Thailand. Pocky quit her job three days ago. The circumstances were less than great. I already wrote a bit about the crap working conditions. Well, if any more proof was needed that the employer was completely unscrupulous, she got a call today from her ex-boss who claims that she broke the such and such and will have to pay 2,500baht (50$) to fix it. Her outstanding salary is about half of that. This must be some typically Thai ploy to further f… the employee. I suggested that we probably won’t see her money back, but there was no way in god’s creation that the lady is going to get one extra satung (cent) out of us. The best part of this whole thing is the elapsed time between leaving the job and the assertion that the such and such was broken by Pocky. Three days before anyone realized the such and such was broken because, get this, she evidently forgot to oil it. Three days before anyone noticed means non-usage. What breaks because due to a lack of oil when it goes unused? Obviously this story has no conclusion as of yet, but after the lady got nasty and threatened to go to the police (Pocky never even signed a working contract) I suggested we break off communication with her. This is an interesting digression, we actually ventured to the police station one day to make a complaint about a store that we bought curtains from. The details are boring, but the upshot is that like police anywhere the Thai police have no desire to enter into civil disputes. I think this claim by the dentist is all an ill-conceived bluff on her part to BS her way into some money from the girl with the “rich” foreign boyfriend. I don’t believe she has a legal leg to stand on and if my guess is right, she is far too lazy to pursue this once we stop communicating.

If my life now were a symphony, it would be heavy on the percussion instruments, lots of kettle drum and cymbals, none of that sissy triangle, though. My life is filled with ten times the drama as what passes for such on daytime TV. For instance, right now my girlfriend is probably quitting her job, another nail in the coffin that will send me back to the developed world for more money. I should be fair however; her boss is a “biiiaaatch” in the modern day parlance of America’s gangster rappers. It started innocuously enough. She was hired part-time and seemed very excited about the job. Then the dentist described above asked (told) her to go full-time, which she accepted for the extra money it would bring in. Let me say that she works a scant salary, even for Thailand, full-time for a month might mean 150$US. Back to the narrative, she was given one day off a week, again keeping in the tradition of female employment for Japan or Thailand (Ah hah! I have finally happened upon something that can be described as truly pan-Asian - the repression of women). Still she liked the job and the little money does go a fair ways here, plus it beats being bored at home. In any case, today is her day off, and she is… at work. I have seen this happen so many times in Japan. Employers bring up the idea of the “team” and make people feel guilty for not sacrificing their existence to their gagne-pain (bet you wished you studied more French in High School now). Furthermore, it seems as if the dentist’s initial promise of letting Pocky have time off when needed has disappeared just as quickly as any given working condition in this country should. I need to go renew my visa mid-month, which will mean a two day trip to Laos. This appears to be a point of friction. Oh well, there is nothing quite as satisfying as telling a boss to get stuffed; I hope she enjoys it. It looks like those fried locusts they sell at the market will be all that sustains us from now on.

Is posting on Thai related forums and then checking back every fifteen minutes to see if someone has replied a sign that I have now joined the world of the truly socially pathetic? The answer is an unequivocal yes. It’s not my fault I have no friends. I love (maybe ‘like a lot’) the city of Khon Kaen on so many levels, but all the ex-pats here are over fifty. I just can’t see myself at a bar reminiscing about the summer Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons became big. Or, I imagine there must be a lot of talk about how much the Thai version of Viagra is going for and whether or not it is as good as the original. Maybe I am being a bit ageist, really. Seeing as how a lot of these guys are living with Thai spouses in their twenties, they probably are young at heart. Oh, who am I kidding, no fifty year old balding man with a paunch is going to give me a second look. I feel so unloved.
Otherwise, a classic day interacting with Thai employers. The part-time job that was going to pay me peanuts for 27 hours this month has dropped the hours now to 6. They hadn’t even informed me and I knocked out a whole lesson plan for them. I am still wondering just how much of bastard I should be. New in town, I want to keep my options open, but I definitely feel the bridge arsonist in me growing stronger. At my full-time job I was yet again given my working schedule. Of course it wasn’t the same as last week, but why stick to a plan? That might cause clarity and workability. There is something good in this. They, both ladies, were present for the meeting and handed me a piece of paper with my schedule and salary explicitly laid out. Even the best of Thais is going to have trouble changing the plan at this point, though I am not laying that down as a dare. Granted the miniscule change that they made in my schedule will actually mean less money for me, but they seem to have finally locked themselves into to a promise that appears wriggle-free. Furthermore, they have given me my own desk. I am now one of the crew – I don’t know who the crew actually consists of, I think there is only one other full-timer, but I can never tell, and sticking to my policy of ask you no questions, tell me many lies I will refrain from further inquiry. My only worry about this desk thing is that it will mean forced social interaction with other people. What’s a man to do? I don’t want real relationships to come in between me and my forum postings.

Another day off for me after a grueling hour and a half of work yesterday. My lifestyle is truly decadent. I suppose there must be some overriding rule of energy in all this… I worked harder than I ever have for about a year and a half, I was lucky to get one day off a week, and here I am lazing about with a dozen or so hours of work a week. Actually, I have a bit of a positive comment on the work situation. It seems that my employer is actually going to, for once, keep their word and employ me on a fixed monthly salary as of this month. That means I will be at the school at 8:30 on Saturday, even though I don’t have a class until the afternoon. They haven’t yet opened my morning class. This is a bit of a relief – the fact that they intend to pay my regardless of their ability to fill my class. Before coming to Thailand I would never have thought that the policy of a school to pay a fixed salary regardless of teaching schedule should be something to get excited about – what a couple of months will do. I think that it is fundamental that a business assumes risk and does not make the teacher do so in regards to scheduling. After all, I am not making more when times are good, why should I take it on the chin when times are bad. What it really comes down to is assuming a professional role in what you do. Business people gain big and lose big – teachers teach and expect to eat. So, anyhow, they will have me on a schedule of about 10 hours at the school on the weekends and an hour and a half on the weekdays. It will be sufficient to
“pay the bills” but not really enough. I am also supposedly working part-time for another school I mentioned before, though the salary is laughable in light of the fact they want me to come up with a French course without material. I might give it a shot for a month and then jack up my asking price if they want me to continue.
Completely different note, the nightlife in Khon Kaen is quite good for a city of its size. Last night we went out for a couple of beers at a place that had a band. Most bars here have live music and are fairly cheap. We then hit a disco, which also featured live performances of Thai pop music, no entrance fee. I think the whole night cost us less then 25$US and quite enjoyable.

I am supposed to be “planning” several classes now, so I have decided to write an entry instead. I was taken out for lunch twice over the weekend by students. One of the students had a birthday and the other group had their last class. I had yet another chat with the administratess of the school. As in the dark as ever about my visa situation, she relented on one point by saying that if I have to do “border runs” every month she would split the cost. Jeez, Thanks. This week I am down to four hours of teaching and Saturday/Sunday off. I was under the impression that March was going to be the big month for classes and my schedule would be busy, but evidently that’s not the first week of March because the school kids are still testing. Maybe I have glossed over something – in Thailand school vacation runs March and April. Anyway, I have a quiet week in which to prepare for my thirtieth birthday. I will spend the time hiking up my pants and trying to discolor-coordinate my clothes. I believe Pocky will be working eight hour days this month, so I should have a chance to be productive with something… I am not quite sure what. A friend of mine got laid off last week – I am feeling a bit unemployed myself. It’s true about the heat, hard to work hard when it’s hot. I’m not really feeling this entry; it’s lazy and disorganized, a bit like me right now. One parting shot – I keep forgetting that it is winter in much of the world that I called home. I saw a news report on some big storm in the Northeast of the States. It looked cold. I am writing this in my boxers with the fan on me (conjures up an image, no?). For all of you working hard, making lots of money and freezing in developed countries....Suckers!

Another visit from Ma Song. For those who don’t know, Ma Song will probably one day wear the dubious title of mother-in-law. She certainly is getting in shape for the part. She stayed over the last two nights, and I tell you, the lady has an innate sense for what will drive me up the wall and she uses this gift to said end. Just to give you a bit of the picture – the woman is in her mid-fifties and goes about in tiger/leopard/cheetah/just-about-any-big-cat patterned clothing. She has a fine mastery of about five English verbs and is convinced that the imperative in our language is formed by repeating any word twice, “Matt, Eat! Eat!” “Matt, Take! Take!” “Matt, Go! Go!” – you get the idea. On top of the annoying habit of ordering me about (and I am powerless to ignore or argue as she won’t understand) that her daughter is also growing proficient at, she is able to detect what I wouldn’t want done, and do it. Case and point, I have been letting some vines grow along the walls of the house as they look good and are easily trimmed. My girlfriend claims they are weeds, but what is a weed really, I ask you. Anyway, Ma Song was up at the crack of dawn the other morning, a village habit, and sure enough when I awoke all of my vines had been weeded. Another example, I have several button down shirts that I only dry clean. They were somewhat expensive and dry cleaning seems to ensure their long usage. I put one of these in the hamper and sure enough the next morning it had been hand scrubbed (read ruined) by Ma Song. I know the lady is trying to be helpful, but she had already washed all the clothes in the house, I figured I was safe. Another classic Ma Song, and I’ll leave it on this as it’s the best, she takes some paper towels to dust of the car – nice gesture – then proceeds to throw them on the ground in our front yard. Thanks to her the car is clean, but the lawn is strewn with litter. Oh yeah, she is still convinced the re-elected prime minister is going to provide a cow per household. No need to start throwing paper towels at the pasture yet, Ma; I think you have time.

Brief entry as I have to bugger off to work in a half-an-hour. I just had a job interview in which I was offered a lower per hour rate than I had been anticipating. I accepted anyway as it’s just short term and the next two months could see me in a good way financially if I work hard. The job in question was willing to work around my full-time hours. Nonetheless, they asked me to design a French course for them. I said not for the amount they were paying. It then seemed that they could come up with a textbook. Just a minute ago I received a phone call from a University looking for a teacher. Sad thing about the Uni’s over here is that their salaries are a complete joke, the University position being offered was no exception. If I was a rich idealist maybe… Be Smart (my full-time) has asked me to draw up a plan for a pronunciation course. I don’t know how detailed they want it, but I know how detailed they’re gonna get it. It’s not that they are downright stingy in salary, but coupled with the visa situation, hence lack of an official contract, and their general “maybe you’ll have this class, maybe you won’t” attitude, I can’t see myself busting ass for them. I am starting to understand the nature of teaching in Thailand. Cynical already, I think the smile, say yes and do nothing approach can be used by me as well as them.

Idle talk last night between me and the missus about buying a house. It started at the local department store where a real-estate representative was displaying model houses for a new housing community. I already spoke a bit about the housing situation as we visited a housing community in construction when we first arrived in Khon Kaen. There is some temptation in buying a house because of the relative value. Essentially one could get a house for around 1million baht (25,000$) that has a fair amount of floor space and a little yard. Home ownership is one of those things that most people aspire to in life and to have the chance to get into a house for a down payment of 1-200,000 baht (do the math, lazy - you already have an example) and a monthly mortgage payment of 5000 baht almost seems the chance of a lifetime. There are those who will read this and think, “A house in Thailand? Does it come complete with the tar roof and water cistern in the back?” I assure you that we are talking about nice houses here. The ones we initially toured were a tad more expensive than my above example, but would pass for upper-middle class in a developed country. Even the less expensive ones are quite comfortable and as long as the walls don’t cave in and the wiring is solid… The thing is, due to the climate there’s no need to worry about insulation, heating, etc. In Thailand the waterworks aren’t the greatest, but as long as water comes out of the faucet you are pretty well set in the plumbing department. The brilliance of Khon Kaen is that it is a city with access to lots of modern amenities; cinemas, fast food, plenty of electronics/computer type stores, and yet remains in a part of the country where the land prices are still quite low - around the Bangkok area housing is as much as triple the price. The downside of Khon Kaen of course is the relatively low salaries. Still a nice place to live with cheap, comfortable housing that – I will step on the toes of Japan based readers – is way better than anything anyone could hope to get into in Japan, and that includes the Japanese themselves. As compared to North America, the housing wouldn’t be far off North American standards and a down payment wouldn’t include groveling before every relative you know and sticking up several gas stations.
Now the question becomes can we afford a down payment and mortgage payment coupled with car payments, the answer is yes, but not with much room to maneuver. So, we raised the subject of a money grab in Bangkok, or… that overcrowded island from which I just came. Food for thought more than anything else, but the idea is spinning around in my mind. Depending on visa procural for significant others, a year in a shoe box would pay off the car and set us well ahead of the game with a house. On the other hand, a year in a shoe box could be a very stressful thing. Hmmm…

Sunday, February 20, 2005
I must be the world’s worst negotiator. How else to explain my insistence that 300 baht hourly was sufficient, despite the lady at the school asking, “Are you sure you don’t want to negotiate for more?” No, no, really I insist I am worth no more than 300 an hour. I should backtrack slightly. I applied for a job. I have a job of sorts, but always looking for something better I answered an internet ad. When I went into to talk to the woman at the school what was not immediately clear was that she was an employee, and obviously with little stake in the bottom line, hence her advice that I should negotiate for more money. Part of my difficulty in dealing with potential or actual employers in this country is the language barrier. Initially this lady seemed to say that the job was offering 300 baht an hour part-time. When I filled out the application and wrote 300 in the ‘negotiated salary’ box, I was doing so because (silly product of a transparent society) I believed that was what we negotiated when she said, “The job pays 300 baht an hour”. Evidently not so. In the course of the interview I also discussed my current job situation. When I showed the lady how much I was being paid for a full-time position she countered with the same salary. I found this utterly perplexing. Here I have a job and am making x amount of money – why would I quit and come to work for you for the same amount of money?
When dealing with my employer I run into Anna Leowens, “The King and I” differences. First interview: “Will you provide me with a visa?” – “Yes, we will. It’s easy”. Consequent visa discussion: “What do I need for the visa application?” - “Here’s a list of things.” Yet again: “Any word on the visa?” – “The um, what do you call it? Work permit? I think is um, I don’t know the word, but like, we are getting something, but I have to talk to someone.” Again: “Will you be able to give me the letter necessary to take to the Thai consulate in Laos that will furnish me with a Non-Immigrant B visa so that I can work? – “I don’t know. Make me a copy of your passport and I will ask someone.” Look at the evolution from the first discussion to the last, bottom line – we can give you a visa / we have no friggin’ clue. The lady at my school has, according to certificates posted on the wall, an MBA and a Master’s in Applied Linguistics from English speaking universities. I don’t know if the Royal Academy of Business in Sydney Australia is working in conjunction with the good people at McDonalds and handing out MBAs with Happy Meals, but I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to find that was the case. As for a Master’s in Applied Linguistics, I would hope that she further applies herself to the learning of vocabulary related to immigration matters, words like; embassy, consulate, sponsorship, documents, give, we, can/cannot, would all be genuinely useful and, dare I say it, applicable. My mom, no great expert in comparative Asian studies, hit the nail on the head (sort of) when she said Japan was much more westernized than Thailand. Actually, that’s not fair – developed might be closer to it, but even more than that is the idea of a post-industrial society versus one that is, at least in mentality, still agrarian. How can I expect efficiency and dependability from a people who still believe that they are at the whim of the elements? “I can’t make the rice grow, only the rain can.”

On Monday morning we hopped in the car and drove three hours (maybe two, I wasn’t paying attention) to Nong Khai, the town that borders Laos on the Mekong and is home to the closest immigration office. For the princely sum of 2000 baht (50$) I was given another thirty days in the Kingdom. My next trip to Nong Khai will see me crossing the border into Laos to connive my way into some sort of more permanent visa.
I love driving in Thailand. The roads are generally well-maintained and the scenery is often, surely not always, spectacular. I keep forgetting to bring my camera on these trips, but I won’t next time. The dry grasslands are marked by tremendous trees – almost like something you would see on a National Geographic, “Let’s discover the Serengeti” type show. My girlfriend finds it all rather banal, adding to my sense of fun and her sense of boredom. There is still a lot in Thailand that I want to see, even in this region and it is all fairly accessible by car. No tolls I might add. After living in the world’s worst country for domestic travel, it’s nice to be in a place where road travel is feasible time wise, affordable, and rather pleasant along the way. Unfortunately, Japan couldn’t tick yes next to even one of those boxes. I’m hoping to take a trip to Sukhotai this summer. It is one of the country’s former capitals, replete with old stone stuff that is falling down, but still looks pretty cool. I believe that is the dictionary definition for ruins.
Yesterday was out to the village to pick up some mail and other errands. As it is the season in which there is no work and much laying-about, the villagers are as sleepy as ever. The place almost looked deserted when we first drove in. I imagine that beyond the poverty, one of the real hardships of life in Nong Sao must be the tedium. That may lend itself, in part to some of the alcoholism. I know I would sure want a drink if I lived there with nothing to do for a good several months in the year. We did have the chance to do something nice, however. We took two of Pocky’s cousins, five and four years-old to town to buy some school clothes. The younger boy didn’t have the ‘uniform’ (it was only a pair of blue shorts and light blue button-down shirt) that was required to go to Kindergarten, so we bought him the uniform, shoes and back pack. His sister had hand-me-down clothes for school, but needed some shoes, so we bought her a pair. It looks as if Muu, meaning ‘pig’, will now be able to go to school and his sister will have some nice school shoes.
When I was young my dad moved into a fully furnished rental house. The owners had a strange sense of humor and the place was adorned with funny posters, at least we thought so. In the basement was one of a man decked out in full English riding suit with his horse truncheon and all, foot up on the bumper of a Roll’s Royce. The caption read Poverty Sucks! I think the poster just about sums it up, albeit not in the way perhaps intended.

In some ways my experience living in Japan prepared me well for Thailand. Through Japan I have come to understand ideas of hierarchal relationships, group-orientated behavior and filial piety (meaning I can live with my parents until the ripe-old-age of whenever they die). On the other hand, Japan has actually stunted my ability to deal with Thailand in certain respects. I would have done better to come straight from the US to Thailand when it comes to some practices.
Japan is the ultimate tape-on-the-floor society. Whenever I entered a business, store or governmental office I had but to look at my feet to know where to go. At first the hapless gaijin ignores such boundaries, but with time and reprimands I came to see the wisdom of staying within the lines. The lines are our friends. The lines are here to help us. Why would you want to step out of the lines? Everywhere in Japan there are signs when there are not lines, or sometimes both – that’s when I feel the most secure. The sign reads wait here and is accompanied by a marker on the floor, I can be at ease. Here is one of those nasty deictic (pointing) words that is actually quite ambiguous, but coupled with the tape on the floor I know exactly where here is. Sometimes, like in banks, there is a person, floor markers and signs. It’s like entering temple; you can let go of all conscious thought. The ‘queue’ is also quite important in Japan. Japanese people are natural liner-uppers. The first thing that any Japanese person does upon encountering a gathering of people is to figure out where to line up. It is for that reason that concert promoters have such difficulty in the Land of the Rising Sun. I am getting off track. So, my years in Japan taught me to keep my head down and find the back of the line. This is now my downfall…
In Thailand there are no boundaries. It’s not the same rebellious American attitude of ‘fuck the line – you can't box me in dude, I gotta be me’. It is just that no one ever bothered with lines (or often signs) in the first place. Moreover, the Thai don’t believe in that most Western, linear of concepts – first come, first serve. In order that no one loses face the Thai approach is to serve everyone who appears at the same time. No need to bother with a progressive order – do everything at once. It is not an idea that is going to revolutionize mechanized industry, information technology or the tying of a shoe; nonetheless it’s what goes down when approaching a cash register in Thailand. I am not to sure, but I believe that physicists studying chaos theory might do well to observe the Thai 7/11 staff if they wish a working model.
And there I am looking at the floor and then at the signs, which I can not read, then towards a member of the personnel on premise, hoping against hope that s/he will be wearing a white glove and will point me where to go so that I can find the end of the line, so that I can safely ‘queue’ thereby relieving the terrible anxiety I feel. Whoa is me, there exists not gloved angel to show me the garden gate. I am left to my own device until the latent American in me awakes, pushes to the front and demands service, at which point I am greeted with a smile by the wait staff and the other patrons. Cursed Japan! God Bless the USA!

Interesting personal events have transpired today that lead me to reflect on an age old quandary of the ESL teacher abroad... socilaizing with students. My former employer expressly forbade student-teacher socialization, so much so that it was a part of the contract we signed. For the most part I didn't socialize with students, but more due to the nature of my job than the contract stipulation. The fact of the matter is that for anyone engaged in teaching a language to speakers of another language, to go out and socialize is in effect lengthening your class, unless of course the socializing takes place in a different language from that which is taught, and that is rarely the case, and I would like to apologize for what must be the world's most poorly constructed sentence. To ESL teachers who have been around for any amount of time in a country socializing with students is often undesirable and at times torturous. I make the analogy of the doctor who is hit up for medical advice outside of work, or the cook whose friends would like him to whip up a little something. When you spend all day at a task, you probably don't want to continue that task in your free time. There are exceptions. Love interests are a definite exception. If your conversation partner is attractive it is easy enough to sit through verbal misconjugations and missing articles. The other big exception is the newly arrived teacher - and most ESL teachers fall into this category. For this individual, mixing with the locals is big part of the reason they are teaching. They probably do not have enough language skill to make contacts in the local language and probably also lack a social network. It is because of this that so many ESL teachers spend time outside the classroom with their students.
The whole idea of a(n) (anti) socialization policy is an interesting debate. On the one hand, your employer shouldn't be allowed to dictate your free time activities/associations, yet even at home there are certain expectations around 'professional distance' that educators are expected to conform to. The other issue that is unique to the ESL teacher is that of what is being sold. If I have beer with my Algebra professor, we are not necessarily talking about A's over 3's (whatever the hell I mean by that?) , but the ESL teacher is most likely providing a service very similar to that which the students are getting in class when the teacher socializes. That brings up questions of business ethics and employee loyalty. In short, there are some pitfalls that are inherent for the ESL teacher who 'hangs' with the students. Does that wind me back to today? Why yes. I exchanged numbers with a student last week, mostly out of genuine surprise and non-anticipation of the situation; I didn't want to be rude. At the previous workplace the you know the Nova rule, don't you? was usually enough to dissuade students from trying to make plans with me. No such policy to fall back on here. The other thing that ran through my mind was, 'Why not? I don't really know anyone in Khon Kaen and I am not as stale on the Thai student yet as I was on the Japanese student.' So he called and after some phone tag, and a talk with my girlfriend (I don't want to go into that) I had a brief, uncomfortable conversation with him in English (maybe more uncomfortable for me) trying my best to excuse my way out of a party. I will see him tomorrow in class. No big deal really, but I don't know how far you can push the 'next time' thing sincerely. In the end, that may be the biggest argument against socialization with students - no matter what happens you still have to face them the next day in class. To each his/her own, but I prefer that my friends are just that...friends.

The Thai media is something. Everything is something, but the Thai media is really something, if you know what I mean, and you probably don’t. I don’t know much about the media in terms of reporting, but in terms of images I have never seen such visceral, bloody photos appear in newspapers or on TV elsewhere like I have in Thailand. Let’s say the headline is Local Official Shot Dead. In other countries you might get a picture of the bereaved wife, the scene of the crime, or possibly the official when he was alive. In Thailand you get the prone corpse in a pool of blood with two bullet holes in what used to be the local official’s face. Not a lot left to the imagination.
Thai TV is quite fun too. The acting may actually be worse than that off Japanese TV, but we would really be splitting hairs here, so I leave it as equally loathsome to Japanese acting. The acting isn’t that fun, but the dramas are. Usually no language skill is necessary. The plots revolve around super-rich people who are evil using their power to ruin others lives. Now where is the escapism in that? Seems to me like everyday reality. The best, though, is the ghosts that appear in the dramas. The Thai all believe in ghosts and from time to time some terrible actor with white powder on his face will show up in someone’s home… it is supposed to be scary. I won’t go into too much detail, but imagine a group of Junior High School students given professional AV equipment and then casting some of their friends and asking some other friends to write the script – that is Thai TV for you.

Learning is essentially going from a state of ignorance to one of knowledge. We are ignorant of something and through the process of learning we come to understand the thing. Most human beings grasp the process of learning as such, nonetheless I have come across, and continue to, some people for whom the process of learning can never really commence because “I don’t understand.” Of course you don’t understand, if you understood you wouldn’t be sitting in my classroom. Once again I have one of these students in my class. It’s a beginner’s class and there are some different ability levels in the class, but they are all more or less false beginners per the ESL terminology, meaning they have had some exposure to English, the alphabet and have a passive vocabulary of several hundred words. In any case, this one lady almost immediately starts in with ‘I don’t understand’ in Thai. I was trying to convey the basic How are you? greeting. It doesn’t matter that the student instantaneously grasps the concept. Over the passage of time (every time we meet and start the class) they will come to understand that they are using a greeting. For the purposes of teaching using the direct method (only using the target language) it is enough to teach the appropriate responses to the question. To the uninitiated there are only several acceptable ways to answer what is really more of greeting than a question – I’m good, thanks. You? / Not bad, yourself?/ etc.. So again, it’s just a question of retaining at least one response. As we went around the room everyone did fine with the concept, except for Ms. Mai Khao Jai (don’t understand). I have encountered the same thing in Japan and will not pin this trait on any one nationality. I find it more laughable than anything else. Imagine I ask a physics professor to explain to me the theory of relativity. The first thing s/he does is to write E=MC2 on the board. As soon as s/he finishes, but before the explanation begins, I raise my hand and say “I don’t understand”. That is essentially what this type of language learner is doing. Exasperating.

Monday, February 07, 2005
Yesterday it was a short trip to the village to vote in the national election. Thaksin, the incumbent, and his Thais Love Thailand party (has a certain ring to it?) were again elected to power. I don’t pretend to know, or care, much about the Thai political scene, however Thaksin is a populist and everyone in the village excluding my girlfriend was voting for him. Why? Because, according to the villagers (none of whom I have ever seen with a newspaper), he was going to give everyone a cow. I am tempted to twirl this around pizza-like in the air and make every facetious comment possible about it, but I’ll just let you ponder it quietly once more – the villagers voted for him because they think they will all receive one cow. Now that I think of it, didn’t Bush use the same tactic to capture the Midwestern vote? Or was it the promise of one pig per household that garnished him the Southern vote? Well, Thaksin was successful in large part due to the Isaan vote. I hope he knows a good cattle wholesaler.
In other news, my girlfriend has found a job in a dental clinic. When she asked about her schedule the dentist said, “We’d like you to work (such and such), but ask your boyfriend first.” It seems that the lady is actually going to allow Pocky to set her schedule around my desires. Hmmm… I am also starting another class that will run Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I will be working five days a week. I don’t know if I have it in my anymore. The lady at the school started talking about the visa process again. I am thoroughly convinced that she has no clue whatsoever, but this is Thailand, so if I go with the flow things often turn out all right. Again yesterday at the voting poll a policeman came up to me and shook my hand. Even when we were stopped for driving without a license plate (hey, the dealer said we could!) the cop only looked at my New Hampshire license - like that means anything. In all my dealings with the police – and there have been more than I would have liked – never once have I had to furnish any ‘official’ ID, such as passport, driver’s license or alien card, which, incidentally doesn’t exist in Thailand to my knowledge. So, I am assuming that I could stay here in rural Thailand for the rest of my life and never have any problems. It’s just the leaving part that’s a bugger. But imagine it, a lifetime in Isaan with no need for legal status. Aren’t you jealous?

Wednesday, February 02, 2005
So I am online now. It was simply a modem error that was easily rectified, but it was the fact that someone more knowledgeable than the broad (that’s the best word I can think of for her) that usually answered the phone picked up when we called to inquire yet again as to why we weren’t connected. In short, she had completely lied about why we couldn’t access the net on several occasions – the best being when she said no one in Khon Kaen was connected at the time. I am starting to learn the Thai penchant for lying versus admitting ignorance of something.
I forgot to mention my Sunday snake beheading. The little bugger slithered into our kitchen. He probably was able to slide under the screen door. I think I have fixed this problem now, but let me say that we have had rats, roaches and lizards in the kitchen and I thought I had every last crack and cranny duct-taped. So I go into the kitchen and the little thing scared the bejeezus out of me. I jumped onto the counter like an agile middle-aged housewife. I don’t know what species of snake it was, most likely harmless, but I ain’t gonna find out with a bite to me ankle, so we stood on kitchen chairs and tried to chase the thing outside. It got under the refrigerator and I gave it a good blast of roach killer. It didn’t take to that. It stuck out its little head and hissed, hissed, hissed. I swung my sword (don’t ask) and missed, missed, missed. Before I go the Dr. Seuss route anymore, in the end I managed to decapitate my angry belly-ambulating friend. Ha, take that. In truth, I hate snakes and even after it was without head the nerves kept it undulating. Plus, it was still lodged under the fridge and I had to pull it out. Nasty. We caught a rat earlier on and that was gross as well. Stuck on our glue trap the thing would occasionally try to raise its stuck head. Pocky had to dump it in the trash due to the fact that she bought the trap (I thought I could simply plug the hole and avoid the slaughter). I won’t bore you with roach stories, but we got all varieties of those too.

Friday, February 04, 2005
Well, it’s my last day off before I start my rigorous weekend of teaching. In fact, I think I am only working on Saturday. The national election is held on Sunday and everything is shutting down. Of course I wasn’t told about this by the school, so whether I am teaching or not we will find out – typical of Thailand, but who am I to complain. I don’t exactly have the tightest schedule in the world. So a whole five days have passed and the one task I had to complete remains uncompleted. That is going to a clinic for a medical certificate as part of my visa application. Anyone interested in a humorous take on the Thai Visa situation should check out my column at www.ajarn.com . In the job realm, I applied for a job at a Kindergarten and was promptly informed they were looking for someone with a degree in early childhood education. Fair enough. Sour grapes, but I wasn’t that keen on teaching that age group full-time, though I have certainly taught, and enjoyed, three, four and five year-olds. The thing that attracted me was a great salary package. I had to give it a shot. They were offering 10,000baht more than my current employer, plus insurance, airfare home and housing allowance. Here’s the question I ask myself, “Who are they going to find with desired degree?” Even in their ad they admit that Khon Kaen doesn’t have a lot to offer the foreigner in terms of free time activities. Basically, the person, most likely woman, would have to speak fluent Thai and like Khon Kaen or have a Thai partner. I have seen about one foreign woman to every twenty foreign men here. I don’t think it takes a genius to guess why. The point is Khon Kaen is not a place that someone without a lot of language skill and gumption is going to try on their own and that doesn’t really mesh with my image of a Kindergarten teacher. It will be interesting to see how long the ad runs.

Some pics of Khon Kaen at http://community.webshots.com/user/mattheweric

I've done it. I have sucessfully rejoined the virtual world. I have stuck journal entries for the better part of January below. Lots of boring stuff, so scroll down to the bottown if you only want the latest. I should have some pictures up soon as well.

Wednesday, January 5, 2005
Interesting last couple of days (actually it’s hard not to have an interesting day when you’ve just moved to a foreign country). We are now moved into a nice, little house that rents for 100$ a month. We are quite pleased with our find. It’s about five minutes outside of town in a ‘moobahn’, meaning village. It would probably be considered a middle class, Thai neighborhood, though there’s too much litter on the ground for my liking. Pok’s father has come out for a couple of days to paint the interior and we just got our bedroom set today. Splashed out a bit and got classy, three piece bed, armoire, and vanity table set that ran about 650$. Could have saved, but this is something we hope to have for a while and the stuff that was a couple hundred cheaper came with exposed screws and generally looked cheap. The place looks to have a lot of potential. I am a bit concerned about transportation into town and whether I made the right choice getting the place before the job, but frankly even a cheap guesthouse would have run about 250$ a month, double what we’re paying here. Plus, we are only locked into a six month contract, so I have to believe this is the right way to go. Funny enough, the lady down the street who stopped into to say hi today also speaks fairly fluent Japanese.

Saturday, January 08, 2005
Another several interesting days have passed. We have the interior of the place all painted and the bedroom is in place – looks really nice. We also picked up some nice, locally made curtains (I sound like some kind of vagabond Martha Stewart). Yesterday we stopped by the Honda dealership looking at a new Honda Jazz, basically a hatchback compact. The day before yesterday I did an interview at small private English school. The lady was pretty keen on me; and the school despite being a startup seems to be well organized. It was also obvious that a fair amount of money had gone into the space itself. That, at least, bodes well for them staying in business for a while. In other words, there’s someone with money behind the venture. It would be an interesting change. She (one of the co-partners) needs a teacher who can do business and test courses, so I would be fairly valuable. The salary and benefits are pretty good for this area, though nothing jaw-dropping. I am seriously considering it as opposed to one of the bigger schools. I think if it worked out it would be a very nice change from Nova, while being similar enough that the transition wouldn’t be too hard. The thing is with the big guys, you know you’re paycheck is assured, the ‘however’ is that you have relatively little value to the company as a whole, as much as you may be appreciated on a micro-level, hence when decisions are made to eliminate planning time, you’re not considered. That much kind of puts me off the big guys. Hard choice, but the upshot is that I think I have a full-time position if I want it.

Another entry for my mother to avoid – we took the motorcycle we’ve been borrowing to the village in order to pick up the remainder of our furniture and to visit Pok’s uncle to ask him to guarantee our car loan. Now, I probably should write this up with some more detail but the scene was pretty good. I guess this guy owns a telephone, but nobody really wanted to call and find out where he was, so instead we toured the northeast of Thailand looking for him. Finally, we find him with his ‘second wife’ camped out in back of a house in construction. I probably should jump back and mention why this particular individual could ‘guarantee’ our loan. It seems that he is employed by the national electric company, and being a government job this holds some weight. Anyway, we roll up on this guy and after what appeared to be some heated talk he agreed to it. Here’s the thing, in Isaan they have what must be considered the strangest body language-per-meaning in the world. They spend the majority of the conversation giving dismisive back-hand waves and eyes upward nods, all of which gives the non-speaker the impression that they’re constantly telling one another to get bent. So, when we went to ask this favor, my first impression was that this guy was telling us “not a chicken’s chance of a natural death” in terms of his help, but, as stated, that was far from the case.


Sunday, January 09, 2005
Another exhausting day of shopping and money spending. Looks like the car is ready to go as of Saturday. That means that I’m going to have to visit the ATM several times at least to ensure that I can pay 200,000Bht in cash, roughly the equivalent of five thousand US. We bought a living room set-up as well and that has also been put up.

Monday, January 10, 2005
Well, a bit of a snag with the house. It seems that landlords are shysters the world-over. Basically we are getting a good deal, but we were told, in fairly certain terms, that we could get a phone line if we desired, by extension the internet. According to my translator (and girlfriend) the guy is now saying that a phone line is not possible. I’m a bit pissed off at this development. That, and the other day the moronic landlord dropped by a can of propane that was leaking. When the Pok called him to complain he said, “Yeah, I knew it was leaking, but I didn’t think it was a big deal”. Fucking idiot. In an effort to see the silver lining in this cloud I am considering how much time I waste on the net that I can now throw into studying, writing or something else more productive.


Tuesday, January 11, 2005
The car saga continues as it seems the uncle is no longer qualified to guarantor a loan. Now we are paying a friend of a friend ten-thousand baht to perform the service. Somehow I didn’t imagine that farmer was going to be seen as a reliable guarantor for a loan. The lady from Be Smart school called me today as I was paying for food at The Big C, a department store we have made far too many trips to. I couldn’t quite understand all she was going on about, but I believe she wants to hire me to start a new course she’s opening. Hopefully this will turn into something full time. I have to go see her tomorrow. I’m having a good time getting situated, but not exactly stress-free. Also, I’ve been eating like a pig, a fact I attribute to one 45 kilo Thai girl I spend most of my time with, who, herself, can certainly put away the food. I got to get back on track with exercising.

Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Met with the ladies at Be Smart today. The plot is thickening indeed. They are interested in hiring me full time, but there are more hitches than I like. First and foremost, it seems they will only need me full-time for a couple of months and then I would go back to a part-time status. It also appears that they know little about the visa process, so that’s also a worry. Nonetheless, I have agreed to teach a two hour class every week starting on Saturday the 22nd. They won’t need me to go full time until the beginning of March. I will seriously start checking around about other schools, i.e. the big guys, AUA, ECC tomorrow. There still is something attractive about the laissez-faire attitude that exists at Be Smart, but I am not sure it’s enough to rope myself into a potentially bad situation for.

Friday, January 14, 2005
Yesterday was pure laziness. I have started to workout again. As always it’s easy to start something, but hard to maintain it. I have put on a few pounds/kilos this winter as leaving Japan and arriving in Thailand both made for a healthy amount of consumption. I think I’ll be able to drop the weight once I establish a routine. This morning is the first gray day I’ve experienced since arriving. That makes for 27 sunny days in a row – remarkable. I do find it hard to get stressed in Thailand to the same extent I do elsewhere, but let’s not forget I haven’t started working yet. We are supposed to go sign papers on the car today, and if Mitsui-Sumitomo is kind to me then we’ll also be able to pay the down payment and drive off with it. My first true car (excluding the one that was given to me in college and lasted for half a year). I feel like Toad in The Wind and the Willows, “motorcar, motorcar, motorcar!”

Saturday, January 15, 2005
Well, it’s done. We have successfully got ourselves a motorcar. Not without some fanfare, greasing of palms and a sleepover by Ma Song, who, incidentally is starting to “get on my tits” to quote a Londoner I used to work with. Perhaps it is time to end this entry as the motorcar awaits and we are, once again, driving to the village.

Sunday, January 23, 2005
A week passed and so much has transpired that I don’t know where to begin, or more precisely, when to begin. Last Monday we drove to Bangkok. There is a whole, frustrating story there, but to drive the five hundred or so kilometers through Thailand was quite something. I don’t know that I would do it again in the near future, but, still something indeed. We ended up returning the next day. Later in the week found us again in the village in an attempt to get her driver’s license. I say attempt, so you would be right to assume failure. In brighter news, I have just started teaching my first class. It is really enjoyable teaching a new nationality. There are seven people in the group and per stereotypes they are more energetic than the average Japanese student, though pronunciation is much more an issue with Thai speakers than Japanese. It’s too soon for me to say how this job is going to work out, I was told that I would be starting a TOEFL class this week, but, sure enough, come Saturday it was still waiting to fill. I don’t like how the school administration is living up to stereotypes in the efficiency department.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Pocky finally got her license yesterday on the second attempt. It was a day at home for me. A couple of seedy looking Brits with their Thai girlfriends on the back of their 100cc motos rolled up in front of the house yesterday as I was raking in front. One of the guys evidently lived in the neighborhood and was helping his mate get a place. Now it seems this mate owned a bar in Phuket that was, I assume, washed out or just gone bankrupt from the effects of the Tsunami. I didn’t really inquire too much. They wanted to know if the houses next door were for rent. I was trying to think of a way to put them off the neighborhood, but couldn’t quite come up with anything. One of the neighbors who is moving next month showed them her house, but I heard them mutter something about too expensive before driving off. The truth is, it’s not a bad area, but there is one thing about the place that subtlety irks me. There’s any empty lot in front of us and across the lot is some sort of small factory that pumps out “Maw Lam” music Monday – Friday, 7am to some time in the evening that I am never able to pin down, probably because it’s not consistent. For the neophyte, Maw Lam (pronounced like a Frenchman would ‘damn’) is a popular form of music in this part of Thailand, Isaan. The lyrics are in Lao and the music sounds like some crappy rock ballad with the main instrument being the electronic organ. At its better moments it is almost melodious, but more often just plain odious.
The Thai seem not only impervious to loud music being played at all hours of the day and night, they actually seem comforted by the endless vacarm. One of the first comments my girlfriend made about our neighborhood was that it was too quiet. I suppose the Thai are consistent in their attitude toward noise. Japan was undoubtedly the noisiest place I ever lived and yet the Japanese shot odd glances at people speaking too loudly on the train and driveled on endlessly about the how loud foreigners were. I couldn’t begin to remember the number of times that there were complaints around loud parties from Japanese neighbors of foreign residents (I don’t disagree necessarily), but never once did anyone seem upset about the loud motorcycles coming and going in the middle of the night (I’m not talking about the bosozoku gangs, but rather the University students that all owned bikes that were made intentionally loud, the latest trend has to do with a modified scooter that is almost as loud as a Harley). It would appear to me that as long as the noise in Japan is mechanized it’s OK. Trains, planes and automobiles are all all right – after all they are signs of how “modern” Japan is. But the second a human voice is heard…Oh no. I always found the dichotomy in noise relations one of the many ironies about Japan.

The telephone installation guy has just arrived. Now I am already generalizing about Thailand, but, contrary to stereotypes the Thai are efficient in some areas. Every thing we have bought relating to the house, mainly furniture, but also a gas stove and shower heater has been installed on the same day or shortly thereafter and usually in a timely fashion. It does kind of give me the impression, especially with the expensive furniture store, that there was a crew of delivery people just hanging out in the back with nothing to do before we came in. Still, I can’t complain about a lot of the service we have received here. In terms of living up to stereotypes, the Academic Director at Be Smart seems to be filling that role. Only last week she was keen on me starting a course this week, which has been postponed until who knows when. The nice thing about the Thais is that they don’t get too upset when things (dishes, plates, etc.) aren’t returned promptly, but it is definitely a two way street. I wouldn’t go dropping off a pie plate at someone’s house (let’s end the sentence there) and expect it back anytime soon.

Well, the telephone is installed, but we are still waiting on a call back from the telephone company before we can get the internet hooked-up. We’ll keep our fingers crossed on this one.


Thursday, January 27, 2005
We got a membership at Tsutaya the other day, which will mean something for the Japan based readers. It’s a video rental shop headquarted in Japan. In Thailand the VCD is a very popular format and Tsutaya carries more VCDs than DVDs. The VCDs are all dubbed in Thai and without setup options, so I am reliant on the limited DVD collection, still not too bad at about a dollar a day to rent a film. Still waiting on the internet connection. I have the modem set up, but the woman at the phone company claims it might take the system a while to recognize my account. Am I to believe that even inanimate technology like computer terminals and wires function in the same lackadaisical manner that the people here do?
Yesterday we went to aerobics for the second time. There’s a lake in the city around which is a pedestrian path used by lots of joggers and walkers. At several points there are outdoor recreational facilities and in one place there is something stadium like in which they have big aerobics classes. It costs a whooping 5baht, 15cents to attend. You drop your change into little boxes near the entrance on the ‘honor’ system. I am actually a bit sore from the class.
The school administrator called me yesterday asking if I was available for another weekend class. Of course the answer was ‘yes’. I asked if it was going to start this coming weekend. “Oh well, I still have to check if there are enough people interested.” This is what I find interesting about Thailand – there seems to be endless speculation on what could be done, than checking with all parties involved and some more delays, than confirmation with one party, then the next, then back to the first party to make sure that in the interim plans haven’t changed, and then checking with the second party to the same end. It’s not so different from Japan, except the time frame seems more fluid and certainly longer. As a teacher I find it a bit exasperating, but I can only imagine what it would be like for the students. For instance, the school wants to start a TOEFL class and they have some interest, but not enough yet. The lady has called about five people and told them about the class. Ostensibly they have agreed to join, but she hasn’t given them any definitive date. She must have given some sort of tentative date without commitment. Then she tells me (after postponing the class indefinitely due to lack of enough interest) that another student is interested. What are all of these people doing? Waiting by their telephones hoping for a call? I think not. They are after all Thai and probably think this is the norm, nonetheless tests have specific dates and test courses should be run in order to prepare people, and here’s the key word, prior to the test. I imagine even in Thailand the big schools must set course dates and follow through on them regardless of class capacity. Who knows? I’ll just hope for the best.

I am still not online, nor do I believe that I will ever be at this rate, despite the fact that the modem is connected and the phone is on. The initial diagnosis of “one hour” has turned into several days before the system will recognize me. The lady also added unsolicited that foreigners often get impatient about such things. This is an attitude that I have encountered in Japan as well. It cruxes on stereotyping people in order to waive any responsibility for one’s incompetence by shifting the onus of a mistake onto the “foreigner”, as it were. It is paramount to saying “I’m going to screw up, but don’t you dare complain because that would be just like a foreigner, and you don’t want to act like a foreigner, now do you?” And the truth is that I often fall for the routine in an effort to not reinforce stereotypes. Once anyone pulls out this line of thought on you it is very hard to combat, unless you are someone who just does not give a shit how you or other “foreigners” are viewed. For me, I see a large part of my efforts as an overseas educator being the negation of stereotypes, so it is very hard when I see myself stepping into one. Not so much that I care how I am individually perceived, but I often think of the next foreigner who is going to interact with this person (in this case the woman at the phone company). Are they going to be on the receiving end of some crap treatment because of me? I am sure that I have been the victim of bad foreigner on more than one occasion. Without going into trivial detail, I’ll recount one such episode. Basically, near where I worked in Japan one video store had an unfair policy toward foreigners. It consisted of a surplus of documentation, plus a Japanese person as a guarantor before getting a membership. Imagine that. You actually need a Japanese adult, and evidently anyone would suffice, to get a freakin’ video member’s card. If I had had more free time I can think of a homeless bum who would have gotten a free lunch for coming to the store with me. Anyway, one of the teachers I worked with went through the process of getting a membership and then admitted to some real juvenile shit in dealing with the store – late returns that consisted of leaving a tape on the counter and running out before anyone saw her. It’s almost hard to get upset at people for their views when stuff like that happens. Of course a Japanese person could do the same, but I definitely noticed a lot of younger ESL types pulling shit that was immature and stupid in Japan, and though I can’t say for sure I believe that being abroad may have contributed to this.


Saturday, January 29, 2005
I have four hours of teaching today. Not a lot compared to what I used to do, but it is funny that when that is the only thing on your schedule you put a lot of forethought into it. So the current schedule is four hours on Saturday and Sunday meaning that on Friday I am starting to gear up for my work week. I really hope that the TOEFL class opens soon because now that everything has been bought there’s not a hell of a lot to do during the day. I suppose another car wash might be in order as I screwed up the last one pretty good.

A decent day on the teaching front. I had a “general English” class that consisted of 10 adult learners. The age range was about 25-40 and they were all fairly low level. I love it how administrators, novice teachers and students themselves often think that a “general conversation” class is easy to teach. First of the appellation general is a load of shit. Has anyone had a general conversation ever?

“Nice day, huh?”
“Yeah, where were you born?”
“New York. Are there many rooms in your house?”

It’s a complete load of shite from the beginning. Granted there has to be some term to designate such a class. My real gripe is that people think that talking about “general” things is quite easy. One of the co-directors of my school told me that the class would be easy because it was just a general class without levels, so I could talk about what I liked. Well, I don’t think that we’ll be talking about Skaldic verse or migratory patterns of the red-chested gibbon, which means we ain’t talking about what I like. Really, I think these kind of non-descript, do-what-you-like classes are as challenging a thing as exists. Give me a test course any day. Something intricate with lots of material to get through is what makes the life of an experienced ESL teacher bearable. That is the key reason why I always loathed the Nova conversation lounge – there was no teaching involved. I have never been a wonderful conversationalist as my girlfriend will no doubt attest to, and only with a beer in my handed do I actually enjoy long periods of jaw flapping. The above considered, it was still a relatively good lesson and imparting things to a group of ten is far more dynamic and challenging for a teacher than facing four in a class as I did at Nova. It’s more tiring as well. Maybe I am just out of the work routine. My second class of the day went well enough, but the more I look for differences between Thai and Japanese students, the less I find. The two guys in my class today were participating to a fair degree, but they weren’t really trying to expand on any ideas. It was enough that they were answering the question. This may have to do with confusion about learner roles, but some of the hesitancy I see looks to conform to a Thai ideal of behavior that really isn’t that far off at all from the Japanese. Sure enough one of the other teachers I was talking with today pulled out the old “Japanese are boring” stereotype while admitting he had never been there. Not that he’s wrong, but the guy has been in Thailand five years. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that there wasn’t a huge difference… except of course in salary.

Two stories I have come across recently. Collateral with Tom Cruise is a slick looking, talking action movie with plot holes the size of canyons. I actually enjoyed the Cruise character as the existential spouting hit man. I thought the Jamie Foxx character (for which he was nominated best supporting actor) was ok, though a bit too sniveling. The funny thing about the mediocre film is when you actually start to think about the story it becomes frustratingly implausible. It works when you watch it the first time because it moves quickly enough without trying to over justify itself, but I couldn’t watch it a second time. The other story, book I have been reading is The Fourth Hand by John Irving. I would call myself a fan of the author, but this book is not at all one of his best. It is a bit reminiscent of his early work The 158 Pound Marriage. It is supposed to be comic, but he uses too many facile devices – the worst of which is several conversations with Japanese people who confuse r and l sounds. This gag was stale in Lost in Translation and it ain’t any funnier here. Evidently, Irving thinks if he includes a lot of zany characters and situations in a novel than it is comedy. I think he should stick to the melodramas. Definitely can’t recommend this book at all.

Monday, January 31, 2005
There was a glimmer of hope that I would be online today as the weekend is done and the latest excuse is that no one in Khon Kaen has an ADSL connection temporarily. I think the word “tomorrow” was thrown about again, but as we all now tomorrow never comes. Well, my work week over I can finally relax for the next five days. All this free time should be a good thing, but it is hard getting motivated about any single task when you have a whole day to do it. I think I’ll make myself a coffee and run through my Thai verbs once more.