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.