A V.I.P. HITS THAILAND

NEWSFLASH! Phitsanulok has a new and highly esteemed visitor: my very own mother.

Well, I thought I knew Thai hospitality before this, but lo, I was so wrong. In honor of my mum's arrival, unimaginable heights of kindness have been summitted. My mother spent her first day in Thailand expertly guided by my coworkers around the ruins of the 15th century historical capital of Thailand, in the 100 degree heat. That was only the beginning. My teacher QT is off the charts.

Here's ma, receiving flowers at the departmental party celebrating her arrival.

Ma poses with the kiddies.

I'm so excited about her visit I'm even going to take a little vacay. Reckless, I know, but when you haven't seen family in nine months...

Happily,
Bec

Trouble in the neighborhood, and an EXCLUSIVE blog announcement

SOME BACKGROUND:
As a relatively peaceful and democratic nation bordering several states distinguished for their civil wars and human rights atrocities, things can be complicated. At various times over the past forty years, million of people seeking to escape persecution and violence in Laos, Vietnam, Burma and Cambodia have fled to Thailand, where their reception has often been mixed.

Thailand recently made headlines for forcibly deporting 4,000 Hmong asylum seekers to Laos, contrary to the wishes of the United States and the United Nations. A U.S. State Department official called the deportation “a serious violation of the international humanitarian principles Thailand has long been known for championing.” (The U.S. is a bit more implicated in this situation than our moralizing might suggest; the Hmong are in Thailand because they fled Laos after cooperating with the CIA’s secret war in the 1960s.)

Currently, Thailand plays an ambivalent host to a stream of refugees and migrants fleeing violence and dire economic conditions in Burma. For example, human rights groups alleged in 2008 that Thailand detained about 1,000 migrants, then sent them to sea in boats with no engines.

Some Burmese—those fleeing violence from a decades long civil war—are officially classified as refugees and live in one of the nine refugee camps run by international aid organizations. The refugees are confined within these camps, where conditions are less than ideal. In addition to these refugees there are many other Burmese who have fled crippling poverty to seek economic opportunities in Thailand. Much like illegal immigrants from Mexico (at least, before the U.S. economy collapsed), who exist in a legal grey zone, these migrants from Burma are an integral part of the economy—often engaged in unskilled factory labor—but remain vulnerable to exploitation, lack access to basic services, and often work in inhumane conditions.

BEGIN UPDATE:
A few weeks ago, Marie and I went on a semi-educational adventure to Mae Sot, a town just five kilometers from the Burmese border. Many migrants from Burma live in and around Mae Sot and work for various factories. Consequently, Mae Sot is also populated by scores of aid organizations seeking to help the migrants and refugees. The place is a really interesting mix of Thai, Burmese, and international do-gooders. For example, around the corner from our cute guesthouse was this charming little Italian restaurant with homemade ravioli and banana pie and menus in English—all things unheard of in much larger Phitsanulok.

And here’s a shop that sells crafts made by women in the refugee camps.

We met with the director of a non-profit called Youth Connect that provides vocational training to Thai and Burmese youth. The training enables youth to seek jobs that require skilled labor—for example, with hotels or as carpenters—rather than accept a low-skilled factory job. The director explained to us matter-of-factly that the typical migrant lacks access to any meaningful education, as there is no education system in place except for the uncoordinated, piecemeal efforts funded by international organizations. Where schools do exist, they tend to use outdated and irrelevant curriculum, and may be set up by opportunistic local leaders looking more to collect international funds rather than provide quality education. Without a proper education, Burmese migrants are often only able to find jobs in area factories. These factories are notorious for their poor working conditions. The director also informed us that the Thai government has been so helpful as to suspend the national minimum wage for the area, enabling the factories to pay workers even less.

We also visited the Mae Tao Clinic, set up to provide medical treatment to Burmese at no cost. The doctor who started the clinic after fleeing Burma, Cynthia Maung, has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

U.S. AID was repping itself hard at the clinic.

I’m still woefully ignorant about the nuances of the situation. I'm only now beginning to catch up on the debate within Thailand about how best to handle the migrants. It feels a little complicated, being a guest in a country but learning about its problems at the same time. Accustomed to freely criticizing U.S. injustices without concern for causing offense, I am not entirely confident navigating such issues here.

Also, Marie and I walked approximately two miles to this wat that supposedly had a sauna. Not so much. Thanks Lonely Planet.


ANNOUNCEMENT:

Anyhow, hopefully we will soon have more insight into this issue as a certain very special friend will soon join the staff at Ban Noi Soi Community Learning Centre, which “seeks to provide English, Thai and Burmese language skills, practical vocational skills, and community development skills to high school aged children living in the Mae Hong Son area of Thailand.” I’m counting on a stream of pithy and informative updates from her blog.

So who is this mystery teacher? None other than the Rebecca Fischman, who'll soon be beginning her career as an English teacher. Estimated time of arrival in Thailand: five days, six hours. See you soon and happy late national bird day!


That's all for now. Take care little reader. Hope your new year is getting off to a splendid start.

Truly,
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

Arrival

Dear readers,

Whew!

I arrived in Bangkok late Friday night, pallid and confused from a near sleepless thirty hours in planes and airports. The forty-five minute drive into Bangkok was a steamy and surreal final leg of the journey, towers of glass and light rising up to meet us as we rumbled towards our new home. The night air was terribly hot and heavy, its effect a bit like a warm and buzzing embrace.

The sun woke me yesterday from a night of dreamless sleep. For the next month I am staying with the nine other Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) at the Suskit Nives International House of Chulalongkorn University. The room is nice: a rectangle; two single beds with hard mattresses draped in shiny sky-blue polyester sheets that rustle; institution-white walls; florescent lights and not enough of them; air-conditioning; and a beautiful mint-teal fridge that is really the heart of the room. My roommate Rachel is from Lafayette, Louisiana and graduated from Hendrix. She, along with all of other ETAs, seems interesting and bright. Our neighborhood is centrally located, and characterized by crowded streets, diverse smells and busy shops with faded awnings.

No one seems to have very high expectations for us for the first two days. Our only official task yesterday was a brief meeting with the lovely program coordinator Siriporn. She delivered our first month’s stipend in the form of a large taped envelope stuffed with baht, took us on a walk around the neighborhood, and then left for a massage appointment. I spent what feels like the bulk of the day in one of Bangkok’s largest malls, the MBK shopping center. It is no mid-western mall of the Americas but rather a six-story explosion of activity that is one part mall, two parts market, and packed with people from wall to wall. The fourth floor, dedicated entirely to cell phones, is a labyrinth of narrow and loud stands pushing imposter iphones and “blackberys” (I have a phone now. Do call me!). The MBK also provided hours of gratuitous people watching, ideal for studying the social codes and fashion habits of Thai young and old. I am trying to soak up as much as I can in the vain hope that this will help me avoid some number of gaffes in the future.

In the evening we had our first Thai dinner at a small noodle house in the neighborhood and walked back through a bustling Saturday night street market. Looking for a drink on the way back to our dorm, Anna and I happened an exceptionally bizarre hotel bar. As we entered the dim purple and orange neon-lit lounge of the Siam Siam Hotel, the notes of a not-too-shabby cover of Mustang Sally surrounded us. An audience of mostly older foreigners and a few young Thai dates milled about enjoying overpriced drinks and an unreal ambiance. The wholly endearing cover band consisted of four middle aged men and two adorable women in their late twenties. They played everything from Queen to Cyndi Lauper to Elvis. I like thinking about their rehearsals, you know? How they choose those songs; if one of them is always trying to get more funk on the set list but gets shot down by the front man who thinks they should stick to top 40 songs; if they have any of their own songs; where and when they had their first rehearsal (are there garages in Thailand?). A sign on the wall advertised that the band plays at the Siam Siam every “Satursday Night.”

Now it’s Sunday, our last day of rest before orientation starts. If you’re reading this you can see I am doing swimmingly with my attempt to update my blog once a week. I think I’m also going to do some grocery shopping and stock my precious mint green fridge with yogurt and fruit. I think I may get a massage as well, and explore the large park that’s not too far from here. Tomorrow I begin orientation. Thai classes, culture classes, history classes and lots of forms. I’m sure this is all terribly interesting to you, dear reader. Perhaps (and hopefully for you) more exciting things will happen to me this week such that next week’s installation will be far more entertaining and informative. Perhaps I will share my mastery of the Thai language with you, or regale you with fascinating tid-bits from Thai history. Perhaps I will rant for a page about mundane frustrations with minor details of the public transportation system. Who knows; I’ve only been here a day!

I miss you all very much.

With love,
Rebecca