Mae Chem strageler

about half of the Thai Studies group in Mae Chaem

First week of classes

     There wasn't much going on this week, because it was the first week of classes.  The classes that I'm taking are a 'Gender, Identity, Sexuality, and Transformation in Thai Society,' 'Thai Language,' 'Cultural Foundations of Thai Society,' a Traditional Thai Dance class, and a 1 credit workshop class called 'Intercultural Understandings.'  So far, I already really like all of my classes. 
     I'll start with the gender class: the teacher is a pretty interesting guy-- Steven Whitehead, I think he's decently well known.  He used to be a teacher at a university in the UK, and then moved to Thailand after he visited years ago with his son.  He fell in love with it instantly, and tells us plenty of personal stories involving women, and his personal life that actually make us much more aware of the "Asian Mystique" notion in South East Asia.  (That being basically that if you're a Westerner and you're coming to South East Asia with certain ideals of what you are planning on seeing, and how you want to see it, then that will be how you will see it without seeing the actual truth that surrounds most of these mirages and exotic images found in this part of the world).  Anyway, he's a really really cool teacher to have because instead of having a teacher who will tell us all about what we're not seeing, and whats actually behind the curtains in Chiang Mai, he can speak from experience of being sucked into some of those situations. 

     Next, Thai Language.  How can I not love this class.  My teacher is this really awesome 30-something year old Thai man who has boat loads of energy, and could quite possibly be the smartest man I've ever met.  He know's literally everything about Thailand and it's history, and knows many, if not all (I wouldn't be surprised) of their cultural traditions such as Thai boxing, traditional dancing, etc.  We call him Phee Gai. In Thailand, if someone is older than you, you address them with "Phee" in front of their name as a sign of respect (we should technically be calling him Ajaan Gai--Ajaan meaning Professor--but he says it makes him feel too old!).  Pictured to the right is Phee Gai differentiating between what they call thin noodles and thick noodles in Thai, and using himself and Parker as an example because he is bigger than Phee Gai! I've learned how to say quite a handful in Thai so far though! I can fully introduce myself saying hello, my name, Thai nickname, last name, and the country and state that I'm from, and top it all off with "nice to meet you!":  Sahwahdii kha, Di-chan chue Kathryn kha, Di-chan chue-len Gularb kha, Di-chan nam-sah-kun Buccelli kha, Di-chan maa jaak prathed Amerikaa raat New York kha, yin dii tii dai roo jak!  Aaaaan theres a bunch more sentances I know, plus learning how to bargain in the markets, and we learned a whole lot of vocab words about food and drinks, and a bunch of random ones.  Oh, and I can theoretically count to 10,000 if I think about it a lot, but counting to 100 is a breeze!
     The Cultural Understandings class is alright... its a little bit of a mess because our professor (Dr. Napisa) has a little trouble translating everything from Thai to English.  Although who could blame her... the Thai language is about a trillion times more simple than English.  They don't use plurals, or tenses.. it's just the tones that are hard.  So I can only imagine how hard it must be to have to translate Thai history into a more complicated language!  I do like the teacher though.

     The Traditional dance class is great too... it's pretty hard, very hard to learn the hand movements, and coordinated them with the feet (even though its not actually that complicated).  We are learning the Fingernail dance (pictured to the left), and another dance that I'm failing to remember the name of.  We do a performance at the end of the class fully dressed in traditional Thai clothes and makeup (also pictured to the left) which is super cool.  Right now though, I feel like I'm kind of flailing while I'm doing the dance... which seems kind of silly because it's an extremely slow beautiful dance.
     The last class I'm taking is the Intercultural Understanding class which is just one credit.  We actually haven't even met yet because it's supposed to be just an informal meeting every month while we're out here basically to talk about being out here, and I think the professor (Jessica Loh, who is in charge of the Intercultural Student Union) is just going to essentially have us reflect on it. 

     So yup, that's been my week.  pretty slow, and not a whole lot of going out either.  A couple times during the week a couple of the girls and I went out with a couple Thai's to a bar and just hungout for a few hours and kept it pretty chill... although I ended up eating my first real adventure food while in Thailand.  Bet you wont be able to guess what it was bu looking at the picture... I certainly thought it was chicken until I was informed otherwise.

Have you guessed?  Well, turns out it was Pigs Intestines.  Sounds nasty right?  Well turns out I liked it! But I'm not sure I would knowingly order that again...