Rolling with the Punches

It’s been quite a week over here. Students with 4 or 5 study halls in their schedules for days on end; schedules changing in the middle of the day without teachers being notified and missed teaching. The terror when I thought half of my yearbook staff was going to drop, including the one student with a camera, a sentiment that has visited most of the staff in some way or another this week. I don’t even think I’ve seen the half of it. Things have settled, some.

I figured out how to wire money home to North America as dollars!!!! I don’t have to just stuff cash in my bra on the rare occasions I fly back! I know people are staring at me again with that comment.

There is a new Chinese visa regulation, as of September 1^st, affecting at least half a dozen newly hired teachers, when we attempted visa extension on September 4^th. So thankful to be single – the married teachers and those with dependents are those affected. There is more to the story than that, likely. Not particularly kosher of me to elaborate on our theories. A fistful of baht? Would that do it? Wrong country again? Only slightly.

I took a second shot at standup comedy. No colleagues along for the ride this time. Just as well, this is my thing. I got up and filled my time with a slightly more PG (as opposed to last week) variation on my rollerblading fiasco. Oh and for the record – lesbian experiences and ladyboys in Thailand – I will own you if you try that as a pick up line on me.

I’m still striking a balance between holding up my professional masks, personal masks and so forth. One thing I’ve noticed – not that it’s necessarily a new observation – but I’ve noticed the burdens others carry showing through this week as the scheduling and visa nonsense wears us down. And in some ways – it’s nice to realize I am not the only one that needs to let my guard down and be real. That perhaps, there is more opportunity to be real than I sometimes think. Even if I still sit back and take in my surroundings a little more carefully first.
Especially as so many have listened to me, these past few weeks a great deal, but really, always, when I’ve needed it. And oh boy, have I needed it. It’s nice to feel I can pay that forward in my own right after so long feeling I was just always taking.

I ate Chinese BBQ street food three nights in a row this week. I hardly batted an eyelash. I didn’t really mean to do that. Aside from my MSG intake I’m really not particularly sorry.

Two others walked with me to watch some ballroom dancing in the park last night. It was a nice, peaceful, an actually Chinese element to our evening as opposed to oh my gosh we’re back in North America mall cruising. There was some fan dancing aerobics taking place as well.

We ate Muslim noodles, and the toddler had Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance playing on a Samsung Smart Phone. Now there is culture shock, right there. None of the rest is surprising, but Lady Gaga in the Muslim Noodles joint. I have visions of visiting Mongolia someday and Gangnam Style busting out of nowhere. I mean really, it’s not that far fetched if you think about it.

The Chinese government has my passport for the next three weeks to process my residence permit. Or something like that. But they were quite efficient about it while we were there actually. Having spent full days in Thai Immigration, it was hard not to scoff at people asking how long is this going to take for a process lasting under an hour, but I tried. I’ll get it back just in time for my October holiday. So, now is definitely not a good time to get arrested. That was totally on my list for next week. I’m just glad I don’t need to notarize any certificates with one or more embassies, nor is my application held up by health check irregularities. No Thai tapeworms – no Dr. House shout outs. Damn. That would be the perfect disgusting facebook status.

There is so much swimming through my head, as per usual. There’s a brief snapshot.

Boundaries, Entry One

This is a post that has been bouncing around my head, in various forms, for quite some time. I thought I would continue to hold off for awhile, but this morning’s events changed my mind. I’m breaking my let a rough draft sit rule and going with the ‘here and now’ flow of fast blogging. Real time, without the whitewashing scrub down before publication later, just cursory revision. Since I cannot realistically cram all of my thoughts into one post, I will subdivide. Here is entry 1.

A line in the sand. Limits. Healthy, constructive boundaries.
Boundaries are hard enough to cultivate and manage, in a healthy fashion, in the Western world.
They can be damn near impossible in Asia, especially as a Westerner who wasn’t necessarily that great at them to begin with.

Now, you may say, oh well, that’s just their culture, you need to embrace it! You may say I’m being too rigid, I need to adapt, I need to give myself time to adjust to the culture, you sound like you hate the culture. Guess what? I wouldn’t be all gum drops and rainbows if I were blogging about my life in America, now would I? I call it like I see it, whether you agree with my perceptions or not, and they span the gambit of emotions. There’s more to life than love and fear, you know?*

Well I’m here to say there is a big freaking difference between ‘adjusting to cultural differences’ and letting yourself get walked all over. And frankly, I’m fed up with the latter, be it here or at home, and cultural misunderstanding is no excuse. People get walked all over in their own culture all the time too. And while it may be a little more Western to stick it to the man, the point remains.

One of my coworkers quit this morning. He has yet to leave, he will finish teaching the rest of the month. However, said individual has decided the classes that he teaches where he has a co-teacher, he will simply dump on the co-teacher, because he is just too overwhelmed. Excuse me, if you’re working here another week and a half, nearly two weeks, and getting paid for it, I am not picking up your slack. And you sure as heck are not going to shuffle the blame for this whole mess back onto your colleagues. Frankly I wish you were leaving tomorrow and not getting your full month’s salary, Mr. Drama Queen. There is no excuse for the vast majority of your behavior.

You are not getting fired because of the tone of your skin, (though I was surprised you were hired in the first place because of it), you are getting fired because you cannot teach. You cannot adapt, and you cannot handle the fact that “This is Thailand.”

I pitied you, for the racism you would face here, for the mistakes I saw you making that I too, made as a new teacher in Thailand. I tried to be patient, reminding myself, “you did the same things last semester.” But I didn’t do all of these things.

I didn’t repeatedly call students a bitch behind their back in the office. I didn’t harp about how the parents run the school, the kids are spoiled and it’s not right it needs to change (you just have to accept this at any school if that’s what occurs). I didn’t shuffle my lessons off onto other people. I didn’t call colleagues at 7 am, or 6 pm to talk about work. I didn’t prance around the office proclaiming “well for this money, with this situation I will just leave.” Great! Leave already then!

I’ve had to adjust my standards of teaching professionalism since coming here, because the expectations are vastly different. But there are still some things you just don’t do. Heh, blog about it might be among them, but, today that’s a line I’m willing to cross.

*Donnie Darko: Okay. But you're not listening to me. There are other things that need to be taken into account here. Like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can't just lump everything into these two categories and then just deny everything else!

One Week

In approximately one week, I am leaving the United States for Bangkok, Thailand, where I will be teaching English and computer applications to 7th, 8th and 9th graders.  On the one hand, I have been working with 6th, 7th and 8th graders for about one scholastic year now.  On the other hand, the paradigm shift I am about to encounter will involve many cultural, language and culinary firsts.

Many people have been asking how I am feeling.  To sum it up, I'm feeling a mix of about 20 emotions jockeying for first position at any given moment.  Excited, yes.  Nervous, yes.  Glaring at my dishes trying to will them to pack themselves into boxes: nope, still doesn't work.  I am quite certain that once all the loose ends are tied, everything is packed and the boarding pass is in my hand I will be on cloud 9.

Some things I've learned about Thailand so far, in no particular order:

• Thailand has never been colonized.
• The capital is known as Bangkok to foreigners, however the local name for the capital city is Krung Thep - which means "City of Angels."
• Bangkok is 14 degrees north of the Equator.
• There are three New Years celebrations in Thailand: The Western New Year (Dec 31/Jan 1), The Chinese New Year (Jan or Feb, varies by lunar calendar) and the Thai New Year in April (Songkran water festival).
• It is considered rude to point your feet at anyone or anything, and shoes must be removed before entering homes or temples.