Christmas in Thailand

This year will be my second Christmas in Thailand and I am missing all my family and friends back in the states. However I do have a tree in my apartment and I decorated my bed in red for the holidays!

 

Only in Thailand do you see Holiday lights and decorations right next to Spirit Houses and a Santa made from red and white condoms. Even girls wear bunny rabbit ears instead of Santa hats or reindeer antlers. What a great mix of holidays and cultural variety.

 Although mostly a Buddhist country Thailand is home to people of all faiths and the Thais love to party so they easily adopt Christmas and New Years as another chance to gather with family and friends enjoying yummy food, singing, dancing and exchanging gifts!

Last year I was working on Christmas day because I was teaching in a government school, and we had students in an English story telling competition on December 25^th.  This year I am teaching at a private bi-lingual school so we could learn more about Christmas, and we also have a welcome week of vacation! 

It has been fun “doing” Christmas projects with the students; teaching Jingle Bells, The Twelve Days of Christmas and other songs as well as folding origami trees, carefully cutting paper snowflakes, making glitter encrusted ornaments, and gluing together multi-colored foil paper chains. We even made angels and snowmen from paper instead of snow because it does not snow in Thailand! 

I also did a morning assembly with 150 students singing and dancing. Then we had a huge happy Holiday party. I even arranged for Santa to visit. Now I am flying to INDIA with my Thai yoga teacher for Christmas, then New Years in Chiang Mai.  May you have a joyous, blessed Holiday Season and a fantastic 2012.

            "We Wish You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"       

Floods in Thailand

The rainy season this year has created massive flooding in many provinces in Thailand, which is the world's biggest rice exporter.

Sadly the floods have wiped out over a quarter of the country's crop. Damages could top six billion dollars in Thailand's worst flooding in 50 years.

The country's current woes­ include nearly 400 dead and 110,000 displaced. 

This just illustrates the limits of man's ability to control nature's sometimes overwhelming force. With the floodwaters sweeping through Bangkok and overflowing the banks of the Menam Chao Phraya, the government declared a three week national public holiday for Bangkok and the affected provinces as residents evacuated their homes.

 Fortunately Rayong Province where I live has not been affected except for the lack of food and water in our local stores and markets. That is because people from other flooded areas have migrated to our small town of Ban Chang. The shelves in our only supermarket are almost bare. I couldn't even buy cookies for the monthly Birthday celebration I do with the kids.

Here at our school we decided to collect money, canned food, mamma noodles and water, even boats and dog food to help the flood victims, many who are completely homeless and living in makeshift shelters.

The flood situation gave us a chance to help the students learn about charity and giving generously to help others in times of hardship and need. During one of our morning assemblies military officers from the Satahip Naval Base came to school to pick up all the donations. They will distribute them to the needy flood victims.

Since it was November it was also a good time to teach about being thankful for our many blessings. The kids made feathers with their photos on them and then created a THANKSGIVING  TURKEY. 

          I am constantly filled with wonder and gratitude. 

Loy Krathong

Loy Krathong is perhaps the country’s most beautiful holiday. Many hours are spent carefully crafting the krathongs using a wide variety of exotic and fragrant flowers that bloom in Thailand. We even made them in school. Each krathong is a work of art, and it is believed that when set afloat they take ones troubles with them.

Nation wide the Thais honor the water spirits by lighting candles and setting them adrift on tiny baskets along the country’s waterways. 

You can buy one of the colorful magnificent creations handmade by the local residents or you can make your own small boat with flowers, coins, three sticks of incense and a candle, then launch it into the river or ocean in the evening, resulting in thousands of lighted krathongs on the water.

My Kathong floating out into the great ocean of life.   Notice the orbs!

In addition to many spectacular fireworks, Thai families launch translucent paper hot-air lanterns that light up the night skies. The solemn sending off of these lighted lanterns has become a festival highlight. A sight to behold as I stood on the beach watching in awe.

Celebrated on the full moon in November, Loy Krathong, began in the 13^th century, and pays respect to Mae Khongkha, Goddess of the country’s life bringing rivers. 

The festival with roots in Hinduism and Buddhism has taken on an additional meaning; today releasing the krathong symbolizes the letting go of anger, grudges, and bad luck and ushers in a new year of happiness and blessings.  

The November Full Moon and spectacular fireworks over the ocean

Loy Krathong seemed especially appropriate this year to pay homage to life giving water as many Thais have been affected by floodwaters. 

Shanghai and Halloween

The amazing and peaceful view from the Meffords back yard in Shanghai was a much needed and welcome relief. I had recently completed the end of my first semester at REPS www.repsrayong.com. Now I remember how much time goes into checking student notebooks, final tests, grading and hand writing individual reports for over 50 students. Whew, with that finished, I was ready for the two week term break. It was especially nice of John and Carrie to send me a frequent flyer ticket to visit China again.
Aidan and Taylor had requested stuffed toy tigers from Thailand, so I carried a big shopping bag on the plane with pair of very large gold, black and white striped Bengal tigers for two happy boys.

They were in school but we still found time to ride bikes, go to the park and eat yummy ice cream. 

Luckily I got to see them play soccer. Aidan even scored a goal, while Taylor was goalie on different team.

After school we did homework and played dress-up with costumes.

 Then we read books, had a pizza party and watched movies with popcorn. We even made a lemon cake, blueberry muffins and decorated cupcakes with multi-colored sprinkles.  All very American things that I don’t do in Thailand. The time flew by and it was hard to believe the visit was over and I had to fly back to school and teaching. 

I was fortunate to be able to fly into the Bangkok airport unaffected by the flooding, however the cab ride home was a bit scary as we drove through streets with water covering the wheels of the taxi. Then we stalled at one of the freeway toll booths…finally a push and we were off. I was very grateful to get home. On a brighter side, back at school the kids seem to be unaffected by the surrounding devastation, and we were in full swing with preparations for our school celebration of HALLOWEEN, making paper chains, bats, spider webs orange paper pumpkins, scary masks and Kleenex ghosts for decorations. It could have been any school in America… complete with costumes of Spiderman, Batman, Snow White and a wide variety of Witches, including me. We had a big Halloween party complete with games and candy. Happily we bobbed for apples, carried an egg on a spoon and ate cookies with no hands The older students even created a frightfully scarey haunted house for the younger kids to visit…spooky fun for all. 

                                    HAPPY HALLOWEEN

 

The LION KING at REPS

Rayong English Programme School

A very ambitious undertaking with any students, but even more impressive is doing the “Lion King” show in English with students that speak Thai as their native language. The masks, make-up and costumes were brilliant, all made by the students and teachers. The music, staging, and choreography were also amazing, and the singing even surprised me.                  After hundreds of hours and countless rehearsals, the two afternoon performances, and three evening shows were completely sold out with over 300 attending each one. A massive success for all involved. In addition to working on almost everything, I also filmed the show and spent many, many hours editing the 120-minute DVD. The photos may give you some idea of the complexity and hard work that went into the production.

OK guys stop fighting over me!

Rafiki

Young Simba

Ban Chang, Thailand... The Lion King curtain call....resounding applause!

Thai Cooking Class

Another thing on my "to-do"  list was to go to a real Thai cookery school. So while in Chiang Mai I earned a certificate of excellence from the Thailand Culinary Institute by completing the basic six course meal. At the local outdoor "wet" market I learned a lot about the herbs, spices, curries, fruits and vegetables that are used in traditional Thai cuisine. They use 3 different kinds of basil, 4 kinds of ginger, lots of garlic and chilli peppers. Of course it is also good to know that the biggest chillies are the mildest while the smallest "mouse shit chilli" is the hottest. There were six people in the class, two from Switzerland, two from England, one from Korea and me... from America living in Thailand!

We all made different dishes and ate after each one was created, so together we sampled more than 20 recipes.   I already knew how to fix some of the foods as I had easily mastered fluffy white rice and "sticky rice" as well as "som-tam," a spicy papaya salad. However as many times as I have eaten "Phad-Thai," I had not made it from scratch, so that was the first dish I fixed.

Then I made sweet-sour vegetables and stir-fried prawns(shrimp) with green curry. A delicious spicy crispy fish salad, using the head and tail, made a picture perfect presentation. We even did some vegetable carving. I think my favorite dish was fried cashew nut with chicken, and for dessert, fried bananas in hot caramel sauce and homemade ice-cream topped with fresh shaved coconut. Yum-Yum! Needless to say I was stuffed "im" (full).  Since it was an all day class, it ended just in time to visit the famous "Night Market" where the indigenous northern hill tribeswomen bring their handicrafts. Marvelous intricate designs, colorful natural dyed woven fabrics, and traditional Thai clothes were a feast for my eyes. I purchased a hand loomed shawl with a distinctive diamond shaped motif thinking it would keep me cozy on the long (14 hour) bus ride back to Ban Chang.

The beautiful traditions of Thailand smile from the northern hills to the southern beaches and I love being here to enjoy the people and culture.

Statues of three Thailand Kings in front of the Chiang Mai Cultural Center

Chiang Mai Temple Tour

It seemed like I should take time, after being here almost a year, to visit The temples of Chiang Mai, the capital of north Thailand, and the second largest city. So I planned a short September weekend trip… taking a Friday overnight bus (14 hours) to 700-year old Chiang Mai, also called the "Rose of the North". I arrived early Saturday morning and took a  "Tuk-Tuk"   (a three wheeled motorbike with places to sit in the back) to the old gated city where Wat Chiang Man is located. It is the oldest of Chiang Mai's 300-plus temples. It is customary to light a yellow candle, three sticks of incense and offer a flower before bowing three times at the Buddha alters. After making a donation and buying a string of 108 wooden prayer beads, I started a self guided "Walking Wat" tour and in a few hours saw many varied exquisite and ornate temples as you can see from the photos. 

Wat Chiang Man

Notice the sign in English, the Thai know to take off their shoes!

Families and visitors are always coming and going to the Wats.

 Elephants surround the Chedi at Wat Chiang Man

                   The Golden Buddha holds his hands in Blessing