How I realized Phitsanulok is home

In The Republic, Socrates introduces an extended metaphor for the city as a human soul. He presents the soul as having three components: eros, thumos, and logos, or, quite roughly, desires/love, spiritedness, and intellect. Thumos corresponds to the warrior class of the city, defending the things we love (including, of course, ourselves). Thumos is our vanity, our pride, our expectations, and even our anger at ourselves for not meeting expectations.

Most relevantly for this post, it's the part of ourselves that irrationally attaches us to things that are our own. As in, of course I liked my high school football team and went to every game even though our record in the four years I attended school must have been about 10-38. Our sports teams, our homes, even our family members: thumos is the part of ourselves that bonds us to those things that, objectively viewed, might not be all that great. Think Cubs fans, the way you like your mom's weird macaroni and cheese, the bizarre dent on your car you strangely take pleasure in. These things are ours, and just that is enough to make them valuable to us.

Last week, I hosted a 23 year-old Italian couch surfer on the floor of my one-room apartment. He was plenty amiable, at the mid-point of a two year journey (by land and boat only; no flights!) from Italy to Australia. He stayed here for a couple of days, taking in the sights and relaxing before hitching-hiking on to the next big town on the highway. I showed him the best P'lok has to offer: the big temple, the night bazaar, the best pad thai in town, the best juice stand, the market, my friends, even aerobics in the park. When he was packing up, I asked him what he thought of the place. He said, "it could be worse," as if this was the most natural observation about the place.

I was a little stunned. Hadn't I shown him the wonderful parts of town? The little secrets it took me months to accumulate? Had he been paying any attention? And that's when I remembered what I'd been struck by when I first got here: the anonymous melange of three-story high dingy store fronts that stretch for blocks and blocks, the unattractive amount of trash, the vague feeling of a town that doesn't matter but wishes it did. The Scranton of Thailand, maybe?

Then I realized, it had happened. Phitsanulok had become a part of me. I'd subsumed it under my umbrella of things that are my own and that thus I love. And so, couch surfers be damned, I am defending this place until the temple bells stop ringing and the giant rooster statue on the highway crumbles down. All I need now is someone at the Phitsanulok tourist office to please, please find me and hire me to write brochures.

Yours,
Rebecca

Getting to know Phitsanulok, Pt. I: Wat Yai

While perusing the endlessly amusing classroom anecdotes and the sundry pictures I’ve posted, it occurred to me that I haven’t given much wire time (what is the blog equivalent of air time?) to my own hometown. In a special TWO PART series of blog posts I seek to amend this grievous mistake.

Part I: Wat Yai

Wat Yai is the big deal in town. To be more exact, it’s the deal in town, dating back to 1357. Wat Yai, home to the “second most famous Buddha image in Thailand.” I’m sure you’ve heard of it: Phra Buddha Chinnarat? Yes, of course.

Though officially named Wat Phra Si Ratana Mahatat Woramahawihan, most everyone calls the place Wat Yai, which translates to “big temple.” It’s the heart of the town, everything else existing merely in relation, plotted on some orbit. When someone asks me where I live, I say “glai Wat Yai,” or “near the big temple.”

Indeed, I am lucky enough to live within spitting distance of the temple, sharing the very same small alley. From my little porch I can look out over the trees and spot the top of the temple tower. Every morning at six fifty, I hear the bell that calls the monks to gather, and at seven the chanting of the monks begins, keeping me company as I eat my muesli and yogurt.

The monks. That’s a great part of living next to the wat. It’s wonderful living in a Buddhist country, but the language barrier impedes my attempts to learn from the practitioners all around me. I have a million questions—about faith, about monkhood, about meditation, about what kind of food offerings the monks like best—but as I’m still mastering basic food vocabulary, I’m not up to the task of discussing the finer points of the four-fold path. However, my endless access to monks has given me an alternate way of learning: spying. Euphemistically, I suppose you could call it observation. I watch the monks. I watch them laugh amongst themselves. I watch them joke with vendors and board city buses. I even watch them (sometimes) in their apartments (which face my own building). I try not to be too invasive, but how can I ignore the gigantic Manchester United poster one of the monks has up on his wall? Or the monk seeking a moment of solitude in the alley to enjoy a cigarette? Sometimes a monk will even say “hello,” but that’s about the most contact I ever have. I swear one morning while I was waiting for the bus one monk asked me if I was a teacher at Triam Udom Suksa and I was so busy being nervous and bowing excessively that I couldn’t even compose a coherent reply.

Given my abundance of quality personal time (another euphemism?), I've taken to sitting around the wat rather than sitting in my apartment. Sometimes I aspire to meditate but mostly I just people watch. It’s neat to see the various roles the wat assumes. Wat Yai is many things: a source of local pride, fair grounds, space for a bustling herbal remedy and dried fruit market, a place for prayer, and host to the few tourists that roll up in giant air-con buses, to name a few. It is the density and substance from which local gravity radiates, holding everything together and making it comprehensible.

Here are a few pictures. This is the sort of back yard of the temple. These ruins date back to sometime in the 16th century I think? This is my favorite part of the wat:




Here are some more Buddhas, resting on a large stupa:


And...drumroll...here it is! The second most famous Buddha image in Thailand. Relish it. Appreciate the unique swooping dragons on the side of the Buddha. Be impressed (picture courtesy of wikipedia):


And our shared alley. The monks houses are on the left. The entrance to my apartment is on the right, just out of the frame.


So there it is, reader, a little bit more about my life here. Now you know what makes Phitsanulok tick. Are you ready to come visit so you can make a lotus blossom and incense offering with me? Great. See you soon! And stay tuned for part II of this thrilling series.

Yours,
R

Phitsanulok, I am here

Sawatdee kaa dear reader,

I have arrived.

I am safe and sound in Phitsanulok. I write to you from my humble and totally comfortable fourth floor apartment, full on green curry, mango, and sticky rice.

These first few days have been a sort of incoherent blur of confusion, tiredness, some teaching of English (I use the term "teaching" here loosely), more confusion, some awkwardness, ants, and a lot lot lot of kindness from the faculty at my school.

Tomorrow morning I introduce myself to the whole school (1600 students)! Wish me luck. I am practicing my speech right now:

(First: a wai, which is a bow with hands pressed at my head level)

"Sawatdee Kaa. Dichan cheu Rebecca Riddell, kaa.Yin dee tee dai roo jak, kaa. Dichan bpen con prattet American. Ma jark Austin, Texas, kaa. Kob kun tee hai dichan ma bpen kru tee nee. Ja bpen kru tee dee ka. Kob kun kaa. Sawadee kaa."

(Another wai)

That's more or less it, except I don't know how to type the tone marks in with english letters, which is just as well because I really am not able to pronounce the tones when I speak.

I will post some pictures later this week, maybe once I have decorated my little new home. I just wanted to tell you that I am here and doing fine (...hi mom!). I am incredibly well cared for by the flock of mother hens that is the English department. I will be teaching 20 classes per week, i.e. 20 different 45 person classes, once per week. I sat through my first all-Thai staff meeting today. I live across an alley from a giant and wonderful temple. Also I have a sinus infection and my voice is gone (poor timing). Finally, I have been given a Thai nickname by the staff. It is "Duuan Pen," which means full moon, because I arrived on the full moon.

Oh and, additionally, I am using this blog to officially declare full-out war on the ants in my apartment. As recently as yesterday I was trying to befriend the little parades of ants so I wouldn't be talking to myself in my apartment, but we have failed to establish a mutually beneficial relationship. I tried to show mercy at first, I did, but as of a recent banana peel/macbook disaster, I am now giving no quarter.

Thanks for your time. Take care now.

Yours,
Rebecca